Dogs and kids really do go together like peanut butter and jelly, and most of the time they live happy lives together without incident.
Sadly, however, this is not always the case, and when things don’t go well, they can go very badly indeed. A tragically high percentage of dog-bite and dog-mauling victims are babies and young children. Small humans are far more vulnerable to dog attacks than big humans, given that their faces and throats are right at the level of most canine mouths.
Constant, alert adult supervision could prevent many of these tragedies. However, all too often adults actually encourage young children to be inappropriate with dogs because they think it’s funny or cute. Supervision is useless if the adults have no more sense than the child.
Improving the Odds
Fortunately, there are many things we can do to improve the odds for safe child-dog interactions, beginning with the dog herself. Ideally, every dog should be well socialized with babies and children from puppyhood. Many young adults adopt a pup at a time when children are, if anything, a distant prospect, without seeming to realize that kids could easily arrive within the 10 to 15 years of their dog’s lifespan. Even if there will never be children in the dog’s immediate family, chances are she will encounter small humans at some point in her life. By convincing her very early on that children are wonderful, you greatly reduce the risk that she will ever feel compelled to bite one.
Note that “well-socialized with babies and children” doesn’t just mean having your young dog around kids a lot. It means frequently having your young dog around kids in a carefully controlled environment and making sure she’s having a wonderful time. The goal is to convince her that great things happen whenever children are present, thereby giving her a very positive classical association with kids.
In contrast, if children are allowed to overwhelm or frighten her, or worse, actually hurt her, you will do the exact opposite; she will have a negative classical association that you will have to work very hard to reverse. Start with one well-behaved child at a time, and only increase numbers when the pup is clearly enamored of interactions with one.
If your pup acts cautious or fearful when she first sees children or babies, go even more slowly; the pup already has a negative association that you will have to work to change. Keep the child at a distance while you have happy times with your pup – tasty treats and fun toys and games. Very gradually allow the child to come closer, and only when your pup is clearly relaxed and happy. We have a saying in behavior modification: “If you think you’re going too slow… slow down.” Or to quote my friend, trainer Laura Glaser Harrington, “Think crockpot, not microwave.”
If an adult-dog adoption is in the works and there will be children in your world, remember this critically important caveat: Dogs who are going to be around babies and/or children must adore kids, not just tolerate them. A dog who adores children will forgive many of the inappropriate things young humans will inevitably do to dogs. A dog who merely tolerates them will not.
If you’re doing a meet-and-greet with a shelter or rescue dog, or looking at a private rehome adoption, take your children with you (or borrow a friend’s if you don’t have your own yet). Your prospective canine family member should be delighted to see the kids – warm and wiggly, soft eyes, and begging to interact with them. Anything less is just tolerance, and tolerance is really just low-level avoidance – not a good sign. If you adopt a dog who only tolerates children (or worse, finds them very aversive), be prepared for a lifetime of management by putting your dog safely away when children are present.
Changing an association for an adult dog becomes more challenging the longer a dog has had to solidify the association and successfully practice behavior, such as growling or snapping, that keeps scary kids at a distance.
Manage and Supervise the Dog AND the Kid
Even if your dog adores children (and especially if she doesn’t!), management and supervision are vitally important elements of successful dog/baby/child-keeping. Dog training and behavior professionals are well-known for repeating the warning, “Never leave dogs and small children together unattended.” Not for a moment. Not while you take a quick bathroom break, or run to the kitchen to grab a snack. Take the dog with you. There are a staggering number of serious child-bite cases where the adult left the room “just for a minute.” (“Small children” are generally considered up to six to seven years old.)
Pre-Baby Preparations for Your Dog
If you are planning to start a family, manage your baby’s introduction to the home (and the dog) by doing your advance preparation:
a) Classically condition your dog to love babies.
b) Make any changes in routine and location well before the baby’s arrival (change is stressful and contributes to aggression and negative association). For example: If your dog sleeps in your bedroom, but won’t after the baby arrives, evict her now and help her adapt to her new sleeping arrangements months before the baby comes.
c) Teach and reward your dog for a “go to your mat” behavior, so she can lie down quietly near baby activity and not feel shut out.
d) Teach the dog to be comfortable when crated or shut in a “safe room,” so she can be removed from activity when needed, without anxiety.
e) Bring baby blankets home from the hospital to introduce your dog to the baby’s smell a few days before baby comes home.
f) Have the dog well-exercised on arrival day, so there is less excitement. Let Mom come in and greet the dog first while baby stays outside, and then bring baby in, allowing the dog to be calm and relaxed when meeting the new family member.
Child Development Basics
Here are some generalizations about child development and how it may affect your dog. It’s very important that children are taught at a young age how to be appropriate with dogs and are not allowed or encouraged to tease them. Of course, every child is an individual, so each developmental stage must be addressed as appropriate for that child:
0-6 months: Prior to the age of six months, a baby’s cries can trigger a predatory response in some dogs, and this is believed to be the cause of many dog-baby tragedies. Although predatory behavior is not truly aggression, the result to the victim can be just as devastating. Manage and supervise.
6-24 months: When a baby becomes mobile, there is a much greater likelihood that she will intrude into the dog’s space, and the dog may become defensively aggressive. Some dogs who are fine with babies at first get pretty uncomfortable when the strange little human starts to move around. Manage and supervise.
2-5 years: At this age, young humans start to become more independent and are likely to deliberately pursue and even pester the dog, trying to take her toys, interfering while she’s eating, chase her, and fondle or pull on canine body parts. They may want to snuggle with, hug, or kiss the dog, who may not be willing to reciprocate. Children also start having friends over – more kids to watch! Manage and supervise.
5-9 years: Children continue to want to interact with the dog and are more likely to deliberately tease, try to boss the dog around, reprimand, or punish, and roughhouse – especially if they see these behaviors modeled by adult humans in the home. Children at the upper end of this age range may begin to take some responsibility for feeding, grooming, and exercising the dog, and do not require as much management and supervision.
9-12 years: At this age, kids should be beyond the need for constant supervision, but still need to be monitored to ensure appropriate interactions. They may still tend to tease, roughhouse, or even abuse the dog. Monitor.
Training Your Dog for Children
The more promptly and happily your dog responds to your cues, the easier life is with kids and dogs. A cheerful “Settle!” cue keeps the dog from playing uncomfortably close to the baby. (See “Teach Your Dog to Settle Down.”) If the pacifier plops out of the baby’s mouth onto the floor, a timely “Leave it!” can prevent a spontaneous game of “keep away” and save the day. (See “Teach Your Dog to ‘Leave It’ on Cue“.) If you see your dog getting too excited when your son is roughhousing with his friends in the backyard, a really reliable recall can be a blessing.
Training can also help keep your dog from feeling ignored by all the attention paid to the newcomer. Have at least one family member continue regular training with her – attending classes if possible, keeping her responses to cues tuned up, as well as keeping her brain busy. Show your child how to properly ask for and reinforce your dog’s good-manners behaviors (if your dog doesn’t take treats delicately, have your toddler toss the treats on the ground, or just say “Good dog!” while you dispense the treats). At the age of around seven, your child will be ready to actively participate in training as well, which will also improve or maintain a good relationship between dog and kid.
Dogs’ Body Language
We would be remiss if we didn’t also include a discussion of canine body language. All the supervision in the world isn’t going to help if you’re standing next to your dog and she is very uncomfortable with the attentions of the child who is petting her. A bite can happen that fast, and even though you are right there, you won’t be quick enough to stop it. The better you are at reading dog body language, the better prepared you’ll be to intervene and protect both child and dog before it’s too late. (For more information on canine body language, see “Guide to Reading Canine Body Language“.)
Meanwhile, don’t let the horror stories scare you. Millions of children live happily ever after with their canine pals. Yours can too, as long as you raise them both with common sense, good management, and supervision.
Resources for Dog-Owning Parents
There is a wealth of information and resources available to parents who want to successfully raise dogs and kids together. Here are some of our favorites:
App
DogDecoder: Helpful, clear information on reading and understanding dog body language
Books
Living With Dog and Kids Without Losing Your Mind, by Colleen Pelar
A Kid’s Comprehensive Guide to Speaking Dog! by Niki Tudge
Please Don’t Bite the Baby (and Please Don’t Chase the Dog), by Lisa Edwards (half memoir, half training guide)
Video
Toddler Feeding a Dog: Very good video showing appropriate management and interaction between a young child and a dog
Websites
Familypaws.com: Excellent website with tons of info on dogs and toddlers, including resources and programs
Doggonesafe.com: Another highly informative website with lots of info on households with dogs and kids
Half a year ago, some former clients contacted me regarding Indy, their 18-month-old Australian Shepherd, asking if I could take him for boarding and training. The dad was about to leave the country for eight weeks, and the mom had her hands full with Indy, a challenging toddler, and a new baby.
Indy was what many consider a “hyperactive” dog, busy all the time and difficult to manage. My clients loved him, but found it exhausting to raise him.
Indy is one of the smartest dogs I’ve ever had the honor of caring for and training. It seems like he’s always thinking about what’s next, whether we are in the car, at home, or anywhere else. He’s thinking about how much fun he can have – and he wants to engage anyone near him to join him in his follies. But he’s not just anticipating; he also has a prodigious memory of places, events, and objects, and his memories trigger excitement anew.
Unfortunately, all of that energy, excitement, and anticipation ultimately resulted in a dog who was in a constant state of hyperarousal. He was reactive on leash and aggressive with dogs he didn’t know. He was constantly on the go and unable to focus in the face of any distractions. Worse, he started growling at the family’s toddler. The last straw for the family was when he bit the gardener, someone he was familiar with, while the gardener was operating a leaf blower.
He never seemed to tire, either. His guardians handed him over with the comment, “Good luck trying to wear him out.”
Does Exercise Help with Overarousal in Dogs?
There is a widespread notion that the ideal way to manage hyperactive dogs is to try to tire them out, with treadmills, endless games of fetch, paid dog-runners, and so forth. I tend to disagree. I think less is more when it comes to dogs like Indy.
It’s true that dogs like Australian Shepherds, a breed commonly referred to as “high drive” and thought of as “needing to work,” enjoy hard exercise. But while I believe that every dog benefits from having a job, I think less work is better for these especially smart, active, and sensitive individuals, particularly in their first three years. In my opinion, it’s far more valuable to teach dogs like this to settle themselves, instead of trying to physically exhaust them. And forget about employing the “forced settle” method – an oxymoron that leaves the dog no choice in the matter and often exacerbates the dog’s so-called hyperactivity.
Some dogs get labeled as hyperactive as puppies; others, like Indy, get characterized this way in adolescence. Usually, guardians of energetic puppies and adolescents hope that their dogs will grow out of this hard-to-manage phase. In my experience, if these pups don’t have their needs met with appropriate training, exercise, and adequate rest, they grow into it, except with more size, endurance, and vigor.
The term “hyperactive” is commonly used today, but without much precision or understanding. I’d define it as abnormally or extremely active. Usually, when I meet a dog who is consistently referred to as hyperactive, what I see is a dog whose hyperactivity has advanced into a mode of hyperarousal – a physiologically aroused state characterized by heightened, overexcited reactions. Hyperarousal has nothing to do with sexuality; the state is more akin to a “fight or flight” mode. A dog who is in a state of hyperarousal often has little or no ability to calm himself down.
I believe that when hyperactive dogs don’t have their needs met, they often begin to present with behaviors typical of hyperarousal; they get overexcited when playing or greeting people or dogs (or just seeing them at a distance), and are unable to focus when triggered. Unfortunately, people often unintentionally reinforce these behaviors. When a dog paws at you, whines for attention, continuously drops toys in your lap, etc., it’s natural to pay attention to him, whether by getting frustrated and angry with his relentless pestering and yelling at him (or worse), or by petting him or throwing the toy for him.
