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Heres the biggest problem concerning pet insurance for many of us dog owners: the more dogs (or total pets) you have, the less it seems to make sense. If only there was a company that offered some sort of pack insurance that you could apply to whichever one of your pets most needed care.
I have two cats and two dogs. If I bought insurance for all four, the cost of the premiums and co-pays (or, depending on the insurance company, the percentage of any bill that the company does not cover) would exceed the total cost of veterinary care that I provide for them most years.
My pets are not even the whole problem.
I also have covered the cost of care needed by relatives dogs. My sons dog has had a couple of costly visits this year, and given that my son was in his last semester of college, and then an unemployed recent graduate, I picked up the cost. Another relatives tiny dog badly needed a dental cleaning and some tooth extractions (which were necessary due to years of neglect, due to money woes). I paid for the work, because I see this sweet dog often and couldnt stand for her to be in so much discomfort. A few months later, the same dog was attacked (in her yard!) by two large loose dogs, and badly mauled. She had a broken scapula and bites down to the bone. My relative could not begin to pay for the care. I picked up the tab for that emergency visit and hospitalization, too.
I also have an additional challenge: I also foster for a financially strapped shelter. I do not ask them to reimburse me for veterinary care that I have sought for the dogs and puppies (and very occasional kittens) that I foster. The shelter provides the basics: antibiotics if the animal is sick, vaccinations, spay/neuter surgery, and basic first aid care if something happens (or, more commonly, we discover something medically wrong) with the dog Im fostering.
There have been a number of cases when my foster dog or puppy needed extraordinary care but if the animal had been an ordinary shelter ward, not being cared for in my home, the shelter would have likely taken a wait and see approach, or at least, a far less extensive (perhaps overprotective!) approach than I took. For example, when I accidently kicked (as I was walking, holding a pan of water, and couldnt see) one of the puppies I fostered this summer, and he was in a lot of pain, and holding up one leg for over 12 hours after the incident, I took him to my veterinarian for x-rays. Im certain the shelter staff would have recommended waiting. But if something had been broken or dislocated (nothing was, as it turned out), I would have wanted him to be casted or splinted or operated on or something! It was hard enough living with myself watching him hop about on three legs for days without also wondering whether something was broken. So thats money well spent, in my mind.
But, obviously, these sorts of expenses add up!
Last week, my dog Tito was playing with a tennis ball when he suddenly shrieked and began pawing frantically at his mouth. A moment later, he spit something out: a fragment of a tooth. And not just any fragment: the piece looked like a perfect slice of an entire molar, from tip to root. He had a slab fracture of a molar; it had to be removed. And since dental x-rays were needed, we found that he had a retained puppy tooth in his jaw that the vet thought should be removed, along with the root of a front bottom incisor (that I thought he had lost altogether, but it turns out, had just broken off, bad owner!), and the incisors next to that root, which were all loose from damage to the bone . . . and since he was going to be out and on the table anyway, it only made sense to clean his teeth. I was pleased that the total was only about $800, and to know that hes going to fell far better now. But given that I was mentally allocating my next veterinary spending to be on Otto (he needs his teeth cleaned) darn it!
Anyway, I guess Im whining; Ill stop. This has been an extraordinary year for veterinary care, and Im glad to be able to (sort of) afford it (the credit card balance has proven extraordinarily difficult to reduce this year). If this is the price of caring about so many wonderful dogs, Ill pay it. I just hope next year is a little easier!
My six-month-old Rottweiler has a goofy, bouncy walk. Does that mean she has hip dysplasia?
A lot of puppies – especially big, gangly ones – have a clumsy, bumbling gait, and this does not mean they have hip dysplasia. If your puppy had a hip dysplasia, you might notice that she limps sometimes, especially after strenuous exercise. You might hear or feel her hips “click” in and out, or notice that she stands and walks with her hocks or hind feet very close together. You might notice her struggling to push herself up into a standing position when she’s lying down, or she might have trouble climbing stairs.
The way vets assess a puppy for hip dysplasia is by looking for a limp as the puppy walks and runs, then checking whether the hip can easily be pushed out of position in the socket (this feels like a “click” and is called the Ortolani sign).
