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One of my sisters – the one who has three little dogs – lives just a few miles away from me. Even so, we talk on the phone more than we actually see each other, especially since the shelter-in-place orders went into effect. She’s an out-of-work chef, so over the past few months, there were quite a few occasions that she made too much amazing food for herself and her husband, and she brought leftovers to my house.
If you’re like me, you’ve gained weight during the pandemic – no going to the gym and way too much stress-eating. But am I going to turn down the amazing soups and salads and desserts that used to draw raves at the restaurants where my sister worked? I am not.
So I feel for my sister’s little dogs. They live with this incredibly talented, big-hearted, generous chef. How are they going to keep their figures? Well, with one exception, they are not. One of the three dogs, Lucky, has never had a big appetite and has always been on the slim side. (Lucky is a former stray I picked up off a roadside about three years ago. He went unclaimed for a month at our local shelter and then repeatedly flunked the shelter’s behavior evaluations. He also bit more than one kennel worker at the shelter. My sister had fallen in love with him based on the photos I took of him when I found him and had to work hard to convince the shelter that, biter or not, she would bring him around in no time, and she did! He truly earned his name.)
I thought of Lucky when I needed a model to demonstrate how to teach a dog to go into a crate, to accompany Training Editor Pat Miller’s crate-training article (page 10). It took me over an hour and a lot of treats to tempt the soaking wet, starving, tick-covered stray to get into my car on that rainy evening three years ago, and I’m sure he hasn’t been in a crate since he left the shelter. So I called my sister and asked to borrow him for a photo shoot. The resulting pictures are on page 11; Pat’s recommended techniques really work!
I drove to my sister’s house, she opened the door, and all three little dogs poured out, barking happily . . . and I was astounded at how fat the two little females had gotten since I had last seen them. “Pam!” I exclaimed.
“I know, I know!” she countered. “When they closed the park where we usually take our walks, it really set us back!”
I know, my sister knows, and probably you know, too: To control weight gain, one has to exercise and reduce caloric intake. If you need incentive, inspiration, or instruction, you’ll find it starting on page 16.
I adopted Otto from my local shelter on June 16, 2008. He was an estimated 7 months old when I met him. He had all his front adult teeth, but only just.
I still have a copy of his shelter “cage card” – the piece of paper that resides in a transparent plastic envelope on the front of the shelter dogs’ cages with their intake information. It shows that he was brought into the shelter on May 7, having been picked up by a county animal control officer. (Can you believe that a cutie like him was at the shelter for five weeks without getting adopted?!)
Otto’s cage card
The cage card does not show this, but his computer file at the shelter, which contains more detail, says that the country officer was dispatched due to a complaint from a person who found him in their chicken pen. He had killed the complaining party’s chickens. They had never seen him before; he was a stray. His cage card has a hand-written note regarding this incident that has always made me laugh: “Kills chicken.” (The typo makes me laugh, not the chicken-killing.)
The cage card shows that he was vaccinated with two different multiple-agent vaccines upon arrival to the shelter; that’s standard operating procedure for stray dogs with no ID and no microchip. He was identified as an “Airedale Terrier/Border Terrier” mix. Hmm.
He was given a brief health examination on May 13. His weight was recorded at 44.5 pounds. He had a normal temperature.
On May 14, he was given another vaccination and a heartworm test; it was negative. His weight was recorded again at 44.5 pounds.
While he waited for someone to adopt him, he was neutered, and vaccinated several more times – for protection from distemper, parvovirus, canine adenovirus, bordetella, and canine coronavirus. Shelters use a much more aggressive vaccination schedule than most veterinarians would recommend for an owned dog. He’s had a couple of nasal bordetella vaccinations since then, always as a requirement in order to take a class, but he’s never again been vaccinated for distemper or parvovirus. I have had his antibody titers tested for those two diseases at least a half-dozen times, and the results have always indicated that he still has ample circulating antibody levels.
He also received one rabies vaccination at the shelter. He has received a rabies vaccination at every legally mandated interval since then – until last year. He is actually overdue for a rabies vaccine, by law. But at his age, I don’t want to give him any more rabies vaccinations.
Time For a New Dog…
In 2008, I was spending every other week with my husband in Oroville, and every other week with my son, who was attending high school in the San Francisco Bay Area. (My son spent very other week with his dad.) We had cared for my father-in-law’s old Australian Shepherd, Cooper, until Cooper passed away, but I hadn’t had my own dog for a few years. Partly, because it took me a while to get over the loss of my former heart dog, a Border Collie named Rupert, at the end of 2003, and partly because the logistics of driving back and forth, and having to leave a dog behind with my husband every other week, were daunting. In the Bay Area, I was renting an apartment in a building where pets were not allowed and finding (and paying for) a pet-friendly apartment, for my every-other-week occupancy, was more of a project than I wanted to take on.
But we were having regular incursions of skunks coming into our yard at night and digging up our lawn and plants. My husband – who is not really a dog person – finally agreed that we needed a dog again, and indicated that he would be willing to care for a dog in the weeks when I was away with my son. We had that conversation on the phone on the night of June 14, 2008, at what was nearly the end of my week in the Bay Area, and I spent much of June 15 looking at every adoptable dog on the website of the shelter back up in Oroville. There were two I was considering, the “Airedale/Border Terrier” -mix and a black hound/Lab-mix.
On Monday morning, June 16, 2008, I said goodbye to my son, and drove straight to the shelter back in Oroville. I brought both of the dogs I had been considering online outside, and walked them on leash around the shelter. I had been volunteering at the shelter for some time – helping with their fundraising newsletter, and working with some of the adolescent dogs – and I asked if I could bring each dog home, to see how they would do with my cat, and to see what my husband thought. It wasn’t how things usually worked at the shelter, but they knew me and said it would be okay.
I started with the red dog. I put a collar and leash on him, and walked him toward my car. When we got close to it, he suddenly balked and braced his legs, ducking his head in that precise way that dogs who have managed to slip out of their collars on a number of occasions know how to do. I was ready for him, though, and I slacked the leash enough so that he didn’t slip the collar. He sat down, and I picked him up and put him in the back seat of the car.
When we got home, I took him out of the car and started walking him around the yard. My husband came out of the house and said, “Is that the one you picked?” I said, “Well, I thought I would bring both of the ones that I was considering home for you to meet, and to meet Shadow (our old cat).” My husband said, “I would just keep this one; he looks just right!” And so he was.
My husband is the namer in our family; he names and nicknames all of our pets. He named Otto “Otto” for two reasons: because he looks like an “Otto,” and because Otto was chief among all of the jokey, punny names that my husband always joked about naming one of his children. My husband’s last name is Maddock, see; he envisioned having kids named Otto Maddock, Dram Maddock, Proble Maddock, Charis Maddock, and so on. (It could have been worse; he could have tried to name the dog Dog Maddock!)
Life With a Night Owl
Our first year with Otto was a little bumpy. I think this was partly due to the fact that I was home only half the time; on my husband’s weeks alone with Otto, not much training went on. Otto also had quite a few distinct behavioral quirks. He was fearful of certain types of people, including kids and short people and people with dark skin. (Our next door neighbors used a gardening service and the workers were short Latino men; Otto was terrified of them!) He used to dig in any moist soil he could find – meaning, any plants and trees in the yard that we watered were at risk from his digging! (This was ultimately – mostly – solved by giving him his own sandbox, which I would wet down every morning.)
