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Can Dogs Really Detect Cancer in Humans?

By
Linda P. Case, MS
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The dog’s nose is an amazing organ, with abilities and features far superior to our own in many ways. First are the physical adaptations of the nose itself. The inside of the dog’s nose is lined with many folds of tissue (called the olfactory epithelium), which in turn contain hundreds of millions of olfactory receptors, specialized cells responsible for detecting odors. Because of the increased surface area caused by these folds, the dog’s nose contains a ridiculously high number of receptor cells when compared to the human nose; on average, the dog has about 220 million, while our noses harbor a paltry 5 million. This difference contributes to the dog’s ability to detect almost impossibly minute concentrations of compounds, by some estimates in concentrations as low as parts per trillion.

dog's sense of smell

The dog’s brain is also highly adapted for smelling. From the receptors in the nose, sensory input travels to the olfactory bulb and olfactory cortex, regions of the brain that are highly developed in dogs and that process and interpret the incoming tsunami of odor sensations.

A final adaptation that dogs have (and that we do not) is a special kind of sniff. In dogs, sniffing involves a disruption of the dog’s normal breathing pattern as small amounts of air are rapidly inhaled and exhaled. This type of breathing changes the shape of the dog’s nostrils and diverts air into several flow paths within the nose. This partitioning increases the number of sensory cells that inhaled particles come into contact with, thus enhancing olfactory sensitivity.

And the power of the sniff does not end there. As the dog exhales, air leaves via the dog’s “side nostrils,” not out the front of the nose as it does with normal breathing. Exhaling through the side nose is presumed to prevent the dog’s sensory cells from being repeatedly exposed to the same compounds, delaying scent habituation. (Consider how you no longer can smell “wet dog” after being around one for a while. That’s scent habituation.)

Today, the dog’s extraordinary olfactory abilities are put to a lot of human uses. Dogs are trained to indicate the presence of contraband, find lost people (and sometimes, animals), search natural-disaster areas, and even find victims of drowning. We also train our dogs to use their noses in a wide range of dog sports such as tracking, obedience, and nose work.

Another talent that dogs (at least some dogs) may possess and that is receiving increasing attention is the ability to detect the presence of disease in human patients. While the detection of several chronic health problems has been examined, including diabetes, seizure disorders, and heart disease, the dog’s ability to identify the presence of cancer in human patients as a diagnostic early-screening approach is especially intriguing.

It Started with a Mole-Sniffing Border Collie

Almost 25 years ago, a letter from two doctors was published in the scientific journal The Lancet. The letter described the case of a 44-year-old woman whose Border Collie-mix had started to fixate on a mole located on her leg. Over a period of several weeks, the dog repeatedly sniffed and licked the area, eventually escalating his behavior to biting at the spot. Concerned, the owner visited her doctor, only to discover that the mole had developed into a malignant melanoma.

Over the next few years, an increasing number of similar cases were reported, all variations of the scenario in which a pet dog spontaneously alerted his or her owner to the presence of a cancerous tumor. And these were not just mole fixations – dogs were reportedly finding a wide range of disease, including bladder, breast, lung, prostate, and ovarian cancers. As anecdotal evidence, these cases raised the question of whether dogs could be trained to reliably detect cancer and ultimately be used as screening aids for diagnosing malignancies at an early stage.

The Studies

A wide range of research studies has examined the use of dogs to detect cancer, which is remarkable given the relatively few years of interest in this area of study. However, while the total number of studies is high, they vary tremendously in significant factors such as type of cancer; the number, breed, and age of dogs; training methods; and the type of samples used for detection. Cancers that have been studied include skin (melanoma), prostate, lung, breast, bladder, and colorectal. Dogs have been trained to detect cancer using tumor cells, urine, blood, feces and exhaled breath.

Although not always reported, all of the described training methods used positive reinforcement, and several studies employed clicker training. However, training methods, intensity and duration have differed, as has the experience level of the trainers involved.

Keeping these disparities in mind, have we learned anything of a general nature from these studies? First, the good news: Dogs can do this (at least under controlled, experimental conditions). For example, a Belgian Malinois selected from a group of dogs being trained for explosives-detection work was professionally trained to differentiate between the urine of healthy men and the urine of men with prostate cancer. The Malinois successfully identified cancer in 31 of 33 cases.1

Another study tested the ability of a professionally trained scent-detection dog to identify the presence of colorectal cancer in stool and breath samples.2 When tested in 37 trials, the dog correctly identified cancer when it was present 91 percent of the time and missed a correct diagnosis just 1 percent of the time.

In the largest of the published studies, four trained dogs were tested using 220 breath samples from patients suspected of having lung cancer.3 The dogs accurately identified lung cancer 71 percent of the time, although there was a great deal of variation among the four dogs in their ability to correctly detect cancer when it was present (called sensitivity). This variability may have occurred because the researchers used pet dogs for the study rather than dogs who were specifically selected for scent-discrimination tasks, as were the dogs in the previous studies.

Similar inconsistencies among dogs were reported when experimenters trained a group of six unselected (pet) dogs for detection of melanoma, breast, or lung cancer.4 While most studies trained dogs to detect a single type of cancer, one group of researchers tested five dogs who were trained to detect either lung or breast cancer.5 They reported almost 100 percent accuracy when the dogs were tested with lung-cancer patients and almost 90 percent accuracy when they were tested with breast-cancer patients.

Success at varying rates has also been reported in dogs trained to detect bladder cancer in urine samples, ovarian cancer in blood or tissue, and melanoma from skin-tissue samples. 6,7,8

Proof of Principle versus Use in Practice

Most of the currently available studies make the point that their results should be viewed primarily as “proof-of-principle” studies. In other words, these studies show us that, yes, dogs have extraordinary scenting capabilities and also that some dogs can be successfully trained to reliably detect the presence of cancer in human tissues. Pretty cool stuff, indeed. Taken at this level, I think most would agree that the results of the current cancer-detection studies provide additional evidence to the already multitudinous piles that the dog has a remarkable nose. Most dog people, myself included, are pretty darned impressed by these data.

However, the jump from knowing that dogs can do this amazing feat to using dogs as early screening detectors for cancer in human patients is one very big (and perhaps unattainable) jump. There are a number of obstacles that need to be cleared for such a role to become reliable, economical, and accepted by medical professionals and patients. Perhaps most important is to first attain a better understanding of what exactly these dogs are doing.

What are they smelling when dogs detect cancer?

Cancer cells, along with some of the changes that occur in the body in response to cancer, produce a wide range of unique substances that emit very specific odors. As a group these are called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which means that they contain carbon atoms and have airborne properties (i.e., they can be sniffed).

dog's sense of smell

Because the set of VOCs varies with the type of cancer, researchers refer to these collectively as a cancer’s “odor signature.” However, there are gaps in our knowledge about these compounds. First, not all of the biologically significant molecules that are produced by cancer cells have been identified, nor do researchers have well-defined odor signatures for all forms and stages of cancer. Although each cancer is presumed to possess a unique set of VOCs, these may vary with stage of disease, location of the tumor, presence of other illnesses, and with the age, health, or genetic make-up of the patient. Similarly, the type of sample that is used (urine, breath, tissue) is expected to affect which VOCs are present.

It is presumed, but not known, that dogs who can successfully differentiate between non-cancerous, healthy cells and cells or secretions that are cancerous are detecting the presence of that cancer’s odor signature – its particular set of VOCs. It is also presumed that most of these odors exist at levels that are undetectable by the human nose but are present at levels that a dog’s nose is capable of detecting. The problem lies in understanding exactly which compound or compounds in the overall signature that the dogs are learning to detect.

