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Summer Guests

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The past two months have been crowded with guest dogs while everybody I know has gone on vacation. Boy, have I had ample opportunities to learn about breeds of dogs that I’m unfamiliar with – as well as the health and behavior “baggage” that each dog brought along.

Ginger is a huggable Rottweiler who came to stay for a week. She suffers from disco-spondylitis, which causes her serious pain when she runs and plays. She has to take two gigantic antibiotic capsules three times a day, and Rimadyl when she’s really sore.

She hates taking these pills, and because she’s taken them for months already, she’s hip to every pill-giving method. I tried giving her 20 different tasty treats and she turned down every one, even – without any pills hidden in them. So you just have to pry open her powerful jaws and get the pills down as far as you can.

I felt horrible about this all week. I rewarded her with games and hugs for every pill she swallowed, but it didn’t make difference. I was amazed at her good nature; if I was her, I would bite anyone who tried to give me a pill. Ginger just looked sad.

I spoke to Ginger’s guardians about looking into complementary healthcare – herbs, acupuncture, chiropractic? They are somewhat weary, and leery of spending even more money. I’ll work on them when I can.

Ginger’s visit overlapped with Cooper, my father-in-law’s Australian Shepherd. He’s been here before and knows the ropes: how to stay out of the way of my dog, Rupert; how to jump on the trampoline for super-fun play; and how to look at the camera to earn cookies.

Holly, a well-mannered hound-cross, came for just a couple of nights. Her guardians got her from a shelter, and were told she was about four years old. I’m guessing nine or more, judging from her cloudy eyes, yellow teeth, gray muzzle, well established cellulite deposits, and slow, dignified gaits. Should I tell them?

Carly, a mixed breed, lives next door, but she’s often here. If not, she’s home alone and barks all day. She’s the only dog that Rupert has ever liked, so she’s welcome anytime.

Now we’ve got tiny Mocha, a year-old long-haired Chihuahua. He belongs to my sister and her family, who are spending the summer on a boat. They’ve taken other dogs sailing in the past, but Mocha’s unrelenting exercise requirements and propensity for chewing got him kicked off the boat (not literally!). He and my 10-year-old son will be a tough pair to separate come fall.

And, of course, Rupie. He clearly thinks I’ve lost my mind, letting all these dogs in here. But we’re all going out of our way to let him know he’s the best dog, the top dog, the only dog ever allowed under my desk.

Improving the Dog/Human Relationship

Weddings always make me cry. I like to believe that’s because it touches the part of my heart that cherishes my own husband and our hard-won 15 years of marriage (so far!), but, knowing how hard it is to make relationships work and how easily they can fail, I wonder sometimes if at least a few of my tears are bittersweet. It’s human nature to predict the likely success or failure of a marriage, especially when a friend seems to have made an unwise choice of a life partner.

I often find myself mentally doing the same crystal ball exercise when a new client enters my training center with a seemingly mismatched canine companion. Sometimes I see right away that we are really going to have our work cut out for us. However, I really don’t ever despair; relationship miracles can, and do, happen. Seemingly misfit human/canine matches can grow into solid partnerships . . . as long as the partners have a few things going for them – the major components of a good relationship, the kind that’s built to last.

Different trainers may have other ideas, but the following are what I would consider required elements of a happy, ’til-death-do-us-part sort of relationship.

1: Trust
Just as with human partners, a dog/human relationship can’t thrive if either party lives in fear of the other. Dogs whose owners have reason to be afraid of them tend to have short life spans. If your dog scares you, seek immediate guidance from a positive trainer who has lots of experience, confidence, and success in dealing with aggressive dogs. (See “Once Bitten,” April 2002, for more information on aggression.)

If, however, your dog is fearful of you, it’s also unlikely that you will enjoy each others’ company very much, either in public or in your home. Training proceeds much more slowly when a dog is too scared to hear or understand your communications, to offer new behaviors, or even be near you.

If you have a fearful dog, you’ll have to work to earn his trust, through building a long history of positive interactions (which we’ll discuss). But you will also have to work hard to avoid damaging his developing trust; the use of force- or intimidation-based tactics is likely to make a cautious dog more frightened and quickly erase whatever progress you have made through your positive efforts.

2: High occurrence of positive reinforcement
John Gottman, Ph.D., a psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle has studied marriage for the last 20 years. A pioneer in the use of videotape to monitor and then quantify various aspects of the human couples’ interactions, Dr. Gottman has identified relationship and communication factors that can predict – with 91 percent accuracy, he says – whether or not the couple will divorce.

According to Gottman, the most important predictor of long-term relationship success is the ratio of positive to negative interactions. If the ratio falls below 5 – 1 (five positive interactions to every one negative interaction) the marriage is bound to fail.

What does this have to do with dogs? Positive trainers, too, have found that dogs respond magnificently to training that utilizes a high rate of positive reinforcement. The more frequently you notice your dog’s good behaviors, and reward him with something he enjoys, the more frequently he will repeat those behaviors.

Remember, you have to be able to identify and make use of the things your dog likes or wants in order to truly “reward” or reinforce his good behavior. As we discussed in detail in “Just Rewards” (March 2002), patting a dog who does not like being patted is a punishment for him, rather than the kindly reward you may have intended it to be.

Positive trainers often rely on an abundant supply of extra-delicious food treats, because most dogs enjoy food. But anything the dog values can be used as a positive reinforcement for good behavior, thus creating another one of Dr. Gottman’s recommended “positive interactions.”

If you can figure out what your dog likes, control his access to these resources and then mete them out generously at appropriate times – when you want to reinforce good behavior or give him a more positive outlook on his surroundings – he will quickly learn to offer the behaviors you want more frequently. (For more information about how to put this principle into practice, see sidebar, “More on Motivation.”)

As an added bonus for doling out frequent rewards at appropriate times, your dog will associate you with all those good things, which will cause him to like being around you even more, pay more attention to you, and even anticipate your wishes – because that makes even more good stuff happen. Who doesn’t want that in a relationship?

3: Clear, frequent communication
I know that dogs can’t speak our language. What do I mean by communication?

When dogs receive unambiguous signals, and are consistently rewarded for correctly interpreting those signals and following through with the desired behavior, communication has clearly occurred. The more frequently this happens between dog and human, the better.

Jean Donaldson is an internationally known trainer, author of best-selling books The Culture Clash and Dogs Are From Neptune, and training director of the San Francisco SPCA. Donaldson once conducted a video study similar to Dr. Gottman’s study of human couples, only in her research, Donaldson turned the camera on trainers working with dogs, and dog owners training their own dogs. She found that, on average, trainers communicate with their canine pupils – either giving a cue or giving the dog a reinforcing marker and reward – more than three times as frequently as the average dog owner communicates with his or her dog.

Like children, co-workers, spouses, and (according to many reports) even houseplants, dogs do best with people who communicate with them. After all, they are pack animals with strong social instincts. They are most apt to respond to humans with whom they are familiar and comfortable, and whose communications they can understand.

4: Consistency
One of the most common behavior complaints of new Peaceable Paws clients (the human ones) is that their dogs jump up on them. Yet almost invariably I observe the new client telling her dog “Off!” (or worse, “Down”) one minute when he jumps up on her, and then mindlessly petting him for the exact same behavior the next minute. One of the most common behavior complaints of my new canine clients might well be their humans’ lack of consistency: “Well, darn it all, is it okay for me to jump up or not?!”

While it’s unfortunate that the owner’s inconsistency results in a poorly mannered dog who persists in jumping up because the behavior pays off frequently enough to make it worthwhile, the fallout is far worse than that. The lack of consistency that encourages the dog’s persistent jumping up (or any other unwanted behavior that is randomly reinforced) can cause serious damage to the relationship – on both sides.

The owner likes her dog less because of her perception that the dog doesn’t do what she says. Frustration rises, and she is more likely to resort to trust-damaging punishment-based techniques when the dog continues to “ignore” or “defy” her. The dog learns to look upon his irrational owner with mistrust and perhaps fear, maybe even becoming aggressive when the behavior that was rewarded yesterday is met today with anger and a hurtful knee in the chest.

On the other hand, consistent responses to a dog’s behaviors, both desirable and undesirable, are predictable for the dog, which helps him make sense of his world and feel safe. A dog whose world is orderly and safe is usually calmer, more relaxed, predictable, and better-behaved than one whose world is chaotic and intimidating. Dogs and owners who perceive each other as safe, predictable, and well-behaved, tend to enjoy a better mutual relationship.

5: Understanding of and accommodation to the dog’s personality, needs, and interests
Many people believe that some dogs are “eager to please.” In fact, all dogs are eager to please . . . themselves. It just so happens that some dogs enjoy doing the things that please us, giving rise to the pervasive misconception that they are turning themselves inside out to make us happy.

These mislabeled “eager-to-please” dogs are often the breeds that have been selectively bred for their ability to work closely with humans, such as the sporting, herding, and some of the working breeds. They tend to look to us for direction, which pleases us, and they generally enjoy praise and petting, which we tend naturally to offer as a reward for good behavior. What a happy fit!

Other breeds – terriers and hounds, for example – have been highly valued for their ability to work without close supervision – careening over hill and dale after foxes, raccoons, rabbits, and deer, or burrowing after varmints – all with a single-minded purpose that excludes the need for human direction or reinforcement. If anything, the presence of humans is often a hindrance to the mission, as those two-legged pack members have a bothersome habit of getting in the way and calling off the hunt just when things are getting exciting.

These dogs, like our two-year-old Scottish Terrier, Dubhy (prounounced Duffy), require more creativity and imagination to keep the training game fun, as we try to build relationship, willingness, and motivation to work – all in the quest for a well-mannered dog. It’s my job to work with and adapt to his interests and preferences if I want to end up with an enthusiastic training partner.

However, he constantly tests my positive training theories and creativity as I attempt, with varying degrees of success, to convince him that he wants to work with me – that fetching a ball, coming when called, or doing a down-stay is as much fun as harassing the blue-tailed skink that he has trapped in a crack between two boards of the back deck. But it would be unreasonable – and a recipe for failure – to expect him to adjust his interests in life to mine.

6: Ample quality time spent together in mutually enjoyable activities
My students often ask how much time they should spend each day training their dogs. My answer is a non-specific “the more, the better.” I remind them that any time they are with their dogs, one of them is training the other – and the more time the human is the trainer rather than the dog, the more successful the end relationship is likely to be.

Regardless of who is training whom in any given moment, for this time spent together to benefit the relationship, you and your dog have to do things together that you both think are swell. We prefer to be in the company of those with whom we have a relationship of mutual trust and respect, and especially those who consistently make good things happen when we are around them.

Dubhy is the first dog I have ever owned who prefers outdoors to indoors, perhaps because outdoors is where he thinks the best fun stuff happens. When we let the Miller pack out in the backyard to “do their business,” the other three quickly get the job done and cluster around the back door, waiting to come in. Not Dubhy. He’s out cruising the fence line, looking for lizards to harass or neighbor dogs to bark at, and is most reluctant to come in when called.

When I first realized his preference for the great outdoors, I just figured “Fine, he can stay out then.” This worked unless I really needed him to come in, and then the frustration of not being able to get him to come threatened to fray my patience and our relationship.

Eventually the training light bulb came on – for me. Dubhy was having more fun outside, by himself, than inside with me. Unless he really wanted to come in at that moment, it was much more exciting to stay outside. I started spending more time playing with him outside and more time doing fun things with him when I call him inside so he would be happier about coming in.

Our relationship saved, Dubhy and I still spend plenty of quality time together. Outside, I sometimes call him to me and turn over rocks and boards to help him look for lizards. (The lizards always get away.) We play “Find It!” where I have him lie down and wait while I hide liver treats and then release him to seek them out with his nose. When I do call him in we practice a few of his favorite tricks – a few minutes on his electronic keyboard, a rousing game of “Fetch the Jolly Ball,” or more “Find It!”

Now, when I am too busy writing to play training games with him, he curls up on the dog bed underneath my computer, smiling up at me with his impish Scottie eyes, happy to be in my company – for life!

Also With This Article
Click here to view “Building A Healthy Relationship With Your Dog”
Click here to view “Socializing With Your Dog Increases Socialization and Relationships”
Click here to view “Let’s Talk About Our Relationship”

Frozen Dog Treat Review

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Some time ago I attended a doggie birthday celebration and was startled to see the hostess serving ice cream to the canine partygoers. Unless a dog regularly eats dairy products, a creamy confection like human ice cream can play havoc with her digestive system – and let’s not even get into the potential health hazards of feeding sugar-laden treats to dogs. So naturally I hustled over to butt in and save us all from doggie diarrhea and diabetes.

I was surprised and relieved to discover that the hostess was not dishing up any Häagen-Dazs, but serving a product called Frosty Paws, an ice-cream-like frozen treat created especially for dogs.

Recently, we noticed a couple other ersatz ice-cream treats offered in pet supply catalogues, so we decided to check them out during the 90-degree, 90 percent humidity of our Tennessee summer days. While dogs may not be quite the frozen confection connoisseurs that we are, we suspect that a cool pause on a hot day feels as good to them as it does to us.

