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Your Dog & The “Placebo Effect”

By
Linda P. Case, MS
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0

Most people are familiar with the concept of a “placebo effect,” the perception that a subject’s health improved after the subject unknowingly received an inert treatment that should have had no effect on the subject whatsoever. The assumption is that because we believe that we have received an actual treatment, our mind tells us that we should feel a bit better. Then, amazingly, we do feel better. We notice a reduction in symptoms and ultimately conclude that the “medicine” must be working. The irony is that placebos actually can be powerful medicine (or something), at least for some people, for some diseases, some of the time.

old dog

The effects of placebos in human medicine are well documented. The highest level of placebo effect is seen with diseases that have subjective symptoms that are patient-reported, difficult to measure directly, tend to fluctuate in severity, and occur over long periods (i.e., are chronic). Examples include depression, anxiety-related disorders, gastric ulcer, asthma, and chronic pain. In medical research, an average placebo response rate of 35 percent is reported, with rates as high as 90 percent for some health conditions. By any standard, that is a powerful effect!

Although the reasons that we respond to placebos are not completely understood, medical researchers universally accept the importance of considering them when studying new treatments. Studies of new drugs or medical interventions include placebos as control groups to allow unbiased comparisons with the treatment or intervention under evaluation. Any effect that the placebo group shows is subtracted from the effect measured in subjects who receive the actual medication. The difference between the two is considered to be the degree of response attributable to the treatment. If a placebo control group was not included, it would be impossible to differentiate between a perceived response (placebo) and a real response to the treatment.

Today, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials are considered to be the gold standard of study designs by medical researchers. (The “double-blind” part refers to the fact that in addition to having both a placebo group and a treatment group, neither the researchers nor the subjects know which subjects receive the treatment and which receive the placebo until the trial is concluded.)

Placebos and Our Dogs

So, what about dogs? Can a placebo effect occur with dogs? Possibly, but things work a bit differently where our dogs are concerned.

The first major difference is that dogs are basically always blinded to treatments. Although they may understand that something different is being done to them (or that there is a strange pill buried in that piece of cheese), most people will agree that dogs do not understand that they are being medicated for a particular health problem or are on the receiving end of a new behavior modification approach. As a result, unlike human patients, dogs will lack the specific expectations and beliefs about health interventions that are necessary for a placebo effect to occur directly.

However, in cases where owners or caregivers are required to observe and report symptoms and changes in health regarding the dog’s response to a given treatment, a different type of placebo effect may occur – a “caregiver placebo effect.” As with human maladies, the conditions for which this type of placebo effect has been described in dogs are those that involve subjective measures of health (pain, activity level, appetite) and that have a tendency to fluctuate in severity.

When evaluating a drug for its effect on something that can be measured with objective tools, such as blood pressure, blood sugar, or hormone levels, our subjective opinion of the dog’s response is not relevant. But when the treatment is aimed at something like pain – something that can’t be easily measured with medical tests – our vulnerability to the placebo effect arises again, as recorders and reporters of our dogs’ health and symptoms. While highly communicative in many ways, dogs cannot specifically tell us what part of their body hurts, how intense the pain is, whether it is abating, or by how much. We use our knowledge of a dog’s behavior and body language for clues about how he feels – but how we feel about his situation, symptoms, and treatment may color what we “see.”

Let’s look at two situations where the caregiver placebo effect in dogs has been well observed: osteoarthritis and epilepsy.

Caregiver Placebo Effect Studied

The most common form of arthritis, osteoarthritis occurs when the protective cartilage on the ends of bones wears down over time. It’s a painful and progressive health problem that can seriously impact a dog’s quality of life. Fortunately, a variety of medical and nutritional treatments are available for afflicted dogs, including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS, such as deracoxib and meloxicam), nutrient supplements (e.g., glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate), and complementary or alternative medicine approaches (such as acupuncture or cold laser therapy).

Researchers who have studied these treatments often use subjective measures of lameness in which dogs’ owners and veterinarians numerically rate their dog’s degree of pain, mobility, and interest in daily activities in response to treatment.

Some studies also include objective measurements of arthritis symptoms – such as recordings of the weight distribution of each leg while standing or the amount of force that is exerted by each limb during movement. In a “static weight bearing” test, the dog is positioned with each limb on a separate scale; dogs with joint pain usually distribute their weight in such a way as to reduce weight bearing on the limbs that are most painful and increase it on the other limbs. In a “force plate” or “force platform” gait analysis, instruments measure the force of the strike of each limb as the dog moves.

In virtually all placebo-controlled studies of osteoarthritis treatments, a substantial proportion of owners (and veterinarians!) have reported improvement in the placebo-treated dogs. However, when measured using weight-bearing techniques, far fewer dogs show actual improvement.

The study: Caregiver placebo effect osteoarthritis1 – Two researchers, Michael Conzemius and Richard Evans at the University of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine, analyzed data from the placebo control group of another study – a large clinical trial that was testing the effectiveness of a new NSAID. 

All of the enrolled dogs in the NSAID study had been diagnosed with osteo-arthritis and had clinical signs of pain and changes in gait and mobility. This was a multi-centered design, which means that each dog’s own veterinarian conducted the biweekly evaluations of gait and lameness. Both owners and veterinarians completed questionnaires that asked whether the dog showed improvement, no change, or worsening signs of arthritis over a six-week period. Neither the owners nor the veterinarians knew if their dog/patient was receiving the placebo or the new drug.

dog medication

Keep in mind that Conzemius and Evans had nothing to do with the NSAID study; they simply examined data from the study’s placebo control group.

Results: The ground reaction force (GRF) tests remained largely unchanged for the dogs who were given placebos during “treatment.” Of 58 dogs, five (8.6%) had GRFs that worsened over the course of treatment; seven (12%) had GRFs that improved; and 46 (79.3%) had GRFs that remained unchanged.

However, half (50 percent) of the owners whose dogs received placebos stated that their dog’s lameness was improved during the study. Forty percent reported no change, and 10 percent said that their dog’s pain had worsened.

When these owner reports were compared with actual change as measured by the force platform, the caregiver placebo effect occurred in 39.7 percent of owners.

The dogs’ own veterinarians performed no better. A placebo effect occurred 40 to 45 percent of the time when veterinarians evaluated the dogs for changes in gait or pain.

This means that not only were the owners strongly invested in seeing a positive outcome, so too were their veterinarians. This effect occurred despite the fact that all of the human participants were aware of the 50 percent chance that their dog was in the placebo group not the drug group, and that there was no way to be certain which group their dog was in.

The study: caregiver placebo effect and canine epilepsy2 – Veterinarians from North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine and the University of Minnesota used an approach called a “meta-analysis,” which means that the researchers pooled and then reexamined data collected from several previous clinical trials. They reviewed three placebo-controlled clinical trials that examined the use of novel, adjunct treatments for canine epilepsy.

During the treatment periods in each of the epilepsy studies, owners were asked to record all seizure activity, including the length of the dogs’ seizures, the intensity of the seizures, and the dogs’ behavior before and immediately following seizures.

Results: The majority of owners (79%) of dogs who were (unbeknownst to the owners) receiving a placebo reported a reduction in seizure frequency in their dogs over the six-week study period. What’s more, almost a third of the owners (29%) said that the seizure activity decreased more than 50 percent, the level that was classified in the study protocols as indicative of a positive response to treatment.

Why Do Placebos Work So Well?

What’s going on? Well, several things, it appears. The most obvious explanation of the caregiver placebo effect in dogs is that owners expect a positive response when they assume an actual treatment is being administered to the dog.

