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Courthouse Support Dogs

By
Lisa Rodier
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Blake works with children who have suffered physical and sexual abuse; his presence can help children “find their voices.” Photo courtesy of the Pima (Arizona) County Attorney’s Office.

His real name is Blake, but his nickname is Batman – a handsome gentleman, ready to swoop in on a moment’s notice to fight crime in his own special way. Blake is a gorgeous, three-year-old Labrador Retriever employed as a courthouse dog for the Pima County Attorney’s Office in Tucson, Arizona. Trained by Assistance Dogs of the West (ADW), and partnered with victim advocate Colleen Phelan, Blake provides support to victims and witnesses of crime as they navigate the vagaries of the judicial process.

Courthouse dogs are professionally trained facility dogs who provide emotional support to people throughout the criminal-justice system. They may begin working with clients upon reception into a safe house or child-advocacy center, or during the process of conducting forensic and medical interviews, or when the case gets to court. While a courthouse dog is not a service dog, per se – the dog does not assist a person with a disability, nor does the dog have public-access rights as would a service dog – courthouse dogs are nonetheless “graduates” of accredited service-dog organizations, and are paired with handlers who are working professionals in the criminal-justice field.

Blake’s Job

At age two, Blake was selected to work in the Pima County Superior and Justice Courts, as well as the Southern Arizona Children’s Advocacy Center. His handler primarily focuses on cases in the Pima County Attorney’s Office Special Victims’ Unit, which prosecutes sexually based offenses with adults and physical/sexually based offenses with children. Phelan and Blake assist individuals from infants to older adults in cases including child molestation, adults who have been sexually assaulted, and babies with injuries caused by traumatic abuse.

According to Phelan, in a very broad sense, Blake provides a basic level of comfort to his charges. When Phelan works with a child (in her role, she’s active during the prosecution phase), the child is more inclined to feel comfortable with her because she has an amazing dog alongside who trusts her. Typically, she says, as children pet the dog, the interaction calms them, and they begin to talk about the trauma they’ve suffered, revealing accounts of sexual or physical abuse. “We help kids get their voices – to feel like somebody’s going to listen. There’s a lot of sitting on the floor and petting the dog while talking to the attorney, whereas typically, pre-Blake, we’d be sitting at a desk more formally,” Phelan notes.

In the courtroom environment – and what is allowed in one courtroom may differ from what is allowed in another – Phelan and Blake may sit quietly at the back of the courtroom, but within a clear line of the child’s sight, while a child is on the stand testifying. Because of the child’s prior interaction with and trust of the team, the child feels a sense of comfort and empowerment while in a potentially terrifying situation.

“While that might look like ‘just a dog sleeping,’ a dog who’s sleeping innately tells us that the environment is okay,” says Jill Felice, ADW’s founder and program director. “Because humans have lived with dogs for the past 20,000 years, when we see a dog who’s relaxed, we know it’s safe. For that child, in that moment, seeing a dog lying there in the courtroom sleeping . . . they know that they’re safe. The way that the dog moves so easily through the process gives people a model to mimic. Everybody is just a little bit calmer, and a little more relaxed, in a situation that is never easy.”

Phelan, who takes Blake home at night, echoes that sentiment. “He teaches me about slowing down and taking my time. Blake is my balance. He helps me to get grounded again, both at home and at work.”

While Phelan is the first to say that her overall wellness has increased (emotionally, spiritually, and physically) because of Blake, she also points out that being responsible for a courthouse dog is an incredible amount of work. While she wouldn’t trade Blake for anything, she explains that her job went from an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. work day to 24/7.

“Some days I feel a little like Kevin Costner in ‘The Bodyguard’ and Blake is Whitney Houston. He is noticed wherever we go and we are constantly ‘on.’ That took some getting used to, especially when one of us is tired or I am in a hurry.” But she’s quick to add that people are generally a lot nicer when she has Blake, which may seem silly, but is very noticeable!

At night, Blake goes home with his handler, and lives like any other normal dog. He’s seen here enjoying holiday treats with other family dogs at “Grandma’s house.” Photo courtesy C. Phelan.

Temperament and Training

Blake was tapped for this special job as a puppy, in part due to his extremely calm and patient demeanor. His ability to remain focused and “still” during court is critical to his success. Another aspect of his personality is his emotional confidence, or his ability to approach and “take care of” an individual who is crying or upset, while not taking on any of that emotion himself.

Phelan also appreciates Blake’s ability to weave through a courtroom. “While he’s interested in what’s happening, he’s not too interested; he won’t necessarily approach people freely, but if somebody’s interested in him, he likes to be talked to. His personality is like that of an English gentleman,” she says with a smile.

ADW dogs begin training at eight weeks of age, and are trained up until 18 months to two years of age, using positive methods including clicker training. Although the dogs live with professional trainers, the ADW approach is unique in that children help train the dogs in programs that take place in school, after school, and during the summer. In the process, the dogs learn how to respond to being in environments that are crowded with a bunch of children running around, with all the emotional “stuff” that goes on.

During their training, courthouse dogs learn cues that are both navigational and engaging. For example, the “visit” cue asks a dog to lay his head in a person’s lap, and remain still and in that position so that his head can be stroked. As opposed to a dog who jumps on a couch and snuggles up to someone who might not be prepared for that level of contact, the visit behavior and positioning is non-threatening, yet allows for touch.

When the dogs are ready to be placed in an organization within the judicial system, the dog is matched with primary and secondary handlers. The type of environment that is typical for the courtroom he’ll be serving is also taken into consideration when placing the dog. “We want to make placements that are good for the dog, the courtroom, and the person who handles him in that situation,” Felice says.

Therapy Dog?

When I first learned about courthouse dogs a few years ago, I wondered why therapy dogs couldn’t do the job; why a specially trained courthouse dog?

The Courthouse Dogs Founda-tion, a non-profit organization that promotes, educates, and advocates for the use of courthouse dogs in the criminal-justice system by criminal-justice professionals, stands firmly against the practice of using therapy dogs in court. They believe that courthouse dogs should be trained and placed only by accredited service-dog organizations, and handled by professionals in the legal field, since these individuals have an in-depth knowledge of the law and victims’ rights, and understand the confidentiality requirements of the judicial system.

“I love therapy dogs and all the work that they do,” explains Linda Milanesi, Executive Director of ADW. “The courtroom, however, is an environment that is very emotional, much heightened, potentially adversarial and, in a lot of cases, sad and demanding. If an individual doesn’t have the knowledge of the daily activities and workings of the judicial system, they could unknowingly, as a handler and her dog, get a case thrown out of court because of their behavior. It’s a scary place to be if you don’t know what you’re allowed and not allowed to do.” Case closed.

Lisa Rodier lives in Georgia with her husband and Atle the Bouvier, and volunteers with the American Bouvier Rescue League.