When buying any sort of treat for our dogs, we look for products that are:

• Palatable – Do our dogs love it?
• Healthful – Are all the ingredients the wholesome, real-food sort of things we like to see in treats?
• Affordable – Either inexpensive enough for frequent feeding, or, in the case of a very occasional, special treat, not unreasonably expensive

Ice cream findings
We found only four commercial products intended as hot-weather treats – though, truthfully, this was a bit of a reach. Only one product is an actual frozen treat, purchased in grocery stores or pet supply stores equipped with freezers (many stores that sell top-quality frozen raw dog foods also sell this treat). Two other products are sold in a form similar to pre-made Jello or pudding cups: edible in that form, but intended to be frozen or refrigerated and eaten cold. The fourth product actually is ice cream – freeze dried and meant to be fed in small, not cold pieces. This product niche could use a few more contestants!

Happy dogs, disappointed dog guardians
We’re sorry to report that we were not wildly impressed with any of the products we found – although our test dogs didn’t know what our problem was; they liked all the treats, and would have gladly eaten seconds and thirds of all but one. Two of the four products, we thought, were just okay – neither so healthful nor inexpensive that we would ever consider placing a regular monthly order – but neither did they contain any harmful ingredients or offend us in any meaningful way.

OurPet’s Company, of Fairport Harbor, Ohio, is the maker of one of these products, Dog-E-Licious Ice Pudding. Dog-E-Licious wouldn’t fool any humans into thinking they were looking at (or eating) real ice cream or real pudding, but our dogs certainly didn’t mind the somewhat grainy appearance of this product. One taste of this stuff and they were eager for more. Both flavors (mint and vanilla) were a hit. OurPet’s suggests that the room-temperature treat can be drizzled over a dog’s regular food (essentially, used as a sweet palatant) or given to a dog all by itself, frozen or not. Our dogs liked it every which way.

I wish we could say the same, but there is really nothing all that attractive – to us – about the ingredients. OurPet’s used natural flavorings (mint and vanilla), and added vitamins, minerals, and acidophilus. But the sweeteners are what the dogs were after, and the product contains several: sucrose, maltodextrin (also used as a texturizer), glycerin (also used as a bodying agent), and glucose. The manufacturer was unable to offer us a sugar content, but did volunteer that each serving of Dog-E-Licious contains 27.5 calories.

The ingredients also include several natural preservatives (mixed tocopherols and rosemary extract) and artificial preservatives (glucono delta lactone and potassium sorbate). Since this product is clearly meant as an occasional treat, not part of a dog’s daily diet, we’d look the other way regarding the artificial preservatives.

Unfortunately, there are even more chemical ingredients in the next product we examined, Frosty Paws Frozen Treat For Dogs – which was the first ice cream-style product intended just for dogs that I ever saw. The contents are especially disappointing, because this product is made and sold in a form that would accommodate healthy, whole food ingredients. Made by Associated Ice Cream of San Ramon, California, this frozen product is available only in grocery stores and pet stores with freezers.

Unlike Dog-E-Licious, Frosty Paws is loaded not with sweeteners, but with several “fractions” (by-products) of whey, itself a by-product of milk. We’re quite averse to the use of generic fats and proteins in any edible dog product, so the appearance of the artificially preserved “animal fat” so high on the ingredients list is a turnoff for us. Nevertheless, the fat is probably what the dogs like about the product.

We were happy to see some ingredients we recognize as food in the next product we tried, Pooch Passions Freeze Dried Ice Cream For Dogs, marketed by Pet Goods Mfg. & Imports, of Alpharetta, Georgia. But then, this appears to be real ice cream – intended for humans – that has been dehydrated and marketed in a creative way. As such, it probably contains more sugar than a dog should eat on a regular basis. But at this price, no dog is going to have the opportunity to eat it regularly. At least, no dogs we know.

When the package is first opened, the freeze-dried chunks are very brittle and crumbly, which is nice if you want to break it into tiny slivers for use as training treats. Left in the open package for a week on a shelf, the product turned the consistency of taffy, now too soft and rubbery to easily break into training treat-sized pieces. Our dogs were happy to eat it, brittle or rubbery.

We must mention, of course, that this product does nothing to cool a dog or quench his thirst, like the other products we selected. In fact, the dehydrated ice cream seemed to make our test dogs especially thirsty.

Perhaps the best application for this treat would be for dogs who have a sweet tooth, and are not motivated to work for meat-or fish-based treats.

Out of contention
The final frozen treat product we reviewed is Dog-Ice, made in Japan for Vitakraft Pet Products Co., Inc, of Bound Brook, New Jersey. We were taken aback, to say the least, when the package bearing this product arrived. The catalog description did not offer a size or weight, and the photo in the catalog offered nothing for scale comparison. The tiny plastic treat cups came as a shock – they can’t contain more than a tablespoon or two. No wonder this item cost so much less than the other products we ordered!

While the list of ingredients starts with either “fish extract” or “beef extract” (depending on the flavor), with the moisture content on the label listed as 98 percent, we presume “extract” actually means broth. The rest of the ingredients, then, are essentially just sugar and preservatives.

It would be far less expensive – and far healthier – to make your own “brothicles” by stirring a little honey into organic chicken or beef broth, and freezing in ice cube trays.

Our test dogs did eat these treats, but with far less enthusiasm than they displayed for the other treats – or for the homemade experiments that these products inspired.

Also With This Article
Click here to view the products tested.
Click here to view “More on Frozen Foods”

-by Pat Miller

 

How To Select Safe Dog Care Products and Cleaners for Your Home

Few people think about their own health when they choose household cleaners, deodorizers, and other common household products, much less their dog’s health. In fact, few people think about safety when buying household products at all, assuming that anything for sale at a grocery store must be perfectly safe, certainly safer than similar products they might find at a hardware store, for example.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

The fact is, there are many potentially harmful household and dog-care products for sale on your grocery store and pet supply store shelves, and you can identify them by reading their labels, which, admittedly, seems to be no one’s favorite task. But it’s an important one.

Most of us have seen – if not actually read – lots of fine print on the labels of cleaning products, cosmetics, and other common household products. So it’s a good guess that even fewer people actually heed the warning statements on the labels of the chemicals they use, even though these statements appear on the labels by order of the Federal Hazardous Substances Act for our protection. Household pesticides have similar statements, by order of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

Fortunately, concerned members of the government branches assigned to protect our health are aware of our lazy reading habits and inattention to detail.

In an attempt to make the matter of warning us about potential dangers really simple, they devised a system of classifying the relative safety level of chemical products. The warning statement on each potentially harmful household product you buy begins with one of a handful of “signal words” indicating the level of potential danger it poses.

Unfortunately, few people know about this system. Nor is its design so obvious that anyone could intuit the difference between a label that begins with the word “warning,” for example, and one that begins with “caution.” But it is worth knowing the difference, for your (human and canine) family’s health as well as for the environment.

Please don’t skip over that last statement, as overused as it might be. In addition to endangering your family’s health, hazardous products do have environmental effects. Improperly disposed, many common household products can pollute water supplies and harm plants and animals. Even when used according to label directions, some products contribute to air pollution.

Four hazard levels
The “signal word” system identifies four different levels of potential dangers posed to the consumer by non-pesticide household products (see “Pesticides and Signal Words,” next page). The four levels are:

Danger: Indicates a product that represents the greatest potential harm to consumers and their families.
Warning: Represents a moderate hazard.
Caution: Indicates a mild to moderate hazard.
No Signal Word: Indicates the product is not hazardous. (Please note: Signal words are found on labels of new household products. Products manufactured before 1987 or products not intended for household use may not contain signal words.)

Specific dangers
The “signal word” system also utilizes a few modifying words that further specify the type of hazard posed by a product: flammable, corrosive, toxic, or reactive. One of these phrases must follow the signal word. The nice simple system begins to get a little more complicated at this point, since manufacturers have a few phrases at their disposal to describe these hazards, including:

“Flammable,” “combustible,” or “contains petroleum distillates” – Indicates a product that is hazardous due to its flammability.

“Contains acid,” “contains lye,” or “causes skin to burn” – Indicates a product that is hazardous because it can burn skin or corrode other materials.

“Poison,” “Danger/Poison,” or “harmful if swallowed” – Indicates a product is toxic (poisonous) and can be harmful or fatal if swallowed, breathed in, or absorbed through the skin.

“Do not mix with . . .” – Indicates a reactive product that can explode or produce a toxic gas if combined with other substances. The most common example is mixing chlorine bleach with ammonia, which instantly produces a toxic gas.

Highest risk determines word
Toxic substances may affect humans and animals differently via different exposures: inhalation, ingestion, dermal absorption (soaking into the skin), and contact with the skin or eyes. A signal word is assigned to a pesticide product according to its highest toxicity hazard. For example, a product may be low in toxicity (“Caution”) when ingested, but moderately toxic (“Warning”) when absorbed through the skin. This product would be assigned the signal word “Warning.”

Again, note that products manufactured before 1987and those that are not intended for use in the household will not display a signal word, even if they are highly toxic.

Look for yourself
The first time I learned about signal words, I somewhat skeptically reached under my kitchen sink to examine the labels of the products I had there. I didn’t think I would find any products that contained more than the mildest warnings, and I thought that the cleaning product I bought in a health food stores would contain no warning at all.

I was surprised to find products that represented all the hazards described above, including “Caution” (Static Guard, Simple Green); “Warning” (Lysol Disinfectant Spray); and “Danger” (Easy Off Oven Cleaner, Goo-Gone).

Naturally, the next thing I had to do was to race over to my local pet store, to look at the dog-care products on the shelves. Would they, too, reveal a number of signal words?

Of course the shelves containing the flea and tick products displayed a number of “Caution” and “Warning” indicators. And the insect repellents designed to keep flies and mosquitoes off dogs had some, too. But I also found signal words on dog colognes and odor removers.

Buy least harmful products
What was most interesting was the fact that in each product section where I found a signal word on a product label, there was another product designed to do the same thing without a signal word. Remember, on a new (anything made since 1987) household product, the lack of a signal word indicates that the product poses either no hazard (in the case of nonpesticide products) or the lowest possible hazard (in the case of pesticide products).

So, all by myself, I determined that a great recommendation would be to always look for household and dog care products that display no signal words.

Back in my office, more closely reading materials published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, I saw that this is, in fact, the suggestion of the EPA. “Choose the least toxic pesticide that will achieve the results you want and be the least toxic to you and the environment,” it says, right there in its Citizen’s Guide to Pest Control and Pesticide Safety. I also found several publications produced by various state health departments suggesting that consumers purchase household cleaning products with the lowest level of hazard, or make their own nontoxic products.

Remember, regardless of the signal word used on a product, all signalled products have the potential to poison you or your dog, if exposed to a high enough dose.

Also With This Article
Click here to view “Dog-Safe House Cleaning Products”

-by Nancy Kerns

Determining Whether a Dog Would Benefit from Chiropractic Care

DOG CHIROPRACTICS OVERVIEW

What you can do…

– Using the procedures outlined in the sidebars, examine your dog and note any problems you could find on your own.

– Look for a practitioner who has been certified by the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association (AVCA).

– Bring your notes to the appointment, to offer the practitioner as much background information as he or she wants.

– Make sure you also note and date improvements in your dog’s condition after treatment.

The following is a guide that I use to help clients evaluate their own dog’s biomechanical status. Using this guide should provide you with the necessary information to help you decide whether or not chiropractic adjustments might be indicated for your dog.

I chiropractically evaluate and treat every one of my patients whom I can comfortably get my hands on. I do this for several reasons. First, because I feel it’s important to have a free-flow of healing energetics that is possible only when the body’s “scaffolding” is free of kinks. Second, because when I adjust an animal, I personally receive the added benefits of being body-to-body, heart-to-heart with that animal. This is one of the prime aspects of holistic veterinary medicine – a personally healing aspect – that was not available to me in a western-style practice.

I like to have as much background information about the dog as I can get . . . and then I put it all in a “safe-keeping” place somewhere in the back of my mind. I do not want an overload of information to confuse my hands’ ability to feel and sense what is really going on in my patient.

However, it is important for me to learn what my clients expect from our treatments: what they want their dogs to be able to do after the treatments; and discuss how soon (how many treatments) we feel is appropriate before results should be seen. I also want to discuss what I’ve seen clinically in similar cases so we have (I hope) a common ground to work from.

As I speak with the dog’s guardian, I try to hunker down and make myself available for the dog to come to me of his own accord. In a few minutes after our introductions we will become pretty intimate, and I want him to have some trust before I begin.

I usually do a quick gait analysis to see if I can detect obvious lameness. If, and only if, the dog’s “job” depends on her athletic skills, I make a concerted effort to determine the site of lameness. Otherwise, it is enough to know the animal is lame; my chiropractic treatment will depend on what I find with my fingers anyway.

Chiropractic adjustments are much easier (on me and the patient) when the patient is relaxed. As soon as I can get my hands on, I use basic Tellington Touch massage techniques for calming. (A dose of the calming herbs kava or valerian, or the flower essence called Rescue Remedy, given about 30 – 60 minutes before the veterinary visit, can also be very helpful.