Whenever we introduce a new medication, diet, or training method and anticipate seeing an improvement in our dog’s health or behavior, we naturally tilt toward seeing positive results and away from seeing no change (or worse, a negative effect). This is a form of “confirmation bias” – seeing what we expect to see and that confirms our preexisting beliefs.

In fact, an early study3 of the caregiver placebo effect in dogs found that when owners were asked to guess which group their dog was in, the owners whose dogs were actually in the placebo group but said that they were certain that their dogs were in the treatment group demonstrated the strongest positive (placebo) response.

Such expectations may be an especially strong motivator when we are dealing with maladies that have affected our dogs for a long time, conditions that infringe upon our dogs’ ability to enjoy life, and for which we feel that we are running out of options.

Osteoarthritis and seizure disorders were the conditions studied in these papers, but I can think of several other common canine health problems for which we caregivers may easily succumb to the power of the placebo effect. These include chronic allergies, adverse reactions to food ingredients, anxiety-related behavior problems, and even cancer.

Another factor that may contribute to the caregiver placebo effect is finding oneself in a state of contradiction. When we invest time and money (and hope) into a new treatment for our dogs, it follows that we will naturally have high expectations that the treatment will work. If it does not, we may experience cognitive dissonance, the uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradicting beliefs in one’s mind at the same time. For example, “I was told that giving my dog dried gooseberry rinds would cure his chronic itching; these rinds are expensive and hard to find. He doesn’t seem any better . . . This isn’t a good feeling.”

Psychologists tell us that our brain reduces this discomfort for us – without our conscious awareness – by simply changing our perceptions. In this case, convincing oneself that the dog does seem a bit less itchy, her coat is a bit healthier, and overall, she does really seem to be feeling better, immediately solves this problem for the brain and for our comfort level.

Finally, a related phenomenon that is common enough to have earned its own name is the Hawthorne Effect, also called observation bias. This is the tendency to change one’s behavior (or in our case, how we might report our dog’s behavior) simply as a result of being observed. The Hawthorne Effect suggests that people whose dogs are enrolled in an experimental trial may behave differently with their dogs because they know they are enrolled in a trial that is measuring many aspects of the dog’s life.

In the case of the arthritis studies, owners may have altered how regularly they exercised their dogs, began to avoid behaviors that worsened the dog’s arthritic pain, or began to pay more attention to the dog’s diet and weight.

The point is that when people are enrolled in a research trial or are starting a new medical treatment, or diet, or training program and are being monitored, they will be inclined to change other aspects of how they live with and care for the dog as well. These changes could be as important (or more important) than the actual treatment (or placebo). This is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, but is another reason why we always need control groups. It’s important to be aware that the thing that we think is working for our dog may not actually be what’s doing the trick.

Take Away Points for Dog Owners

When trying something new with our dogs, might we, at least some of the time, in some situations, be inclined to see improvement when it does not truly exist? When interpreting our dog’s response to a novel therapy or supplement or training technique, are we susceptible to falling for the sugar pill.

It seems probable, given the science. It is reasonable to at least consider the possibility that a placebo effect may influence our perceptions of our dog’s response to a new or novel food, supplement, training technique, or treatment. This is especially true if the approach being tried has not been thoroughly vetted by research through double-blind, placebo-controlled trials.

While the development of new medications, foods, supplements, and training methods is exciting and important, we must avoid the tendency to see improvement from something that is novel simply because we expect and desire it to be so.

Cited References:

1. Conzemium MG, Evans RB. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical 
Association 2012; 241:1314-1319.

2. Munana KR, Zhang D, Patterson EE. Placebo effect in canine epilepsy trials. Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine 2010; 24:166-170.

3. Jaeger GT, Larsen S, Moe L. Stratification, blinding and placebo effect in a 
randomized, double blind placebo-controlled clinical trial of gold bead implantation in dogs with hip dysplasia. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 2005; 46:57-68.

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

Treatment for Your Dog’s Ear Hematomas

By
Denise Flaim
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25

[Updated January 10, 2019]

If eyes are the windows to the soul, then the ears are its curtains: Whether they are minimalist Roman shades or fringed swags that would make Scarlett O’Hara blush, a dog’s ears frame her face and set off her expression. In other words, while they have a utilitarian function (and an important one at that) they have a cosmetic one, too. So imagine my dismay when I noticed that my handsome old Rhodesian Ridgeback, Blitz – he of the two gorgeously symmetrical triangles held crisply and smartly against his graying face – had what appeared to be a frankfurter growing on the edge of his right ear.

dog ear hematoma

The purplish, sausage-like lump turned out to be an aural hematoma. An accumulation of blood in the ear flap resulting from a broken blood vessel, hematomas are common in drop-eared breeds like mine, though they occur in dogs of all ear types. They are believed to be caused by trauma to the relatively thin tissue of the ear flap, or pinna, often as a result of head-shaking.

The good news about hematomas is that, if left untreated, they are eventually reabsorbed. They will not burst – even though by all appearance they look ready to pop – and the dog is left no worse for wear, except for having to endure the discomfort of a large blood blister weighing down her ear. (There is a great diversity of opinion about just how painful ear hematomas are for dogs, and the only ones who know for sure aren’t talking.)

The bad news is that allowing nature to take its course can have aesthetic implications: As the blood-filled ear flap heals and contracts, scar tissue often develops, causing thickening and wrinkling that make it often noticeably different from its non-clotted counterpart. It’s sort of the doggie version of “cauliflower ear” in boxers (the pugilists, not the canines), whose battered outer ears can become swollen and misshapen, resembling the texture of the vegetable that lent its name to the condition.

In Blitz’s case, I took him to a veterinarian whose expertise in traditional Chinese medicine I greatly admire. But acupuncture and herbs were not options in this case. “Chinese medicine is good for a lot of things,” the vet said with a smile. “But not everything.” His preferred treatment for aural hematomas was to insert a small drain into the ear, which we did. Blitz’s hematoma eventually resolved, and his ear was slightly smaller and a little thicker than it had been before. Not an ideal outcome, but not a terrible one, either.

chihuahua ear hematoma

That seems to be the general theme when it comes to aural hematomas: There are many different methods for treating them, and none is perfect. The overriding challenge is that the hematoma separates the skin from the ear cartilage – sort of like a calzone, to use another food comparison. The inability to get those layers to reattach is what causes the ear to shrivel and become misshapen.

Below are some methods for treating hematomas. Some are mainstays that most veterinarians will recognize; others are relatively new approaches that try to maximize the effort to get the skin and cartilage to start talking to each other again, and one has been used as far back as the time of the Pharaohs – on humans, at least. Remember, though, that taking action is a choice, not a necessity: If you’re okay with that frankfurter shriveling up into a cauliflower, then you can do nothing. Your dog probably couldn’t care less.

Early Intervention

For those who like to incorporate alterative modalities into their dog’s health care, holistic medicine offers maddeningly few options for quickly clearing up hematomas to avoid scarring. Shawn Messonnier, DVM, of Paws & Claws Animal Hospital in Plano, Texas, says he has had “pretty good success” using the homeopathic remedies hypernicum and arnica on smaller hematomas – those that take up one-fourth or less of the ear. “Very often those remedies will help resolve hematomas when they are really small,” he says. But as time progresses, and the hematoma begins to clot and harden, homeopathy can be less effective.

Because eosinophils (a type of white blood cell), and mast cell infiltrations have been found in hematomas, some experts speculate that the blood blister may be a component of an allergic reaction. Veterinarians who use only conventional medicine sometimes prescribe steroids such as prednisone to reduce inflammation, though a 2011 review of treatments for aural hematomas in dogs for the Evidence-Based Veterinary Medical Association found the effectiveness of steroids in resolving hematomas and preventing their recurrence to be inconclusive. Some practitioners use cold-laser treatments to help shrink the hematoma and destroy inflammatory cells.

