This blog post was originally published on June 28, 2012

More and more often, it seems, I see a super fat dog surrendered to the shelter. I always feel sorrier for these dogs than for the thin ones, because we can get a skeletal dog looking pretty healthy in a month’s time, but in the shelter environment, an obese dog may not be able to lose an ounce! Caged in a small run, being over-fed . . . the conditions are likely to make them even fatter! Plus, few people want the panting, exercise-intolerant, unattractive dogs; they end up lingering in our adoption kennels for a long time. And few of them have ever experienced anything like what must feel, in comparison to their former soft lives, like total deprivation – hard time – in the shelter environment.

One dog I’ve talked about before was this darling Labrador, who was surrendered to my local shelter weighing 110 pounds. By California law, she needed to be spayed before she could be adopted, but the surgery couldn’t be scheduled before she lost at least 20 or more pounds; surgery on such an obese dog takes a long time – the fat just floods into the incision and obscures the tissues that need to be cut and sutured – and is considered high risk.

The dog had been surrendered by her owner, who was going into long-term care and didn’t have any friends or relatives who could take her. Under all that fat was a super attractive, well-built Labrador, but it was hard to see. She had basically spent her whole life keeping this older man company on the couch, presumably eating fast food! She was understandably heartbroken, confused, and depressed at finding herself in a hard “cell.” I fostered her for a few weeks until we found a rescue group who would take her for the long-term rehabilitation she needed in order to get healthy and then spayed and rehomed.

I know that some dogs become obese as a result of a thyroid condition. I suspect that in this dog’s case, and in the case of many of the fat dogs we get at the shelter, it’s simple overfeeding and lack of exercise – the super-long, sharp toenails tell us that.

More recently, this dog came into the shelter as a result of a similar situation. The dog’s owners had lost their home and were staying with relatives, and the dog is “too big” (and too loud and untrained) to be welcome in the relatives’ home. Again, under that fat, there is a good-looking dog. He’s smart and learns fast; he could be much more fit and well on his way to being well-trained in a month . . . but it’s going to take someone willing to look past his heft and ill manners, and with a shelter full of younger, cuter dogs, he’s a hard sell. He’s been at my shelter for the past three months with no takers.

None of us like to think about events that might cause us to have to rehome our dogs. But there are countless human tragedies that can make it a necessity. A healthy, fit, well-trained dog will have absolutely no problem finding a home, but a fat dog who can barely be handled by strangers might not be so lucky.

The bottom line: Obesity of this degree reduces the length and quality of the dog’s life. If your dog is fat, please take steps to reduce his or her weight. Ask your veterinarian’s receptionist for a long appointment, and ask your vet for a thorough exam and discussion about what can be done. And see our past articles on low-fat diets and weight loss:

Helping Your Dog Lose Weight

Healthy Low-Fat Diets For Dogs With Special Dietary Needs

Homemade Low-Fat Dog Food Diets

This blog post was originally published March 4, 2014. Updated March 27, 2017.

Does your dog exhibit signs of seasonal allergies? And if so, what do you do about it? If springtime pollen affects your dog like it does Otto, perhaps you’ve developed some kind of allergy-relieving protocol for when trees and grasses start to bloom.

In past years, I’ve discussed my system of keeping a yearly calendar for my dogs that is loaded with notes about their health and behavior. It helped me identify the earliest signs of Otto’s springtime allergies, and take proactive management steps to minimize his suffering.

So here we are in March again, with everything in bloom in Northern California. Otto’s allergies are right on schedule, except this year – like every year since I noticed the seasonality of his symptoms – I am prepared with remedies before his itching begins.

I originally blogged about keeping a dog calendar in April 2013, when I had noticed that Otto was licking and chewing himself. Once I consciously registered this fact, I first looked for fleas; I couldn’t find a single one, on Otto or any other animal in the house. I started paying attention to the sound and sight of Otto licking his paws or flank (as opposed to distractedly saying to him, without even looking away from my computer screen, “Hey, knock it off!” and continuing to work) – and I realized that he was itchy pretty much all day. When he wasn’t licking or chewing himself, he lay down and looked chastened and miserable, rather than restful.