I also do a quick pass over the dog to feel differences in energetics. In my Kansas practice I try to do this surreptitiously; when I’m working in California, I make a big show of it! Energetic differences – areas where I feel or sense increased or decreased energy – almost always indicate an area where chiropractic adjustments will be needed.

As we get more familiar with each other, I do more hands-on investigation of the dog. As I conduct an anatomic palpation, I’m checking to see whether all the bones are where they should be and whether they are connected properly; is the hip bone connected to the back bone, connected to the neck bone, connected to the head bone? More importantly, are the adjacent bones connected to each other as they should be?

I also check the range of motion of the joints. Each joint has its own normal range of motion. Spinal vertebrae, for example, move around three axes – lateral flexion (side-to-side, hula motion), flexion/extension (up and down motion), and rotation. Joints of the extremities have their own specific normal range of motion, depending on the joint involved. For evaluation, I will check each spinal vertebra for its range of motion, then those that are stuck, I’ll adjust it so they are able to return to a normally functional range of motion. Joints of the extremities are usually simply moved through their normal range of motion.

Problems that Might Respond to Chiropractic Care

Note: I think a properly aligned skeletal system (which in turn gives the nervous system its best chance to be healthy) is such a vital component of any healing process, I chiropractically adjust every one of my animal patients that I can get my hands on. I don’t try to claim that my chiropractic adjustments cure non-musculoskeletal conditions, but then again, I don’t believe that I cure anything; I simply make it easier for the animal’s own innate healing powers to perform their miracles. Following are some of the conditions I have treated with chiropractic that have responded positively:

– Some skin conditions, including “hot spots” and “lick granulomas.”

– Some cases of urinary incontinence.

– Some acute cases of digestive upset.

– Some reproductive problems.

By realigning skeletal components of the body so that the nervous system can function in its normally healthy manner, chiropractic offers another way to aid in the overall healing process of almost any disease.

Chiropractic Techniques for Dogs

There are more than 100 different chiropractic methods, each with its own name, specific technique or focal area of the body that it addresses, and its own advantages and disadvantages. I’ve adapted several of these methods into my own practice, and I suppose I use some stuff that has no name or list of practitioner-adherents.

I find that some of the light-touch methods – “Network Chiropractic” and “Logan Basic” – are helpful, especially for hypersensitive animals and/or those who have chronic disease. At the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association’s course for veterinarians and chiropractors, the major techniques we learned were combined adaptations of the “Gonstead” and “Diversified” methods.

Although many practitioners have found it helpful, I do not use an activator (a mechanical devise that activates a spring-loaded plunger) to assist with adjustments. I don’t use an activator because I feel it takes away from my ability to feel what is going on with the area I am adjusting. Also, I don’t like the idea of anything mechanical being used in a process that I feel requires an awareness of the energetics involved. Plus, an activator is incredibly powerful; used improperly, it can do real damage to joints. And finally, I think it is too easy to half-learn the technique, which lets a lot of half-skilled people use the method in inappropriate ways.

The way I was taught, a chiropractic adjustment consists of the following. First, identify the specific site of the subluxation and identify the direction the joint is “stuck or “loose.” The contact point (the bony part of the anatomy where the adjustment will be performed) is located, and the adjuster creates a firm contact with the underlying bone, and the patient’s body is stabilized. Then, the actual adjustment is performed by moving the hand in a short-lever, high-velocity, controlled thrust, aimed in the direction that is specific for the way that the joint needs to be returned to normal function.

Since the spinal column is functionally one long string of bones, one subluxation is almost always associated with other dysfunctional areas in other parts of the body; this is referred to as “associated subluxations.” One treatment does not fix them all, so the entire back (and the hips and extremities) needs to be evaluated.

After the treatment, I’ll recheck the areas that were abnormal, check them for pain and motion. Then, we’ll watch the dog walk to check for any improvement.

We’ll also discuss home care. I like to let the dog’s guardian know what she can do at home to help the chiropractic (and other) treatments achieve their expected results. Exercises, stretches, nutrition, herbs, and supplements are all a part of a continuing home healthcare program.

Before the clients leave, I like to review our treatment objectives, time frames involved, and expected results, so we are still on the same page as the dog walks out the door.

And finally, even as the dog walks out the door, I watch to see what kind of immediate results we have had: good (I hope) or bad (ugh).

Visual, Physical, and Radiographic Examinations

First, I conduct an “eyes-on” examination, looking for the following:

SYMMETRY

Dog should be symmetrical, side to side.

Muscle groups should be equal in size, side to side.

Foreleg to foreleg, hind to hind, should look the same, viewed from front and back.

Where is your eye drawn? Often to the site of dys-symmetry.

NON-TRAUMATIC CONFORMATIONAL DEFECTS

Toe in or out.

Over at elbow/back at elbow.

Too straight or too much angle to the shoulder/elbow.

Angle of hips to the spine and to the horizon (requires knowledge of what is correct for the breed and what is biomechanically sound).

Look for tail tilt. In most breeds, the tail should hang or be carried on a centered, plumb-line. Hanging off-center may mean that the sacrum and/or hips are out of alignment).

Straight hind legs, sickle hocks, cow hocks? All may create mis-aligned spinal vertebrae.

Short leg? Almost always the result of hip or shoulder being out of alignment.

Base wide/base narrow (chest too wide or narrow)? May create mis-aligned spinal vertebrae.

POSTURE/STANCE/ATTITUDE

I examine the three natural dorsal (upward) spinal curves: 1) the upper cervical/neck (atlas and axis or upper neck bones), 2) the lower cervical, and 3) the thoracolumbar (the junction of the rib cage and lower back region. These natural curves provide spinal flexibility within a sturdy support system, and they help to allow sensitive spinal nerves to exit properly from the central nervous system. When one or more of these natural curves are absent, it predisposes the animal to skeletal and nervous system dysfunction.

Resting one leg; constantly shifting weight; reluctance to jump, to climb stairs, or to walk on unusual surfaces.

Anxiety – pain or behavioral?

Wants to lies down on only one side or sits (or lies) in an odd position; moans on getting up or lying down.

Moves slow (or painfully) at first, then loosens up (rusty gait syndrome), and/or seems to have more pain after exercise.

Keep in mind that weight and condition dramatically affect the animal’s ability to maintain good posture/stance/attitude.

HEAD AND NECK

The “natural” neck forms a supple “S” shape, due to the upper and lower cervical curvatures. A neck that is held in a posture that is too straight (or too curved) may predispose to problems related to cervical vertebral instability, abnormal bone formation, and/or intervertebral disc disease.

Posture should be as indicated for the breed AND as indicated for biomechanical soundness.

Head tilt (always to one side) indicates a problem.

A line drawn across the tops of the eyes should be horizontal. Eyes should be the same size. If the eyes are off horizontal or of different size, it’s a good possibility that the upper cervicals need adjustment. This is a common problem with dogs constantly on a tight leash.

HANDS ON EXAM

Next, conduct a whole-body, lighttouch exam. Feel for:

Heat (as compared to the rest of the body and adjacent areas) or swelling.

Muscle tone that is either firmer or softer than adjacent muscles and/or the corresponding muscle on the other side. This indicates an abnormally functioning muscle and a possible misalignment.

Pain on palpation, as shown by a dog who flinches (or whose skin will flinch), whines, gives you the “evil eye,” or tries to move away from you.

Pain or reluctance to move on flexion, extension, rotation.

I also feel for increases or decreases in the dog’s energy or vital force.

RADIOGRAPHS

Some chiropractors disagree, but in my opinion, radiographs are best used to rule out non-chiropractic problems, such as fractures, tumors, etc. I regard them as having almost no value for seeing chiropractically subluxed or “stuck” joints.

Gait Analysis

TECHNIQUE

Use a loose lead, which allows the dog to move in his most natural way.

Have an experienced “lead person” walk and jog.

Walk first (easier to evaluate), then jog in straight line. Then walk and jog in tight circles or figure eights (pylons are helpful).

View from behind, in front, side.

Sand walk: Have the dog walk and jog in sand to see if the feet are tracking on a straight line. Most canine types single-track at a trot, with the front and hind feet landing on (or very close to) a straight line drawn along the dog’s path. Look to see if there is a lack of symmetry in foot placings, off-line foot prints, and/or foot prints that are irregular in their depth in the sand.

Foot prints: Walk the dog through talcum powder and then walk and jog, to see if the footprints show evidence of gait asymmetry.

Walk over a curb, up and down steps or a hill. Look for a noticeable limp, obvious pain or reluctance to move up or down.

OBSERVATIONS

First, know what a normal gait for the breed looks like. Look, listen, use your intuition; is there something that looks, sounds, or just feels odd about this animal’s gait? One or more of the following observations might indicate that a biomechanical problem exists:

Noticeable limp – this can be fairly easy to see; picking which leg is lame is almost always more difficult than knowing a lameness exists.

Shuffling – Often noticeable when the dog walks on hard surface. It may be heard as a dragging sound of the nails, with one or more feet affected. Or the sounds of the dog’s feet hitting the ground may be asynchronous.

Head nodding – This is often associated with biomechanical problems of the legs. Also look for asymmetrical movement of the head during motion.

Uneven roll, side to side – Often a biomechanical problem of the thoracolumbar region.

Shortened stride – An inability to extend one or more legs to a normal distance. May be involved in hip or shoulder misalignments as well as limb problems.

Hip hike – One side of the hips carried higher (or lower) than the other.

Uneven tail swing – Should swing symmetrically side to side. If uneven, suspect hip and/or sacral problems.

Uneven view of pads – Should see an equal amount of foot pads as the dog walks or trots away

Information to Further Assist Your Holistic Veterinarian or Chiropractor

INDIVIDUAL HISTORY

Breed – Some breeds are predisposed to certain types of genetic diseases that create biomechanical problems. Some of these problems are responsive to chiropractic treatment; some (in my experience) are not.

Age – Some ages are more prone to specific types of problems than other ages.

Nutrition – Foods, including herbs, vitamins, minerals and other supplements.

LAMENESS HISTORY

Duration – How long ago did you first notice lameness?

Severity – Does this change? When is it worst? When is it best?

Occurrence – Intermittent; after exercise; gets better with exercise; etc.

Other treatments and the response to these treatments – Including medications, herbs, supplements, etc. that the dog is on now.

LIFESTYLE ISSUES (Yours and your dog’s)

Can your dog be a dog?

What is your dog’s “job” and what do you expect of her in her job?

What is your dog’s daily exercise regime?

In what kind of environment does your dog live?

RELATIONSHIP ISSUES

“In our tribal ways, we believed that the domestic animals were sent here to accept our diseases and mirror them back to us. It was from our animals that we could learn the best ways to cure our own diseases.” – Tis Mal Crow, Shaman and herbalist

What other animals are in the household?

What status among the other animals in the family does this dog have? Among human family members? Do other family members have medical or social problems? Are they similar to the dog’s problems?

Dr. Randy Kidd has a DVM degree from Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in Pathology/Clinical Pathology from Kansas State University. He is a past president of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association, and author of, Dr. Kidd’s Guide to Herbal Dog Care, and, Dr. Kidd’s Guide to Herbal Cat Care.

Heartworm Treatment Options

2

[Updated January 9, 2019]

The heartworm (Dirofilaria immitis) is a nematode or roundworm named for its place of residence, inside the heart. To understand the challenge of controlling this parasite, you have to understand its life cycle, a complex and slightly bizarre process.

Living in a dog’s pulmonary arteries, adult heartworms mate. Each female (which can reach sizes of up to 11 inches) produces thousands of eggs, each less than 1/800th of an inch, which are called microfilariae, and circulate in the blood. (A dog who hosts breeding adults may have as many as 10-15 microfilariae circulating in each drop of his blood.) The microfilariae cannot develop any further unless the dog meets up with mosquitoes, which are essential to the parasite’s development.

Heartworm microfilariae conduct the next stage of their life cycle in the mosquito. When a mosquito drinks blood from an infected dog, it obviously drinks in some of the microfilariae, which undergo changes and are called larvae at this stage. They molt twice in the next two to three weeks (and are referred to as L1, L2, and L3 as they molt and change) after entering the mosquito. Then they must leave the mosquito and find a new host or they will die. The larvae move to the mosquito’s mouth, positioned so the insect’s next bite allows them to migrate into the victim’s subcutaneous tissue.

If the mosquito bites an animal that does not host heartworm, the larvae die. If the mosquito bites an animal that heartworms thrive in, the larvae molt again (within three to four days) and take the form (called L4 or “tissue larvae”) they will use to migrate through the dog’s body to reach the circulatory system. It takes the L4 about 60 – 90 days to reach the heart, where, in three to four months, they become adults and begin to reproduce.

Heartworm is most successful when hosted by dogs, red wolves, coyotes, red foxes, and grey foxes.