Ways to Treat a Dog’s Ear Hematoma

Dr. Leni Kaplan, a faculty member in the Community Practice Service of Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in Ithaca, New York, says if she does decide to treat a hematoma, she will insert a small sterile tube to help the ear drain. (Some vets use a specific draining tube called a cannula; Dr. Kaplan prefers a bovine teat cannula, used to treat mastitis in cows, or just sterile IV tubing sewn inside the ear.)

More important than the kind of drain used is the follow-up care that the dog receives. “The main thing is that the owners have to gently massage the ear” to keep the hematoma draining, Dr. Kaplan explains. “If the owner the doesn’t do any home care, it’s a bloody mess.”

The purpose of a drain or cannula is to keep fluid moving out of the hematoma so that it reduces in size, but a downside is that this method doesn’t do much to compress the skin and cartilage together.

A new surgical approach by Rachel Seibert, DVM, and Karen M. Tobias, DVM, DACVS, at the University of Tennessee, takes the idea of having an active drain a step further by creating negative pressure to constantly suck out liquid even as it brings the separated layers together. With their technique, a large needle is inserted into the hematoma to empty it, then a vacutainer (a sterile tube that creates a vacuum so blood can be drawn out easily) is attached to the ear using a butterfly catheter.

“We started using this technique because it is less invasive than surgery, does not require general anesthesia, and has a similar success rate to surgery without the risks,” Dr. Seibert explains. “The reason this technique works is that it is successful at maintaining contact between the skin and cartilage with constant negative suction.”

Dr. Seibert says the success rate with the negative-pressure drain is similar to treatment with drainage followed by steroid injections, with a recurrence rate of 22 percent. “The pinna is typically minimally distorted or wrinkled using this technique,” she says, “and most cases should resolve within seven to 10 days.”

Though the technique is fairly straightforward, challenges include successfully bandaging the whole affair so that it stays on but doesn’t restrict the dog’s breathing; and making sure the owner replaces the tube at regular intervals, because once it fills to a certain point, suction is impaired.

Surgical Removal of Ear Hematomas

In the quest to get the skin and cartilage of the ear to reattach, many (if not most) veterinarians opt for surgery. The drawback to any kind of surgery is that the dog must undergo anesthesia, and post-operative recovery is relatively more painful.

The procedure involves opening the hematoma surgically with an incision on the inner flap of the ear running in a wavy line; the incision drains the hematoma. Then the incision is stitched up, and more stitches are used in what looks just like a “quilting” technique, with knots on both sides of the ear flap, preventing any part of the ear flap from puffing up with fluid again. Many small stitches are used so there are no large unstitched areas where the blood can accumulate again. (Some vets actually stitch shirt buttons to both sides of the ear to exert more and wider pressure on the flap, literally pressing it together!)

Tina Wolfe, DVM, of Poland Veterinary Centre in Poland, Ohio, prefers the incisional method for a hematoma that is chronic – when it has become firm as a result of clotting and is beginning to be reabsorbed.

“The incisional technique allows for a more complete evacuation of the hematoma once a significant clot has formed, which can help decrease the rate of recurrence,” she explains, noting that the sutures help to promote scar tissue and decrease the space for an additional hematoma to form.

For acute hematomas, where a significant clot hasn’t yet developed, Dr. Wolfe opts for a different surgical technique. With a small skin-biopsy punch – which is traditionally used to extract small circles of tissue to be sent to a laboratory for analysis – she makes a series of small staggered holes along the hematoma on the inner surface of the ear flap. After the hematoma has drained, she places a single stitch through each of the small hole punches, tacking the exposed cartilage to the skin without closing the hole.

Newly formed acute hematomas “are more soft and fluid in nature and will drain readily though the biopsy sites, which allows for continued drainage of the hematoma,” she explains. “The punch-biopsy method also tends to have a high success rate, is quickly and easily performed, and has a good cosmetic result.”

As with the quilting technique, no bandages are necessary, though an Elizabethan collar or other protective device is recommended to make sure the dog does not scratch or shake the ear.

“I prefer either of these techniques to drainage alone or cannulas due to higher rates of success and cosmetic outcomes,” Dr. Wolfe concludes. “Both the incisional and punch-biopsy methods have a lower rate of recurrence than cannulas and needle drainage because the sutures help to promote scar tissue and decrease the space for an additional hematoma to form.”

In a paper published in July, Drs. András Gyorffry and Attila Szijártó of Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary, outlined still another operative technique for aural hematomas. With this approach, the hematoma is opened with an incision on the inner flap of the ear running perpendicular to the ear tip. Absorbable sutures that run parallel to the wound are then placed inside the ear tissue, binding together the cartilage and subcutaneous tissue, but not penetrating the skin. After all the stitching is done, the two edges of the incision do not meet, but rather are left a millimeter or two apart, permitting fluid to continue to drain as the ear heals from the inside out.

In a retrospective study of 23 dogs with aural hematomas that were treated with this technique between 2006 and 2012, the authors reported that all but two – or more than 90 percent – healed without any deformity to the ear, and none required additional surgery or had a recurrence. The two cases of misshapen ears were due to a bacterial infection in one and misaligned stitches that permitted wrinkling in the other.

“The new method offers a minor risk of postoperative complications while accomplishing high healing rates,” the authors concluded in their paper.

Leeches for Ear Hematomas

We’ve saved the best – or at least, the most unconventional – for last. In a word: leeches.

These slithery, blood-sucking worms have been used for centuries, dating back to ancient Egypt. Even today in human medicine, leeches are used to drain pooled blood after a digit has been surgically reattached, to treat varicose veins and blocked arteries, and to lessen pain from osteoarthritis. And in dogs, they are most commonly used to treat ear hematomas.

Shelley R. Epstein, VMD, CVH, of Wilmington Animal Hospital in Delaware, has blogged about her experience with leech therapy, formally called hirudotherapy. “No anesthesia is needed; the leeches inject a numbing chemical into the site,” she writes. “It may take a month for the hematoma to fully heal, but the ear is usually normal in appearance afterward.”

According to Biopharm in Hendy, South Wales (“suppliers of leeches since 1812”), ear hematomas in dogs usually call for two to three leeches, and the sooner they are applied, the better. “Leeches can still be used on hematomas that are slightly older and firmer, but in these cases two leech treatments may be required in order to best decongest the blood,” the company explains on its web site. After the leeches are removed, the wound can continue to bleed steadily for as many as 10 hours – ideal in the case of hematomas, where active drainage is needed.

Biopharm describes leeches as “perfectly designed” sucking machines. Leeches have three sets of jaws containing approximately 100 teeth each, and leave a bite mark that resembles the Mercedes-Benz emblem. Along with the natural anesthetic that helps dull the pain of their initial chomp, leeches release several compounds when feeding, including hirudin, an anti-coagulant that maintains blood flow during feeding; and calin, which inhibits clotting for a period afterward. Biopharm acknowledges that as with any treatment, there is a risk of allergic reaction or infection, but notes that it is rare.

In the United States, medicinally farmed leeches are considered a “medical device” by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and their use is regulated by federal law. “Vets have ordered from us,” a terse-sounding spokesperson from Leeches U.S.A. in Westbury, New York, told us; she did not know for what purpose the leeches had been ordered.

Leeches are used for only one treatment, and most meet their demise thereafter. In Dr. Epstein’s practice, they are “retired, and kept in a bowl to swim around.”

The Bottom Line

In the end, it can seem there are as many ways to treat hematomas as there are dogs who develop them. And, depending on whom you talk to, the end results can vary dramatically.