Tips for Giving a Dog a Bath at Home

By
Denise Flaim
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Tips for giving a dog a bath at home can help keep your dog calm and you a little bit dryer.
Consideration of your dogs needs can make bathing your dog at home a much more pleasant time for you both. Credit: adamkaz | Getty Images

Giving a dog a bath at home is sort of like mixing a cocktail, or hitting a golf ball: It seems deceptively straightforward, but you need a lot of background knowledge to really master it. Some dogs simply hate baths while others look forward to it. From what kind of shampoo to use to how frequently your dog should be sudsing up, there are all kinds of technical questions to consider before grabbing that spray hose and going to town. But there are also deeper issues at play: Nothing quite lays bare the state of your relationship with your dog like trying to negotiate that slippery expanse of porcelain together. Here are some tips for smooth sailing, at bathtime and beyond.

How Often Should You Give a Dog a Bath?

Groomer Anna Stromberg of Vista, New York, hears a lot of misinformation about canine cosmetology from new clients. One of the whoppers? That bathing your dog is not good for his skin.

Stromberg’s reply is always the same: “I ask them, ‘How would you feel if you didn’t wash your hair for three months?'” In response, her clients usually shift around and smile wanly: Itchy, uncomfortable, and out of sorts is the unspoken answer.

But how often to wash a dog is something that varies, depending on the dog’s coat and her activity level. Dogs who spend most of their time snoozing indoors might only need bathing once a month; those who like rolling in the dirt and mud might need weekly soaks. Stromberg says that, again, contrary to popular belief, “Washing your dog’s hair once a week with a good shampoo and conditioner won’t do her any harm.”

In fact, not bathing can have negative consequences, and not just for the dog.

“The cleaner the dog, the fewer problems for you and your family in terms of allergies,” Stromberg says. Smooth-coated dogs, she adds, often trigger more allergies in people – not because they necessarily produce more dander, but because they usually are not washed as frequently as their long-haired counterparts, if at all. “Approach the owner of a Boxer in a park, and ask when was the last time that the dog had a bath; chances are his owners will say, ‘Oh, we never wash him; we only have his nails cut.'”

At the other end of the spectrum are owners who are overzealous with their bathing techniques. “Some people think the more, the better,” Stromberg says, adding that using copious amounts of shampoo might very well irritate your dog’s skin – not the goal at all.

Washing Your Dog in the Bathtub

Unless warm weather prevails and they can move the waterworks outside, most do-it-yourselfers wash their dogs right where they do their own daily ablutions – in the bathtub or shower stall.

Before she became a professional groomer, Mary Oquendo of Pawsitively Pretty Mobile Grooming in Danbury, Connecticut, did just that. And she has some tips for rub-a-dub-dubbers.

“With my larger dogs, I would put on a bathing suit, and I got in the tub with them,” she says. This tag-along approach not only lowered her dogs’ stress level – they thought of it more as play time than a grooming session – but it also likely spared Oquendo a trip to the chiropractor. “If you’re bathing a long-coated dog like a Golden Retriever, that’s a half-hour bent over the tub,” she says. “Your back is going to kill you.”

When it comes to rinsing their dogs, some owners use a small container to repeatedly fill and pour, fill and pour. “Shower attachments are a whole lot easier,” Oquendo advises, adding that portable sprayers that attach to the tub spout are an inexpensive alternative.

Because tubs can be slippery, Oquendo recommends laying down a towel so the dog has better footing. And if you decide not to wade in yourself, she suggests putting another towel on the rim of the tub so you don’t slip on the porcelain surface as you lean on it.

If you don’t like the idea of turning your bathroom into a doggie spa, some stores sell portable “booster” tubs that can be set up anywhere there is a hose connection, such as your garage or basement. But Oquendo reminds that while the elevated tub will save your back, getting your dog up that high can take some effort, especially if he doesn’t think it’s such a great idea.

(If money is no object, pop over to Pinterest and type in “dog bathtub.” There are plenty of photos of custom-made grooming stations in laundry rooms, including ones with cabinet doors that pull out to reveal built-in stairs.)

As for toy and similarly sized dogs, you already have a handy, appropriately raised bathing receptacle: It’s called the kitchen sink. That’s where Oquendo’s two “Chi-wees” get their baths, even though she has a fully equipped grooming van parked outside.

Use Pet-Safe Shampoo

Kirstine Reynolds of Groom with a View in Draper, Utah, runs a page on Facebook for groomers. And one of the most hotly discussed subjects these days is the labeling of ingredients – or, more precisely, the lack of it – on shampoos and other grooming products.

“Pet shampoo is not regulated, so manufacturers don’t have to list ingredients,” says Reynolds, who maintains a list of companies that disclose all of the ingredients in their products. Some shampoos contain ingredients that sensitize skin and can cause irritation; others use problematic preservatives such DMDM hydantoin, which controls microorganisms by releasing formaldehyde, a neurotoxin and carcinogen.

Reynolds uses brands such as Isle of Dog and Chris Christensen, though she notes that they have preservatives in them, too. “Shampoos have to contain preservatives,” she explains. “Otherwise, they grow mold and bacteria.”

Oquendo also pays close attention to ingredient lists. She avoids products that take what she calls a “dodgeball” approach, using amorphous terms such as “shampoo-based” or “proprietary mix of essential oils” without more specific information. Oquendo wants to know what ingredients are in her shampoos, and where those ingredients are sourced. “I personally can have a reaction to melaleuca, or tea tree oil,” she says. “I need to know if a product has tea tree in it. My next question is, ‘Where did you get it?’ Because there is some tea tree oil I can use, and it comes down to the manufacturer.”

If you find yourself in a pinch, without any kind of dog-formulated shampoo whatsoever, don’t use your own, which likely contains perfumes that can irritate a dog’s skin. Provided the dog is in good health, bathed regularly, his skin accustomed to being shampooed, and you do an extremely thorough job rinsing his coat, “whatever you use on your children is fine for your dog,” Stromberg says. “You can use Dawn dish soap, too – it’s used on seabirds to get oil from spills off them.”

Dilute That Soap!

According to Oquendo, one of the biggest mistakes people make when bathing their dog is “oversoaping.” Across the board, professional groomers stress that diluting shampoo before applying is the unqualified key to success. Because of its thickness, full-strength shampoo tends to cling to the top of the coat, resisting even distribution and not penetrating to the undercoat and skin beneath.

Oquendo pre-mixes her shampoo in an empty two-liter soda bottle: She adds about a half-inch of shampoo and then fills the rest with water.

Making sure the dog is totally saturated before applying the shampoo is another must. “The wetter the dog, the more the shampoo will mix into the coat,” she says, adding that she starts at the top, with the dog’s back, and then works her way down the sides.
With most dogs, once it not enough: Reynolds says when groomers hand-wash their charges, they shampoo them twice. “Lots of times, on the first shampoo, you won’t get the coat as wet, and it won’t get wet through.”

And don’t forget a good-quality conditioner. “A lot of people think their dogs have allergies when actually the skin is dried out from washing,” Reynolds says. “I condition every dog I bathe – even the short-haired ones.”

Dilute the conditioner just as you do the shampoo, and let it sit on the coat for a minute before rinsing.

Rinse Your Dog Well

That brings us to another important part of the bathing routine that many owners bungle. Residual soap in the coat can irritate the skin, leading to itchiness, flaking, hotspots, and other skin problems.