And, that first long, hot summer, Otto was an utter night owl! Oh my goodness: He slept ALL day and was highly alert and barky at night. He didn’t want to sleep in the house; he wanted to be outside. After a few sleepless nights of trying to keep him indoors, nights that I spent trying to get him to stop whining and settle down, I set up a bed on my back deck, and slept outside with him for the rest of the week! He liked having company outdoors, but he barely slept; he would jump up off of the bed and run to the front fence to bark at every feral cat that walked by the front of the house, every late-night person that walked on a sidewalk within blocks of our house, every single bang or bump in the night. I would call him back to me, give him some treats, and encourage him to lie down again. Soon, I, too, was sleeping during the day, having gotten almost no sleep at night!
When I went down to the Bay Area the next week, my husband just let Otto sleep outside, and mostly slept through whatever barking Otto did. While I was gone that week, I came up with a solution: I would let Otto spend the night outdoors, but arm him with all the toys he loved to play with, so it would be more likely that he’d have a toy in his mouth when he barked. I didn’t usually let him have stuffed toys without supervision, he was prone to tearing them up. But in order to get some sleep, I’d do anything.
Otto playing with one of his favorite squeaky toys, one of many
12 Years of Memories
Oh, I could go on and on. Twelve years with Otto have given me so many memories and stories. As you can see, he grew out of any possibility of being part Border Terrier; his adult weight has always been within a pound or two of 70 pounds. And he’s been absolutely the best dog: a little serious, a little silly, always game to try, always interested in playing the training game. He’s the first dog I’ve owned since I was introduced to no-punishment training, so he was the first dog I’ve raised without incorporating a choke chain and collar yanks, or the routine use of “No!” (I’ve said it before and will say it again: The difference between a dog raised without being punished for “mistakes” and one who is constantly punished is astounding. Otto isn’t afraid to try, to raise his hand, so to speak, and volunteer an answer. As superstitiously anxious as he is about certain things – floors that he thinks might be slippery, for example – he always sees me as someone who will help him; he’s not afraid to come to me ever.)
He’s also been an awesome partner in fostering goofy adolescent dogs and countless puppies, and the best “older brother” to foster-failure Woody, my 4 ½-year-old pit bull-mix. Today, Woody is bigger and stronger than Otto, but he still lowers himself and, as my son put it once, shows an almost “aggressive submission” to Otto, groveling and licking Otto’s face like a puppy licks its mama, even as Otto growls and snaps at Woody: “Get out of my face!” Otto is the boss! But he’s never left a mark on Woody or a single guest, no matter how rude or unruly.
Otto and Woody
I’ve forgotten to celebrate his adoption day several times in past years, but, dog willing, Otto will be 13 years old in November. I won’t overlook any opportunity to celebrate him any more. He has some chronic health problems that we are monitoring. Thanks to good health insurance, he has been getting an abdominal ultrasound every six months for the past few years. He has some growths on his liver that we are watching, and he’s getting slightly lumpy with lipomas. I don’t want to worry you – I’m worried about him enough for all of us! – but my point is, at this point, Every Single Day with him is a gift for me, so I thought I would share that with you. Happy adoption day, Otto Maddock. I love you so much!
We all want to keep possession of our valuable stuff. It’s why we lock our doors, and why some people keep weapons. Dogs (and other animals) are no different – many dogs are reluctant to give up a valuable object, whether it’s a favorite toy, a raw meaty bone, a tasty piece of cat poop from the garden or your bedroom slipper.
Some dogs guard their valuables fiercely enough to hurt anyone who tries to take them away. We call this “resource guarding.” It’s a natural, normal behavior. Keeping possession of valuables is an important survival skill – if you let someone take your food from you in the wild, you’re likely to die.
Still, we sometimes need to take things away from our dogs. Cat poop is gross, and your slipper is valuable to you, so it’s nice to be able to remove those from his jaws. Even more important, if your dog has something harmful – a cooked chicken bone or a package of rat poison, you have to be able to take it away.
While some dogs allow you to forcibly remove stuff from their mouths, many will get more aggressive the more aggressively you try to take something away. As in all things canine, we are far better off convincing our dogs to be cooperative partners than trying to coerce them into doing what we want.
Learn how to teach your dog the “trade” game. Photo: TeamDAF iStock / Getty Images Plus
The Trade Game
In teaching “Trade,” you promise your dog something of value in exchange for the valuable (in his eyes) item he has in his mouth. (Cat poo may not be valuable to humans, but it is of incredibly high value to many canines!). Here’s how to teach it:
1. Say “Take it!” and give your dog a low-value object – something he’ll easily give up in exchange for a high-value treat. (You might tether him to something solid so he can’t run off with the item.)
2. Let him sniff your high-value treat, but don’t try to push it into his mouth. (Anything resembling coercion will likely increase his resistance.) Don’t use your cue yet! Have a large handful of high-value treat-bits.
3. If he drops the item, click your clicker (or use some other marker). While he nibbles at the treats in your hand, pick up the object with your other hand and hide it behind your back. You must use two hands!!! If you let him eat the high-value treats and then race him back to the object you’re likely to lose the race and elicit resource guarding.
4. As soon as the treats are gone, bring the object out from behind your back, say “Take it!” and give it to him. This teaches him that he doesn’t always lose the object – he trades with you and gets it right back. This will make him more willing to trade with you again in the future; it’s a win/win for him!
5. If he doesn’t drop the item, make a “Hansel and Gretel” trail of treats under his nose, trailing a foot or so off to the side. Engage his mouth with the treats in your hand after he follows the trail, and pick up the item with your other hand.
6. If he still doesn’t drop the item, use a lower value item, and/or higher value trade-treats. (Meat, not dry cookies.) If he won’t show interest in the object after you’ve traded for high-value treats, use a higher value object, and/or lower value trade-treats.
7. When he’ll drop the item for your treats, say “Trade!” first, pause for a few seconds, then offer treats. Click when he drops the item, and pick up the item with your free hand while you keep him busy nibbling treats.
8. After several repetitions, sometimes pause a few seconds longer before offering treats. Your goal is to get him to drop the object when you say “Trade!” before you offer treats. When he’ll do this reliably, you have the behavior “on cue” – he drops the object because he understood the cue, not just because you stuck treats under his nose.
While ideally you’ll always have something in hand (or in pocket) to offer your dog in trade, if you train this well enough, in an emergency, even without treats to offer, your dog will still give up the poisonous mushroom in his mouth when he hears the “Trade!” cue. This works best if you remember to use your cheerful “training game” voice, not your “omigosh it’s an emergency” panic voice. Train “Trade” well… your training diligence could save your dog’s life.
Let's be clear, Otto is NOT a therapy dog, but I was still offered this ID card for him.
I love the idea of therapy dogs – that is, dogs who have a special affinity for humans, who love nothing more than to offer up their bodies and eye contact and affectionate behavior for the enjoyment of humans. Therapy dogs are those who are taken by their handlers (usually their owners) to visit humans who may enjoy a visit with a friendly dog. The clients may be trauma survivors (including emergency responders who have been traumatized by their work), patients in hospitals, juveniles in detention facilities, stressed-out college students, kindergartners who are learning to read, or seniors in assisted living facilities. The therapy dog’s role may be to simply allow people to hug and pet him, to entertain with simple tricks, or to lie quietly on a patient’s bed or by their side.