From a practical standpoint, this means that dogs are being trained to detect a cancer odor signature that is still incompletely understood and to compounds that as of yet have not been identified. Therefore, if a dog who has completed training misdiagnoses a sample, it is impossible to troubleshoot errors to determine the reason that the dog failed, since we do not know exactly what the dog is looking for or if the compound is consistently found in all patients, of all ages, and all stages of disease with that particular cancer.

Scent memory?

It is known that the dog has an astounding ability to form “scent memories.” This means that dogs are capable of recognizing odors that they have encountered previously, and that they have a high capacity to store memories of a large number of individual odors.

A helpful analogy is to consider how many faces you recognize of people you have met during your lifetime. For most of us, this is a really large number; most of us readily recognize people who we may have only met a few times or have not seen in a long time. Research has shown that humans have an astounding ability to remember up to thousands of faces, even those that we have experienced only via photographs! Think of the dog’s nose in the same way. While we excel at recognizing human faces, the dog excels at recognizing distinct odors. This is an important consideration given that we do not know exactly what it is that dogs are smelling when they detect cancer in an experiment.

This is of consequence because training dogs for scent-detection work involves taking a set of known (target) odor samples that are repeatedly used to teach the dog to identify and indicate the target odor. For cancer-detection training, these samples come from patients who are confirmed to have a particular type of cancer. Such samples are a limited resource, both in terms of the number that can be obtained from medical centers and in sample viability (i.e., how long they can be stored and retain their scent odor for reuse).

On a practical level, this means that most dogs used in these studies have been trained using a relatively small set of cancer-containing samples. Once they are trained and are demonstrating proficiency on the known samples, the dogs are then tested on either planted samples (healthy patients with hidden cancer samples on their body) or with actual patients.

A challenge that researchers have faced is determining whether dogs are generalizing what they have learned during training on a small set of samples to the general population of patients, whose scent signatures will vary in unknown ways. Have the dogs learned to identify a general cancer odor signature or have they simply memorized some components of the samples that they were trained with? If it is the latter, the dogs would be expected to fail when tested using a large population of patients (who may or may not have a similar odor signature to the training set).

A recent study using dogs trained to detect prostate cancer attempted to tackle the issue of scent memory.9 The researchers clicker-trained 10 dogs through three incremental stages of training to detect prostate cancer from urine samples. At the conclusion of the training, only two dogs demonstrated high proficiency in detecting cancer using the training samples. These dogs were then tested on a large set of unique samples (both cancer and controls).

During the actual tests, neither of the dogs successfully differentiated between cancer samples and healthy samples at a frequency that was greater than that expected by chance. As a possible explanation for this failure, the researchers suggested that during training, the dogs had memorized the odors of each of the training samples, and while they clearly were able to discriminate between those samples and healthy patient samples, they did not subsequently generalize that ability to the odor signature present in the urine of the large group of prostatecancer patients that was tested.

It must also be mentioned that like some of the earlier studies that demonstrated low proficiency, the dogs in this study were selected from a group of pet dogs whose owners were attending a local dog-training school, rather than from dogs who were specifically selected and trained for scent work.

Can dogs smell other illnesses? 

Most of the studies reported to date have tested dogs’ accuracy at cancer detection against samples from healthy volunteers. However, many people who have cancer also have other health problems or benign disease. Because false positives cause extreme anxiety and can lead to unneeded biopsies or treatment, minimizing this type of error is of enormous importance when considering the reliability of early-screening techniques. While it appears that some dogs are capable of consistently discriminating between healthy and cancerous patients, can they make this distinction when faced with people who may have complicating disease?

Only two studies have tested this ability. The large lung-cancer study discussed previously also tested the ability of their four trained dogs to differentiate between patients with confirmed lung cancer and patients afflicted with another (non-cancerous) lung disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).3 They found that while the dogs were still capable of identifying patients who had lung cancer, their success rate decreased somewhat when they had to distinguish between cancer and COPD.

A more recent study, published in early 2014, was less promising.10 Four trained dogs were found to be highly effective when distinguishing between patients who were healthy (had no lung disease) and patients who had some type of lung disease. However, when tested to determine if they could distinguish between benign and cancerous lung tumors, the dogs’ accuracy decreased dramatically. For example, the dogs performed with 99 percent sensitivity in the initial tests of healthy versus not-healthy patients, but this decreased to 56 to 76 percent (depending on the dog), when they were required to discriminate between malignant and benign lung conditions. This means that up to 44 percent of the cases were identified as cancerous when they were not (false positives) – not a good result for a cancer-screening tool.

Not There Yet

As dog lovers, we all would like to see cancer detection turn out to be one more job our beloved dogs can help us accomplish. We all want to believe that dogs can be trained to reliably predict the presence of cancerous cells in a human patient, and that once we have the training properly nailed down, these dogs will show themselves to be superior to other screening tests that may be invasive in nature, costly, or not sensitive enough to catch cancer in its early stages.

But at this point in the game, it appears that only some dogs are able to detect some cancers some of the time, and that this detection is most successful when dogs are carefully selected for scent-training work and when they are asked to compare potential cancer patients with healthy patients. Challenges lie ahead in determining what exactly it is that dogs are sniffing; refining and standardizing training; increasing accuracy and reliability; and completing more rigorous, double-blind, well-controlled studies.

Regardless, in my view, because these studies do provide “proof of principle,” they give us one more reason to be in awe of and thankful for our canine friends and their amazing sniff(th) sense!

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 Dog Food Logic and many other books and publications on nutrition for dogs and cats. Her blog can be read at thesciencedog.wordpress.com. 

Cited References:

1. Cornu JN, Cancel-Tassin G, Ondet V, Giradet C, Cussernot O. Olfactory detection of prostate cancer by dogs sniffing urine: A step forward in early diagnosis. European Urology 2011; 59:197-201.

2. Sonoda H, Kohnoe S, Yamazato T. Colorectal cancer screening with odour material by canine scent detection. Gut 2011; 60:814-819.

3. Ehmann R, Boedeker E, Friedrich U, Sagert J, Dippon J, Friedel G, Walles T. Canine scent detection in the diagnosis of lung cancer: Revisiting a puzzling phenomenon. European Respiration Journal 2012; 39:669-676.

4. Walczak M, Jezierski T, Gorecka-Bruzda A, Sobczynska M, Ensminger J. Impact of individual training parameters and manner of taking breath odor samples on the reliability of canines as cancer screeners. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 2012; 7:283-294.

5. McCulloch M, Jezierski T, Broffman M, Hubbard A, Turner K, Janecki T. Diagnostic accuracy of canine scent detection in early- and late-stage lung and breast cancers. Integrative Cancer Therapies 2006; 5:30-39.

6. Willis CM, Church SM, Guest CM. Olfactory detection of human bladder cancer by dogs: proof of principle study. British Medical Journal 2004; 329:712.

7. Pickel D, Manucy GP, Walker DB, Hall SB, Walker JC. Evidence for canine olfactory detection of melanoma. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 2004; 89:107-116.

8. Horvath G, Andersson H, Paulsson G. Characteristic odour in the blood reveals ovarian carcinoma. BMC Cancer 2010; 10:643-646.

9. Elliker KR, Sommerville BA, Broom DM, Neal DE, Armstrong S, Williams HC. Key considerations for the experimental training and evaluation of cancer odour detection dogs: Lessons learnt from a double-blind, controlled trial of prostate cancer detection. BMC Urology 2014; 14:22-31.

10. Amundsen T, Sundstrom S, Buvik T, Gederaas OA, Haaverstad R. Can dogs smell lung cancer? First study using exhaled breath and urine screening in unselected patients with suspected lung cancer. Acta Oncologica 2014; 53:307-315.

