I’ve read articles about people who got hit by a car and killed while trying to help a wounded or simply frightened animal on the highway. I’ve warned people against doing this – stopping their cars and getting out on a freeway to try to capture a panicked dog. And yet, when a scared dog is running in front of YOUR car, how do you not stop and try to help?
I was heading down the main street of my town, maybe 100 yards from the highway on-ramp, when I spotted a fluffy little dog running down the sidewalk. At first, I looked around for a person jogging or on a bike. The dog was running so swiftly, I thought he was tailing his owner, who I just hadn’t happened to see yet. But I didn’t see anyone. I put my flashers on, and looked next for a place to pull over.
As I did so, though, the car that was two cars in front of me – and ahead of the running dog – turned right onto the on-ramp, in front of the dog, cutting him off from his straight-ahead dash. And, even as I screamed from inside my car, “NOOOO!!” the dog turned right, also, and started running up the on-ramp. And the car immediately in front of me slowed and followed – effectively pushing the dog up the on-ramp onto the highway. My heart started pounding and I broke into a sweat, certain that I was about to witness a dog getting killed in front of my eyes. I followed at a distance, my mind racing, trying to figure out if there was any way I could get past the dog to press him back off the highway. It seemed impossible.
But a miracle happened.
The two cars who had pushed the dog onto the highway quickly merged into traffic and were gone. But the driver of a pickup truck (which had to slow down to allow the bad drivers to merge) spotted the dog, gunned past the dog, put his flashers on, stopped his car in the right lane of the two-lane highway, and jumped out. He started running toward the oncoming cars, and the oncoming dog. Holy moly.
The section of four-lane highway just past the on-ramp is a high bridge that crosses a river, and the sides of the bridge and its center median are solid concrete. The driver of the truck had stopped just before the end of the bridge. The dog was, for a half minute, trapped on the bridge, in a two-lane section. I saw a chance.
Several cars on the highway swerved into the left lane to go around the stopped pickup. I gunned my car into the left lane, my flashers still going, and tapped my brakes wildly, stopping the cars behind me. Traffic halted behind and next to me – just as the dog, frightened by the guy who stopped ahead, ran back into the oncoming – but stopped – traffic past me. Given that all the traffic was stopped, I jumped out of my car and ran back down the freeway, looking for the dog – and so did a dozen or so other people! Terrified, he ran under another big pickup truck, and as I was running in that direction, I saw several people dive under the truck, and one guy emerge with the squirming little dog completely wrapped in a coat.
I’m a crier, so of course by this time I had tears running down my face. That’s probably why the guy who was holding the coat-covered dog asked me as I ran up, “Is this your dog?” I said, “No! But I can take him to the shelter!” This was happening really fast, because even as we were having this very brief exchange, people were getting back into their cars and starting to drive around the other stopped cars. The guy hastily handed me the dog, and said, “Cool, have a nice day!”
I started running with the bundle of squirming dog back to my car, even as I was saying out loud to myself, “But what about your coat?!” As I ran, I realized that another guy was running alongside me, grinning; it was the guy who stopped the right lane of traffic. “Good job!” I yelled to him, jumping into my car and nearly throwing the bundle of coat and dog onto my passenger seat.
It was only as I got off at the next exit, so I could turn around and head back to my town’s shelter, that I started shaking.
As I write this, two days later, the collar-less, microchip-less, matted little dog is still at my local shelter, as is the coat that was used to capture and scoop him up. But he’s safe now, no longer terrified and bolting, and will get another chance – if not in his last home, I hope in a more secure and responsible one.
Thank goodness for the goodness of all of you who stopped and saved the life of a little dog. None of us could have done it without the others.
I was driving the other day and saw a car with a personalized license plate proclaiming their love for “K9S”. I love seeing dog-related personalized license plates, but I never thought to take pictures of them and “collect” them before – and I don’t know why! (I think we should use the WDJ Facebook page to make a collection of them! If you have a dog-themed license plate, post a photo!)
When I saw this car in a parking lot, I laughed out loud in recognition: Here’s another person who loves dogs – and whose dog loves them, apparently. I bought a new car in 2014, and the very first scratches its paint received were from my grand-dog, Cole, who jumped up to greet me (after I parked and my son came out of his house with Cole to help me carry stuff into the house). I love my car, but I still smile when I think of Cole’s happy greetings.
Perhaps no dog owner’s car is without these, though – a sure sign that your dogs accompany you.
What signs of dog-love do you recognize in the parking lot or on the highway?
I was walking Otto the other day when his head and tail went up and he gave a little whine – one that usually indicates that he’s spotted a dog in the yard we are about to walk past. In our town, there are lots of dogs that are lying on porches or under trees in fenced yards, and when you walk by with your dog, they come flying toward the fence: some barking hysterically, some staying silent until the last terrifying moment when they hit the fence and let out a roar. Otto is as good as any dog I’ve ever seen about holding our course in the face of these dramatic approaches; he neither runs nor retaliates nor attempts to fight through the fence, but he usually will let out a whine of anxiety or excitement, prance a little, and (occasionally) will stop and lift a leg on the fence, and sometimes the very nose of the offending dog on the other side of the fence!
For whatever reason, the majority of front-yard fences in our town are low, just over three feet tall, so it’s always worth a good look at the onrushing dog and the fence: Does he look like he could leap over, or wants to? (A few years ago, a dog leaped over one of these very low fences not a mile from where I live and attached himself to a mailman’s neck, taking the poor guy to the ground. Surgery was required for the mailman; the dog didn’t survive the investigation.)
On this day, however, a quick glance told me we had nothing to fear from this dog – the most obese dog I’ve ever seen in person. The dog was lying down – and indeed, looking like this is the dog’s default position. I’ve seen photos of dogs who are fatter, but never one like this in the (abundant) flesh. So fat, I wonder if he (she?) can get up without assistance.
Just like 600-pound humans, this dog could not have gotten this obese without some help from some very co-dependent (if loving) people. It “might” be a medical issue – the old “glandular problem” – but given that dogs can’t feed themselves, it’s more likely an issue with an enabling human. But it’s not much of a life for the poor dog; it’s got to be uncomfortable, if not downright painful, to be this heavy. The strain on the dog’s circulatory system must be considerable, and on his/her joints? Tremendous.
Few of us who have overweight dogs would allow our companions to get that freakishly fat, but the sight of the nearly immobile dog was certainly enough to make me take another look at my middle-aged pooch, and decide to take another sliver off of his portions. Going into your dog’s senior years, you really want him or her to be on the thin side, for greater longevity and mobility.
How many of you feed canned food to your dog every day? Or maybe I should ask, how many of you feed only canned food to your dog every day?