People who have observed that their dogs have a special rapport with humans, and who are themselves interested in helping other humans, may decide to seek out opportunities for volunteering with their dogs in a therapeutic fashion. To do so, they generally endeavor to develop their dogs’ skills at communicating in an especially friendly fashion, and invest a lot of time in training and socializing their dogs. The owners also generally spend time desensitizing their dogs to unexpected behavior and all sorts of medical or assistive devices that recipients of therapy dog visits might employ, so the dog doesn’t become alarmed or anxious, no matter what’s happening around him.
The question always arises: How do people who have dogs who would be excellent at therapy dog work find places and people for their dogs to visit?
A great example of a therapy animal organization
Sometimes the dog’s owner is already connected to a population of people who would benefit from a therapy dog. Maybe you have a friend who works in a skilled nursing facility, or a daughter who works for the county library’s literacy program, and the management is open to the idea of therapy dog visits – great! I have a friend who is a classroom aide in a juvenile detention facility; her little dog, Samson, gets to accompany her to work and is available to the students (and staff!) for therapy. In my friend’s case, she already had access to the population she’d like to help; then she worked to get Samson ready. She took a therapy dog class with a local trainer, who guides students through basic training and desensitization. And she registered Samson and herself with a therapy animal organization and passed an in-person evaluation with an evaluator for the organization.
I should note that while Samson does therapy work at my friend’s place of work, my friend also volunteers his services elsewhere. The hours of therapy work logged by dogs who accompany their owners to their places of employment do not count toward the hours of volunteer work required by the therapy dog organization he is registered with, nor are those hours covered by the organization’s insurance for therapy dog volunteer work.
Sometimes a dog owner uses the connections of an existing therapy animal organization to find prospective clients. The group that Samson is registered through is Pet Partners, a national organization based in Bellevue, Washington. Pet Partners maintains a searchable database of registered volunteers and locations who would appreciate therapy dogs’ visits, helping those parties find each other.
Pet Partners requires that owners take several online classes, so they are informed about dog body language, recognize the signs of stress, and know how to advocate for and protect their dogs from stress or overexposure. They also learn about hygiene and infection control, in order to protect clients, themselves, and their dogs. It’s a terrific organization!
Unethical, and antithetical to volunteer work
But you need to be aware that not all organizations operating in this space are legitimate. In fact, I was prompted to write this post after seeing a Facebook post headlined, “How to Make Money With Your Therapy Dog.” WHAT?
(Hint: Volunteer work should never be undertaken for money. And helping others should be the only motivation to subject your dog to what can be draining, emotional experiences.)
This post was on the page of an organization calling itself Therapy Dogs International. (Never mind that there is already another group called Therapy Dogs International, founded in 1976.) The Facebook page for the group (called Therapy Dogs Inc, no doubt because the Therapy Dogs International name was already taken on Facebook) posted on May 31, purporting to help you make money by signing your dog up for therapy dog work (ugh!).
Disgusted, I started to research this group. Facebook offers something called “Page Transparency.” You can click on those words on any given Facebook page to see whether the owner of the page is “confirmed” (the owner of this page is not) and when the page was created. In this case, the page was created on March 10, 2020. Yet somehow, the group has almost 15,000 followers on Facebook already. Weird.
And it only gets weirder when you click over to the group’s own website, which invites you to register your own dog for free, so you can start to sign up for some of this potentially money-earning therapy dog work.
Well, of course I registered my dog Otto – it was free! Why not? And that’s when the first “opportunity” knocked: I could order copies of Otto’s official therapy dog registration card for just $39! And a tag for just $25! And a vest with a “Therapy Dog” patch, for just $136.95!
No, I didn’t order any of those things. But I’ll wait to see if I ever get contacted to volunteer to provide therapy dog services to anyone in my area – or simply start getting inundated with junk mail or spam emails or calls (I presume they sell their mailing lists).
The site also contains “news” stories about other “therapy dogs,” as if they were dogs who are registered with the group. If you use Google just a bit, you will quickly learn that the stories about each of the dogs featured on the site have been copied from various news sources. Well, in their defense, it doesn’t explicitly say those dogs are registered with Therapy Dogs International; one has to use one’s critical thinking and reading skills to figure that out.
Let me be clear: My dog is not a therapy dog, and I will not be pimping him out to provide this admirable and valuable service for which we are completely unqualified. I am certain that this group is trolling for more “free” dog registrations, using the concept that one could make money in the form of “donations” as bait, in order to have the opportunity to sell identification cards, dog tags, and vests for fake therapy dogs. Scratch a little deeper on the site and you find that you can also buy all those things for your fake service dog, emotional service animal, PTSD dog, medical alert dog – or you can “make your own patch!”
Folks, if you want to volunteer your dog for therapeutic visits, do your homework, take a class, look for a reputable organization to evaluate your dog and register with an organization that will appreciate what you and your dog have to offer with no compensation whatsoever, and never identify your dog as something he’s not.
Not quite all of the 10? 11? I can't quite remember! Great Dane puppies I fostered, along with their mama, for my local shelter a few years ago. Fostering the large litters is something I particularly enjoy, especially because I know that in a shelter pen, the pups in a large litter don't get any individual attention.
When it comes to our spare time, we all find different things to become involved with – different causes grab us for different reasons. Some people get into local, state, or national politics. Some people volunteer with charitable groups after being affected by cancer, heart disease, diabetes, drug addiction.
Dog people, too, find widely disparate causes to occupy our spare time and dollars. I have one good friend who volunteers for animal rescue organizations in Asia; several who have devoted years to rescuing dogs of a certain breed; and still another whose mission in life is to shut down puppy mills.
I’ve found myself being strongly affected by the plight of unwanted animals in my community. I volunteer at my local municipal shelter, take on unruly adolescents and large litters of puppies to foster, and wrack my brain to find ways to improve the dog adoption rate; that’s my cause. Of course, there are also plenty of “cat people” volunteering at the shelter.
But even among the people who volunteer at my shelter and who share an interest in dogs in particular — we all get “grabbed” by different individual animals and their stories. One person is trying to improve the reputation of pit bulls in society and concentrates on training the pits and pit-mixes. Another person is drawn to the many Chihuahuas and Chihuahua-mixes, and has a knack for finding the unique traits that distinguish one tiny dog from the next. Another pulls as many retriever-type dogs as she can for a breed rescue. It’s just interesting to me, to try to figure out how we all get called to do the volunteer work that we do.
What is the best kind of dog food? Is canned food healthier than kibble? Does a homemade dog food diet require as much work as it appears to? Whole Dog Journal developed a comprehensive pros and cons chart for various dog food options you may be considering. Remember: no one dog food is best for all dogs! Consider your dog’s lifestyle and needs and use this chart to help you decide what kind of food your dog should eat regularly. You might also consider feeding your dog a mix of different food types for greater variety in the diet.
Beneath each table you will find a corresponding Whole Dog Journal article that goes into depth about the kinds of dog foods included here. If you’re looking for a quick breakdown of a dog’s nutritional requirements, check out this Dogster page.
1. Homemade
Creating a homemade diet for your dog, whether cooked or raw, requires detailed planning and dedication.
If you are new to the homemade dog food lifestyle, it is important to familiarize yourself with canine nutrition, and your dog’s individual dietary needs. Mary Straus offers an excellent start in “How to Make Your Own Dog Food“.
