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(The Culture Clash Tip #1) The Dominance Panacea

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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.

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. Purchase The Culture Clash from Whole Dog Journal today

(The Culture Clash Tip #2) Tug Of War

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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

(The Culture Clash Tip #3) Barking

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Dogs bark for a variety of reasons.

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 Barking occurs 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

(The Culture Clash Tip #4) Jumping Up

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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

(The Culture Clash Tip #5) Training Regressions

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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:

  1. Undertraining: the behavior was never that strong in the first place

  2. Contingency change: the behavior extinguished or another one was trained by the owner or environment

  3. 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.

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. Purchase The Culture Clash from Whole Dog Journal today

(Do As I Do Tip #1) Four Golden Rules

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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 dog’s 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 Fugazza’s 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.

(Do As I Do Tip #2) Learning The Imitation Rule

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Do As I Do Phase One: Learning the imitation rule

The aim of the first phase of the protocol in the following paragraphs is to teach the imitation rule to the dog. This involves the dog learning the cue “Do it!” means “copy the behavior I have just demonstrated” no matter what it is.

  • Choose three behaviors for your dog to master. They should already be under stimulus control, preferably a verbal cue.
  • Remember that you must choose behaviors that the dog can perform and demonstrate.
  • Practice the three behaviors to strengthen the dog’s ability to do them on cue.
  • Then, stand in front of the dog and ask him to “Stay” or use some other cue that will hold the dog in position (standing, sitting or lying).
  • Demonstrate one of the three behaviors that you have decided to use during this first phase or the protocol.
  • Return and stand in front of your dog again and use the new cue “Do it!” followed by the specific cue he already knows for the behavior you have just demonstrated (e.g., “Table”).

Claudia Fugazza’s 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.

5 Steps To Determine How Much To Feed Your Dog

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Each and every one of the six people who adopted the puppies I fostered recently asked me the same question: “How much should I feed him?” I was surprised the first time, and cracking up by the last time I heard the inevitable question. “How much to feed” is not something I’ve ever struggled with or worried about. And yet, it must be a problem! Just look at the dogs at your local park or in the waiting room at your vet’s office – most of them are quite frankly obese! So here a few basic guidelines.

dog eating in kitchen

1. Use the “recommended feeding amounts” on the label of your dog’s food as a starting point, not a fixed rule.

Calorie calculations and recommended amounts to feed are always an estimate, as the caloric needs of individual dogs can vary significantly based on activity level, metabolism, and other factors. The only way to know for sure how much food or how many calories your dog needs is to carefully monitor and keep track of the amount you feed her, watch her weight closely, and adjust the amount you feed as needed to keep her at, or help her reach, her ideal weight.

2. Use a measuring cup or scale.

If you measure the amount of food you feed in cups, be sure to use a measuring cup, not just any cup, which might hold more or less than the regulation 8 fluid ounces. Better yet, get a small kitchen or postal scale and measure the food by weight, which is more accurate. This is especially useful for those of us feeding small dogs; even a few kibbles’ difference – which you can’t really appreciate when they are in even a measuring cup – can make a big difference in the weight of a small dog.

3. Do a little math (it won’t kill you, we promise).

If you feed a homemade diet and calculate the amount to feed as a percentage of your dog’s body weight, remember that small dogs eat a larger percentage of their weight than larger dogs do. The amount of fat in the diet will significantly affect the number of calories provided; it’s best to feed only lean meats (no more than 10 percent fat) to most pet (non-athlete) dogs. Dogs fed grains and other starchy carbs will usually eat more food by weight than those fed primarily meat and animal products (which are higher in fat).

4. Add up the extras (and consider eliminating most of them).

If your dog is any fatter than lean, he’s getting too many calories. Those of us who feed dry dog food (a nutritionally very dense food) may object when our veterinarian says, “Feed him less!” – especially when it seems we are feeding him practically nothing at all. But don’t forget to take into account the calories your dog gets from treats, chews, leftovers, and supplements (particularly oils, which provide 40 calories per teaspoon).

Many treats do not show calories on the label, so if you’re concerned, contact the company to find out. Some examples: Greenies have 25 to a whopping 272 calories each (depending on size), while Milk Bone dog biscuits range from 10 to 225 calories. Bully sticks may have about 29 calories per inch, while rawhide may have 80 calories per ounce!

If you find you have to feed much less than the amount of food recommended on the label to keep your dog at her proper weight, the odds are she’s getting significant calories from these other sources, which may be limiting the nutrients that she needs. (If that’s not the case, consider asking your vet whether it might be worth testing your dog for hypothyroidism.)

5. Add real food if you want – but the right foods.

When adding “human” foods to a commercial diet, you can generally give as many non-starchy vegetables as you want, including carrots, broccoli, zucchini and other summer squashes, green beans, and all kinds of leafy greens. These foods are low in calories but provide valuable antioxidants and phytonutrients, and may help your dog feel fuller. Remember that vegetables must be either cooked or pureed in order to be digestible by dogs, but there’s no harm in giving whole, raw veggies as a treat, such as carrot sticks, green beans, or zucchini slices.

Other good choices for added foods without a lot of added calories include skinless chicken breast, low-fat or nonfat yogurt and cottage cheese, and sardines packed in water, not oil. Canned pumpkin and sweet potato in small amounts can be good for digestive health.

Remember, studies have shown that thin dogs live significantly longer, and their health and mobility stays good later in life. If you really love your dog, keep her lean!  


Thanks to WDJ contributor Mary Straus for help with this article.