“Rinse, rinse, rinse,” says Stromberg in the dog groomer’s version of that old “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” joke. “You need to rinse until you don’t see any more suds.” Then, after you think you’re done, “rinse for another three minutes.” Just to be sure.

Washing Your Dog’s Face

Many owners avoid washing their dogs’ faces, and that’s understandable: Shampoo that inadvertently gets into a dog’s eyes creates just as painful and burning a sensation as it does for we humans. “And you can actually cause ulcers to the eyes if you get shampoo in them and don’t rinse it out,” Reynolds says.

But the solution isn’t avoidance: It’s using the right technique and product.
“I put my hand over the dog’s face and cover the eyes,” whenever washing or rinsing in that area, Oquendo says. “And I tilt the head downward so any soap will run down rather than sitting on top of the head.”

There are a variety of face washes that are specially developed for cleaning this part of a dog’s body. Reynolds recommends South Bark’s Blueberry Facial, which can also be used as a full-body shampoo.

Brushing Up

With a long-coated dog, the best time to brush and comb the hair is while it is still wet, not dry. “If you have a longer-coated dog that has more hair, like a Shih Tzu or a Goldendoodle, the best time to comb them out is when the hair is damp,” Reynolds says. “That’s when hair is flexible, and it’s easier to see where the tangles are.”

But if you haven’t been regularly brushing and combing your dog, don’t expect a bath to miraculously leave her looking like a Breck Girl. In fact, if you bathe a longhaired dog whose grooming has been neglected – Oquendo’s rule of thumb is that a dog with a coat more than an inch long should be groomed every day – you will be doing more harm than good. “It’s like washing a wool sweater,” Reynolds says. “It just causes the tangles to get even tighter.”

If your dog has an unkempt and possibly matted coat, immediately head to a professional groomer to have it taken care of. Do not attempt to yank or cut out the mats yourself: The aftermath just might land your dog at the vet’s office.

Oquendo reminds that brushing and combing have different functions: The brush is the advance man, loosening up the coat to make it ready for the more narrowly spaced tines of the comb. If the comb begins to meet resistance, don’t try to force it through. Instead, return to the brush until you’ve made enough headway to start combing again. (Note that the tines on either end of the comb are spaced differently. At the start of your combing session, start with the wider end. As the coat gets smoother, switch to the narrower side.)

“Combing is really important,” Oquendo says. “And that means getting that comb right down to the skin. Otherwise, it’s just surface brushing, and if you part the coat, there are mats beneath.”

Not surprisingly, the quality of the brushes and combs you use is very important. “Basically, the more you spend, the better the quality,” says Oquendo, who has paid as much as $85 for a comb. Cheap-quality brushes have tines that are simply cut, as opposed to rounded, and will scratch the skin.

Manage Your Own Expectations

Get a bunch of dog groomers together for coffee, and chances are the talk invariably turns to the “Doodle” explosion among their clients. Their gripe isn’t with the dogs themselves: It’s with the owners who have selected a particular type of dog without understanding the grooming – and, often, temperament – issues that come with it.
“Doodles are one of the hardest dogs to wash because their coats are so dense,” Stromberg explains. Thanks to the designer dog’s mixed heritage – a Poodle typically crossed to a Labrador or Golden retriever – “you’re dealing with double, curly coats with undercoat. And with hyper dogs – a dog who has lost his patience by the time you’ve wetted him down.”

The kind of coat your dog has will help you determine how much bathing and grooming she needs, and what products will work best for her. And while there are general rules of thumb (“Nine times out of 10, a German Shepherd will shed more than an Afghan Hound, and a German Shorthaired Pointer will shed less than a Lab,” Stromberg says) there can be big variations among dogs of the same breed or type.
Bathing does cut down on shedding, but “some dogs will never stop shedding, even if you bathe them once a week,” Stromberg says.

Of course, you love the dog you love. But if you decide to buy a purpose-bred dog, seek out a reputable breeder who pays attention to coat quality, especially in breeds with long or distinctive coats, such as terriers. Dogs with poorly textured coats are much more difficult to keep clean, bathe, groom, and maintain.

Drying Off Your Dog

Once a dog is properly bathed, getting him dry is the next step. As you might expect, towels are a must – lots and lots of towels. “Absorb as much as you can after you’ve rinsed your dog well,” Reynolds advises. “The more moisture you absorb with the towel, the faster they dry.”

Consider investing in a drying towel, which has an absorbent, deep-pile surface that wicks water away from your dog’s coat, like a shammy cloth.

A good toweling and brisk romp through the backyard (weather permitting, of course) is likely all a short-coated dog needs to get dry. But dogs with double coats, such as Akitas or Samoyeds, require extra help.

“Undercoat is designed to insulate, and when that insulation is not needed, it comes out – all over your house,” Reynolds explains. When professional groomers dry double-coated dogs, they use dog-specific dryers that blast room-temperature air at such high velocity that the downy undercoat is loosened and pushed out. That, in turn, significantly reduces the amount of shedding – those tumbleweed-like tufts that can turn your living room into a convincing approximation of an Arizona ghost town.

Drying a dog with a hand-held blow dryer takes a lot of time (especially if you use the lowest possible setting to prevent unintentionally burning or overheating the dog), and it does nothing to remove the undercoat. While high-velocity dryers are available to non-professionals, they require skill and experience to operate safely.

“They can be really dangerous in the wrong hands,” Reynolds warns. “You could literally blow a Yorkie across the room with one.” If not placed properly, high-velocity dryers “can pop an eardrum or even a lung,” she adds. “They are great equipment, if someone takes the time to learn how to use them properly.” You should never use a high-velocity dryer around the head, and using a product like a Happy Hoodie (see happyhoodie.com) is a good idea: It not only safely covers the ears, but it also applies calming pressure, because force-drying is very often a stressful experience for a dog, especially one who is new to it.

Some owners might decide that all this bother isn’t worth it, and so they opt to shave a dog like a Golden Retriever to eliminate the problem. But this has its quandaries as well.

“The mechanics of a double coat are that the undercoat keeps the dog cooler in summer and warmer in winter,” Reynolds explains. “When you shave off that double coat, you’re also removing the dog’s means of regulating his body temperature. Shaved dogs are more susceptible to bug bites and sunburn, and shaving off the top coat will make the undercoat shed more.” As a result, Reynolds rarely recommends shaving, except in cases where the dog is severely matted.

Calming Your Dog’s Nerves

More than having a super-clean dog, Stromberg stresses that the goal is having one who is safe, too.

For instance, dogs can break legs from jumping out of tubs and sinks. While you can try to foil escape artists by keeping your dog restrained while bathing – Reynolds suggests investing in a detachable grooming loop that suction-cups to the side of tub – just as important is making sure that your dog is comfortable with the whole process to begin with.

Because prevention is worth a pound of cure, start teaching your dog from puppyhood that the bathtub is a fun place where extraordinarily good things happen. Periodically leave treats on the edge of the tub; once your puppy is big enough to hop over the sides, place the goodies inside the empty tub. The idea is to program your dog to want to investigate the tub, and then get comfortable with the idea of jumping into it, which is often the biggest hurdle to bathing. If you get really ambitious, you can practice stand-stays in the tub whenever you are passing by.

