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Answers from Experts 01/99

By
Nancy Kerns
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0

I have two nine-month-old puppies, brothers from the same litter, who have received all the usually recommended vaccinations, on exactly the same schedules (I have taken them to the veterinarians at the same time for all their maintenance visits). Recently, after being boarded at a large facility, one of them began to exhibit symptoms of parvovirus. After receiving IV fluids and antibiotics, he recovered, but I am shaken up. Why should a well-vaccinated puppy contract the disease? And why should my other pup, who has been exposed to all the same things, be fine?

And here is another puzzle. After hearing that one of my puppies had gotten parvovirus, my next-door neighbor began to worry about her six-month-old puppy, who often plays with my dogs. Her puppy has had all of her shots, and my neighbor didn’t want to revaccinate unless it was necessary, so she had a titer test run on the puppy. The test revealed that the puppy no immunity to parvovirus at all, so she had the pup revaccinated immediately. What is going on here? Is it possible that my puppy was infected with a new strain of parvovirus, one that his vaccinations didn’t protect him from?

-Name withheld by request
Charlotte, North Carolina

We turned this question over to W. Jean Dodds, DVM, a long-time expert in veterinary hematology and immunology. She is also the founder and President of Hemopet/Pet Life-Line, a non-profit, national, animal blood bank and adoption program for retired greyhounds. Dr. Dodds lives in Santa Monica, CA. 

First of all, you need to understand that it doesn’t matter how well an animal has been vaccinated. No vaccine produces 100 percent protection, 100 percent of the time. There will always be an occasional case of a “vaccine break,” which is what we call it when a vaccine fails to protect an individual against an infectious disease challenge. However, when a break occurs, if the animal has been appropriately vaccinated, it will usually experience only a mild form of the disease. This is the most probable explanation for what happened with your puppy.

While there are some rare exceptions – where an appropriately vaccinated animal nonetheless experiences a lethal form of the disease – it is far more typical that such an animal will experience only a mild form of the disease and will recover quickly.

Vaccination is not a sure thing. It certainly improves the odds that an animal will be protected from disease, but it does not guarantee this. There is no way, even with the best vaccines, to be sure that any given individual’s immune system will respond in the desired way to protect that animal.

However, I’d like you to consider some other possible explanations for what happened to your puppy:

A puppy could contract parvovirus, even after receiving several vaccinations intended to convey protection from the disease, if the antibodies received from the mother’s colostrum and, to a lesser extent in utero, interfered with proper immunization by neutralizing the vaccine’s effect. Most puppy vaccine failures are caused by this interference from maternal antibodies. If a puppy receives a particularly high level of antibodies (passive immunity) from its mother, the vaccine antigens are neutralized, so that when these antibodies wane, the puppy is left without adequate protection, and has failed to become actively immunized.

When puppies are first born, they are protected from infectious disease antigens by maternal antibodies. This is followed by a period when the puppies are partially susceptible to contracting a disease, because the maternal antibody levels are waning but are still high enough to partially inactivate the vaccine antigens. And, finally, comes the time when the maternal antibodies are low enough to permit the vaccine to take over fully and produce good, active immunization. Maternal antibodies wane at a somewhat unpredictable rate, which is why puppies are vaccinated several times at intervals of two to four weeks apart. This is an effort to cover any potential gap in protection or “window of susceptibility” that arises from the waning of maternal passive immunity and the onset of active immunization and protection by vaccination.

May not have been parvo
Another possible explanation for your puppy’s symptoms is that it had some disease other than parvovirus, despite your veterinarian’s diagnosis.

Veterinarians diagnose parvovirus disease by its symptoms – fever, depression, diarrhea, vomiting – AND by checking the dog’s stool for presence of the virus or serum antibody level. But there are other gastrointestinal diseases that produce symptoms that closely resemble those of parvovirus, and even the presence of low levels of parvovirus in the stool doesn’t necessarily mean that the dog’s symptoms are caused by it.

Dogs that are vaccinated and fully protected against parvovirus may still shed parvovirus in their stool if they are exposed to the disease agent. Unless the stool sample revealed a moderate to heavy parvovirus infection, the dog’s symptoms could be caused by something else, or a combination of parvovirus exposure and another infectious agent. For example, the puppy could have been exposed to both parvovirus and corona virus, and then suffer diarrhea and other symptoms as a result of the corona virus alone, because he was adequately protected by vaccination against parvovirus.

Trouble with titers
Regarding your neighbor’s puppy: Chances are very good that the puppy may have had adequate protection from parvovirus, despite the titer test results. Here is why:

There are two types of titer tests commonly offered by most veterinary medical laboratories. One type is intended to detect whether or not a dog has the disease (viral infection); the other type of titer test checks the level of immunity the dog received from vaccination. In the latter case (vaccine titer test), antibody levels are expected to be several titer dilutions lower than those conveyed by active viral infection. If your neighbor’s veterinarian requested an immunity or antibody level measurement for parvovirus or other disease, the laboratory typically assumes that disease diagnosis, rather than vaccine immunity, is to be performed. When the lab technicians do a test to see whether the dog has parvovirus, they start the dilution in the test system much higher than you would normally see from vaccination (to conserve reagent and reduce cost of testing). As vaccine titers are lower; they won’t be detected unless the test reagent dilution is set lower as seen with vaccine titers as opposed to disease titers. I’ll put it a different way: If they utilize disease exposure methodology, when what is really wanted is a test to assess the adequacy of vaccination, it will be negative nearly every time.

It sounds like an obvious oversight, but I’ve seen it again and again in cases where I serve as a consultant. The owner calls me and says, “But I keep vaccinating this animal, and my veterinarian keeps testing him and there is no immunity; what do I do?!” Very often, it’s a case where the veterinarian looked at the lab catalog, and then selected the test called “Parvovirus Antibody” rather than the intended one, which would be “Parvovirus Vaccine Antibody” or “Parvovirus Vaccine Titer.” Meanwhile, the poor animal has been vaccinated repeatedly, and when we finally get the correct measurement, it’s actually had good immunity all along.

Finally, regarding your question about viral strains: For a long time, researchers have known that outbreaks of infectious diseases, like parvovirus, can be caused by different strains as viruses mutate so quickly. Some infectious agents (e.g. influenza virus) change enough over time that you have to make a new vaccine strain to protect the population, whereas others change their outer coat without much change in the central core of the organism. Parvovirus, happily, falls in this latter category. Research has shown that even when parvovirus mutates, it has the same core, and so the current, more potent vaccines still protect against the newer forms of parvovirus.

As Good As Your Dog?

By
Nancy Kerns
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0

Most of us were exposed to “If,” the famous poem by Rudyard Kipling, when we were in high school. If you weren’t required to read it in a literature course, you probably saw it on a poster on a childhood friend’s bedroom wall. You know, it’s the one that begins,

“If you can keep your head
when all about you
are losing theirs,
and blaming it on you . . .”

The poem goes on to list a number of things that the author suggests are prerequisites for being an honorable human. If you can do this and do that, he sums up, then . . .

“yours is the earth and everything that’s in it, And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!”

Recently, a dog lover sent me the following takeoff on Kipling’s poem, by an anonymous author, and containing a surprise ending. He’s got a point. To wit:

“If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can get going without pep pills,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you when, through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can ignore a friend’s limited education and never correct him,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against any creed, color, religion or politics,
Then, my friend,
you are ALMOST as good as your dog.”

Ouch!

Did that zing you, too?

It stings because it’s so on target!

As I read it the first time, I couldn’t help but envision a human who exemplifies all the characteristics contained in the poem. In my mind’s eye, I saw a rather too-perfect, saint-like character. But then suddenly realizing that the author was actually describing a dog . . . It’s with shock that I re-read it and realized, my goodness, almost ALL dogs can fit this description, most of the time!

My favorite line is the one about ignoring a friend’s limited education and never correcting him. When you turn it around the way the author intended and realize that dogs accept our lack of knowledge about them rather calmly, it really points out how dramatic and demanding we can get when we want dogs to learn our ways.

Keep some perspective as you work with your dog – and your friends and family!

-By Nancy Kerns

Pickin’ Clickers

By
Nancy Kerns
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0

First, there was the box clicker a strip of steel encased in a small plastic box that makes a resounding CLICK! when pressed on the free end of the steel strip. The clicker, used to mark the instant of desired behavior and communicate to the dog that he has just earned a reward, has become a familiar training tool in the last decade. (See There’s More Than One Way, WDJ July 1998; Doggedly Clickin Chickens, December 1998; Tricks for Clicks, May 2000.)

These wonderful tools inexpensive, sturdy (although not indestructible they can rust) are incredibly powerful, though they don’t require even an ounce of force to be exerted on the dog. Massachusetts-based trainer Karen Pryor deserves thanks for this. It was she who launched the dog training industry’s interest in clicker-training with her unassuming and now-famous paperback book, Don’t Shoot the Dog, published in the late 1980s and re-released in 1999. The only drawback of the original box clicker was that it was hard to hold onto with hands that were covered in dog spit and hotdog slime. We can thank human ingenuity for solving that problem, and for the slew of clicker innovations that have been developed in the last decade, each better or more fun than the last.

If you are still struggling with dropping the original box clicker on the ground when you reach into your pocket for treats for your dog, you are in for a treat yourself. You are about to discover the wonderful world of clickers for the new millenium.

These clickers are unrated
Because of our extremely biased attitude about clickers we’ve never met one we didn’t like; we’ve simply met some we like more than others! We’re going to forego our usual zero-to-four-paws ratings for these products. We’ll simply present you with a chronological history of the clicker, which has evolved (and continues its evolution) with numerous helpful features; choose the models that suit your training style. You can’t go wrong only one of the clickers featured here costs more than $5; most are much less.

Clicker Basics
Like a beloved old workhorse, the original box clicker is still serviceably sound. It clicks when you push on it. In the beginning, that was all we asked from our clickers. Soon trainers began ordering personalized box clickers with their business information printed on the back.

Then someone solved the clicker-drop problem by drilling a hole in the corner of the clicker and running a string or elastic hairband through it, which could be slipped over the trainer’s wrist.

Next, an enterprising entrepreneur took the concept one step further and produced the tab clicker. At one end, the tab clicker has a little plastic tab with a hole in it. Two elastic hairbands made it a simple matter to dangle the tab clicker from your wrist, thus eliminating the clicker-drop problem. (Run one elastic band through the tab hole, then back through the band itself to secure it to the tab. Then take the second elastic band, run it through the first, and back through itself. Insert hand through second band. Presto!)

The tab clicker helped owners become more coordinated and improve the timing of their clicks and treats, since they could now drop the clicker with impunity in order to deliver the goods promptly to the waiting canine. When they needed the clicker again, it was right there on their wrist, instead of somewhere on the ground.