Wild and domestic felids (cats), ferrets, wolverines, and California sea lions also host heartworm, but its life cycle differs significantly in these species. Few of these animals host adult heartworms that produce microfilariae, which generally die within a month of circulating in the animal’s blood. Also, adult heartworms live for much shorter periods in these animals, compared with five to seven years in the dog.

Humans, bears, raccoons, and beavers are considered “dead-end hosts.” The larval form of the heartworm, transmitted by mosquito bites, do not reach adulthood in dead-end hosts.

Facts about Heartworm (D. immitis)

For heartworms to thrive and become endemic in an area, they require:

1) a susceptible host population (dogs),
2) a stable reservoir of the disease (dogs infected with breeding adults and circulating microfilariae),
3) a stable population of vector species (mosquitoes), and
4) a climate that supports the life cycle of both the heartworm’s reservoir species (dogs and wild canids), its vector species (mosquitoes), and its larval stages within the mosquito. The development of the larvae within the mosquito requires temperatures of about 80 degrees F or above for about two weeks.

Only female mosquitoes suck blood and transmit heartworm microfilariae.

The mosquito is the only known vector for the transmission of heartworm (except for scientists who inject research animals with heartworminfected blood). Heartworm shows a preference for certain species of mosquito. However, during its spread throughout the United States it has adapted well to using other mosquito species as vectors. It has also adapted to a wider temperature range for development of larval stages in the mosquito.

Adult heartworms prefer to live in the heart and in veins leading to it, but they have been found in dogs’ liver, trachea, esophagus, stomach, feces, eye, brain, spinal cord, and vomit.

For more information about heartworm, see the American Heartworm Society’s website.

Effects of Heartworm Infestation in Dogs

The number of adult worms in a dog’s body and the dog’s activity level determine the severity of heartworm disease symptoms.

Sedentary dogs with 25 or fewer worms often remain symptom-free. A dog with a mild heartworm infestation – only a couple of heartworms – may exhibit a mild, occasional cough.

Active dogs with the same number of heartworms and most dogs with 50 or more worms have moderate to severe symptoms. Moderate symptoms may include a cough, exercise intolerance, and abnormal lung sounds.

A dog whose heart is clogged with worms may develop the same symptoms as one with congestive heart failure, including fatigue, a chronic cough, and fluid retention (edema). If adult worms fill the right side of the heart, increased venous pressure can damage liver tissue, alter red blood cells, and lead to blood disorders that cause a sudden, dramatic collapse called caval syndrome. Severe symptoms include a cough, exercise intolerance, difficulty breathing, abnormal lung sounds, radiographs showing visible changes to the pulmonary artery, liver enlargement, temporary loss of consciousness because of impaired blood flow to the brain, edema in the abdominal cavity, and abnormal heart sounds.

Resistance to Heartworm

However, as we have reported before, the immune systems of some dogs seem to be able to wage war, to a limited extent, on the heartworm. An immune-mediated response is thought to be responsible for some dogs’ ability to remove microfilariae from the dog’s circulatory system. And a very healthy dog may be able to outlive a light infestation of adult worms.

This makes sense from a biological perspective. Parasites want to continue their own life cycle; if they kill their host, they kill themselves. Nature’s plan for parasites generally calls for a few hosts to die – thus weeding out weaker individuals of the host species – but for more hosts to live in great enough numbers to provide the parasite with a stable environment.

In order for this to occur, says Richard Pitcairn, DVM, Ph.D., author of the best-selling book, Natural Health for Dogs and Cats, animals in the wild (coyotes, wolves, foxes, and other wild canines) develop a natural resistance to heartworm. “They get very light infestations and then become immune,” he explains. What few people realize, says Dr. Pitcairn, is that many domestic dogs display the same response.

According to Dr. Pitcairn, an estimated 25 to 50 percent of dogs in high-heartworm areas are able to kill (through an immune-mediated response) any microfilariae in their bodies, so they cannot pass along the developing microfilariae. “Also, after being infested by a few heartworms, most dogs do not get more of them even though they are continually bitten by mosquitoes carrying the parasite. In other words, they are able to limit the extent of infestation. All of this points to the importance of the health and resistance mounted by the dogs themselves.”

Despite the extensive use of heartworm preventive drugs, the rate of heartworm infestation in dogs in high-heartworm areas has not declined in 20 years. To Dr. Pitcairn, this statistic proves that drug treatments are not the answer.

Conventional Veterinary Treatments for Heartworm Infection

Years ago, there was only one option offered by conventional veterinary medicine for treating a dog harboring adult heartworms – an arsenic-based drug called Caparsolate that was administered several times intravenously. The treatment was effective, but fraught with potential side effects. Caparsolate has to be injected carefully into the dog’s veins; if even a minute amount comes in contact with muscle or other tissue, it causes horrible wounds accompanied by massive tissue sloughing.

In 1995, Rhone-Merieaux introduced Immiticide, a drug that is injected into spinal muscles, which has quickly replaced Caparsolate as the treatment of choice. This drug, now made by Merial, also presents some side effects, including irritation at the injection site, pain, swelling, and reluctance to move, but none quite as dramatic as the tissue-sloughing danger of Caparsolate.

Post-treatment symptoms are similar with both the old and the new treatment. The drugs kill the adult heartworms, and the dead and decaying worms must work their way out of the dog’s circulatory system. The dead worms are carried in the bloodstream to the lungs, where they are gradually reabsorbed. Depending on the dog’s health and the total number of worms in his system, this can be a mild or a violent process. Dogs usually cough, gag, and vomit, experience fever and lung congestion, and are understandably depressed and lethargic.

Both treatments require the dog to be kept as quiet as possible (preferably caged) for the first few days. All increases in heart rate and respiration force a greater amount of dead worm fragments into circulation. If too many particles flood into the lungs at once, they can block the blood vessels to the lungs and cause death.

Both the Immiticide and the Caparsolate treatments are contraindicated (not recommended) for the most severely infested dogs with Caval syndrome. Ten to 20 percent of dogs with a high worm burden will die as a result of the Immiticide treatment. The number seems grim until you consider that even without treatment, dogs with that level of infestation suffer a much slower, progressively debilitating death. If a heart radiograph, antigen test, or the dog’s symptoms suggest that the infestation is very severe, the dog can undergo a modified treatment protocol, consisting of a single injection, which kills the weaker worms, followed by two more injections a month later.

A dog that experiences difficulties may require extended veterinary care, including administrations of fluids, steroids to reduce any fever or inflammation and help quell the coughing, and supportive therapies for the liver.

After the adult heartworms are killed, the next step in conventional treatment is to kill any microfilariae that are still in circulation. Since the microfilariae cannot mature without an intermediate host (time spent in a mosquito), you’d think you could skip this step. However, at the dose at which they will surely be used to prevent further heartworm infections, heartworm preventive drugs can kill microfilariae at a dangerous rate, potentially causing shock and subsequent death of the dog. The veterinarian will dispense a filaricidal drug and monitor the dog until tests show that the microfilariae are absent from the blood, usually within one to two weeks.

Conventional Veterinary Heartworm Preventive Drugs

All commercial heartworm preventive medicines are targeted to kill heartworm in the “tissue larval” (L4) life stage (after the larvae have been deposited in the dog by an infected mosquito). For this reason, the preventives must be administered within the period of time that begins when the dog is bitten by an infected mosquito and the time it reaches the dog’s circulatory system – about 63-91 days. The preventives do not affect the heartworms once they reach the circulatory system. To provide a safe overlap of time, guaranteeing that any larvae that have been administered to a dog by an infected mosquito are killed before they reach the next, invulnerable life stage, most of the preventives are given every 30 days.

All the preventives listed below kill some (but not all) heartworm microfilariae. If a dog hosts adult, breeding heartworms, has microfilariae in his bloodstream, and receives a preventive, the subsequent die-off of the microfilariae may cause the dog to suffer from labored respiration, vomiting, salivation, lethargy, or diarrhea. These signs are thought to be caused by the release of protein from dead or dying microfilariae. This is why the makers of all of the preventives recommend that dogs receive a heartworm test – to rule out the possibility that the dog hosts adults and/or microfilariae – before receiving a heartworm preventive.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved four oral, one injectable, and one topical medication for use as heartworm preventives. These include:

Filaribits (diethylcarbamazine citrate), manufactured by Pfizer, is widely considered to be the safest preventive, causing the fewest adverse reactions and deaths. Filaribits Plus adds oxibendazole, which targets hookworm, whipworm, and ascarid infections. Filaribits and Filaribits Plus are given to the dog daily.

Heartgard Chewables or Heartgard Tabs (ivermectin), made by Merial, is given monthly. Heartgard Plus Chewables adds pyrantel, which controls ascarids and hookworms.

Interceptor (milbemycin), by Novartis, is similar to ivermectin and also controls hookworm, roundworm, and whipworm. Novartis’ other heartworm preventive is Sentinal (milbemycin plus lufenuron). The added ingredient controls fleas by inhibiting the development of flea eggs (it does not kill adult fleas).

ProHeart (moxidectin), by Fort Dodge, is a derivative of ivermectin that is given monthly. Fort Dodge also makes ProHeart6, an injectable form of moxidectin that is administered by a veterinarian every six months. This formulation allows for the moxidectin to be time-released, affecting heartworm larvae for a period of six months following injection.

Revolution (selamectin) from Pfizer, is not an oral drug but a topical preparation that is applied monthly. It also kills fleas, ear mites, sarcoptes scabiei (the cause of sarcoptic mange), and the American Dog Tick, and prevents flea eggs from hatching.

The following data are extracted from the 1987-2000 Adverse Drug Experience (ADE) Summary published by the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (FDA CVM). The summaries include all adverse drug reaction reports submitted to the CVM which the CVM has determined to be “at least possibly drug-related.”

In reviewing these reports, the CVM takes into consideration “confounding factors such as dosage, concomitant drug use, the medical and physical condition of the animals at the time of treatment, environmental and management information, product defects, extra-label uses, etc.”

The CVM warns readers that these complex factors cannot be fully addressed in its summaries, which are intended only as a general reference to the type of reactions that veterinarians, animal owners, and others have voluntarily reported to the FDA or the manufacturer after drug use.

Also, the drugs or drug combinations listed below are not necessarily the products mentioned above.

DRUG # OF REACTIONS # OF DOGS DIED TOP 5 SIGNS AND % OF DOGS WHO DISPLAYED THEM
Diethylcarbamazine 187 7 vomiting (32%), depression/lethargy (15%), diarrhea (12%), anorexia (6%), collapse (4%)
Diethylcarbamazine/oxybendazole 1033 128 vomiting (27%), increased alanine aminotransferase (liver enzyme)/blood outside the vascular system oxybendazole (hemorrhage, 25%), increased alkaline phosphatase (liver or bone enzyme)/blood outside the vascular system (hemorrhage,22%), anorexia (18%), depression/lethargy (18%)
Ivermectin 681 134 depression/lethargy (31%), vomiting (26%), ataxia (loss of muscle coordination, 23%), mydriasis (prolonged dilatation of the pupil, 18%), death (13%)
Ivermectin/pyrantel 209 30 vomiting (22%), depression/lethargy (17%), diarrhea (16%), death (11%), anorexia (9%)
Milbemycin 460 67 depression/lethargy (34%), vomiting (31%), ataxia (12%), death (12%), diarrhea (11%)
Milbemycin/lufenuron 400 14 vomiting (31%), depression/lethargy (23%), diarrhea (18%), pruritis (itching, 16%), anorexia (13%)
Moxidectin 283 51 ataxia (56%), convulsions (22%), depression/lethargy (18%), trembling (17%), recumbency (lying down, won’t get up, 16%)
Selamectin (topical) 1716 67 vomiting (17%), depression/lethargy (13%), diarrhea (13%), anorexia (9%), pruritis (9%)
Figures for the injectable form of moxidectin not yet available. ProHeart 6 (injectable moxidectin) was released to market in late 2001.

Problems with Heartworm Preventives

There is no doubt that preventive drugs have protected millions of dogs that may have otherwise become infected with heartworm. However, a small percentage of dogs treated with commercial preventives do suffer from mild to serious side effects. And many veterinarians, faced with a sick dog with no changes in its routine except a recent administration of heartworm preventive, are reluctant to consider the possibility that a veterinarian-developed and -prescribed drug may cause illness. In some cases, in fact, these drugs are the last thing veterinarians seem to consider.

This was certainly the case in March 2000, when Terri Eddy of Rincon, Georgia, asked her veterinarian for a heartworm preventive for Sage, her two-year-old Australian Shepherd. Sage had been spayed, was an indoor dog, and had no bleeding or clotting disorders. Eddy’s veterinarian recommended Revolution, a topical medication that is used to kill heartworm larvae, fleas, the American Dog Tick, ear mites, and the mites that cause sarcoptic mange.

Two days after Revolution was applied to Sage, the young Aussie developed a cough. Three days after that, she became quiet, didn’t want to play, developed bruising, and whimpered in pain. Eddy took Sage back to the veterinarian, and asked whether the Revolution could have caused Sage’s signs of distress. The veterinarians at the practice agreed that Sage’s symptoms, including blood in the whites of her eyes, could not have been caused by Revolution; they speculated that Sage must have ingested rat poison and/or suffered a blow to the head.