While we’d like our annual canned dog food review to be of use to owners who feed any amount of canned food to their dogs, it should be most relevant to people who rely solely on canned products to provide “complete and balanced nutrition” to their dogs, without much supplementation from any other type of food. Why? Because the more we question pet food companies about what’s in their food, the less confident we become about whether they even know.
When we review dog foods, we generally ask the companies that make the foods that meet our selection criteria for a good food some additional questions. This year, we asked this: “Do you have a complete nutrient analysis for each of your products, and, if so, do you make it available upon request or is this information on your website?” We were very unhappy with most of the answers.
Most pet foods on the market – including all the ones we recommend – are what’s called “complete and balanced.” This means they have met the standards of the pet food regulators in this country for a diet that is formulated to provide everything a dog needs to survive and (one hopes) thrive. But when we asked the makers of “complete and balanced” dog foods whether they have lab tests that show how much of each nutrient required by dogs is typically present in each of their formulas, very few of them had this information readily available!
Got that? “Feed our food, it contains everything your dog needs . . . but we can’t (or won’t) tell you exactly how much of each required nutrient it contains.”
We’ve charted the answers we got to our survey on page five of our November 2015 issue. The food companies appear in order of how good we feel about their responses.
At the top of the chart are the two companies we surveyed that post the complete nutrient analyses for all of their products on their websites. We admire and respect the professionalism and transparency.
Next are the companies that claimed to make their complete nutrient analyses available to consumers upon request, and who were able to follow up this claim by providing some samples of these analyses to us (some in a more timely manner than others). It became apparent that some of them ordered some analyses from their labs just to provide them to us – sweet, but in our opinion, these are something they should have in hand anyway.
At the end are the companies that answered our survey by saying, straight up, that they do not make their nutrient analyses available to consumers. While we’d far prefer for a company in the business of making food to openly share information about the nutrients contained in their products, we have a measure of respect for the ones that were straightforward about this and had reasons for their policy. Each of the companies in this category claimed that, if need be, they could get whatever specific information about their food was needed to a consumer whose dog had a health problem and whose veterinarian needed the nutrient data. Let’s hope this is true.
Whether this is justified or not, we were more disappointed with the companies that answered our survey by saying blithely that they do make these analyses available to consumers upon request – but then, when asked to provide a couple of these analyses to us in order to verify their claim, couldn’t or wouldn’t produce the analyses. In some cases, we were left convinced that if they ever had the information, it certainly wasn’t available to the pet food company employees tasked with answering questions from us – or consumers – about specific nutrient levels in their products.
In a few cases, we found ourselves explaining to the pet food company employees who answered the phone (or email) exactly what a “complete nutrient analysis” is. This happened several times; in each case it was after the person sent us either a link to a web page or emailed us a document that contained guaranteed analyses for their products, as if they didn’t know the difference!
More Information is Always Better
In case you don’t know the difference – as every pet food company employee should – the “guaranteed analysis” is that little box that appears (by federal law) on every pet food label and contains (at least) four things: the minimum amount of crude protein and crude fat in the food, and the maximum amount of fiber and moisture in the food. If pet food companies want to, they can put more nutrients in the guaranteed analysis (GA) box, but only those four macronutrients (protein, fat, fiber, moisture) are required there.
Whether the pet food company puts just the four required nutrients in the GA or lists a lot of nutrients, a nutrient’s presence in the box means that the pet food company is literally guaranteeing that those nutrients are present in those amounts. The information in a GA is subject to surveillance and enforcement; feed control officials in each state have the authority to run tests on the food and stop its sale (in that state) if anything in the GA is not accurate.
Keep in mind that pet food companies are not required to list any other nutrient amounts on their labels; only protein, fat, fiber, and water are considered to be useful for consumers to know in order to compare products and to judge which might be best for their dogs. But even though the amounts of vitamins and minerals present in “complete and balanced” foods may vary widely, you’d never know this from reading the label. As long as the foods met one of the two standards for a “complete and balanced diet,” they get to have that statement on their label, causing almost everyone to consider them as equivalent and interchangeable, even though they are far more variable than that.
There are many good reasons to investigate the “actual” or “typical” nutrient levels in your dog’s food, especially if he has any sort of health condition that can be affected by high or low levels of some nutrient, such as copper storage disease or anemia.
Some foods may contain very high levels of some nutrient or another – or, as is often the case if extremely high-fat foods, if the nutrients are reported on a caloric basis (corrected for energy density), they may actually fail to reach the minimum levels of many nutrients called for in the Canine Nutrient Guidelines from the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). This latter reason is why we also asked the companies for nutrient analyses “by calories” – in very high-fat foods, this may reveal nutrient levels that are below the AAFCO minimums.
Highly motivated owners can request complete nutrient analyses from the pet food companies – and avoid the companies that can’t deliver these.
The next step would be to compare the results received with the AAFCO nutrient guidelines (they can be found online). The next hurdle would be converting the “as fed” numbers that most companies report with AAFCO’s “dry matter” numbers – not exactly rocket science, but it helps to know your way around a calculator.
We will discuss how to do this in an upcoming issue; our dry food review appears in the February issue and we’d love to help you reach competence at this task (if you are interested) by then.
Earning the “Complete and Balanced” Title
Consumers should be aware that foods that have earned the appellation of “complete and balanced” via the “feeding trials” qualification – considered by many as the “gold standard” for achieving this status – may have a number of nutrient levels that don’t meet the AAFCO Canine Nutrient Guidelines.
Yes, it’s true: Foods that have passed a six-month feeding trial might not meet the AAFCO minimums, because they have “proven” their nutritional adequacy by keeping a population of test dogs alive for a whole six months! In our opinion, it’s even more important to take a look at the complete nutrient analysis of a food that has met the “feeding trial” standard than a food that has met the “nutrient levels” standard.
We’ve discussed this many times in WDJ, but for the sake of our newer readers, let’s review how a pet food may earn the privilege of putting a notice on the label that alleges that the product provides “complete and balanced” nutrition for dogs.
There are two main ways that a food can qualify for this legally defined designation. We will call the first one “feeding trials” for short, and the second one “nutrient levels.”
√ Feeding trials: Look long and hard at the cans of dog food in your pantry; if you look hard enough (get out the reading glasses!) you will find a statement that references either “feeding trials” or “nutrient levels.” Feeding trials are just that: The food under study is fed to a population of dogs for a set period of time, and most (not all) of the dogs have to survive in reasonably good health. These trials are costly, but big companies, with deep pockets and a decades-long history and plan for the future, may spend a ton of money and a good bit of time putting their food to the test in feeding trials.
√ Nutrient level: If the company is smaller, new, or its plans more modest, it will likely try the second method for proving its products’ nutritional adequacy: the nutrient levels qualification. Essentially, this means the food is tested, all the nutrients in it are tallied, and the results are compared to a table of nutrient values that is accepted as “what dogs need” by pet food regulators in this country (there are other, slightly different tables of nutrient values used by pet food regulators in other countries).