Humans, however, are never satisfied with make-do when a marketable product is inventable! Soon enough we had the wrist clicker and the finger clicker. Then someone realized that a metal split-ring fits neatly through the clicker-tab hole. That person threaded a plastic coil (like those used to hold keys) though the ring, and the official wrist clicker was born. Before you could say ponytail, trainers all over the country had abandoned their elastic hairbands and were leashing their clickers to their arms with bright, neon-colored wrist coils.

Gary Wilkes, an early clicker trainer from near Phoenix, Arizona, took this concept one step further, and added a whistle onto the coil of his Wrist-O-Click. The whistle can be used either as a long-distance attention getter or a long-distance reward marker. Wilkes came up with yet another variation the Redi-Click a box clicker with a small elastic loop attached to one end, just big enough to fit over the trainer’s thumb or finger. This keeps the clicker handily in the palm of your hand rather than dangling from your wrist.

Sometimes, however, the wrist or finger clicker gets in the way. It dangles freely from the arm or hand, and can thump your dog in the head at inopportune moments. There’s nothing more frustrating than accidentally punishing your dog by bonking her in the head with the clicker when you were reaching to pet, praise and reward her because she finally offered you that elusive behavior you have been working so hard to get.

Dedicated clicker thinkers quickly came up with a viable solution to the clicker-bonk challenge.

The next thing we knew, we had the clip-on clicker. Still incorporating the plastic coil technology, the clip-on clicker uses a straight coil rather than a loop. One end attaches to the split ring, the other to a small metal clip that fastens neatly to your belt loop or other handy ring. The clicker is still kept leashed and under control, but now resides at your waist instead of on your wrist. It takes a little bit of trainer adaptation to get used to reaching for your hip (Smile when you say that, Pardner!) instead of just grabbing for the wrist clicker hanging below your hand, but it’s a behavior change that’s relatively easy to accomplish if you put your mind to it. The no-bonking pay-off is well worth it.

But the inventors and entrepreneurs weren’t done with the clicker yet. Until very recently, all of the clicker innovations were relatively low-tech, with few moving parts. That changed in the year 2000, with the introduction of the Retract-O-Click.

The Cadillac of Clickers
By far the greatest leap forward in clicker technology to date, the Retract-O-Click comes attached to its own miniature retractable leash that coils itself up into a tiny round plastic case. The case is mounted on a small alligator clip that easily grabs onto your belt loop, pocket, or any other handy loop or flap of fabric. When not in use, the clicker zips itself neatly into its case and sits there snugly, just waiting for you grab it and pull it out again.

While the other changes that occurred over the years were pleasant improvements to the basic clicker, in our opinion, the Retract-O-Click is a must have. When they try it out for the first time, the reaction of most trainers is a huge grin and the comment, I love it!”

Kermit’s contributions
The only clickers that we’ve seen that depart from the box design are metal or plastic frog clickers. The metal frog has a tiny hole drilled in his posterior and comes with a key chain and split ring attached. Froggie opens his mouth when you click his tail, and emits a click at a much higher pitch than the standard clicker, which makes it a nice option for dogs who are a little intimidated by the resounding CLICK! of the box clicker.

Plastic frogs are not always available, but when they are, they’re very inexpensive, and lots of fun as giveaways. Having a birthday party for Bowser, or taking Sheba to school for show-and-tell? The little frogs are great party favors, and make a huge impression on Bobby’s classmates. They are not very durable, so don’t expect them to last as long as your regular clickers. They do make a comparatively small click!, and are also useful with dogs who are afraid of loud clicks.

The best accessory
Finally, we would be remiss if we did not tell you about our favorite clicker accessory, Doggone Good’s clicker bait bag: This pet products maker (best known for its portable Cabana Crate) has created a well-designed and -constructed nylon bait bag (to hold your dog’s most beloved training treats) that has an added feature a clicker-sized pocket that your most beloved training tool can snuggle in when you aren’t using it. No more lost clicker woes if you can remember where you left your bait bag, you’ll know where your clicker is.

-By Pat Miller

Letters 02/99

By
Nancy Kerns
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0

Arthritis Supplement
I read WDJ with great enthusiasm each time it comes in the mail. Thank you for such a great publication.

I would like to add to the two letters in the October 1998 issue regarding arthritis supplements. I also have an older dog (mixed breed) that was having trouble with her back legs. After careful study of all the prescribed and over-the-counter remedies, I found one that is readily available, natural, and a results-orientated supplement: Wysong’s Contifin.

My dog that couldn’t get down the stairs now keeps up with my 10-month-old bundle of energy puppy. Wysong’s web site can give much more information about it than I can (www.wysong.com). This supplement supposedly allows the body to heal itself, rather than masking pain or just treating symptoms. I work in a pet supply store and recommend this daily with excellent results.

-Chelsea Sunderman
San Francisco, CA


Readers, I’d love your feedback on the best supplements for arthritis, especially if you have tried several on your dogs. — Editor


Halo Earwash
My compliments on your fine periodical. Every month I read it from cover to cover. Since your April 1998 issue, in which you reviewed dry dog foods, I’ve become a dealer for Natura Pet Foods. I also feed it to my kennel dogs and it’s great! My dogs are healthier than they ever were.

As a dog groomer, I would love to find where I can purchase Halo’s earwash mentioned in one of your articles. I would love to use it in my shop.

-Betty Ruttenbur
via Internet


Halo Purely for Pets is located in Palm Harbor, Florida. You can call Halo at (813) 854-2214 or look them up on the web at www.halopets.com.


Recycled Mobility Carts?
You’ll never know how much your little response to my letter (“Letters,” December 1998) helped us and gave us the oomph we needed to get through the first weeks without our Emmett. I was given a special picture frame by a very dear friend and I chose a sweet photo of Emmett in his “middle age” to put in the frame. It sits on my night stand and every time I glance at him, I smile. There won’t EVER be another dog in my life like Emmett and the things he taught me will be a part of me forever.

Gracie and Annie have formed a closer bond and much to my happiness, Gracie has even taught Annie the joys of EUPHORIC play! Not long after I wrote you, I came home one day to find grass stains all over Annie’s legs.

Even though she wouldn’t admit to acting like a kid, the evidence was all over her fur . . . they had been wrestling in the yard! She doesn’t play with Grace nearly as often or as long as Emmett did and Grace still misses him, I know. But things are much better. Also, giving Gracie Emmett’s food bowl to eat out of helped for some reason.

I’m writing with a new problem: We are on the verge of adopting Toby. He is a five-year-old Dachshund who is paralyzed from the waist down due to an unknown spinal injury that was left untreated for three days. He has had surgery, limited physical therapy, is kept mostly outside, and is an only dog at his house. My largest concerns for him are his lack of bladder activity and the fact that he does not have a mobility cart such as the one featured in the Case History in your September 1998 issue. His current owner expresses his bladder about four times a day (not nearly enough in my estimation) and she reports that Toby hates having this done. I am wondering about the possibility of catheterizing him to relieve his bladder.

But this cart issue . . . WOW! They aren’t cheap! Surely there are carts out there whose Doxies have crossed the Rainbow Bridge and no longer need them. We would be very happy to fill one of those carts again with a happy little Wiener butt. How do I go about finding them? And do you have any nuggets of wisdom for the future owner of a challenged Doxie?

-Anita Vreeland
Tulsa, OK


The K-9 Cart Company, located in Big Sky, Montana, lists their new Dachshund-sized mobility cart at $190. You might try calling them and asking about used models: (406) 995-3111. Readers, do you know of other sources, or a venue for donating used carts?

Shocked About E-Collars

By
Nancy Kerns
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3

Of course, we asked for it (literally!), but we have received an avalanche of mail regarding an article we ran in our January 2001 issue, “A Buzz About E-Collars.” The letters of support for our position against the collars outnumbered the letters from people who approve their use, but every writer had good points to make. The following is a sampling of the letters we received, pro and con. All the letters have been edited for brevity – people really wanted to talk about this!

One interesting phenomenon: Thus far, we have not received any letters in favor of using e-collars for training – just for barking-control and containment.


Against the collars
In my opinion, “electronic training collar” is a very appropriate label for this training tool because they inflict stimulation and shock. In inexperienced hands these collars very definitely “shock.” If anyone thinks that they don’t cause discomfort then why does the dog respond to the collar?

It’s doubtful that e-collars teach a dog to be respectful – and they definitely don’t teach trust. Trust and respect can be taught through simple and effective, pain-free, management and training techniques.

Further, teaching people to train and manage their dogs is far more enjoyable and risk-free with the clicker. Also, I’ve never seen a dog bite the trainer for clicking inappropriately, unlike giving a collar correction with bad timing or incorrect force. If a mistake is made with the timing of a reward marker, the worst thing that happens is that training may be momentarily delayed.

-Valeria A. Cascaddan
Technique Canine Services
Vanderbilt, MI


I wholeheartedly agree with your bias against e-collars. If someone really thinks they are so humane, I suggest they wear one and let you “tune” the intensity until it reaches their “recognition” level. I have two dogs who, admittedly, have their problems, but I cannot fathom making them submit or respond out of fear, which is exactly what the e-collar instills.

-Marlene Tokarski
via email


If these shock collars are indeed as safe and painless and effective as they are claimed to be, why then couldn’t they by used by parents on their unruly children? Parents could easily maintain control of children, during our quiet dinners in restaurants, for example, by an occasional “zap” to remind them of the “rules.”

Brilliant idea, don’t you think? NOT!

-Betty C. Whiteaker
(A positive reinforcement trainer)
Springfield, VA


To anyone still harboring doubts concerning the humaneness of shock collars, I suggest the following test. First, reread the pro-shock collar segment published in the January issue, but mentally substitute “child” for “dog.” No matter how nice it might be to get that potty training taken care of just a bit quicker, are you convinced?

Now perform the same substitution while reading Pat Miller’s rebuttal. Could you, or anyone else, fail to be swayed by her arguments? The fact that shock training works (the fact that we can use pain to impose our will upon animals) simply does not make it right. Not until everyone is as enlightened as Ms. Miller will such needless cruelty of convenience end.

By the way, I have tried such a device on myself. It hurts. A lot.

-Brad Pritchett, Ph.D.
Tucson, AZ


While I certainly respect your willingness to look at both sides of an issue, I feel there are certain issues that do not have two moral sides. Discussing the pros and cons of shock collars is like discussing the pros and cons of beating a child.

While I understand that some trainers have had “success” in using these devices, that certainly does not make it a humane method of training. There are far too many people who are just looking for some “expert” to justify their use of such devices. You have now given them one.