Eddy, a nurse, felt that neither diagnosis was correct, and Sage did not respond to the treatment provided.

The next day, Eddy took Sage to an emergency clinic when the dog lost her balance, could not stand, and began vomiting blood. At the clinic, she began having seizures. A few hours later at a specialist’s clinic, she continued to have seizures and bled into the orbits of her eyes. The following morning, she died. Eddy was told that another dog had died the previous month at the same clinic with identical symptoms after being treated with Revolution.

An autopsy on Sage showed low platelets and intracranial hemorrhage from a toxin. “No dog should ever suffer the way Sage did,” says Eddy. “I encourage all owners to approach this product with caution.”

Alternative Options for Treating A Dog’s Heartworm

Sage’s story is an extreme example of what can go wrong when toxic drugs are used, and, of course, dogs with severe heartworm infestation suffer, too. However, dog guardians have many heartworm prevention options available to them – certainly more than either using the most toxic chemicals or going without any protection whatsoever from heartworm.

Many veterinarians, holistic and conventional, take a conservative approach to heartworm preventives and other medicines. Rather than availing oneself of the most complicated combination drug on the market, a dog owner can focus on one threat at a time, and only when that threat is imminent. For example, in most parts of the country, mosquitoes are a seasonal danger, so an owner could safely discontinue heartworm preventives when mosquitoes are not present. If a dog was suffering from a second parasite, such as ear mites, an owner could address that issue separately, and with the least-toxic preparation available, rather than turning to a multi-target drug.

Another approach is to keep careful records of your administration of preventive drugs, and stretch the time period between applications from the recommended 30 days to something a bit longer – thus reducing the number of doses per season a dog will receive. It takes heartworm larvae a minimum of 63 days after being deposited in a dog’s body by an infected mosquito to develop into a juvenile worm that cannot be affected by preventive drugs. It’s critical, then, to make sure the dog receives a preventive drug within that period, even allowing for some overlap. Some owners give their dogs preventives every 45 – 50 days, rather than every 30 days, sparing their dogs one or two doses per mosquito season. Obviously the success of this approach absolutely depends on the owner’s reliable record-keeping and administration.

Still other guardians make their preventive decisions based on the incidence of heartworm in their part of the country. A person who lives in an area with lots of heartworm cases and a long mosquito season may make different decisions than a person living in an area where veterinarians rarely or never see heartworm cases.

And then there are the guardians who forego conventional preventives in favor of alternative approaches.

Fighting Heartworm by Fighting Mosquitoes (Without Toxins)

ANTI-MOSQUITO MACHINES

The most effective way to avoid biting insects is to reduce their population, and the latest weapons in the war against mosquitoes – as wells as no-see-ums, biting midges, sand flies, and black flies – are machines that pretend to be people. The Mosquito Magnetemits a plume of carbon dioxide, warmth, and moisture in combination with octenol, a natural attractant that lures biting insects. A vacuum pulls them into a net, where they dehydrate and die. According to the maker, two months of continuous use causes local mosquito populations to collapse. The Mosquito Magnet comes in three models powered by electricity or propane, each protecting 3/4 to 1 acre. The machines cost $500 to $1300.

ALTERING THE MOSQUITO’S ENVIRONMENT

Low-tech mosquito control methods are important, too. Remove buckets, tires, and other objects that collect and hold rainwater; empty and refill birdbaths every few days; and maintain screens on doors, windows, and porches. “Mosquito fish” (Gambusia affinis), tiny fish that eat mosquito larvae, can be added to ponds, rain barrels, and other potential mosquito nurseries. They are available from some garden stores, agricultural extension offices, and fish & game departments.

Look at your local organic garden supply for Bacillus thuringiensis (BTI), a biological control product that is added to standing water to prevent mosquito larvae from maturing.

Agnique MMF is an environmentally friendly product that covers ponds and other standing water with an invisible film that smothers mosquito larvae and drowns egg-laying adults. Agnique MMF spreads rapidly, is safe for recreational and drinking water, and remains effective for 10 to 14 days.

Arbicois a mail order company in Tucson, Arizona, that sells organic gardening supplies and biological insect control products, including BTI, plus battery-operated mosquito inhibitors. Arbico also sells fly parasites and all kinds of other organic pest control products.

Infected Dog Recovers Without Conventional Treatment:

While some dog guardians focus on finding alternative heartworm preventives, others find themselves in the unfortunate situation of needing alternative treatment for their dog’s heartworm infection. That was the case with Georgia resident Robin Sockness Snelgrove, the guardian of a small mixed-breed dog named Bandit.

In January 2000, at the age of 10, Bandit developed signs of a heartworm infection, including a chronic cough and loss of appetite. Snelgrove’s veterinarian diagnosed a moderate to severe infection. Concerned about Bandit’s age and serious potential side effects, Snelgrove declined the option of conventional treatment. The veterinarian offered steroids to make Bandit more comfortable – and Snelgrove began investigating alternative treatments.

Snelgrove contacted a friend who raises dogs holistically, and followed her friend’s suggestions for a herbal treatment program. This included using products made by Nature’s Sunshine, including two artemisias (mugwort and sweet Annie, or annual wormwood) and several other herbs in combination with black walnut* to kill the heartworms and their microfilariae; coenzyme Q10, hawthorn, garlic, and cayenne to strengthen the heart and help prevent clotting; and yucca to help relieve Bandit’s cough.

The cough continued intermittently for four or five months before diminishing. “Then, almost overnight, he came back to life and started acting like a puppy again,” says Snelgrove. She kept Bandit on the herbs for a year before going back to the veterinarian for another heartworm test. “The vet couldn’t believe he was still alive,” she says, “but here he was, with a shiny new coat and full of energy.” Snelgrove says Bandit has tested negative for heartworm for the last two years, during which he has taken the same herbal products on a maintenance schedule.

After Snelgrove posted Bandit’s story on her Web site, eight people put their heartworm-positive dogs on the same program. “So far two are completely cured with negative heartworm tests to prove it,” she says, “and the others are improving.”

Snelgrove appreciates the seriousness of heartworm disease, and says she would rather prevent it than have to treat it. “But what I’ve learned from all this,” she says, “is that a diagnosis of heartworm infection doesn’t mean having to choose between expensive, dangerous treatments and letting your dog die. There are other options.”

*Controversy over black walnut preventive: Some holistic veterinarians have reported having some success using black walnut capsules or extracts as heartworm preventives and even as a treatment for adult heartworm infections. In recent years, perhaps because more people have been trying this approach, more reports have surfaced of black walnut’s shortcomings as a preventive, with some dogs testing positive for heartworm despite their owners’ use of black walnut. Has black walnut been over-promoted as an alternative to conventional veterinary heartworm preventives?

If a dog eats commercial pet foods, receives annual vaccinations, is exposed to pesticides and other chemicals, and has taken prescription drugs, her impaired immune system may fail to discourage heartworms. In addition, poorquality herbal preparations or good-quality products that have been damaged by exposure to heat, light, and air won’t help her. Because most powders lose their effectiveness quickly, tinctures (alcohol extracts) are usually a better choice than capsules, but even a freshly made tincture that wasn’t aged long enough or did not contain enough plant material may be too weak to help.

One way to protect dogs from heartworm and other parasites with black walnut is to buy the best products you can find (Gaia and HerbPharm are excellent brands) from a store that receives frequent shipments. Freshness matters when products are stored under fluorescent lights or exposed to sunlight or heat.

For additional protection from heartworm, intestinal worms, fleas, and mosquitoes, add garlic and other parasite-repelling herbs to your dog’s dinner. Several products designed for pets contain wormwood and other artemisias, noni, neem, rue, thyme, the white rind of pomegranates, or cloves.

Building Your Dog’s Immune Competence

Stephen Blake, DVM, of San Diego, California, is a holistic veterinarian who consults with preventive-drug-adverse clients all over the country, including areas where heartworm is endemic.

“Many of my clients either never used conventional heartworm preventives or quit using them decades ago,” says Dr. Blake. “Today’s preventives are much improved, but they still can cause adverse side effects. Some dogs develop autoimmune disorders when heartworm chemicals alter normal cells so that the body considers them foreign and attacks them. The drug’s active ingredients wind up in the liver, where they may cause a form of hepatitis, or the drug might affect some other part of the body. The end result is that in trying to prevent heartworm, you might lose the patient to an autoimmune complex, liver failure, or the failure of whatever organ was most damaged by the drug.

“Sometimes the damage caused by heartworm preventive medication is so subtle,” he says, “that no one makes the connection. It could show up as slightly reduced energy, a picky appetite, skin problems, ear infections, or any number of benign chronic conditions that the dog didn’t have before it went on the medication. Several of my patients had symptoms like this that went away when their owners discontinued the medication. That’s when I realized that the risk of damage from preventive drugs was greater than the risk of heartworm, and I started to focus on nutrition and natural preventives instead.”

Dr. Blake monitors patients with heartworm blood tests every six months. “Negative test results reassure clients,” he says, “but even if a dog tests positive, it doesn’t mean the dog is going to die. This is a common misconception. If the dog’s test was negative six months ago, a positive result probably indicates the presence of just a few heartworms rather than a large number. In that case, nutritional and herbal supplements, dietary improvements, and other holistic strategies can help the dog eliminate adult worms and prevent microfilariae from maturing.”

Dr. Blake is fond of citing a study conducted several years ago at Auburn University Veterinary Medical School by Dr. Ray Dillon, who attempted to infect impounded stray dogs with heartworm by injecting them with blood containing 100 microfilariae. At the end of the study, each of the dogs had only three to five heartworms.

In contrast, Dr. Dillon found that when dogs bred for research were given 100 microfilariae, they typically developed 97 to 99 adult worms. “That’s a huge difference,” says Dr. Blake. “The stray dogs were from a control facility in Mississippi, which is a heartworm-endemic area, and no one was giving them heartworm protection medication. These dogs had developed their own resistance to heartworm in order to survive, which they probably did by manufacturing antibodies that prevented the heartworm larvae from maturing.”

To improve a dog’s overall health in order to help him repel and eliminate heartworms, Dr. Blake recommends improving the diet (more protein, better-quality protein, and a gradual transition to raw food), digestive support (colostrum, digestive enzymes, and probiotics such as acidophilus), clean water (filtered or bottled), ample exposure to unfiltered natural light outdoors (something he believes kept the stray dogs healthy), and the elimination of everything that weakens the canine immune system. This includes pesticide treatments for fleas or ticks, vaccinations, exposure to garden chemicals, and most prescription drugs.

“It isn’t necessary to fear every mosquito,” says Dr. Blake, “or to equate every positive heartworm test with a death sentence. Mother Nature has given your dog plenty of defense weapons that will work fine if you keep chemicals and inadequate nutrition from interfering. When I first stopped using heartworm prevention medicines, I went through stages of using homeopathic nosodes, herbs, and natural repellents in their place. I no longer use any of those replacements because I believe a dog’s best protection comes from a clean, toxin-free life-style and good nutrition.”

Heartworm-Infected Mosquitoes: A Spreading Threat

The first description of heartworm in dogs appeared 155 years ago in the October 1847 Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery. But until the late 20th century, America’s canine heartworm was a regional illness, with most cases occurring in the Southeast. Dogs living in Rocky Mountain and Western states rarely contracted heartworm, and if they did, it was because they picked it up while traveling through areas in which heartworm was endemic, or permanently established.

Warm summer temperatures, conditions that favor mosquitoes, and an increasingly mobile canine population have contributed to the spread of heartworm. Mosquitoes thrive in swampy areas and wherever they have access to standing water. Sometimes natural disasters such as storms or floods spread heartworm by expanding the mosquitoes’ habitat. Other factors that contribute to heartworm infestation include the agricultural irrigation of previously dry land or the installation of swimming pools, ponds, and fountains.

Wendy C. Brooks, DVM, at the Mar Vista Animal Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, is keeping a close eye on heartworm infections in areas thought to be safe from the parasite. Consider Salt Lake City, Utah, historically a low-risk area for heartworm.

“A beautification project led to the planting of new trees throughout the city,” says Dr. Brooks. “The following year, these trees were pruned for the first time, leaving thousands of knot holes throughout Salt Lake City. This suited Aedes sierrensis, the ‘tree hole mosquito,’ just fine. Soon heartworm cases began appearing. Salt Lake City is now considered as endemic an area for heartworm as Texas, Louisiana, or Florida. Planting trees throughout a city is hardly a major climatic event, but it was enough to establish heartworm and its mosquito vector in a new area.”

Between 1996 and 1998, researchers at the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine reviewed the heartworm tests of 4,350 dogs in 103 cities in Los Angeles County. Eighteen dogs tested positive, or 1 in 250. The result startled veterinarians not only because it was unexpected but because the infection rate was as high for dogs that had never traveled as it was for dogs that had, and 50 percent of the infected dogs were “indoor” dogs, which are considered less susceptible to heartworm than dogs that live outdoors. Age, sex, and coat length were ruled out as risk factors.