Even though surgery is said to be the best method to avoid scarring and malformation, “I’ve see the ones that have gone to surgery and half of those are as scarred down as those that haven’t,” Dr. Kaplan observes. “And I’ve seen ones where the owners did nothing and their ears look great.”

Still, there are a few constants when it comes to caring for a dog with a hematoma:

If you opt for veterinary intervention, seek it out sooner rather than later, before the hematoma hardens and becomes more difficult to treat.

After the insertion of a device or procedure to drain the hematoma, be meticulous about after care, following your vet’s instructions to keep the hematoma draining and stop fluid build-up.

Avoiding further concussion to the ear is vitally important if it is to stabilize and heal. As annoying or awkward as it is, be sure your dog wears some type of Elizabethan collar to deter scratching and minimize the effects of shaking.

Treat the underlying cause of the head-shaking that produced the hematoma. Otherwise, you are only addressing the symptom and not the cause.

If Blitz were around today, and I had another shot at treating his hematoma, I’d likely pursue some of the newer treatments outlined in this article. Heck, I might even give leeches a try. I’d like nothing better than to find an approach that actually works for this infuriating ear condition – and to keep that head “drapery” as handsome as ever.

Don’t Shake Your Head!

Though the cause of hematomas hasn’t been definitely identified, most veterinarians point to head shaking as the likely culprit. Vigorous or repeated head-shaking can cause a blood vessel in the ear flap to burst and cause acute swelling – but we’ve also seen dogs whose own ID tags have injured their ear flaps during head shaking, initiating the hematoma spiral. So, to keep hematomas from recurring – and to avert their formation in the first place – it’s important to get to the root cause of head shaking and resolve it.

Ear infections are a prime cause of head shaking, and can be persistent and difficult to treat. But once the infection has been brought under control, your work is not done: You need to find out of the source of the imbalance that produced the infection to begin with. Pay attention to whether there has been a change in the dog’s food, supplements, or probiotics; I noticed that even changing my dogs’ diet from raw to home-cooked resulted in an uptick in occasional ear infections.

Another, less obvious cause of head shaking – and the likely cause in Blitz’s case – is a lack of household humidity. Especially in wintertime, household air tends to dry out, and with it the dogs’ skin. An increase in dander makes them itchier, which in turn makes them shake more.

Running a humidifier, boiling a kettle of water, or simply leaving a bowl of the wet stuff out atop a radiator and regularly refilling it can restore much-needed moisture to the household – and stop Fido from flapping.

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. 

Ways to Combat Your Dog’s Indoor Urine-Marking

By
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA
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1

[Updated August 6, 2018]

I can still remember the day, more than a decade ago, when I first realized with horror that our Scottish Terrier, Dubhy (pronounced “Duffy”), was marking in the house. We were trying to sell our Tennessee home at the time, which made the indoor leg-lifting behavior doubly disturbing. Homes with urine stains and odors don’t show particularly well. Dubhy was young, just over a year old. I wrote off the amber-colored stains I found on the heater vent to not-quite-finished housetraining, redoubled my management efforts, and stepped up the “potty outside” routine. It didn’t help. I began to question my professional dog-trainer credentials. Personally faced with persistent indoor marking, one of the more frustrating challenges dog owners encounter, I was not succeeding at resolving it.

urine marking

Leg-lifting is a natural, normal behavior for dogs, especially (although not exclusively) for males. Of course, like lots of other natural, normal dog behaviors, it’s unacceptable to most owners. Fortunately, most male dogs learn pretty quickly that humans, for some unfathomable reason, don’t appreciate their efforts to tell the world that the house, and all items within in it, are the property of the dog and his family. “Keep your paws off!” he is saying to the world.

Indoor marking is also often a function of stress. Dogs who are anxious about their environment are more likely to mark indoors than those who are relaxed and calm. Stress-related marking is harder to modify than the simple “This is my stuff” leg-lifting. Dubhy was a calm, easygoing, laid-back dude. The idea of stress-induced marking didn’t even enter my mind.

Only after several years had passed did I realize that Dubhy’s indoor marking coincided precisely with the start of his dog-reactive behavior. The dog reactivity emerged as the result of a pair of roaming Labradors Retrievers (who lived a mile away) who repeatedly breached their underground shock fence, visited our yard, and fought through our fence with our indomitable Scottie. I eventually realized well after the fact that the two behaviors were connected. Duh. The stress of the two intruding Labradors set off Dubhy’s marking.

Neutering Usually Stops Urine Marking

In Dubhy’s case, my initial analysis of incomplete housetraining, although incorrect, was not entirely off base. Indoor marking often begins in adolescent males because it is a natural behavior. Those “easy” cases often respond well to standard housetraining protocols: increasing the dog’s management to reduce his opportunity to mark, taking him outdoors to potty far more frequently, reinforcing appropriate elimination outside, and interrupting any leg lifts you happen to see with a reminder: “Oops! Outside!”
Of course, housetraining and/or behavior-modification efforts need to be accompanied by a good clean-up program using an enzymatic cleaner, to eliminate any lingering odor of urine (which invites the dog to mark again). It’s also important to rule out or treat any urinary-tract infections as possible contributors to inappropriate elimination. And don’t forget neutering!

According to Dr. Nicholas Dodman, veterinary behaviorist at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, about 60 percent of intact male dogs will stop urine-marking within weeks or months if they are neutered. Other sources claim as high as a 90 percent success rate post-neutering.

Suffice it to say that neutering is a good first step if your dog reverts back to peeing in the house. This is at least in part because intact male dogs will mark everything in response to the scent of a female in season somewhere in the area, and in part because testosterone in general contributes to the motivation to make a “this is mine” statement. Marking by female dogs will also usually resolve with spaying. Of course, the older the dog and the longer your dog has been practicing the marking behavior, the less likely it is that sterilization alone will fix the problem.

Dubhy, however, was neutered some five months before he started marking. That clearly wasn’t the answer to our dilemma. Nor did our return to a basic housetraining protocol stop his behavior.

Stress Generally Causes Dogs to Mark the House

The 10 to 40 percent of dogs who don’t stop their marking after neutering and remedial housetraining efforts are probably, like Dubhy, marking because of stress. In some cases, identifying stressors and removing them can eliminate marking. There are a variety of different strategies for removing stressors. The more stress you can remove, the more likely it is the marking will cease. Other than his reactive aggression toward other dogs, however, Dubhy was a pretty laid-back, mellow guy. We had talked to the neighbors on several occasions about keeping their wandering Labrador Retrievers at home, but Dubhy really didn’t seem to have a whole lot of additional stress in his life.

Exercise is an excellent stress reducer that can help your indoor-marker feel less compelled to lift his leg in your living room. Vigorous off-leash aerobic outings can work wonders with a variety of behavioral issues, as can force-free training routines that require a dog to think, and that tire him mentally. Products such as Adaptil (plug-in pheromone diffuser) can also be effective in decreasing stress levels for some dogs, as can calming massage, aromatherapy, and musical products from Through a Dog’s Ear (see “5 Things to Do if Your Dog Needs Cage Rest,” (August 2014).

How to Manage Urine Marking Indoors

Dr. Dodman suggests that dogs who persistently mark indoors and don’t respond to neutering and housetraining protocols almost always need anti-anxiety medication to resolve the problem. Indeed, pharmaceutical intervention can be quite successful, especially when combined with an ongoing behavior modification program.
Many dog owners prefer to avoid medication if possible, and choose, instead, to use a belly band for their indoor male markers (diapers are necessary for females). This is a reasonable solution to a vexing problem, if the dog accepts the device easily. If the dog can routinely Houdini his way out of the band, or is clearly distressed by wearing it, then it’s not a viable option and medication is a better choice.