The latter tactic is common; most of us have heard that the best way to deal with a high-energy dog is to exercise him very well and keep him highly stimulated. Right? Wrong!
When dogs engage in a physically demanding activity like playing fetch, hunting, herding, or even just playing hard at the dog park, their adrenaline and cortisol levels spike upward. Many dogs seem to find the continual release of these hormones enjoyable – the feeling may even be addictive. (And what do most of us do when faced with a “fetch addict”? We throw the ball or Frisbee for them!)
Hyperactive dogs aren’t born this way. Yes, genetics and breed must be taken into account, but if we teach them healthy, appropriate behaviors during puppyhood, we can help them grow into less anxious dogs.
Anxious? Yes. Remember, dogs who exhibit hyperarousal behaviors are in a constant or chronic state of physiological arousal, unable to settle, even when put in a crate for “down time.”
Crating the dog may give his handler a break, but if you let the dog out and he immediately goes back to his relentless shenanigans, you will see that the time in the crate (or forcing a “settle” on a mat or on his bed) hasn’t helped relieve his anxiety, it’s just squelched it temporarily.
vetbehaviourteam.com
I observed that when I threw a flying disc for Indy to fetch – his favorite game – after about six throws, he was panting really hard. It became clear that the panting was due to stress and hyperarousal behavior, not tired from over exercise.
Indy’s guardians had done more to address Indy’s hyperactive behavior than many people might have. They taught him lots of good-manners behaviors and tricks, and gave him tons of exercise. They frequently took him hiking, and even arranged for him to herd sheep with a herding trainer (who also said he was the smartest dog she had worked with!).
I knew there was only a small window of time to turn things around with Indy. If he didn’t learn to feel less anxious physically and mentally by the time he reached maturity (about three years of age), there was a good chance he would bite again. But if I could find a way to relieve his anxiety, he stood a chance of leading a good life, not causing harm to any other person or dog. I agreed to take him for an extended period of boarding and training.
Hyperarousal Rehabilitation: Helping a Hyperactive Dog Calm Down
For the first few days, I didn’t do anything but allow Indy to adjust to his new environment while observing him and how he moves through his world. I wanted to see what got him excited and how he calmed himself – or if he could calm himself.
I watched how he responded to cues, my dogs, and me. I observed his eating, potty, and sleeping habits. He revealed more of who he is each day.
When Indy came to me, he was on a high-end commercial diet, and his stools were almost always too soft – an indicator of stress. I switched him over to a home-prepared raw-food diet and monitored his stool. Within about two weeks, his stool had firmed up nicely.
After four days of observation, I began some low-key training sessions with Indy, sometimes in a group with my other two dogs and sometimes with Indy alone. For the first three weeks, I limited the sessions to a maximum of five minutes apiece, about four times a day. During these first three weeks, we practiced tricks, obedience cues, and did agility exercises with agility equipment in my yard.
Because of Indy’s bite history, I also worked to accustom him to happily and comfortably wear a muzzle. Having a muzzle on him initially helped keep me relaxed when out in public and keep my other dogs safe, but after about two weeks, I felt it was no longer needed.
I gave Indy lots of enrichment activities during those first few weeks. I hid toys for him to find (scent games) and gave him food-stuffed puzzle toys to work on.
We played fetch with a flying disc – his favorite game – only once a day, and only for about five or six throws. I did not want him to have any opportunities to wind himself up into a state of hyperarousal.
When we weren’t interacting in one of these activities, Indy was free to do whatever he wanted – and at first, what he wanted to do most was try to engage me in all the ways his owners had complained about. Whatever he did, I ignored.
The first tactic he tried was to go to the door, asking to go out; if he was outside, he would bark or whine to be let back in. This was his way of trying to initiate play, fetching, and training. But as long as I knew that his needs had already been met – he had gone potty, had exercised, and had some attention and training – I did not let him in or out or engage with him in any way. It took him a couple of weeks to stop trying to engage me, dropping toys at my feet, whining for attention, aimlessly wandering around looking for something to do.
As annoying as all that activity was, I didn’t force him to settle anywhere. He had free roam of the areas where I was, in my home. There were toys, safe chews, and puzzle toys at his disposal, so it wasn’t like he didn’t have ways to entertain himself; he just never learned how. He only knew how to engage, not to settle on his own.
In the beginning, he would settle for a minute or two and then jump right back up and get right back to vying for attention. Eventually, he would settle for about five minutes before getting up and pacing around. I ignored him. The settle period grew to 15 minutes.
Within a month, he learned to rest peacefully without pestering me for anything. He finally started getting the rest that’s required for dogs of any age, especially puppies, and didn’t need to engage or be busy all the time.
Touch is a much needed and often overlooked part of caring for dogs. Cuddling is wonderful, but what I’m talking about is purposeful, loving touch, like massage or TTouch. When I started massaging Indy, he wasn’t sure what was happening and tried to engage in play by playfully biting my hands. But after about five minutes of low- energy massage, with no talking or eye contact, with me just paying focused attention to his body with a gentle, intentional touch, his eyes would soften, he would begin blinking, and we would both fall into a blissful state of complete relaxation.
As he was adjusting to his new life, I would massage him first thing in the morning, every evening, and in many short sessions throughout the day. At first Indy didn’t like to be brushed. After all this gentle massage and handling, when I take out the brush, he rolls over for it.
Next Phase
In a month’s time Indy had made great strides. But I knew him well enough at that point to believe that he might never fit into his first family very well. While his response to meeting people was much improved, he could still be startled by people who behaved unpredictably – and if there is anyone who behaves unpredictably, it’s a toddler who also has behavior issues. The family had enough challenges even without Indy in the home.
After a lengthy conversation, we all agreed that I would find another home for Indy when the time was right. The decision to let Indy go was not an easy one for this family, but they wanted what was best for him and realized that they couldn’t provide for his special needs at this juncture.
Reducing Indy’s high anxiety around leaf blowers was a significant accomplishment. Since Frisbee was his toy and game of choice, I used it to teach him that leaf blowers weren’t something to be afraid of and the people who handle them weren’t either. I would position a leaf blower in my yard, and throw the Frisbee a time or two. I would then turn the blower on and throw the Frisbee another time or two. If he remained calm, I’d pick up the blower and throw the flying disc a final time or two.
After a few weeks of this, he no longer reacted to the blower or me when I used it. Changing Indy’s association with the blower from fear and anxiety to indifference by playing Frisbee with him near the blower worked wonders.
Later, I invited a friend whom Indy hadn’t met to come and use the blower while I played Frisbee with Indy at a slight distance. I moved slowly and kept the game very calm to keep Indy from getting triggered and going “over threshold.” Don’t underestimate the power of play when working on changing behaviors! It worked exceedingly well.
When Rehoming a Dog Is Best
When we bring a dog into our lives and home, our goal is to have a lifelong partner. The thought of living without them is not something we want to consider. However, sometimes circumstances present things we never could have anticipated. Sometimes, it turns out that “the dog of our dreams” does not actually fit comfortably into our family; sometimes, our families are not right for our dog! As their advocates, at that point, we should try to do what’s best for the dog.
In considering what’s best, we need to try to honestly determine whether the dog is thriving, whether our family is thriving, or if we are all just scraping by in survival mode because we are afraid to admit our failure to successfully integrate the dog into our family.
Making a commitment to the dogs we bring into our lives must be taken seriously, yet there are times when keeping a dog can be a big mistake for all involved. Guilt or feeling like a failure must never be a reason for keeping a dog when he may have a better opportunity to thrive, not just survive, in another family.
Love is unlimited. Rehoming a dog doesn’t mean we don’t love them; it actually means we love them so much that we want them to live the best life they can.
Indy’s Progress
I’ve had Indy for almost four months now. He is no longer reactive on leash or aggressive with other dogs or people while out and about. He can walk on a six-foot leash or a long line and has a near-perfect recall in the face of distractions. He will wait and watch dogs, people, bicyclists, or any of his past triggers without a reaction. And – you probably have already guessed – I’ve decided that his permanent home is with me.
I wholeheartedly agree that appropriate stimulation of mind and body is healthy for dogs. But I think it’s even more important for these hyperactive dogs to get a lot of uninterrupted rest and deep sleep during their first couple of years – with their guardians, not left in crates, pens, or tethered on mats. If we don’t allow a ton of time for rest with us, they never learn how to turn it off, by themselves or in our presence.
Indy is coming up to his second birthday. When he came to me, he exhibited seven of 11 behaviors that are classic symptoms of hyperarousal (see “Hyperarousal” graphic, above). I’m thrilled to say that, today, his formerly chronic anxiety is gone. He’s finally getting his needs met, with the adequate rest that’s required for dogs of any age, especially puppies, and doesn’t need to engage or be busy all the time. As he learned to rest on his own and enjoy the much-needed rest and deep sleep his body required, the unwanted hyperarousal behaviors began to subside and today, he doesn’t exhibit any of them.
Given his age, though, he’s still a work in progress. To maintain his emotional healing and well being, I will have to manage his environment and activities carefully, but it will be worth it, to spend time with this special dog and watch as he matures into a solid adult dog companion.
When Indy wants attention today, it looks much different than it used to. He’ll approach me quietly, staring at me until I look at him. If I reach out my hand, he will come close enough to be petted, calmly standing with a wiggly Aussie tail and butt and soft blinking eyes. Then, he will lay at my feet, resting peacefully.
Trainer Jill Breitner has been training dogs since 1978 and is a body-language expert. She is the developer of the Dog Decoder smartphone app, which helps people identify and “de-code” their dogs’ body language for a better understanding. She is also a certified Fear Free Professional and certified in Animal Behavior and Welfare. She lives on the west coast and does online training and consultations all over the world.
We last discussed pet insurance in the September 2015 issue of Whole Dog Journal. As we gathered information for this update, we immediately noticed an improvement in what the various insurance companies cover and don’t cover. We also noticed that there are many more companies offering pet insurance than there were three years ago; perhaps the competitive rates are due to the greater number of insurance-company choices.
We’ve listed the major players in pet health insurance, and the details of each plan, at the bottom of this article. But first, here are 15 things to pay attention to when deciding which of these plans might be best for you and your dogs.
Pet Health Insurance 101
Accident coverage covers your pet if he is injured, such as from swallowing something he shouldn’t eat or hitting a hole in the ground at full speed and breaking his leg. Accident-only policies tend to be the ones offered with advertising like, “Cover your dog for less than $10 a month.” They’re inexpensive because insurance is a risk-associated industry and the chances of your dog being hurt in an accident aren’t as high as him becoming sick.
Alternative and/or complementary treatments are included in some plans, but most offer it as a rider. The policies are very specific as to what they will cover. Look for things like hydrotherapy, acupuncture, and chiropractic work, which are rapidly gaining ground as viable rehabilitation and pain-control therapies. Most policies specify exactly what they will cover and who may administer the treatment.
Exclusions will be spelled out, usually in detail, in your policy. It tends to be a very long section. Read it before you sign, and question any vague descriptions. If you can, get your questions answered in writing (one of the great things about email—you can print out the answer and tuck it away with your policy).
Illness coverage takes care of expenses when your dog is sick. That means things like vomiting, heart problems, and tumor removal. Be careful, though, when it comes to cancer; sometimes the limitations are very specific. Read your contract carefully, especially the exclusions page.
Prescription drug coverage seems like it should be covered within the accident and/or illness sections, but it isn’t always. You need to ask. Pets Best had a prescription formulary schedule, just like you see in human health insurance, stating what drugs they will cover. No one can predict what your dog might need—nor what new super drug might be released tomorrow—so, if you can avoid these limitations, all the better. Otherwise, you’ll need to have that list with you when you visit your veterinarian to see if there’s a treatment option covered by the insurance.
Wellness coverage means your dog’s routine care, such as screening blood tests, vaccinations, and tests for internal parasites, such as worms and heartworm. Extraordinary care, such as neutering or dental cleaning, may be covered or may be offered only as a rider on your main policy.