-Lisa Hanson Mantle
via email


Dr. Phyllis Giroux (the expert you quoted in favor of e-collars) is a friend of mine and chiropractor to my dogs. While we agree to disagree about training methodologies, I know her and her staff to be knowledgeable, professional, and to have a deep affection for dogs. I have not had the pleasure of meeting Pat Miller, though I have felt a kinship with her through her writings for the past couple of years. Our training histories appear to be very similar, as are our current views on training.

To find true conviction in our beliefs, we need to know something about “how the other guy lives,” or trains, in this case. I applaud Dr. Giroux for bringing forth her information/training beliefs to what she must have known would be a tough audience! I applaud Ms. Miller as well, in her point-counterpoint type response to Dr. Giroux’s article. My congratulations to WDJ for providing the forum. While we may not agree with all the methods of dog training available, knowledge is power! I hope other subscribers hold to WDJ’s New Year’s Resolution to “stay respectful, kind, patient, and open-minded.”

-Cathy L. Hughes
Mountain View Dog Training
Amissville, VA


Approving use for barkers
As a long-time subscriber to WDJ, I thoroughly enjoy the large majority of your articles. I find the magazine to be extremely informative and respect the decision to not allow advertisements. In fact, I respect all that WDJ and its contributors say. I don’t always agree but that’s not why I subscribe!

I am not an advocate of the e-collar at all! To use such a device for training purposes is, in my humble opinion, lazy. But I wouldn’t say that using it for behavior management is inhumane. Here’s why:

I have two beautiful, healthy, lively German Shepherd Dogs, 15 months old, brother and sister. They are inside more than out and we take them everywhere. There’s one problem, they love to bark – and bark and bark – especially when we are not home and they are outside. One of our neighbors doesn’t care for them because he doesn’t like the barking; that’s understandable. However, he dislikes it so much that he has called Animal Control several times. He’s been at our front door yelling and threatening to file a “nuisance” claim.

In order to keep our pups alive and free from the threat of this man (we even worry whether he would try to poison them), we purchased e-collars for them. Without these collars, we would not have these pups. We are convinced that our neighbor would have acted out his anger. The stimulus from the lowest setting keeps our dogs from barking excessively. They still bark, just not continually. Apparently, this is tolerable for our neighbor; we’ve had no further complaints.

We tried every other known tool to stop the barking when we’re not home, including citronella collars (they actually don’t mind the scent) and audible and inaudible noise emitters.

I am truly disheartened that WDJ failed to acknowledge that this collar can be a life saver for managing barking. Please “Don’t Shoot Me” and others in a similar position.

-Kristy Jennings
via email


Approving use for fencing
Your article condemning e-collars does much to lessen your credibility as an authoritative dog care and training publication. The very term “shock collar” is pejorative and inflammatory.

We have used the products on a large, fully coated Siberian Husky known for his wandering ways, and two small Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, too valuable to permit to wander. The collar emits a warning tone prior to any electrical stimuli, which is fully adjustable to permit the least amount of stimulation to the animal depending on its body structure and thickness of its coat.

The product is professionally installed and professional training in its use is furnished with the purchase. Once the training is completed, dogs understand where the line is that they are not to cross. Certainly the small shock – no more intense than that experienced from static electricity – is preferable to the pain a dog would suffer if hit by a car or fired upon by an irate neighbor.

-John A. McHardy
Pueblo West, CO

Opportunity of a Lifetime

By
Nancy Kerns
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0

I thought I knew what I was doing when I got my dog, Rupert, who is now 11. He was just four months old, but had already been identified as a failure at his intended career as a sheepdog on a working sheep ranch. He just wasn’t all that interested in sheep!

But for a long time now, we’ve lived in town where people are the most dominant figures on the landscape. And, just as he never took to sheep, Rupert has never really liked people. Or other dogs. Or noise. Ad infinitum.

What does Rupert like? It’s a short list, and even shorter if you lump all the “things you can fetch” into one item instead of cataloguing balls, Frisbees, sticks, and toys separately. He likes me, he likes my family, and though it took him a year or two to learn to recognize and trust them, he likes my next-door neighbors. Everyone else? Suspicious, unless they throw things for him and don’t try to pet him.

Hey, he’s a sensitive guy and just needs some space I used to think.

Until I took this job, and in my professional capacity, began to read books, watch videos, and attend demonstrations and lectures on dog training theories and methods, I thought I had done a good job raising and training Rupe. After all, his house manners are quiet and impeccable, he’s brilliant off-leash, and he’s so obedient he’d wait for several days on a down-stay if I asked him to. So he has a few funny peccadillos he would prefer to avoid people he doesn’t know, he never plays with other dogs, and he always crouches down on the floor of the car when we speed more than 30 miles per hour. So he has a few strange fears – he runs out of the room if you fold laundry, he can’t stand sweeping (mopping is okay), and he trembles if people raise their voices.

Oh yeah; he’s also bitten a few people who tried to pet him when he was in some sort of position where he couldn’t get away from them. Is that his fault? No, it was mine.

My fault, because I didn’t know about socializing dogs. My fault, because I thought I was doing the right thing when I protected him from situations that made him nervous, instead of looking for what I now know are simple solutions to his peculiar problems which are not so peculiar for an unsocialized dog.

Through constant exposure to some of the most brilliant minds in the dog behavior and training world whether through their books, tapes, lectures, or, when I’m really lucky, one-on-one interviews and conversations I have learned what a failure I was in my early days and weeks with Rupert.

Had I known about proper socialization, he could have been twice the dog he is now. He’s as sweet and loving and obedient as can be, but he could have also been reliably friendly toward strange dogs and people, trustworthy with children, fearless in cars, and so much more. And he never would have bitten anyone, scared and a little trapped or not.

Fortunately, I’ve also learned that even adult dogs with behavior problems like Rupert’s (and I do now recognize them as behavior problems) can be partially rehabilitated. I’m applying what I’ve learned (and what we write about, all the time in WDJ) to desensitize Rupe to some of his fear triggers, to use classical conditioning to change the way he feels about other dogs and strange people and to improve his health with alternative therapies and an improved diet!

But, looking back over Rupert’s lifetime, I can see that the biggest mistake I ever made was not taking the opportunity to enroll him in a puppy training class. There, he could have made positive associations with noise and people and dogs. Instead, I protected him from the things that scared him – and he’s been scared ever since.

-NK

Whole Dog Journal’s 1999 Dry Dog Food Review

By
Nancy Kerns
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There are countless pet food manufacturers calling their foods “premium” these days, but were you aware that the word doesn’t actually mean anything? That is, there are no official requirements that a manufacturer has to meet in order to call its food “premium.”

And, unfortunately, there are also countless dog owners being taken in by this appellation – people who want “the best” for their dogs, and trust that a high price tag and the word “premium” on the label means they are buying the best food their Buddys could ever want.

In WDJ’s estimation, in order to earn the title “premium,” to make it onto our top 10 list, a food must be something really special. It’s not enough to be simply un-awful; only foods that are formulated with the most wholesome, pure, and beneficial ingredients are “premium” in our book.

We’ve spent months examining the labels of all the best dry dog foods we could find, looking for truly healthy, top quality foods. Our 10 favorites are identified and described on the next three pages.

Our purpose in making these selections is twofold. First, we would like to give you a list of foods that you could buy today to improve the health of your dog.

But we’re not going to pretend that we’ve seen every dog food on the market. New foods pop up all the time. Some manufacturers market their products in restricted areas only. So, along with our selections, we present the reasons why we picked each food, so you can compare any foods you might know of (but that do not appear here) and see for yourself what makes one better than the other. We want to give you a fish, in other words, but we want to teach you to fish for yourself, too!

The following is the criteria we used to make our selections. We chose foods that are made with:

• Only the best sources of protein (whole, fresh meats or single-source meat i.e. chicken meal rather than poultry meal, which may contain several types of fowl. Also, the use of any generic protein i.e. “animal fat,” disqualifies a food from our list).

• No meat by-products (by-products in and of themselves are not necessarily evil. But these “second-class” products are not handled as carefully as whole meat. And the sources tend to be far more dubious than whole meat).

• A whole-meat source as one of the first two ingredients (chicken or chicken meal, for instance, as opposed to chicken fat).

• No artificial preservatives (including BHA, BHT, or ethoxyquin).

• No artificial colors.

• No sugars and sweeteners like corn syrup, sucrose, and ammoniated glycyrrhizin (added to attract dogs to otherwise unappealing food).

• No propylene glycol (added to some foods to keep them moist).

Embattled ingredients
Longtime readers may notice one difference between our criteria for our 1999 selections and our 1998 selections. Last year, we disregarded any food made with corn, one of the least expensive grains available to dog food makers. This year, we’ve relaxed on the corn issue, as long as the corn is presented in its whole, healthy form. Corn fragments (corn gluten meal, corn syrup, corn oil) do not qualify, especially if they appear high up in the ingredients list. (Remember, the ingredients are listed by weight. The more of something there is in the food, the higher it will appear on the list.)

Why the switch? Well, we could say we were finally convinced to take another side in the great corn controversy. Controversial corn? Oh yes; many foods are quite controversial in this highly competitive market, with manufacturers doing their very best to fan the flames in the direction of their rivals’ ingredients. Take a look at how several different dog food makers have described corn:

Beowulf’s All Natural: “Called the ‘King of Carbohydrates,’ corn readily metabolizes into usable energy and is a rich source of linoleic acid, and has a high level of digestibility.”

Flint River Ranch: “Ordinary dog foods are made with corn. Rice and wheat are easier to digest than corn, and therefore easier on your dog’s system.”

Canidae: “No corn. No wheat. No soy.”

We most respect the opinion of Natura Pet Products, who tells what appears to be – pardon us– the whole story:

“Ground corn is a good source of carbohydrates. And because it contains the entire kernel, it contributes additional protein, corn oil, corn bran, and vitamins and minerals to the diet. This is in contrast to corn fractions, which are leeched of many of these natural nutrients. The downside of corn is that it is a common allergen.”

Manufacturers also argue about beet pulp (“cheap filler” vs. “good source of fiber”) wheat (“the most common allergen” vs. “one of the most nutritionally balanced cereal grains”), oven-baking vs. extrusion (“oven-baking results in better nutrition” vs. “dry, wet, and steam-injected extrusion of ingredients maximizes nutritional value”), and even which type of natural preservative to use (“tocopherol works just fine as a preservative for up to 12 months” and “wholesome vitamins C and E offers all the properties of a chemical preservative without the associated health risks” vs. “vitamin E lasts only about a month as a preservative; vitamin C lasts only about 12 hours after the consumer opens the bag.”

When caught in the crossfire, we’ve tried not to simply mouth the platitudes we’ve heard from one or two manufacturers; instead, we’ve used our own judgement to determine the validity of one opinion or another. We ask you to do the same. Check out our selections. Scrutinize the lists of ingredients (see below). And by all means, analyze our arguments for our favorite foods.