Tips on Adding a Dog to Your Household

By
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA
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We currently have three dogs. We lost our Scottie a few months ago to cancer, and our Australian Shepherd last year to old age and failing health. This is the fewest number of dogs we’ve had in our family for as far back as I care to remember, and while I grieve Missy and Dubhy’s absence every day, a part of me feels some guilty relief that the canine chaos and caretaking load has lightened somewhat. Still, while I know it won’t be for a while yet, another part of me contemplates the next potential pup-addition to the Miller pack . . . which leads me to contemplate the complexities and challenges of bringing home a new dog.

dog size disparity

However, as much as you would like to run out and go look in shelters and at online photos of candidates being fostered by rescue groups, you should consider some other individuals – namely, the dog (or dogs) you may already have at home, and your human family or housemates.

A dog for the dog?

Lots of dog owners are convinced they are getting another dog, at least in part, as a companion for the current dog – or dogs. Don’t kid yourself on this one. While some dogs do enjoy the company of their own kind, many would just as soon not share their beds, bones, and humans’ attention with another canine resident. Be clear that if you are getting another dog, you are getting it for yourself (or for other human family members), and it’s an added bonus if your current dog and the new one end up becoming bosom buddies.

A couple of years ago, Scooter, our now-13-year-old Pomeranian, made it quite clear he wasn’t in favor of adding any more dogs to our family; the presence of our most recent foster, a high-energy young Terrier mix, elicited a bout of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis (yes, it’s as bad as it sounds) in the older dog. Cricket wasn’t even living in the house – he was kenneled in the training center and joined us for barn chores and hikes around the farm, but even that was enough to cause Scooter’s severe stress-induced gastrointestinal disaster. Cricket had to be dismissed from barn duty, while Scooter opted out of the hikes. Scooter now also suffers from a collapsing trachea, another life-threatening condition (common in small dogs) that is exacerbated by stress, so a new Miller dog is definitely out of the question for the time being.

Scooter aside, our 11-year-old Lucy (Cardigan Welsh Corgi) and 10-year-old Bonnie (Scorgidoodle) might tolerate a canine addition, but neither one is begging for a puppy for Christmas. They are tolerant of doggie visitors to the farm, but are happier keeping to themselves if given the choice. Lucy has never been one for sharing with other dogs anyway, and her well-managed resource-guarding tendencies don’t need the stress of a new canine competitor.

Evaluate your own home dogs before blithely adopting another. Do they welcome canine visitors with open paws? In that case, your wise selection of a new furry family member should go relatively smoothly, especially if you do careful introductions. If, however, they are less than enthusiastic about entertaining visiting dogs, know that if you chose to increase your hound numbers, at best it may take some skillful orchestration to create a harmonious household, and at worst you could be creating a nightmare.

The people’s choice

You also need to make sure all your human family members are in favor of adding another dog to the group. It’s not fair to your dogs to put them in the center of controversy if one or more family members are opposed to the idea. You will need the enthusiastic support of all household members to ensure you won’t be pushed by inter-family drama to return the new dog to the shelter. That’s not fair to anyone, least of all the dog.

Think It Through

If you decide that your dog (or dogs) and family are all ready to bring another dog into the mix, consider these additional factors as you start your adoption search:

Size of the new dog – This is not an absolute, but think carefully before setting up a multi-dog family made up on individuals with a significant size or substance disparity. Scooter, at 12 pounds, lived happily with 45-pound Missy – but Missy was eight years old when we adopted her, well past those puppy or adolescent bursts of energy that might have stressed or injured the smaller dog. The greater the size difference, the greater the possibility that the smaller dog might get hurt, either during too-rough play, a dog-on-dog altercation, or even in a tragic moment of predatory drift (in which the larger dog suddenly perceives the smaller running dog as a prey animal such as a rabbit or a cat and chases or grabs it).

Age – It’s true that a mature dog can be rejuvenated by the addition of young-dog energy. It’s also true that a high-energy youngster can make life miserable for the senior dog who just wants to lie on his rug in the sun and enjoy his golden years in peace and quiet. There are lots of homeless adult dogs in shelters and rescue groups, so if you have older dogs already at home, consider adopting another senior or at least middle-aged dog, rather than subjecting your old-timer dogs to puppy biting and body-slamming.

If you do opt for a younger dog, then you owe it to your seniors to protect them from the unwanted attentions of a pesky puppy. Also, if required to defend themselves from unwanted puppy persistence, older dogs can become defensively aggressive, and teach the puppy to become aggressive in return. So, find an appropriate playmate for the youngster, one who appreciates endless games of high-speed-chase-around-the-yard, and manage your home environment with closed doors, tethers, crates, exercise pens, and baby gates to maintain the domestic tranquility.

Personality –Take your dog’s (or dogs’) personality quirks and traits into account, and try to adopt a new dog with a personality that will mesh well. Our Lucy is a very assertive, possessive herding dog, while Bonnie is super soft and appeasing. They do well together. Bringing another assertive dog into the mix could spell trouble; there would likely be serious clashes with Lucy.

And don’t discount your own personality! If you have a Bonnie-style soft and deferent home-dog, bringing a bossy Lucy-type dog into the family could be upsetting to you – as you see your sweetheart getting pushed around by the newcomer (even if the sweetie doesn’t seem to mind). If you already have one dog who is a real attention hog, you might take pains to adopt one who isn’t so needy, so they aren’t trying to push each other off the sofa to snuggle with you. If you have a dog who is sound-sensitive, avoid adopting a dog with a strong propensity to bark. You get the idea!

Play Styles – Energy levels aside, different dogs have different play styles. Some like to play chase, some like to wrestle and do “chew-face.” Some are body slammers, while others eschew physical contact. Some like to dance around the action and cheerlead, while others are “fun police,” trying to break up the action if two or more dogs are playing roughly. Your prospects for pack harmony are much greater if you look for a new addition with a play style that is compatible with one or more of your current dogs.

Gender –This can get tricky. The world over, there are male dogs who get along with males and females, sterilized or not, and females who get along with both genders, sterilized or not. Yet many rescues and shelters flat out refuse to adopt a female to a home where there is another female, on the supposition that female dogs can’t get along.

how not to introduce dogs

Hogwash! . . . to a point. For the past 30-plus years, my husband and I have had three to five dogs at a time, all combinations of genders (albeit all spayed and neutered), and for the most part they’ve gotten along beautifully. That said, when there are problems, conflicts between females tend to be more intense, longer-lasting, and harder to manage and or modify than male-male or male-female problems. Even in our own household, the most challenging relationship we’ve had was between Lucy and Missy. Still, this seems like a poor reason to rule out all female-female adoptions. If you have a difficult female at home, then, yes, a male is probably a better choice. Absent that, take it on a case-by-case basis and look for a dog who is compatible with your dog(s), regardless of gender.

Breed –Breed doesn’t matter much, other than taking breed propensities into consideration as you consider the previously listed factors (Labs tend to be high-energy body-slammers; the herding breeds tend to dislike other dogs getting in their space; St. Bernards are large; Chihuahuas are small, etc.). The individual’s personality is more relevant than the breed propensity, because there are Labradors who are soft and gentle, and you can find Border Collies who are happy to share their space. You may have breed or breed-mix preferences yourself, and that’s just fine – by all means, indulge. But don’t rule out a dog on the basis of breed norm alone; sometimes, the candidate in question is the outlier.

how to introduce dogs

Careful Introductions

So you’re taking the plunge. You really want another dog and you’ve decided your current dog-loving canine pal(s) really would appreciate a companion – or will at least tolerate an addition with reasonable good graces. You’ve picked out a dog at your local shelter and done initial introductions there that went well. You’re ready to bring the new family member home. The way you do so can make or break future relations between the newcomer and your home dogs.