When it’s bath time for real, have lots of treats at the ready. “I go really slowly,” Reynolds says, adding that some dogs find the sound of the spray nozzle to be very disconcerting. If that’s the case, she switches to a small bucket to hand-pour the water.

Bath water should to be warm to the touch, about 85 to 90 degrees for a dog with normal, healthy skin. If a dog has allergies or any type of skin irritation, the temperature should be a bit cooler.

The Once-Over

Use bath time as an opportunity to check your dog over carefully and notice minute changes that might not be readily apparent from just looking.

Oquendo greets her regular four-legged customers by rubbing her hands all over the dog’s body, checking for anything out of the ordinary.

“I’m feeling for lumps, bumps, cysts that may have popped, injuries, and huge matted spots,” she says. “I’m also checking for body language. If as I’m coming down the back leg I feel the dog stiffen, it might mean that the dog is dealing with arthritis or an injury.”

Oquendo also lifts the dog’s lips to make sure the gums are rosy and healthy-looking; she has sent dogs to the vet because she found gums that were pale, a sure sign of illness.

Rock On

Because grooming can be stressful for even the most well-adjusted dog, Oquendo uses crystals to help center her canine clients’ emotions.

“I have a big hunk of rose quartz that sits in my tub,” she says. “It has very calming, gentle energies.” Cleansing stones of accumulated energy is important, and because Oquendo’s rose quartz is constantly being showered with water, that does the job nicely.

She also will use clear quartz, an “amplifying” stone that is often helpful with elderly dogs who need an immune boost. (But she tucks it away when she’s grooming naughty or headstrong dogs, who definitely do not need those qualities amplified!) Another favorite grooming stone is amethyst, an “all-purpose stone that’s really good for animals and children.”

Oquendo suggests that owners do as much as possible to the bathing environment to reduce stress and make it pleasant for the dog. In her grooming van, she plays chakra-balancing music. And while she is a Reiki practitioner, she usually prefers to keep Reiki treatments separate from bathing and grooming, unless a dog is grieving or very arthritic.

Oquendo believes in making grooming time the best it can be for the individual dog, and she promotes this philosophy through an organization she is helping found called the Society of Holistic Pet Stylists. “It’s about being mindful of the animal,” she says, which includes making the experience as low-stress as possible, and using products best suited for each dog, whether it’s a mineral-salt or essential-oil shampoo, or a medically formulated one to address a specific skin condition.

It’s not only the dog who benefits from this sort of approach. “A nicer experience for the dog becomes a nicer experience for me,” Oquendo says. Bath time doesn’t just have to be a chore; if you approach it correctly, it can be a rich time for connecting and bonding with your cherished companion.

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.

How a Mother’s Stress Can Influence Unborn Puppies

By
Jessica Hekman DVM, MS
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Can stress in pregnancy affect dogs?
CYNOCLUB | Dreamstime.com

Can a highly stressful environment during pregnancy affect how puppies turn out? Imagine this: A young dog goes stray and lives on urban streets for two months, in almost constant fear. Kids chase her down a street, throwing rocks at her; she is attacked by another dog; and she struggles every day to scavenge enough to eat. At last she is apprehended by an animal control officer and brought to a shelter. Here she finally gets enough to eat, but she’s still not able to relax; the shelter is full of strange smells and loud noises, her run is small, and the floor is hard. After she’s been at the shelter for a few weeks, a shelter staff member realizes that she is pregnant and due very soon. The shelter puts her on the waiting list for a foster home, knowing that puppies don’t do well when they grow up in shelters.

A few days before her puppies are born she gets into a foster home with an experienced dog owner, and her life suddenly improves tremendously. Her puppies are born small but healthy, and her new foster mom does everything right for them, exposing them to lots of positive experiences. When they are two months old, they are put up for adoption and are quickly adopted into new homes.

But a few months later, reports come back to the shelter that the puppies are all skittish and easily alarmed by new situations. The shelter staffers conclude that the problem must be with the puppies’ genetics, because their early environment was superlative. But the puppies’ tiny brains were already developing before birth, and their hormonal systems were being tuned to make them ready to face the world that their mother had been experiencing.

Such hormonal tuning may be an important survival tactic. For animals born into harsh environments full of threats, where fearfulness is justified, a highly reactive stress response is critical and may make the difference between life or death. But a highly reactive stress response is also energetically very expensive, so for animals born to gentler environments with less to fear, energy is better spent on other systems, like growth or reproduction. In such environments, extreme fearfulness may actually be a bad strategy, resulting in the loss of opportunities to find food or mates. Mammal mothers pass information to their offspring about what sort of world to expect – and they do so as early as possible, to provide maximum time for appropriate development.
When our shelter dog was harassed and hungry on the street, her stress system would have activated strongly, increasing her cortisol level. This hormone tells the different tissues in her body to prepare to deal with a threat, tamping down luxury systems like digestion and reproduction and pulling extra energy from storage.

Normally, an enzyme inactivates cortisol at the placenta, protecting the fetuses from the level of cortisol that the mother is experiencing. But when the cortisol level is extremely high, some passes through the placenta to the developing puppies. They receive the extra cortisol as information: The world is scary. We should be prepared. This message is thought to inform the puppies’ bodies about what to expect from life, and allows them to develop an appropriately tuned stress system and metabolism.

Dog Studies Lacking

The effects on babies who were born to mothers who experienced psychological stress have been well studied in laboratory rodents. When pregnant rats are subjected to acute stressors (such as restraint in a clear plastic tube for an hour a day), their offspring grow up to be less resilient to stress themselves.

Rats normally avoid open areas where predators can find them, and this preference is even more pronounced in rats who were stressed prenatally.

Moreover, the rats who were born to the stressed mothers possess stress systems that are more reactive than average; their cortisol levels increase more in response to stress and take longer to decrease than do the cortisol levels of rats born to mothers who were not deliberately stressed. Essentially, these fearful rats have a stress system that is tuned higher, as if they are prepared for stressful events that never come.

This effect has been observed in humans as well, most famously in the Netherlands after a winter of famine at the end of World War II.

The effect of the intra-uterine environment hasn’t been studied in dogs, but there is no reason to think that it works any differently in dogs than in humans or rodents. We have to assume that canine mothers also pass along information about their environment to their pups in utero. And sometimes that information is wrong, predicting a life of stress and hardship when the puppy instead ends up loved and coddled. Such a puppy would be tuned to react strongly to stressors. This programming could save an animal’s life if she lived on the streets, but it’s less appropriate for life as a pet – and it could result in an anxious or fearful dog.

How often does this happen? We don’t yet understand all the things that affect a dog’s adult behavior, and research studies to piece out the different mechanisms are hard to do without subjecting dogs to aversive situations. So it’s impossible to say, but I don’t think it’s that unusual.

Preventing Stress When Possible

We can take preventive measures, though; we can do our best to make sure that mom’s environment while she’s pregnant predicts the environment in which her puppies will be raised. So, avoiding extreme stressors in pregnant dogs is a good idea.