-By Nancy Kerns

The Case for Dog Kindergarten

By
CJ Puotinen
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Dog kindergarten may risk infection, but it also offers advantages for socialization.
Dog kindergarten may increase the risk of spreading germs and pathogens. It also offers advantages for early socialization. Credit: Anita Knot | Getty Images

When they were three months old, the owner of two Great Pyrenese puppies called New York trainer Nancy Strouss. We discussed the importance of early socialization and training, says Strouss, especially for breeds that can be aloof and difficult if they don’t receive a lot of socialization at a young age. The owner agreed that her puppies would benefit from puppy kindergarten classes.

A few days after registering, the owner spoke to her veterinarian, who was adamantly opposed to the idea, says Strouss. He told her that letting the puppies have contact with other dogs before they are fully vaccinated at 16 weeks is extremely dangerous. The owner got very upset, accused us of encouraging her to risk her puppies health, and withdrew from the class.

Asked to advise puppy owners on the subject of puppy training and socialization classes, many veterinarians warn owners away, describing a frightening scenario in which viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites lurk in the air and on the ground wherever puppies breathe or walk. They say that other dogs and puppies, potential carriers of infection, are best avoided until young puppies are fully protected by vaccinations or their own maturing immune systems. Most veterinarians believe it is safe to let four-month-old puppies explore the outside world, but some recommend waiting until pups are six or seven months old.

The problem is, that conservative approach may (or may not, as we’ll discuss) safeguard puppies from exposure to agents of infection, but it leaves them completely susceptible to the far less easily treated effects of social isolation. Puppies learn important behavioral skills from each other, their mothers, extended families, and any other canine visitors. These lessons, say behaviorists, can’t be learned from humans, however motivated or well-intentioned. They can only be learned from other dogs. Early training and play in group classes enhances dog-to-dog communication at the same time that it helps young puppies adapt to new people, new sights and smells, other animals, and the experience of travel.

So what’s a responsible canine caretaker to do? Do you really have to choose between sending your puppy to school to contract a horrible disease or keeping him quarantined so that he ends up being euthanized due to a dangerous personality disorder? Not really. Although there are some risks associated with each approach, educating yourself about the risks will help you take a moderate path, keeping a lookout for signs of trouble, and helping you guide the development of your pup into a physically and socially healthy pooch.

Understanding immunity

It’s no wonder that so many people are misinformed about the risks of disease; few have an accurate understanding of the dog’s immune system or the reason for a series of puppy shots.

When challenged by an agent of disease (an antigen), a healthy dog’s immune system responds by producing disease fighters called antibodies, which are specific to whatever antigen encountered by the animal. Infant puppies receive temporary protection from disease via the placenta (in utero) and from antibodies in their mothers colostrum or first milk. Later, the mother’s milk also contributes antibodies.

Each mother provides different antibodies depending on her history of vaccination and other exposures to disease antigens. If the mother has a well-functioning immune system, and a thorough history of vaccination and/or exposure to disease, she will likely contribute a powerful dose of protective antibodies. If, on the other hand, her own store of antibodies is impoverished, due to a dysfunctional immune system and/or a lack of vaccinations and/or exposure to disease antigens, her antibody contributions to her puppies may well be insufficient.

The protection that each puppy receives from his mother (sometimes called passive immunity) usually lasts for several weeks and gradually fades; also gradually, his own immune system matures and begins manufacturing its own antibodies when confronted by disease antigens. Usually, this immune system maturation occurs around 14 to 16 weeks. But the exact rate at which the maternal immunity fades is highly variable from individual to individual. This is important to understand, because as long as the mother’s powerful antibodies are at work in the puppy’s system, his own immune system will not produce its own antibodies in response to exposure to disease antigens.

This means that, as long as the maternal immunity is strong, neither exposure to disease antigens nor exposure to vaccines (which are weakened preparations of antigenic material) will cause him to develop the long-lasting antibodies necessary to defend him from disease.

In most puppies, the maternal immunity fades at some point between 6 and 16 weeks. Vaccines that are administered while the maternal immunity is still strong will be effectively erased from the puppies systems by the maternal antibodies. That’s why it’s generally recommended that puppies be given a series of vaccinations separated by a couple of weeks to make sure that he’s not left unprotected for too long between the fade of the maternal immunity and the development of his own vaccine-triggered antibody protection.

The uncertain timing of the maternal immunity fade is also why veterinarians often recommend that puppies stay relatively quarantined until they are 16 weeks or even older.

Say a puppy receives a typical course of vaccinations at 8, 12, and 16 weeks. Conceivably, his maternal immunity could still be strong enough at 8 weeks (or even 8 and 12 weeks) to nullify those vaccinations, yet fade before his next vaccinations at 12 or 16 weeks. That could leave him vulnerable to disease without protective antibodies for a period of a couple of weeks.

Of course, that’s not necessarily the end of the world. Exposure to a disease antigen can make an unprotected puppy sick, but it will also stimulate his immune system to produce antibodies to fight that and future exposures to the disease antigen. However, the older he is, the more mature his own immune system will be, and the better it will accomplish that task. That’s why the potential gap in the puppy’s protection is more dangerous when he’s 8 weeks old than when he’s 12 weeks old.

Understanding socialization

We don’t know a single trainer who feels that early socialization is not important. Indeed, this is one point that the training community agrees about. ”

There is well-documented proof that unsocialized dogs are shy, nervous, timid, tend to be noisy, can be aggressive, can be difficult to train, do not adapt well to new situations, and in the extreme may live in a constant state of apprehension and fear,” says New Hampshire trainer Gail Fisher. It isn’t so much that behavior problems can never be corrected, she continues, since training can overcome most behavioral issues. Rather, the bottom line is that difficulties caused by a lack of socialization are totally unnecessary and can be avoided simply by socializing puppies.

Massachusetts trainer Gerilyn Bielakiewicz agrees: “Go visit any shelter and read the cage cards. Many dogs are homeless because they don’t like children or cats, can’t live with other dogs, are afraid of loud noises, are afraid of men, are afraid of everything, or are unpredictable or dangerous.”

Sue Ann Lesser, DVM, conducts monthly chiropractic clinics in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. About 95 percent of her patients compete in agility, obedience, field trials, and other canine sports.

“My favorite patients were well exposed to other dogs and people during the critical 12-16-week period,” says Dr. Lesser. “They make veterinary visits with confidence and trust and as adults they cope well with the stresses of training and competition. One of my dear friends, Wendy Volhard, has a class at her obedience camps called Foundation Games for puppies with experienced handlers in which the puppies practice the basics of utility exercises go outs, directed jumping, stand for exam, and so on. Years later, they sail through utility obedience training because they were exposed to the exercises at an impressionable age.”

“An early start is so important,” adds Ohio trainer Dani Edgerton. “If a puppy is going to attend only one class in its lifetime, I suggest that it be puppy kindergarten rather than a later class.”

Elizabeth Teal, a behavioral trainer in New York City, adds that creative owners can help any puppy interact with the outside world without an organized puppy kindergarten class, but she warns that you do need its equivalent. “If appropriate positive socialization does not occur during the window of opportunity that opens at three weeks and closes at 12 to 16 weeks, its benefits will never be internalized by the dog…By not socializing puppies during the appropriate time, we create stress factors that can affect the animals health later in life. With certain breeds and certain environmental factors, the result is truly dangerous dogs.”

Making the decision for your puppy: The risk continuum

We all know that people make decisions based on their own experiences, values, and resources. The decision to potentially expose or protect your puppy is notable only for its complexity. You see, the usual far left vs. the far right scale has to be modified to encompass four extremes rather than just two.

Way out on the conservative end of the fear of disease scale are the people who feel that any increased risk of infection is not worth the benefits of the socialization; these are the keep pups home until they are six months old” people. At the other extreme of this scale are the people who are comfortable with the possibility that their puppies could become ill, and who allow their puppies to socialize anywhere, anytime. Some of these people use conventional vaccination protocols; some, you may be surprised to learn, use no vaccines at all.

Then there is the fear of social disorders scale, which also has its extremists. On one end are those who feel that all puppies must be socialized, no matter what. These people feel that the risk of dealing with illness, or even the death of a puppy, is preferable to raising a social misfit. On the other extreme of this scale are the people who either don’t know or don’t care about socialization.

It can be difficult to find a balanced place on this four-ended teeter-totter, especially when you weigh one scale of risks and benefits against the risks and benefits of the other scale. But, people do!

New Hampshire trainer Gail Fisher says, “The risk of contracting a communicable disease is minute compared to the nearly 100 percent guarantee that an unsocialized dog will never reach its genetic potential. Since non-genetically based, distrustful, suspicious, nervous, fearful behavior is totally preventable, why would anyone recommend otherwise? Generally speaking, puppies can recover from contagious illness. Shyness lasts for life.”

Massachusetts trainer Gerilyn Bielakiewicz agrees. The best argument I’ve heard for early training and socialization, she says, comes from Dr. Ian Dunbar (a veterinarian and behaviorist) of Sirius Puppy Training in California. He says that it does no good for vets to tell people not to socialize their puppies before they are fully vaccinated if those same puppies end up dead because they can’t get along with other dogs or people. Lack of socialization kills more dogs than any disease.”

Even people who don’t necessarily take their puppies to formal classes think it’s important to provide a wide array of social opportunities for the pups. Take Connecticut West Highland White Terrier breeder Christine Swingle, for example. She doesn’t take her puppies to kindergarten, she says. “Instead, I socialize puppies by handling them daily from birth. When they’re five weeks old, I start inviting friends and family to play with and handle the pups. As they get older, the pups interact with my adult Westies, and I ask friends to bring their dogs for dog-to-dog socialization. In this way, the puppies get a good variety of exposure to children, adults, and other dogs. If they have the right attitude and character, and if given the right opportunities, puppies will socialize well without puppy kindergarten.”

 More proof of bad behavior than of disease transmission

No one knows what percentage of the millions of vaccinated and unvaccinated puppies that have contact with other dogs between the ages of 10 and 16 weeks contract infectious diseases, or how many die as a result, says New York veterinarian Beverly Cappel; No one has done any studies, she says. She’s not terribly worried about the health risks of puppy kindergarten, however.

“I’ve had a busy practice for 14 years, and I’ve seen only two or three cases of distemper in all that time. Parvo is more common, and it can wipe out whole litters, but even parvo doesn’t occur often. Some illnesses are so rare, they’re practically extinct. For example, I’ve never seen a case of canine infectious hepatitis, and I don’t know anyone who has.”

Dr. Cappel recommends only the distemper and parvo vaccines for puppies, and she usually gives them at 8, 11, and 15 weeks. “Between 12 and 16 weeks, short-term memory starts crossing over to long-term memory, and puppies begin to retain what they learn, so that’s a perfect time to begin puppy kindergarten,” ”she says.