First, make sure all dogs are well exercised before they meet. Take your current dogs for a good hike in the woods, or a run at the dog park, or at least play a good solid round of tennis ball or Frisbee before you go to fetch the newbie. If you live in the city and don’t have access to woods, dog parks, or fenced yards, do whatever serves for exercise for your dog(s): jogging on the treadmill, chasing a toy down the hallway, or jumping over broomsticks in the living room.

Next, arrange to do introductions one at a time. Allowing multiple dogs to mob the new one can literally scare the pee out of him, and the trauma can damage his future relationships with the group. My preference is a neutral fenced yard, but absent that, your own yard will serve the purpose.

It’s is hugely helpful to do introductions outdoors; indoors, your new dog can feel trapped, and your home dogs are more likely to feel possessive or territorial. If you don’t have a yard, find a friend who does, or arrange to borrow some other neutral space. You may be able to set up the meet and greet at your favorite dog professional’s training facility – and get some expert guidance as well.

Dog Introduction Scenario #1 – All Goes Smoothly

Position one of your current dogs at the far side of the yard, on leash, with the leash held by a reasonably knowledgeable dog person, and your other dogs where they can’t see/won’t get aroused by the sight of a new dog. I like to start with the dog whom I think will be the easiest and friendliest, to build confidence in all participants.

Bring the new dog into the gate, on leash. Let the dogs see each other, and calmly approach. If one or both get aroused, stop and encourage them to settle and relax before coming closer. You may need to use high-value treats to get them to think about something other than the exciting presence of the other dog.

As long as their body language looks affiliative (i.e., friendly, “I’d like to get to know you!”) and the dogs are reasonably calm, continue closing the distance between them until they are eight to ten feet apart.

Assuming both dogs still look friendly and happy, drop both leashes and let them meet. Dropping the leashes allows the dogs to meet and interact naturally, increasing the likelihood of a positive interaction. Leashes held by humans interfere with normal canine social signals, and may cause one or both dogs to send tension signals they don’t intend. Leaving the leashes attached for the first few moments (but not held by a human) allows you to separate the dogs more easily and safely if things don’t go as well as you had hoped.

After the dogs interact appropriately for a moment or two, gather them up, remove the leashes, and let the two dogs interact for another five to 10 minutes. Then remove home-dog #1 and leash the new dog. Repeat the process with your next home-dog, until all of them have met. Then start over in groups of threes: two of your current dogs (again, include the two who are most likely to interact well) and the new dog.

how to introduce dogs

Depending on your household, you may be able to integrate all the dogs on the first meeting, or you may decide that discretion is wisdom, and spread the introduction process over several days. If you do this, you will need steadfast management systems in place to avoid accidental introductions in less-than-optimal conditions. Once everyone has met and all are getting along you can take a deep breath, relax, sit back, and get on with life.

Dog Introduction Scenario #2: More Tension Than You Would Like

If at any time during the approach-on-leash part of your introductions you see a level of tension or arousal that makes you uncomfortable, slow down the process. Increase the distance between the two dogs and do some parallel walking, with both dogs and handlers walking in the same direction. Maintain the increased distance, with handlers on the inside, dogs on the outside, so the humans act as a buffer between the dogs. If tensions seem to subside, you can gradually decrease the distance between the dogs.
It may be necessary to take several lengthy parallel walks over a period of several days before the dogs are ready to meet off leash. Meanwhile, you may be able to proceed with greetings with the rest of your dogs. If, however, the new dog seems too upset by the unsuccessful introduction, you may need to go more slowly with the others as well.

Scenario #3 – a Turn for the Worse

The majority of the time, canine introductions do work out, even if they require a little tincture of time to smooth out the wrinkles. Dogs are, after all, a social species. That said, we humans are also a social species, and we certainly don’t all get along!
If you see tensions that aren’t resolving, issues that are escalating, or worse, if at any time in the process you experience knock-down, drag-out battles, you may have misjudged the dogs’ compatibility, and you may need to rethink your family expansion plan. Dog fights are no fun for anyone, and can cause injury to dogs and humans. (For information on what to do if a fight breaks out, see “Break It Up,” WDJ April 2012.)

Before you get to that point, before tensions erupt into fights, you are wise to seek the counsel of a qualified force-free behavior professional. (For more about decoding the letters following a trainer’s name, see “Training Titles,” February 2014.) A pair of educated eyes can give you a realistic opinion on the advisability of continuing with your efforts, and can help with whatever behavior modification and management might be necessary to make things work.

Chances are, with some good assistance and your commitment to the process, you can still make it work. There are times, however, when it’s only fair to all concerned – the dogs who are at risk, and the other human family members who will have to live with the stress of ever present canine tensions – to face the reality of rehoming. It will be a sad day for all if you have to accept that you cannot provide your new dog with the lifelong loving home you promised him, but quality of life for all your family members is a vitally important consideration. As you dry your tears, know that you have done the very best you could. (For more about the best way to go about finding your dog a new home, see “Rehoming Responsibly,” August 2013.)

Next Miller Dog?

It’s been more than 30 years since we’ve actively gone looking for a dog, and I promise we’re not about to start now. Our dogs for the most part seem to “just happen” – and I have a hunch that sooner or later, I’ll be sharing with you the news of our latest “happening.” In fact, although after we lost Dubhy, my husband suggested that perhaps we not adopt any more dogs because it hurts too much to lose them, he confessed to me just yesterday that he had gone online to look at the Australian Kelpie Rescue website. If a Kelpie or Cattle Dog just happened to show up on our doorstep, I suspect we’d be hard pressed to turn him – or her – away. Stay tuned for our own next introduction experience.

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. 

October 2014 Letters & Corrections

By
Nancy Kerns
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I just finished reading my June issue of WDJ and, as usual, loved it! I just have one comment/question regarding “Vaccine Titer Tests” where you state, “Rabies is a slightly different case. Because the disease poses a significant risk to human beings, it’s the only vaccine that is required by law to be administered to dogs. Each state has its own legal requirements for rabies vaccination. Some require annual rabies vaccinations; the rest require the vaccination be given every two or three years (depending on the state).”
To my knowledge, the part I’ve italicized is not correct. In recent years, every state has adopted a three-year rabies vaccination policy, thanks in large part to Ronald D.

Schultz, PhD, (whom you quote elsewhere in your article) and his colleagues. That said, Dr. Schultz, professor and Chair of the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and head of the Rabies Challenge Fund, notes that dog owners should check their local regulations, as municipalities in some states have the right to set rabies laws that are stricter – but not more lenient than – state policies.

Diana Laverdure
Via email

Thanks, Diana, for this correction. And thanks to Dr, Schultz and everyone else who worked to make this positive change happen! It’s important that dogs are vaccinated against rabies and equally important that they not be over-vaccinated.

I just started reading my June WDJ, and when glancing at “What’s Ahead” I was terribly excited to see that you are going to do something on L-Tryptophan.

I am sure you have already written the article, but I just wanted to say that my dog’s life was saved (well, okay, absolutely his quality of life was definitely saved) because I was able to use this very effectively when he was so OCD he could not even train for five minutes. Ruffie was diagnosed clinically as OCD (CCD for dogs, more accurately) at Tufts, by Dr. Nicolas Dodman himself. But I had to keep researching because all they wanted to do was put him on Prozac, which I refused to do.

Thanks to L-Tryptophan, Ruffian was able to completely turn around. To make a long story short, now at 10 years old, he has earned every single multiple top championship agility titles well beyond my wildest dreams. He won the CPE nationals a few years ago as well, and placed at the USDAA Regionals in tournament classes a couple of times as well. He wins classes at the DOCNA championships every year. And because of some other dietary changes (no grain, low carbs) made a few years ago, he no longer needs the L-Tryptophan either.