Know When Your Dog is Scared

Recently, on the drive home from our annual vacation in Maine, our 11-year-old Brittany, Vinny, suddenly and inexplicably awoke from a sound sleep, and began to tremble, pant, pace, and obsessively lick at the sides of his travel crate. When I crawled back over the seat to find out what was wrong, I observed that Vinny’s eyes were “squinty,” and he avoided looking at me as he continued to lick and pant.

It’s important for dog owners to recognize and respond to signs of stress and fear in our dogs. If we are sensitive to their emotional states and are accurate in our interpretations, we can respond appropriately to situations in which a dog is uncomfortable, stressed, or frightened. Because nonspecific stress-related behaviors can be the first signs of illness or injury, attending to these promptly may help us deliver medical attention to our dogs before conditions worsen or escalate into an emergency.

It is well known that perceiving and understanding the emotions of others is a basic human social skill – and that studies have shown that these abilities vary tremendously among individuals. It follows that those of us who share our lives with dogs display a similar variability in skills when recognizing and interpreting the emotions of our canine friends.

However, until recently, the accuracy of our perceptions of dogs’ emotional states had not been studied. Two research studies examined the cues that we use and our levels of accuracy when we perceive fear and stress in our canine companions.

scared dog body language

Signs of Fear in Dogs

The first of these studies was conducted by researchers in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University in New York1. The study team produced a series of video clips of dogs and embedded them in an on-line survey. Participants viewed the videos and then were asked to classify each dog’s emotional state using one of five possible descriptors (angry, fearful, happy, sad, or neutral). The first four of these are called “primary emotions” and were selected because research has supported the existence of these emotions in dogs and other animals.

Although the study participants had five choices, the videos in the study showed dogs demonstrating one of only two expressions: either happiness or fear. All of the videos had been pre-categorized into the two emotion categories by a panel of dog behavior experts prior to the start of the study.

After identifying each dog’s emotion, participants were asked to describe the specific features of the dog that led them to their conclusion. For example, if a person classified a dog as showing happiness, she might say that the dog’s facial expression, ear set, and wagging tail were important features that conveyed this state to her. Last, the participants were asked to rate the level of difficulty that they experienced while attempting to interpret the emotions of each dog and to provide an estimate of overall confidence in their accuracy.

More than 2,000 people completed the survey and were divided into four categories based upon their dog ownership and professional histories: non-owners, dog owners, dog professionals with fewer than 10 years of experience, and professionals with more than 10 years of experience.

The vast majority of people who completed the survey – more than 90 percent – correctly identified happy dogs in the video clips, regardless of the person’s level of dog experience. This means that most people, even those who have never owned a dog, could look at a happy dog and see a happy dog! This is good news.

However, when it came to recognizing fear in dogs, the news was not quite so positive. While more than 70 percent of dog professionals correctly identified the fearful dogs, this proportion dropped to 60 percent of dog owners, and to only 35 percent of non-owners. Put another way, 40 percent of dog owners and 65 percent of non-owners were unable to correctly identify signs of fear and stress in an unfamiliar dog.

Moreover, a substantial number of the non-owners (17 percent, or about one in six people) misclassified a fearful dog as a happy dog!

This latter statistic is especially troubling, given the potential for a dangerous outcome of such mistakes. A person who approaches a fearful dog with the perception that the dog is friendly will, at the very least, increase the dog’s fear and distress, and could potentially cause a defensive response in the dog, leading to a snap or bite.

The features of the dogs that participants used to make their decisions also varied with experience level. A person’s tendency to focus on a dog’s facial features (eyes, mouth, ears) increased significantly along with experience. Inexperienced participants used primarily the dog’s tail and body posture to inform them about the dog’s emotional state. Conversely, more experienced people identified both facial expressions and body postures as important features when assessing a dog.

Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the results of this study are consistent with studies of human abilities to perceive and interpret the expression of emotions in other people. We are generally more sensitive to and more accurate at interpreting happy facial expressions in other humans than we are when experiencing fearful expressions. Moreover, while social experience seems to have little effect upon our responses to happy faces (we show a proficiency to do this at a very young age), having varied and extensive social experience is an important factor in determining our success at perceiving fear and stress in other humans.

This study tells us that dog-related training and experience enhance our tendency to pay attention to dogs’ facial expressions and body postures, and enhances our ability to correctly perceive fear.

Stress and Your Dog

While the first study provided a general test of how people perceive fear in unfamiliar dogs, the second examined the ability of dog owners to recognize signs of stress in their own dogs2. This Italian study was conducted by researchers at the University of Pisa, with a group of almost 1,200 dog owners recruited through veterinary clinics.
Participants first completed a questionnaire in which they were asked about stress in dogs and its potential health and behavioral consequences. They then identified what they believed to be signs of stress in dogs and estimated the level of stress in their own dog.

More than half of the owners (60 percent) were found to have a clear understanding of what stress is and how it can affect a dog’s emotional state and health. However, about 20 percent of owners (one in five) believed that experiencing stress had no negative physical or emotional consequences on dogs. (In other words, while they agreed that it occurred, they thought it was no big deal.)

The behaviors that owners most frequently identified as reflecting stress in their dogs included trembling, whining/crying, excessive barking, and panting. In contrast, very few owners identified more subtle behaviors, such as avoiding eye contact, turning away, nose licking, or yawning as signs of canine stress.

Those owners who self-reported as being highly concerned with their dog’s stress level were more likely to identify these less obvious signs as important. Overall though, owners tended to miss many of the facial expressions (squinty eyes, avoiding eye contact, changes to ear set, retracted commissures) that most trainers look for when assessing a dog’s stress level.

Like the first study, this suggests that it is these more subtle facial cues of stress and fear that may be missed if a person is only paying attention to the more obvious body posture signs.