Sadly, that year, it took me a couple of weeks for me to pay enough attention to my poor itchy dog to start treating his springtime allergies, and managing his environment to reduce his exposure to the agents he seems to be allergic to: namely, pollen.

Here are the things I do for Otto at this time of year:

• Discourage him from hanging out on the deck, or indeed, outside anywhere in my yard. There is SO MUCH pollen out there right now. At this time of year, when the sun comes out, he likes nothing more than to snooze on the warm deck, but unless I just hosed it off (which I do at least two or three times a week, if it hasn’t rained), I have to tell him I’m sorry, he has to wait until the trees have finished blooming.

• Whether we’ve been out for a walk or he’s coming indoors again after going potty, I rinse his paws with a hose, then towel-dry them, before he comes In the house. And I use a damp towel and wipe down his entire coat. It takes less than a minute; I’m just trying to reduce the pollen that’s all over his coat. I do the same for Woody, who doesn’t seem to suffer from allergies yet, because he obviously brings in a lot of pollen, too.

• I vacuum the carpets daily, and damp-mop the kitchen floor daily.

• I wash all the dog beds weekly, and change the sheets that cover my couches most of the time every other day or so.

• And, last but not least, I give Otto Benadryl once or twice a day on the days that he’s obviously licking the most.

It used to be that I needed to set an alarm on my digital calendar for March 1 of each year to “consider Otto’s spring allergies.” But he’s 9 years old now, and the pattern is clear. As soon as I start to see a yellow glint of pollen on my front porch and decks, it’s time to put all my pollen-fighting activities into play, to keep him comfortable and as minimally itchy as possible. But all this work means that he hasn’t developed an inflamed, weepy hot spot for years.

I was originally introduced to Pat Miller via email and then phone. At the time, I was working on a publication called the Whole Horse Journal, and she was one of the contributors to that publication. She was a good writer and contributed a few articles with terrific horse-friendly training tips.

Later, the publisher of that publication asked me to edit a start-up sister publication, to be called the Whole Dog Journal, modeled on the Whole Horse Journal. I knew far more about horses than dogs in those days, but I was game to learn, and I happily accepted the gig.

As I was rounding up writers and experts to contribute to the new publication, the editor of the Whole Horse Journal mentioned that Pat Miller would be a great resource for articles on training dogs, too. “Oh?” I remember asking. “I didn’t know that. Thanks!” I contacted Pat by phone and was pleased to learn that, in fact, she had an even more extensive background and training in dog behavior than horse training! She began contributing articles to WDJ – and has been ever since. She helped me develop WDJ’s dog-friendly ethos and mission statement, and routinely provides expert guidance and direction toward the most effective, humane dog training techniques and tools available.  We’ve worked together by phone and email for some 20 years now – throughout her residencies in California, Tennessee, and most recently in Maryland.

So it may be surprising to learn that we’ve met in person only a few times – once in California for a photo shoot, a few times at dog training conferences around the country (always with us too busy to actually spend more than a meal or two together), once for an all-too-brief visit at her farm/training center in Maryland, and once for less than an hour as she drove through northern California on her way from a speaking engagement to visit her brother, who lives in the top left-hand corner of California. When I heard, a few months ago, that she was going to be presenting at a conference in Sacramento – only an hour from me – and was again going to drive to see her brother, I offered to drive her from there to there, so we could hang out, do some planning for WDJ, and maybe take some photos for some upcoming articles.

The funny thing is, though we’ve worked together for more than 20 years, there were tons of things we didn’t know about each other that we learned in the 20 or so hours that we spent together in the car! Reaching the top-left corner of the state takes a good long while, and even longer when literally all the roads that go there are sliding down the mountainsides they traverse. We took one route there, and another back the next day, got out of the car and stretched during road-construction delays, and took more than a few snack and pee-breaks.

We were accompanied by my adolescent dog, Woody, whom I don’t like to leave at home when I can help it, as I always seem to come back to some new woody damage – a new spot on the deck or fence chewed, or the bamboo hedge with a new tunnel chewed through – and besides, he could be our photo model! Woody spent a significant amount of time with his chin on Pat’s shoulder as we drove, so I think she ended up liking him okay. (I wish I got a picture of that, but I was driving!)

At the end of our trip, I joined Pat after her presentation at the conference so we could take some training photos for articles. And it was during that brief photo shoot that I received my most recent pearl of Pat’s wisdom.