HOMEMADE DOG FOOD
Homemade Pros
Homemade Cons
Homemade dog food diets provide a wider variety of healthful foods and nutrients
It can be easy to neglect certain necessary ingredients to your dog’s health when making his food at home – putting him at risk of nutritional deficiency if you’re not vigilant
Homemade dog food puts you in control – you know exactly what your dog is eating
Home-prepared dog diets require special attention to meeting the “complete and balanced” recommendations regularly; you will need to use supplements
Dogs often prefer the taste of homemade meals to commercial dog food
Cooking for your dogs is a definite time investment for you
When you make your dog’s food from scratch, ingredients are minimally processed and fresh
Feeding homemade dog food is potentially more costly than buying commercial food
Homecooked meals result in marked health improvements for many dogs
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2. Dry Dog Food (Kibble)
The benefits of feeding your dog dry food are many, which explains why so many people buy kibble – and only kibble – for their dogs. Whole Dog Journal has a yearly tradition of taking hard looks at the virtually endless variety of dog foods on the market, breaking down why certain foods are good choices, and why you want to avoid others. Find those reviews here.
DRY DOG FOOD
Kibble Pros
Kibble Cons
Dry dog food is generally the most cost effective diet you can give your dog
When feeding dry dog food, you must trust the company and manufacturer (if different) as to ingredient quality and safe food manufacturing processes – your dog is at the mercy of the pet food manufacturers’ diligence
Dry dog food travels and stores well (for a specific period of time)
Kibble often includes low-quality ingredients like meat by-products, sweeteners, and preservatives
Commercial kibble includes a guarantee of nutritonal completeness – you don’t need to worry about deficiencies
Dry dog foods are typically carb-heavy
Dry dog food is available in a wide range of choices in flavor, sourcing and cost
Dry dog food ingredient quality varies – and it’s almost impossible for consumer to differentiate
Kibble requires no preparation
Dog food exiration dates matter! Dry food shouldn’t be more than half-way to the end of its “best by” date, as vitamin levels and preservation diminishes with time
3. Canned (Wet)
Next to dry dog food, canned food may be the most widely fed kind of dog food in the U.S. Dogs tend to enjoy the taste of wet food noticeably more so than kibble, and the canning process allows you to avoid preservatives and ultra-processing. Like our dry foods, we review the best-canned dog food every year.
CANNED DOG FOOD
Wet Food Pros
Wet Food Cons
Canned dog food is more appetizing to dogs than dry food
When feeding canned dog food, you must trust the company and manufacturer (if different) as to ingredient quality and safe food manufacturing processes – your dog is at the mercy of the pet food manufacturers’ diligence
Most canned foods use fresh or frozen meats, rather than rendered (more processed) meats
It is common to see meat byproducts in lower-quality wet dog foods
There are no preservatives used in wet dog food, yet it is shelf-stable for a long time
Canned dog food is generally more expensive than dry food
Wet dog food tends to be less carb-heavy than dry food
BPA may be present in dog food cans – need to look at labels carefully
No preparation required with canned food
Wet dog food smells bad to humans
Commercial wet dog food includes a guarantee of nutritonal completeness
Wet dog food may contain too much fat for some dogs
For those who want both the health benefits of raw dog food and the convenience of a packaged, nutritionally complete diet, commercial raw dog foods may be an option worth exploring. Let editor Nancy Kerns help you make a decision about feeding raw in “The Evolution of the Raw Dog Food Diet“.
COMMERCIAL RAW DOG FOOD
Raw Food Pros
Raw Food Cons
Store-bought raw dog food uses fresh, unprocessed ingredients, which means maximum nutrient retention for your dog
If feeding commercial raw food, consumers must still trust pet food company as to ingredient quality and safe food manufacturing processes
Dog diets that include raw meat are closest to the evolutionary, biologically appropriate diets of wild and ancestral dogs
Raw diets are not good for sick or old dogs because raw meats may contain pathogens – it is a risk for immunocompromised dogs
Most commercial raw foods contain no preservatives, or artificial flavors or colors at all
Raw dog food is difficult to travel with
Raw food diets show marked health improvements for many dogs
Raw food must be bought frequently, or it takes up a lot of freezer space
Commercial raw food includes guarantee of nutritonal completeness
Some raw dog foods contain too much fat for some dogs
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Raw dog food must be maintained at safe temperature (no thawing until consumption)
5. Dehydrated Dog Food
DEHYDRATED DOG FOOD
Dehydrated Food Pros
Dehydrated Food Cons
Most manufacturers of dehydrated dog food use fresh, minimally processed ingredients
Like any store-bought dog food, packaged dehydrated food requires you to trust company and manufacturer (if different) as to ingredient quality and safe food manufacturing processes
Dehydrated food retains maximum nutrients after processing – only the moisture is removed
Dehydrated dog food is often extremely expensive type
No preservatives are used in dehydrated dog foods, yet they are shelf-stable for a long time
Dehydrated raw foods may still contain pathogens – not good for immunocompromised dogs
Commercial dehydrated dog food includes guarantee of nutritonal completeness
In my experience, only a small percentage of lost dogs come right up to you. This guy was running down my country road, but accepted my invitation to come inside our front gate, and readily came up for petting. He's young; he wagged and peed a little when I reached to pet him.
Why do “stray” dogs always seem to appear when you have the least amount of time to deal with them?
In your experience, what proportion of lost dogs run away from people, and what proportion will come to a stranger readily? (In my experience, the runners are about 90%, the stranger-friendly ones are less than 10%.)
Why do so many lost dogs have collars and no tags? (You can just use a Sharpie to print a phone number on a collar, people!!)
Why are so few dogs microchipped when this wonderful technology allows for happy reunions years and thousands of miles away from the original dog/owner separation?
After a nice breakfast and a long drink of water, he makes himself pretty darn comfortable in my office as I post his photo on every local “lost and found pets” page I can find on Facebook.
Why are so many stray dogs reproductively intact? (I actually know the answer to this one.)
Is it just my community, or are there really more stray pit bull-mixes than any other type of dog?
I have a friend who posits that a stray, intact pit-mix is likely to live longer wandering the streets than he will if turned into the average local shelter. This makes me incredibly sad, but I think it might be true in many communities. Is this true in your community?
If he promised not to fight your dogs or eat your chickens, would you host this sweet fellow while your post-COVID-19 local shelter was not taking in strays? (This is not rhetorical.)
Why is the dog you found never one of the lost dogs posted on the shelter bulletin board?
Professional dog trainer, Amy Cook, Ph.D, developed the Play Way after exploring how play therapy is used to help children with social or emotional deficits. She's found play to be a powerful tool for helping shy and fearful dogs learn how to cope better in our world.
Play is a widespread feature of social animals. Humans play. Dogs play. Maybe our shared need for and love of play is part of what strengthens our desire to share our lives with dogs. We play together with toys and invent enjoyable games. Many of us make a point to incorporate toy play and fun interpersonal play into our training programs, offering an exciting bout of tug or an opportunity to retrieve a prized ball in exchange for a correct response to a cue.
Used in a very specific way, play also helps shy and fearful dogs learn to work through and overcome fear and anxiety, often in cases where more traditional positive-reinforcement methods – attempts to counter-condition triggers (“scary things”) with the use of food – have been less successful.
Amy Cook, Ph.D., a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant, has been training dogs for 30 years and has specialized in working with shy and fearful dogs for the past 20. She first began exploring the therapeutic value of play for shy and fearful dogs as part of her doctoral work in psychology, where she realized the stark differences between therapeutic approaches to addressing fear and anxiety in children and how positive-reinforcement dog trainers typically addressed fear and anxiety in dogs. In exploring therapeutic approaches to traumatized children, Cook wondered if a similar approach might work for dogs.