This standard isn’t perfect, either. A food may contain all the nutrients it’s supposed to have, and yet be highly unpalatable – and if dogs won’t eat it, they certainly can’t benefit from it. Or, it may be palatable, but indigestible! Just because a dog eats it, doesn’t mean he can utilize all the nutrients in it.
In the best of all possible worlds, a food would qualify by a feeding trial and by meeting the AAFCO canine nutrient levels. But this is not a current regulatory requirement!
Make sure when you look for the statement of nutritional adequacy, you notice whether it references “adult maintenance” or “dogs of all life stages.” If the label references “dogs of all life stages” it is formulated to meet the higher nutrient levels required by puppies and pregnant or nursing moms.
2015 List
Below is our list of selection criteria – hallmarks of quality – that we use to identify products we would consider feeding to our dogs. We also list disqualifiers – traits that eliminate products from our consideration. You can use these criteria to analyze the ingredients list on the label of any food you’re considering feeding to your dog.
Starting on the facing page, we’ve listed brief descriptions of some companies that make foods that meet our selection criteria. These are listed alphabetically by the name of the company, not in any sort of rank order.
All of the foods you see on our list of approved foods are good – way better than what you’d typically find in discount or grocery stores. But it’s indisputable that some are better than others on the list. We like to give readers a range, because the availability of some of these foods is so limited in some markets and rural areas, and because some of these foods are wildly expensive – far beyond the means of many pet owners to feed on a daily basis – we’ve also included some that are more modestly priced.
If you don’t see the name of a food you’d expect to see on our approved foods list, make sure you are looking it up by the name of the company, which may be different from the name of the food. Also, check the list of companies (above) that wouldn’t disclose their manufacturing sites or who chose not to respond to our survey this year; those companies make some nice foods, but their lack of disclosure makes us uneasy.
Depending where you live, the foods on our “approved foods” list may be difficult to find; most are sold in independent pet supply stores, or high-quality “pet specialty chain stores.” Don’t forget that these foods are going to be far more expensive than any “grocery store” foods you may find; quality ingredients really do cost more than low-cost fillers like wheat gluten and animal by-products.
When we review dog foods, we generally ask the makers of those that meet our selection criteria some questions. This year, we asked this: “Do you have a complete nutrient analysis for each of your products? And if so, do you make it available upon request or is this information on your website?”
To be honest, we were very unhappy with most of the answers.
Most pet foods on the market – including all the ones we recommend – are what’s called “complete and balanced.” This means they have met the standards of the pet food regulators in this country for a diet that is formulated to provide everything a dog needs to survive and (one hopes) thrive.
But when we asked the makers of “complete and balanced” dog foods whether they have lab tests that show how much of each nutrient required by dogs is typically present in each of their formulas, very few of them had this information readily available!
Got that? “Feed our food, it contains everything your dog needs. . . but we can’t (or won’t) tell you exactly how much of each required nutrient it contains.”
We’ve charted the answers we got to our survey on page five of our November 2015 issue. The food companies appear in order of how good we feel about their responses.
At the top of the chart are the two companies we surveyed that post the complete nutrient analyses for all of their products on their websites. We admire and respect the professionalism and transparency.
Next are the companies that claimed to make their complete nutrient analyses available to consumers upon request, and who were able to follow up this claim by providing some samples of these analyses to us (some in a more timely manner than others). It became apparent that some of them ordered some analyses from their labs just to provide them to us – sweet, but in our opinion, these are something they should have in hand anyway.
Next are the companies that answered our survey by saying, straight up, that they do not make their nutrient analyses available to consumers. While we’d far prefer for a company in the business of making food to openly share information about the nutrients contained in their products, we have a measure of respect for the ones that were straightforward about this and had reasons for their policy. Each of the companies in this category claimed that, if need be, they could get whatever specific information about their food was needed to a consumer whose dog had a health problem and whose veterinarian needed the nutrient data. Let’s hope this is true.
Whether this is justified or not, we were more disappointed with the companies that answered our survey by saying blithely that they do make these analyses available to consumers upon request – but then, when asked to provide a couple of these analyses to us in order to verify their claim, couldn’t or wouldn’t produce the analyses. In some cases, we were left convinced that if they ever had the information, it certainly wasn’t available to the pet food company employees tasked with answering questions from us – or consumers – about specific nutrient levels in their products.
In a few cases, we found ourselves explaining to the pet food company employees who answered the phone (or email) exactly what a “complete nutrient analysis” is. This happened several times; in each case it was after the person sent us either a link to a web page or emailed us a document that contained guaranteed analyses for their products, as if they didn’t know the difference!
More Dog Food Information is Always Better
In case you don’t know the difference – as every pet food company employee should – the “guaranteed analysis” is that little box that appears (by federal law) on every pet food label and contains (at least) four things: the minimum amount of crude protein and crude fat in the food, and the maximum amount of fiber and moisture in the food. If pet food companies want to, they can put more nutrients in the guaranteed analysis (GA) box, but only those four macronutrients (protein, fat, fiber, moisture) are required there.
Whether the pet food company puts just the four required nutrients in the GA or lists a lot of nutrients, a nutrient’s presence in the box means that the pet food company is literally guaranteeing that those nutrients are present in those amounts. The information in a GA is subject to surveillance and enforcement; feed control officials in each state have the authority to run tests on the food and stop its sale (in that state) if anything in the GA is not accurate.
Keep in mind that pet food companies are not required to list any other nutrient amounts on their labels; only protein, fat, fiber, and water are considered to be useful for consumers to know in order to compare products and to judge which might be best for their dogs. But even though the amounts of vitamins and minerals present in “complete and balanced” foods may vary widely, you’d never know this from reading the label. As long as the foods met one of the two standards for a “complete and balanced diet,” they get to have that statement on their label, causing almost everyone to consider them as equivalent and interchangeable, even though they are far more variable than that.
There are many good reasons to investigate the “actual” or “typical” nutrient levels in your dog’s food, especially if he has any sort of health condition that can be affected by high or low levels of some nutrient, such as copper storage disease or anemia.
Some foods may contain very high levels of some nutrient or another – or, as is often the case if extremely high-fat foods, if the nutrients are reported on a caloric basis (corrected for energy density), they may actually fail to reach the minimum levels of many nutrients called for in the Canine Nutrient Guidelines from the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). This latter reason is why we also asked the companies for nutrient analyses “by calories” – in very high-fat foods, this may reveal nutrient levels that are below the AAFCO minimums.
Highly motivated owners can request complete nutrient analyses from the pet food companies – and avoid the companies that can’t deliver these.
The next step would be to compare the results received with the AAFCO nutrient guidelines (they can be found online). The next hurdle would be converting the “as fed” numbers that most companies report with AAFCO’s “dry matter” numbers – not exactly rocket science, but it helps to know your way around a calculator.