If there’s a suspicion of a problem – or if owners simply want more information – x-rays can be taken to check for hip dysplasia. Although a six-month-old puppy whose hips looked normal on plain x-rays might still develop hip dysplasia later, signs of the disease are often visible at this age. These x-rays are taken with the dog lying on her back in a frog-leg position. The puppy is sedated for a few minutes while the x-rays are taken. Sedation is required to relax the hip and thigh muscles and keep the dog in proper position for accurate x-rays. These x-rays can also be taken while a pup is under anesthesia for spaying or neutering.
On the x-rays, the vet will look at whether the head of the femur is smooth and round and fits snugly into the pelvis. In a puppy with severe hip dysplasia, the head of the femur may be out of the socket, or it may be obviously flat or misshapen.
Looseness in the hip joint – another sign of dysplasia – is measured by PennHIP x-rays. Very loose hips are a sign of dysplasia, and a good indication that a dog will develop arthritis over time.
You have a puppy of a breed that is known to have a high incidence of hip dysplasia, and you’re obviously concerned about it. If you haven’t already asked your vet to evaluate the puppy for hip dysplasia, I encourage you to do so. If her hips are normal, you’ll be reassured, and if they are abnormal, you’ll have surgical options for correcting the problem before arthritis sets in.
I’m lucky to have two dogs, one small and one large, who can come galloping into the house from a hard romp, run to the water bowl, and drink their fill, and hardly leave a drop on the floor.
I’m reminded of how lucky I am every time my son’s dog comes to visit – as I move the water bowl outside and grab the first of a series of dog towels from the bottom shelf of the linen closet, the stained, frayed-edge, holey towels kept just for dog baths and… well, this! Cole is incapable of drinking even a little without redistributing half of it around the kitchen. It wasn’t such a big deal in summer – it’s so dry here, the water would evaporate in no time. But now, with cold floors and me walking around in socks… Darn it, Cole!
I mentioned a while ago that I had a lot of visiting dogs for Thanksgiving, including a Boxer. She gets forgiven for the sloppy drinking. I don’t know how a dog with that sort of lippy anatomy can drink without half of the water going every which way. Cole’s problem is not anatomical; though he’s at least half hound, his lips aren’t pendulous enough to be the cause of his problem. He’s more of a stylistically poor drinker — a distracted drinker. If anything, and I mean anything, crosses his brain while he’s drinking, he will walk away from the bowl to investigate that thought, even as his tongue still churns and water pours from his mouth. He’s such a dork!
My friend Christine was telling me the other day, as we watched her big dog Bronco slurping water all over my deck outside, that when he was a puppy, he would always stand in the water with his two front feet when he was drinking. And then, of course, not only drool the water all over her kitchen, but also track it all over on his big paws, too. She tried putting the bowl up on a stepstool – once. Splash! Well, it’s a good way to get a person to mop the floor. It probably needed it anyway. Fortunately, he’s now too large to reach the bowl while his feet are in it.
I just saw this video on the New York Times site, footage from a study in which researchers are examining slow-motion footage to see exactly how dogs pull water into their mouths. After watching it, I’m amazed they manage to get much water down their throats at all!
Does your dog have a drinking problem? Would you like to talk about it?
As I approached the front of the supermarket, I saw about six or seven people standing in a circle. Uh oh, I thought, and sure enough: There was a couple there with three pit-mix puppies. The pups looked like they were about 8 weeks old; they had the pudgy, unformed bodies and the stoic/exhausted expressions of very young pups.
“Are you selling them or giving them away?” I asked. The man answered, “Selling them! $50 apiece. They’re purebred Pits!”
Never mind the “purebred Pits” claim . . . what do we do about people who persist in producing and selling dogs in this manner? With zero regard for whether the buyers are ready or equipped to properly care for a spur-of-the-moment puppy acquisition.
I had a strong impulse to tell the people fawning over the puppies that the puppies at the local shelter are the same price, but they have been spayed/neutered, vaccinated, dewormed, and microchipped. Whereas these ones – goodness knows whether they’ve ever had a single vaccine, or if their mom has ever had a single vaccine. And the price of all that care from the local vets would run them at least $300. But I was tired; it was Sunday night and I had worked all day, and I just needed a few items from the store so I could make something for dinner.