We were in a busy park in downtown Sacramento. I had brought both Woody and Muppet, a foster dog; at this moment, we had Woody on leash and Muppet was in my car, parked close by in the shade. We paused for a minute to allow a person with two large dogs on leash to walk by. Both of the dogs were growling and barking and pulling toward Woody, and he started growling and reacting to the dogs.

Now, I’ve worked with Woody a LOT on reducing his reactivity to the sight of strange dogs and people, and he’s come a long, long way. If he spots someone (dogs or people or both) that he regards as “strange,” he will usually emit a small growl; that’s my cue to pay attention and manage the situation BEFORE it’s a situation. In the beginning, I would just counter-condition like mad from a safe and sane distance (doing a quick U-turn and exuberant trot off into the opposite direction if need be), and then delivering treats to him in a rapid-fire fashion. The goal is to change how Woody FEELS about seeing strange dogs or people by making it RAIN treats whenever he sees said strange people or dogs; a secondary goal is to get him to look to me when he sees something alarming, so I can give him direction and reassurance that all is well.

In the early days of our counter-conditioning sessions, I wasn’t looking for any particular behavior from Woody; the point of counter-conditioning is not to (immediately) change the dog’s behavior, but to change his emotional response from a negative one to a positive one. Once he’s been conditioned to feel happy about the sight of “strange” people or dogs, as evidenced by a quick look at his handler with what Pat calls the “Where’s my treat?!” look, changing his behavioral response becomes easy and not so highly charged. In recent months, Woody has improved to the point where I can give the cue “Off!” and he will instantly and happily look away from whatever it is that has him spooked and look at me for the treats. 

So there we were: The person struggling with her growling, reactive dogs about 30 feet away; Woody starting to put his hair up and growling, too; Pat with Woody’s leash in her hands; and me with a treat pouch and treats in one hand, camera in another. I did what I have been doing lately with Woody: I said “Off!” and was waiting for him to look away from the dogs and toward me. But he was still growling and fixating on the dogs (who were being dragged away by their person).

Pat said, “More treats! Give him more!”

And I said, “But he usually . . .” (and I was about to finish, defensively, “will look away from the scary thing and look at me when I say ‘Off!’).

But Pat, with a world of experience that I don’t have, quickly interrupted, “But he’s NOT!”  – meaning, no matter what my expectations were of Woody, he was NOT in fact doing what I thought he should do or could do, so I should train the dog in front of me, not some ideal version of him, and deal with what was actually happening at that moment!

And I got it!

Two decades working together, and two days in a car talking together, fortunately, speeds up one’s comprehension. Pat’s pointing it out made me immediately see my mistake, and I instantly understood that the circumstances – days in a car, busy park in a new place, being handled by a new person, close proximity to some scary, nearly out-of-control dogs – added up to a situation that Woody just couldn’t “look away” from at that moment. I was asking too much, and setting him up to fail. More treats! Duh! When in doubt, go back a level (or more) to where your dog is able to succeed! I did, and the moment passed.

Such a small thing, and yet it rocked my world. It reminded me that any time you are expecting a dog to do something that he’s showing you he’s not capable of in that moment, you are setting him (and yourself) up for failure and frustration. And that’s what working – for even a short moment – with a master will do.

Thanks, Pat! 

For the past three days, anyone who has called me has asked, “What’s wrong?” I keep thinking I’m doing a fine job of covering my irritation and emotional upset, and answering the phone the way I always do, but apparently – not.

For weeks, since the evacuation of my shelter, I’ve been fostering a young dog who was brought into the shelter a few days before the evacuation. The people who brought him to the shelter said they found him as a stray. It later developed that someone who saw him in the shelter recognized him as the dog who belonged to the people who surrendered him; they pretended he wasn’t their dog when they surrendered him. That happens often enough that no one at the shelter was surprised to learn this. The dog is adorable, but he’s got problems – physical and behavioral.