New York trainer Elizabeth Teal argues that there is far too much behavioral science available, such as the extensive research compiled by John Scott and John Fuller (published in their book, Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog), for the puppy socializing question to even be a debate. “I will always risk illness over a lifetime of psychological maiming,” she says. “And I say this after seeing serious illness up close. I nursed a parvo puppy into a happy, well-socialized dog.”

Teal is concerned about the scary illnesses out there, but adds, “the lack of socialization frightens me more…Most dogs in this country are euthanized for behavior problems, and three at the top of the list are inappropriate urination, jumping, and household destruction. We’re killing dogs because we don’t teach them during the most accessible period of their lives where to go to the bathroom, how to greet people politely, and how to coexist with furniture. I don’t know how euthanasia statistics compare with statistics for early death from disease, but I know that for me, the risk of infection is worth taking.”

Also With This Article Click here to view “Getting the Most of Out of Puppy Kindergarten” Click here to view “Understanding Canine Vaccinations” Click here to view “Plan Ahead to Socialize Your Puppy Early”

Tethering Your Dog for Training

By
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA
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For many years, I have been a vigorous and vocal opponent of keeping dogs tied or chained as a primary means of confinement. The hazards of tying a dog are well-documented, and include increased aggression, vulerability to human and non-human intruders, and the risk of hanging or choking.

It may come as a surprise, therefore, to know that I regard the tether as an invaluable piece of training equipment. The difference – and it’s a big one – is in the application.

Used as a training tool, the tether is a short (about four feet in length) nylon-coated cable with sturdy snaps at both ends. Its purpose is to temporarily restrain a dog for relatively short periods of time in your presence, to allow you to accomplish any one of a number of training and behavior modification goals. It is not used as punishment, or to restrain a dog for long periods in your absence.

appropriate dog tethering

Among other things, the tether can be used as a time-out to settle unruly behavior; to teach your dog to sit politely to greet people; as an aid in a puppy supervision and housetraining program; and to help your dog learn long-distance downs. There are several different ways to set up your tether, depending on your circumstances (see “It’s Easy To Make A Tether” below). Let’s take a look at how you might use the tether in each of the situations listed above.

How to Start Using the Tether with Your Dog

You want your dog’s time on the tether to be a pleasant experience. Before you actually use it the first time for training purposes, take the time to teach him that it is a good place to be, so he doesn’t panic when you try to use it.

Start by attaching his collar to the tether and staying with him. Click! or say “Yes!” and feed him treats, several times. If he knows the “sit” cue, ask him to sit and Click! and treat him some more. Then take a step back, Click! and return to give him a treat.

Gradually vary the distance and length of time between each set of clicks and treats, until he is calm and comfortable on the tether even if you are across the room. If he seems worried about being on the tether, keep your session brief and try to do several short sessions a day until he accepts the restraint.

Release him from the tether when he is most calm, not when he is fretting. If the tether doesn’t worry him, one or two practice sessions should be all you need to start using it in training.

Using A Tether for Dog Time-Outs

Rowdy, your adolescent Lab, is out of control. He’s not supposed to get on the furniture, but every time you sit on the sofa he tries to jump in your lap. If you push him off your lap he just comes back for more; in fact, he thinks it’s a great game. Rowdy needs to learn about “Time Out!”

A time-out is not intended to be a harsh punishment. It is simply an opportunity for Rowdy to calm down, and to learn that his rambunctious behavior results in his house-freedom privileges getting revoked for a while. Believe it or not, with the use of a tether, he can learn to control his own behavior in order to maintain his freedom.

Install a tether in the room of the house where you spend the most time – or have several, one in each of your high-use areas. Put a rug or soft dog bed at each tether, so Rowdy will be comfortable. Have a few of his favorite toys handy so you can give him one when you put him on a time out.

Now just sit down on the sofa, and wait. When Rowdy jumps into your lap, say “Oops, time out!” in a cheerful tone of voice. Then take hold of his collar and gently lead him to the tether. Be pleasant – no scolding or yelling. Hook the tether to his collar, put his toys on the rug, and walk away. If he fusses, ignore him.

When he settles and is lying calmly on his rug, you can Click! your clicker or say Yes! and either toss him a treat or walk over and give him one. After a few Clicks! and treats for calm behavior, release him from the tether and sit on the sofa again. If he jumps up, do another “Oops, time out!” and pleasantly put him back on his tether.

The number of repetitions required to get the message across to Rowdy will vary, depending on you and your dog. If he has a long history of reinforcement for jumping on your lap – that is, if he has been playing the lap game with you for years – it will take longer to change his behavior than if he’s only been doing it for a few days, weeks, or months.

training dogs with tethers

Also, if you (or other members of your family) are not consistent about putting him on a time-out for every lap-jump, the behavior will persist much longer than if everyone reacts in the same way.

Dogs learn through repetition, so if he continues to jump on you after you release him from the tether, just “Oops, time out!” him again, put him back on the tether, and consider it a golden opportunity to do lots of training repetitions.

The timing of your Click! is important because it marks the good behavior; you want your dog to know he’s getting rewarded for whatever he was doing when he heard the Click! The timing of your “Oops!” is also important. The “Oops!” should happen while Rowdy is doing the inappropriate behavior, not when you are attaching him to the tether, so that he can eventually understand which behavior has earned him the time out.

Putting a dog in the back yard when he misbehaves is not as effective as using a tether, because most owners forget to let the dog back inside when he’s behaving himself. If you expect him to learn how to be well-behaved, it is important to give him the chance to be rewarded for the behavior you want (being calm), and not just manage the behavior you don’t want by exiling him from the pack.

Teaching Dogs to Greet Politely

Jumping up on people is a natural behavior for dogs. It’s also a very annoying one. Dogs just want to greet you and have you greet them back. They quickly learn that people invariably pay attention to them when they jump up, so they keep doing it – remember, dogs do what works.

You can use the tether to teach Rowdy that people pay attention to him only when he sits. If he learns that jumping up doesn’t work, he’ll stop doing it.

Start by practicing with family members. Put Rowdy on the tether and take several steps back. Now walk toward him. If he jumps up, stop out of his reach and wait for him to sit. If you have been clicker-training him, this should happen fairly quickly.

When he sits, move forward again. If he jumps up, stop, and wait for him to sit. Continue until you are standing in front of him and he is sitting in front of you. Click! and feed him a treat. Now do it again, until you can walk right up to him without having him jump up. (If he jumps up when you offer the treat, whisk it away behind your back, wait for him to sit, and offer it again. Several disappearing treats should convince him to sit patiently until you get it to his mouth.)

As soon as Rowdy will sit for your approach, add other people to the game – family members, friends, and anyone else you can convince to participate. Set up a tether near your front door for a handy place to attach your dog when you greet visitors. This will help you teach him to greet people calmly at the door at the same time.

You can make use of your leash for the same purpose as the tether when you are walking your dog in public. When anyone wants to pet him, tell them Rowdy is in training and you need their help. Explain that they can pet Rowdy and feed him a treat as soon as he sits. This way, Rowdy will learn that the “Sit” game works for all humans, not just the ones in his pack or at home in his den.

Puppy Supervision

The biggest mistake most new puppy owners make is giving baby Rowdy too much freedom, too soon. They spend much of their day two steps behind their darling little dynamo, cleaning up the destruction and doggie-doo. Rowdy gets to practice all kinds of rewarding inappropriate behaviors, such as house soiling, raiding garbage cans, counter-surfing, chewing human possessions, and playing a wonderful game of keep-away when humans try to get their possessions back.

This is the time in Rowdy’s life when it is most important to practice behavior management. Along with a crate and a puppy-pen, a wisely-used tether can take much of the pain out of puppyhood. The portable “under-the-door” tether is perfect for this application, as you can take it with you into any room, not just those that are set up for wall tethers. Since puppy teeth tend to find furniture particularly inviting, attaching the tether to the piano or coffee table leg isn’t a great idea either. You can slip the portable tether under a door, close it, and keep Rowdy close at hand instead of worrying about whether he’s peeing on – or chewing up – the Oriental rug.

Dog Training from a Distance

Tethers are not just for basic good manners training. Once Rowdy has learned house manners, you can also use your tether to teach him to respond to your cues from a distance.

In basic training you probably taught Rowdy to sit and lie down right next to your side, or directly in front, facing you. Rowdy now thinks that “Down” means “lie down next to my human.” If he’s on the other side of the room and you ask him to lie down, he comes to you and then drops to the ground. Darn. You wanted him to lie down on his rug on the other side of the room. How hard is that for Rowdy to figure out?! Remember that your dog is only doing what he thinks he’s supposed to do. Don’t get mad, get training. Using a tether, it’s simple to show Rowdy that “Down” means “down wherever you are.”

First, you need a good response from your dog to a verbal “down” cue. If you don’t have it yet, go back to his basic training. You want him to lie down for you on just the word cue, without having to point toward the ground or lure him down. When he will do that, attach him to the tether, face him, and ask him to down. Click! and reward when he lies down. Then invite him back to a sit and take a step back. Ask him to down again. If he steps toward you, let the tether restrain him, and just wait. If he doesn’t down after several seconds, lure him down. Click! and reward.

Stay in that same spot until he will down on the verbal cue from one step away. Now take another step back and try it again. Lure if necessary, Click! and reward when he does it. Continue to repeat the exercise at each new distance until he responds to your verbal cue. Then take another step away, until he will do a distance down on the tether from across the room or the yard. Then try it off the tether, again starting with a short distance, gradually moving farther and farther away as he understands what you are asking him to do.

Some dogs can do this in one training session, others take several. Remember to keep your sessions short, and to stop training while you and your dog are both enjoying the game. If one or both of you are getting frustrated or bored, stop, do something easy and fun, and take a break.

It’s Easy to Make A Tether

A tether is a simple, four-foot length of nylon-coated cable with sturdy snaps on both ends. Most of the cables available commercially are intended for tying a dog outside, and are a minimum of 10 feet. That is too long for most training purposes.

[Editor’s Note: Against Miller’s advice, we bought a 10-foot model, thinking we could cut it in half and make two tethers. Our test dog broke the commercial product’s hardware in about two minutes. Then we read the package’s warning that the product wasn’t made “to be used as a restraining device.” Oh!]

Fortunately, it’s easy to make your own training tether, or ask your local hardware store if they will attach the snaps to the ends of a four-foot cable for you with the necessary ferrules (the metal hardware used to hold the cable) and a crimping tool.

Take a four-foot length of 1/8-inch nylon-coated cable. Thread one end through one channel of the appropriate-size ferrule, then through the ring of a small but sturdy metal clip. Fold the cable back on itself, run it through the other channel of the ferrule, and crimp the ferrule on both pieces of cable to hold the end in place. Repeat with the other end. You now have the basic tether.