Normal life stressors, including going to the veterinarian for checkups, are probably just fine; after all, this is the sort of thing the puppies are going to encounter in their own lives. A shelter situation, however, is probably something to avoid for a pregnant dog. Many shelters do an excellent job of getting moms and newborn puppies into foster care, and could extend that protocol to pregnant dogs before they give birth. It may also be a bad idea to transport pregnant dogs long distances, such as shipping pregnant females overseas.

We don’t know how strong the effect of the intra-uterine environment is, but if we are going to work so hard to properly socialize puppies after birth, why not before birth as well?

Too Late to Avoid Stressors?

What if you don’t know anything about the environment that was experienced by the mother of the puppy you are thinking about adopting? Should you pass on that pup? No! That would rule out far too many (if not most) adoptions. Go ahead and adopt – but make a point to provide the growing youngster with as many positive social interactions and as much low-stress, safe exposure to the world as you can. Keep in mind that your pup may have this unseen impediment to developing normal confidence, and take it upon yourself to “super-socialize” him, just in case.

By the time most people adopt puppies, there are only a few weeks left in the ideal period in which to socialize them, so you may not be able to entirely make up for any deficits. You can, however, be alert to signs that your pup is going through a “fear period” (which can happen multiple times throughout his puppyhood). Make extra efforts to protect him from overwhelmingly scary experiences and address his fears with behavior modification during those times. And seek the assistance of a qualified positive behavior professional sooner rather than later if you notice unusual fear or reactivity in your adoptee.

Finally, keep in mind that shelters are always looking for competent foster homes. Fostering a pregnant dog allows you to help contribute to building the solid temperaments of her puppies!

Jessica Hekman, DVM, MS, completed her shelter-medicine internship at the University of Florida’s Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program in 2013. She now studies the genetics of dog behavior in Illinois, where she lives with her husband and three dogs. Check out Dr. Hekman’s blog, dogzombie.blogspot.com, a blog about dog brains and behavior (and sometimes shelter medicine), or follow her on Twitter @dogzombieblog.

The Effects of Male Womb-Mates

By
Nancy Kerns
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If a mother dog’s hormones can affect her fetuses in-utero, what about the hormones of their siblings? The effects of in-utero testosterone on females with all male siblings are well documented in rodents and cattle, and debatably exist in humans. These females undergo physical and behavioral masculinizing effects.

This effect is not believed to extend to dogs. The likely explanation?

There are three types of mammalian placentas:

-In primates (including humans) and rodents, blood exchange occurs directly from sibling to mom to the next sibling, allowing the indirect transfer of blood-borne testosterone between siblings.

-In ruminants (including cows), there is no direct blood exchange between mom and fetus, but blood vessels within an inner membrane can connect siblings to each other, allowing direct exchange of blood-borne testosterone.

-In carnivores (including dogs and cats), there is neither direct blood exchange between mom and fetus nor directly between two fetuses.

Therefore, there is no known mechanism for hormone-exchange between fetuses in dogs. However, anecdotal reports exist of masculinized female puppies in otherwise all-male litters. Is there some other mechanism we haven’t discovered? Or is this due to the post-natal environment of growing up with a bunch of brothers? We don’t know!

The First Week with a New Puppy

By
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA
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Puppy in play pen

It’s one of the best feelings in the whole world — those first few hours with your new puppy when everything is perfect and anything is possible. It doesn’t take long, however, for that bubble to burst. It could be the very first day, when you step in that pile of puppy poo on your Persian carpet, or find deep puppy tooth gouges in your treasured pair of Jimmy Choo shoes. It might be that first night, when you pop your pup into his crate for the first time and crawl into your bed, only to be treated to a few pitiful whimpers, then a chorus of cries, and finally a non-stop serenade of screaming as your pup broadcasts to the world how lost and lonely he is.

The better prepared you are to do things right from the start, the fewer “What have I done?” moments you’ll have, and the more possibilities you and your dog will be able to realize as you travel together through life. Here’s a guide to getting off to the right start with your new pup.

Pre-Puppy Prep

If you would like to prolong that initial warm, fuzzy, oxytocin-rich, “anything is possible” period, set the stage before your puppy’s arrival so you are setting up him, and yourself, for success. One of the basic tenets of positive reinforcement training is that you put in place management measures so your dog can’t find reinforcement for unwanted behaviors. That goes triple for puppies. Put the following management measures in place before you bring your puppy home, and you’ll be miles ahead of the game.

1. Crate.

This will be your puppy’s bedroom. I recommend crating him in your own bedroom so he has the comfort of your presence; it will help to ease the pangs of loneliness he’s likely to feel upon separation from his mom and litter mates. Although you will both be sleeping (I hope), it still gives you valuable time together. It also enables you to hear him so you can take him outside when he wakes up and cries at 4:00 a.m. because he has to potty, until he’s able to hold it all night.

Your pup’s crate should be just large enough for him to comfortably stand up, turn around, and lie down. Some wire crates come with a divider that you can move as the pup grows, to give him only as much space as he needs. Otherwise, plan on getting a series of increasingly larger crates as your pup grows.

2. Exercise Pen.

Like a playpen for a young child, an exercise pen gives your puppy more room than a crate but still keeps him safely confined and out of trouble. You will use the exercise pen if you have to be gone longer during the day than your pup can be expected to “hold it,” as well as times when you are home and can’t supervise him as closely as you would like. Use pee pads or newspapers to create a potty corner in the exercise pen so your pup has a “legal” place to go to the bathroom.

3. Supervision.

Plan on lots of “eyeballs on the pup” time – direct supervision – so you can reinforce desirable behaviors and prevent reinforcement for undesirable ones. You can use the “umbilical-cord approach,” in which you leash the puppy to your person to prevent him from wandering off and getting into trouble, or you can close doors to keep him in the room with you and make sure you keep a very close eye on him so you can intervene as needed.

4. Tether.

Another way to keep your pup close and out of trouble is to tether him in the room with you, so he can share your company without being directly under your feet.
An excellent resource for cable tethers is BADDogsinc Family Dog Training and Behavior (pettethers.com or 951-283-2101). Their cables come in 2-, 3-, 4-, and 6-foot lengths with snaps at both ends for easy securing around the leg of a heavy piece of furniture or clipping to an eyebolt screwed into the wall. They also have lighter-weight tethers for very small dogs, and tethers with a PVC cap attached to one end that you can slide under a door to hold the dog.

5. Puppy-Proofing.

Having a puppy in your home is a lot like having a toddler. He may not be able to stick his fingers into electrical outlets, but he can and will get into everything within reach of his teeth. Puppy-proofing keeps him safe from things like chewing on electrical cords and keeps your valuable possessions safe (like shoes or prescription glasses).

Puppy-proofing also prevents your pup from having the opportunity to learn that undesirable behaviors are fun (reinforcing). You never want him to have the chance to learn, for example, that if he chews up a sofa cushion, he will get to play with the stuffing. Put all your possessions up and away. Keep closet doors closed. Put electrical cords out of reach or, alternatively, run them through PVC pipe. Put baby latches on cupboard doors. Don’t leave food on surfaces that he can reach, lest he learn to counter surf. And supervise, supervise, supervise.