I think he’s been kept in a crate or small pen his whole life; he has the least amount of muscle tone of any dog I’ve ever met. When I took him out of his shelter kennel for the first time, I was horrified to see how he walked – like he was wearing clown shoes on all four feet. His muscles and tendons were so unused, that he walked way back on his wrists on all four legs; he had wear marks on the back of his hocks. He lacked coordination, but sort of flopped about very enthusiastically. He was sweet and affectionate, and happy to meet other dogs and people. I have been calling him Muppet, because he looks just like one, all goofy-haired and splay-legged. My husband dubbed him “Floppy” and said, “Floppy makes me sad!” He makes me sad, too.

Are his problems from being malnourished? He is super thin. Does he have adequate bone density? Are his hips constructed in a way that can be developed, or will he need surgery to ever walk properly? The shelter vet examined him briefly and instructed me to give him a few weeks of gentle exercise and a good diet, supplemented with some glucosamine and fish oil, and we’ll see how he responds to that before we spend too much of the shelter’s medical budget on x-rays.

Overall, his behavior is not terrible, just uneducated, but he is prone to displaying one incredibly annoying tactic: barking in frustration, excitement, or for attention. He barks when you put him in a crate, when you pick up a leash or car keys, when he sees a cat or dog out the window, or when you ask him to sit and you don’t get the treat to him fast enough (in his opinion). And his bark is one of those with the pitch that can make your earwax liquefy. Ouch!

I just can’t imagine having such a cute dog get to his age – we’re guessing he’s about 10 months or just over a year old – with zero training and apparently, next to no medical care (he is neutered). He has a lot of potential, because he’s sweet and funny and playful. I’ve been working with him daily to teach him to tolerate frustration without barking; to sleep nicely in a crate; to sit, down, come, and walk nicely on a leash (and off, where safe). He’s been doing great – and finally putting on a little muscle, too. Whereas his thighs were flat as pancakes when he came home with me, he has little waffle-thighs now, and some muscle on his shoulders. His front feet no longer look like clown shoes; he is completely walking upright on his front paws now.

His back legs are another story; he is extremely cow-hocked, and still prone to walking a bit on the back of his paws and wrists. I suspect that his hips really don’t work right. He doesn’t seem to be in any pain, but without some sort of major intervention, I don’t see how he can age without developing osteoarthritis or blowing out his knees. He’s getting radiographs and a more complete veterinary exam next week and I’ll know more soon.

I’ve been mildly optimistic about his prospects, as complicated as they are by his wonky legs, but was plunged into depression by my most recent canine visitor. This is a dog who was found as a stray by a friend. She tried without luck to find his owners, had him neutered, and then tried to find him a home. She said he barked a lot and fought with her dogs, and finally a friend of hers took him, but recently the friend returned him, saying he didn’t get along with her dogs, either, and also, he barked way too much. I agreed to have him come visit my house and share my opinion of his behavior.

I expected, from the description, a dog-aggressive dog. What I have observed is a highly anxious dog – perhaps in pain from terrible-looking knees – who really just wants other dogs to leave him alone and to be with a person. He snarled at Muppet, who, lacking polite canine social skills, approached him too strong and too quickly, but when Muppet left him alone, he calmly went about his business. He frisked about a bit when Woody tried his best to get him to play, but other than that, he’s been all too happy to leave the other dogs alone if they leave him alone. With people, he’s wary at first, but affectionate once he sees that a person will be nice to him.

Here’s what really got me upset: he was handed over to me along with his prescription for Prozac – suggested by a trainer who worked with him a year or more ago and prescribed by a local vet – and an “anti-bark” shock collar! He wasn’t currently wearing it, but “Here it is in case you want to use it, my friend has been using it for a few months…”

I. Just. Can’t.

Even when people are trying to be kind, we’re awful to dogs.

I’d really like to find both of these dogs better homes, but despite the fact that both of them have affection and companionship to offer, they have special needs that will make placing them complicated. Both need direction and management in order to be behaviorally pleasant family members. Both need medical interventions and management to live a pain-free life. Who will take them on?

So, if you happened to call me recently and I sounded cross – that’s what’s wrong. “Floppy” and this more recent orphan dog have made me sad. And mad. And there’s no easy way out of this.

Every year since I adopted Otto from my local shelter (on June 16, 2008), I have sent out his blood to a lab for a “vaccine titer test.” The test I ask for detects circulating antibodies that defend against two canine diseases: distemper and parvovirus. Veterinary immunologists feel that the results of this particular test offers a reliable indication of whether the dog is adequately protected against the diseases he has been vaccinated for, or whether he no longer has a detectible number of antibodies to those diseases in his body.