“Veterinarians in Southern California do not usually test for heartworm,” says Dr. Brooks, “but we’re beginning to. In areas with swimming pools, reservoirs, lakes, ponds, and other mosquito-friendly environments, heartworm is infecting our dogs.”

Is Alaska next? Thanks to global warming, mosquitoes have appeared in Barrow, the northernmost city in North America, and the mosquito-friendly Kenai Peninsula southwest of Anchorage reached heartworm-incubating temperatures in May.

Making Decisions on Heartworm Treatment

The success of alternative approaches for preventing or treating heartworm – or any other condition, for that matter – depends upon a complex multitude of factors. One should not simply replace conventional medications with “natural” remedies and expect miracles to happen; this is the sort of ill-considered approach that often fails and gives alternative medicine a bad reputation.

Instead, dog guardians who are concerned about the risks of conventional prevention or treatment drugs should consult with a holistic veterinarian and look into a “whole dog” heartworm prevention program. This should include a review of and improvements in the dog’s diet, overall health status, exposure to toxins, and stress levels. Local conditions should also be taken into account, including the incidence of mosquitoes and of heartworm in any areas that you and your dog frequent.

The decisions of whether or not to use natural or conventional preventives, and how and whether to treat a heartworm infection are not easy to make – but they are your choices. Find a veterinarian who will support and help you protect your dog according to your dog-care philosophy.

HEARTWORM: OVERVIEW

1. Inquire about the prevalence of heartworm in any areas where you and your dog frequent.

2. Rigorously employ a protection program (any protection is better than none) that suits your dog-care philosophy.

3. Have your dog tested for heartworm infection annually. The competence of your dog’s immune system is critical for protecting him from heartworm.

4. Use immune boosters such as an improved diet, pure water, reduced exposure to toxins, etc.

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Raised by Dogs?

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My family had a lot of dogs when I was growing up. When I was about six years old, my mom convinced my dad to sell their house in the suburbs and buy a house in the country, so their four children could enjoy rural delights. A San Francisco native, my dad had never lived in a place without sidewalks and streetlights, but he gave it a go.

Then 11 years old, my brother most appreciated the opportunity to build tree forts, and later, to ride motorcycles in all sorts of dirt and mud with his friends. My sister Sue, then 12, got a horse and made friends in 4-H. My sister Pam, then 13, also joined 4-H, but I think that was mostly about flirting.

My favorite part of living in the country was the dogs. We started off with just one or two, but since my parents weren’t very knowledgeable about canine reproduction (most significantly, how to prevent it) our family’s dog population ballooned at times into the teens, and one memorable summer, into the twenties, when we had three female dogs with litters at the same time.

I know, I know. Today, this is shameful. Heck, it was probably shameful even at that time, the early 70s, contributing to the pet overpopulation problem so blatantly. But I was too young to be anything but thrilled by the puppy booms. Any time I walked out the door, I had an abundant supply of canine friends to accompany me on adventures. Although there were no other girls my age living within miles of our home, I don’t recall ever feeling lonely. Talk about unconditional love and companionship; I had it in spades, from all my canine pals.

I was prompted to recall my youth with dogs as a result of a request I received from Dr. Larry Lachman, an animal behavior consultant based in Carmel, California. Dr. Lachman, who is also a psychologist, is conducting a national survey of dog owners for his next book. If you would like to contribute, please answer the following four questions:

1. What dogs did you grow up with or have currently? (Names, breeds, age, etc.)

2. How did these dogs affect, influence, or impact either your family of origin, you, or your current relations?

3. Specifically, what life lessons about love, relationships, communication, affection, and values have you learned from your dog(s)?

4. Could you provide me with one or two true stories that illustrate your dog(s) positive impact on you and how you relate to other people or your family?

Please e-mail your answers to DrLarry@FamilyAnimal.comor mail them to Dr. Larry Lachman, Family Animal, PO Box 22151, Carmel, CA 93922.

I can’t wait to read the book!

 

-Nancy Kerns

Defray Veterinary Expenses with The Right Pet Insurance Plan

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Mr. Hobbes, like many older Americans, has benefited from the ever-increasing amount of information available about healthy living practices, and the technology of modern medicine, to successfully reach his senior years. Now, he faces several health conditions common to the elderly and, like most aging Americans, may have to face treatment compromises based upon limited means and a lack of adequate medical expense insurance.

Mr. Hobbes isn’t a retired business professional or a former public employee with a pension. He’s the family dog.

American dogs and other pets now find themselves included in the complexities surrounding medical expense insurance coverage. Costs of veterinary care are rising, and increasingly sophisticated and expensive treatments, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and chemotherapy, are more widely available. Many dogs are living longer and thus contracting the more serious diseases of old age. Also, more single people and families own dogs for companionship, and regard their dogs as members of their family, worthy of the same health protections that the rest of the family enjoys.

All this has prompted the rise of pet health insurance providers and insurance alternatives over the last decade – although with more than 68 million pet dogs in America, and less than one percent covered by any type of health insurance plan, the market is ripe for expansion.

Benefits of coverage
Growth of this particular market is a good thing for everyone concerned about companion animals. Veterinarians like the concept, since anything that enables people to more readily afford and authorize treatment adds to their business, and enables them to deliver medical treatment to the limits of their education and clinic resources, regardless of the economic status of the owner. Dr. Steve Stelma, a veterinarian in rural eastern North Carolina, hopes that veterinary health insurance will greatly reduce the number of times he must “negotiate from the optimum medical care required by a patient to the level of care the owner can afford.”

Companion animals and their guardians also benefit. Some breeders in the United States now enroll their puppies immediately in a health insurance plan and encourage their puppy buyers to continue the coverage. It’s helpful to many people to have their pets’ healthcare budgeted into their regular, monthly expenses. These plans can assist with the exponentially higher expenses of multiple-pet households, and greatly reduce the incidence of “economic euthanasia” – animals that are euthanized due to lack of funds for medical treatment.

Also, many businesses enjoy the opportunity for providing an innovative and affordable employee benefit. Several corporations, like the Los Angeles City Employees Association, now offer pet insurance as a payroll-deductible benefit for their current and retired employees.

There are still hurdles for the young industry to overcome, including a generally low level of awareness on the part of many pet owners in America; many don’t know that health insurance plans exist for their dogs. And until recently, advertising campaigns for the industry were minimal.

This is likely to change, however, as several insurance companies have developed strategic business relationships with large corporations that have the advertising dollars to promote their insurance products. Pethealth, Inc., Canada’s fastest-growing pet insurance carrier, sells its policies on the Petopia Web site and through The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc. A few years ago, Veterinary Pet Insurance announced the formation of a partnership with Ralston Purina to educate dog owners about good nutrition, preventative veterinary care, and the availability of pet health insurance.

Early and current plans
Pet insurance companies have been around for many years, but early iterations of the industry addressed only basic healthcare coverage, excluding far more conditions, procedures, and breeds than it covered.

Twenty years ago, one innovator, veterinarian Jack Stephens, launched an insurance company that covered a wider array of veterinary treatments. Frustrated by incidents in which he was asked to euthanize an animal because its family was unable to afford treatment, Dr. Stephens founded Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI), now thought to be the largest pet health insurance company in the U.S., with the specific goal of putting an end to “economic euthanasia.” VPI now holds more than 220,000 active policies.

Following that lead, the field has widened to include several national pet health insurance companies, discount organizations, and even healthcare specialty packages offered by large animal hospitals and clinics. Like choosing a human health insurance plan, purchasers must deal with the idiosyncrasies of each provider’s coverage limitations, treatment and condition exclusions, deductibles, and paperwork.

Today, there are three different types of businesses that address the cost of pet healthcare: insurance companies, membership discount organizations, and practice-based discount plans.

Insurance companies
Pet health insurance resembles what human healthcare used to be before managed care took over the industry. Unlike today’s human health insurance companies, pet insurance companies neither control the pricing at veterinary practices nor dictate what healthcare treatments are allowed. Instead, they offer a simple fee-based plan that essentially shares the risk associated with the medical care of pets among many pet owners. So, technically, they more closely approximate property or car insurance in that they reimburse policy holders, within the limits of the policy, for healthcare costs. The carriers are regulated by the state’s insurance commission where they are licensed to provide coverage.

Premiums for pet insurance are generally based on the animal’s species (some providers cover exotic pets in addition to dogs and cats), breed, age, and sometimes its weight or size.

Under this type of health insurance plan, a dog owner chooses her own veterinarian, selects treatments within certain guidelines, pays the veterinarian out of her own pocket, and submits a claim to the insurance company for reimbursement under the schedule established by its plan, less a deductible. Each of the companies we examined (see “A Quick Look at the Plans,” next page) offers broader levels of coverage for increasingly higher premiums.

For instance, most companies offer accident and serious illness coverage under their basic plans. Additional tiers of “wellness” coverage appear in more expensive plans. These levels add coverage for treatments such as spay/neuter, vaccines, annual checkups, preventative care (such as heartworm medication), and even, in some cases, holistic treatments including acupuncture and chiropractic. Some also cover the cost of prescription drugs.

Finding out what a particular company does not pay for is just as important as knowing what they do cover. Most pet insurance companies offer – at an additional cost, of course – “endorsements,” or policy riders for expensive, chronic conditions, such as cancer. Some plans limit coverage for certain conditions common to particular breeds. For example, one plan excludes coverage for skin allergies in Shar-Peis, a breed notoriously plagued by that condition.

Other common exclusions are elective procedures, grooming, foods, behavior-related treatments, congenital and hereditary defects, and pre-existing medical conditions. Most carriers have an age limit for new clients, although they will continue to carry enrollees – at an increasing cost – who mature while covered by the plan.

Reviewing the list of policy exclusions causes many owners to wonder if the whole idea of pet health insurance is right for them. The insurance providers suggest, however, that owners who maintain health insurance for their dogs don’t postpone needed treatments for sick and injured dogs and, when treatment choices are presented, opt for the immediate application of the most highly recommended care, regardless of cost. So, despite the exclusions, these carriers maintain that dogs receive greatly improved levels of care for accidents, serious and chronic illnesses, and surgical procedures.

Membership plans
This is the second major type of plan that aspires to make veterinary care more affordable. For a monthly “membership” fee, members receive a discount on covered products and services from participating veterinarians and animal hospitals. More a discount program than health insurance, these plans accept any kind of dog, of any age, in any health condition. There are no forms to fill out, no deductibles, no waiting periods for reimbursements, no health-related exclusions. These plans contain no benefit caps, no limits to the number of visits to in-network veterinarians, and no need to pre-authorize procedures. The dog owner simply pays the discounted fee to the participating veterinarian at the time service is rendered. However, this discount is available only from a participating, or in-plan veterinarian.

In return, veterinarians receive a portion of the monthly membership fees paid to the program provider and obtain access to a new, broader client base, referred to them from the program provider. These providers limit the number of veterinary practices enrolled in each zip code, thereby insuring increased traffic volume at participating veterinary offices.

These programs also extend discounts to members for pet supplies, boarding, grooming, training, day care, and even a pet ID and location service. If your veterinarian of choice participates in one of these plans, weigh the monthly membership fees against any proposed savings in health care costs.

Local plans
If you patronize a large veterinary practice, it may offer its own discounted wellness packages with savings on routine healthcare, spay and neuter procedures, and geriatric checkups. It’s worth checking into any local preventative care packages provided by your own veterinarian of choice.

The checklist
A dog owner who has decided to investigate and procure veterinary health care insurance or a membership discount plan should closely review the fee and coverage schedules from each provider and consider the carrier’s answers to the following questions:

What would happen if the company went out of business? Although it’s easy to find out how long the company has been in business, you can’t reasonably expect an honest answer if you ask whether the company is financially sound and likely to remain in business for the lifespan of your dog! Ask about the company’s underwriters and consumer protection policies.

How are the benefits paid? On a predetermined “reasonable fee” schedule, or does the company completely reimburse you for the entire invoice from your veterinarian?

What are the age limits of coverage for your dog? If your dog reaches that age limit while covered by a plan, will the coverage continue, and, if so, how much do the fees increase?

Are complementary or alternative health-care treatments covered by the plan?

Are prescription drugs covered? Is there an annual limit to this coverage in the case of dogs who take daily medication?

What added endorsements (policy supplements) are required for specific diseases such as cancer? What are the added costs?

Are deductibles applied for each incident or for each office visit? If the primary care veterinarian refers you to a specialist, “per-incident” coverage will not incur an additional deductible payment for the visit to the specialist, as long as the visit covers the same condition as covered in the original veterinary visit.

Does your veterinarian’s practice offer its own discounted wellness package?

Get it while you can
Today, veterinary medicine is one of the few healthcare professions whose economic structure is not based on its related health insurance industry. Dog owners, not insurance plan managers, decide which veterinarians to consult and which treatments to authorize, and current insurance policies support this structure by simply reimbursing or discounting these expenses.

However, the veterinary medicine industry may soon enter a critical period in its growth. With rising costs and increasingly sophisticated treatments, and the dog owner’s desire to manage their expenses by insuring their dogs, the shape of the industry may change to more closely resemble the human healthcare model.