I have the pleasure of being acquainted with our town’s sole full-time animal control officer. Of course, he was off-duty on a Sunday night, and would be called out only by the police and only for an animal-related emergency. I texted him from inside the market, just on the off-chance that he, too, was out shopping for dinner and would take it upon himself to have a little chat with the puppy sellers. In California, it *is* actually against the law to sell dogs in this way. But this is not a priority call for any overworked small-town cop on a Sunday night, and the officer (fortunately for him) was snug at home. He texted back, “You can tell them they are in violation of 597.4 – but they are probably out there on a Sunday night knowing that the cops won’t come.”
There are a number of things I could have done to try to convince the couple not to breed and sell dogs in this way, but I just went home and stewed. When I wonder why we can’t ever seem to stem the incoming tide of unwanted and/or accidentally produced puppies and dogs at the shelter where I volunteer, I’ll try to write down the things I should have said and done, for those three tired young puppies, their mom, and all the other irresponsibly owned dogs out there.
Addendum: As I attached this file to email it to WDJ’s Web Master, so it would be posted on this blog site, I happened to see another file labeled Puppies on the Roadside — a blog I wrote about another, similar event — dated 12/6/2011. My resolve to respond better and more energetically to these events is now hardened.
First, of course: Otto my wonder dog. I could not be more thankful for this dog, I really couldn’t. It’s incredible to me that I’ve been lucky enough to have two “heart dogs” in my adult lifetime. Otto and his predecessor (Rupert the Border Collie, who passed away at the age of 14 in late 2003) could not be more different in appearance and temperament, but both of them have been so generously present for me. Both dogs have seen me through some tough times for me and my family, and I’m grateful for their constant companionship, soulful comfort when needed, and readiness for fun and adventure all the rest of the time. Border Collie owners are accustomed to their dogs watching them constantly, and so I accepted the ever-present scrutiny from Rupert, but I have to admit that it is a little unnerving to have a dog with no BC traits whatsoever being so sensitive to so much as a hitch in my breath or my tone of voice as I talk on the phone; Otto detects any emotional instability at all and offers himself to me immediately. “Here I am, pet me, it’s going to be okay,” he seems to say. And so far, with his help, it has been. Thank you, Otto.
Also present: Tito, the Chihuahua who came to spend a few weeks a few years ago. He’s small, he’s loud, and he’ll take on the biggest, baddest dog in town – as long as there is a nice sturdy fence between them. If there is a bigger, cushier dog bed in the room, he’s on it, no matter who he has to menace to get it, and if you are thinking about taking away his bone before he’s done with it – well, let’s just say the only way you are going to get it is with steak, or maybe a tennis ball. He’s an outsized character in a little dog disguise and he’s not here to provide for my emotional comfort or anyone else’s; what’s a guy gotta do to get dinner served, and is that ALL? Sheesh!
Back under my table, unhappily, but making do: Mary, one of my former fosters. No, she’s not being returned – and I’m as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow that’s never going to happen. She’s here because her new owner had emergency surgery last week. She was at work, and felt horrible, and decided she needed to leave work and go to the emergency room. But before she went to the ER, she went home to feed and let the dog outside, because she was afraid that she would be a long time and she didn’t want the dog to be uncomfortable or worried… and that’s probably about the time her appendix ruptured, while she was home, taking care of her dog. I don’t know how she made it from there to the ER, but I do know that people were telling her to let go of her phone as she was being prepped for surgery; I know because she was calling me to ask if I could please go get Mary out of her house and take care of the dog for a few days. Now, I know that Mary has no way of understanding that her owner cares about her so much that she risked her own life in order to take care of Mary’s needs before taking care of her own, but I’ve been trying to explain it to her while giving her as much comfort as I can while her owner recuperates. If we’re all lucky, her owner will be released from the hospital just after Thanksgiving. She and Mary will need no greater celebration than to sleep together again in their own home.
I have two sisters. One of them, the dog-crazy one, lives about four hours away from me. She’s also a chef, and she often cooks Thanksgiving dinner at my house; I have a bigger kitchen, and she has serious skills. This year, she is caring for her husband, who is having hip replacement surgery as I write this, so while ordinarily she and her husband and their three little dogs would be joining us, they, too, are sitting out the holiday to recover from surgery.