We will discuss how to do this in an upcoming issue; our dry food review appears in the February issue and we’d love to help you reach competence at this task (if you are interested) by then.
Earning the “Complete and Balanced” Title
Consumers should be aware that foods that have earned the appellation of “complete and balanced” via the “feeding trials” qualification – considered by many as the “gold standard” for achieving this status – may have a number of nutrient levels that don’t meet the AAFCO Canine Nutrient Guidelines.
Yes, it’s true: Foods that have passed a six-month feeding trial might not meet the AAFCO minimums, because they have “proven” their nutritional adequacy by keeping a population of test dogs alive for a whole six months! In our opinion, it’s even more important to take a look at the complete nutrient analysis of a food that has met the “feeding trial” standard than a food that has met the “nutrient levels” standard.
We’ve discussed this many times in WDJ, but for the sake of our newer readers, let’s review how a pet food may earn the privilege of putting a notice on the label that alleges that the product provides “complete and balanced” nutrition for dogs.
There are two main ways that a food can qualify for this legally defined designation. We will call the first one “feeding trials” for short, and the second one “nutrient levels.”
√ Feeding trials: Look long and hard at the cans of dog food in your pantry; if you look hard enough (get out the reading glasses!) you will find a statement that references either “feeding trials” or “nutrient levels.” Feeding trials are just that: The food under study is fed to a population of dogs for a set period of time, and most (not all) of the dogs have to survive in reasonably good health. These trials are costly, but big companies, with deep pockets and a decades-long history and plan for the future, may spend a ton of money and a good bit of time putting their food to the test in feeding trials.
√ Nutrient level: If the company is smaller, new, or its plans more modest, it will likely try the second method for proving its products’ nutritional adequacy: the nutrient levels qualification. Essentially, this means the food is tested, all the nutrients in it are tallied, and the results are compared to a table of nutrient values that is accepted as “what dogs need” by pet food regulators in this country (there are other, slightly different tables of nutrient values used by pet food regulators in other countries).
This standard isn’t perfect, either. A food may contain all the nutrients it’s supposed to have, and yet be highly unpalatable – and if dogs won’t eat it, they certainly can’t benefit from it. Or, it may be palatable, but indigestible! Just because a dog eats it, doesn’t mean he can utilize all the nutrients in it.
In the best of all possible worlds, a food would qualify by a feeding trial and by meeting the AAFCO canine nutrient levels. But this is not a current regulatory requirement!
Make sure when you look for the statement of nutritional adequacy, you notice whether it references “adult maintenance” or “dogs of all life stages.” If the label references “dogs of all life stages” it is formulated to meet the higher nutrient levels required by puppies and pregnant or nursing moms.
Below is our list of selection criteria – hallmarks of quality – that we use to identify products we would consider feeding to our dogs. We also list disqualifiers – traits that eliminate products from our consideration. You can use these criteria to analyze the ingredients list on the label of any food you’re considering feeding to your dog.
I had a hand in a “rehoming” event recently, and while it’s often framed as a failure when a dog is “given away,” in this case – as in so many – it was absolutely the best thing for the dog, his former owner, and his current owners.
As someone with a strong interest in training, I was confident that I could help Murphy’s owner train him into being a good dog. Murphy is the dog I wrote about in the October issue editorial; he moved into the house where I have my office with a friend who was seeking refuge from a traumatic divorce. Murphy had been rehomed badly several times in his short life already (he was just 10 months old), but this was not a great fit, either.
My friend already had one highly strung dog, and doesn’t have that much experience with training. While she found the Treeing Walker Coonhound to be gorgeous and affectionate, she wasn’t really prepared for a dog with such strong behaviors: he jumped all over people, he pulled on leash, was dramatically reactive to the sight of any other dog on walks, had such terrible manners when he met other dogs that he would invariably get “corrected” by the dog he was being so rude to, and was so aroused by contact with other dogs that he would respond immediately to another dog’s “Hey, back off, pal!” with aggression. He’s also a classic hunting coonhound – prone to “selective hearing” and following his nose off into the wild blue yonder if given the opportunity and in need of a ton of exercise.
He is also very motivated by and interested in humans. So much so that his mild separation anxiety had him pushing through screens and jumping out onto the second story roof of my house when his owner left for a few minutes on an errand (even though there was another dog in the home; as in many cases, the presence of another dog doesn’t usually solve true separation anxiety).
I worked with Murphy, took him out running for miles and miles with my dogs, and showed my friend how to work with him, too. He was making terrific progress: He learned not to jump on people, to ask permission to jump on the couch and to enter and exit through doors (by polite sitting), was already way better on leash, could be called away from the sight of other dogs, and was learning to greet other dogs much more calmly.
But my friend still found him to be overwhelming at times. One day, after a bad walk where everything went wrong, she admitted to me, sobbing, that he was just too much for her to handle and was complicating her life to an unbearable extent. I hadn’t previously heard her express anything other than her wish to make their relationship work out – and maybe she hadn’t said anything like that to me before out of fear of getting judged. But I actually think rehoming can be a HUGE favor to all parties sometimes – especially in a case like this, where the dog and the person are so mismatched (she’s a middle-aged, calm, quiet person, a massage therapist – not someone who enjoys exuberant baying of hounds!). He was likely going to be a trial for her for years – and was never going to be fully appreciated for exactly who he was. The only way he was going to make her happy is if almost everything about him changed, which was bound to be hard on him. They’d both be better off going their separate ways!
Fortunately, I know a GREAT hound rescue group, the American Black and Tan Coonhound Rescue (coonhoundrescue.com) and they were able to take him in. He spent a couple weeks at a dog daycare facility in a large, social group that included a lot of other hounds, and within a couple of weeks, much better socialized to the presence of other dogs, he was adopted by a couple who was looking for a dog exactly like him. Hurrahs all around.
When WDJ first reviewed dog food, back in 1998, there was but a handful of companies making what we considered good foods. Seriously, I stretched to find five companies that had products that contained only good-quality ingredients – and more importantly, didn’t contain unnamed animal fats and meat by-products. And just about every question I asked a pet food company was answered with, “I’m sorry that’s proprietary information!”
The industry has come such a long way since then. There are dozens and dozens of good foods on the market today – and not only are the makers of the best ones proud to tell us where their products are made, but also, many of them have invited me to tour their plants, meet their executives and the plant workers and managers, and some have even taken me to see their ingredient suppliers. This sort of openness with a consumer advocate/critic of the industry is meaningful.
And yet, in my view, pet food makers still have a long way to go to completely earn the trust of the most discerning and demanding dog owners. I was sort of horrified to discover that many of the companies whose products I consider top-of-the-line didn’t have information at their fingertips regarding the typical nutritional content of their products. How could that be?