1. Figure out how much you can spend on your dog’s health insurance.
The first things to consider when choosing which company is right for you and your pets are your out-of-pocket amounts: monthly (or annual) premium payment, deductibles, and copays.
When you got your first car, did you choose the lowest deductible, knowing there was no way you could come up with $1,000 if there was an accident, so that meant your monthly premium was uncomfortably high? Or did you choose a plan with the highest deductible and lowest monthly premium, hoping and praying you wouldn’t have an accident? You have to make a similar choice here: The lower your deductible, the more you’ll pay in a premium. The higher the deductible, the lower the premium.
Deductibles range from $50 to $1,000, with possible custom amounts available (you may have to call and talk with an agent). We were impressed with Embrace’s Healthy Pet Deductible strategy, which reduces your deductible by $50 each year you don’t have a claim. When you do have a claim, the deductible resets to the original amount.
Make sure that you check to see how each company you consider takes off the deductible. Some insurers subtract the deductible before calculating the co-insurance, which lowers your overall out-of-pocket expense. Others first calculate the co-insurance and then subtract the deductible from the remaining amount, which may cause your out-of-pocket total to rise.
Watch out: Some policies have a per-incident deductible instead of an annual deductible, although these plans are increasingly rare. With a per-incident $250 deductible, for example, you have to pay the first $250 of every claim you submit. With an annual $250 deductible, you pay the first $250 for the year’s claims.
Also consider your co-payment options, which are generally 10 to 30 percent of the total bill. Cancer treatments can quickly reach $10,000. A 30-percent copay on that will be more than $3,300 – on top of your deductible. The North American Pet Health Insurance Association (NAPHIA) says 80 percent is the most commonly selected co-insurance, which means the insurer pays 80 percent and you pay 20 percent of every claim.
2. You still need to be ready to pay up front for veterinary services (or at least, put down some plastic).
Keep in mind that most veterinarians will require you pay for your service up front and be reimbursed by the insurance company. Only a few companies reimburse the vet directly; Trupanion reimburses only enrolled vets directly.
3. Be aware that it’s not difficult to get a five percent reduction on your pet insurance premium.
Insurers offer this discount for a variety of reasons, including military backgrounds, signing up online, veterinarian-employee discounts, AAA, multiple insured pets, and more. We found Pets Best Pet Insurance, sold by Farmer’s Insurance, offers policyholders a five percent discount by going through Farmers.
4. Consider your dog’s potential for health problems.
What are the conditions that he’s most likely to develop? For instance, Golden Retrievers have a high incidence of cancer. German Shepherd Dogs are prone to hip dysplasia. Papillons frequently have dental problems. Will these conditions be covered if needed?
Consider what you do with your dog, too. If he’s a sporting dog (agility, herding, flyball, dock diving), for example, look carefully at the coverage for orthopedic injuries.
5. Look over the pet insurance policy’s exclusions.
If the policy doesn’t spell out the coverage you want, you probably won’t have it. Read carefully to learn exactly what is covered. If you don’t see “hip dysplasia,” it’s probably not covered. In fact, it’s probably listed in the exclusions list. Read every exclusion. If something is excluded that your dog is at high risk for, keep looking.
6. Be very careful when you find the words “medically necessary treatment” in a pet insurance policy.
For example, Embrace defines “medically necessary” as “in our reasonable judgment.” In contrast, Healthy Paws says it covers medically necessary treatment “recommended by your veterinarian.”
In order to appeal denials based on that phrase, you will need to be armed with scientific proof, veterinary literature, and more to show that the claim was medically necessary. If you make a rational appeal, chances are you will win. However, it might take two or three appeals to do so.
7. Consider the policy payout caps.
Some insurers also have incident caps, annual caps, and even lifetime caps on how much they will pay out. We would avoid plans with these caps because you’re just setting yourself up for heartache. If chemo treatments cost $10,000 (very possible), but your per-incident cap is $5,000, you will have to pay the additional $5,000 yourself. This is huge. Caps are also likely on wellness/preventative coverage, but this seems reasonable. You can pay for additional wellness services.
8. Understand your financial responsibilities, too.
Most policies do not cover vaccines, flea-protection, heartworm, and other “normal” preventative measures (unless you have a wellness rider). They will state there is no coverage for a disease preventable by vaccine. However, we noted that they do not list what vaccines are normal or required. Rabies is probably a no-brainer and a core (recommended) vaccine, but what if your dog gets canine flu and you skipped the vaccine? Get a list of what’s required.
9. Make sure routine vet visits are covered in the plan.
A routine veterinarian’s office examination is covered by most policies, but not all. Healthy Paws, for example, does not cover office visits; instead, it pays for things that happen at visits, such as diagnostics and surgery. Keep in mind that office visits can range from $50 to $250 or more for specialists.
If you’re the type who frequently takes your dog to the veterinarian “just in case,” you may want to look for a policy that covers these costs.
10. Review what dental care is covered for dogs, and what is extra.
Some plans cover routine teeth cleaning by your veterinarian, and some require that you pay for dental insurance in order to cover veterinary cleaning. If your dog develops a secondary ailment due to bad teeth, is it covered?
Check, too, to see if your dog is prone to dental disease. Small dogs are especially prone to tartar formation, gum recession, and eventual loss of teeth. In fact, according to the American Kennel Club, a dog like a Yorkshire Terrier is likely to have lost half of his teeth by the time he is 12 years old. And large dogs may fracture teeth from aggressive chewing.
11. Find a dog insurance plan with “continual coverage for chronic conditions.”
Without that, you could find yourself out of luck if your dog gets cancer or diabetes. Make sure that the carrier will not cancel your policy because your dog became chronically ill and that the coverage will continue in full.
12. Know that dog insurance premiums get higher as your dog ages.
Prepare for increases in premiums as the years go on; the older your dog is, the more the insurance company will charge to insure him. Also, be aware that some companies have a cut-off age – an age at which they will no longer cover a dog.
13. When you sign your dog up, make sure that you answer all the pet insurer’s questions honestly.
Before accepting your dog, all of the insurance companies require a veterinary exam, or, at a minimum, a review of your dog’s veterinary records. If you failed to disclose a previous health problem, your insurer may refuse to pay for current or ongoing treatment for that condition and, in the worst-case scenario, you could be charged with insurance fraud.
14. Don’t forget the insurance industry is all about risk assessment.
Keep in mind as you make your decisions that insurance is a risk-based industry. The insurance company is betting you won’t need their service, while you’re gambling that you might. It’s up to you to decide how much risk you’re willing to take.
15. There is a cutoff age to enroll dogs in insurance.
Owner of an older dog? In most cases, you have to enroll your dog in a plan before he reaches a certain age (typically 10 to 14 years). As long as you continue to pay, the companies won’t drop your aging dog. But if your dog is currently too old to be newly enrolled in a reasonably priced policy, is turned down for coverage (considered a poor risk), and/or if you are extremely disciplined about saving money, you might consider just setting aside funds in a savings account just for your pets. Keep in mind that the account has to be maintained at a hefty balance to cover the amount of medical care you would desire for your dog if he or she were insured.
LEADING PET INSURANCE COMPANIES AND THEIR PRODUCTS
5 days accidents; 14 days illnesses;
6 months orthopedic
Actual cost
8 weeks to no limit
** We have highlighted the companies whose default offerings have no caps on annual coverage. We don’t like consumers to have to guess at the maximum amount they might need to save their dogs’ lives.
** We have highlighted the companies whose default offerings have no caps on annual coverage. We don’t like consumers to have to guess at the maximum amount they might need to save their dogs’ lives.
** We have highlighted the companies whose default offerings have no caps on annual coverage. We don’t like consumers to have to guess at the maximum amount they might need to save their dogs’ lives.
** We have highlighted the companies whose default offerings have no caps on annual coverage. We don’t like consumers to have to guess at the maximum amount they might need to save their dogs’ lives.
Options That Are Not Really Insurance
There are companies like Pet Assure that offer “discount cards” for veterinary services for a low monthly fee. They offer a 25 percent discount if you present the card at “participating” veterinary clinics. However, this is not insurance. You pay the company for negotiating with veterinarians to accept the card. For a lot of the clinics, you may be able to negotiate this rate on your own, especially if you are a frequent customer.
Banfield Pet Hospital offers another option to insurance – a wellness program with various levels of service provided for a flat fee. You select a level of wellness/preventative care that you anticipate needing for a set monthly fee. This provides an incentive to bring your dog into a Banfield clinic for regular wellness exams; the company apparently banks on the likelihood that if your dog does become sick, you will bring him back to Banfield for treatment.
Cynthia Foley is a freelance writer and dog agility competitor in Warners, New York.
Today, collaboration is frequently enabled by so much technology that it’s possible to work with someone for more than a decade without ever meeting them face-to-face. That’s the case with me and Lisa Rodier, a Rhode Island author/trainer who has written dozens of articles for WDJ over the past 10 years: We’ve never met in person. Last weekend, we were within 80 miles of each other, as she had flown to northern California to attend a K9 Nosework event. Lisa had a few hours free on the day she landed, so we planned to meet.
Like most of my WDJ collaborators, Lisa and I have shared a lot of personal information with each other about our canine family members. I sympathized with her over the decline and eventual loss of Axel and Jolie, her beloved senior Bouvier des Flandres, and celebrated the eventual acquisition of her next Bouv, Atle. She’s enjoyed speculating about the genetic origins of my 10-year-old mixed-breed Otto (seen above) ever since I adopted him from my local shelter; when she wrote an article for WDJ about canine DNA tests, we had Otto’s DNA tested, and she discussed the results in the article.
I would have liked to bring Otto with me to meet Lisa, too, but Otto has never been a great traveler, and in his senor years, he has gotten increasingly anxious in cars. So, instead, I brought my two-year-old presumed pit/Lab-mix, Woody.
When we are out in public, I am pretty confident in Woody’s ability to pass as a well-trained, well-behaved dog. But when I was driving with him toward meeting a dog trainer whom I respect but have never met, I found myself feeling anxious. I should probably warn her about Woody’s predilection for walking through people’s legs, I thought; it’s a tad alarming when he dives between someone’s thighs, even though he’s always wagging his whole body when he does this. Short people and kids sometimes get lifted off the ground for a moment; it’s his special way of saying hi! And it’s far better than his second-favorite way of greeting his friends, with a sudden hop up to flick their face with his tongue (but every so often accidentally giving someone a fat lip with that big skull of his). Woody won’t do these things when he’s on leash, but when socializing off-leash, he’s exuberant and effusive in his affection for our friends, whether or not he’s met them before.
Thank goodness, Woody didn’t bruise Lisa during the few hours that we spent together, though she did get licked a few more times than she probably planned on. And I’m pretty sure she was only pretending to be horrified when he helped himself to a drink of water out of my glass at the outdoor cafe where we had a late lunch.
Well, I’m attending a wedding in Rhode Island in the fall. We’ll see how young Axel compares in the good-manners department.
Xylitol is a low-calorie sweetener that is derived from birch trees. It was first created in Finland during World War II, when sugar supplies were interrupted. Xylitol has a lot of dental benefits for humans, including the prevention of cavities, dental plaque, dry mouth, and bad breath. It also has the unique ability to remineralize tooth enamel. You can find xylitol in candy, nasal sprays, mouthwash, gum and as an artificial sweetener. Dogs, however, should not consume xylitol. In dogs, xylitol causes a rapid drop in blood sugar. This can cause seizures in dogs, which sometimes lead to death. More about xylitol and dogs at Dogster.com.
2. Chocolate
Nieuw | Wiki Creative Commons
While the rule that the darker the chocolate, the healthier it is may be true for people, the opposite is true for dogs. Chocolate’s problem ingredients are theobromine and caffeine, which dogs absorb through their gastrointestinal tracts too fast and put damaging stress on the liver. In dark chocolate, these naturally occuring ingredients are more concentrated and are likely to lead to serious problems, death included.