Instead, the one person in my family who doesn’t have a dog and doesn’t ever want a dog, my other sister, who lives several large states to the right of me… She’s coming, and bringing a dog. WHAT? Well, it’s her young adult daughter’s little dog, and her daughter is working long hours through the holiday, and so we will be joined by Riot, a darling young Chihuahua with next to zero training. Young adult with new career, working long hours, plus young exuberant dog? I plan to spend the week that my sister will be visiting helping Riot with remedial potty training, a default “sit” (sit when you don’t know what else you should do), and “shush” – what I consider a prerequisite foundation behavior for small dogs. Riot training is scheduled to begin exactly one minute after she arrives.
Sadie, my daughter-in-law’s little dog, a reputed miniature Schnauzer, will be around, but not likely at dinner. I adore her, she’s incredibly sweet, but our “shush” lessons have paid dividends only in small groups. She gets aroused and anxious in crowds, and with all the family members we’re expecting, all bets are off. She is tiny and delicate, but her aroused barking is the most shrill, ear-piercing sound you can imagine. If you could bottle it, you could stop real riots with it. So she’s uninvited, but no skin off her nose, because she lives just blocks away and will be without company for just a few hours. We’ll save her some turkey, I’m sure.
Finally, we will welcome the newest member of the family: just days ago, my husband’s brother and sister-in-law adopted Rosie, a three-year-old Boxer from a Boxer rescue group. She’ll get preferential treatment and management, to protect her from being overwhelmed with the travel and rapid changes in venue. I’ll check her ID tag as soon as she gets here, to make sure it has my in-laws’ cell numbers on it (this often gets overlooked in all the excitement of adoptions) and will put up special “Close the gate!” signs on all of my yard gates. Newly adopted dogs are at super high risk of bolting in the first week or two, so we will be super careful.
Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving! And please give your dogs a little treat, not too fatty, from all of us at WDJ.
One model that has been put forth as a quasi-justification for the use of aversives in training is pack theory. Ever since the linear hierarchy was postulated in wolves, dog people have gone cuckoo in their efforts to explain every conceivable dog behavior and human – dog interaction in terms of “dominance.” We really latched onto that one. It is a great example of a successful meme. Dogs misbehave or are disobedient because they haven’t been shown who’s boss. You must be the “alpha” in your “pack.” Aside from amounting to yet another justification for aversives – oriented training methods the dog is supposedly staying up nights thinking up ways to stage a coup so you’d better keep him in his pace with plenty of coercion dominance has provided a panacea – like explanation for dog – behaviors.
For the owner, this simple explanation makes unnecessary the work of boning up on a myriad of other topics, like how animals learn. Notions like dogs rushing through doors ahead of their owners or pulling on a leash to exert dominance over their owners are too stupid for words. Some poor people have it so backwards that they view appeasement behaviors such as jumping up to lick or pawing as dominance displays and thus fair game for aversive training. The dominance panacea is, once again, a case of leaping to a conclusion before ruling out more obvious explanations. Dogs chew furniture because what else could furniture possibly be for? They are disobedient because they have no idea what is being asked of them, are undermotivated to comply, or something else has won the behavioral gambit at that moment in time, like a fleeing squirrel. Rank is not likely on their minds.
Dog owners have been admonished for decades by trainers, breeders and veterinarians to never play tug of war with their dogs because it risks increasing aggression and/or dominance in the dog. I think they’ve muddled predatory behavior, which tug actually is, with agnostic (conflict resolution) behavior, which tug is not. Played with rules, tug of war is a tremendous predatory energy burner and good exercise for both dog and owner. Like structured roughhousing, it servers as a good barometer of the kind of control you have over the dog, most importantly over his jaws. The game doesn’t make the dog a predator; he already is one. The game is an outlet.
Tug, or any vigorous activity for that matter, played without rules or functioning human brain cells is potentially dangerous. But the baby has been thrown out with the bath water in this case: why deprive dogs and owners of one of the best energy burners and outlets there is? It’s good because it is intense, increases dog focus and confidence, and plugs into something very deep inside dogs. The owner becomes the source of a potent reinforcing activity, and there is a payoff in terms of lowered incidence of behavior problems due to understimulation. It’s also extremely efficient for the owner in terms of space and time requirements, and it can be used as a convenient reinforcement option in obedience.