Take-Away Points for Dog Folks

These studies provide complementary information about the behavior cues that people pay attention to when attempting to decipher a dog’s emotional state. The first showed that even inexperienced people were able to correctly identify a dog who was feeling happy. However, perceptions of fear were strongly correlated to how much prior experience a person has had with dogs. As experience level increased, people were not only more likely to be correct, but also more likely to pay attention to a dog’s facial expressions, compared with people who did not spend much time with dogs. We also learned that dog owners are more likely to focus attention on their dog’s body posture, vocalizations, and movements than on the more subtle signs of stress that involve a dog’s facial expressions and eyes.

Accurately recognizing fear and stress in dogs is an important skill set to possess. Understanding our own dog’s emotional state allows us to respond by helping him out of situations that cause fear and reducing or eliminating triggers of stress when they are under our control.

For trainers and behaviorists, working with owners who are sensitive to their dog’s stress response promotes the development of a more effective training and management plan. On a societal level we all benefit from a universal understanding of the behaviors, body postures, and facial expressions that convey happiness versus fear or stress in dogs. Correctly interpreting a dog’s behavior is always enhanced by attending to both body posture and facial expressions.

However, interpretation of dogs’ facial expressions may not come naturally to many people. This knowledge emphasizes the importance of teaching the subtleties of canine facial expressions in training classes, behavior-education courses, and bite-prevention programs.

Moreover, the statistic suggesting that one in five owners do not consider the effects of stress in their dogs to be of negative consequence tells us that education is also needed regarding the health and welfare impacts of stress and fear on our dogs’ well-being and quality of life.

Quick Response to Stress Signals

My husband and I are still uncertain about what caused Vinny’s acute stress response during our vacation. As quickly as possible, Mike pulled over to a rest area and we got Vinny out of the car. As soon as he was on the ground and moving about, Vinny relaxed, looked at us calmly, gave each of us a nice Brittany hug, and off we went for a little walk. Perplexed, we thought that maybe he had to eliminate (nope, no urgency there), was feeling carsick (no signs), or had had a bad dream (who knows?). Within less than a minute, our boy was his typical happy self, showing no signs at all of distress. We loaded all of the dogs back into the car and Vinny continued the journey home with no further incident.

Weeks later, Vinny has not had a recurrence and seems¡ healthy and happy, but we continue to monitor him carefully. As Vinny has aged he has become somewhat more sensitive to sounds, which is not unusual in senior dogs. However, even though we responded quickly at the time and he apparently recovered, we did not learn enough from the episode to determine a possible underlying cause. Perhaps we’ll never know. Regardless, I do know that paying attention to all of Vinny’s signs – body language, facial expressions, and eyes – will help us to understand, care for, and love him as best we can.


Linda P. Case, MS, is the owner of AutumnGold Consulting and Dog Training Center in Mahomet, Illinois, where she lives with her four dogs and husband Mike. She is the author of a new book, Dog Food Logic, and many other books and numerous publications on nutrition for dogs and cats. Her blog can be read at thesciencedog.wordpress.com

The Right Tool at the Right Time

Few dogs behave in ways that please us all day every day – especially puppies, adolescent dogs, or newly adopted adult dogs who have little experience living closely with humans. “Training” is what we usually call our formal efforts to teach dogs how to behave in ways that please us more – and most frequently, dog owners use that term to describe what is needed to prevent their dogs from causing chaos in or destruction to their homes, or upsetting or harming other members of the household (whether human, canine, feline, or anything else). But when discussing behaviors that we’d like to prevent our dogs from practicing, many trainers would likely say that what’s needed in many of those vexing situations is better canine management, not training!

dog trying to escape door

What’s the difference?  “Management” generally means using simple tools – such as leashes, fences, doors, and gates – to prevent the dog from practicing behaviors we don’t want him to do (such as wandering away from home, chasing your cat through the house, chewing your sofa cushions, helping himself to food from the kitchen garbage or on the counter, or jumping on visitors).

In contrast, “training” usually refers to situations where we are teaching the dog what to do.

Both management and training are highly effective in modifying our dogs’ behavior so that they can share our lives and homes more peacefully and pleasingly – but it’s helpful to be aware of the difference between the approaches, and use each to its best advantage, in order to most effectively and efficiently (and humanely) get our dogs to behave the way we’d like them to.

I’m a trainer, and believe me, I love training, and am fascinated by any pain- and fear-free method that can be used to teach dogs to perform behaviors that are helpful or just plain enjoyable to us. But there are many instances when training is not the most efficient or effective way to change a dog’s behavior!

“Counter-surfing” is a perfect example. When a dog has learned to help himself to food that’s on the kitchen counter, some people will set up elaborate traps that are meant to scare the dog and teach him not to jump on the counters any more, or spend time teaching him “off” or “leave it.”

However, dogs who are highly motivated by food may find the prospect of finding food so rewarding that they gladly run the risk of whatever traps their owners devise (or learn to identify the traps and detect any time the traps haven’t been “set”). And expecting a dog to perform a behavior in the many hours you are absent is unrealistic; why would you expect him to “leave it” for hours when you would never expect him to, say, hold a “down/stay” for the same period of time?

In this case, managing the dog’s behavior – by preventing him from being able to do it at all, by, say, using a baby gate to keep him out of the kitchen altogether – is a far simpler solution than training.

In contrast, there are also instances when we can use a tool to manage the dog’s unwanted behavior, but it would be even more helpful if he learned to do something that we like better. That’s when training is indicated.

leash training a dog

Complementary Dog Training Techniques

Here’s an example: If you have a dog who is prone to chasing your cat in the house, you can manage his behavior by keeping him on a tether at all times, or using gates that your cat can jump over, go through, or run under to evade your dog’s pursuit. This is a good, first-line-of-defense strategy that will protect your cat, especially when you are not present. But teaching your dog to look at you or come to you when he sees the cat will be a better long-term solution, one that may eventually result in the animals’ peaceful co-existence.