A number of times, we’ve been asked why we we’re so demanding and critical of pet food makers, and whether we hold the makers of our own food to the same sort of standards we demand for dog food. Do we need to know the provenance of every ingredient in our breakfast cereal? Do we want to know how much of every single nutrient is present in our spaghetti sauce?
Well, no. But there is a significant difference between the diet of most dogs and most humans: We eat a wide variety of foods; our dogs eat whatever we feed them, and most people feed their dogs the same type of food every day. If our bodies are lacking certain nutrients, we can act on a craving for a food that can supply us with those nutrients; we deny dogs the same opportunity. If we eat a diet that makes us feel unwell, we can at least explain to a doctor what we’ve eaten and how we feel, and she can most likely determine what the problem is.
In contrast, veterinarians are often educated to believe that all foods that are labeled as “complete and balanced” are nutritionally equivalent, even though the nutrient values for foods of a similar type are all over the place.
In my view, if a dog receives only one type of food every day, day in and day out, it had better truly be “complete and balanced,” containing appropriate amounts of the nutrients dogs need – not too little and not too much. The only way to determine this is to ask, “How much of all these nutrients actually are in your foods?” Lacking a prompt and confident answer in the form of the immediate delivery of a typical nutrient analysis, I wouldn’t recommend feeding a single product, or even a single company’s product. Personally, I’d try to hedge my bets and achieve some amount of “balance over time” by switching my dogs from one company’s foods to another with each and every can and bag.
Truly, it’s an exciting time to watch the pet food industry. The investment in innovation and quality control has never been higher, and I increasingly meet well-educated, passionate people who seem truly committed to producing safe, superior foods. I hope they will help lead the industry toward greater transparency in formulation, ingredient sourcing, testing, and more.
Fact or fiction: “If a family member brings the dog my baby’s blanket ahead of time, so he can get used to the smell of the baby, they will be fine together.”
This is perhaps one of the most widely disseminated pieces of advice that’s doled out by well-meaning friends and family members, and even professionals across the board from dog trainers to birthing experts. Shryock says it can’t hurt, but there’s a danger in thinking it’s the end-all, be-all of advice. She likes to quote a colleague who sums up the situation by saying, “If you were to come visit me, I wouldn’t ask you to send your underwear ahead of time so my dogs could get to know you …”
Yes, scent can be a valuable way to provide information to a dog, but how the information is presented is just as important. Many people enthusiastically show the dog the blanket, getting the dog overly excited and creating a heightened introduction. If dad has been visiting the baby and coming home to the dog, he’s already introduced the baby’s scent without needing to parade the blanket around.
Where the blanket can be especially useful is when the dog is staying with a friend or family members for a few days. In that case, the caretaker can help condition a positive association with the baby’s scent through short training sessions where he feeds the dog treats with the blanket nearby.
“A lot of people put a lot of stock in the idea that, if their dog doesn’t growl or react funny to the blanket, everything will be okay,” Shryock says. This can create a false sense of security. “It’s just not that simple.”
First comes love, then comes marriage … And a dog! For many couples, starting a family means sharing their lives with a dog before the decision to have kids. Later, with a positive pregnancy test in hand, many dog owners worry about how their “first baby” will accept the “new baby.”
From a trainer’s perspective, it’s not so much about whether or not the dog will “accept” the baby, but rather, how well the dog will adjust to the major change in the household. The good news is that babies generally come with months of lead time, giving expectant parents plenty of time to help prepare their dog for the upcoming transition.
“The transition from being pet parents to parenting with pets can be challenging, and there are a lot of unexpected bumps along the way,” says Jennifer Shryock of Family Paws® Parent Education in Cary, North Carolina. Her business specializes in resources specifically geared toward dog-owning households with babies and toddlers. The two main programs, “Dogs and Storks” and “Dogs and Toddlers” are available to families through a worldwide network of more than 200 licensed presenters.
Shryock, a mother herself, first developed the Dogs and Storks program in 2002 after volunteering with her local German Shepherd Rescue and fielding a huge number of calls from people looking to surrender a dog. Often, it was because they were going to have a baby, or because an incident – a growl or bite – had already occurred with a child in the home. At the time, there weren’t many resources available that took an in-depth look at preparing and helping the family dog to successfully live with kids.
While there’s considerably more information available today, the trick is convincing people to utilize it ahead of time. “Unfortunately, families aren’t reaching out as much as we’d like before an incident. Most people still reach out for help after an incident occurs,” Shryock says. “That’s a pattern we’d like to see change.”
It’s imperative that homes with dogs who exhibit fear or aggression toward people, especially children, contact a qualified trainer who can help evaluate the situation and develop a training plan designed to keep everyone safe, while minimizing the dog’s anxiety. But even the most easygoing dogs and their owners will benefit from some thoughtful pre-baby preparation. Here are some things you can do to help ready your dog for the big change to come.
Brush up on training
As soon as you know you’re expecting, take a good look at your dog’s obedience skills, and set a plan for modifying any undesirable behaviors. It’s important to start as soon as possible, as these often well-rehearsed behaviors don’t go away overnight. Helping a dog successfully change his behavior typically requires a behavior change on your part, too.
For example, a common complaint among pet owners – that suddenly reaches a new level of importance when the family is expecting – is the dog who jumps on people as they enter the home. This might be the owners themselves, visitors, or both. A trainer might offer several approaches to this problem:
Asking the owner to put a leash on the dog and reward him generously for keeping four feet on the floor as people enter.
Teaching the dog to hold a down-stay on his bed nearby.
Asking the dog to “sit” and petting the dog only when his butt is on the floor. If he jumps up, he becomes invisible.
Teaching the dog to retrieve a toy when people enter the home, giving him something else to do, and moving him away from the entry point.
Scattering a handful of kibble on the floor to assign the dog a task (vacuuming up kibble, often called a “Find it!” game) that is incompatible with jumping up.
Manage the situation by securing the dog behind a baby gate, in a crate or pen away from the entryway, or in the backyard.
Unfortunately, any potential solutions will fail if an owner lacks consistency and the dog is frequently allowed to rehearse the unwanted behavior. It’s not realistic to expect a 3-year-old dog who has been jumping on people since puppyhood to completely and reliably stop defaulting to this behavior in two weeks – you might not even fix it in two months.
Remember that changing one’s daily behavior is difficult. Yes, it’s hard to remember to always put a leash on the dog (or implement another strategy) on the way to answering the door – but it’s equally as difficult for your dog to give up the jumping habit, especially since it’s likely to have been reinforced by attention of some sort. (Even yelling “Down!” is giving the dog attention – which is usually what he’s after when he jumps up.) Start training as soon as possible, practice often (in the case of jumping, be willing to invite understanding friends and family over to help you), and be patient. Remember, the more time you invest in this training, the smoother the transition will be from pet parent to parenting with pets.