We opted for management with Dubhy. He happily accepted his belly band, lined with a sanitary pad, and stood quietly when I told him it was time to put his pants on. Delivering a treat after applying the belly band helped keep him happy about the procedure. He would still mark into the band, so I had to change it as needed to prevent urine burns on his sensitive, bare abdomen.

Our earlier housetraining effort had at least succeeded in convincing Dubhy not to mark in our presence, so he could go pants-free when the family relaxed together evenings in the living room, and for sleep-time overnight in our bedroom. We used baby gates and closed doors to keep him in view. It was only for his unsupervised house-time that the band was required. Sure, I occasionally grumbled internally about the inconvenience of replacing pads and laundering belly bands, and groused out loud when he occasionally managed to pee out from under the band and I had to do clean-up duty, but it allowed us to have a peaceful life with our boy who might otherwise have been the source of much angst over the years.

We lost our beloved Dubhy a few months ago to lymphoma – a nasty and aggressive cancer. We miss him a lot. I’d give anything to have the privilege of putting belly bands on him again.

Ways to Approach Your Dog’s Pee-Inducing Stressors

I utilize five strategies for dealing with stressors. When I’m working with a client whose dog has stress-related behavior issues such as marking, aggression, or generalized anxiety, we list as many stressors as we can think of, assign one or more strategies to each stressor, and agree on which ones we will actively work on. Removing stressors doesn’t necessarily make the unwanted behavior go away, but it does make your behavior-modification efforts much more likely to be successful.

Here are the strategies:

1. Get rid of it

Get rid of anything aversive that causes unnecessary pain or stress, including shock collars, choke chains, and prong collars, and penny cans or throw chains. Even head halters, considered by some trainers to be positive training tools, are aversive to many dogs.

2. Manage your dog’s exposure to the stressors

If your dog isn’t fond of small children and there are none in your life (and he doesn’t encounter them regularly in your neighborhood), you can manage him (as I did) the one time each year your sister comes to visit with your young niece and nephew, by keeping him in another part of the house when the kids are awake and about.

3. Change his association to the stressors

Convince him that something that stresses him is actually very wonderful by pairing it consistently with something else wonderful. If your dog is stressed by men with beards, you can convince him that men with beards always make chicken happen by having a bearded man appear, and feeding your dog bits of chicken, over and over and over again, until he wants furry-faced men to appear so he can have more chicken. The key to successful counter-conditioning, as this process is called, is to always keep the dog below threshold; you want him a little aware of and worried about the aversive stimulus, but not quaking in fear or barking and lunging. (See “Counter-Conditioning,” below.)

4. Teach him a new behavior around the stressors

Perhaps your dog becomes highly aroused by visitors coming to the door. He’s not fearful or aggressive, but the high arousal is a stressor. You can teach him that the doorbell is his cue to run and get in his crate, where he’ll receive a stuffed Kong or other doggie delectable (see “Unwanted Barking at the Front Door,” February 2010). Or you can teach him that visitors will toss toys for him to chase if he sits politely when the door opens.

5. Live with the stressors

You don’t have to actively do something about every stressor in your dog’s world; every dog can tolerate some level of stress and a few stressors. Just try to do something about the ones that are easy to manage or remove from his environment, and be conscious that when he’s being exposed to the ones that you can’t do much about (say, sounds of construction coming from the building project next door), he may be more likely to exhibit urine-marking or other stress-related behaviors at that time.

Counter-Conditioning Urine Marking

Counter-conditioning involves changing your dog’s association with a scary or arousing stimulus from negative to positive. The easiest way to give most dogs a positive association is with very high-value, really yummy treats. I like to use white meat from chicken – canned, baked, or boiled, since most dogs love chicken and it’s a low-fat food.

Here’s how the process works:

1. Determine the distance at which your dog can be in the presence of the stimulus and be alert or wary but not extremely fearful or aroused. This is called the threshold distance.

2. With you holding your dog on leash, have a helper present the stimulus at threshold distance X. The instant your dog sees the stimulus, start feeding him bits of chicken, non-stop.

3. After several seconds, have the helper remove the stimulus, and stop feeding chicken.

4. Keep repeating steps 1-3 until the presentation of the stimulus at that distance consistently causes your dog to look at you with a happy smile and a “Yay! Where’s my chicken?” expression. This is a conditioned emotional response (CER) – your dog’s association with the stimulus at threshold distance X is now positive instead of negative.

5. Now you need to increase the intensity of the stimulus. You can do that by decreasing distance to X minus Y; by increasing movement of the stimulus at distance X (a child walking, skipping, or swinging her arms); by increasing number of stimuli (two or three children, instead of one); increasing the visual “threat” (a tall man instead of a short one, or a man with a beard instead of a clean-shaven one); or by increasing volume (if it’s a stimulus that makes noise, such as a vacuum cleaner). I’d suggest decreasing distance first in small increments by moving the dog closer to the location where the stimulus will appear, achieving his new CER at each new distance, until he is happy to be very near to the non-moving stimulus, perhaps even sniffing or targeting to it.

6. Return to distance X and increase the intensity of your stimulus (move the vacuum a little; have two children instead of one; have the man put on a hat, or a backpack), gradually decreasing distance and attaining CERs along the way, until your dog is delighted to have the moderately intense stimulus in close proximity.

7. Now, back to distance X, increase intensity again, by having your helper turn the vacuum on briefly, feed treats the instant it’s on, then turn it off, and stop the treats. (Or turn up the volume, or add more children, etc.)

8. Repeat until you have the CER, then gradually increase the length of time you have your dog in the presence of the increased-intensity stimulus, until he’s happy (but not aroused) to have it present continuously.

9. Begin decreasing distance in small increments, moving the dog closer to the stimulus, obtaining his new CER consistently at each new distance.

10. When your dog is happy to have the higher-intensity stimulus close to him, you’re ready for the final phase. Return to distance X and obtain his new CER there, with a full-intensity stimulus – a running, moving vacuum; multiple children laughing and playing; a tall man with a beard wearing a hat, sunglasses, and a backpack. Then gradually decrease distance until your dog is happy to be in the presence of your full-intensity stimulus. He now thinks the stimulus is a very good thing, as a reliable predictor of very yummy treats. In the case of a human stimulus, you can gradually work up to actual interaction with the human(s) at this stage, by having the person(s) drop treats as they walk by, then letting him take treats from their fingers – without direct eye contact, and eventually working up to normal interaction.

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.

Consider Dehydrated Dog Foods for Your Dog!

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 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.

honest kitchen 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 and described in our WDJ 2014 Dehydrated Dog Food Review 

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.

Check out our complete review of the top Dehydrated & Freezer-Dried Dog Foods by clicking here or following the link at the top of the page.

Download the Full September 2014 Issue PDF

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Perfect Playmates

By
Nancy Kerns
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Is there anything as good as the perfect playmate for your young, playful dog? One who is about the same size and weight and has the same style of play as your dog?

I’m dog-sitting my son’s dog, Cole, for three whole weeks while he travels out of the country for his sport. Cole is a coonhound/Lab-mix, just about at the one-year mark – grown-up enough to not offend my now-seven-year-old Otto with his very presence on the planet, but young enough to still crave daily sessions of play. In preparation for his stay, I bought extra Tricky Treat balls (by Omega Paw, love these) for him to bat around, as well as extra raw bones. Plus I’ve been taking all the dogs (my big mixed-breed dog Otto, Chihuahua-mix Tito, and Cole) out for off-leash runs and swimming sessions in the river – anything to try to tire him out and keep him well-behaved and out of trouble (that is, out of the chicken pen, out of my raised beds in the garden, out of the neighbors’ hearing range, etc.).