“It got me thinking,” Cook says. “When we have a traumatized 4-year-old child, what do we do with them? Do we lean on classical conditioning to make new associations? Sure, that can be there, but there’s so much more to pull from in the human therapy model than what we were pulling from with Skinner and Pavlov as dog trainers.” Cook began exploring the many ways child therapy often incorporates playful, fun games and nurturing activities to communicate love, joy, and safety to a traumatized child.
Not long after, Cook formulated the concepts she found most effective for rehabilitating frightened dogs into Play Way.
PLAY WAY IS DIFFERENT
The Play Way incorporates play in a carefully nuanced manner in order to help shy and fearful dogs overcome their issues in order to live a happier, less-stressed life. But the “play” used in the Play Way is different from what many people likely think of when asked to play with their dog.
“In my system, the dog leads most of the play,” explains Cook. “I may not prod or nag or insist. I may only invite. If the dog responds with, ‘Yeah, I’d love to do that,’ then great. If the dog says, ‘No thank you. I’m busy. I’m sniffing. I’m looking at something,’ that’s okay, too. I want the trainer to communicate her availability to play, but it’s equally important to respect the dog’s answer.”
Cook says that’s the hardest part. Especially in cases where the trainer is used to aiming for constant engagement during training sessions, eager to call the dog’s name or otherwise prod for attention the instant he becomes distracted and looks away.
“We’d never dream of doing that in our interaction with other humans,” says Cook. “If you were on the phone and I wanted to talk to you, and you said, ‘Give me a second,’ I’d need to give you that time. I wouldn’t grab the phone, hang it up and say, ‘Hey! Hang up the phone! I have money, take it, let’s talk!’ The Play Way is a lot more about how interactions happen between people. I’m asking handlers to explore this space where the dog gets to decide if they want to do this.”
Giving the dog equal footing in the decision-making process is just one key aspect of the Play Way. How one plays is the other, along with teaching the dog to “look at and dismiss” potential triggers (this is described in “The Play Way, Step by Step,” on page 21).
For most people, the most challenging part of learning the Play Way is learning how to play in this manner. Play Way play is not about overly excited, high-arousal play. It’s about developing a consensual, relaxed yet playful interaction between dog and human that gives both parties permission to be silly and simply enjoy the moment. High-energy, aroused play definitely has a place in Cook’s toolbox. It’s super fun, builds and maintains arousal when needed, and is great for building anticipation and reinforcing trained behaviors. It’s just not the goal in the Play Way.
Success Story: Tessa and Molly
Molly and Tessa enjoy a sweet moment together; their relationship blossomed after Tessa learned how to use therapeutic play to boost Molly’s confidence and trust.
Tessa Romita of Stoneridge, New Jersey, chose a 4-month-old Coonhound puppy, Molly, from her local shelter because she seemed mellow. As she later learned, Molly’s outward appearance of “mellow” was masking a very anxious and reactive dog.
Tessa struggled to integrate Molly with her resident dogs. Molly frequently lashed out if they got too close to her or items she perceived as hers. Tessa’s resident dogs, all smaller than Molly, were always walking on eggshells, with no real idea how to peacefully coexist with their new canine housemate. Outside the house, Molly was a mix of independent, occasionally confident, and often fearful. Life was a complex maze of management strategies.
Tessa did everything right. She enrolled in a well-respected positive-reinforcement puppy class and diligently tried to help Molly. As Molly transitioned from puppyhood, to adolescence and into adulthood, Tessa continued working with trainers in an attempt to make life less stressful for Molly, and by extension, for the rest of the family. While they made some progress, eventually each of the trainers came to the same conclusion: Things were as good as they were likely to get. There was nothing more to be done. Molly’s world would need to be small.
“Then I took Amy’s class and it was a game-changer,” Tessa says. “I tear up even thinking about how this journey started for us.” For Tessa and Molly, strengthening their relationship through therapeutic play was transformational. In giving Molly the space to accept or decline invitations to play, she learned she had a choice, and in being given that choice, her confidence grew. She became more relaxed. “It’s so powerful to see how Molly learned she can be out in the world and not need to scan and worry about what could happen; instead, she trusts me and enjoys being out.”
The situation even improved between Molly and Tessa’s resident dogs. Whereas management used to be a big part of their daily life, the dogs now enjoy loose, relaxed social interaction. “It took time, but it’s beautiful. They’re friends now,” says Tessa.
Molly still has times when she struggles with anxiety, but overall she’s more relaxed, more confident, and sometimes even downright silly. “I’ll have these random moments where Molly does something she’d never do before, like suddenly go wading through a creek when she used to be afraid of water, or not care about an alarm going off when she’d been painfully sound-sensitive,” Tessa says. “I’ll email Amy in amazement and her response is always, ‘Play is magic.’”
THRESHOLDS
Taking the time to develop a conversational, give-and-take social play relationship is important because in rehabilitating shy and fearful dogs, the dog’s ability to engage in this manner serves as a barometer for how a dog is feeling.
Threshold is a phrase that comes up a lot in work with fearful dogs (and dogs who exhibit aggressive behavior, too, which makes sense because a lot of aggression is directly traced to fear). Threshold is loosely defined as the moment when a dog crosses from one emotional state to another. In the specific context of fearful dogs, a dog who is just “under threshold” is in that emotional sweet spot where he’s aware of the presence of the trigger (the “scary thing”) but not feeling at all threatened. Once he’s tipped into a fearful state (“over threshold”), the fight-or-flight hormones (adrenaline, cortisol) may kick in, making it hard for him to think, learn, remember, and respond like a more “normal” dog.
When working with fearful dogs, the ability to keep the dog sufficiently sub-threshold is paramount to the training success. But keeping a dog under threshold is often easier said than done. Real-world variables can change on a dime, especially if one hasn’t gone to great lengths to carefully set up a controlled training session. And a stressed dog is not in the proper mental state to learn he is safe in the presence of the trigger.
“When I first learned about positive reinforcement-based dog training, the general wisdom was that as long as the dog is eating, he’s under threshold,” says Cook. “That might be a reliable indicator for some dogs, but it’s far too unreliable for me with the degree of under threshold I’m aiming for. After all, many dogs can eat or tug on a toy while stressed.”
NOT THE USUAL COUNTER-CONDITIONING
Many trainers turn to classical counter-conditioning to help rewire how the dog’s brain reacts to scary things. But Cook’s method follows more of a human therapeutic model.
Rather than use food in an attempt to reprogram how the dog feels in specific situations, her goal is to help the dog naturally achieve an emotional state where he can comfortably evaluate a situation and come to his own conclusion that there’s nothing to worry about. It’s similar to how a skilled human therapist guides a person through a healing process in such a way that the client discovers the answers herself.
“It’s about giving the dog the chance to self-soothe from a place of entirely established safety, and where they’re already feeing relaxed. Now they have a chance to gather new information and I don’t have to tell them what specific response they should be having. I’m not saying, ‘You’re right, there’s a stimulus (the scary thing) and now I’m going to give you something (food) to influence you directly.’ Instead, I can say, ‘Go ahead and look at the scary thing and come to the very real conclusion that you are not under threat here.’”
Play helps facilitate the process. Whereas the goal of food centers around changing the dog’s conditioned emotional response (CER) to the trigger, the goal of Play Way play is to help put the learner into a better state of mind from which to fully evaluate the situation and organically realize there is no threat.