6. House Rules.

Consistency is a linchpin of successful puppy raising. If one family member invites your pup to share the sofa while another yells at him for getting on that piece of furniture, your puppy will be stressed and confused. Sit the family down and agree on house rules before those first puppy paws hit your kitchen floor. It’s fine to let your dog on the furniture if everyone in the household is comfortable with that. Sleeping on someone’s bed is fine if everyone approves. Resolve differences before your pup arrives so he doesn’t suffer from family conflict.

7. Professional Service Providers.

Research and select your pup’s veterinarian, groomer, pet sitter/walker, and training professional well in advance. If you’re scrambling at the last minute, you’re likely to settle for someone who doesn’t necessarily share your philosophies of dog care and handling. If you want to feed raw and take a holistic approach to your dog’s veterinary care, find a veterinarian who will support you in that. If you are committed to positive-based training, find a trainer who not only claims to be positive, but also can define “positive” to your satisfaction. (Some trainers who claim to be positive use shock collars!) Your groomer and veterinarian should allow you to be a full participant in your dog’s procedures, and not insist on whisking him away to a back room. Don’t settle; find the best for your pup.

First Weeks with Puppy

The stage is set. You’re ready for the exciting event. You’re headed to the shelter or rescue facility to pick out a puppy, or to the breeder to pick up the pup you selected long ago. Your first days and weeks with your new pup will greatly influence the next 10 to 15-plus years you share with your new family member. Your goal is to make those the best years possible. Here are some very important pieces of the foundation to make that happen.

Socialization.

Let’s assume you’re adopting an 8-week-old puppy. Five of the dozen or so weeks of his prime socialization period (three weeks to fourteen weeks) are already water under the bridge, so your first assignment is to take full advantage of the remaining six to eight weeks.

In the best of possible worlds, whomever he was with for the first eight weeks took the time to begin the socialization process. If the pup you choose is happy, friendly, and outgoing, you’re on the right road, and you just need to continue normal socialization efforts.

Here’s a pro tip: specifically look for a puppy like this to adopt. If your heart gets the better of you and you fall for the shy puppy hiding in the back of his kennel, you will need to begin work immediately to help your timid puppy learn to be brave. It won’t happen just because you love him, and it won’t be easy. Adopt this puppy only if you are prepared to invest a lot of time and possibly money into doing behavior modification with your pup. (See “Trials of the Timid,” WDJ August 2008.)

The term “socialization” means exposing your puppy to a lot of people, places, and things, and making sure he has good experiences with them. All too often, puppy owners miss the “good experiences” part and end up creating fearful puppies. To avoid this critical mistake, control the environment around your puppy. For example, don’t let your son’s entire soccer team rush up and overwhelm him; do calm, one-at-a-time greetings. Make a commitment to give your puppy at least one new away-from-home positive socialization experience every day.

Housetraining.

Notice we are not “breaking” anything; we are training our puppy to eliminate where we would like him to. To have that happen, you must prevent him from eliminating where you don’t want him to go. This means taking him outside to his designated potty spot more often than he has to go (start with every hour on the hour, then increase the time between potty sessions when he shows you he can hold it longer); waiting with him until he does go; reinforcing the behavior with a click (or “Yes!”) and treat; and then spending some fun time together outside so he doesn’t think eliminating gets punished by going back inside immediately after.

If he doesn’t go potty when you take him out, don’t play; take him back inside and keep him under tight supervision (for example, leashed to you or in his crate) until his next potty break, so he can’t wander off and soil the carpet. (For more information about potty training, see “Potty Time,” June 2013.)

A general rule of thumb is that a puppy can hold it (crated, for example) for about one hour longer than his age in months, so, for example, your two-month-old puppy can possibly be crated for up to three hours at a time. That means at least two trips outside while you are gone during a normal workday. If you can’t arrange for someone to get him outside during the day, keep him in an exercise pen with a bathroom in the corner.
Be prepared to get up at least one time at night, at least for a few weeks. Some pups can hold it longer overnight sooner, because they aren’t as active as they are during the day.

Important note: Do not punish your pup for accidents in the house. If you find one after the fact, it’s far too late to do anything, and you will only frighten your pup if you drag him back to the spot and yell at him. If you throw a fit when you “catch him in the act,” you will teach him to go eliminate where you can’t see him. Simply interrupt him with a gentle “Oops, outside!” and take him out to the proper spot to potty. Reward him if he resumes his “business” in the right place.

Training.

You will have already located the positive-training professional with whom you would like to work. Get your pup into a puppy training and socialization class as soon as possible.

Some veterinarians unfortunately still advise owners to wait until their pup is fully immunized to attend class, but those vets are far behind the times. (See “Veterinary Behaviorists Agree: Get That Puppy into a Class,” on right.)

A good puppy-class instructor can help guide you through the challenges of house-training, puppy chewing, mouthing, and other baby-dog issues, as well as offer a well-managed venue for socialization with other puppies and humans. Additionally, she will help you teach your pup his basic good-manners behaviors, such as sit, down, walk politely on leash, come when called, and much more. This is the foundation of your pup’s education, and will open the door to a fascinating array of training options that could include rally, agility, scent work, herding, dock diving, Treibball, and much, much more.

Whether you train with a clicker or not, make a commitment to use force-free training and handling methods with your dog throughout his life. If any training professional tries to convince you that pain and coercion are necessary components of training, or that “electronic” (shock) collars don’t hurt, run away fast. You are your dog’s advocate and protector; don’t let him down. He will thank you for 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.

 

How To Crate-Train Your Puppy

By
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA
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[Updated October 3, 2017]

Most puppies are crate-trained with relative ease. Remember that the crate should be just large enough for your pup to stand up, turn around, and lie down comfortably. If you want to get one large enough for your puppy to grow into, block off the back so he has just enough room, and increase the space as he grows. Cover the floor of the crate with a rug or soft pad to make it comfortable and inviting, and you’re ready to begin training.

Start with the crate door open, and toss some irresistibly yummy treats inside. If your pup hesitates to go in, toss them close enough to the doorway that he can stand outside and poke his nose into the crate to eat them. Each time your pup eats a treat, click your clicker (or say “Yes!” if you are using a verbal marker).

Gradually toss the treats farther into the crate until he’s stepping inside to get them. Continue to click each time he eats a treat. When your pup enters the crate easily to get the treats, click and offer him a treat while he is still inside. If he’s willing to stay inside, keep clicking and treating. If he comes out that’s okay too, just toss another treat inside and wait for him to re-enter. Don’t force him to stay in the crate.

When he’s entering the crate to get the treat without hesitation, start using a verbal cue such as “Go to bed!” as your pup goes in, so that you’ll eventually be able to send him into his crate on just a verbal cue.

When he’s happily staying in the crate in anticipation of a click and treat, gently swing the door closed. Don’t latch it! Click and treat, then open the door. Repeat this step, gradually increasing the length of time the door stays closed before you click. Sometimes click and reward without opening the door right away.