I have lived this example for the past 10 years, ever since my husband and I adopted a young Cardigan Welsh Corgi from a shelter. Lucy spent six months’ worth of evenings on a leash next to me on the sofa so I could prevent her from leaping after Barney, our black-and-white tuxedo cat, when he bounced into the living room. That was management.

But while I managed Lucy’s cat-chasing behavior, I also worked to convince her that cats appearing in the living room makes treats appear for her to enjoy. That was training – and it pays off to this day, almost 10 years later. Just this evening, as I sat on the living-room sofa, fingers on my laptop keyboard and one eye on the television, I noticed Barney waltz into the room. Next to me, Lucy sparked alert.

I watched and waited. A second later, her head swiveled toward me. Ah! Good girl! I usually reward her with a treat; I almost always have some in a pocket or on a nearby table. Sometimes her reward for a behavior that I like – such as looking at me – is a few moments of petting and praise, or a chance to chase a toy.  

The Right Time for the Right Dog Training Tool

When does it make the most sense to manage your dog’s unwanted behavior and when should you work to train him to do something you like more? It’s almost always most effective to immediately manage the dog’s environment to prevent him from practicing (and being reinforced for) the unwanted behavior. In some cases, that’s all that’s needed – especially when a simple management tool replaces unrealistic training expectations. For example, if you really don’t want your dog to snooze on your sofa while you are at work all day, it would be far easier and more effective to simply block her access to the room with the sofa than it would be to devise, set up, and monitor some sort of remote surveillance and training system to teach her to stay off the sofa when you aren’t there.

In other cases, it makes sense to manage the dog’s environment (again, to prevent your dog from practicing the unwanted behavior) for just as long as it takes you to teach the dog a new, more appropriate behavior. For example, you may want to use a head halter or front-clip harness to prevent your large dog from pulling you off your feet when you take him on pottying walks, while you also take a class or work with a trainer to teach him to walk politely with just a flat collar in slowly increasingly distracting environments. This will set him up for eventual success, while (we hope) preventing him from ever experiencing the thrill of pulling the leash out of your hand in order to bolt after a squirrel on the sidewalk across the street.

Caveat: Behavior Management Failure Factors

I’m a big fan of management – good management tools and practices can often salvage a previously frustrating dog/owner relationship – but management does have a bad name in some training circles. “Management always fails,” some will pontificate, meaning that there may be a high price to pay if you rely solely on a gate or leash to control your dog’s behavior, and someone forgets to latch the gate or the leash breaks. I try to avoid saying “always” or “never” to my clients, though. I prefer to say, “Management has a high likelihood of failure, so if you plan to manage a behavior, be aware of the potential for failure and what the risks are if management fails, and make training and management decisions accordingly.” It’s not as snappy a sound bite, for sure, but it is far more accurate.

When you do decide to employ management – whether as an alternative or a complement to training – it pays to be thoroughly aware of its potential for failure and the potential risks of any possible failures.  What do I mean by this? Let me flesh out one of the examples above. Say you have adopted a large dog who hasn’t yet been trained to walk nicely on a leash, and who is reactive to other dogs. You are taking a group class with a good trainer, and working hard to improve his social and on-leash skills, but his behavior is much better if he gets a lot of exercise. So, even though it’s challenging to take him on walks, you use a front-clip harness (management tool) to help control him on walks, which you take very early in the morning (management technique, to try to avoid seeing many other dog walkers).

There are many risks of this approach: The harness or leash could break; the dog could pull the leash out of your hand with a strong bolt; he could pull you over (if there is a size/strength disparity between the two of you); or someone else’s dog could get loose and come after your dog and you might be unable to pull or summon your dog away. If your dog got loose in one of these ways, he might run off and get hit by a car, or initiate a fight with another dog.

Then there are the mitigating factors: you bought good equipment; you check it frequently to make sure it’s not chewed or frayed and that the leash snap is not cracked and its mechanism is working properly; and you keep your cell phone in your pocket and stay attentive to the appearance of any other dogs on the horizon, so that you are ready to execute a quick turn in the other direction. All of these things will minimize the risk of your temporary management strategies.

Potential for Behavior Management Failure and Failure Risk

When considering management, short- or long-term, as an option for dealing with a behavior, it’s important that you make a realistic assessment of the potential for and risk of management failure.

Factors that contribute the likelihood that management will fail include but are not limited to:

  • Poor-quality equipment (such as frayed or chewed leashes, doors that don’t latch properly, inadequately installed gates, fences in poor repair)

  • Children in the home

  • Lots of activity/traffic in and out of the house

  • Multiple residents in the home (especially if some aren’t conscientious about management protocols)

  • Lack of commitment to or inability to implement management protocols

  • Creative, persistent, determined, and/or anxious dogs

  • Intensity of behavior

  • Predictability of behavior (either extreme)

Consider, too, the potential risks (to your dog or other family members, or other people or animals) if your management techniques or tools fail. What is the most serious or tragic thing that is likely to happen if your management does fail? 

Management is not an appropriate option if the likely consequences are very serious, such as someone (a human or animal) being badly bitten or even killed, animal-control action being taken against you, someone filing a lawsuit against you (and possible loss of homeowner’s insurance), or significant damage to valuable possessions.

Remember, every behavior and training scenario invites you to make choices about how much to manage and how much to train. Choose wisely – your dog’s well-being depends on it.


Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, is WDJ’s Training Editor. She lives in Fairplay, Maryland, site of her Peaceable Paws training center, where she offers dog-training classes and courses for trainers. 

Examples of Management/Training Scenarios

Behavior Challenge: 10-month-old Yorki-Poo is not housetrained; still having several “accidents” per week.

Failure Factors: Lack of commitment to management protocols; anxious dog.

Risk Factors: Damage to carpeting and floors; owner losing patience with dog and rehoming or euthanizing.

Management Solution: Manage his environment so he doesn’t have the opportunity to urinate or defecate in the house. The umbilical cord approach (keeping your dog leashed to you at all times) is very useful. When he’s not attached to you, crate him – but never for so long that he’s forced to soil his crate. If he must be left crated all day while you are at work, make arrangements for a pet sitter to come midday to take him out.

Training Solution: Take your dog out more often than he has to go – initially every hour on the hour. Take him on leash to his designated bathroom spot, and wait quietly there until he goes. When he does, give him a “Yes!” and a treat and then play with him. If he doesn’t, no play – take him back inside and crate him or keep him leashed to you, then take him out again in 20 minutes and try again. When you know he’s empty he can have 10-20 minutes of house freedom, then leash or crate him again until his next bathroom break. As long as he is successful, gradually increase the time between potty trips and house freedom time. If he has an accident, proceed more slowly.

Behavior Challenge: Your newly adopted 8-year-old rescue Pomeranian fiercely resource-guards his food bowl.

Failure Factors: Intensity of behavior.

Risk Factors: Someone could be badly bitten.

Mitigating Factors: Despite intensity of behavior, your dog’s bites have never broken skin; the behavior is very predictable – it happens only with his food bowl and high-value resources; household consists of two adults, very little activity.

Management Solution: Feed him in his own space (such as a laundry room) with the door closed, and leave him alone when he has a high-value resource. If you do need to take something away from him, trade him for a very high-value treat.

Training Solution: Implement a behavior-modification protocol if you feel it’s necessary, dropping high-value treats as you approach and pass by, to convince him that you are not a threat to his good stuff, but rather that you make more good stuff happen! However, opting for management only in this case, as the risks are low, is a perfectly acceptable solution in this case.

Heart of the Matter

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dogs exposed to mosquitoes

Heartworms might more accurately be called heart-and-lung-worms; these life-threatening parasites are almost as frequently found in the lungs of infected dogs as their hearts. But perhaps the term also references the owners of infected dogs, because when we learn our beloved dog has been diagnosed with these horrid parasites, our hearts are very much affected, if only figuratively. Treatment for heartworm can be risky, expensive, and inconvenient – altogether, quite a source of fear and anxiety for dog owners. The more information you have before initiating treatment, though, the better you will be able to support your dog through the process.  
Jennifer Dodge of Wichita, Kansas, knows that fearful, anxious feeling all too well. In 2010, she rescued Holly, who had been living on the streets for three years after her owners abandoned her. Wary of strangers and covered with mange, Holly was underweight and had a disturbingly deep cough.

When Holly’s heartworm test came back positive, Dodge was devastated. “I had never been through this before,” she remembers. “And I thought, ‘I just lost this poor dog.'”
After canvassing the Internet for as much information as she could find, Dodge started a Facebook page called Heartworm Survivor, where other owners of dogs who had gone through treatment for a heartworm infection could share their experiences and resources. Most people who post there have specific questions about heartworm treatment and potential alternatives. Most significantly, people who come to the page want reassurance that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Heartworm experts stress that when it comes to this disease, prevention is the best defense, because no treatment is without risk. But for those who are weighing the pros and cons of different treatment options, it is comforting to know that the choices have gotten better than they used to be.

How Heartworm Spreads

According to Dr. Stephen Jones of the American Heartworm Association, at least 1 million American dogs are infected with heartworm at any given time.

Heartworms are transmitted by mosquitos. When a mosquito bites and drinks the blood of a heartworm-infected animal (host species include dogs, coyotes, foxes, wolves, and ferrets), it also inadvertently consumes microscopic larvae. These larvae, called microfilariae, are little more than fertilized eggs that are produced by adult female heartworms after mating with adult male heartworms. The microfilariae circulate in the host animal’s blood, but can’t develop into adults in that host; they can develop further only in the digestive tract of a mosquito. It takes about two weeks of camping out in the mosquito that consumed them for the microfilariae to develop into their next life-form: infective larvae.

Once they have reached this stage, the larvae can abandon their mosquito host when it bites another animal, swimming out in the mosquito’s saliva. Once they have been deposited under the skin of their new and final mammal host, they develop into their next life stages. First, they transform into larvae that burrow through the animal’s muscle tissue toward the major blood vessels, a journey that takes about 45 to 60 days. Once there, the larvae develop into immature worms, and make their way through the circulatory system to the major pulmonary arteries. There they continue to mature and grow, reaching reproductive adulthood in about six to seven months.

The heartworm tests used in most veterinary practices detect hormones produced by adult female heartworms. This means it’s possible for a dog whose test is “negative” to be infected; if the dog was infected with larvae less than seven months prior to the test, his heartworms won’t be mature enough to produce the adult female hormones that the test is designed to detect. It’s also possible (though not common) for a dog to be infected with only male worms, who won’t, of course, produce those female hormones that the test looks for.  

“There are probably more false negatives than we realize,” says Dr. Jones, noting that some dogs carry antibodies to the antigen used in the heartworm test: Though these dogs may indeed be infected, their results will come back as clear. “There are ongoing studies now looking at shelter pets who have negative tests,” he says, “and they are finding a large percent of those samples are actually positive.”