In the meantime, veterinary medical insurance can represent one of the best insurance buys for consumers. In fact, the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Animal Hospital Association, and the American Humane Association endorse the concept of pet health insurance.

The industry also offers a great financial growth tool for veterinarians, who will be able to perform more and better medicine for their clients. Under the current structure of the industry, veterinarians have little if any contact with the insurance provider, so insured clients do not present an administrative burden to the veterinarian’s office staff. And veterinarians face a difficult challenge in today’s economy. How can they open and operate a profitable practice while keeping their prices within reach of their clients? Veterinary health insurance may be the answer.

Despite the inevitable anecdotal reports of slow reimbursements and disagreements between consumers and companies about policy interpretations, the industry expects the popularity of these plans to grow significantly. This growth will encourage more competition, delivering lower prices and more comprehensive coverage packages to dog owners in the future.

The time may be right to find a health care plan for you and your dog.

Also With This Article
Click here to view “Do You Have a Backup-Plan for Your Pet-Care Needs?”
Click here to view “Pet Insurance”
Click here to view “The Importance of Pet Insurance”

-by Lorie Long

Lorie Long lives in North Carolina with two Border Terriers, Dash (a three-year-old female and agility queen) and Chase (a five-month-old male with an agility future).

How to Manage a Multi-Dog Household

As I write this, our four dogs are scattered across my office floor dozing in happy harmony. Dusty, our 8-pound Pomeranian, is curled up under my computer station on one side of my feet, Dubhy, the Scottie, on the other. Eighty-five-pound Tucker is sprawled across two dog beds next to the file cabinet, and Katie-the-Crazy-Kelpie is stretched out on the purple fleece on the far side of the room. All is well in the Peaceable Paws kingdom.

It is not always so, however. Katie and Dubhy have squabbles from time to time – usually a result of ownership disputes over some mutually coveted possession, or claim-staking for the highly prized location at our feet in front of the sofa. An occasional defensive falsetto Pomeranian snarl will ring out when Dusty perceives a pending threat to his small self by one of the larger dogs. And when Tucker and Dubhy engage in rowdy bouts of Chew-Face and Chase-and-Maul-the-Scottie, Katie, driven by her herding dog genes to maintain order, will often spoil the fun with fear-inducing glares, backed up by painful and effective nips to the offenders’ hocks.

Because dogs are pack animals, we have high expectations about their abilities to live peacefully in groups. If you are a human member of a multiple dog household, it is important to be realistic about what you can and cannot accomplish with your canine family members. Your own personality, behavior, commitment to managing and training your pack, as well as your choice of packmates, will all play important roles in your ability to create your own peaceable kingdom.

family of dogs

It’s in the Genes

Once upon a time, our dogs’ ancestors were all wild and lived in packs. It was critically important to pack survival that they get along well with each other. Even a minor injury from an aggressive packmate’s tooth could become infected and cause the disability and death of a pack member. Wild dogs depended on the abilities of the whole canine family to help with hunting and pack defense – a disabled member was a liability to all. For these survival reasons, dogs developed a highly ritualized language that enabled them to maintain pack order without bloodshed. Meaningful eye and facial expression, body posture, snapping, snarling, and even tooth contact without enough pressure to break skin all contributed to harmonious pack life.

Enter the human. Over the centuries, as we molded the canine species’ exceptionally plastic phenotype, we created breeds such as Beagles, Bassets, Foxhounds, Coonhounds, Labradors, Golden Retrievers, and others – the hounds and sporting breeds that still have very strong genes for pack harmony. At the opposite extreme, we also created breeds such as the American Pit Bull Terrier, that genetically have very little tolerance for the proximity of others of their kind.

If you are just starting out on your path to pack life, your shortest route to a peaceful pack is to select canine family members from the harmonious end of the scale, and avoid the pugnacious fighting breeds, feisty terriers, and obsessive herding dog types. That’s not to say that some Pit Bulls, Scottish Terriers, and Australian Kelpies can’t live in group homes – they certainly can – it just takes more effort on the part of the human to make it work.

Order in the Pack

Pack management is as much an art as a skill. If you have always had a multi-dog household, never had problems, and never thought twice about it, congratulations! You are one of the lucky ones – a natural. You probably instinctively have done all the right things to help your pack be well-adjusted. Many dog owners aren’t so fortunate.

Pack problems run the continuum from simple delinquent behaviors to serious intra-pack aggression. While many dog owners tolerate the former, group bad manners is often the precursor to aggression, and is far more easily addressed before canine emotions escalate to the blood-letting level.

The basic tenet for a successful multi-dog household is simple: The more dogs in the home, the more “in charge” the human pack member must be. The “in charge” tenet for pack management is closely followed by this corollary: The more dogs in the household, the more well-trained and well-behaved the canine members of the pack must be. So how does a floundering human leader restore order to the pack?

The first step is management. If you are facing pack behavior challenges, start by identifying the key areas of conflict, so you can figure out how to put a management plan in place while you work on long-term training solutions.

Conflicts Between Family Dogs

A sample list of common conflict situations might look something like the following. We’ll call our sample dog guardian Jane, and describe representative personalities of various players in her pack.

• Feeding time: Angel devours her food and then runs over to eat Sweetie’s, which sometimes starts a fight. Meanwhile, Sugar tries to pick up her bowl and carry it under the sideboard, often spilling it in the process. Honey wolfs down her food, growling and making evil faces all the while.

• Going outside: All four dogs jostle for position at the door, accompanied by snapping and growling, and an occasional full-on battle. Jane has been bitten trying to maintain order at the door while restraining Angel by the collar.

• Watching TV: Jane’s house routine is to eat dinner on the coffee table while watching TV. Dogs all vie for the closest spot to catch dropped crumbs and hand-fed tidbits. Fights most often occur between Angel and Honey.

• Playing: Sugar and Sweetie love to roughhouse together, biting and chewing on each other. All goes well for some time, but Jane can see their energy level rise as they play; three out of five times it ends in a fight.

• Getting home from work: All the dogs are very excited when Jane walks in the door after a long day at work. She is happy to see them too, so she greets them effusively, in a high-pitched voice, with lots of hugs and kisses. Occasionally in the excitement Honey turns on Angel and pins her to the ground.

• Bedtime: Sugar has claimed the human bed as her own, and that’s okay with Jane, she’s willing to share. The others usually work out who gets which dog bed on the floor with only minor grumbling, but Honey will sometimes test Sugar’s claim and jump up to join Jane and Sugar, to the tune of much snapping and snarling.

Why Do Dogs Fight? Stress!

Aggression is caused by stress, and there is clearly plenty of it in Jane’s pack. Jane is obviously not “a natural.” She knows she has a problem – if she had any doubts, the $800 vet bill for the last incident between Angel and Honey erased them.

She has tried to control her rowdy family members, but failed miserably. On the advice of a well-meaning friend she was letting the dogs work it out themselves, but things have only gotten seriously worse. She read a book that suggested supporting the “alpha” dog. As best she can tell, Honey is top dog in the pack, so she feeds Honey first, tries to let him out the door first (hence the bite by Angel), and lets him sit by her feet while she eats her dinner and feeds him treats. If a fight happens, she yells to break it up, then puts the other dogs out in the yard but lets Honey stay in, to support his position in the pack.

Jane needs a whole new approach to pack management. As the benevolent leader, she needs to decide what dog behavior is appropriate, not Honey. Order is best restored through calm management and positive training, not yelling and punishment.

Solutions to Multi-Dog Conflicts

Here are management plans and training suggestions for each of Jane’s six trouble spots:

• Feeding time: Feed the dogs separately, either in different rooms, in opposite corners of the same room, in crates, or by letting them come in one at a time to eat. Doors and baby gates can keep dogs confined to their separate rooms, while crates or tethers can allow them to eat safely in opposite corners of the same room. (See “A Gated Community,” this issue.) Eventually, after the dogs are trained to “Leave It,” Jane may be able to referee feeding time without having to physically restrain the dogs. (See “Off Limits,” January 2002.)

• Going out: The “Wait” exercise is exceptionally useful for maintaining peace at doorways with groups of dogs (see “Wait a Bit, Stay a While,” May 2001). Until she has taught her pack members to “wait,” Jane can use baby gates or tethers to restrain two or three of the dogs while letting them out one or two at a time to reduce the excitement and arousal that leads to aggression.

Once Jane has taught each of the dogs to “wait” at the door she can start practicing with them two at a time, then three, then all four. The pack should learn to be released from the “wait” one at a time so there’s no door jam, and Jane should vary the order in which she releases them so they don’t learn to anticipate the release.

• Watching TV: Jane is setting her dogs up for conflict by feeding them from her plate. She needs to stop this practice immediately. She can use tethers to keep the dogs safely separated, comfortable on their own beds, while she eats dinner at the coffee table (see “Tethered to Success,” April 2001). She can eventually teach them to go to their designated beds on cue by rewarding them generously when they are there. Chances are good that with time and practice, they will go to and stay on their beds when asked, without being tethered.

• Playing: It’s good that Jane can see the energy level rising between Sugar and Sweetie, because that enables her to step in calmly and break up the play session before it turns ugly. She can tether or crate the playmates for several minutes to give the arousal level time to subside, and then release them to play together again – no harm, no foul.

In time, Sugar and Sweetie may figure out that too much excitement makes the fun stop, and learn to better control their own energy. Jane’s intervention needs to be calm and cool; if she yells, punishes, or moves quickly, she is likely to escalate the energy between the dogs and actually trigger a fight.

• Getting home from work: Jane adds fuel to the fire with her excited homecomings; after a day spent inside, and a few hours of anticipating her return, the dogs are already keyed-up. The joyous greeting is too stimulating, and the dogs’ responses boil over.

Jane can manage her dogs’ greeting behavior while she does long term training by crating the dogs in her absence, assuming she won’t be gone longer than the dogs can tolerate. For pups, a good rule of thumb is one hour longer than the pup’s age in months – four hours for a three-month-old pup, etc. Adult dogs shouldn’t be routinely crated for longer than about eight hours a stretch.

When Jane comes home, she can let the dogs out one at a time and greet them calmly. If they get charged up she can just quietly turn her back and walk away from them, or even turn and walk out the door.

She can also simply start entering the house without greeting the dogs, ignoring them completely until they calm down. Once again, this teaches the dogs to control their own behavior, rather than submitting to her forcibly imposed will. Chances are good that if she does not “feed” their energy, they will settle quickly and fights won’t happen.

• Bedtime: One word – crates! I am not opposed to dogs sleeping on the bed, unless “dogs on the bed” is causing problems, which in Jane’s case it clearly is. She is at risk for injury herself, lying on her bed beneath two squabbling canines.

She could start by crating all the dogs at night, then, if her ultimate goal is to have them uncrated at night, experiment with letting one out, then two, and as long as good manners hold, eventually all four. (See “Crate Training Made Easy,” August 2000.) Any nighttime growling or snapping is grounds for a renewal of crating.

Of course, while Jane effectively manages her dogs’ behavior in the home, we also expect her to enroll in a good, positive training class. She may not be “a natural,” but she can learn. Her class instructor will be a valuable resource to her in identifying and resolving her dogs’ pack behavior challenges.

It will take her some time to complete basic classes with each of the four dogs, but the improvement in her communication with and understanding of her pack members’ behaviors and thought processes will be well worth the effort. In fact, it will be the ultimate key to her long-term success in turning her home into a peaceable kingdom, and ensuring that she enjoys mutually rewarding lifelong relationships with each of the members of her pack.

10 Steps to a Peaceful Pack

1. Manage the behavior

Use management tools such as tethers, crates, and baby gates to maintain order while you modify your dogs’ behavior through positive training.

2. Train

The more dogs in a household, the more important it is that all dogs be well-trained and well-behaved. Intervention in an escalating conflict is easier and more effective when the dogs respond to calm cues. The Web site of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (apdt.com) offers a “Trainer Locater” list of APDT members, as well as suggestions for finding a good training professional. APDT members may use positive methods to varying degrees; however, there is an increased likelihood of finding a positive trainer on this list who meets your expectations.

3. Be calm

Aggression is caused by stress. If you can maintain a calm demeanor around your dogs, especially when they are becoming aroused, you will help defuse potential conflict. Resist the impulse to scream or yell when dogs are squabbling; this will only increase stress. If you must intervene in a scuffle that doesn’t quickly resolve itself, keep a plywood board handy that you can slip between the combatants to separate them. Then make a mental note to analyze the incident and develop a management plan to avoid a recurrence.

4. See your veterinarian

Medical conditions can exacerbate tense pack relations. A physical condition or illness that causes pain or discomfort to your dog is stressful. Stress causes aggression, so anything you do to alleviate pain or discomfort in any individuals can help reduce the overall stress level in the pack. Ask your veterinarian for a full thyroid panel for any of your dogs who seem particularly anxious and aggressive. Thyroid levels that are on the low end of the scale but still within the clinically normal range can contribute to aggression. Your veterinarian can consult with Jean Dodds, DVM, a pioneer in studying the connection between thyroid and aggression.