When your pup stays in the crate with the door closed for at least 10 seconds without any signs of anxiety, close the door, latch it, and take one step away from the crate. Click! Return to the crate, reward, and open the door. Repeat this step, varying the time and distance you leave the crate. Don’t always make it longer and farther; intersperse long ones with shorter ones, so it doesn’t always get harder and harder for him. Start increasing the number of times you click and treat without opening the door, but remember that a click or a “Yes!” always gets a treat.

Leave the crate open when you aren’t actively training.
Toss treats and favorite toys in the crate when your pup’s not looking, so he never knows what wonderful surprises he might find there. You can even feed him his meals in the crate – with the door open – to help him realize that his crate is a truly wonderful place.

Many puppies can do the whole crate-training program in one day. Some will take several days, and a few will take weeks or more. If at any time during the program your pup whines or fusses about being in the crate, don’t let him out until he stops crying! This is one of the biggest mistakes owners make when crate training. If you let him out when he fusses, you will teach him that fussing gets him free. (The exception to this is if you think your pup is panicking in the crate. If that’s the case, do let him out and seek the assistance of a qualified positive-behavior professional.)

Instead, wait for a few seconds of quiet, then click and reward, and let him out. Then back up a step or two in the training program. When your pup is doing well at that level again, increase the difficulty in smaller increments, and vary the times rather than making each repetition more difficult.

Once your pup is crate-trained, you have a valuable behavior-management tool for life. Respect it. If you abuse it by keeping him confined too much, for too long a period
of time, or by using it as punishment, he may learn to dislike it. Even though he goes to bed willingly and on cue, reward him often enough to keep the response happy and quick. Keep your verbal “Go to bed!” cue light and happy. Don’t ever let anyone tease or punish him in his crate. (Kids can be especially guilty of this. Watch them!)

Download the Full November 2014 Issue PDF

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The Complete Healthy Dog Handbook tip #2

By
Nancy Kerns
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0

GETTING RID OF GOO

Sooner or later, your dog will get chewing gum, tar, tree sap, burrs, or some other sticky or tenacious substance in her fur. To get rid of sticky stuff without cutting the hair, work some vegetable oil into the goo with your fingers. The oil will help break up the goo into smaller pieces, which you can gently pull out of the fur. When you’re done, bathe your dog with a mild dog shampoo to remove the vegetable oil.

Never use paint thinner, turpentine, nail-polish remover, or other solvents to remove messes from your dog’s fur: they are toxic if licked off or absorbed through the skin.  

For answers to all your canine health questions – big and small – buy The Complete Healthy Dog Handbook by Betsy Brevitz, D.V.M from The Whole Dog Journal.

Foster “Failures”

By
Nancy Kerns
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1

Do you know this expression, “foster failure”? It’s meant as a humorous term, meaning someone who was fostering a dog – one who was being prepared for adoption by a shelter or rescue group – but who fell in love with the dog and decided to adopt the dog herself.

And no, I’m not yet a foster failure, though many of my friends think it’s about to happen, because I’ve been fostering a litter of the most adorable puppies for almost a month. I tell them all, “Blech! I hate puppies! Who in their right mind would want a puppy?” – another joke.

I’m a member of several online groups that rescue various types of dogs, and I see the “foster failure” term bandied about quite frequently. Many people sheepishly announce themselves as foster failures, and other people congratulate them for finding a great dog. And of course, they should be congratulated; it’s terrific when a dog finds a forever home – it’s the goal of every good shelter and rescue group, to find good homes for dogs. But people like myself who foster regularly probably also experience a twinge: crap, another good foster family lost to the group!

Ask any shelter or rescue: It’s really hard to find people who have homes with solid, dog-proofed homes and yards, and who possess enough experience with dogs to improve just about any dog’s behavior, confidence, and emotional connection to humans. It doesn’t do the rescue group much good to foster dogs in homes with people who don’t know how to properly help a dog learn to sleep in a crate, or who panic if their foster ward starts resource-guarding high-value items, chases their cat, or growls at their guests. Good foster guardians need to have enough experience to be able to deal with these behaviors calmly and guide the dog to better behavior in a positive manner. It helps if they already have well socialized, well-behaved, friendly dogs, as well as reasonably secure fences and homes and yards that can take some exuberant (or anxious) dog play.

It’s the same thing I tell people I meet when I volunteer at my local shelter: Yes, it’s hard to see all these dogs here, but no, I don’t want to take them all home; I want to SEND them all home! The most dogs I can legally have living in my home (as per my town’s codes) is three; but honestly, that’s also the number I can properly afford, when you take everything (routine and emergency costs) into account. I have two dogs already; if I had just one more, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford to ever foster. But if I limit myself to owning two dogs, I can foster and (I hope) place five or six well-behaved dogs per year in homes with family members, friends, and friends of friends. And this year, perhaps even more (given the fact that I hope to be able to place all six of my foster puppies in homes with friends or friends of friends. (Friends, you’ve been warned!)

So while I can’t say I won’t ever fall in love with a dog I foster and become a “failure” myself, I hope it won’t be soon!

 

(Remedies for Canine Arthritis tip #2) – Proactive Arthritis Prevention

By
Nancy Kerns
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0

Recently, Dr. Chris Bessent, a Wisconsin-based veterinarian, advised Whole Dog Journal readers to take a proactive approach to joint maintenance and injury prevention by starting when an athletic dog is one to two years old. This is a far-sighted approach that may not be appreciated by most dog owners, especially when they see the price tag on some glucosamine supplements.

Selling people on preventive maintenance is difficult, unless they have had a dog with a promising competitive career cut short by osteoarthritis. This is the point at which most veterinarians will mention glucosamine to their clients, but much of the damage has already occurred. However, even in late-stage osteoarthritis, the supplement may improve matters enough to make it worthwhile.

For more on your dog’s joints, ways to improve their health and prolong an active lifestyle, please refer to Natural Dog Arthritis Treatments.

Puppy Personalities: How Much Is Inborn?

By
Nancy Kerns
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0

Before I became a mother, when I met difficult children, I imagined their unpleasant behavior was a result of how they had been parented. In other words, I usually blamed the parents – and credited parents with doing a great job when I met kids I liked.

Then I became a parent, and through close observation of my son and his closest friends, gradually realized that actually, kids are largely “who they are” when they are born. Sure, you can mold them to a certain extent, and teach them good manners (or bad). But many aspects of their personalities transcend basic behavior modification.

For example, even as a toddler, my son was careful – he had a highly developed self-preservation instinct – – and even though today he’’s a world-class athlete, and no stranger to physically demanding (and sometimes pain-inducing) feats of athleticism, he’’s still danger-averse. I think he’’s always has been and always will be a careful person; I’’ve never worried about his driving recklessly or diving into shallow rivers or drinking too much alcohol. And I had nothing to do with encouraging or discouraging this trait.

I’’ve spent almost four weeks with a fostered litter of six puppies, and the experience has confirmed what I’’ve long suspected: that the same phenomenon is true of dogs, too. These pups all have different “personalities” – a controversial word in animal behavior circles, but the only word that seems apt to describe the individual quirks and traits that the pups display.