The following are the top skills to master before the baby arrives:
1. Separation.
Proper management is key, says Shryock. Teaching a dog to be relaxed behind a baby gate in another room is a wonderful way to help create a harmonious household with two- and four-legged babies. This type of management gives everyone a break from actively supervising the dog while attending to the baby or receiving guests, and later can provide a “safe space” for a dog as the baby becomes mobile.
“It has to be an early priority,” Shryock says. “We all need a break – the dogs do, too. Waiting until the baby is 8 months old and crawling – that’s not the time to suddenly discover that the dog can’t be comfortably left alone in another room.”
The ability to be calmly separated from the family is a skill that doesn’t come naturally to many dogs. Dogs want to be near those to whom they are bonded. Even dogs who are successfully crate-trained might associate the crate only with sleeping and as a place to stay when the humans leave the house. That’s different, in the dog’s mind, from accepting the crate as a place to rest when the family is home and awake. Teaching a dog to stay behind a baby gate is a nice alternative to a crate, especially for potentially longer stretches of time, as it gives the dog more space to move around.
“I wish this was standard practice for all dogs to learn,” says Shryock, noting that she’s encountered many families for whom this behavior would have likely prevented the family from ultimately deciding to rehome the dog.
2. “On your spot” or “place.”
This behavior is useful in any home with a dog, but teaching a dog to reliably go to his bed – and stay there until released – can be especially helpful in homes with newborns. I recommend having multiple spots for ease of access. When a dog can calmly stay on his spot in the living room, he can enjoy calm integration with the family, even when visitors are present. A spot in the nursery offers a similar rest area for the dog that keeps him out from underfoot. Having another spot in your bedroom provides an alternate sleeping arrangement for the dog when you’re nursing the baby in the middle of the night and don’t want him on the bed.
3. Prompt name recognition.
One of the best ways to ensure that a dog responds to a known cue is to make sure you have the dog’s attention when you deliver the cue. Teach your dog to quickly orient himself to you when he hears his name!
This is also a useful way to help divert potential mischief. Imagine that your dog is cruising around the nursery, about to stick his head in the diaper pail. Or maybe he’s headed for the baby swing and you don’t want him to lick the baby. In both cases, you can use his name in a positive-sounding voice to reorient his attention so that you can redirect his energy to a more desirable behavior.
4. Fluent “sit” or “down.”
Does your dog know how to sit or lie down? How well does he know these behaviors? What does “He knows it” mean to you? To be “fluent” in a behavior means that the dog consistently responds to the cue quickly, without the aid of lures (food, toys) or prompts (touching the dog, etc.), and can do so even in the face of distractions and in a variety of settings. Many dogs sit like rock stars in the kitchen when it’s time for dinner, or whenever the owner is holding a treat, but struggle in other settings.
“That can be really tricky for many families, but it’s so important,” Shryock says. “When a new parent is sitting on the couch and can say, ‘sit’ or ‘down’ and their dog can do it … that means so much to families when they’re holding a newborn. It’s definitely worth fine-tuning this behavior.”
5. Touch.
Teaching a dog to touch his nose to your open palm has several useful applications. Many trainers use “touch” as the foundation for a solid, come-when-called behavior. Some people teach the dog to hold the position in order to “station” the dog during grooming or other husbandry behaviors. In a home with a newborn, Shryock says “touch” is a useful way to move the dog around the room. When a dog learns to love this targeting behavior, a clever parent can use it to cooperatively guide the dog from place to place without having to potentially nag or forcefully move the dog.
6. Safe leash walking.
Walking politely on a loose leash is a difficult behavior for dogs to master because it almost always requires them to walk more slowly than their natural pace. Add that to the fact that it’s a behavior we typically ask dogs to perform for long periods of time, and under constant environmental distractions, and it’s no wonder we see so many dogs travelling through life on a tight leash!
That said, for safety reasons, it’s important that dogs learn not to pull expectant mothers. This is especially important when the dog is prone to lunging at things in the environment, whether from excitement or arousal/aggression. The more comfortable you are with your dog’s leash-walking skills, the more likely you will feel motivated to continue walking him after the baby arrives. Let’s face it, it’s sometimes hard to get excited about walking an unruly dog on a good day when you’ve had a full night’s sleep. Now imagine motivating yourself to walk the dog when you’re on two hours of sleep and under-caffeinated since you’re limiting your coffee intake while breast-feeding!
Many expectant parents worry about the possibility of injury to mom or baby in the event that the dog pulls mom off balance. For this reason, I often recommend that expectant parents teach their dogs to comfortably wear a head halter or front-clip harness to help physically manage the dog while working on polite leash walking, and as a bit of added protection for mom. This is especially helpful in cases of big, strong dogs and petite handlers. It can also make it easier for other people to walk the dog after the baby arrives, when friends and family want to know what they can do to help.
Once your dog can consistently walk politely, it’s time to introduce the stroller if you plan to walk the dog with the baby. To be fair to the dog, begin by introducing the stroller as a stationary object, and reward your dog for his calm investigation of the baby’s future ride. Gradually introduce the slight movement of the stroller near the dog. Avoid rolling it at the dog – we don’t want him to think the stroller is chasing him. Always give your dog the option to move away from the stroller if he’s uncomfortable. Over time, and only progressing to the next step when your dog is happily engaged in the previous step, work up to short leashed walks with the empty stroller.
Be sure to reward generously to help keep the dog walking alongside you and the stroller while maintaining a loose leash. Always use your best judgment when deciding if you can safely manage a stroller and a dog at the same time, or if walks should become a “family outing” where one person pushes the stroller and another handles the dog.
A word of caution: If your dog is prone to extreme arousal or aggressive outbursts while on walks, please do not single-handedly attempt to walk the baby and your dog. Dogs who struggle with reactivity need your full attention when out in public, and it’s impossible to do this safely while also being responsible for your baby.
Practice Early & Often
With all of these behaviors, the best advice is to start training as soon as possible. Most of us have dogs who exhibit a least a couple of behaviors we aren’t fond of, but that we begrudgingly put up with, often because tolerating the behavior feels easier than investing the time to implement training solutions. But these same behaviors often seem like potential deal breakers once the baby arrives; not addressing them ahead of time leads to unnecessary stress for everyone. as Shryock says, “So many dog-human relationships go south right there, because the second they bring the baby home, so many of the interactions become about yelling at the dog and it becomes really hard.”
Expect the unexpected changes to your dog’s routine
If your dog is used to a predictable feeding schedule, it’s wise to start mixing things up now. The arrival of a newborn often signals the start of sleepless nights and frequent visitors, which can easily throw everyone’s – including the dog’s – schedule out of whack.