The “tug might make him more dominant” argument is extremely lame. The implication is that dogs or wolves ascertain rank by grabbing the ends of an object and tugging to see who “wins”. If anything, the best description of tug is that it is cooperative behavior. It’s not you vs. the dog, it’s you and the dog vs. the tug of war toy. When you’re playing tug of war with a dog and he “wins,” the game rather than leaving and hoarding. You have control of the supreme, ultimate reinforcer here: the ability to make the toy appear to resist, to feel like living prey. The dog learns this.
From Jean Donaldson’s thought-provoking book, The Culture Clash, dog owners will learn and get a better understanding of the relationship between dogs and humans, including rules of tug. Purchase The Culture Clash from Whole Dog Journal today.
1) Watchdog Barking serves the dual purpose of alerting other pack members that there is an intruder or change in the environment and warning the intruder that they have been noticed. Dogs bark much more than their ancestors, wolves, who hardly ever bark. In domesticating them, we have selected for more barking. The predisposition to watch-dog bark varies among breeds and individuals. The modifying principles are the same, though, whether you’re trying to coax a little more barking out of a couch potato Newfoundland or tone down barking in a hair – trigger German Shepard or miniature schnauzer.
2) Request Barking starts off as a behavioral experiment by the dog, kind of a “let’s see what this produces.” Typical requests include opening doors, handouts from your plate, invitations to play attention, and being let out of a crate or confinement area. This behavior is a problem not because the dog tries out the experiment but because the experiment usually succeeds: the owner reinforces the barking by granting the request and a habit is born. Dogs zero in on whatever strategy works.
3) Spooky Barkingoccurs when the dog is fearful or uncomfortable about something in the environment. It’s the dog’s way of saying: “Back off don’t come any closer.” This is much more serious than garden variety watchdog barking because the dog in question is advertising that he is afraid and therefore potentially dangerous if approached.
4) Boredom Barking can result when the dog’s daily needs for exercise and social and mental stimulation aren’t met. The dog barks compulsively. This is very much like pacing back and forth, tail-chasing or self-mutilation. Chained dogs and dogs left outdoors in yards are at high risk.
From Jean Donaldson’s thought-provoking book, The Culture Clash, dog owners will learn and get a better understanding of the relationship between dogs and humans, including ways to control excessive barking. Purchase The Culture Clash from Whole Dog Journal today.
A classic culture clash example is greeting rituals: in most human cultures, we shake hands or bow. In dog culture, they buzz around excitedly, lick and sniff each other. The origin of jumping up is in infancy. Wolf pups will jump up to lick the corners of adults’ mouths, triggering the latter to regurgitate food that the puppies can eat. This jumping up and licking is retained into adulthood as a greeting ritual. It’s extremely common in dogs though its root has faded: only a minority of adults regurgitate. Greeting may become exaggerated when dogs live with humans because the social group is continually being fractured, then reunited: we leave and come back a lot, necessitating constant broad rituals. We’re also vertical: the dog wants to get at our face. We also tend to let tiny puppies get away with it and then change the rules when they grow larger.
The main reason dogs jump is that no one has taught them to do otherwise. I’m not talking about punishments like kneeing dogs, pinching their feet or cutting off their air with a strangle collar. This sort of abuse has been the prevailing treatment but is inhumane and laden with side-effects. Imagine yourself being kneed in the diaphragm or pushed over backwards for smiling or extending your hand in friendship. It’s not the fault of dogs that their cultural norm is at odds with our greeting preferences.
The key to training dogs not to jump up is to strongly train an alternative behavior that is mutually exclusive to jumping. The dog cannot jump up and sit at the same time. Nor can he dig through walls while working on a chew toy, lie on a mat and annoy dinner guests, or hold eye contact while chasing cars. The applications of this technique – DRI (differential reinforcement of an in compatible behavior, or operant counterconditioning) – are limitless.
From Jean Donaldson’s thought-provoking book, The Culture Clash, dog owners will learn and get a better understanding of the relationship between dogs and humans, including ways to control jumping up. Purchase The Culture Clash from Whole Dog Journal today.