To make this a tad more complicated than it needs to be, you should also understand that if a dog once had a positive test for these antibodies, but, years later, no longer tests positive, he is probably still protected from those diseases. If he were to be exposed to one of those diseases again, the immune memory cells in his body would almost certainly spark into action and begin to produce antibodies against those diseases again. So, as long as he’s had a positive titer test in the past, he’s likely still protected from disease, even if his current vaccine titer test is negative.

However, while most veterinarians today can wrap their heads around a current positive vaccine titer test, and will comfortably “allow” their clients to take a pass on a vaccine “booster” at their dogs’ annual visit as long as they have this positive test result, few are willing to trust a past positive vaccine titer test when it is paired with a current negative. At that point, the vast majority of veterinarians would recommend that a vaccine be administered again, to refresh the dog’s immune memory and stimulate the production of disease antibodies anew.

For this reason, in our opinion, it’s not necessary to run a titer test every year. A few sturdy souls are comfortable with their dog’s past positive results, especially when the dog is healthy and seems to have a vital immune system working for him, and would only run a titer test again if the dog’s health began to decline. Other people choose to run a vaccine titer test every few years, even if only to keep their veterinarian from nagging them to revaccinate.

I run a vaccine titer test on Otto annually, really, for you guys. And for every veterinarian who ever sees Otto, and wonders why I haven’t vaccinated him (except for rabies, which is required by law – and is the only vaccine required by law) since I adopted him. I do it for every vet tech who has stamped “OVERDUE” on Otto’s records, and every vet office assistant who sends me annual reminder postcards that Otto is “OVERDUE” for vaccines. (He was vaccinated a lot at the shelter in the couple of months that they had him before I adopted him. Shelter vaccine protocols tend to be much more heavy-handed than what vets suggest for most pet owners, because they take in so many sick animals.)

I do it because I think people (especially those who work in veterinary offices) need to be more educated about vaccines. As the sick dogs who are routinely brought into my shelter demonstrate, not all dogs are adequately vaccinated; many lack basic healthcare. But I think most pet dogs who see veterinarians on a regular basis are overvaccinated.

Don’t get me wrong: I strongly believe that every dog should be properly immunized – and I think vaccine titer tests are the only legitimate way to determine whether their bodies responded properly to the vaccines they received and developed protective antibodies. But vaccinating annually or even semi-annually (every two or three years) for the core vaccines that are not required by law (distemper, parvo, adenovirus) is unnecessary and, in my opinion and that of a growing number of veterinary immunologists and holistic practitioners, potentially harmful.

Anyway, long story short: I had Otto’s vaccine titer test run again recently, and his results indicate he still has a healthy population of antibodies for distemper and parvo, more than EIGHT years since his last vaccine for diseases. He’s just one dog, it’s very anecdotal – but, I’d bet, pretty typical, too.

A note about where I get this done:

To run the vaccine titer test, I use the CAVIDS Titer Testing Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, School of Veterinary Medicine. This is the lab founded by Ronald Schultz, Ph.D., one of the world’s leading authorities on animal vaccines. Currently, the lab charges just $40 for the distemper/parvo vaccine titer test.

I had my veterinarian collect a blood sample and prepare it as per the directions posted on the lab’s website. My veterinarian charged $30 for this. Had I gone to the vet just for this reason alone, I would have had a pay for an exam, too, but I had actually taken Otto in to have a lump checked, so I’m not including the exam fee cost here.

I paid to have it overnighted to Wisconsin; I could have sent it two-day, but I had missed the cutoff time, and it had to be there Friday morning, so I paid a premium at the post office: $28.75.

Total: $98.75. That seemed like a lot, until I called the vet to find out what they charge if they send the blood sample to their usual lab: $161! That’s just nuts.

For more information, see some of our past articles:

“Vaccine Titer Tests for Dogs” (June 2014)

“Puppy Shots,” (March 2014)

“Time to Vaccinate the Dog?” (March 2013)

“Beware of Over-Vaccinating Your Dog,” (August 2010)

Note: this blog was originally posted on December 8, 2015.