Geography has always been a key indicator in heartworm prevalence: Those parts of the country where mild temperatures mean an extended, if not perpetual, mosquito season, such as the Gulf Coast, the South, and Hawaii, have long had endemic heartworm problems.

But increasingly, says Dr. Jones – who practices in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, itself a high-risk state for heartworm infestation – the disease has pushed out from those historic boundaries.

“Follow the Mississippi River up through Ohio, go to a big city like Chicago and other parts of the country that you might think would be too cold, and there are practices there seeing 100 cases of heartworm a year,” he says. And in locales where the disease is endemic, increased exposure raises the worm load that a dog might be carrying.
In addition to climate, sociodemographics can play a role in the spread of heartworm: Communities whose residents cannot afford monthly heartworm prevention often have reservoirs of infected dogs. Since wild canids can harbor the disease, growing populations in increasing proximity to human residences – in particular, the coyote boom – mean greater risk, too.

Arsenic as a Heartworm Treatment

Arsenic, that old favorite of surreptitious murderers in mystery novels, is the treatment of choice for heartworms, too. Today, veterinary medicine uses an analog of the notoriously poisonous metalloid: melarsomine dihydrochloride, sold under the brand name Immiticide, which was introduced to the market in 1995.

Compared to Caparsolate, the only other drug that has ever been approved to kill adult heartworms, Immiticide is a vast improvement. The use of Caparsolate gave rise to the sentiment that the cure for heartworm was arguably as bad as the disease itself; side effects were common and dramatic, and the drug wasn’t even that effective – it killed all the adult heartworms in less than half of the dogs treated with it.

In contrast, when used as directed, Immiticide kills 98 percent of the heartworms present, and is metabolized very quickly. “The dose administered doesn’t take long to get out of the body, and it doesn’t pose great risk to liver and kidney function,” Dr. Jones says. The injection needs to be administered deep in the muscle, and can cause soreness, pain and, sometimes, permanent lumps or abscesses at the injection site.

Typically, for a dog with “severe” disease (referred to as a “Stage 3 infection,”) veterinarians administer one injection of Immiticide, and send the dog home for a month, during which the owner is instructed to severely curtail the dog’s movements (more about that in a moment). Thirty days after that first dose, another injection is given, usually followed a day later by a third and final injection. Ninety-eight percent of dogs treated in this way (regardless of the state of disease) will be cleared of heartworms.

If the dog has Stage 1 or 2 disease (a mild to moderate infection), the vet may administer a second injection 24 hours after the first one. About 90 percent of dogs with Stage 1 or 2 infections will be cleared of adult heartworms by this protocol. A third injection would be indicated if the dog still tests positive four months after treatment. Because of the higher efficacy rate of the three-injection protocol recommended for Stage 3 dogs, many vets use the same protocol for even Stage 1 and 2 dogs.

Some (not all) veterinarians require overnight hospitalization after each injection so the dog can be monitored for adverse effects, especially if the test results indicated that the dog had a heavy worm burden (as indicated by high heartworm antigen levels).
The biggest problem with conventional heartworm treatment is its aftermath: The treatment kills the adult worms – and suddenly, the dog has a bunch of dead and decaying worms in his major blood vessels and lungs. It takes a bit of work for the body to clear out the dead worm corpses, which are protected by a tough cuticle surface. “When you kill a worm, it becomes a limp spaghetti noodle,” Dr. Jones explains. “It crumples into the artery, much like a spaghetti noodle in the sink drain. As the worms decompose, they can trigger blood clots, which can cause more blockage.”

During this time, dogs must be kept as quiet as possible and inactive, ideally in a crate or small pen. Most vets recommend that the dog be taken out to potty only on a leash, and then returned to a crate. Roughhousing with other dogs, or even a quick romp back into the house after pottying, can raise the heart rate and increase the risk of embolisms.

All dogs should be maintained on heartworm preventive medications throughout and following treatment, and tested four to six months after treatment, to ensure the infection has been completely cleared.

Irreparable Damage from Heartworm

The danger is greater for dogs who have particularly severe heartworm infections (many adult worms) or whose circulatory and respiratory systems have been damaged by a long-term infection. Some of the effects that can result from a severe heartworm infection include:

  • All sorts of vascular disease: thickened or damaged pulmonary blood vessels; thrombosis (clotting), nodules on the inside of the blood vessels (granulomas caused by a chemical reaction to the attachment of the worms), inflamed blood vessels.
  • Reduced cardiac output with resulting hypertension (high blood pressure), which can lead to heart enlargement and heart failure.
  • Fluid accumulation in peritoneal cavity and lungs, cough, shortness of breath, exercise intolerance.
  • Caval syndrome – typically associated with large numbers of adult heartworms in the pulmonary arteries, causing pallor, tachycardia, sudden collapse, as well as hemolytic anema (red blood cells are destroyed and removed from the bloodstream before their normal lifespan is over), hemoglobinemia (excessive amounts of hemoglobin in the blood plasma), and hemoglobinuria (when unusually high concentrations of hemoglobin are found in the urine).

To visualize the damage that heartworms do, Dr. Jones has necropsied more than three dozen dogs who had been successfully treated for heartworm, and all, he said, had noticeable damage in the pulmonary arteries as a result of the infection. “I still found dead pieces of mummified worms, thickening of the arteries caused by nothing other than heartworm,” he says. “I’ve never found a dog that didn’t have long-term disease, scarred lung lobes, vascular disease, or lung tissue damage. The scar tissue doesn’t go away.”

Dr. Jones notes that a dog’s body can do a tremendous amount to compensate for lost lung function. A heartworm-positive dog may appear clinically normal, perhaps only getting winded a bit early after intense physical exertion. “It’s really hard to clinically judge the real function of lungs and arteries in a dog who appears normal,” he says.