I can now tell my puppies apart, but when I first got them, I ordered a set of Velcro-fastened color-coded collars, so I could keep the pups straight. The collars were also a useful tool for the shelter vet tech, so she could keep of the individual puppies’ weights and medication (they have been receiving antibiotics for a respiratory infection). This is what I know about the puppies now:

Red-collared puppy: Highly confident and curious. Pays more attention to what humans are doing than to what his brothers are doing, and if he has to choose, will follow the human. Always wants to be in your lap, or on your shoe, or touching you somehow, and he’’ll kick up a fuss for the longest when all the puppies are locked in their pen. (By the way, this is the puppy who I accidentally kicked a week ago, and thank goodness, after three days of holding up his right back leg, he started putting more and more weight on it, and now he seems perfectly fine again.) I think this puppy is going to do best if he’’s placed with people who want a close relationship with their dog.

Blue: Another very confident dog, but less curious about humans than Red. He dives into any game of tug-of-war, grabs for any toy that any other puppy has. He isn’’t one to dive into your lap, but if you pick him up, he cuddles and seems to really enjoy attention and petting. He quickly accepts his situation, whatever it is: confinement in the puppy pen, immersion in a bath, the end of a meal. He seems like he’’s going to thrive in any type of home.

Teal: The most independent puppy, and perhaps the smartest – but not necessarily in a way that is likely to result in being “well-trained.” He was the first to figure out that if he followed humans or the other puppies to the puppy pen, he was going to get locked up, so he stopped following anyone to the pen. When I call all the puppies, he never just runs to me like the others do; he watches to see why I’’m calling. He totally gets the concept of the potential for not-fun consequences. He’’s also the bravest, though, and perhaps the toughest. He is super mouthy, and if I feel a puppy latched onto my shoe or pants leg – a puppy who won’’t let go – I don’’t even have to look to know it’’s him. I think he’’d make a heck of a military or law enforcement dog.

Purple: This puppy is into absolutely everything. If he hears a novel noise, he drops what he’’s doing to immediately seek out the source of the noise. If he hears a squabble between the other puppies, he runs to jump into the fray. If he sees another puppy with an interesting-looking item, he grabs it to investigate it with his mouth. Usually, his brothers seem to be more interesting to him than humans are, but he’’s not averse to being picked up and held and cuddled, for a minute or two, anyway. Then he’’s off to the next adventure. He’’d thrive in an environment that was active and stimulating; his owners are going to need to be interesting if they hope to capture and hold his attention.

Green: Absolutely the most affectionate, human-centered puppy. He actively seeks out eye contact with people, and wags his tail with happiness when a human’s gaze falls on him. He watches humans constantly and will always choose human attention over a game with his brothers. He’’s just so, so sweet with humans. If I watch him out the window, however, I see that he plays nicely with the other pups, unlike the next puppy, and the one that most resembles him: Pink.

Pink: This puppy is almost always off doing his own thing. Like Teal, he’’s independent, but not in a bold, brave way, more in a “”Leave me alone, I’’m happy by myself”” way. He’’s shorter and fatter than the other pups, and not as physically rough-and-tumble. He will play tug or wrestle with another puppy, unless the other gets too intense; at the first bit of pain or discomfort, he abruptly quits and waddles off to find something else to do. He neither seeks out nor avoids human cuddling and petting; he’’s sort of indifferent about us, except at meal times. I wouldn’’t worry about this puppy developing separation anxiety if his people worked long hours; I think he’’s a content kind of guy who can find things to fill his time.

Maybe this is all hopeless anthropomorphizing –– but I don’’t think so. And I think that good breeders are highly aware of the differences in their puppies’’ personalities, and take pains to match puppies to families or individuals where the pups’’ traits will be appreciated and perhaps even well-utilized, as opposed to resented or punished; they don’’t send just any puppy to any person with a check for the purchase amount. Although I’’m not a dog breeder, I hope to do the same! Although each of these pups will be officially adopted from my local shelter, I hope to find adopters first, without having to actually send the pups to the shelter kennels. If you know someone in Northern California who is looking for some sort of hound/perhaps Beagle-mix, let me know! I’’ll do my best to match them with a puppy that would best suit them.

(Holistic Remedies tip #7) – Pellitol Ointment

By
CJ Puotinen
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3

Nine years ago, we described a smoky-smelling pink ointment that worked wonders for seriously infected ears: Pellitol. Pellitol contained zinc oxide, calamine, bismuth subgalate, bismuth subnitrate, resorcinol, echinacea fluid extract, and juniper tar. These ingredients are both disinfecting and adhesive, so that as the ointment gradually dried and shrank (a process lasting several days), it healed ulcers, dried pus and debris, and reduced bacterial growth. In addition to being effective, this apply-it-and-leave-it approach spared patients the discomfort of repeated ear-cleaning treatments.

We learned about Pellitol from holistic veterinarian Stacy Hershman of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, who became interested in ear infections while working as a veterinary technician in her teens. “This is a subject that isn’t covered much in vet school,” she told us. “I learned about treating ear infections from the veterinarians I worked with over the years. Because they all had different techniques, I saw dozens of different treatments, and I kept track of what worked and what didn’t.”

Chronic ear infections are the bane of long-eared dogs, swimming dogs, recently vaccinated puppies, old dogs, dogs with an abundance of ear wax, and dogs with allergies, thyroid imbalances, or immune system disorders. In other words, they are among the most common recurring canine problems.

Dr. Hershman’s maintenance program for healthy ears involves gentle cleaning with cotton balls, cotton swabs, and room-temperature green tea or an alcohol-free acidic ear cleaner. Mild ear inflammation can be treated with careful flushing.

But if the infection is serious, she takes a different approach. When she began her veterinary practice, Dr. Hershman met dogs who wouldn’t let anyone touch their ears. “I knew that nothing I’d learned in vet school was going to help them,” she says, “so I thought back to all the treatments I’d seen over the years. The one that seemed most effective was a combination of boric acid and a thick, old-fashioned ointment that looks like pink toothpaste. I couldn’t remember its name, but I never forgot how it smelled – really peculiar, like burnt embers.”

The ointment was Pellitol, and as soon as she tracked it down, Dr. Hershman combined it with boric acid. “Like the ear powders I learned about from groomers,” she explains, “boric acid dries and acidifies the ear. Yeast and bacteria are opportunistic organisms that die in a dry, acidic environment. They thrive where it’s moist, dark, and alkaline.”

Because boric acid is toxic (note warnings on the label), it should not be inhaled or swallowed. Shielding the face is important and usually requires a helper, someone who can hold the dog’s head steady while protecting the eyes, nose, and mouth.

Experimenting with her own dogs and dogs at the animal shelter where she volunteered, Dr. Hershman placed two or three pinches of boric acid powder in each infected ear unless it was ulcerated, bleeding, or painful. “Being acidic,” she explained, “boric acid might irritate open wounds. In that case, I would use the Pellitol alone. Otherwise, a pinch or two of boric acid was an effective preliminary treatment.”

After applying boric acid, she would fill the ear with Pellitol and let it work. Within a week, the dried ointment would fall out of the dog’s ear, leaving it cleaner and far less inflamed.

For more alternative and holistic remedies for your dog, purchase and download the ebook Holistic Remedies from The Whole Dog Journal.

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