Start small, by varying mealtimes within a short 30-minute window, and consider working up to feeding within the span of as long as three hours. Ideally, you want your dog to trust that his daily sustenance is coming, even though he can’t predict when. This way, he’s less likely to exhibit attention-seeking behaviors when his internal body clock says it’s time to eat. For this reason, many trainers recommend never feeding a dog on a deliberate schedule once they are past the puppy stage where a strict feeding schedule helps with housetraining.
If your dog routinely “demands” to be taken for a walk every evening at 6:30 sharp, consider a similar routine jumble, walking some days at 5 p.m. and others at 9 p.m. You may even go so far as to skip the walk occasionally and substitute a good mental enrichment activity instead. (Serving his dinner from a frozen food-stuffed Kong or kibble scattered throughout the yard are two useful alternatives.)
It’s important that your dog continue to have his exercise needs met, but even the best-laid plans will fall short from time to time as parents adjust to new sleep schedules and the reality of caring for a tiny human. Helping your dog adjust to a less predictable schedule before the baby arrives can help reduce his stress level as he adapts to this life-changing event.
Rule Changes?
Does your dog sleep on your bed? Might this rule change once the baby arrives? Should it? (If your dog ever displays “cranky” or aggressive behavior while on the bed, we’d advise nixing that privilege and contacting a trainer for additional support.) Take the time to discuss the options with your spouse and decide what you think will work for your family.
For example, if your dog is used to sleeping between the two of you, and you now want him to sleep on his blanket at the foot of the bed, start this training as early as possible. Realistically, there might also be times where you don’t want the dog on the bed, so make sure to practice having him sleep on a dog bed on the floor nearby, in a crate, or in another room.
Ideally, your dog will learn to be flexible with his sleeping arrangements. Most importantly, don’t just assume that your dog will go with the flow and accommodate the sudden change once the baby arrives. Create specific training situations that simulate you being distracted by something interesting in order to practice having him stay at the foot of the bed or on his bed on the floor while you attend to your activity, and later, the baby.
What about the baby’s room? Will your dog be allowed to accompany you into the nursery, or will you prefer that he wait by the door? Teaching a reliable “place” behavior is a nice compromise for many families. When your dog knows to hold a relaxed down-stay on his bed, a bed in the nursery becomes a comfortable hang-out spot. Be sure to practice this behavior often – in the nursery – even if his bed stays are stellar in other rooms. Dogs can be slow to generalize behaviors, so a dog with a great “place” behavior in the living room while you watch television might not immediately have a solid “place” behavior in the nursery when you’re busy with the baby and the scent of a ripe diaper pail is wafting nearby.
If you prefer that your dog stay out of the nursery, install a baby gate to simplify compliance with the new house rule. This is especially useful for a room where your dog has historically had access. Even the most athletic dogs can be taught to respect a baby gate.
Set up training sessions where you reward your dog for being on one side of the gate (with tasty treats or a food-stuffed Kong toy) while you’re in the nursery. Practice often, long before the baby arrives, and keep a tin of kibble or non-perishable dog treats in the nursery to continue to reinforce desired behaviors once the baby arrives. Maintaining a high rate of reinforcement not only supports your training, but can also help condition a positive association with the baby, since the rewards often come when the baby is nearby.
What’s That Smell?
Babies often smell like the products we put on them. To help lessen the dog’s natural curiosity in the baby, many trainers recommend habituating the dog to some of the most common odors (baby powder, diaper rash cream, baby lotion, etc.) ahead of time.
To do this, put a small amount of one product on a rag and leave it (out of reach) near the dog’s sleeping area for a couple of days. Take a day off between odors, but randomly work your way through all of the assorted products. The idea is for the dog’s interest in the novel odors to wane as they become an increasingly common part of the everyday environment. (It reminds me of how, when I first started teaching group dog training classes, my own dogs would give me a thorough sniff-down every time I came home. After a while, they got used to me smelling like I was “stepping out” on them, and the olfactory interrogation ceased!)
What’s All That Noise?!
Babies make a lot of noise! The sometimes seemingly endless wails emanating from an unhappy baby can easily stress the calmest of dogs (and humans!). Desensitizing your dog to baby sounds can help him stay relaxed when the baby is fussy and everyone is likely to be feeling the effects.
There are CDs and on-line sources (such as findsounds.com) of assorted baby noises ranging from baby babble to full-fledged wailing. To start, turn the volume all the way down and begin to slowly turn it up, watching for the first sign that your dog hears something. You’ll likely see an ear twitch, or maybe he’ll cock his head, but it shouldn’t be loud enough to cause any concern.
Let the sound play while you feed treats, while he eats a meal, or while you play his favorite game, and sometimes leave it on as simple background noise. After a couple of days, repeat the process at a slightly louder volume, slowly working the volume up to a more realistic level. As you progress, if your dog looks at all concerned, you’ve gone too far; lower the volume back to the level where he appeared not to care.
Plan for the Big Day
As the anticipated due date (or scheduled C-section) approaches and you pack your hospital bag, decide who will take care of the dog, and plan accordingly. Designate a person whose job is to look after the dog, either house-sitting in your home or taking the dog to her house for a few days. Make these arrangements well in advance, as babies are known to arrive early. The last thing you want to deal with in the heat of the moment is trying to remember if your dog sitter has a key!
The Happy Homecoming
When mom and baby come home for the first time, remember that the dog will likely be most excited to see mom. She should reunite with the dog first, without the baby, to help lower everyone’s stress levels and make sure everyone feels like they get to enjoy a proper greeting.
Your dog will likely be curious about the baby, and it’s fine to let them “meet” by allowing the dog to sniff (or briefly lick, if you’re comfortable with that) the baby’s feet. This should only be done under direct adult supervision.
We recommend letting the dog sniff the baby’s feet, rather than the baby’s face – not as a way of making the dog subordinate to the baby (be wary of trainers who recommend making the baby “alpha” over the dog), but as a responsible safety precaution. All dogs have teeth and it’s good practice to routinely keep those teeth away from your baby’s face, in favor of safer interactions, which will change as your baby grows.
Important: If your dog does not willingly investigate the baby, don’t force the issue! Let him acclimate at a pace that’s comfortable for him.
The Road Forward
As the family settles in to its new dynamic, there will be several things to consider. Many dogs are comfortable sharing space with a newborn, but quickly become concerned when the baby starts to crawl, and later walk. The baby’s newfound mobility means she can follow the dog, potentially invading his personal space. The increased coordination that accompanies mobility also signals the opportunity for the infant or toddler to interact with the dog in ways he’s not used to. Try as they might, infants and toddlers don’t pet dogs like more experienced adults do.
Parents must be sure to teach both species how to properly interact with each other. Take the time to thoroughly learn about dog body language in order to recognize the subtle signs of annoyance or discomfort that often go overlooked in seemingly innocent interactions between dogs and kids of all ages.
Most importantly, they must supervise every interaction. Shryock says a lack of awake, adult supervision is the most common mistake families make.