But absolutely nothing trumps the entertainment value of playing with another young dog – and Cole hit the jackpot today. My husband and I rent rooms in the house where I have my office (two blocks away from our home) to students who attend a local trade school. There is a new term every four months, and today some new students arrived. One young man was accompanied by his older brother, who had attended the same school a few years ago and who brought his 11-month-old female Boxer along for the car ride. I asked whether the dog could play with Cole, and the Boxer’s owner said that would be great – and for the next two hours, the young dogs played, and played, and played.

Both young dogs enjoyed racing around the backyard, chasing each other up and down the stairs to the back porch, and wrestling on the porch sofa with toys. They grabbed each other’s legs, chewed each other’s necks, and threw themselves on top of and underneath each other in total joy, and with total comfort with each other. Neither dog was overwhelming to the other one, neither one was afraid of the other; it was as if they were raised together since they were puppies. It was a warm day, and their tongues were soon dragging, so I took the opportunity to hose off the dusty porch, and both dogs enjoyed running through the spray, which helped keep them cooler. It was a beautiful thing to see. And more beautiful yet: since they left, Cole has been sound asleep for about four hours. I’m not sure he’s going to move until tomorrow. If only that dog lived close by!

Adoption Counseling

By
Nancy Kerns
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In early June I wrote a blog post about helping a friend find an appropriate dog for his family, which includes a two-year-old girl. He hadn’t owned a dog for many years, and had lots of questions before and after taking custody of a prospect I found for him in my local shelter. In the blog post, I marveled at the number of things we discussed over a few-week period regarding the dog’s behavior, training, health, and diet. I offer all of my friends and relatives free “tech support” for any dog they adopt through my local shelter, both to help them select the best candidate for their home, family, and circumstances, and to make sure that they all get off on the right foot together.

If only my local shelter, and ALL shelters, had funding to support an adoption counselor who could provide this service to all of their adopters. There are an unbelievable number of things that can go wrong, or cause an adopter to have reservations about their new dog, that can quickly doom the dog’s placement.

For example, the dog I placed with my friend and his family: It didn’t work out, but not for lack of trying. The family really liked the dog, but over time, it became evident that the dog was not comfortable with the child. Because I strongly feel that dogs who live with kids ought to be especially forgiving of human behavior and sincerely like kids, I had spent a few weeks with the dog before placing her in my friend’s home. I observed that the dog was uncomfortable with small kids at first ­ she would actually emit small growls when they first approached her, though her body language stayed loose. I also saw that within a day or two, she grew quite comfortable with both of the kids I introduced her to, my four-year-old niece and my two-year-old grandson. I made sure both kids fed her (or tossed to her) lots of treats, threw a ball for her, kicked a soccer ball with her, and rubbed her tummy (her favorite thing), and as a result, within a few hours, with careful management of both kids and dog, she quickly began greeting both children with eager tail-wagging. She also would grab a toy and attempt to initiate games of fetch with them. So I thought she might do the same with my friend’s daughter.

My friend and his wife really tried to make the placement work, but it was not to be. They experienced some housetraining issues, which I suspected had to do with the dog’s mild separation anxiety. We talked through solutions (baby gates to keep the dog from having access to carpeted areas, supervised pottying rather than putting the dog outside unaccompanied) and got a handle on that. We discussed how one might keep a couch-loving dog off the couch, and whether the household changes they would need to put in place (more gates and closed doors) were worth it to them. But the biggest bugaboo was the fact that the dog and the child did not mesh well. After a two-week trial, though my friend had reportedly carried out all the things I had recommended to improve the dog’s comfort with his daughter, the dog was still frequently greeting his daughter with growls, and had, on several occasions, added an air-snap when the two-year-old approached the dog too exuberantly. I recommended we pull the plug on that placement, for everyone’s safety. I brought the dog back to my home; I’ll keep my eyes peeled for another dog for them – one with no reservations about kids whatsoever.

If my friends hadn’t had a resource to consult, and they had selected the dog right out of a shelter, the dog may have been returned on the first day, after her first potty-in-the-house offense. Or surely, after the second or third day, when they reported that she barked a lot when they left her outside the house alone. They needed some advice for solutions to get through these crises – advice that few shelters can offer. It would have been a real shame for them to give up on a dog over issues that are easy to solve (with the right advice).

It also would have been a real shame if they hadn’t given up the dog over the potentially far more serious problem: her discomfort with the child in the house. They really liked the dog – so much so that they might have hesitated longer to return her, had I not insisted that a two-week trial was more than enough to determine that she was, in fact, getting less tolerant of their daughter, not more comfortable. If this had been a typical shelter adoption, they may have weathered the initial problems they experienced with the dog on their own – only to fall victim to a worse situation.

After near-daily reports from my friend that the dog was still growling at the child, despite their efforts to manage the dog/kid interactions and use counter-conditioning and desensitization, I felt certain that this particular dog/kid situation was untenable – at least without major commitment to scrupulous management and extensive coaching (preferably in-home, private training with a good trainer). In the space of those two weeks, the dog’s growling had not vanished or diminished; she had actually increased the “volume” of her message of discomfort to include air-snaps. The next step was likely to be a bite as the dog tried to get more space between herself and the child.

I shudder to think about how many dogs go home and are put in situations like this where they just can’t win, and when they make an inevitable mistake, are returned to a shelter and forced to pay for it with their lives (because many shelters will consider a dog who bit someone in one home to be too much of a risk to place in any other home). I was proud of my friend for making the difficult decision to return the dog to me, before anything happened that couldn’t be taken back.

I’m now in the process of counseling another friend through early days with the same dog. This friend is single and childless, and loves all the dog’s stock-dog quirks and playfulness. However, my friend works longs night shifts, which pose a challenge for this dog’s separation anxiety. We’ve had to employ melatonin, food-stuffed Kongs and raw bones, a tall baby gate, an extra comfy dog bed, and even an overnight visit with one of my dogs (Tito), to convince the dog that sleeping in the house all night without humans isn’t a sign that her world is crumbling or that she may have been abandoned. Once again, without some guidance, my friend probably would have given up on this dog in the first few days – only this time, it seems like the counseling and advice might result in long-lasting solutions and a solid, happy adoption.

Goodness knows, I’m not perfect. I may have made a mistake in the dog’s initial placement, and a professional trainer would probably have given both of my friends better advice about handling this nice little dog (no dog is perfect, either). But what do most people do when they adopt a dog and then find themselves struggling with behavior or health problems they’ve never before experienced with a dog? In an ideal world, they would have a trainer and a veterinarian all lined up and available to help them, but I’m not sure a single person I have ever known has put these precautions into place ahead of time. And adoption counselors? I’ve heard of them at large shelters in good-sized cities, but my local (small, underfunded, rural) shelter doesn’t have any money to spare for someone of that job description – even though I think they’d have far better adoption rates if they did. A well-trained behavior counselor might even be able to help address the problems that people have with dogs who were not adopted at the shelter — to reduce the owner-surrender rates, too.

Does your local shelter have a behavior and/or adoption counselor? Tell us how they do it.

5 Things To Do If Your Dog Needs Cage Rest

By
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA
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Few things are worse than hearing the vet say those dreaded words: “Cage Rest.” Most often the consequence of an injury or major surgery, it means your dog must be kept under tight restrictions – in a crate, out to relieve herself on leash only, and then back in her crate. Running, jumping, and playing are strictly prohibited; even excessive walking is frowned upon. To make matters worse, this period of restricted activity is sometimes prescribed for as long as four to six weeks. Most of our dogs barely get enough exercise as it is . . . How do you keep a young, active dog under wraps for a whole month or more? Boredom is your biggest enemy. Here are some suggestions to help you through the dark days:

1. Give Your Dog Mental Exercise

What a fantastic opportunity to do a whole ton of training! When our young Corgi, Lucy, was laid up for six months (yes, you read that right), we had plenty of time to practice non-active behaviors such as Stay, Nose Touch, Paw Touch, Relax, Find It (low-activity version), Hold It, Rest Your Head, Polite Leash Walking, and many more.