Barbara Rogers
Atlanta, GA

No doubt by now you’ve seen the article on L-Tryptophan in our July issue (“Talking Turkey”), which indicated that in double-blind studies (and one single-blind study), the supplement didn’t prove to be as helpful for anxiety-related disorders as some hoped it would. But we’re proponents of doing what works, with the least harm, and the supplement fits the bill in both of those categories. We’re very happy that you found “what works” for Ruffian!

Regarding “What’s SUP, Pup?”, your article on stand-up paddleboarding in the August issue: While the pastime and the bonding is admirable, I’m curious about one thing in particular.

As a dog trainer of 40-plus years and a professional mariner of 37 years, I find the pictures of the handler most grievous. While the author makes great mention of personal flotation devices (PFDs) for the dog, she makes only makes small mention of such for the handler. Drownings are common to persons ill-trained in water-related activities. Combine that with a dog who under normal circumstances is obedient and stable with an unknown situation such as distress in unfamiliar surroundings and you have a recipe for disaster.

Trent Farrell
Via email

Point taken. As the article mentioned, the Coast Guard requires the presence of a PFD on any vessel when paddling beyond the limits of swimming or surfing areas.

I was reading yet another terrific issue of the WDJ tonight, and felt like I needed to tell you how very much I value this publication. As I started thinking about it, I realized that I feel a special connection with it after all these years.

I’ve subscribed for a very long time, long before I was interviewed for an article on my use of gold bead implants for my female Doberman’s Wobblers syndrome. The gold bead implants were so successful that my dog even returned to agility.
And I really owe you thanks for the series of articles you did on various dog sports in 2009, and one in particular, on K9 Nose Work, in the August 2009 issue. I do Doberman rescue with Jane Fratesi, and Jane emailed me in November 2009 and asked me if I thought nose work would ever come to Atlanta. I told her I had an idea of how it might, and I called (frequent WDJ contributor) Lisa Rodier, whom I had known for years. The rest is how K9 Nose Work came to this part of the country, including the popular K9 NW Camp, co-directed by Lisa.

The dog I took to my first nose work workshop was my 8-year-old agility star, Parker. Once we tried nose work, we were hooked, and because I wanted to learn all about what she was doing when she hunted, I videotaped all of our training. The founders of the sport saw the videos and asked if they could use them for their first introductory DVD. That DVD was in the finals for the Dog Writers Association of America contest this past February. It lost to Turid Rugaas; no shame in that! But it remains a Dogwise best-seller. And Parker turned 12 in August.

I’ve not even mentioned the health information (I love Zeel, Wobenzyme, coconut oil, I’ve shared the Budwig diet with friends), and training ideas. And toys, and crates, and oh! Great info about food! Thanks! I’m only touching the tip of the iceberg regarding the things I love and am grateful for from WDJ!

Christy Waehner
Atlanta, GA

Christy, thanks so much for your long-time support (and occasional contributions to Lisa’s articles!). We’ve learned a lot over the years, too!

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Fostering Puppies

By
Nancy Kerns
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I’ve been fostering a litter of six puppies, who are probably only about five weeks old. And I think I have lost my mind. I’m tired, my sleep schedule is all off, I haven’t walked myself or my own dogs for a week, I’ve been eating at weird times (and not with my husband), and I feel alternately so full of love for and weepy about these little guys (they are all boys!) . . . and it’s only been a week. Talk about that new-mom feeling!

How did this happen? I wrote an article for the October issue about intestinal parasites – worms – and I called my local shelter to see if they had any wormy puppies I could photograph. Most puppies have at least one type of worms (roundworms, which they get from their mothers in utero and in the milk! Ack!) and some of our shelter puppies have every type of worm in the book. The shelter vet tech told me she had a young litter with the typically round, bloated look of wormy puppies, which was perfect for my photo.

But when I asked about the puppies – Where was their mom? How old are they? Where are our usual puppy foster people? – I learned that, basically, we don’t know about the mom, they really are way too young to be without her, and our puppy foster people are unavailable. Well, I couldn’t just exploit them and leave them there; puppies that small don’t always make it at this shelter. So I had to take them home, right?

But it took a few days to figure out how to manage them. Or, more specifically, their poop. They had received a dose of dewormer, and they were all suffering from upset tummies – most likely a combination of a too-rapid transition from their mother’s milk to wet food and the worms dying. So they were pooping machines! And of course, too young to know to poop away from their food or to try to avoid walking through the gooey, sticky poop. I’ve been employing newspaper (useful), shredded paper (less useful), puppy pads (expensive), old towels and sheets (absorbent but makes for a lot of laundry), and wood shavings (my favorite substrate so far), and lots of paper towels for wiping up random messes made when I let them charge around the kitchen floor (super fun) and for wiping off faces and paws after meals, and puppy butts whenever needed.

I’m feeding them four times a day, and will probably be moving that back to three times in another week or so. For the first five days, there was always at least one or two puppies who wouldn’t eat one meal or another, and who was looking a tad depressed and lethargic. I gave those puppies straight milk replacer (fortunately, no one got too sick to be interested in lapping that up) and they bounced right back. But each time one sunk a little, ah, my heart!

I don’t know how people raise puppies on a regular basis. Oh wait, right, the puppies usually have mothers who clean and feed them. Then I don’t know how people foster puppies on a regular basis. Well, actually, if I was to do this regularly, I would invest in more infrastructure, and now I would know how to better manage the puppies daily demands. But I still don’t know how someone would manage emotionally . . . for all my complaints, I think it’s going to really hurt to send them back to the shelter when they are big enough and old enough to be placed. For now, I’m just trying to enjoy them, and be happy about the fact that it looks like they are all going to make it.

First “Whoops!” Incident in Dog-Owning

By
Nancy Kerns
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Cole at the vet, waiting for help with the bone stuck on his lower jaw.

My son reminded me recently of something that happened to his dog a little over six years ago. I wrote a post about the incident then, but upon re-reading it after talking to my son about it, I thought it might serve as a reminder to dog owners this week.

****

Last weekend, my son got his first taste of emergency veterinary medicine (and the resulting surprise of its cost). Fortunately, it was for a non-serious accident, not a horrid injury or illness. But still: his college graduation present may well end up being a health insurance policy for his dog, Cole.

He was at a weekend team-building retreat for his sports team – so, a bunch of young men and a few of their dogs. One of the other young men had brought a raw chew bone for his own dog, Mister. My son caught Cole with the bone and took it away, putting the bone up on a table; he (correctly) judged the bone to be poorly suited for Cole. It was too small for a big dog, presenting a choking risk, and shaped like a ring. It was likely, a cross-section of a cow’s “shin” bone. In horses we call that the cannon bone but I don’t know if it’s called that in cattle.

But at some point, Cole got hold of the bone again and the next thing my son knew, Cole was writhing in distress and guys were jumping in, trying to see what was wrong with the usually ebullient young dog. It was the best-case stuck-bone incident you can imagine: It wasn’t stuck in his throat or actually hurting him, but Cole had somehow gotten the bone looped around his lower jaw and was freaking out. If he didn’t have canine teeth (“fangs”), it would have slipped right off, but any efforts to remove it caused the bone to pinch his gums and chin. The guys tried to get the bone off in a number of ways, but Cole grew increasingly scared and anxious and defensive.

My son eventually called around and found an emergency veterinary clinic that was open, about 40 minutes away. The vet gave Cole a sedative, but he still fought any efforts to manipulate the bone, so the vet fully anesthetized him. Within about five minutes, the vet was finally able to twist and turn and unlock the puzzle and remove the bone. The vet then administered a reversal drug, monitored Cole long enough to see that he awoke and was going to be fine, and that was that: $250. Ouch.