Mitigating Heartworm Treatments

Depending on the condition of the dog and the stage of his disease, stabilizing treatments may need to be administered before or concurrently with treatment for the heartworm infection. A dog with serious damage to his circulatory and respiratory systems may require therapy with corticosteroids (to reduce inflammation), diuretics (to reduce the excessive fluid in his lungs or peritoneal cavity and reduce that burden on his circulatory system), vasodilators (to improve blood flow), and/or positive inotropic agents (drugs that strengthen the contractions of the heart, so it can pump more blood with fewer heartbeats).

Dead worms don’t just disappear; it’s the disposal of their dead bodies, in fact, that causes the major difficulties of heartworm treatment. To understand why, remember how the heart works with the lungs: The gas exchange that enables life takes place in the tiny air sacs (alveoli) in the lungs, where carbon dioxide is released into the lung for exhalation, and oxygen is taken into the blood vessels for distribution throughout the body. The heart provides the driving force for this gas exchange, driving oxygen-rich blood from the alveoli out to the body, as well as driving the “used” blood, now full of carbon dioxide and other waste products from the various tissues of the body, back to the lungs for disposal. 

As the heartworms die and lose their attachment to the interior of the dog’s heart, lungs, and pulmonary arteries, and as their bodies are released into the bloodstream, the decaying fragments are deposited into the alveoli, where they can plug up the bronchioles and cause tissue death in the lungs. This, in turn, can cause fluid accumulation (as the lungs are overburdened by this new task), coughing, gagging (to the point of causing vomiting), and bacterial infections. 

Dogs should be closely monitored and supported through this process. They may feel so weak that they refuse food and water; if they don’t drink (especially if they develop a bacterial infection and resulting fever), they can become dehydrated, which can complicate their recovery further. Sometimes supportive fluids (IV or subcutaneous), antibiotics, and/or corticosteroids may be needed to address these secondary symptoms. 

In recent years, it’s become more common for veterinarians to pre-treat their heartworm patients (especially those dogs with Stage 3 infections) with doxycycline – sometimes, for as long as a month before the conventional Immiticide treatment. This pre-treatment reduces the occurrence of bacterial infections and adverse secondary symptoms once the Immiticide is administered.

How Heartworms Die

Jennifer Dodge says one of the most often asked questions on the Heartworm Survivor Facebook page is whether to consider the so-called “slow kill” method for heartworm infection. In this approach, instead of Immiticide, the dog receives a long-term program of ivermectin (the same drug used as a heartworm preventive drug) and daily doxycycline (an antibiotic). 

The ivermectin kills any larvae that have been deposited by mosquitoes (preventing the development of any more adult worms) as well as the microfilariae that the adult worms are producing (which interrupts the reproduction cycle and reduces the chance that the dog will be a reservoir to infect other dogs). 

The doxycycline accomplishes two things: First, it kills Wolbachia, a symbiotic rickettsial organism living inside the heartworms (yes, parasitic heartworms have their own parasites!), and the death of the Wolbachia seems to weaken the weakest heartworms. The doxycycline also renders the adult female worms unable to reproduce. Eventually, the worms die, but it is a process that can take 18 to 24 months.

Proponents of the slow-kill protocol say that it’s kinder on the body, allowing the worms to die gradually so they don’t burden the dog’s lungs by dying (and decaying) all at once. A 2008 study published in Veterinary Parasitology showed that after nine months, dogs treated with ivermectin and doxycycline showed a 79 percent reduction in worms (compared to 100 percent for those treated with Immiticide alone).

Still, many veterinarians, as well as the American Heartworm Association, caution against the approach. “It’s not the first line of treatment for heartworm disease,” says Herb Maisenbacher, VMD, of Veterinary Heart Care in Virginia Beach, Virginia. “Yes, it doesn’t sound good to inject a dog with arsenic, but in most cases the actual outcomes of conventional treatment are usually quite good, with fairly mild and manageable side effects. It really is the only way to kill adult worms in a reasonable amount of time.”

As its name suggests, the slow-kill method can take a year or two to totally eliminate all heartworms, as opposed to a few weeks or at the most months with Immiticide. And that’s precisely the problem, Dr. Maisenbacher says: “In that time, the worms are still there, still causing damage.” Also, some dogs experience serious stomach upset from doxycycline – severe enough to refuse to eat. And production shortages of the formerly inexpensive and abundant antibiotic have resulted in uncertain supplies and radically increased prices.

Dr. Maisenbacher says there are some cases where the slow-kill approach might be valid – for example, the dog is too sick to tolerate the arsenic-based drug, or the owners are unwilling or unable to pay for the conventional treatment, or restrict the dog’s activity. But it’s not his preference, by far; he’s had cases in his practice where dogs who were on the slow-kill method developed worsening heartworm disease in the interim.

Heartguard heartworm treatment

Betsy Harrison of Wimberley, Texas, a former veterinarian who decided to pursue a career as a homeopath, did treat some dogs with the “slow kill” method when she was practicing. She points out that the ivermectin stops new worms from infecting the dog, and “eventually the adults that are there will die of their own accord, and they’ll only die one or two at a time,” mitigating the risks of a massive die-off. As for concerns about permitting heartworms to continue to live in the dog while the long-term kill off takes place, she turns the table to ask: “How much damage is the arsenic doing?” (The counter to this argument is that the Immiticide is cleared rapidly from the body, whereas it could take years for heartworms to die.) 

Unlike some holistic-minded practitioners, Harrison does not have a problem with the judicious use of ivermectin, though she notes that care must be taken with those breeds, in particular collies and sheepdogs, that have a genetic sensitivity to the drug. “I don’t think it’s all that toxic,” she says. (Some veterinarians have an altogether different concern about using ivermectin to treat heartworm, arguing that it will lead to resistance to the drug over time.)