You can also keep your dog’s body and brain well exercised with some of the more sedentary puzzle toys for dogs. Challenging mental exercises can be as tiring as physical exertion! Shaping  and imitation training  can be particularly good for that brain-drain effect. Careful behavior choices for these options (small, precise behaviors rather than big, active ones) can keep you and your dog playing by the restricted activity rules.

This is also an ideal time to work on the Karen Overall Protocol for Relaxation with your dog. This protocol is laid out as a 15-day program (although you can take longer if you wish or need to), with your dog learning to calmly sit or lie down in one place for increasing periods of time while you do other things.

2. Cuddle Up with Your Dog

Put on your favorite soothing CD, turn the lights down low, and snuggle up with your shut-in. You might also light an aromatherapy lavender candle or employ a diffuser with a calming aromatherapy lavender essential oil. (It’s important to use only therapeutic-quality essential-oil products. To identify them, see “Aromatherapy for Dogs,” and “Therapeutic Essential Oils for Your Dog.”) Your dog will likely appreciate the one-on-one time with you – unless she finds snuggling aversive, in which case, skip this step.

3. Massage Your Dog

Even if your dog’s not a fan of cuddling, she can benefit from some skilled calming massage or TTouch. Get yourself a good book on canine massage, or round up some T-Touch resources, put on your calming music CD, light the lavender candle, and start massaging. Remember that calming massage should be comprised of slow, steady pressure, not fast rubbing and patting. Any talking should also be a low, calm voice, not the high-pitched tones we use to increase canine enthusiasm in training routines.

4. Provide Toys and Bones

Stock up on Kong toys, other similar sturdy stuffables, and raw meaty bones, so you can keep your dog happily engaged when you cannot personally attend to her. Chewing is a great stress-reliever, and can help take some of the angst out of her confinement.

5. Supply Your Dog with Environmental Aids

In addition to the “Through a Dog’s Ear” music, consider using Adaptil spray, which is said to mimic the calming pheromones a mother dog emits when she is nursing her puppies. Nutraceuticals such as Anxitane and Zylkene may also have a calming effect. Calming herbs for dogs such as chamomile can be useful. Commercial herbal calming products include Composure, PetCalm, Quiet Moments, and Dr. Harvey’s Relax. Your vet may also prescribe a short course of sedatives to get your dog through the first couple of weeks, when strict cage rest is likely the most crucial.

Making use of all five of the above suggestions, we survived six months of Lucy on restricted activity with only one bout of OCD tail-chasing. In fact, her healing exceeded the orthopedic veterinarian’s expectations and we were able to cancel her planned second surgery. Here’s wishing you the same success if you and your dog find yourselves in a “cage rest” scenario.

Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, is WDJ’s Training Editor. Pat is also the author of many books on positive training.

Neutering Dogs Without a Scalpel

By
Jessica Hekman DVM, MS
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Sounds odd to say, but I’m accustomed to standing over a fully anesthetized dog holding his testicles in one hand. Until recently, if I did, in fact, have his testicles in one hand, I’d usually have a scalpel in the other, preparing to neuter him. But on a day not long ago, I found myself armed with only a needle and syringe in my other hand, preparing to neuter a dog who was merely sedated.

zeuterin dog sterilization

We’d all love to see a procedure that can easily and permanently sterilize a male dog without side effects or complications. Historically, surgery has been the most commonly used option in the U.S. Contained in the syringe I held was an exciting new product, Zeuterin, which permanently sterilizes male dogs (between the ages of three and 10 months) without surgery. Will “zeutering” prove to be a better option? I was attending a training session to learn more.

Zeuterin is comprised of zinc gluconate and arginine, and is injected with a needle into the center of each of a young dog’s testicles. The compound diffuses in all directions in the testes, causing permanent and irreversible fibrosis in the testicle, rendering the dog incapable of producing any new sperm. Once the sperm currently in the testicles have been cleared (over the course of several weeks), the dog is sterile.

The needle used for the procedure is a very small one, and the procedure is remarkably painless. The dog does not have to be anesthetized. In theory, a calm dog being “zeutered” by an experienced veterinarian could even receive the injection without sedation. In practice, though, sedation is a very good idea: if the dog moves during the procedure there could be side effects, and dogs who have been subjected to the treatment should receive a small “Z” tattoo on the groin area to identify them as zeutered – and tattoos definitely require sedation.

After the injection, the dog’s testicles may briefly swell. Usually, they then atrophy, so that eventually they will be smaller that before, or sometimes, not even easily visible.
For dogs whose testicles do remain visible, though, there can be some confusion about whether they’re intact or not. This is the point of the “Z” tattoo, of course – and the company that manufactures the compound also sells “I’m Zeutered!” T-shirts for owners who want to prevent glares from the canine-testicle-averse passers-by at the dog park.

“Zeuter” vs. Neuter

The zeutering procedure has some obvious benefits. General anesthesia always carries a small risk, so avoiding it is unquestionably a good thing. And if you can avoid removing a dog’s organs, why wouldn’t you?

But, as with every medical procedure, there can be side effects to Zeuterin. Some dogs can be in pain afterward, for several days up to a week, and some dogs may vomit.
Occasionally, if the compound isn’t injected just so – if some of it erroneously comes into contact with the scrotal skin (rather than being injected properly into the center of the testes), the skin of the testicles can become irritated and ulcerate. In bad cases, a dog may have to go under the knife after all, to have his entire scrotum removed in a more invasive procedure than a simple castration would have been.

Of course, surgery poses the risk of complications as well, such as infections of the surgical site, or swelling of the empty scrotum with fluid (known as a seroma).
There is another significant difference between surgical neutering and zeutering, though, and it has to do with testosterone. The procedure you choose for your next male puppy may well be determined by how you feel about that hormone!

dog park humping

The Pros and Cons of Testosterone in Dogs

One of the most interesting things about this product is that it reduces testosterone levels in dogs who have had the procedure by only about 50 percent. Traditional surgical castration reduces the dog’s testosterone level to almost zero. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Testosterone is associated with some really obnoxious canine behaviors: mounting, marking, roaming, and some types of aggression. Veterinarians have traditionally recommended castration for dogs whose owners who want to reduce these behaviors.
The jury is still out on whether a 50 percent testosterone reduction will reduce those behaviors as well as castration does – but then, the jury still hasn’t ruled on how effective surgical castration (and its attendant near-total testosterone reduction) is for helping to eliminate the “problem” behaviors in male dogs, either. That said, if you’re thinking about sterilizing an animal specifically because of problem behaviors, I’d take the safest route and go with 100 percent testosterone reduction (surgery).

Be aware that there is a growing number of veterinarians and dog owners who believe that the health benefits of testosterone outweigh its potential for negative effects on the dog’s behavior. It’s a hot debate; some studies have found a correlation between neutering and the development later in life of certain kinds of cancer (specifically osteosarcoma, hemangiosarcoma, and prostate cancer), as well as an increased risk of tearing the cranial cruciate ligament (CCL). Note that while a CCL tear is not life-threatening, it is certainly expensive to fix.

On the other hand, neutering has also been correlated with a longer life, despite the risk of cancer, and a reduced chance of death by infection.