5. Let dogs be dogs

While it is not appropriate to let dogs “work it out” if conflicts are escalating, it is effective to let pack members settle small scuffles themselves. These are part of the inherited behavior developed for group survival, and can help to resolve hierarchy unrest and restore pack equilibrium.

6. Exercise

A tired dog is a well-behaved dog. Excess energy is a stressor, and a pack of tired dogs is less stressed, less excitable, and far more likely to live in harmony than one whose members are spilling over with surplus energy.

7. Cultivate individual relationships

Spend quality time with each dog outside the presence of the others. This is necessary for training purposes anyway, and will help you develop a relationship with each dog as an individual. This will make it easier for you to establish your position as benevolent leader and manage the pack as a whole.

8. Protect vulnerable pack members

Very old, young, small, sick, or disabled members of your canine family may be unable to defend themselves, especially if one or more pack members are determined to commit mayhem. You must keep such fragile members physically safe by separating them from the rest of the pack. This may be a temporary solution until the invalid has recovered enough to rejoin the group, or it may be a permanent fix if the size/strength disparity between participants is long term or the conflict too serious.

9. Better living through drugs

Some dog owners find flower essence and herbal remedies to be quite useful for reducing the stress that leads to pack conflict. Rescue Remedy is the most commonly suggested flower essence product, and herbs such as Valerian, Kava Kava, and St. John’s Wort are all used as calming agents. For more extreme cases, pharmaceuticals prescribed by your veterinarian may be indicated. Natural remedies, while usually less risky than prescription drugs, can have unwanted side effects; we recommend that you and your training professional work together with a veterinarian well-versed in complementary medicine to determine if and when drugs or natural remedies are appropriate. (See the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association for a listing of holistic veterinarians around the country.)

10. Be realistic

Quality of life is an important consideration for all the family members. If dynamics in your pack are stressing you or your dogs so much that your quality of life is poor, and if your efforts to improve relationships aren’t helping, then it’s time to consider other options. The worst case scenario – euthanasia – might be the best option for a dog who is so troubled that finding an enjoyable environment is unrealistic. Finding one or more of the troublemakers new homes may alleviate the stress for the rest of the family, although finding homes for difficult dogs can be a challenge. Alternatively, you may choose to keep the more difficult ones and place one or more of the easy-going or vulnerable dogs with friends or family members. This could be a win-win for all, creating an extended family for your canine friends while making everyone’s life more peaceful.

Pat Miller, WDJ’s Training Editor, is also a freelance author and Certified Pet Dog Trainer in Maryland. She is the author of, The Power of Positive Dog Training.

Using Baby Gates as Puppy Management Tools

puppy gate

When we found the six-month-old Scottish Terrier running loose and brought him home to stay in February of 2001, the scrappy little guy gave us a graphic reminder of the trials and tribulations that go along with the joys of puppy-raising. It didn’t take many chewed-up possessions and puddles on the carpet to send us scrambling to unearth the baby gates that had long since been retired from past use with our now-mature canine pack members. We found the old gates behind some boxes in the loft of our barn, dusted them off, and pressed them into immediate service.

What a relief! Of course we crated the puppy at night, but during the day, one gate stood sentry across my office door so I didn’t have to jump up from my computer every 30 seconds to see what he was getting into. The other blocked the doorless opening between our den and our dining area, so we could enjoy peaceful evenings without worrying about what the little terror – oops, terrier – was doing in the rest of the house. Sanity restored, life settled back into peaceful harmony.

It took only a few months until the Scottie’s behavior was reliable enough for me to remove the gate to my office, so that i could work on the computer without supervising him full-time. But only in the last month have we opened the den/dining room gate in the evenings and given him almost full house freedom. The bedroom door stays closed, thanks to his penchant for picking up shoes and socks, and my inability to consistently put them where he can’t get them.

Unlimited uses
There are lots of other wonderful applications for baby gates in addition to basic puppy management. We have long used one to bar the dogs from our cats’ room (the cats jump over the gate); this keeps the canines from dining on kitty kibble, and prevents them from devouring that grossly delectable dog treat, litter box “kitty rocca.”

Gates can also be used to keep a dog out of a baby’s nursery, or out of the bedroom of any family member who is allergic to dog hair. And if your clever Collie has learned that the sofa is off limits when you are there but fair game when you’re away, you can use a gate to block her access to the room with the forbidden furniture. (See “Upper Level Management,” October 2001.)

The dog-management possibilities are endless. Having a dispute with your spouse about whether the dog can be in the house? Wrangle a compromise, and use gates to keep him (the dog, of course!) in the approved areas of the house; maybe you can gain more territory for him later. Just refinished the hardwood floors? Baby gate! Have an incurable counter-surfer? Baby gate! Having intra-pack relationship problems? Baby gate!

You get the idea. Rather than yell, spank, shock, or otherwise try to punish your dog into submission, use baby gates to manage their behavior while time, training, and behavior modification work together positively to extinguish unwanted behaviors without the use of force or pain.

The right gate for you
Your ideal baby gate will install easily, be sturdy enough to withstand canine assaults, and tall enough to prevent Bounder from leaping over. It should open and close easily, and be safe, aesthetically pleasing, and affordable. (Fortunately, many dog owners have a somewhat lower-than-Martha-Stewart standard for aesthetics!)

Baby gate prices cover a wide range, offering something for every budget – from $18 for a cut-rate model to more than $150 for the classy, décor-matching gates. They are available in different widths to cover a variety of doorway sizes, and may be made of wood, plastic, metal, tubular steel, PVC pipe, wire mesh, nylon, nylon mesh, or a combination thereof. Some screw into the wall and require installation with tools; others are pressure-mounted. Some open easily with one hand. Others require you to remove the whole gate in order to pass – definitely a two-handed task.

Because there are so many variables, we are going to stray from our normal format of rating several different products. Instead, we will describe the many options that are available, and some of their advantages and disadvantages, to help you understand how to analyze your own needs and select the gate that would work best for your dog and your home.

Consider your dog
The size of the dog or dogs you want to contain is the first thing you have to consider, in relation to the size of the gaps in the gate. A gate with bars that are four inches apart – the widest gap allowed in the industry – will perfectly prevent a human baby or broad-headed dog like a Rottweiler from sticking his head through, but pose a hazard for any dog whose head juuust fits through. Such a dog could slip her head through the gap, get stuck, and panic. And, of course, your Chihuahua could walk right through the bars!

The height of the gate is also important if your dog is a jumper, climber, or particularly tall. The most common height range for baby gates is about 24 to 32 inches. For smaller dogs who are not apt to attempt a leap over the gate, such as a Maltese or Peke, a shorter gate is convenient; it’s often easier to step over a short gate than to open and close it. Especially tall gates are needed for tall dogs or those who specialize at leaping. We found a 48-inch-tall, wire mesh, pressure-mounted gate in several stores and catalogs, including the Care-A-Lot Pet Supply Warehouse, where it was priced at $60 (800-343-7680, carealotpets.com). The Rover Company of Prescott, Arizona, offers “Rover Closers” made of PVC pipe. Their 48-inch-tall model sells for $85; order at roverpet.com or by calling (800) 658-5925.

In addition to his size and athleticism, you also must keep your dog’s personality in mind when buying a gate. Dogs who have been properly conditioned to enjoy spending time alone might require only the slightest barrier, such as the Evenflo Extra-Wide Soft Gate, for those extra-wide spaces. At $43, it is made of tubular steel and a nylon and mesh panel. It is pressure-mounted, and expands from 38 to 60 inches. The Infantino Kiddy Guard, made of polyester mesh, retracts into itself and covers openings from 6 to 51 inches wide. At $106 it’s pricey, but you have the lovely convenience of “disappearing” the gate when not in use. (We found the latter two gates online at child-safety-gates.com; you can also call 610-539-8736 to order.) Any dog who is secure in a mesh soft-sided crate would probably be just as respectful of this gate.

In contrast, dogs who are determined to defeat any restrictions of their free movement require a maximally secure gate. Many gates are pressure-mounted in doorways; some of these contain strong springs to keep the tension high. However, if your dog is likely to test the barrier’s strength, go for the sturdiest hardware-mounted model you can find. If your dog does manage to defeat a gate and win his freedom, even just once, he is very likely to try and try again. Every time he succeeds in a “jailbreak,” he has been rewarded and thus firmly conditioned to try it again.

An especially strong, hardware-mounted gate we admire is the KidCo Safeway Gate. We purchased this very popular model from a baby supply store, but have seen it offered in many stores and catalogs. The lowest price we saw was $54, from both Care-A-Lot (see contact numbers above) and Ryan’s Pet Supply, 800-525-PETS or www.ryanspet.com.

A final canine personality point to consider: If your dog or puppy is a chewer, irresistibly drawn to munching on wood furniture, avoid wood or plastic gates. A bored puppy with a natural need to chew may not be able to resist gnawing on the only thing between her and the rest of the house.

Ease of human use
Of course, humans are the other users you have to consider when choosing a gate. The gate has to be easy enough for all human members of the family to open and close again securely. Some gates don’t open, but have to be stepped over or taken down and then replaced when you want to pass through – beyond the ability of most children to manage. Other gates swing open and close with a latch, but if a latch is difficult to refasten, chances are it will be left not-quite-fastened sometimes, potentially putting the dog in danger. If you live alone, or with another competent, concerned grown-up, tricky latches may not be much of a problem. But it could be a big issue if you have a lot of foot-traffic in your home, kids, or anyone who suffers arthritis in her hands.

The importance of matching the latch with the human users became amply apparent when I purchased KidCo’s Center Gateway Pressure Gate in wood ($90) for my home, and in tubular steel model ($70), for use at my training center (both from J-B Wholesale, www.jbpet.com, 800-526-0388). I selected the wooden model for my home for aesthetic reasons, and the steel model for the training center because it was less expensive and more likely to survive potential assault by doggie daycare clients. I chose this particular brand of gate because it was pressure-mounted (which I knew would be adequate for my dogs), could be easily opened with one hand, and opens in both directions for easy passage. In addition, the frame lies flat on the floor (nothing to step over) and, although the bars were widely spaced, I thought it highly unlikely that our dogs would put their heads through.

The gate was a perfect choice for my home. It’s well made, easy to open and pass through, and looks nicer than any gate I’ve ever used in the past. My husband and I like it so well that we continue to leave it in place even though the Scottie doesn’t need it any more; we’ve realized that our 19-year-old cat, Jackson, appreciates the daytime respite from the nonstop attentions of Katie, our cat-crazy Kelpie.

The gate has not fared so well at my training center, however. The pressure-mounted feature that works so beautifully for my home hasn’t performed as well with the high traffic level and the large, rambunctious dogs that sometimes grace my center. Despite numerous tightenings, the rubber feet that hold the gate in place keep slipping. The gate mechanism that we find blissfully simple to manipulate at home seems to confound new users, and I am constantly explaining, “Push the button, lift up the handle, then lift slightly on the gate and swing it open.”

Other people considerations
If you rent, rather than own your home, or have really nice woodwork around your doors, you’ll want a pressure-mounted gate, rather than something that requires you to screw hardware into doorframes. Keep in mind that the strongest pressure-mounted gate is not as secure as hardware-mounted gates.

If the best spot for your gate lacks a good strong wood surface to fasten the gate to, you may want to buy KidCo’s neat installation kit. It contains materials and fasteners that enable installation on a hollow wall, wooden banister, or a wrought iron railing. (You’ll need one kit for each side of the gate that lacks a solid wood surface.) We paid just $10 for the kit from Care-A-Lot (800-343-7680 or www.carealotpets.com).

Many gate manufacturers offer additional panels that can be added to gates, so as to span extra-wide doorways.

Once upon a time, expandable “accordion” type gates were very common – you know, the kind with the diamond-shaped openings that expand and retract across doorways. These expansion gates did offer two advantages not seen elsewhere: they are extremely adjustable, and they latch easily with just a hook and eye that is screwed into the wall. However, we would recommend that you avoid these gates; it’s too easy for pets and human fingers to get pinched as you open and close them. Also, with some of the largest openings of any baby gates, they tempt smaller animals to try to crawl through, inviting entrapment and disaster.

No bad dogs
Using baby gates doesn’t mean you have bad dogs. It means you are a wise owner who knows how to manage your dogs’ behavior to make life more pleasant for all concerned.

And you don’t need all the fancy/expensive bells and whistles for all your baby gate applications. The one I use for my home’s “cat room” is an older, inexpensive model made of wood and wire mesh, the kind that does not swing open, but must be stepped over or taken down. It’s a low traffic area, so my husband and I suffer with climbing over the gate twice a day to feed and clean litter boxes (and tell ourselves that it keeps us limber). The wire mesh feature is perfect for this application – it allowed us to cut a small opening in one corner of the gate for the geriatric cat who can no longer leap tall gates in a single bound.

There is no universally perfect baby gate. Do your research, find the one – or ones – that work best for your needs, and live with your family in the peaceful comfort of a gated community.

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