The Play Way, Step By Step
1. Learning the Language of Play Way Play. For most people, this is the most challenging part of the Play Way. This first step focuses on developing a therapeutic play style that allows for relaxed, silly, low-energy, consensual activity, where the dog is given room to say, “No thank you,” “Not right now,” or, “I’d rather do this instead of that.”
2. Location, Location, Location. Once the dog and handler have come to a mutual understanding about this new style of interaction, make sure it holds up by playing in many new, non-challenging locations, such as different rooms of the house.
3. Developing “Look and Dismiss” Using Simple Distractions. Now it’s time to introduce simple, non-worrisome (trigger-free) distractions. The “look and dismiss” part of the Play Way is about helping the dog realize he can acknowledge potentially “scary things” from a place of safety, realize it’s no big deal, and calmly dismiss the potential trigger. This starts by practicing look and dismiss with simple distractions.
The critical piece of this skill is for you to let the dog control the session; you just open the door to the possibility of play. Let’s assume your dog is initially receptive to the invitation. If she disengages for any reason – say, a blowing leaf catches her attention – let her do so. Pause, wait, and allow her to process the information. When she reorients her attention to you, simply acknowledge her warmly, and then, if her attention is still present, re-issue the calm, casual invitation to play and wait to see how she responds.
This can be tricky, as there’s a great temptation to enthusiastically react to the dog’s choice to re-orient to you by instantly re-engaging in play. But the calm, casual, re-issuing of the invitation to play, and not an enthusiastic, potentially rewarding reaction is a critical element of “look and dismiss” in the Play Way, Cook says. “You want to leave room for the dog to look back at the scary thing if she needs to. Dismissal can come in stages. If you play too quickly, you can overshadow the dog’s natural thought process.”
The Play Way is not about teaching the dog to look at triggers and then look back at you in order to earn a reward of play. Cook doesn’t want the dog to be seeking rewards, but instead, to be in a mental state that supports his ability to acknowledge the trigger’s existence and realize it’s not so scary after all, so it can be comfortably dismissed. It’s important to practice this step a lot so the dog becomes well rehearsed in looking, processing, and dismissing – all on his own, without being cued to return attention to the handler.
4. Formal Training Set Ups. Once the dog is well practiced at noticing but easily dismissing assorted non-concerning distractions in favor of engaging in therapeutic play, it’s time to introduce slightly more challenging distractions that might be of minor concern, taking care to present them at a very low level.
For example, if a dog is fearful of other dogs, one might use a realistic-looking stuffed dog placed far in the distance. If the dog worries about strange people, a helper might stand far away. Distance is important since, for most dogs, the farther they are from the trigger, the less problematic it is. The goal is for the dog to see the trigger, but to now have the tools –the ability to look and gather information from a place of safety – to process the situation and realize there is no threat. If the dog can’t easily look and dismiss the trigger, that’s key information for the handler, who then aborts the session and creates an easier training scenario next time.
Cook points out these set-ups rely heavily on the handler’s ability to control the environment temporarily in a way that avoids being ambushed by the dog’s trigger. For those everyday situations where one just needs to walk the dog through a neighborhood full of potential triggers, she recommends careful management such as keeping a safe distance from “the scary things,” along with using food in a more traditional positive-reinforcement framework such as consistently feeding in the presence of the trigger, often known as “open bar, closed bar,” to help prevent the rehearsal of unwanted, reactive behavior.
Over time, Cook says clients report a marked decrease in the amount of management needed to navigate everyday, real-world situations. Their dogs might still notice triggers, but find it far easier to dismiss them and move along.
“Dogs get really good at gathering information quickly, and from a place of calm safety, so they aren’t feeling triggered and don’t need to overreact,” she says. “It’s much easier for them to look at people or dogs and it’s like they’re saying, ‘No big deal. I’ve seen that before. We can move on.’”
WHAT PLAY WAY PLAY LOOKS LIKE
Play Way play is about social, interpersonal play, more so than playing together with toys or using food. What matters most is that the human acknowledges and adopts the conversational nature of how dogs play with each other, rather than seek to drive and control the play interaction.
Healthy dog-to-dog play has a natural rhythm. There’s a lot of back and forth. They pause. They hold suspense. They change things up. They don’t much enjoy a play partner who is being pushy. It’s not as much fun to play with someone who insists on picking the game and dictating exactly how it’s played.
“It’s a lot like working with toddlers,” says Cook. “With kids, you don’t get to decide how the game goes. It’s no fun if you decide we have to play Candyland and then you win. Play Way play is about being cooperative, improvising, and letting the dog make suggestions like, ‘I want to do this…’ or ‘I don’t like when you poke my butt with your claw hand, but I do like to play fake bitey-face with you.’”
Try play-bowing at your dog. Hide your face and encourage your dog to burrow under your hands to “find” you. Cover yourself with a blanket and do the same. Start with slow, soft energy and give your dog plenty of room to move around. Try to exude affection. Flirt! When you touch the dog, pull back and invite her to come toward you. Don’t be afraid to try new things, but don’t frantically switch from one behavior to another. Float an idea and see what happens. If your dog is used to interactive toy play or frequent training sessions, he might be confused and need time (over several short sessions) to figure out what’s going on.
PLAY WAY ADVANTAGES
According to Cook, one of the biggest advantages of the Play Way method is its ability to keep handlers honest about whether or not the dog is under threshold. That’s because many food-motivated dogs will still eat and some toy-motivated dogs can still enthusiastically tug even though anxiety is creeping in. In contrast, social play (as practiced in the Play Way) is far more fragile. Social play is the first thing to go when stress starts to creep in, says Cook.
“It’s not very robust,” Cook says. “The second a dog starts to have even a mild concern – or even a curiosity that might lead to a concern – the play stops. When that happens, you as a trainer have a clear indication of something you need to pay attention to and potentially adjust. It keeps the trainer honest about staying under threshold.
“I like things that help me counter my own biases and weaknesses as a human being,” Cook continues. “When you’re trying to get something done, you might be tempted to tell yourself it’s okay, the dog’s fine if he’s eating or tugging. I find this type of social play keeps me really honest in my assessments.”
The ability to maintain a high degree of accuracy regarding the dog’s thresholds can lead to faster results compared to traditional classical counter-conditioning protocols. It’s a heavily front-loaded effort that pays off in the end. By taking the time to slowly develop a wholly consensual, give-and-take play relationship with a dog, you gain the ability to use social play for therapeutic purposes. And in using social play therapeutically, you’re less likely to accidentally push the dog over threshold.
Also, by preventing the dog from going over threshold, he’s more likely to take consistent steps in the right direction, instead of setbacks continually causing him to take two steps forward and three steps back.
Different From Classical Conditioning
People often mistakenly refer to the Play Way as a classical conditioning set-up that uses social play in place of food to help change how a dog feels about the “scary thing.” But Cook says that’s not entirely correct. A common approach used by positive trainers working with shy and fearful dogs is to strategically offer food or toys – something the dog readily enjoys – anytime the trigger (the “scary thing”) is present, so that the dog comes to associate the scary thing with the availability of food or toys, and the newly formed association reduces the degree of concern. This is called classical counter-conditioning and it frequently works wonders.
However, with the Play Way, says Cook, “I’m specifically working to avoid a situation where the dog looks at the scary thing and then instantly play happens. Instead, I’m using play to facilitate the dog’s ability to be in a relaxed, happy state where he can comfortably assess a situation and decide for himself that he’s safe. I know Pavlov is always on your shoulder, but the focus of the Play Way is not to drive the purposeful formation of specific associations. I’m actively trying to not contribute, as a trainer, to the associations being made by the dog.”