Note: Cocoa powder, in some cases, can be as concentrated as dark or baking chocolate. Even cocoa bean shell mulch, a popular garden product, can be toxic when swallowed by chocolate-craving chow hounds.
The toxicity of grapes to dogs is still not really understood by scientists. Reactions vary from dog to dog. Some dogs can eat grapes regularly and never have problems. Accidentally eating a few grapes probably won’t affect a dog of any size. But when ingested in siginificant quantities – as little as 2.5 ounces – this fruit can cause kidney failure.
Onions and their cousins, garlic, are rich in a compound called thiosulphate, which is toxic to dogs. Being much more thiosulphate-potent than garlic, onions pose a threat to dogs if they eat just a single serving – about one good-sized onion. Thiosulphate causes hemolytic anemia (“Heinz factor”) in dogs, a condition that bursts red blood cells.
Symptoms of hemolytic anemia can develop in a range of time – generally within a few hours, but can be after a few days. Signs of hemolytic anemia include depression, weakness, no interest in food, vomiting and diarrhea. In a progressed case, the dog’s urine will become red from damaged blood cells. As oxygen-carrying red blood cells die off and leave the dog’s body, the dog becomes suffocated.
5. Garlic
Francesco Perito | Wiki Creative Commons
Garlic is a tricky one because when used topically and sprinkled over food, it is great for dogs. It fights ear infections, internal infections, boosts immune systems and lowers blood sugar. But it also contains thiosulphate.
Many holistic veterinarians and health care experts believe that feeding doses up to 1 small clove of garlic per 20 pounds of body weight per day are not likely to pose problems for dogs. When uses topically for wounds or ear infections, it is harmless. If your dog were to eat a whole head of garlic, on the other hand, see Onions above.
6. Macadamia Nuts
Carl Davies | CSIRO
The good news is that we have no documented cases of macadamia nut poisoning that has led to death. It alleviates after it passes through the dog – in around 12 to 36 hours. The bad news is symptoms are dramatic. Hind-end weakness, lethargy, depression, vomiting, and diarrhea all come after eating as little as 1 gram of macadamia nuts per pound of a dog’s body weight. What about other nuts? Dogster covers the subject.
7. Unbaked Yeast
Wiki Creative Commons
Raw yeast cells multiply too quickly for dogs’ gastrointestinal tracts. When dogs swallow unbaked dough, it can continue to rise, creating a risk of blockage or even rupture of the dog’s GI tract. In instances when a very large amount of yeast is eaten, the yeast also ferments inside the dog, producing alcohol, in which case alcohol poisoning can occur.
If you bake breads from scratch, or have yeast in your kitchen for any other reason, remember to keep it – rising dough in particular – in a safe, dog-proof location. And if your dog swallows any, call your veterinarian immediately.
8. Zinc
Three-Quarter-Ten | Wiki Creative Commons
Dietary zinc is an important mineral, but dogs don’t need very much at all – about 80 to 120 parts per million on a dry weight basis. Dogs can suffer acute zinc toxicity through eating pennies, topical medications like zinc oxide, and other zinc-coated objects around the house. Things like these contain large amounts of zinc – much more than anyone should ingest. Zinc toxicity in dogs can lead to gastroenteritis, hemolytic anemia, inflammation, and possible necrosis (destruction of tissue) of the liver, kidney, and pancreas.
Zinc toxicosis is often confused with acute gastrointestinal episodes because the dog may be rejecting food or lethargic, while having vomiting and diarrhea episodes, either of which may be bloody. If the object swallowed is too small, it might not be visible in X-rays. Also depending on size and consistency, you may not be able to tell whether the dog vomited the object or passed it in feces. Zinc-medicated ointments and shampoos aren’t visible in X-rays the way pennies are.
9. Vitamin D Ointments
Marco Verch
Not just ointments, but Omega-3 supplements, multivitamins, and other topical creams are full of Vitamin D, which, when ingested in toxic amounts, cause a rapid buildup of calcium and phosphorous in dogs’ bodies. Too much calcium and phosphorous lead to the mineralization (hardening) of internal tissue, most often in the kidneys, heart or gastrointestinal tract. At best this causes kidney stones; at worst it brings acute kidney failure. If your dog has eaten any kind of topical ointment, call your animal hospital and Poison Control.
10. Wild Mushrooms
Tila Monto | Wiki Creative Commons
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In the U.S., toxic mushrooms are divided into categories based on the severity and nature of poisons they contain. Mushrooms in the Amanita family, the most dangerous category, for example, will cause the thorough destruction of cells in the liver and kidneys, often before any visible symptoms arise. But the syndrome-inducing portfolio of various fungi is diverse, and it is worth it to know what mushrooms are prevalent in your area. Inspect your property for mushrooms in the spring and fall, and keep a particularly curious dog leashed on walks through nature.
11. Nutritional Supplements
Tila Monto | Wiki Creative Commons
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This one relates to #9. Any supplement or health product marketed for humans was not manufactured with dogs in mind. Fat soluble vitamin capsules – A, D, E – are toxic to dogs because their bodies do not process these substances in the same way and because dogs are a lot smaller than humans. The 500mg pill of Vitamin D, for example, has a lot more room to spread in a 165 lb. human than in a 35 lb. dog.
12. Prescription and OTC Drugs
Tila Monto | Wiki Creative Commons
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Sure, some veterinarians prescribe Alprazolam (generic Xanax) or Tramadol to dogs with severe anxiety. The effects of these human benzodiazepines on dogs is more or less the same. What about all the other drugs sitting around an average household? Some people will say NSAID pain killers are fine for dogs, but Aleve and acetaminophen drugs like Tylenol have sent countless dogs to the hospital. Antidepressants like Prozac can cause serious sedation and seizures. Amphetamines like Ritalin cause circulatory collapse, heart arrhythmias, and seizures. Opiates will do what they do to any living thing who’s overdosed: shut down the respiratory system and the heart.
13. Toothpaste
Tila Monto | Wiki Creative Commons
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A common ingredient in toothpaste is xylitol, but there are other dangers presented here for dogs. As children, we were probably all warned about swallowing the toothpaste when we brushed our teeth. The fluoride, we were told, was good for teeth but toxic to our stomachs. It is no different in dogs, except they never get the memo to not eat it. They just see us putting it in our mouths everyday. Fluoride poisioning can be fatal to dogs if it’s severe, attacking the stomach and intestines.
Always keep potentially harmful items in closets, drawers, or cabinets that your dog can’t open, not on a table or countertop or in a bag left on the floor. Make sure your kids understand these rules. And always supervise your dog’s play indoors and out.
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Last week, I received some tragic news from members of my extended family: their dog had choked to death on something, dying literally in their hands as they frantically tried to remove the object.
They have undoubtedly been blaming themselves and second-guessing themselves for the accident. I know they have gone over and over every single thing that happened that led up to the dog suddenly swallowing something whole that she had previously always chewed on nicely.
All I could tell them was how sorry I was, how much I could relate to everything they were going though, and to please try to not beat themselves up.
I know a person who still tears up over the memory of accidentally backing over and killing his own dog almost 40 years ago. He’s still so full of regrets and “what ifs.”
I have a friend who let her dog off-leash on a college campus field that seemed like a terrific place for him to run – and he chased a flock of birds off the field and onto a road, where he got hit by a car and died shortly afterward on a veterinarian’s table.
I know someone whose dog died as a result of the melamine-poisoned foods in 2007. She still weeps over the fact that when her dog didn’t want to eat the food that ultimately caused his death, she “dressed it up” with tasty toppings to encourage him to eat more.
The anguish all of us have felt over these tragic accidents, perhaps, is instructive going forward – none of us will ever repeat any of the errors in knowledge or judgment or timing that we made.
But the fact remains, that bad things can happen even to good dog owners. And my family members are some of the best dog owners I know: generous, kind, educated, and deeply devoted to their own dogs and to their breed rescue.
I’m so sorry for their loss, and I know how awful it feels. I hope they feel better soon, but I also know it will take a while for the trauma to ease. I wish there was more that I could say.
Postscript: This will illustrate what kind of thoughtful people my family members are. I sent this post to them and asked for permission to publish it. They asked if I would add some first aid links – what a good idea, one * I * should have thought of – and they asked if I would consider posting a link to their breed rescue, in honor of Rosie. Done and done. I hope they can find some peace.
In the comments of last week’s blog post, several readers asked us what we thought of the pet food ratings by the Clean Label Project (CLP), a “nonprofit focused on health and transparency in consumer product labeling.”
We wish we could herald the work of the group, or even join forces with it to test foods, kick ass, and take names. The Clean Label Project’s stated vision, mission, and values sound terrific.
We can’t critique any of its work other than its dog food commentary, which, in our opinion, is currently so flawed as to be without any practical use.
Also, glaringly, Clean Label Project shoots itself in the foot by offering dog food manufacturers a certification program, which is described most fully here:
“Clean Label Project’s Certification program is for the highest performing products. Not only did the individual products of these brands perform exceptionally well in our initial unannounced sampling and testing, they have voluntarily signed on to having the Clean Label Project continue to randomly sample and test a subset of their products to ensure ongoing compliance with Clean Label Project standards.”
Can we trust the Clean Label Project’s dog food ratings?
It’s not stated anywhere, but our assumption is that the program is fee-based – and as soon as a manufacturer is paying for its foods to be rated, its foods will likely receive a good rating. This sort of structure is nearly impossible to implement without at least the appearance of conflict. Only a couple of dog food manufacturers are identified as having joined the certification program, and lo and behold, they have five-star ratings and appear on the top of the first page of five-star products.
But we have a lot of other nits to pick with the Clean Label Project ratings. We don’t usually comment on other sites or individuals who rate or review dog food, but we were compelled to do so in this case out of sheer disappointment. When we first heard of the Clean Label Project, we hoped that the organization had somehow managed to fund a significant number of validated, independent lab tests of dog food, searching for contaminants and nutrient levels that were out of spec, and plainly report the results.
Instead, the site assigns “ratings” of the products tested. These ratings are described as based 60 percent on the detected presence of heavy metals (the explanation calls out arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury); 20 percent on the detected presence of by-product contaminants (acrylamide and mycotoxins), 20 percent on the detected presence of “process contaminants” (here, the site includes ammeline, amelide, antibiotics, BPA, melamine, pesticides, and cyanuric acid).
Unfortunately, there is also an embarrassing little math problem in the graphic that explains the Clean Label Project evaluation process, explaining that the CLP also weighs “nutritional superiority” as 20 percent of the food’s score, leading to a potential score of 120 percent. Or maybe they meant that the scores for the contaminants overlap?
Let’s put aside the “nutritional superiority” for a moment and go back to the contaminants. There isn’t any explanation of the difference between a “by-product contaminant” and a “process contaminant,” and only some explanations of how these things might come to be present in food.
As just one example, the site names acrylamide as a “by-product contaminant” and starts its description of the substance this way: “Acrylamide is an extremely toxic chemical used in manufacturing.” We don’t know about acrylamide being “used” in manufacturing of any food; the most important thing to know is that it is created when starchy food ingredients are cooked in at high-enough temperatures. Most notoriously, it gets created when potatoes are made into potato chips and French fries; these foods have the highest levels of acrylamide in commonly consumed human foods. To be fair, the site adds that acrylamide “is used in the treatment of water, and it can sometimes wind up in soil through that route. It is also found in tobacco, and made naturally when certain plants (like potatoes) are cooked.”