Lessons learned: Raw chew bones are awesome for dogs, but they need to be appropriately sized, and the dogs need to be monitored with them. In fact, ALL chew items need to be appropriately sized (GIANT is the safest size for any dog) and dogs need to be actively supervised while they are chewing. If you are somewhere and there is a hazard that you can’t control (such as a family member or a friend who might give your dog a treat or toy you haven’t approved or another dog who may be a counter-surfer), you should put your dog somewhere out of harm’s way: on leash or in a crate or closed securely in a bedroom. And pet health insurance is an awesome idea for a young, active dog who lives with a young, active, social man.

(When Pigs Fly #2) Teaching Attention as a Behavior

By
Jane Killon
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Automatic attention is the mother of all behaviors and one of the first things you should teach your dog. There is no point in teaching your dog how to do things if he is going to ignore you when you ask him to do them. If your dog is off in a mentally distant land and you repeatedly call his name, you are just like static in the background to him. The only thing you will have accomplished is to devalue his name. Even if you got yourself one of the excellent dog training books out there and followed the instructions in it exactly, you would probably find that your Pigs Fly dog still doesn’t preform when you want him to. That is often because he is not paying attention to you.

Lack of attention is often, sadly, the issue that causes owners to give up on their impossible dogs. Take heart! Training a dog to have attention is absolutely no different than training a dog to sit or dome when called. You are not going to get a “gimme” when it comes to attention. You are going to have to train it like any other behavior and that means more work for you. The good news is that it can be trained and, once you have your dog’s attention, anything is possible.

You are not going to teach an attention cure or command. Attention is going to become your dog’s default behavior, and you will not have to ask for it with nagging commands. Teaching a dog a verbal cue to pay attention implies that is OK for him not to pay attention unless she gets the verbal cue. Instead, if your dog is with you, he should be conditioned to watch you  like a hawk all the time because he never knows when you might do something interesting or fun. If you call your dog to you, or take him out on a leash, you should become the center of his universe and his eyes should be pretty much glued to you whenever you are together. How will you get that attention? By free shaping it, of course. You have already laid the foundation for attention in your powering up the clicker exercise, now you just need to make sure you have that same attention everywhere you go, no matter what is going on.

Dog Doors: Conduits for Good or Not-So-Good

By
Nancy Kerns
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I think my favorite dog book published in the past decade is Merle’s Door, by Ted Kerasote. The book is, in part, a memoir of one special dog’s life shared with the author. But Kerasote weaves meditations and essays about the greater philosophical dimensions of our collective human lives with dogs into the story. (This essay on the author’s own website gives a good example of the type of  content you’d find in the book: http://www.kerasote.com/essays/ted-kerasote-merle-essay.pdf)

The title of the book references a struggle that Kerasote experienced with Merle, a former “stray” dog,  regarding Merle’s desire to come and go from Kerasote’s house (located near a small village in rural Wyoming) as he pleased. The author discusses his fears for his dog’s safety outdoors, as well as the dog’s frustration with being locked in – or sometimes, being locked out and having no way to get back in (for example, when Kerasote  had to go somewhere while the dog was out roaming). The discussion touches on every aspect of what it means to take full responsibility for a dog’s life – and movingly describes how the installation of a dog door in Kerasote’s house fundamentally changed his relationship with Merle. Kerasote had observed that Merle was an exceptionally intelligent survivor, capable of handling just about anything that his rugged Western environment might throw at him without violating human rules about livestock or other dogs or humans, so he gave his dog the means to leave (and return) whenever he wanted – and the arrangement made both of them much happier.

I don’t have a dog door in my house, but I do have a curtain-style screen that hangs over the open doorway of a wide sliding glass door that goes from our kitchen to a large deck and our backyard. Thanks to a Mediterranean climate, we leave that door open at night from around March through October, so the dogs and cats can come in and go out as they please – without waking us up to open the door for them. Until we got the curtain-style screen, they would open the door, but of course none of them know how to close it, so we had mosquitoes in the house, which I can’t abide. With the curtain, they just push their way through, and its weighted bottom edge swings it back into place. The arrangement works perfectly for all of our adult dogs, who don’t sleep in our room; less so for my son’s adolescent dog, Cole, who usually does sleep with my son.

I’m afraid Cole doesn’t yet have the maturity or judgment to know what to do with the freedom to go inside and out all night, and this past week, with me dog-sitting again while my son was again traveling with his sports team, he found increasingly novel things to do each night. One night, I was awakened by odd thumping sounds, followed by chewing sounds; he had taken a piece of firewood off the woodpile, dragged it across the lawn, deck, through the house and into my bedroom, where he proceeded to chew it like a rawhide. Another time he removed a small and highly specific part – a pressure valve – from a plastic pressure sprayer that I had recently used to stain a deck (and I’ve been unable to find it anywhere…including his stool). This morning, when I looked out my kitchen window as I prepared a pot of coffee, I was surprised – and then horrified – to see a dozen or more apples and a bunch of leaves and twigs from one of our apple trees spread all over the lawn. He basically picked every apple within reach of his tiptoes, and chewed on some of the branches. Fortunately, I’m the first one up each morning, and was able to clean up all of the evidence before my husband saw, although I’m sure he’s wondering why I picked so many apples a tad too early.

Thank goodness, my son came back from his travels today, and Cole can sleep with him in a closed bedroom. I think it will be wiser to wait at least until next spring to try an open-door policy with him again.

(Training The Best Dog Ever #1) Leash Walking: Be a Tree – the First Steps Together

By
Dawn Sylvia-Stasiewicz and Larry Kay
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The point of this training session – which should last no longer than five minutes – is to get your dog used to walking on the leash the way you want him to. I recommend that you use a six-foot leash and come prepared with lots of treats.

1. FOCUS FIRST. Before you take your first steps together, make sure that your dog is focused on you. Then hold a treat in your left hand and lure your dog in the direction you want to walk. If you have a small dog, get ready to bend down a lot. Start walking forward, allowing a lot of slack in the leash.

2. “BE A TREE”. When your dog starts to pull, stop walking, hold the leash tight to your chest, and stand still and firm, like a tree.

3. MARK AND REWARD. The moment he looks at you, say “good” and lure him toward you with the treat as you take two steps backward. Praise him, touch his collar, and reward him with the treat. Your timing needs to be precise, so watch for that moment when he looks at you, even if only an instant at first, because that’s when his attention is returning to you.

If your dog doesn’t look at you, break down the lesson and reward his tiny improvements. If he continues to lean forward against the leash without trying to take a step, look for the moment when he slackens the leash and praise that. If he still doesn’t give you attention, make a slight sound to attract him. If that still doesn’t work, silently “reel yourself in” to your dog (don’t pull him toward you, but go hand-over-hand up the leash as if you were pulling yourself up a rope), and then lure him to start walking in the opposite direction. If he looks at you as you reel yourself in, praise, stop reeling, and lure. Remember that this isn’t a walk for distance or heeling; it’s a five-minute walking exercise to teach you how to hold a leash and to manage pulling. Be patient.

Trying something entirely new (and fun!)

By
Nancy Kerns
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I virtually “met” Sandi Pensinger a few years ago, when WDJ Training Editor Pat Miller wrote an article for the April 2011 issue about the sport of Treibball – it’s a herding-type sport played with large exercise balls on a large grass field; you direct your dog into herding (pushing) them into soccer goals. Sandi is a dog trainer from Capitola, California (next door to Santa Cruz); her business, Living With Dogs, offers group and private classes for puppy and dog training, and lots of fun dog sports, including Treibball. (She also produced a series of instructional DVDs about the Treibball, available from Dogwise.com.) Sandi provided a lot of photos of dogs of various sizes playing Treibball for our article (whole-dog-journal.com/training/tricks_games_sports/try-treibball-the-new-herding-sport-no-sheep-required/
).