For more information about the Play Way, visit playwaydogs.com or check out Cook’s online course, “Dealing with the Bogeyman – Helping Fearful Reactive and Stressed Dogs,” offered via Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, fenzidogsportsacademy.com.
MUTUALLY RESPECTFUL TRAINING
Here’s an aspect of play therapy that is less commonly seen in other dog training methodologies: Being “present” – sensitive and respectful of the dog’s needs – is an integral component of the Play Way.
“It’s not about coming in with a plan and saying, ‘I’m going to make this specific thing happen to influence you to feel a certain way,’” Cook explains. “I’m sensitive and listening to my learner. It enriches all of my training to consider a space where I’m respectful of the viewpoint of my dog. I don’t think that’s something we emphasize enough in dog training.”
That’s not to say Cook suggests dogs should call the shots all the time; she knows that’s not realistic. But setting aside time to develop social play is also beneficial as an overall stress release for both shy and fearful dogs and their owners.
“Reactive dogs, shy dogs, fearful dogs – they all live a more inherently stressful life,” Cook says. “It’s hard to be routinely triggered by stressful things. We all need play, silliness, and laughter to help shake-off these types of stressful build-ups. I think, in general, we don’t really do enough to relax the dogs who spend a decent amount of time feeling an overabundance of stress compared to a more adjusted dog.”
In this way, the Play Way method can be just as beneficial to the dog and owner as a team as it is in its ability to help the dog organically work through its fears.
“When you own a fearful or reactive dog, you yourself are often stressed,” says Cook. “You’re nervous your dog will blow up at any time, and you’re worried what people will think. Maybe you’re even grieving a little bit because this isn’t what you pictured when you thought about getting a dog.
“I think it helps the human, the dog, and the partnership to have this one expectation-free space – this isolated time where you only focus on what you both can do right, where you make each other laugh and enjoy being silly together. That kind of connection can help keep you invested for the long haul in helping your dog. It can recharge the batteries in the relationship.”
As Cook always says, it’s magic!
Success Stories: Susanne and Cash
Five-year-old Cash, a Belgian Tervuren has always been a “special dog with special needs,” explains Susanne Handwerk of Eichgraben, Austria. Susanne says he used to be anxious about strangers, leery of other dogs, and on high alert when he was away from home. Also, he’s not very food- or toy-motivated, so traditional management techniques involving food or toys are of little help. Many facets of life with Cash had become “frustrating and exhausting” for Susanne.
Finding Fenzi Dog Sports Academy and Cook’s “Dealing with the Bogeyman – Helping Fearful, Reactive, and Stressed Dogs” class changed how Susanne approached training with Cash. Whereas prior trainers insisted she work to make toys more valuable to Cash, learning the Play Way taught her how to develop new games they could enjoy together. The class also helped her better understand thresholds, and the importance of keeping Cash under threshold.
Susanne says learning Cook’s Play Way method has helped her become a better partner for Cash. Through social play with Susanne, Cash has learned to relax in many situations that used to cause him great anxiety.
“Now I realize Cash was over-threshold much of the time,” Susanne says. “And because he was so stressed, he was sleeping most of the time at home. Everybody told me that was a good thing, but now I know it wasn’t. He was exhausted. That’s no way to live.”
Taking the time to develop a therapeutic play relationship helped Cash relax. “It helped him become less serious and to worry less,” Susanne says. “And I think it was helpful for him to realize I would listen to his signals – that a, ‘No’ would be, ‘No.’ In the beginning, he ignored most of my invitations to play, but the more I respected his answers of, ‘No,’ the more he was ready to play with me.”
Susanne says Cook’s class was life-changing in teaching her how to help Cash learn to trust her as his partner, develop confidence and become resilient. While he still has some challenges, he’s quicker to acclimate to new environment, can successfully work around other dogs most of the time, and generally ignores strangers.
“The Play Way helped Cash lighten up and learn I would listen to him and support him,” Susanne says. “And it helped me lighten up because I feel like I’m able to help him.”
For this photo shoot, I borrowed the two-acre lawn of a friend. That lawn makes me feel unbearably envious and also guilty.
I think it’s been pretty well established that lawns are environmentally unfriendly. They require massive amounts of water. Fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides get carried off by rain (or overwatering!) into storm drains and streams and can contaminate wildlife and environments many miles away. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, homeowners in the U.S. use up to 10 times more chemical pesticides per acre on their lawns than farmers use on crops.
Worse: According to a 2013 study, “Detection of herbicides in the urine of pet dogs following home lawn chemical application,” the detection of lawn chemicals in the urine of pet dogs was widespread – and that lawn chemicals persisted on the grass for at least 48 hours after application, and even longer under certain environmental conditions. It’s been established that exposure to herbicide-treated lawns has been associated with significantly higher bladder cancer risk in dogs.
And yet: What’s better than playing with a dog, or watching a dog or dogs play by themselves, on a blanket of nice thick green grass? Especially in the heat of summer?
I just read an article in the New York Times (“America’s Killer Lawns”) that provided some helpful ways to make lawns less toxic.
Here’s my so-called lawn. It features quite a variety of plant species 😉 It looks fine now, but by mid-summer will be looking much more patchy, thin, and brown.
No beautiful lush lawn at my house…
For what it’s worth, I’ve never had a gorgeous lawn – probably because I’ve never engaged the services of a lawn-care company, not used fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, or pesticides on my grass. I wouldn’t feel good about using any of those things, even though I’ve certainly enjoyed playing or exercising on publics lawns and sports fields that almost surely DO use those chemicals. Every home I’ve lived in as an adult came with an existing crappy lawn, one containing as many weeds as grass species (my husband insists on using air-quotes when discussing our “lawn,” because he doesn’t think the collection of plants that dwell in front of our home constitutes turf in any way). At our last home, we stopped watering our “lawn” during the worst summer of California’s drought, and neither restarted nor, I have to admit, replaced it with alternative landscaping. It looked perfectly Dust Bowl-esque in the summer, just awful.
A nice lush lawn at a local park.
Like our past homes, our current home came with a front yard featuring lots of grass, as well as lots of other weeds and clover. It’s partially sun-baked and partially deeply shaded. Some species of plants thrive in one location and not in the others. But for the two summers we’ve lived here so far, we have kept it watered and mowed, and both the dogs and I really enjoy it, even if it’s not thick or lush or smooth or even. It’s cooler and softer than anything else outside in the summer! Also, it covers a wide swath of space; if we removed it, I have no idea what we’d plant or how we’d begin to landscape or hardscape it. For now, anyway, it is what it is.
Lately, I’ve been watching videos of a trainer I know working her young puppy on a smooth green carpet of permanently installed artificial turf outside her home and have been coveting a training space like that. But I don’t know that I would ever pull the trigger on an expense like that, either.
What about you? Do you maintain a lawn for your family’s enjoyment? Or do you live lawn-free? If you have given up grass, do you miss it?
I grew up around horses. In the horse world, if you tie a red ribbon in your horse’s tail, everyone knows that means your horse kicks – so you don’t walk behind that horse, or ride your own horse too close to that horse’s back end. If you do, and you get kicked, it’s your own fault. So, everyone stays away from the rear end of a horse with a red ribbon in her tail. There is an active effort in the dog world to do something similar with the color yellow to protect dogs who need others to respect a space bubble around them as well as educate people about appropriate interactions with dogs in public in general (DINOS – Dog In Need Of Space).