But that’s burying the lede. It’s been generally acknowledged that acrylamide is produced during the cooking process of dry dog foods. But, to our knowledge, no one has attempted to quantify the amount of acrylamide that is proven to be harmful to dogs. If we knew which foods contained the most acrylamide and which foods contained the least, would we use that information when selecting a food for our dogs? We might, especially if all other factors under consideration were equal, but the Clean Label Project doesn’t give us this information “straight.” Without reporting the actual numbers – the parts per million or parts per billion that the CLP says its has measured – we have no context. How does the level of acrylamide in a particular dog food compare to foods we eat? If there is “only” as much acrylamide in our dog’s food as there is in our breakfast cereal, maybe we shouldn’t be all that concerned about it.
The same goes for antibiotics and pesticides and even the heavy metals. Without reporting the actual test results, and offering some specific values of other products we are familiar with, we don’t know how concerned to be.
But, in our opinion, the project really wanders off into the weeds when it attempts to factor “nutritional superiority” or “ingredient quality” into its ratings.
The most in-depth discussion that we could find of how Clean Label Project defines “ingredient quality” was a single paragraph on a page that discussed how it changed its ratings from its first report on dog food to its second. Here is the paragraph:
We’ve factored in ingredient quality. We know you want a quality, nutritious food for your dog or cat in addition to one that is low in industrial and environmental contaminants. While it’s always best to consult your veterinarian for your pet’s specific nutritional needs, we have created a system to help. Not all pet food ingredients are created equal – some products use preservatives, artificial colors or chemicals, while other products do not. Some products are dedicated to using quality meats, vegetables, and starches, while others use loopholes to include lower quality ingredients. Our ingredient quality system captures this, rewarding products for using a smaller number of quality, transparent ingredients rather than a large number of less regulated ingredients.
We could spend a day critiquing each sentence in that paragraph, but the most glaring problem – and the one that creates the most dissonance between the CLP’s stated goals and its actual ratings – is the last sentence.
This definition of the rating for ingredient quality is comparing a bag of organic apples to a truckload of Chinese oranges; there are simply too many factors, none of them defined, in the explanation of this segment of the rating criteria.
The idea that a smaller ingredients list is a good predictor of quality is alluring – but there are so many exceptions that the number of ingredients in a food cannot be used as a reliable criterion in and of itself.
Worse, there are no indications of what the Clean Label Project might call a “transparent” ingredient, or a “less regulated ingredient.” What are they talking about? Without definitions and examples, the consumer is left without any context here, and has to look at the food ratings themselves to get a general idea of what the CLP might be measuring with these definitions.
So, you go to the ratings page and start clicking on specific foods. The ratings start off with five-star products – the highest-rated foods. When you try to select “dry dog foods,” you see there are freeze-dried foods intermingled with kibble – these are incredibly different product categories, but, okay. You click on a specific food. You already know that it has been given a five-star rating, but you want some details.
Some Clean Label Project Inconsistencies:
Unequal Category Placements of Dog Food
While each of the foods have been given an overall rating of one to five stars, some of the foods have been rated in four categories (heavy metals, process contaminants, by-products contaminants, and nutritional superiority), some have been rated in three categories (product purity, product value, and product nutrition), and some were rated in only two categories (purity and value). Huh?
No Test Results to Base Ratings
There are no test results posted that could put these ratings into context. The only explanation of the star ratings is this: “The star rating you see tells you whether the product is average (3 stars), below average (1 star), or above average (5 stars) in terms of the overall purity (lower levels of contaminants).”
The List Isn’t Ordered
While the first page of the ratings starts out with five-star products, there is no indication of how else the products have been ordered. One might imagine that they are rated from the highest to the lowest star rating, but, in fact, as we were examining the list of dry dog foods, we found a product with a three-star rating on the first page of five-star foods, so there goes that theory. Again, without any values from test results being published, and given that they are not listed alphabetically by star rating, a viewer has no way to know why they are arranged in their order of appearance.
Does the CLP Even Look at Dog Food Ingredients?!
But any credibility that the project might have had goes completely out the window when you discover that foods like Ol’ Roy have been rated with five stars overall. Let’s compare what’s in Ol’ Roy with a one-star food from the last page of the dry dog food ratings: Earthborn Holistic Ocean Fusion variety.
The Clean Label Project doesn’t list product ingredients, but in case you weren’t familiar with what the two above-named foods generally contain, here are their ingredients lists:
Ol Roy Complete Nutrition Dry Dog Food Ingredients: Ground Yellow Corn, Meat And Bone Meal, Soybean Meal, Poultry By-Product Meal, Animal Fat (Preserved With BHA And Citric Acid), Corn Gluten Meal, Natural Flavor, Brewers Rice, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Color Added (Titanium Dioxide, Yellow #5, Yellow #6, Red #40, Blue #2), Choline Chloride, Zinc Sulfate, Vitamin E Supplement, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Niacin, Copper Sulfate, Vitamin A Supplement, Biotin, Manganous Oxide, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (Source of Vitamin K), Riboflavin Supplement, Sodium Selenite, Calcium Iodate, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Cobalt Carbonate.
That just doesn’t make any sense! In our view, rating a food that contains artificial colors and preservatives, a cheap plant protein at the top of the ingredients list, and unnamed animal species sources of protein and fat, over a food with natural preservatives and a named animal protein source at the top of the ingredients list, is not doing dogs or consumers any favors. If they stuck to reporting the contaminant levels – not rating the products, but listing the results – we could get a little more excited. But these ratings just won’t help consumers identify good, healthy foods.
If the overall mission of this project really is “health and transparency in consumer product labeling,” more transparency is needed.
The Clean Label Project for dog food is NOT Whole Dog Journal-Approved.
Whole Dog Journal‘s review of dry dog food appears in the February issue, every year. And, every February, we try to share new information with WDJ’s readers about how to differentiate between dry dog foods of varying quality, and how to go about selecting the best foods for their dogs. Some of our readers have been with us for a long time; we don’t want to repeat the same information year after year, but strive to share information that is new and interesting, even to people who know a LOT about canine nutrition. But neither do we want to “lose” dog owners who are new to the publication by assuming a level of knowledge of the pet food industry that they don’t yet have.
In the February 2018 dry food review, now available to paid subscribers online and in print form, the emphasis is on the cost of quality: what you are paying for with the highest-priced foods, especially as compared to the moderately priced and low-priced foods. To that end, we arranged the list of “approved dry foods” by the average price per pound of each company’s products (instead of the usual list of products arranged in alphabetical order of the name of the product lines). We thought it might be interesting for you to see what products are similarly priced, which are the most expensive, and which of our approved foods are the least expensive.
The emphasis of the February 2017 dry food review (and the October 2016 canned food review) was the significance of a pet food company’s ability or inability to provide consumers with a complete nutrient analysis of their products upon request. As we explained in those reviews, pet food labels are required by law to include the minimum amounts of crude protein and crude fat, and maximum amounts of moisture and fiber that they contain.
However, the labels need not include information about all the other essential nutrients the foods are required to contain in order to be labeled as “complete and balanced.” Instead, the pet food companies need only fill out and sign an affidavit stating that, “This product meets the nutrient levels established in the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles for (growth/reproduction, maintenance, or all life stages).” We suggested that, when trying to identify the “best of the best” pet food companies, dog owners should contact their favorite dog food makers and ask them for the complete nutrient analyses of their products, showing that they actually do meet those AAFCO Nutrient Profiles.
In the above-referenced reviews, we asked all of the companies who have had foods on our “approved foods” lists to provide us with these analyses. Some companies readily provided us with that information, and we designated their products as “Gold Star” foods in those reviews. Other companies provided us with computer-generated analyses of the nutrient levels that are expected in their finished foods. That’s something, but a little less than proof positive that those nutrient levels are, in fact, in line with the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles. Those companies also appeared on the “approved foods” lists, but without the “Gold Star” designation.
Companies that provided us with no documentation regarding the nutrient levels in their products were omitted from our “approved foods” lists in those issues.
Some of our readers might be surprised to see that we did not repeat this exercise in our most recent canned food review (November 2017) or dry food review. While we still strongly recommend that consumers call or email the pet food companies that they are most interested in (or whose products they feed to their dogs) and ask for complete nutrient analyses for those foods, in these most recent reviews, we didn’t attempt to gather this information for the hundreds of products made by the dozens of companies who are represented on our lists. The job is simply bigger than we can replicate every year.
For one thing, reaching the appropriate live human who may (or may not) respond to such a request at each of the companies is a massive chore in itself. Tabulating the responses, and following up to make sure that the ones who did not respond actually did receive the request and are simply choosing not to respond is another massive job.
It was even more work to scrutinize the responses to see whether the material that each company sent was actually what we asked for – results from a laboratory test of the food to make sure that it actually contained the nutrients it was supposed to contain, and that meet the AAFCO dog food nutrient profiles. As opposed to a computer-generated analysis of each food’s expected nutrient content, based on its formula.
This is the reason that our 2018 “approved dry food” list has been repopulated with a few companies that did not appear on our 2017 list. We want to be clear: All of these companies offer products that meet all of our regular selection criteria. We still encourage you to contact the companies and ask for the complete nutrient analyses for the foods you feed your dogs – and we promise that it will be an interesting exercise for you!
Perhaps this is something we can crowd-source? In fact, we’d love it if, in the comments below, you would share the response you got when you called the toll-free number for the company that makes your dog’s food and asked for this information.
The term alone is a conversation-stopper. Fecal transplants? For dogs? Don’t laugh. Fecal transplants are making headlines as a wonder drug for pets and people.
Forty years ago, when Clostridium difficile colitis, or “C. diff,” a bacterial infection resulting from antibiotic therapy, became an epidemic in American hospitals, nothing cured its debilitating, non-stop diarrhea. For most patients, as soon as an effective treatment was discontinued, symptoms returned. Finally, doctors tried a technique that had been successfully used decades earlier but which wasn’t formally adopted because the thought of it made people uncomfortable. When fecal matter from healthy donors was transferred to the colons of sick patients, more than 90 percent recovered. Their symptoms resolved within hours and never returned.
Veterinarians who gave fecal transplants to puppies with chronic diarrhea, or to adult dogs with gastrointestinal problems, reported similar success rates.
Transferring microbial material from healthy to sick ruminants, such as cattle, is a long-established veterinary practice, but fecal microbial transplantation, or FMT, is so new to veterinary medicine that much remains unknown. As a result, the treatment is controversial and not widely available, though a growing number of veterinarians and caregivers are exploring this option. Understanding your dog’s microbiota and the history of fecal transplants will help you make informed decisions for your best friend regarding the treatment and prevention of gastrointestinal illnesses.
A Dog’s Microbiome
The term “microbiome” was coined by molecular biologist Joshua Lederberg, recipient of the 1958 Nobel Prize in Medicine, to signify the ecological community of commensal (living cooperatively on or within another organism), symbiotic (living in close and mutually beneficial proximity), and pathogenic (capable of causing disease) microorganisms that share the body’s space.
Today “microbiome” is an umbrella term used to describe communities of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microbes in the body. Most intestinal microbes reside in the cecum, which is a “pocket” of the large intestine, where they are known as the “gut microbiome.”
Bacteria are the most studied of these microorganisms, and the terms “microbiota” and “microflora” describe bacterial communities on mucosal and skin surfaces. The human body contains more than a thousand separate species of bacteria, most of which are important to health and some of which can cause disease.
Little attention was paid to the microbiome until testing methods, such as whole genome sequencing, made the National Institutes of Health’s Human Microbiome Project (HMP) and related research possible. The HMP, a five-year study launched in 2008, explored connections between changes in the microbiome and human health and disease.
Dogs have microbiomes, too. In fact, studies have found that people and dogs living in the same household share much of the same microbiome. Complex colonies of microorganisms live in the ears, mouth, respiratory tract, and skin, but most occupy the digestive tract.
What is a Gut Microbiome?
A healthy microbiome destroys harmful pathogens, including disease-causing viruses, fungi, bacteria, and parasites. As a result, the microbiome is the immune system’s first line of defense. Differences in microbiomes help explain why some dogs exposed to diseases like parvovirus, distemper, leptospirosis, Lyme disease, canine flu, heartworm, or kennel cough get sick while others remain symptom-free.