[Editor’s Note: We found the price of a crimping tool to be restrictive; we used a hammer to crimp the ferrules.]

Next, screw an eye-bolt into a stud or beam, or other solid piece of wood in your home (or put eye-bolts in several locations) that are sturdy enough to withstand your dog’s weight if he pulls on the tether with his full weight. Snap one end of the tether to the eye-bolt and the other to your dog’s collar. Be sure to provide a comfortable place for the dog, and a toy or Kong stuffed with food to keep him happy.

If you are renting, and cannot possibly screw eye-bolts into the walls, wrap one end of the tether around the leg of a heavy piece of furniture and hook it onto itself. Attach the other end to your dog’s collar. Be sure the furniture is heavy enough to prevent the dog from dragging it, and make a comfortable place for the dog to sit or lie down. This is an easy and convenient application of the tether for dogs who don’t tend to chew. It is not appropriate for most young puppies or other dogs who are inclined to gnaw furniture legs.

The Portable Tether

Screw an eye-bolt into small piece of wood, about 2″x 4″x 4″. Slip the cable under a door with the wooden block on the far side. Close the door. The tether is now held in place by the block, and you can clip the other end to your dog’s collar. This tether is handy to use when there are no eye-bolts installed, when the dog is too heavy to be held by furniture, or when a puppy might chew on furniture legs. It is easy to carry with you from room to room, or to take with you when you want to be able to work on your dog’s training at friends’ and relatives’ homes.

Work on the Relationship

Properly used, the tether is a great training tool. It can allow Rowdy to be part of the family instead of shut in his crate or exiled to the backyard. It can help ease domestic tensions when some family members are less enthused about your dog’s presence than others. Most important, it can teach Rowdy to control his own behavior, without his humans feeling compelled to constantly punish him for his inappropriate actions. This improves the relationship between dog and owner – and that makes the tether an extremely valuable tool indeed.

Pat Miller is a freelance author and a professional dog trainer. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers.

What’s In A Name?

By
Nancy Kerns
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0

As previously discussed in this column (“Who’s in Charge?” WDJ December 2000), the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) is the single biggest organizational influence on the pet food industry in this country. Even though it is a non-regulatory, non-governmental voluntary agency, it is also comprised of the individuals who are most concerned with the production of pet foods – that is, state feed control officials as well as advisory liaisons from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the pet food industry, so most states adopt some or all of its rulings and regulations as law.

AAFCO meets twice a year to discuss developments in the industry and to hear requests for changes from its various constituents. These meetings are always interesting – at least, to those of us who are intensely interested in how the actions of this body can affect the food that gets eaten by the nation’s dogs and cats! The January 2001 meeting (which I attended) was typical in revealing the various pressures that the product – food for animals – is subject to by all the parties that have a financial stake in it.

For instance, numerous definitions were discussed at this meeting. How can a definition of a feed ingredient or feed description matter? Hey, in this business what you can call something is everything!

By any other name…
For example, in the January meeting, a new feed term, “Mechanically Separated Poultry, Feed Grade,” was sought by a single company, Ducoa, for a single product: defeathered, deboned, spent laying hens. “Spent hens” are worn-out egg layers, discarded by the egg industry before they reach their second birthday. Because they are bred to lay eggs, they aren’t meaty enough to be profitable when processed for human consumption. Up to now, they haven’t even been utilized much in animal feed or pet food, because it hasn’t been worth the cost to ship them to slaughter.

Ducoa proposes salvaging these spent hens for pet food through a newly developed process. First, the hens are fasted (to “clean out” their intestines), then killed by gassing with carbon dioxide. Feathers are scalded off, and the carcasses are centrifuged through a screen to separate the hard parts (bones, beaks, and feet) from the meat, viscera (internal organs), and other soft tissue. The resultant product will be treated with preservatives and antioxidants, chilled, packed, and shipped on refrigerated trucks. Ducoa has completed extensive testing to ensure that the product is free from bacterial contamination. The product is already nearing final approval by the FDA, although this is the first time it’s been presented to AAFCO.

While the finished product may be a good dog food ingredient, its new name poses a few problems for consumers. For one, the USDA already has a definition of “mechanically-separated poultry,” and it excludes viscera. Also, the current AAFCO definition of “poultry” does not include organs and by-products, but this definition of “poultry” does include organs and by-products. In addition, the “feed grade” part of the name is used only for the pet food makers’ information; once the product is included in the pet food, the term “feed grade” won’t be specified on the label of finished pet food. (In fact, no reference to grade or quality is allowed in a pet food ingredient statement at all.) So the label on the dog food will actually say, “mechanically-separated poultry,” which conflicts with the USDA definition.

Nevertheless, this definition passed on a vote of the committee, and will be considered by the full AAFCO membership in August. If it passes, it will be added to the 2002 book as a “tentative” definition, which is the initial status of all new definitions. It can be considered for official status next year.

In other poultry news…
The rendering industry was thwarted on its last two attempts to change the name of “by-products” to something more euphemistic. You see, it’s taken a while, but consumers have figured out what by-products are, and are avoiding foods that contain them. So, under the guise of “standardizing” the various animal product definitions, renderers asked the Ingredients Definitions Committee to approve two new definitions.

One proposed definition is “poultry protein,” which they would like changed to “the non-rendered product consisting of poultry tissues, including bone, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices.” Note that poultry “tissues” does not mean poultry meat. In essence, what this definition does is put a new name on “poultry by-products” and include bone.

Next, rendering reps asked to either generate a new definition for, or replace the existing definition of “poultry by-product meal” with the term “poultry protein meal.” This would be “the rendered product from poultry tissues, including bone, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices.” This is justified, say the proponents, because the current definition of “poultry by-product meal” excludes bones, while the definition of “meat and bone meal” clearly includes bones. The definition of “meat meal” does not specify whether it includes bones, but neither does it specifically exclude them.

The renderers evidently feel that all of this is just a terrible mess. It’s true that the only poultry ingredient that may include bones is “poultry meal.” The current definitions of “by-products” and “by-product meal” both exclude them.

AAFCO has twice denied similar petitions as attempts to confuse and deceive the consumer. However, the prior propositions were primarily cosmetic in nature. Initially, it appeared that this petition had a reasonable chance of success because it does make, in part, an actual change in the ingredient itself by including bones. Fortunately for consumers, the feed control officials are not likely to be fooled by the renderers’ newest proposal. The AAFCO Board directed the Iowa Feed Control Official to put together an expert panel to examine this issue in detail; if the definitions are to be changed, it appears, for now, that it will not be at the convenience of the rendering industry.

“Organic” dog food? Not!
The USDA recently approved guidelines for use of the term “organic” as applied to foods for human consumption. After several misguided attempts to include irradiated and sludge-fertilized crops (which drew a record number of citizen protests), a relatively good definition was eventually hammered out. The current USDA definition does not include pet foods; USDA evidently intends to include them at some future date.

In AAFCO’s January meeting, it was proposed that AAFCO accept the following reasonable-sounding definition of organic: “A formula feed or specific ingredient within a formula feed that has been produced and handled in compliance with the requirements of the USDA National Organic Program.” However, this proposal was met with great resistance from representatives of pet food companies, and, after much discussion, a decision on a definition was shelved in order to create a new “working group” that would direct further discussions on the topic in the future.

Why should it be so hard to accept such a simple definition? Because, if the whole product is to be labeled “made with organic ingredients,” the new USDA rules require at least 70 percent of the finished product to consist of organic ingredients. This means that pet food makers using organically raised meat, for instance, but no other organic ingredients, will not be able to say “made with organic meat” on the label. At least one pet food company has interpreted this to mean that they won’t be able to use any organic ingredients at all – because who will pay extra for organic ingredients if they can’t brag about it on the label?

For now, given that there is no accepted rule, pet food makers can still say anything they want regarding their organic ingredients on the label, as legal counsel has opined that pet food does not fall under the current definition, and USDA concurs.

Natural? You make the call!
The Ingredient Definitions Committee passed a new tentative definition for “natural.” That is: “A feed or ingredient derived solely from plant, animal or mined sources, either in its unprocessed state or having been subject to physical processing, heat processing, rendering, purification, extraction, hydrolysis, enzymolysis or fermentation, but not having been produced by or subject to a chemically synthetic process and not containing any additives or processing aids that are chemically synthetic except in amounts as might occur unavoidably in good manufacturing practices.”

What the heck does all that mean? Not a whole lot. This definition does little to restrict products that most of us would not consider truly natural. For instance, a substance could be extracted from a plant using acetone or other chemical, but as long as most of the chemical is evaporated or rinsed off, the substance could still be called “natural.” The limitation of “good manufacturing practices” does not reassure me. The regulations adopted by AAFCO require only “reasonable” procedures to prevent “unsafe” contamination (not quite the same as “zero” contamination).

Plus, exceptions and disclaimers will be allowed for things like “natural cheese flavor” on a product, even if none of its other ingredients meet the definition. Synthetic vitamin and mineral mixes can be used in an otherwise “natural” food if the label states “Natural with added vitamins, minerals and other trace nutrients” – and the qualifying statement must use print only half the size of that used for the word “Natural.”

Under this definition, animal digests, solvent-extracted meals, and other foods that undergo man-made chemical processing, may still be labeled “natural.” For instance, a product like “Soybean meal, dehulled, extruded-expelled” could now be considered “natural.” What is it really? “The meal product resulting from grinding the cake after removal of most of the oil by mechanical extraction method preceded by dry extrusion at 300-320°F of dehulled soybeans.”

The approved definition is, at this point, in “tentative” status; it will most likely be approved as is by the full AAFCO membership at its August meeting.

The bottom line? In our opinion, label claims really don’t give consumers much useful, dependable information, and should not necessarily influence you to either buy or not buy a given food. While state feed control officials, by and large, are in the consumers’ corner (as opposed to being in the industry’s pocket), their ability to protect us and our dogs is under constant assault by the profit-motivated industry. Buyers must always beware.

-By Dr. Jean Hofve, DVM

Dr. Jean Hofve is the Companion Animal Program Coordinator for the Animal Protection Institute, located in Sacramento, California.

Training Classes for Aggressive Dogs

By
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA
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[Updated November 16, 2017]

Dogs fight other dogs for many reasons. They fight in aggressive play. They squabble over food and toys. They challenge each other for the best spot in the pack or the best spot on the bed. They fight to protect their puppies and other canine pack members, or to defend territory and their humans. Some fight because they’ve been bred or taught to fight. And a surprising number of dogs fight just because they are poorly socialized; they’ve never learned to speak “dog,” and as canine social “nerds” they inadvertently display body language that triggers aggressive responses from other dogs. Serious dog-on-dog aggression is a common problem, and one that is often overlooked and too often tolerated. However, it is not normal dog behavior, and it can, in many cases, be prevented or mitigated.