A Yellow Dog or DINOS may be aggressive, but is not necessarily so. He may be fearful and/or reactive, and needs people or other dogs not to get too close. He may be in pain – recovering from recent surgery, or arthritic, and again, needs dogs and humans not to pester him. He may just be too friendly and his human doesn’t want to constantly have to deal with him jumping up on people. He may be in training, and needs to focus on his tasks-at-hand rather than being intruded upon; a service dog, perhaps, or a dog just in the early stages of his good manners training. Perhaps he’s simply the canine companion of a human who wants to keep distance between herself and her dog, and others.
The Yellow Dog Project is a not-for-profit organization promoting the concept of “yellow means caution” for dogs, and they have representatives around the world, in North and South America, parts of Africa, Asia, Russia, Australia, and numerous European countries. They utilize volunteers globally to help educate dog owners and others, and offer Yellow Dog volunteer opportunities, resources and products on their website and Facebook page.
DINOS was launched in 2012 by founder, professional dog walker and Certified Compassion Fatigue Educator, Jessica Dolce. As a dog walker, she faced regular encounters with humans who allowed their dogs to inappropriately approach the dogs she was professionally responsible for, many of whom didn’t appreciate other dogs in their faces. She calls these people MDIFs, because they often approach with a big smile on their faces while proclaiming enthusiastically, “It’s okay, My Dog Is Friendly.” Fed up with these encounters, she started a project to educate both dog owners and non-dog owners about better ways to interact with dogs in the real world. Her website offers a wide variety of resources both for those who have DINOS as well as those who want to help educate the rest of the world about how to interact appropriately with dogs in public. You can find DINOS information and resources on their website and Facebook page.
It is certainly no fun for a dog owner (or dog walker, or dog trainer) to constantly have to ward off unsolicited approaches, and it’s even worse when your dog does have reactive or aggressive behaviors. I would love to see yellow vests, scarves and ribbons become as well-known a “stay away” signal in the dog world as a red ribbon in a horse’s tail is in the horse world. Whether you purchase and utilize dog-space education products for your own Yellow Dog/DINOS, sign up to volunteer for the Yellow Dog Project, or share educational products in your community, (you can find the Yellow Dog poster online, free download, print, make copies and post them around your neighborhood), you can help these groups help make the world a safer and happier place for dogs and the people who love them.
The loss of an incisor (front middle tooth) is easy to notice in a dog like this Boxer with an underbite. But many dogs lose teeth to resorption without their owners ever spotting the loss. Sometimes though, resorption also causes dental pain, prompting a veterinary exam.
There are many possible causes of dental disease in dogs including plaque accumulation, tooth trauma, genetic predispositions, cavities, and cancerous conditions. In recent years, there has been an increase in the research of canine tooth root resorption – a process in which part or parts of the tooth are destroyed by physiologic processes gone awry – as a cause of dental disease.
Unfortunately, the research has not yet resulted in solid answers as to the cause or effective treatment of tooth root resorption in dogs. Nevertheless, owners should be aware of the condition so they can bring any abnormality they may observe in their dog’s mouth to their veterinarian’s attention.
ANATOMY OF A TOOTH PROBLEM
A healthy canine tooth consists of the crown – the part of the tooth above the gumline – and the root, which is below the gumline and makes up the majority of the tooth.
The center of the tooth root is the pulp chamber; this is living tissue filled with nerve endings and blood vessels. Moving outward from the core of the tooth, the next layer is dentin, a hard, bone-like material that protects the pulp. Outside of the dentin, cementum is a thin coating that attaches the tooth to the jaw bone.
Enamel, the white, visible part of the tooth, protects the crown. It is the hardest substance in the body. Once laid down, enamel is no longer produced. Any destruction to enamel is permanent.
Tooth root resorption occurs when a part or parts of the tooth are destroyed. Any area of the tooth can be affected, from the dentin to the enamel.
Odontoclasts are cells that are critical for resorbing tooth tissue. They are usually associated with breakdown of baby tooth roots, so that these teeth can fall out and make way for permanent teeth. For reasons that are not understood, sometimes the supportive “net” of proteins that protect the teeth gets compromised, and odontoclasts can then break down the tooth and surrounding tissues (called the periodontium) without restriction.
The beginning of this breakdown appears as a lesion that looks like a pit or a hole in the tooth. These lesions are often found at the junction where the enamel meets the cementum. If above the gumline, bright pink tissue from the gums (called gingiva) may cover the hole. This is the body’s way of trying to heal the defect. If the dog is under anesthesia for a dental cleaning, once the tooth is scraped clean, the lesion becomes obvious. However, many of the lesions are below the gumline and will not be seen except through dental x-rays.
Odontoclasts are cells that are critical for resorbing tooth tissue. They are usually associated with the breakdown of baby tooth roots, so that these teeth can fall out and make way for permanent teeth, but, interestingly, they don’t normally affect the incoming adult teeth. The mechanisms are not fully understood in dogs.
There are three basic types of resorptive lesions: physiologic, inflammatory, and non-inflammatory.
Physiologic resorption is normal and occurs as the body prepares to shed the deciduous teeth (baby teeth) as the adult teeth develop and emerge.
Inflammatory and non-inflammatory resorptive lesions are abnormal. The triggers for these types of tooth destruction are unknown. One study found a possible correlation between age and breed, with older, large breed dogs predisposed.
SIGNS
What symptoms might your dog show? This is what makes resorption lesions confusing! There may be no symptoms at all. Resorptive lesions are often found incidentally if your dog has full mouth x-rays before a dental cleaning. (This is one reason that x-rays are such an important part of dental cleaning.) If symptoms are noted, they might include drooling, difficulty chewing, bad breath, mouth pain, and dropping food when chewing.
If a resorptive lesion affects the crown of the tooth, a hole may be seen. It is also possible to see pink fleshy tissue that appears to be growing on the tooth. This is gingival tissue that is trying to cover the defect in the crown. It is a hallmark of a resorptive lesion.
DO YOU HAVE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS?
Treatment for this condition remains controversial. In some cases, your veterinarian will suggest only monitoring every six months with dental x-rays. But if discomfort or dysfunction are observed, extraction of the affected tooth is indicated.
In the past, veterinary dental specialists tried filling these resorptive lesions like a dentist would fill a cavity in a human. However, this proved to be a mostly unsuccessful tack; usually, the tooth loss would continue to progress. The filling would fall out and the tooth would have to be extracted after all. If the dog seems to be experiencing discomfort, and/or the loss of the tooth is certain, the tooth should just be extracted.
Unfortunately, there is no known way to prevent tooth resorption, as the causes are not known. However, dogs who have suffered one tooth resorption are prone to more. As a result, close attention to overall dental health is critical throughout your dog’s life. If your veterinarian suspects resorptive lesions, then referral to a veterinary dentist may be the best course of action. Canine resorptive lesions are an area of limited knowledge and current research, so speaking with a specialist might be the best bet.
Catherine Ashe graduated the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine in 2008. After a small animal intensive emergency internship, she practiced ER medicine for nine years. She works as a relief veterinarian in Asheville, North Carolina and loves the general practice side of medicine.
I have never owned a dog with separation anxiety, thank goodness. The condition is hard on the dog who suffers from the condition and hard on the dog’s caretakers, too, including owners, vets, groomers, pet sitters, and dog walkers. Care must be taken to prevent triggering the dog’s panic at being left alone—in severe cases, even just long enough for the person caring for the dog to use the restroom!