People are terribly mystified by any change in their dog’s behavior and go on a lot with the “why? WHY” as though there should never be any variability whatsoever in this living organism’s behavior. Training regressions are a frequent occurrence and no big deal. It is so important to remember that behavior is always in flux, constantly subjected to whatever contingencies there are in the environment as well as being influenced by unknown internal events. In the case of behavior problems, there are three main reasons for behavior that had seemed to be “fixed” to break down again:
Undertraining: the behavior was never that strong in the first place
Contingency change: the behavior extinguished or another one was trained by the owner or environment
Failure to generalize: the behavior falls apart in the a new location or context
A “contingency change” example: Inadvertent New Rules
A contingency change might look like the following. The dog has learned that it’s safe and often reinforcing to urinate in the yard and dangerous in most places he has tried in the house and so a fairly solid yard habit is in place. The owner has become upset about the yellowing of grass from dog urine and has decided to limit the dog to eliminating in one corner of the yard. The owner takes the dog on leash at elimination times for a couple of weeks, always going to one corner and praising the dog for urinating. The first couple of times the dog goes out off leash, she urinates in the wrong area. The owner punishes the dog. On the third day, the dog will now urinate in the yard. The owners sees this and takes the dog for a walk. The dog has a very full bladder and finally urinates and is praised by the owner. The owner likes the idea of the dog urinating on the walk rather than in the yard and starts taking the dog around the block to eliminate, which is successful and keeps the yard urine-free.
A few months later, the owner is in a rush to prepare for guests arriving so lets the dog into the yard to pee while finishing the cooking. The dog does not urinate in the yard and comes back in full. When the guests arrive, the owner puts the dog on leash to calm one of the visitors who is afraid of dogs. The dog urinates on the Persian rug. The owner thinks the dog sensed that one of the guests didn’t like her and urinated to demonstrate her resentment. In fact, the dog has learned to urinate when on leash only, based on the new contingencies inadvertently set up by the owner. Dogs aren’t into big agendas. They just need to know where and when it’s safe to pee.
These four golden rules should be followed during Do As I Do training (or any other training technique one relies upon).
1. Working sessions must be kept SHORT
Each training session must amount to what is a fun game for your dog to be played in your company. If the dog becomes exhausted, his motivation can decrease and he can be less willing to cooperate with what you are trying to accomplish in the next training session. For this reason, it is important to close the training session before the dog becomes tired, when he is still willing to work (i.e., willing to have fun) with you.
Remember that training sessions should be a fun, playful activity for your dog. This does not mean that you should not work hard to get the training right; it just means that you should be diligent about making it fun for you and especially for your dog. If you respect this rule, you will see that in the next session the dogs motivation will likely increase.
Keep in mind also that this training technique is not merely based on the establishment of associations between stimuli and responses. It required the dog to use his cognitive social skills. The dog will likely get tired relatively quickly because this implies much concentration. A good strategy to ensure that you do not overextend the training session out of enthusiasm is to count the treats you are delivering to the dog. But do not forget to offer a jackpot when you come across a particularly good response!
On average a six-trial session is sufficient and after the training it is ideal to provide the dog a place to relax body and mind.
2. Pause immediately if you detect signs of STRESS in the dog
Learning something new is always a stressful mental challenge. In any training situation, it is likely that the dog will not understand the purpose of the game at the beginning. If you notice at any point that the stress level is excessive, it is better to stop the training session at once and only resume it after the dog has rested and is calmer. In fact, excessive amounts of stress are not only bad for your dog but also compromise his ability to learn.
3. Always end the training session with a SUCCESS from the dog (and for you!)
If your dog fails with a difficult exercise, do not set him up for failure again and again. The right thing to do is to simplify the exercise a bit and end the working session on a high note.
4. Let your dog take a BREAK
Working sessions must be kept short to be effective for learning. Asking for six consecutive trials represents a significant mental effort and it is more than enough for most dogs. For some dogs this length may even be excessive.
By stopping before the dog gets tired, learning will be much more effective and the dog will not lose the motivation to work with you. Sometimes the enthusiasm for what you are doing or the attempt to obtain immediate results can lead you to prolong the working sessions too much. Rather than waiting for your dog to be tired or stressed, it is good practice to end the session while your dog is still willing to work. After a training session it is of the utmost importance to grant your dog a break.
Claudia Fugazzas new book, Do As I Do, examines dog training based on social learning. The book and accompanying DVD, explains and details this innovative approach to training. Buy it from Whole Dog Journal today.