“Friendly” or beneficial bacteria secrete chemicals that destroy harmful bacteria and, if they are present in sufficient numbers, colonies of beneficial bacteria starve harmful microbes by depriving them of nutrients and space.
In addition, the microbes in a healthy microbiome can bind to toxins, such as allergens and substances that cause cancer, removing them from the body through normal elimination.
The mucus membrane that lines the gastrointestinal tract from esophagus to colon contains lymphocytes and macrophages, which are different types of white blood cells that attack or disable agents of infection. This membrane, the gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT), prevents digestion-improving bacteria from penetrating other tissues or entering the bloodstream, where they can cause damage.
A healthy microbiome not only improves a dog’s digestion, but also creates some nutrients, including thiamin (vitamin B1), cobalamin (vitamin B12), and short-chain fatty acids that help your dog absorb minerals such as calcium, iron, and magnesium.
In addition, the microbiome helps regulate the body’s endocrine system and metabolism, and there are links between the microbiome and mental health. In short, the microbiome affects nearly every aspect of your dog’s health and happiness.
Microbiome Diversity in Dogs
Yuki is a McNab Shepherd-mix, currently 15.5 years old, owned by Holly Ganz, PhD, AnimalBiome’s co-founder and CEO. About two years ago, Yuki began exhibiting clinical signs of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis (HGE) nearly once a month. She was able to eat only a chicken and rice-based kibble and one treat that contained only chicken. Other foods would trigger bouts of bloody diarrhea and it would take a couple of weeks for her stools to become normal.
Starting in late April 2017, Yuki was given AnimalBiome’s Gut Restoration System for dogs. The capsules were given twice a day for four weeks.
While taking the capsules, Yuki’s stools improved in consistency and color and continued to improve in the following month. Subsequently, Ganz was able to reintroduce other protein sources and healthy treats into Yuki’s diet. She hasn’t had another bout of gastroenteritis since, and her stools continue to have a healthy consistency and color.
Below are some of the results of Yuki’s microbial analyses. The complete report shows how Yuki’s microbiome changed after receiving fecal transplants, and compares the analyses from Yuki’s fecal samples taken before and after treatment with average values of samples taken from healthy dogs. Each bacterial type found in the samples is described and its presence in the dog’s microbiome is discussed. The “ideal” microbiome is not yet identifiable, but these surveys are fascinating.
Fecal Microbiota Transplantation
The necessary ingredients for a successful fecal transplant are a healthy donor and a method for transferring material from donor to patient.
In humans, donors have often been family members or close friends. In the past few years donor banks have been created to store fecal matter from volunteers. These volunteers must be healthy, with no recent antibiotic use and no bowel disease, and who are tested for conditions including bloodborne pathogens and parasitic infections.
Human clinics mix donor feces with sterile saline solution, then homogenize and/or filter the mixture to remove particles that might clog equipment. Both fresh and frozen material has been shown to be effective. The donor’s stool can be administered orally through a nasogastric tube or rectally through a retention enema via endoscope during a colonoscopy. The latter method is often preferred because it administers the fecal suspension directly into the ileum (the small intestine’s final and longest section) and the entire colon.
There are not yet any commonly accepted guidelines for canine donors, though of course health is an obvious concern. Some clinics that offer FMT treatment require donor dogs, which can be any breed or size, to have a normal body weight; be free from malignancies, parasites, allergies, and gastrointestinal disease; and to not have received antibiotics within the past three months or longer. Some clinics require donor dogs to be vaccinated against specific illnesses, while others prefer no vaccinations.
In a University of Helsinki study of dogs with inflammatory bowel disease described by Jean Dodds, DVM, in an April 2017 “Fecal Microbiota Transplantation” report at her Pet Health Resource Blog, potential donor dogs were required to be naturally born (like humans, infant dogs are born sterile and acquire their first microbiota in the birth canal) and breast-fed (the mother’s colostrum and milk are important foods for the developing microbiome) and have no history of systemic antibiotic use throughout their lives, in addition to other health screenings.
Dr. Dodds recommends that if a patient needing a fecal transplant has specific food intolerances, the donor animal must eat a diet compatible to that patient for 10 to 14 days before fecal samples are obtained so that its feces do not contain reactive allergenic food residues that could harm the patient.
She also recommends that the patient not receive any antibiotics, colostrum supplements, prebiotics, probiotics, digestive enzymes, herbal bowel preparations, or heartworm, flea, or tick treatments for 10 days before the transplant.
FMT treatment sounds like a miracle cure, but it doesn’t work for every patient. In some cases, the effects of FMT have been temporary, or the procedure had to be repeated because the introduced fecal material was not effectively absorbed, or the transplanted bacteria were overwhelmed by existing medical conditions.
The cost of FMT varies according to the methods used, testing procedures, sedation, veterinary consultation, and donor screening, ranges from $500 to $1,500 or more.
The History of Fecal Transplants
For millennia, Chinese physicians used what they called “yellow soup,” made with fecal matter from healthy donors, to treat patients with food poisoning or severe diarrhea. During World War II in North Africa, Bedouin camel herders gave the stool of healthy camels (a traditional treatment for diarrhea) to German soldiers with bacterial dysentery. Sick ruminants have long been treated for similar symptoms with the cud of healthy animals.
But it wasn’t until Ben Eiseman, MD, Chief of Surgery at Denver General Hospital, successfully treated four patients for chronic diarrhea caused by a painful colon inflammation associated with Clostridium difficile that human fecal transplants appeared in the medical literature. His report in the November 1958 journal Surgery described how retention enemas containing the stool of healthy donors cured patients within hours.
Dr. Thomas Borody, an Australian gastroenterologist, began experimenting with human fecal transplants when a patient developed incurable colitis after vacationing in Fiji in the 1980s. Searching the medical literature for alternative treatments, he found Dr. Eiseman’s paper and, using stool donated by the patient’s brother, administered the material by enema on two consecutive days. The patient’s diarrhea quickly disappeared and never returned.
In 2014, ABC News interviewed Dr. Borody about his 25 years of experience with fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). He claimed that in addition to quickly clearing C. diff infections, FMT has successfully treated other gastrointestinal problems such as colitis and Crohn’s disease – and, more controversially – he considers the gut a gateway for toxins to enter the body, triggering diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson’s, and autism.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves FMT for only one condition: recurrent C. difficile infections. There are as yet no official guidelines for the veterinary applications of FMT.
Dysbiosis and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) in Dogs
The term “dysbiosis” describes weakened or depleted beneficial microbes such as those that make up the microbiome. As soon as the body’s population of beneficial microbes declines, pathogens begin to crowd them out, resulting in nutritional deficiencies and illnesses, including inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD. The main symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease in dogs are vomiting, diarrhea, and weight loss with, in some cases, blood or mucus in the stool.
What causes dysbiosis? While most of the blame goes to antibiotics – the wonder drugs that destroy beneficial as well as harmful bacteria – researchers list additional contributing causes such as processed foods, genetically modified foods, pesticides, chemical preservatives, pasteurization and other enzyme-destroying treatments that kill germs in food, vaccines, prescription drugs, and the stresses of modern life.
Dysbiosis contributes to leaky gut syndrome, in which undigested or partially digested food particles move through the digestive tract’s mucous lining and enter the blood stream. This can happen when the mucous lining shrinks and thins, leading to injury and inflammation. Leaky gut syndrome has been blamed for a variety of symptoms and illnesses, including food allergies, hot spots, skin irritations, yeast infections, diarrhea, constipation, inflammatory bowel disease, autoimmune disorders, joint pain, imbalances involving the liver or pancreas, thyroid problems, weight gain, diabetes, slow metabolism, and low energy.
The methods most frequently suggested for reversing dysbiosis include avoiding antibiotics, pesticides, prescription drugs, and toxins, all of which – especially antibiotics – can damage the microbiome. Feeding fresh, whole foods rather than sterilized processed foods is recommended because fresh foods contain bacteria that support the microbiome. Daily outdoor exercise supports the microbiome by exposing a dog to many naturally occurring microbes. Probiotic supplements are often recommended, although there is disagreement as to which products work well for dogs and which best survive a dog’s high concentrations of stomach acid. Other probiotic sources include foods that are themselves rich in beneficial bacteria, such as naturally fermented vegetables. Foods and supplements containing prebiotics, or fiber that nourishes beneficial bacteria, support the microbiome as well.
As effective as probiotics can be in preventive medicine, when a dog has inflammatory bowel disease, probiotics are unlikely to help. In fact, there is no scientific support for their therapeutic use in canine IBD.
Human IBD is difficult to diagnose and usually involves intestinal biopsies, but identifying IBD in dogs should become easier thanks to a unique pattern of microbes that accompanies the illness. In October 2016, the journal Nature Microbiologyreported that researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine analyzed fecal samples from dogs with and without IBD and discovered that they were able to predict which dogs had the disease with more than 90 percent accuracy. While there is not yet a veterinary test for canine IBD, diagnosing the illness with a simple stool sample may be possible in the future.
Can Poop Treat Other Medical Issues?
While there are no clinical trials proving any of the following claims, veterinarians who use FMT believe that it does far more than repair a dog’s digestion.
For example, Dr. Margo Roman says that when a dog’s unbalanced microbiome becomes healthy, symptoms like behavioral problems, aggression, skin and coat problems, and even coprophagia (stool eating) disappear. She has used FMT in the treatment of canine liver failure, kidney failure, allergies, adrenal exhaustion, atypical Addison’s disease, atypical Cushing’s disease, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Dr. Thomas Borody considers FMT a possible treatment for humans with Parkinson’s disease, autism, and rheumatoid arthritis, and other physicians claim it may help prevent or treat Alzheimer’s disease, depression, acne, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and more.
In many cases such theories are based on observations that may be coincidental, such as when a patient with rheumatoid arthritis is treated with FMT for a digestive disorder and the arthritis symptoms diminish along with the patient’s diarrhea.
In these early days of FMT therapy, it’s impossible to know how the treatment really works or what benefits it may offer. After all, Western medicine is just beginning to look at fecal matter as something other than waste. But with the microbiome becoming a hot medical research topic, we can expect to learn much more in the years ahead.
Poop Pills for Dogs
With their need for special equipment and sedation, Microbial Fecal Transplantation procedures can be expensive and time-consuming. Wouldn’t it be simpler just to give a dog some pills to swallow?
Yes, says microbial ecologist Holly Ganz, PhD, co-founder and CEO of AnimalBiome, a company that analyzes the microbiomes of dogs and cats and offers treatment in the form of healthy fecal material in capsules. “Our microbiome assessment kits can help you and your veterinarian determine whether your pet’s disorder is linked to an imbalanced gut microbiome,” she explains.
The $95 analysis identifies all of the bacteria in a dog’s fecal sample, establishes a baseline profile of the dog’s gut health, and compares it to the microbiome profiles of other dogs. Learning whether a dog’s digestive disorder is linked to a bacterial imbalance, or discovering an imbalance before it affects the animal’s health, can help veterinarians and caregivers make appropriate changes in diet, lifestyle, or medical treatment.
For dogs with symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease or similar disorders, AnimalBiome offers capsules containing fecal matter from donor dogs who are screened for health, age, fecal consistency, behavior, and microbiome composition based on Illumina sequencing of amplified 16S rRNA. Donated material is quarantined for at least 30 days to ensure that the donors remained healthy. Donors regularly go outdoors for walks, have not had antibiotic treatment in the prior six months, have diverse microbiomes, and are not overweight.
Pathogen screening for donor dogs includes Clostridium perfringens antigen, Clostridium perfringens alpha toxin, Clostridium perfringens beta toxin, Clostridium difficile toxin A, Clostridium difficile toxin B, Cryptosporidium spp, Salmonella spp, Giardia spp, and Canine Parvovirus 2.