Harrison adds that constitutional treatment, to restore and bolster the vital force of the dog, would be the homeopathic approach. “From the homeopathic perspective, the issue is always the health of the overall system,” she explains, adding that a good, biologically appropriate diet is an important starting point. “Worms are kind of like a bacterial infection; they are a reflection of the animal’s state of health more than a disease in and of themselves.”

Surgical Intervention for Heartworm

In some advanced cases, surgery can be performed to remove the heartworms while they are still alive, eliminating the need for the body to clear out the debris from heartworm die-off.

In the procedure, similar in approach to an angioplasty in humans, the veterinary surgeon makes an incision over the jugular vein, then uses special grasping forceps to inch her way to the pulmonary arteries, where the worms are extracted.  

“You don’t damage the lungs themselves – you stay within the blood vessels,” explains Dr. Maisenbacher, who performed the surgery many times during his previous tenure at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Florida in Gainesville. “The benefit is that the body doesn’t have to clean the worms out after they die off. But the downside is that it requires general anesthesia, which is much higher risk,” especially for dogs whose bodies have been compromised by a heavy worm load.

Because the surgery is highly specialized, requiring advanced imaging equipment and extensive post-operative care, veterinarians who perform it will likely be located at veterinary schools and large specialty hospitals. And the price tag is steep, potentially $2,000 to $3,000.

In the most advanced heartworm cases, the large number of worms in the pulmonary arteries reduces blood flow, and the dog may cough, be lethargic, and even faint and collapse. Inside the lungs, the worms begin to fall back through the vena cava into the right chamber of the heart, giving this severest form of the disease its name: cava syndrome. 

In these cases, worm die-off in the heart cavity is not an option; the worms must be surgically removed before they compromise cardiac function. Though this surgery is slightly less complicated than removing worms from the pulmonary arteries (the veterinarian goes directly into the right atrium of the heart), the prognosis is worse. “In dogs with cava syndrome, the liver, kidneys, and lungs are all compromised, and anesthesia alone can destabilize them,” Dr. Maisenbacher says. “In those cases, the survival rate is 50 percent – not good.”

Non-Active Duty

Pat Collins of Lapeer, Michigan, had two of her English Cocker Spaniels come up positive for heartworm last year after they spent time in Louisiana: 2-year-old Isaac and 3-year-old Jackie.

Collins opted to use the conventional Immiticide treatment, and her anxiety about the treatment centered around the injection itself. “That scared me,” she admits. “Jackie is very soft, and it scared me that she wouldn’t be able to handle the deep muscle injection next to the spine.”

Like any drug, Immiticide can cause allergic reactions, says Wendy Mandese, DVM, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine. “And like with any caustic substance, sometimes there’s administration error, like the injection being given too close to the surface of the skin.” Experienced veterinarians scrub the skin surface thoroughly, give the needle a half-turn before removing it to avoid tracking the drug up through the injection site, and hold their finger over the hole, creating pressure so the drug doesn’t travel upward through the needle track.
Collins’ fears turned out to be unfounded: Both dogs returned from the vet’s office with a few days’ worth of pain meds and no major side effects, basically sailing through the medical process.

Keeping her two dogs confined for two months was “extremely difficult for both them and me,” Collins says – in particular for the very active Isaac. While she took both dogs on frequent leash walks, “it was very hard to keep him from running and jumping up on furniture. I let him play with his toys a little bit, but I didn’t want him to get wound up and start panting.”

“We don’t want that heart pumping and blood flowing at a high rate while the worms are dead or dying,” Dr. Mandese explains. “Walking around the house and short, on-leash walks are okay. But you don’t want the dog tearing around.”

Creativity counts in situations such as these, and mental exertion is a must. Owners can use this time to fine-tune training and teach targeting, tricks, or other desired behaviors … anything that the dog can master, provided the training process doesn’t get him too excited. That old standby, the Kong stuffed with peanut butter, then frozen, can help wile away a few hours. So can puzzle-style toys, like the Buster Cube.
“We have on occasion prescribed sedation, just to take the edge off,” says Dr. Mandese, who has used Acepromazine and even Xanax to send a tough customer off to a dreamier place. Diffusing calming essential oils such as lavender, or pheromone-release products such as the D.A.P. diffuser, may also help.

Find a Heartworm Treatment That Works for Your Dog

As with all things in life, balance is important. Jogging with a dog undergoing treatment would be clearly dangerous and irresponsible, but, Sockness says, it’s important to remember that “emotionally you can’t shut down a dog, either, because that’s part of their immune system.” While a dog’s activity needs to be curtailed, “let them enjoy a lifestyle.”

She also cautions against taking a sky-is-falling approach. “If your dog tests positive for heartworm, don’t call 911 and freak out,” she says. “You have options. Heartworm is not a death sentence.”

Dodge – who says the day the results came back proclaiming her dog Holly to be heartworm negative was “the best day of my life” – also recommends taking the long view. “It is not the end of your dog’s life!” she echoes. “Search for facts, especially from your vet, and follow the instructions. Stay calm – if you are scared and nervous, the dogs sense it.”

No matter what your treatment approach you take, tender loving care is compatible with all of them. “Baby your baby, spoil him!” she urges. “Do anything to get both of your minds off what you and your dog are going through.” And, of course, the best cure for what ails them – and you? “Lots of kisses.”


Denise Flaim of Revodana Ridgebacks in Long Island, New York, shares her home with three Ridgebacks, 10-year-old triplets, and a very patient husband.

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