I recently became aware that Sandi was offering classes — and more significantly for me, someone who lives about four hours away from her training location — monthly “fun” practices for another canine sport, lure coursing.

We also ran an article about lure coursing some years ago (whole-dog-journal.com/training/tricks_games_sports/lure-coursing-is-your-dog-up-for-the-chase/
) and I’ve been intrigued and interested in seeing a lure coursing event ever since. I still haven’t seen the real deal, but I did attend Sandi’s most recent fun practice event with Otto – and we had a blast!

“Real” lure coursing is different from our practice event in a number of ways; the fun practice is mainly meant to introduce people and dogs to the basic premise: a fleece or plastic bag lure is fastened to a small cable and is whisked around a course in an open field; dogs chase the lure as fast as they can. In the official version, dogs are scored for speed, agility, endurance, enthusiasm, and “following” (as opposed to taking short cuts across the field). There is also a time limit for the handler to get control of his dog at the end of the course.

Owners attended the “just for fun” practice event I went to for a number of reasons. Some, like me, seemed to be there just to see whether their dogs would chase the lure at all – and a few dogs didn’t! One little Labradoodle could not be less interested in the lure, but seemed to enjoy just walking around the field with her owners. Other people brought their dogs for the exercise. One German Wirehaired Pointer ran the course beautifully for one lap, and when the lure was stopped, just kept running and performed a second lap with no lure at all (he eventually had to be tackled to a halt, though). There was a young black Lab who wiggled and whined and was generally a bit inattentive and rowdy while waiting her turn, until her owner brought her out to the lure course. THEN she focused and ran like the wind after it! Her owner told me, “We’re hoping she learns to behave that appropriately in other settings in time, but for now, she loves this and sleeps well for a few days afterward, so . . .”

My dog Otto loves to chase rabbits and squirrels when he gets a chance, so I thought he might chase the lure; I was thrilled when he did on the very first try. I told the lure operator (Sandi’s husband) that Otto had never seen this before, so he kept the lure close enough to Otto to keep him interested all the way around the field – which, by the way, was fenced off so dogs who were entirely new to the sport couldn’t “shortcut” across the course; they had to follow the lure. On the first try, Otto sort of bounced and pounced toward the lure all the way around the course, trying to figure out what it was; he didn’t run flat out, because he could see it wasn’t a rabbit or other potential prey, but it was intriguing (and I was yelling “Get it! Get it!”). He was confused but game.

On our second turn, he took off faster, but when he started to take the first turn, I think the change in direction caused him to hear me yelling for the first time and, since we work on long-distance recalls, I think he thought I was calling him to come back. He looked over his shoulder toward me, back toward the lure, and then came running back to me. The operator reversed the lure so that as Otto sped toward me, the lure passed him, and as he approached me, I yelled, “Get it! Get it! Get it!” and he obligingly ran past me in pursuit of the lure in the new direction and ran that lap faster than the first.

A friend came with me and brought her iPad, so I have video of some of this. The video posted here is our third try. By now, Otto was figuring it out, and I told the operator to let Otto go for two laps if he was running well (so Otto wouldn’t think he was always supposed to just run one lap and then stop). He maintained his enthusiasm for both laps, although he did look a little wobbly legged for a minute after the anaerobic effort.

Am I going to take up the sport of lure coursing? No – but I’m definitely going to attend another fun practice session. It was a blast to try something completely different with my dog, particularly because I thought it was something he might enjoy, and to see how he would behave in a completely novel environment (surrounded by barking, excited, ramped-up dogs). He did great, and I was super proud of his focus on me and how well he listened and returned to me at the end – a great test of our relationship, which, of course, he passed with flying colors. I’m going to bring more friends and their dogs to the next practice session.

(If you live anywhere near the Central Coast of California, come check it out! livingwithdogs.us/#!lure-coursing/c1sps)

Develop Your Dog’s Flexibility

By
Nancy Kerns
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I often dog-sit for friends and relatives. It’s easy for me, because I have all sorts of dog gear, food, treats, and chews laying around. Also, my own home and the house down the block where I have my office are both securely fenced (and well-outfitted with crates and dog beds of various sizes). Plus, if the dogs are fidgety and in need of exercise and stimulation, I can grab my camera, load the dogs into my car, and head out to a nearby open space area to run them on trails or allow them to swim in the river – and any good pictures I get, or interesting experiences I have with the dogs, are helpful to my job!

whole dog journal editor nancy kerns

But I realized this summer that my own dog is not nearly as comfortable being left with other people as their dogs are happy being left with me. (I’m aware that it’s not me that the dogs enjoy; it’s the doggie Disneyland setup, complete with nice, friendly dogs to play with and lots of enriching activities.) When left in the care of someone other than my husband, Otto frets and mopes, whines and paces. At the vet, he’s the dog who has to be lifted and put into the cage (he won’t go in on cue like he does at home, because he knows it’s not home).

In contrast, our other dog, Tito (who was left by a relative with us more than three years ago), would go with anyone who was nice to him. He sees every outing as an opportunity to meet people who love him. And when we visit other people’s homes, he immediately starts guarding their dogs’ dishes, takes over the cushiest dog beds, steals any tennis balls or rawhide chews he finds, and climbs into and defends any nice person’s lap from the dogs who live there. Hey! He might end up living there, too; it’s happened to him before! Tito had been in the care of five or six different family members prior to coming to stay here, so maybe he can be forgiven for so assertively making himself at home anywhere he goes.

As opportunistic as he is, I think Tito is far healthier from an emotional standpoint than Otto is. As flattering as it might feel to have your dog highly bonded to you, it’s not a very good thing for him. I’ve fostered a number of shelter dogs who had lost their owners (whether the owners lost them, died, or were forced to surrender them due to financial or health reasons); the ones who are willing and able to approach and bond with new people find homes readily. It takes far longer to place the ones who remain distant and morose, seeming to wait for their special people.

Working dogs (including many herding, hunting, police, military, and service dogs) are often trained and handled by a number of different people in their lifetimes, and while they almost always bond tightly with the person who handles them the most, they are taught from an early age to trust and work with anyone who speaks their language – any people who know their work and their cues. These dogs also tend to be confident, accepting, and friendly with new people.

I don’t plan to become separated from my dog for very long, but for his sake, I’m going to make an effort to teach him to be happier with other people, in other places than home. I think it’s time we take some more classes – in agility, K9 Nose Work, whatever – and I allow other trustworthy people to handle him, too. I’d like to know that if anything ever happened to me, he’d have no problem adjusting to life without me.

Dehydrated Dog Food Review 2014

By
Nancy Kerns
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Occasionally we are asked to rate the various options that owners have for feeding their dogs, based on the relative “healthiness” of each major type of food: home-prepared (raw or cooked); commercial raw, frozen diets and freeze-dried or dehydrated dog food raw diets; canned food, and kibble. Actually, in our opinion, that list of food types is ranked accurately right there, from best to worst, in terms of their potential for improving or supporting a dog’s peak health.

dehydrated dog food

On what do we base that ranking? While it’s difficult to get nutritionists to agree on just about anything, it’s likely that most would agree on the following general idea: that a diet that was formulated to be “complete and balanced” and comprised of fresh, lightly processed or unprocessed species-appropriate ingredients is healthier than a “complete and balanced” diet containing highly processed ingredients that are uncommonly consumed by a given species in nature. That general theory explains our high esteem for the dehydrated and freeze-dried diets that we’ve listed in the attached 2014 Dehydrated Dog Food Review

ATTENTION: In the April 2018 issue, Whole Dog Journal published a new, updated list of approved freeze-dried raw dog food.