AnimalBiome charges $200 for the capsules; but for $300 you can get the capsules plus before and after microbiome assessments.
Do capsules work? Though no one has conducted clinical trials with dogs, the human research is encouraging.
In a 2014 study conducted by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Tel Aviv University, 20 patients ranging in age from 11 to 89 who had at least three episodes of recurrent C. difficile infection took 15 stool capsules from pre-screened, healthy donors over a two-day period. In 14 of the patients, diarrhea resolved after the first treatment. The remaining six patients were treated again, and four of them recovered. None of the successfully treated patients experienced a recurrence of symptoms in the following eight weeks, resulting in a 90 percent success rate.
Invasive means do not need to be used to deliver the transplant. “The study showed you can use frozen donor stool successfully and safely,” says the study’s co-author, pediatric gastroenterologist George H. Russell, MD, MS.
But My Dog Already Eats Poop!
Early proponents of so-called “evolutionary” or “biologically appropriate raw diets” have noted that the droppings of healthy herbivores, including deer, elk, sheep, and cattle, are a treasure trove of probiotics, prebiotics, and other nutrients. In her Complete Herbal Handbook for the Dog and Cat (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991), Juliette de Bairacli Levy wrote, “Dogs should never have their natural instincts thwarted in the matter of diet. They should not be prevented from eating the droppings of grass-fed cattle and horses, from which they can get many vital elements derived from the herbage on which the animals have grazed and in a form easily assimilated by the dog.”
In his popular book, Give Your Dog a Bone: The Practical Commonsense Way to Feed Dogs for a Long Healthy Life (Warrigal Publishing, 1993), Australian veterinarian Ian Billinghurst reminded readers that all dogs are scavengers. “They receive valuable nutrients from material we humans find totally repugnant,” he said, “things like vomit, feces, and decaying flesh… Feces are a highly valuable food consisting of the dead and living bodies of millions upon millions of bacteria.”
The manure of deer, elk, cattle, sheep, geese, and other grass-eating animals contains B-complex vitamins, vitamin K, minerals, beneficial bacteria, essential fatty acids, enzymes, antioxidants, and fiber.
The obvious problem with free-range poop-eating is that the donors of ingested fecal matter might be ill, have an imbalanced or damaged microbiome, carry a contagious disease, or contain parasites such as Giardia, Coccidia, roundworms, tapeworms, or whipworms. Livestock droppings may also contain medications such as ivermectin used for deworming that could make your dog sick.
For farm dogs and dogs in rural areas, the benefits of eating manure probably outweigh the risks, but coprophagia (a dog’s habit of eating its own stool or that of other dogs) can cause problems. Eating his own stool won’t expose a dog to new microorganisms that could bring balance to his microbiome – and consumption of the droppings of dogs with an unknown health status is inadvisable.
However, consuming the stool of a healthy dog with a vigorous microbiome may be just what the doctor ordered – and in this case the doctor is holistic veterinarian Margo Roman, DVM, at the Main Street Animal Services of Hopkinton (MASH Clinic). Her first stool-treatment patient was Stovin, a Standard Poodle who was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease as a nine-week-old puppy. When he arrived at MASH in 2012, he was three years old, weighed 43 pounds, was unable to walk, and was taking a cocktail of antibiotics. His owner had already spent $16,000 on testing, medications, and blood transfusions, to no avail.
Stovin’s initial treatment, which included acupuncture and the replacement of prescription medications with nutritional supplements, resolved his intestinal distress and his health improved. Then, in an effort to reverse the effects of prolonged antibiotic treatment, Dr. Roman had Stovin ingest stool from her own healthy, organically raised dog. She had been thinking about this approach for years, she says. “Dogs eat poop anyway. I wouldn’t be doing anything that they don’t already do – I’m just directing them toward the right poop to eat.”
Stovin’s recovery was so impressive that MASH Clinic veterinarians went on to perform more than 5,000 fecal transfers on dogs and cats to treat IBD, C. difficile, C. perfringens, Giardia, and other problems.
Dr. Roman puts patients on a fresh, raw diet of GMO-free foods supplemented by probiotics, colostrum, nutraceuticals, and glandular supplements that support gut health. She reports that when a patient is prepared in this way, the fecal transplant usually works in a single treatment.
To perform the transplant, she combines healthy fecal matter with sterile saline in a blender, then filters it to remove large pieces. She applies the blended fecal matter with a syringe into the rectum.
Some dogs need repeated transplants, in which case their owners come by Dr. Roman’s clinic, pick up a bag of poop, take it home, and keep it in the freezer. When their dog starts having an issue, she says, they pop a piece of the frozen poop down the dog’s throat, and he gets better.
For more about Microbiome Restorative Therapy and Dr. Roman’s approach to gut health, see her blog, Eat Sh*t & Live.
Stool Transplant Results
As Dr. Dodds explained in her Fecal Microbiota Transplantation report, the practice of FMT has been used in veterinary medicine for years. “Since clinical trials or pilot studies were not completed,” she wrote, “these FMT procedures are considered anecdotal. However, there is nothing wrong with anecdotes because they can encourage the medical community to conduct clinical trials that give us more concrete and definite answers as well as point us in proper directions.”
One report from the March 24, 2016 Bradenton Herald in Bradenton, Florida, describes the work of Kevin Conrad, DVM, at Southeastern Guide Dogs in Palmetto, Florida. Dr. Conrad had been looking for a better way to treat dogs with recurrent diarrhea when he discovered FMT. “We see 250 dogs a year, and there were a lot of repeat offenders with symptoms not going away,” he said. “We’d either repeat antibiotics or adjust their feeding. It could take days, weeks, or months to get one dog feeling better, and I knew there had to be an easier process.”
Dr. Conrad took stool from healthy dogs, screened it by culturing microbes to check for certain bacteria, then liquified the stool and injected it into the intestines of sick puppies with a rectal tube. Within 12 to 24 hours, their symptoms began to clear. He then used the method to treat adults and pregnant dogs.
“What we tried is to do a fecal transplant on a pre-litter mom while she is pregnant, and she’s dropping a whole litter of puppies without diarrhea issues,” he said, “So now we are not only treating it but preventing it.”
At Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, Erika de Papp, DVM, considers FMT “an exciting avenue of potential therapy for chronic enteropathies.” She cites a study conducted at the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph in Canada in which FMT successfully treated dogs and cats for chronic diarrhea that did not respond to or was only moderately controlled by the standard therapies of diet manipulation, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and probiotics. Donor stool was screened for parasites, Giardia, Salmonella, Campylobacter, C. difficile, and (in the case of cats) Tritrichomonas foetus.
Patients received an enema to clear their intestines before receiving FMT and then a fecal suspension delivered via enema was retained in the colon for 45 minutes. The patients’ fecal microbiomes were evaluated before and after FMT through 16S rRNA gene product sequencing. Within 24 hours, their symptoms improved, and within 48 hours of treatment, the patients’ microbiomes resembled those of their donors rather than their own stool.
Noting that the success of FMT with human patients has helped the procedure gain general acceptance, Dr. de Papp said, “I hope we can convince our veterinary clients that this is not an entirely unpalatable treatment.”
The Future of FMT
Because no published peer-reviewed studies have examined the use of FMT in dogs or cats, a group of veterinarians at a 2015 international meeting of gastroenterologists formed a research committee to document the state of the art. Their report, “Commentary on key aspects of fecal microbiota transplantation in small animal practice” (J. Chaitman, et al, Veterinary Medicine: Research and Reports, May 31, 2016), addressed FMT mechanisms, indications, donor selection, preparation, administration, safety, and regulation.
There are few or no guidelines for performing FMT in small animals, and veterinarians tend to consider it for gastrointestinal disorders when there are no other options. In human medicine the use of FMT for disorders other than recurrent C. difficile infections is not yet supported by scientific evidence, and while FMT may improve the health of dogs with acute and chronic GI inflammation, diarrhea, and inflammatory bowel disease, many questions remain unanswered.
One of those questions is regulatory. Is FMT a drug? According to the US Food and Drug Administration, if fecal microbiota is intended for use to treat or prevent disease, it would be considered a drug. At this time, the Center of Veterinary Medicine has not developed a specific policy of enforcement regarding investigational new animal drug requirements for the use of fecal microbiota for transplantation, but the procedure’s status may change, especially if synthesized microbiota are developed and patented.
As the Veterinary Medicine report concluded, “Ongoing clinical and basic science research studies will bring the strength of science and clinical observation and enhance our understanding of how important the gut microbiota is to host health.”
Microbiome Clinical Trials
For information about ongoing, planned, or completed clinical trials involving dogs and the microbiome, search online for “clinical trials” and “canine fecal transplants” or “canine microbiome.”
You will find, for example, the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine is currently recruiting Golden Retrievers and Australian Shepherds for a clinical research trial to determine whether the types of bacteria in a dog’s gut could be a factor in allergic skin disease.
The University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine is currently enrolling dogs with clinical signs of Canine Chronic Enteropathy (CCE, a common cause of diarrhea, vomiting, and weight loss) in a clinical trial to determine the composition of the gastrointestinal tract’s microbiome before, during, and after treatment.
1. If your dog has chronic digestive problems (such as persistent diarrhea and/or severe gas), ask your veterinarian about a fecal microbial transplant treatment for your dog.
2. To get more information about your dog’s microbiome, send a fecal sample and $95 to AnimalBiome.com.
Freelance writer CJ Puotinen is the author of The Encyclopedia of Natural Pet Care, and other books.
How can we know what dogs are feeling? Obviously we cannot ask them, and since they have different body shapes, vocalizations, and expressions than humans, it’s not always obvious what might be taking place inside those furry little heads. Now what?
We have two basic strategies. First, we can become keen observers of dog body language and behavior. Second, we can ask ourselves this question: “If a two-year-old child were showing this behavior under similar circumstances, what emotions might I suspect were at play?” Let’s look at each of these in turn.
Dog body language can be quite difficult to read, so it’s important to consider the context when interpreting behavior. Not only do you need to consider the environment (for example, dogs will pant when they’re hot, but also when they’re stressed), you also need to look at all of the body parts together. Although many people attempt to correlate each type of movement with a specific emotion, the easier approach is simply to compare the overall pictures of a distressed dog to a happy dog.
Signs of Emotions in Dogs
Distress Signals
What does a distressed dog look like? Generally speaking, you’ll probably see a dog who pants when he’s not hot, avoids eye contact, keeps his head or body low, yawns when he’s not tired, licks his lips in the absence of food, shows the whites of his eyes, has large dilated pupils, tucks his tail between his legs, or holds it straight up and very stiff. Keep in mind that all stress signals also have a normal variant; a dog may lick his lips because he is stressed, but he may also lick his lips if he has just finished a meal! There is no reason to assume stress unless the context suggests it.
You can tell that your dog is becoming overwhelmed with stress if he freezes, runs away, or begins to fight back. All of these options are possible depending on the situation or the individual dog.
Some dogs respond to stress by becoming passive and quiet, with extreme stress causing a dog to freeze and stop moving. Anxious dogs may attempt to cling to their owners for support. Other dogs become frantic, excited, or start running around for no apparent reason at all. These dogs might rely on themselves to feel safe, scanning the environment obsessively, and showing an inability to relax and settle. Some especially fearful dogs will try to drive away something that they perceive as dangerous by barking or lunging. It doesn’t matter if it truly is dangerous or not. If your dog thinks it is, you need to take it seriously.
Do not attempt to make your dog “face his fears.” Minimizing and ignoring fear issues does not make them go away. When you either ignore fear or force your dog to face it in an effort to “prove” that something is not dangerous, you are heading down the wrong path. You can easily end up with total shut down or with defensive aggression.
Here’s a human example to make this more clear. Let’s say you’re afraid of mice. In an effort to help you adapt, your best friend “helpfully” locks you in a room with mice everywhere, crawling all over you. Maybe you start screaming. Maybe you lash out, trying to stomp on the mice. Maybe you become so overwhelmed with fear that you become catatonic.