All dogs are capable of turning on one of their canine acquaintances with a short but ferocious attack. If this happens only occasionally, these brief (though dramatic) interchanges are actually normal – a device that dogs use to set boundaries regarding what kind of behavior they won’t tolerate, or to establish dominance over each other. But dogs that frequently attack other dogs without regard to the victim’s behavior can cause us a lot of trouble, heartache, and even lawsuits.

A tiny percentage of these canine bullies are born, not made; certain breeds were developed to fight each other. But far more dog-aggressive dogs were made that way by their owners – through a lack of proper socialization, inappropriate human intervention in normal canine interactions, and even encouragement of aggressive behavior. In other cases, a dog slowly develops increasingly aggressive behavior that goes unchecked or unnoticed by his owner – at least until it gets bad enough that the dog seriously injures someone else’s dog.

It’s very frustrating for social, responsible dog owners when they end up with a dog who can’t get along with other dogs. Understandably, few people want to walk with them. The walks they do take are fraught with tension, as they try to control their dog and warn other owners to keep their distance. Eventually, many people tire of the stress, and dominant canine bullies end up exiled in back yards, or even put to death.

Help Your Dog Regain Social Access

Fortunately, with appropriate training, many of these social misfits can regain access to society. Some trainers, including myself, occasionally offer special classes for such dogs. These “Growl” or “Difficult Dog” classes are designed to teach owners new skills for dealing with their dogs’ antisocial behaviors, and to give the dogs the opportunity to learn appropriate social skills.

One goal of the class is teaching owners how to detect and interpret their dogs’ aggressive body language in time to avert confrontations with other dogs. They learn exercises that can distract their dogs from their habitual and aggressive focus. The owners also learn to use food lures, rewards and praise to reinforce desired behaviors.

The other major goal is to give the dogs opportunities for learning appropriate dog social behavior from each other. In the wild, dominant body language is most frequently used to avoid fights, since it is contrary to pack survival for dogs to go around routinely injuring each other. Most dominance moves – snarls, raised hackles, chin over shoulders – are bluffs, designed to intimidate the opponent into bloodless submission. Occasionally, a brief scuffle may ensue, rarely causing serious injury. Thus dominance in wild packs is usually settled and maintained with relative non-violence. Owners of domestic dogs tend to be phobic of any display of aggression between dogs. Because of the perceived risk of serious injury to the participants, owners don’t let dogs “fight it out” in an uncontrolled setting, so most dogs never experience the natural consequences of their aggressive behavior. Therefore, minor, normal and usually harmless scuffles are often treated as major crises. The dogs are yanked apart and punished mightily. As a result, not only do the dogs not learn how to settle their squabbles peacefully, their levels of stress and aggression actually escalate and they become more aggressive around other dogs. It becomes, literally, a vicious cycle.

In a Growl Class, dogs can be allowed to interact to the point of learning those consequences – with an important difference: they wear soft but strong muzzles. In this controlled setting, dogs safely get past their initial burst of aggression so they can get to the part where they learn to relate appropriately.

It’s critical that dogs and owners enrolled in these classes are pre-evaluated by the trainer. Classes are then custom designed to meet the needs of the students. Protections are put in place so that big bullies are prevented from trouncing the timid dog who bites in self-defense. Where appropriate, owners can be shown some of the exercises ahead of time so their dogs get extra practice. A bully might need to spend more time practicing his “Off” exercise, while a very nervous dog might get extra homework assignments in “Relaxation Techniques.”

By the end of the course, some dogs can be fully integrated into their local canine community. Others can be given supervised freedom in a designated “play group.” Still others will never be trustworthy for off-leash play, but will be under much better control and far safer on-leash than previously.

The best results will be enjoyed by highly motivated owners who enjoy close bonds with their dogs. Dogs who are responsive and connected to their owners and who are easily motivated by food, praise or other rewards are most likely to benefit from this type of class. Independent dogs who are oblivious to their owners’ presence and behavior requests are more likely to fail.

A Typical Difficult Dog Class

The mix of people and dog personalities (and mixed results) displayed in one of my recent Growl Classes was fairly typical. I offered the class in Santa Cruz, California, late last summer, and after fielding lots of inquiries from owners of dog-aggressive dogs, I selected four to participate: Beau, an eight-year-old neutered male Rottweiler mix; Kito, a three-year-old neutered male Akita; Jessie, a four-year-old spayed female Australian Cattle Dog mix, and Schmaal, an eight-year-old spayed female Saluki.

These selections were made on the basis of my careful pre-evaluations of each potential member of the class. Jessie was an overachieving, slightly fearful herding dog who was strongly driven to protect her owner from the mere presence of other dogs. Schmaal was a graceful, athletic sighthound, who routinely responded to other dogs with aggression, though the stress of a training class made her act aloof, almost to the point of catatonia. Her stress level was so high in class, in fact, that getting her to eat treats was a major accomplishment.

Kito the Akita was previously abused and had been attacked by dogs before; he seemed to go on the defensive with other dogs due to apprehension about being attacked. In general, it seemed he had a lot of issues to sort out. Beau, however, was my greatest concern. He had been attacking dogs all of his life, enjoyed being a bully (all 120 pounds of him), and was on a restricted diet due to problems with his digestive system. He had also previously been through punishment-based training to try to control his aggression.

Food is an important part of a successful Growl Class. Instructors use positive methods to reduce the dogs’ stress and to teach them that having other dogs around is a “good” thing. This cannot be accomplished with punishment, only with reinforcement and reward. Since food is a primary reinforcer that can be delivered quickly and easily, its use is critical in getting a dog to think positively about a stimulus (in this case, the presence of other dogs) that has previously been perceived as a negative.

In this particular class, the use of food as a reward was problematic for two of the dogs (Beau had digestive problems, and Schmaal was too stressed to eat). I warned the owners in the class that this would present us with additional challenges.

Growl Class Session 1

I do not allow the dogs to interact in the first session of a Growl Class; we practice exercises and assign homework so that the dogs are more responsive to their owners before the first interaction in Class #2. We start out with students and their dogs spread out around the training area – with as much distance between them as is possible. People and dogs are seated on blankets or rugs on the ground.

I start the first class with an in-depth discussion of dog behavior, aggression, and canine body language. Each owner describes his dog’s history of aggression, and the kind of behavior he anticipates from his dog in the class setting. We analyze the body language that each of the dogs displays, discuss its likely meaning, and make predictions about the dogs’ behaviors during their interaction to come. It is important from the very beginning of the first class that owners begin to develop their skills in reading dog body language so they know when and how to intervene appropriately.

Next, I invite discussion from the owners regarding their feelings about their dogs and about the class. It is normal for owners to be apprehensive. I explain that we wouldn’t let the dogs hurt each other, and that one goal of the class is to allow dogs to interact safely so that they can learn appropriate body language and social behavior around each other.

Then, we began to work with the dogs. Unlike my regular classes, where I am upbeat, speak cheerfully, and move quickly, Growl Classes are almost like meditation sessions. The first exercise is intended to lower the stress levels of dogs and owners by doing relaxation exercises – massage on a rug or blanket for the dogs, with deep breathing for the owners.

Next, dogs and owners learn an “Off” exercise (see link below for all exercises), which means that if they give a “hard glare” to another dog they are asked to “Off” and are given a Click! and treat when they look away from the other dog. They can also get clicks and treats for “soft” glances (and tail wags!) at other dogs, and lots of clicks and treats for paying attention to their owners. The purpose of this is to teach them that the presence of other dogs is a good thing – they get lots of treats when other dogs are around.

As I had anticipated, Beau had the most difficulty with this critically important exercise. Not only was he very committed to the hard stare that signals the pre-launch phase of an all-out attack, but the treats his owners used – his regular dinner kibble – were not nearly attractive enough to distract him from his seek-and-destroy missions. We finally began to have some success with Beau in Week #4, when I started rubbing meaty treats on my hands and letting him lick the flavor off as his reward.

Another exercise taught in the first class is the “Gotcha!,” a positive cue (with treat reward) for a grab on a dog’s collar, which becomes necessary when we need to intervene in a scuffle.

Next, we practiced fitting muzzles on the dogs, and did a little calm, one-at-a-time leash walking around the training area, while owners practiced their tone of voice (calm and upbeat, not panicked or commanding) for use with the “Off” cue. We ended with more relaxation and discussed how everyone felt about the class so far. I instructed dog and owner pairs to leave calmly, one at a time, to avoid confrontations at the door.

Growl Class Session 2

I start and end every class from the second week forward with the relaxation exercises learned in the first class. My group of four responded well to these exercises, and we got settled quickly. Then I had the owners put the muzzles on and do some calm on-leash walking/attention exercises. At first, I had three dogs sitting and just one walking, while getting lots of positive reinforcement from her owner for calm behavior as she passed the other dogs. Then we did “pass-bys,” where two dogs pass each other walking on leash, again with lots of treats for good behavior. The challenges of Beau’s and Schmaal’s food restrictions became apparent early in this exercise.

After the relaxation and leash exercises, we conducted the first off-leash interaction. I checked each of the dogs’ muzzles for comfort and secure fit, while we discussed the rules. I explained that I would tell the owners when to release their dogs, and that they should simply stand back out of the way. Confrontations between the dogs would be likely, but the muzzles would prevent injury.

The first off-leash interaction was a high anxiety time, for me and the owners. I felt my adrenaline build, and disciplined myself to keep my voice and body language calm. “If there is a problem,” I cautioned my students, “let me handle it. If I need help I will ask for it. We all took several deep breaths, and then I told them to release their dogs.

First (Muzzled) Dog-Dog Interaction

Surprisingly, little Jessie was the first aggressor. She flew out from behind her owner at Schmaal, who wandered by too closely. This started a free-for-all, with the most intense aggression, as expected, between Beau and Kito. Jessie and Schmaal disengaged fairly quickly, while Beau and Kito trounced each other for several minutes before calling a truce.

We all breathed a sigh of relief. The dogs wandered around the training area, glaring but not attacking. We then called the dogs, rewarded them, put their leashes back on and removed the muzzles, and settled down for more relaxation and debriefing. Yes, it was scary, but it was a relief to see that the muzzles worked, and that the fighters stopped quickly, and of their own accord.

However, I explained that in the next class, we would not allow the fighting to continue to its own conclusion. We would use our “Off” interrupter to try to intervene pre-launch (with a big click and reward if the dogs succeeded), and our “Gotcha” to intervene post-launch if necessary. I instructed the owners to practice “Off” and “Gotcha” for at least 20 minutes per day, so that, hopefully, the dogs would attain a high level of responsiveness by the next class.