“People don’t take supervision as seriously as they need to,” she explains. “We are living in a distracted world, and people easily forget that when you’re looking at your phone, it’s easy to get engrossed in something. If your baby is crawling on the floor, and the dogs are around the corner, that can really become a problem quickly.”
Awake, adult supervision is not just about setting down the iPad. Parents must understand that lack of sleep or medication can negatively affect their ability to provide proper supervision. This is when employing a management strategy such as separating the dog behind a baby gate becomes so important. “Lack of proper supervision is where a lot of people make mistakes that really are preventable,” Shryock says.
Everyone makes parenting mistakes along the way, whether they are parenting a dog, a child or both. Knowledge is power. The more we know, the better prepared we are to handle issues as they arise – and they will! “It’s really important that this is ongoing education for families,” says Shryock. “Babies grow and dogs age, and we have to continue adjusting with every stage.”
To reach Jennifer Shryock or the Family Paws Parent Education, see familypaws.com or call (877) 247-3407.
Cold therapy reduces inflammation, decreases pain, and reduces swelling, and is used for acute injuries, chronic arthritis, or inflammation. Apply no longer than 20 minutes; you don’t want to freeze the skin. You can use cold packs up to five times per day. Use a thin cloth between the cold pack and skin.
To make your own cold packs, take a Ziploc bag and add 2/3 cup water and 1/3 cup of isopropyl alcohol. Seal bag, place in a second bag, and put in freezer. This will turn to slush, which will easily conform to your dog’s body. Alternatively, wet a towel and put in freezer to freeze. Take it out, place it in a plastic bag, and wrap it around an affected limb.
When to apply cold packs:
✓ Swollen or inflamed joints. (Move your hands over your dog and feel the temperature of the skin. You will be able to feel heat over areas that are inflamed.)
✓ Muscle spasms.
HEAT PACKS
Heat creates vasodilation and increases nutrient and oxygen delivery to tissues, which aids in the repair process. Heat helps the muscles relax, is considered soothing, and can improve range of motion. Apply for 15 to 20 minutes.
To make your own heat packs, soak a small towel in hot water and then place it in a plastic bag. Lay a thin cloth or towel over the dog, and apply the warm pack. Alternatively, wet a towel and heat briefly in a microwave (the time will vary depending on the power of your microwave). After making sure that no spot in the towel is too hot, put a thin cloth on the affected area on the dog and apply the towel over the cloth.
When to use heat packs:
✓ After any swelling has subsided, use heat for stiffness.
✓ Use before stretching limbs or going for a walk. This aids with tissue elongation, helping to improve your dog’s gait and range of motion.
HOT AND COLD TOGETHER
Applying a hot or warm pack for 15 minutes and then placing a cold pack for 15 minutes stimulates a flushing action. Warmth causes vasodilation, bringing more blood to the site. Then the cold causes vasoconstriction, sending the blood away, taking with it toxins and creating a flushing effect.
Use diet and exercise to take extra weight off your dog.
Maintain exercise but change long walks to more frequent, shorter walks.
Consider nutrition. Foods that help with arthritis are papaya, alfalfa, celery, and ginger.
Raising water and food bowls can reduce strain in the neck or back of an arthritic dog; some arthritic dogs may not eat or drink as much as they should without this sort of accommodation. Note, however, that raised bowls are contraindicated for dogs who are prone to bloat. Ask your veterinarian whether your dog is at risk for bloat.
Put carpet runners on hardwood floors. Try to prevent your dog from slipping, as this creates unwanted stress on the entire body.
Provide a soft, supportive bed.
Keep nails trimmed. If nails are too long they can change the gait on the dog, causing skeletal changes and arthritis in the foot/toes.
Use a ramp where needed (for helping your dog get in and out of the car, on to your bed or sofa, etc.). This will reduce strain on his knees and hips.
If your dog is having trouble getting up or walking on his own, check out slings, rear-end harnesses, wheelchairs, or carts to help keep him moving.
Consider physical, laser, and massage therapy, acu-puncture, and supplements. All or a combination of these will improve the quality of your arthritic dog’s life.
DON’T:
Self-diagnose.
Force an exercise regimen that your dog is not comfortable with.
Try any stretching of limbs without being properly trained.
Discontinue exercise. A certain amount of exercise remains important for your arthritic dog; it is necessary to help maintain muscle strength and mobility.
Ignore your dog’s extra weight. Your dog will feel so much better after taking that extra burden off sore joints.
Ignore sliding or falling. Don’t underestimate how damaging continual sliding and falling can be on the arthritic dog’s body.
There are many wonderful complementary treatments for dogs with Osteoarthritis (OA). None will cure or heal the arthritic joint, but a combination of treatments can very well restore vitality and decrease discomfort, making a happy walk in the park a reality once again.
Omega-3 fatty acids, glucosamine and chondroitin, and avocado and soybean unsaponifiables (ASU) can all work to slow joint degeneration. The combination of these over several months can improve function and decrease pain. Can also be used as preventive.
Turmeric and curcumin together are a potent anti-inflammatory. See “Spice It Up!” WDJ December 2014 for more about what type to buy and how much to give.
Adequan is a synthetic, injectable medication, available by veterinary prescription only. It’s thought to help increase the viscosity of the synovial fluid, which acts as the lubricant in a joint. It may be administered subcutaneously or intramuscularly. One school of thought is that the earlier Adequan is administered, the better it will modulate the arthritic progression.
Hydrotherapy is ideal for arthritic dogs. The buoyancy of the water takes weight off the joints, allowing movement without pain and building strength in muscles that otherwise may become atrophied.
Acupuncture is widely accepted by conventional veterinary practitioners, as it is highly effective at reducing pain and the heat that goes along with inflammation. Many dogs relax and fall asleep during treatment and there can be a noticeable improvement in function.
Laser therapy can penetrate deeply, down to a cellular level, depending on the type of laser used. At its most powerful, it exponentially increases circulation and works to repair damaged tissue. It is a highly effective pain and inflammation reducer.
Practiced under the supervision of a veterinarian and/or physical therapist at canine rehabilitation facilities, strength-building, balance, and conditioning exercises are the ultimate in helping your arthritic friend.
Conventional veterinary treatments include NSAIDS and steroids. These can be highly effective, but given in high doses or for long periods of time, they can cause serious side effects. Consider these as “heavy artillery” and reserve their use for severe cases and when none of the gentler therapies can relieve your dog’s pain. Also, make sure you and your veterinarian follow through with regular blood tests, to monitor whether the drugs are compromising your dog’s liver function.
Don’t forget massage therapy! It can provide relief and improves the healing of soft tissues that are irritated or inflamed, breaks up scar tissue that may form around arthritic joints, relieves stiffness, and promotes better flexibility and range of motion.
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?”