Regardless of how you react, how do you think you would feel about the friend who put you in that situation? Would you trust her or want to spend time with her again? Probably not. Your dog is the same way. Don’t become the enemy.
Fearful behavior needs to be taken seriously and worked through thoughtfully and carefully. It can take hundreds – maybe even thousands – of pleasant and positive events to overcome the effects of one negative event. If you think your dog has more than a mild problem with fear, you need to contact a dog training behaviorist to help you. Learning from a book is fine for most training and for mild behavior problems, but if you’re dealing with more extreme behavior, you need professional help to guide you.
Anger
How about anger? Dogs experience anger for many of the same reasons that people do, usually because they have lost something they want, like food, toys, or attention. Rather than walking away and accepting that loss, they may try to get it back with threats.
You might see your dog growling, posturing stiffly, making hard eye contact, or – if all else fails – lunging, snapping, or even biting! Although most dog bites occur out of fear, the reality is that dogs can become angry and react badly as a result. In the same way that very fearful dogs require specialized professional help, if your dog shows strong aggression and a willingness to use physical force to “get his way,” then you need professional help, not a book. Contact a dog behaviorist to help you.
Happy Signals
So what do happy dogs look like? Happy dogs have open and relaxed body language. They tend to approach somewhat sideways, wiggling all over. Their tails wag fast and loose. Their eyes are open and bright; ears are forward and up or very relaxed; and their focus tends to shift easily from one interesting option to another. If you’re not sure how this looks, pay attention to your dog’s behavior when you come home after a brief absence and he’s cheerfully following you through the house.
Keep in mind that even happy emotions can be overwhelming, which might tinge your dog’s behavior with a frantic quality. For example, in that first minute after you get home, your dog might be happy to see you, but he might also be jumping on you, vocalizing, panting heavily, and showing wide eyes and dilated pupils. Or, he might simply run around, releasing his happy/frantic energy with movement. Or, his focus may be scattered leaping on you, and then running off to grab a toy, and then back to you!
Happy body language is always good but – and this is big – remember that if the dog is overwhelmed by his emotions, he will not be receptive to training until he is in a calmer state of mind. A “too happy and excited” dog is just as much at risk of showing problematic behavior as a “too scared or unhappy” dog.
One of the most useful indicators of happy or distressed body language is a solid understanding of what your dog normally looks like under a variety of circumstances. If you know what your dog looks like when the two of you are engaged in your dog’s favorite activity – like playing ball – then you know what one variant of happy looks like. If you have seen your dog when he was startled by a stranger on the street, then you know what fearful body language looks like.
All of this requires that you pay attention; take the time to observe your dog in your day to day life and you’ll be well ahead of the game.
Dogs are Toddlers
The second way to interpret your dog’s behavior is to imagine that he is a toddler. This requires combining what you see in the dog’s behavior with what you know of the context and then making some educated guesses.
Let’s say your dog is acting hyper. He has just been released from his crate after a long night’s sleep. He’s moving around a lot, chewing your things, and maybe even mouthing you. He grabs your shoes and runs off with them. If this was a toddler, what would you be thinking? Probably that he’s bored. So what’s the solution? Do something with him!
Now how about this: Your dog is acting hyper, but he’s been out all day, visiting people, playing ball at the park, and socializing with other dogs. He’s had dinner and now you want to watch TV but he can’t stop moving. He’s chewing on things, maybe even mouthing you! He grabs your shoes and runs off with them. If this was a toddler, what would you be thinking? That he’s tired! He’s had a busy day and now he needs to sleep. So what’s the solution? Put him to bed! He may complain in the crate for a couple of minutes, but if the issue really is exhaustion, he will soon fall asleep.
If you look only at behavior and emotion without context, it’s very likely that you’ll head down the wrong path. In one case, you have a bored dog, and in the other you have a tired dog; both are exhibiting the same problematic behavior but the appropriate solution requires knowledge of the context. If you ask yourself what the problem would be if your dog was a toddler, you may well find the solution.
Guessing the Wrong Emotions
In truth, we cannot know what a preverbal child or baby is thinking, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t try to understand what he needs! When your baby is crying, you try to find the most likely cause. Sometimes you’ll be right; you’ll be able to solve the problem and the crying will stop. Other times you’ll be wrong and you’ll have to try something else. It’s okay to be wrong; just keep looking for the answer! Humans as a species spend an enormous amount of time refining our social skills with each other, trying to understand the emotions and behaviors of others so that we can get along most effectively in the world. If you take this approach with your dog, you’ll reap enormous benefits.
Of course, sometimes you’ll set yourself up to guess wrong. Let’s say you just came home from a movie to find that your dog has peed on your bed, ripped up your favorite book, barked for an hour straight, and is now sound asleep in a happy puddle in the middle of the couch.
You look at this from a human point of view. Why would you pee on your best friend’s bed, scream nonstop, and rip up her stuff? You may conclude that your dog must be angry because you went out and had fun without him! He made a big mess for you to find when you came home in order to punish you before falling asleep, smugly dreaming about how he taught you a lesson. And herein lies the danger with anthropomorphism: You didn’t look at the situation from the point of an emotional two-year-old; you looked at it as an older child or as an adult! You attached your emotions, your anger at the destruction, to what you found when you got home. You assumed an emotion like spite, yet there is no evidence that dogs have anything like that. You gave him the emotions of an adult human, and he is far from that!
Dogs (and toddlers) are not thinking about what happened earlier; they are thinking about what is happening right now! They live in the moment. Dogs are not thinking about how you’ll feel when you come home and find the mess; they are simply reacting to whatever is happening right now, and whatever emotions come along with those events. Dogs do not think about what you did yesterday unless something you are doing right now reminds them of it (like when you’re getting the leash to take them for a walk in the neighborhood and yesterday that walk was scary).
Dogs do not plot revenge or try to figure out how to make you suffer. That’s a very complex thing to do! While there is very compelling evidence that dogs experience basic emotions like anger and joy, there is no scientific evidence that dogs feel more complex emotions like guilt or spite. While your dog might suffer if and when you punish her, it does not cause her to feel remorse over what has already happened.
So if you assume that your dog is acting with the intention of creating discomfort for you, then you are giving your dog credit for significantly more emotional abilities than he possesses. Dogs do not experience those emotions. Neither do two-year-olds. It’s a bad trap to start assuming that your dog is out to get you.
Remember, when you’re trying to use human motivations to guess what motivated a dog, use the motivations of a two-year-old. If you’re not familiar with two-year-olds, ditch that strategy entirely! Instead, just consider your dog as a creature who lives in the moment, with whatever is happening at that time.
YOUR DOG’S FEELINGS: OVERVIEW
1. Keep in mind that dogs experience a range of emotions in much the same way as a two-year-old child, and that the impact of those emotions can be responsible for problematic behavior and prevent you from creating any meaningful change.
2. Consider your dog’s behavior and body language within the context of the circumstances before you try to solve a problem.
3. Learn to understand your dog’s emotions. If you do, you’re much more likely to be successful at creating a training plan that works – and odds are pretty good that your dog will have a lot more fun with you, too!
Editor’s Note
Denise Fenzi is the founder and head trainer at the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports. Last month, we published the first half of the first chapter of Fenzi’s newest book that is aimed exclusively at pet dog owners and pet dog trainers; this excerpt is the second half of the first chapter. If you are interested in purchasing this or any other of Fenzi’s books, visit her website.
*Warning: This post talks about dog poop. If you are sensitive regarding discussions about dog poop…maybe you don’t actually have a dog, and shouldn’t be reading this blog at all! Just kidding. Not about the poop, just about the dog-owning part.
The rainy season has started in northern California, and though it hasn’t been all THAT rainy yet, it’s been rainy enough that any dog poop that wasn’t picked up shortly after the dog pooped starts to break down and is much more difficult to pick up.
Of course, it’s best to pick up and dispose of dog poop when it is first pooped. But those of us with safely fenced yards – and multiple dogs – sometimes go a day or two between poop pick-ups – especially when it’s pouring rain.
The last of my foster puppies went home a couple of days ago and then the sun broke out. I had time on my hands and trash pickup was the next day. So I went gangbusters on the backyard, doing the most thorough poop search I’d conducted in a week, and I found a few poops that had been out there for a while.
Have you ever found a dog poop that has been out in the rain for a while, and observed (as you were picking it up) that it looked like it was full of what looked like bits of white sand? Only, the “grains of sand” were slightly bigger than actual grains of sand? It might take a good week or so of rain, or a poop that started out on the soft side, for you to see this. I found a few in this condition the other day, and it surprised me, because I hadn’t seen it for a while – but I knew why that was.
The bits of what look like large white grains of sand in a mostly washed-away poop are bits of bone. It comes from the dog’s food. You would find the same thing if you soaked your dog’s kibble in water and then put the whole mess in a fine mesh colander and rinsed it until all the plant and meat material washed away.
“But wait,” you might say. “My dog’s food is a good quality food! It doesn’t contain ‘meat and bone meal,’ that notoriously low-quality ingredient!” (If it did, for SURE you’d be seeing the bits of white “sand” in your dog’s rained-on poop.)
What a lot of people don’t realize is that pet food ingredients with names like chicken and chicken meal, turkey and turkey meal, and lamb and lamb meal, contain a certain amount of bone. When we hear these phrases we imagine that they describe meat, like chicken or turkey breasts or legs. What is actually used in pet food more closely resembles your Thanksgiving turkey the day after Thanksgiving: a turkey “frame” with chunks of meat and bits of skin and tendons still attached. How much flesh is attached to the bones and other tissues depends on the pet food companies’ specifications. They can require their meat suppliers to give them the meat with a certain “ash” content; the “ash” is, essentially, bone. “Ash” is what is left if you incinerate the meat and burn away everything except the minerals that won’t burn.
Have you ever seen a pet food company claim they use “low ash chicken” or “low-ash lamb”? They are claiming that they use a meat or meat meal that contains more meat and less bone.
Bone is a perfectly healthy, natural source of essential minerals for dogs. Some manufacturers formulate their foods with a certain amount of bone contained in the meat or meat meal they use to help meet the requirements of a “complete and balanced diet” for dogs; others use higher quantities of other sources of calcium (such as calcium carbonate), phosphorus, and other minerals.
High-protein foods sometimes have added plant proteins (such as potato protein or pea protein) to reach those high protein levels without having too-high levels of calcium and phosphorus from higher levels of meat or meat meals that contain bone.
I was surprised to see so much ground bone in the poop I cleaned up in my yard this week because I hadn’t seen any for a while – but I just switched the dogs to a type of food I’ve never fed, and it clearly contained more bone than the other foods I’ve been feeding. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just a thing to know and understand.
If any of my dogs had been constipated (they weren’t) this could have been the cause. Foods with a high bone content, especially highly digestible raw diets that contain a lot of ground or whole bone, can sometimes cause a dog to have dry, dense poops. These poops might be mostly white (as they consist of mostly bone).
That said, inexpensive, low-quality foods might also contain an unusually high amount of ground bone. If you see a lot of bone in your dog’s poop, take a look at the ingredients of his food. Does it make sense? There is surely a correlation between the amount of bone in his stool and the ingredients in his food, if you understand what you are looking at.
Postscript: I was discussing this post with a friend at a major pet food company, and he asked me if I had ever seen this video. I hadn’t but it made my day. I wonder if Sarah Silverman knew why dog poop was often white in the 1970s. (The regulations that exist now to limit the amount of calcium and phosphorus – and hence bone – in dog food didn’t exist then!)
A couple of days ago, I received a text from a dog-training client, wondering about a video she had just watched—and which she linked in the text. “Is meat meal bad for dogs?” she asked. She followed that message with, “I get that she’s selling her own pet food, but is it (meat meal) that bad?”