Growl Class Session 3

In the third week, Jessie’s owner reported that Jessie was making great progress. She was passing other dogs on the street without giving them the evil eye, and was responding nicely to “Off” and rewards. Schmaal, also, was doing surprisingly well. Although she still disdained treats in class, she would eat them out in the “real world.” However, I had concerns about Beau and Kito. Even during relaxation exercises Beau glowered at Kito from the opposite corner of the room. Despite my pleas to Beau’s owners to find some other kind of high value treat, they still fed him only kibble.

We warmed up with by-passes; Jessie and Schmaal got to do theirs without muzzles. Then, with all four muzzles on, we tried for some controlled interaction. The dogs were released. Beau and Kito launched for each other; Jessie and Schmaal wanted to join in but responded to their owners when called back. Lots of rewards for that!!! Meanwhile the two big bruisers seriously went at it. We looked for an opportunity to intervene with an “Off” and a “Gotcha” and retired to our relaxation rugs.

Next, we gave Jessie and Schmaal an opportunity to interact together without the boys. Muzzles on, there was only a brief threat from Jessie that was over almost before it began.

Growl Classes 4 and 5

Kito didn’t show up for the next class. Since they hadn’t called me, I couldn’t know if it was because his owners were discouraged or if it was due to an unrelated scheduling conflict, but it was disheartening, and it put a crimp in our program. We did our basic exercises with the three remaining dogs, and tried an off-leash interaction with all the dogs muzzled. Beau behaved well with just the girls present. I showed his owners how to rub meat flavoring on their hands and the kibble treats, to get Beau more engaged in the reward process. It seemed to work for the wife, who learned to combine the treat reward with upbeat verbal praise. Beau still ignored the husband’s boring treats and monotone voice, however.

This session went so well that after the three-dog interaction we put Beau back on his relaxation rug, and removed Jessie and Schmaal’s muzzles. With calm, relaxed off-leash walking, owners nearby, both dogs did beautifully. Jessie was aware of the other dog but she stayed under control; Schmaal just pretended Jessie wasn’t there. We all agreed that Beau was not ready for off-leash interaction without his muzzle.

Kito returned for the fifth class, which seemed to renew the animosity between the two big males. Beau would not respond to his “Off” and “Gotcha” exercises, and the off-leash interaction between the two was not productive; Beau simply wanted to bully Kito unmercifully. We tried removing Kito from the training area to repeat the previous week’s success with Beau and the two girls, but he was too aroused from his interaction with Kito, and jumped on Jessie. For the two boys, the focus for the rest of the classes was on “on-leash” behaviors.

Jessie and Schmaal continued to progress with off-leash and off-muzzle work. Jessie’s owner became adept at reading Jessie’s body language and pre-empting any kind of scuffle with the “Off” cue.

The Final Difficult Dog Class

Kito’s owners called me to say that they had enjoyed the class and felt Kito benefited, but they wouldn’t be attending the last session due to scheduling conflicts. I was disappointed – I thought Kito had much more potential than he was allowed to develop.

As the rest of us began our last class with relaxation exercises, we talked about our goals and how we felt the dogs had done throughout the class. We agreed that Jessie was the star of the class. She was just the right type of dog to benefit the most from a Difficult Dog class – bonded to her owner, food motivated, responsive, and committed to doing her job. She just needed to have her job description rewritten slightly. Her owner, Melanie, reported that while Jessie was not yet 100 percent reliable around other dogs she was much improved. Melanie is confident in her own awareness of canine body language as well as her improved control over her dog to take Jessie places and give her considerably more freedom than she would have in the past.

Stephanie, Schmaal’s owner, was pleased with her progress. While she was nowhere near ready to turn Schmaal loose on the beach with a pack of dogs, she was much more confident in her ability to get Schmaal to respond to her when necessary.

Beau was my biggest disappointment. At Week 6 he was still looking for someone to bully. His eight-year history of dog aggression, along with his owners’ failure to find a suitably enticing reward, proved to be insurmountable obstacles. While he was marginally better behaved on leash around other dogs, and did respond to the relaxation exercises, Beau still had a long way to go.

Growl Classes will continue to be one of my training offerings; there is a crying need to help dogs remember how to be part of a pack. The shame of dog-aggressive breeds, poorly socialized pups, and dogs encouraged or allowed to be aggressive with each other, is our failure. This is a species designed to live and work together in relative harmony, and we have botched the plan. But for many dogs it is not too late. If you have a dog who wants to eat other dogs for breakfast, find your nearest positive reinforcement trainer (who will use treats, praise and other rewards rather than choke or pinch collars) and ask for assistance. If you’re lucky, she may start a Growl Class soon.

Click here to view the dog exercises.

Pat Miller, a freelance writer and dog trainer, is a frequent contributor to WDJ.

Best Nail Clippers For Your Dog

By
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA
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It’s really a safe and simple procedure; one that most dog owners can easily learn to perform on their dogs. I have done it to my own dogs since I was a little kid. So it never ceases to amaze me when I ask my training classes how many owners clip their own dogs’ toenails and an average of only one out of eight raise their hands. That means the other seven either neglect this important procedure, or spend hundreds of dollars over a dog’s lifetime to pay someone else to do it.

Because young dogs often wear their nails down naturally by running on hard rough surfaces, we tend to overlook the importance of teaching them to accept nail trimming. Then, when the dog ages, slows down, and needs help with those nails, the procedure is seriously traumatic. Shelter workers and veterinarians tell horror stories of elderly dogs unable to walk because their nails have curled around and grown through their pads.

It is vitally important to teach your dog to accept nail trimming as part of his regular grooming routine. If you start with a puppy or a young dog, wait until she is resting quietly on the floor after a play session, gently clip off the tip end of one or two nails, feed her tasty treats and tell her what a great dog she is, she will grow up thinking that nail trimming is a wonderful thing.

There are several common mistakes that dog owners make when trimming nails. The first is clipping a nail too short (or “quicking” the dog) which causes pain and bleeding and immediately teaches the dog that nail trimming is not fun. This happened to a young puppy of mine, and it took more than a year of desensitization to convince him to accept his pedicure calmly again.

The second major mistake is trying to trim all the dog’s nails in one session. This is fine once the dog learns that nail trimming is a positive thing, but until then, physically restraining a flailing, panicking pooch while insisting that every nail is clipped only makes matters worse. Take the time to do nails one or two at a time, using treats and games to make it fun.

Finally, using poor equipment can make the even most accommodating dog fear nail trimming. Dull blades, tools with only poor visibility (and thus, encourage quicking), and awkward clipper construction can turn nail trimming sessions into nightmares.

To help you with equipment choices, WDJ tested four different nail trimmers on four relatively willing subjects who were accustomed to having their nails “done.”

WDJ Approves

White Nail Scissors
(4-1/2” for small animals)
J-B Wholesale Pet Supplies, Inc.
Oakland, NJ; (800) 526-0388
$5.95

These scissors were advertised for use with small to medium breeds, and our “WDJ Approves” rating applies to small dogs only.

These scissors are made of nickel-plated steel. They appear solid and well-made and are affordably priced. They work just like a pair of scissors. But while they clipped my eight-pound Pomeranian’s nails easily, they required more force than I liked to cut through the nails of my 25-pound terrier mix.

I like the solid construction and simplicity of these scissors, but their application would be limited to cats and very small dogs. I was also disappointed that the packaging the scissors came in was a plain plastic sleeve with no instructions for use. If your dog is 15 pounds or less, you could give these a try. For anything larger than a Lhasa, keep reading.

Not Recommended

Vista Dog Nail Clipper
(with Safety Stop)
J-B Wholesale Pet Supplies, Inc.
Oakland, NJ, (800) 526-0388
$7.95

I purchased the medium size clipper, and found it perfectly capable of cutting the nails of my 75-pound Australian cattle dog mix. While advertised as having “heavy steel blades,” the clippers did not appear as well constructed as the previously described nail scissors – in fact the plastic handles appear downright cheap; I doubt they would stand up to heavy use. The instructions on the back of the package are well-illustrated, clear, and easy to understand, and include that all-important warning: “Avoid cutting off too much at one time.” The safety stop is an interesting feature, and may inspire confidence in the nervous, first-time owner/clipper, but would just get in the way for a more experienced nail trimmer. (Fortunately, it can be removed.)

My biggest complaint about these clippers is that the blades don’t line up tightly against each other, so they tend to leave ragged edges on the clipped nail. I suggest you skip this one; there are better clippers available at better prices.

WDJ’s Top Pick

Resco Guillotine Nail Clippers
J-B Wholesale Pet Supplies, Inc.
Oakland, NJ, (800) 526-0388
$5.85

These are the old stand-by nail clippers that many owners are familiar with. The ominous “guillotine” name comes from the fact that the dog’s nail is inserted through an opening and the blade slices down to chop it off. Without a “safety stop,” the owner must control how much of the nail is inserted through the hole (not an easy task with a wiggling dog). And, as the package instructs, it’s important to slice off only a small amount at a time in order to avoid quicking the dog.

This has long been my favorite nail-trimming tool. It gives a better view of how much nail I am cutting than does the scissors-style clippers. The tool fits solidly in the hand and is easy to grasp and hold. The price is right. The snug blade fit allows for a clean cut. And, best of all, the blades are replaceable. When you start to find ragged edges on your dog’s newly trimmed nails, it’s time for a new blade.

WDJ’s Top Pick

OSTER Electric Nail Grinder
J-B Wholesale Pet Supplies, Inc.
Oakland, NJ, (800) 526-0388
$54.65

This is the tool for the connoisseur of nail trimmers. It is routinely used in the dog-show world to achieve the nub-short nails in vogue for the show ring. It is available in electric and cordless models, and works like a charm, effortlessly grinding away unwanted nail material. Effortlessly, that is, if your dog will allow you anywhere near with the grinder turned on!

Two of my four test dogs tolerated the tool with some initial resistance that was overcome by the liberal use of liver treats. Both dogs were tense about the procedure, and it would take additional desensitization to get them as relaxed about this tool as they are with guillotine clippers. The results of the trim were beautiful – short, rounded nails – shorter than I had ever been able to trim them with the guillotine clippers.

However, my other two test dogs wanted nothing to do with the noisy, vibrating machine. They would stay close for liver bribes when the machine was turned on, but feeling the vibrations against their nails was more than either could tolerate. For these two, a serious desensitization program would have to be implemented before we could successfully grind their nails.

If you are planning to show your dog in the breed ring, the Oster Nail Grinder is a must. Be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time desensitizing your dog to get him or her to accept it. But if you are the average dog owner who just wants to keep your dog’s nails in reasonable shape, the Oster Nail Grinder may be more tool than you will ever need.

One last caution. Don’t count on the package instructions to help you put the Grinder together. After a good bit of struggling, I finally took it to my husband. In typical male fashion he ignored the instructions and managed to put the grinder together by pushing and prodding until the right parts were in the right places.

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