We’ve lumped a lot of disparate diets into this category. Even though they vary widely in terms of ingredients, “rawness,” manufacturing process, finished form, and protein and fat levels, what all of these diets share is their high inclusion of high-quality animal protein and fats, and a method of preservation that only lightly alters or damages the nutrients in the food: drying. The idea is to remove moisture from the food; the less moisture that is contained in a food, the longer its nutrients will remain unspoiled and available to the consumer (your dog).

Drying can be accomplished at low temperatures, but it takes longer and leaves meats and fats vulnerable to oxidation (spoilage); most dried foods are prepared with temperatures of 140ºF to 180ºF. (Food can rot when kept in temperatures between 140ºF to 32ºF; If it’s held in temperatures colder than 30ºF, it freezes; if it’s exposed to temperatures higher than 180ºF, it will start to cook.) Dehydrators actually lightly cook the food as it dries, altering the cellular structure of meats, fruits, and vegetables. In contrast, proper freeze-drying doesn’t affect the appearance or taste of foods as much.
Freeze-dryers expose foods to low temperatures, freezing them relatively quickly, and then to high air pressure (freeze-drying machines resemble large pressurized gas tanks). When the pressure inside the chamber is high enough, small heating units are turned on, heating the trays that the food sits on, and causing the frozen water (a solid at that point) in the foods to transform into a gas (water vapor). Pumps pull the vapor out of the chamber while keeping the internal air pressure high. The term for freeze-drying is sublimation: the act of a solid shifting directly into a gas.

It sounds radical, but the process actually leaves most foods less damaged than dehydration. Freeze-drying doesn’t shrink or toughen most food ingredients, and it leaves most aromas and flavors in the food intact. There are some food compounds that don’t freeze-dry well; those that contain vinegar or alcohol don’t sublimate nicely, but these are not common ingredients in canine diets!

Some owners seek out these diets specifically for their rawness; they believe feeding raw meat is natural and beneficial to their dogs. If a raw diet is your chief motivation for considering these diets, avoid the products that contain dehydrated ingredients in favor of the ones that contain freeze-dried ingredients.

See a list of the best freeze-dried raw dog foods here.

Other Benefits of Dehydrated Dog Food

In addition to being (mostly) raw and lightly processed, dehydrated diets offer a number of other benefits to dogs – and their owners.

Very low-moisture foods can be stored longer at room temperature (in unopened packages) without spoiling or rancidity than conventional kibble. Most dehydrated diets contain less moisture than conventional kibble, which generally contains about 10 percent moisture. The less moisture there is in a food, the less biological activity can occur.

Dehydrated foods weigh less and are more compact than foods containing more moisture. This makes them especially well suited for travel. It also means they cost less to ship.

When rehydrated, these foods are highly palatable to most dogs. It may be due to the concentration of flavor in dehydrated food ingredients or their light processing.
As a generalization, the makers of these products are targeting the top end of the market, and have an extraordinary commitment to sourcing top-quality ingredients. In many cases, “human-quality” (“edible”) ingredients are used, though only one company can legally make this claim (The Honest Kitchen, because every single ingredient in the product is human-quality (the legal term is “edible”) and the products are made at a human food manufacturing plant.

The Different Kinds of Dehydrated Dog Food

As we mentioned earlier, the dried foods discussed here are diverse in content, appearance, and form. Some contain grains and some don’t. Some include lots of vegetables, fruits, and herbs, and some are almost all meat. Some utilize organic ingredients, and some don’t. And some manufacturers utilize pasteurization of some kind, and some don’t. (For more on this, see “Safety Issues,” below.)

Most of these products are meant to be rehydrated with water, though most can be fed without rehydration.

Some of these products are presented in a dried “patty” or “medallion” form; others have been dried into nuggets or dried and then sliced into cubes. Others are very powdery, which makes them turn into a sort of mush or gruel, depending on how much water you add. Still others have relatively large chunks of identifiable dehydrated meats, fruit, and/or vegetables mixed into a powdery meat base. This can be either an advantage (if your dog enjoys the contrast in taste and mouth-feel) or a disadvantage (if your dog seeks out only the chunks or mush and eschews the other).

The most significant difference between these foods and more conventional commercial products, though, is the high fat and, to a slightly lesser extent, high protein levels that most contain. Some are very high in fat and protein; others compare in these respects to conventional kibble. Always check the guaranteed analysis when switching to a product in this category; they are so nutrient-dense that you may have to significantly reduce the volume of food that you feed your dog in order to prevent him from gaining too much weight.

The Cost of Dehydrated Dog Food

The cost of feeding this sort of diet may be prohibitive for many dog owners. These products are pricey. In general, the freeze-dried products cost the most, because freeze-drying is an energy-intensive process. (For what it’s worth, however, shipping costs of these light-weight foods are minimal!) My guess is that they are fed mostly under the following conditions:

– Cost is not a factor (wealthy owner).
– Owner has one dog, or very small dogs (and so won’t need to buy large amounts).
Products are used as “complete and balanced” training treats, rather than sole diet.
Owner usually feeds a raw diet (home-prepared or otherwise) but is traveling, so one of these diets is used short-term replacement.
– Dog is extremely picky (and thin), but will eat these foods with relish. (We frequently hear about this with the freeze-dried foods, which seem to retain their palatability very well.)
– Dog’s health is generally precipitous, but currently well-managed thanks to one of these diets, so it makes the most sense to “pay for the food, rather than the vet.”
– Dog’s health is poor, and these highly palatable products are being used as a short-term tactic to keep him eating.

Safety Issues with Raw Dog Food

Raw diets aren’t for every dog or owner. These foods will be especially attractive to owners who already feed a raw diet to their dogs, or who have researched raw diets and who are ready to take responsibility for feeding their dog a raw diet (and perhaps, have the support already of a veterinarian who is comfortable with and knowledgeable about raw diets).

If you are fearful about the potential for exposing your dog to pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella or Listeria, or you have an immune-compromised dog, you may want to either skip these diets, or seek out the ones who pasteurize their products and utilize a vigorous “test before releasing” program, such as Stella & Chewys.

Understand that experienced raw feeders, as they are known, are not afraid of these bacteria. They frequently point out that there have been far more recalls of conventional kibble that is “contaminated” with Salmonella than raw food products, and very few dogs have gotten ill as a result of eating these foods. Dogs have much sturdier digestive tracts than humans, and only very rarely have a problem eating food that is contaminated with these bacteria. (Dogs with compromised immune systems, like humans with similar conditions, would be most at risk.)

Some companies use high pressure processing (HPP, also known as high pressure pasteurization or Pascalization) to kill any pathogenic bacteria that might be present in the food; others use HPP only on products that contain poultry (the most likely meat to be contaminated with bacteria); and still others rely entirely on buying the best possible meats, handling them with care, and using superior sanitation throughout the manufacturing process. Ask the maker of the food you are considering what they do (or don’t do) to pasteurize their products.

Our List of Approved Dog Foods

ATTENTION: In March 2018, Whole Dog Journal published a new, updated list of approved freeze-dried raw dog food.

The companies we’ve highlighted on the following pages make extremely good dog foods, but as always, only you can determine which ones are right for your dog and your budget. As a comparison tool, we selected one variety from each manufacturer and listed its ingredients and guaranteed analysis. To help directly compare the unique formulation approaches taken by each company, we selected the “beef” formula whenever that variety was available.

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