Warning: the studies regarding the pros and cons of neutering are very difficult to interpret! And many of the effects that are seen may be the result of different levels of healthcare provided by different owners. As just one example, it’s possible that dogs who are not neutered are just as likely to develop cancer, but less likely to be diagnosed with cancer. This could happen if owners who can’t afford to neuter their dogs are also unable to afford veterinary care as their dogs age.

There may be other reasons that neutering correlates with an increased risk of cancer and CCL tears; and, of course, improved management and access to veterinary care is almost certainly why neutering correlates with longer life expectancies. (By the way, I’m not implying that responsible breeders fail to provide their dogs with good veterinary care, only that responsible breeders are a minority among those who don’t neuter their dogs.) Testosterone is a powerful hormone; it’s possible that a lifetime of exposure to it has beneficial and detrimental effects on dogs. Amazingly, we still don’t know enough about it. And because zeutering is so new, we know even less about its long-term health effects than we do about surgical neutering.

Choosing For Your Dog

So in the end, should you neuter your dog, zeuter him, or leave him intact and manage him carefully? There are a lot of factors to consider, and the right decision will vary from situation to situation.

If behavioral changes are your biggest concern, your best bet is always to choose an animal who is well suited to your lifestyle and to invest time into a good training program. However, neutering may help, as may zeutering.

More and more owners say that the health benefits offered by testosterone are their priority, and so they are leaving their male dogs intact. They should be aware that the intended benefits remain the topic of much discussion and study and few conclusions.
If your veterinarian offers zeutering, ask about her experience with the product and the procedure; personally, I would have a dog zeutered only by someone who is familiar with the procedure. When the product has been on the market for a decade or two, experience will tell us a lot – and who knows, there may be other options by then.

The History of Zeuterin

The drug now called Zeuterin(TM) was briefly on the market a decade ago. Then called Neutersol, the drug was sold to veterinarians with little training or support. Many dogs suffered adverse reactions (such as inflamed testicles, which then required a far more invasive surgery than a conventional castration). The resulting poor reputation of the drug led to the 2005 death of the company then making and marketing the product, about two years after the product’s introduction.

Ark Sciences, of Irvington, New York, was founded in 2007 by Joe Tosini, an original investor in Neutersol. Tosini believes strongly in the product’s promise, but says that it was rolled out incorrectly. Under Tosini, Ark Sciences bought the rights to Neutersol, and built a team of advisors to help him resubmit the product for FDA approval (which it achieved in August 2012) and to relaunch the product with a vastly improved strategy. Ark Sciences requires veterinarians who want to provide zeutering services to their clients to complete a five-hour course – encompassing a two-hour online course, and three hours of hands-on training (which includes injecting the drug into several dogs).

Ark Sciences has also limited its recommendations for the procedure to dogs between three and 10 months of age who have two fully descended testicles in the scrotum, healthy scrotal skin, and no testicular abnormalities, such as pre-existing fibrosis, tumors, or transmissible venereal tumors (TVT).

According to the company’s online FAQs: “While adverse reactions requiring medical treatment occurred in only 1.1% of the dogs, there were minor reactions observed in 6.3% of dogs during the FDA study. Local reactions included testicular swelling (normal reaction to the injection), pain (dogs may resist sitting or may sit with both hind legs open), biting and licking at the scrotum, swelling of the prepuce and irritation, dermatitis, ulceration, infection, dryness or bruising of the scrotum. Systemic reactions included an increase in the white blood cell count, vomiting, anorexia (loss of appetite), lethargy (tiredness or abnormal attitude), and diarrhea.

“Most reactions were seen within the first seven days after the injection. Over 93% of dogs did not show any signs of post procedure pain. When pain was detected, it was most commonly seen in the first two days. No pain management medications were used in the study. Vomiting was most commonly seen on the day of the injection (within one minute and four hours after the injection). It is recommended to withhold food for 12 hours prior to injection to help prevent vomiting, which occurred in 4% of dogs. Your dog’s testicles may remain slightly enlarged but non-painful for a few months after the injection. Proper injection technique and owner observation post-injection is critical to avoid any potential undesirable side effects.”

Other Nonsurgical Contraception Innovations for Dogs

Zeuterin is a major new product, but there are other products under development that may eventually offer additional options for non-surgical contraception. The two main approaches are chemical contraception, such as Zeuterin or hormonal birth control, and immunocontraception, which actually uses the body’s own immune system against part of the reproductive system.

For example, GonaCon is a vaccine that teaches the immune system to target GnRH, the “master hormone” of reproduction. This product has been tested in cats and deer, and usually lasts for several years. Unfortunately, early versions had unacceptable side effects in dogs. It doesn’t provide 100 percent reliable contraception, so while it’s useful for feral animals, it’s not yet ready for use in companion animals.

Another immunocontraceptive that has been used with some success in wild horses is a vaccine for females that works against the zona pellucida, the coating around the egg. This vaccine has been tested in cats with poor results. It hasn’t yet been used in dogs.

Some types of hormonal birth control, such as deslorelin, can be implanted into male or female dogs to provide long term but reversible contraception. Like GonaCon, deslorelin targets GnRH, at the top of the reproductive system. This product is marketed for ferrets and horses, and is not commonly used in dogs. Additionally, as with any hormonal birth control, it can have side effects.

Because surgical spays and neuters are so well accepted in the U.S., there is not a lot of pressure to find alternatives in dogs. Most research is targeted at populations that cannot easily be reached with surgery, such as feral cats and horses, and wild deer. There is some interest in finding non-surgical solutions for feral dogs in other countries, but very little funding for such research.

For more information, keep an eye on the Alliance for Contraception in Dogs & Cats. This non-profit organization helpfully provides detailed analyses of various products that are available and will keep you up to date about any news in this very interesting and underserved field.

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

Stand-Up Paddleboarding With Your Dog

By
Lisa Lyle Waggoner
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[Updated February 6, 2019]

I’m a water-loving girl. I have a water-loving dog. I love the outdoors. What could be better than exploring local lakes and lazy rivers with my dog on a stand-up paddleboard?

paddleboarding with a dog

A stand-up paddleboard (SUP) is similar to a surfboard, though one paddles a SUP while standing. As a former avid whitewater kayaker, when I first saw photos of people on SUPs, I thought, “Why in the world would anyone want to do that?” Where was the excitement? The adrenaline?

Fast forward a few months later, when a girlfriend twisted my arm to give stand-up paddleboarding a try on the Tennessee River, which runs through downtown Chattanooga. I quickly realized this sport was much more fun than it looked in those photos. What’s more, all of us who tried it that day enjoyed the exercise and the view from the standing position on the board, and we didn’t fall in the drink! I had a new puppy, Willow, and I immediately saw this as something that she and I could enjoy together. That did it! Knowing that I could have that kind of fun with my dog was my main motivation to get involved in this sport.

If you like the outdoors and your dog enjoys water, stand-up paddleboarding (SUPing) is a fantastic way to spend time together. The added bonus is that it’s great exercise for both of you. Standing and balancing on the board while paddling seems to work every muscle in my body, and it seems to give my dog a good physical (and mental!) workout, too. If you tire of paddling, just plop yourself down on the board and take a break. Or hop off and take a swim with your dog. It doesn’t get much better.

Stand-up paddleboarding began in the 1960s when surfers used the technique in order to take photographs of other surfers. Around 2008, SUPing became popular with the creation of new, modern boards. Since then, the sport has spread rapidly around the world. Today, you can find people and their dogs paddleboarding in oceans, streams, rivers, and lakes. Boards are designed for specific types of water – even whitewater, but always keep your dog’s safety uppermost in mind. (I wouldn’t feel comfortable with my dog in whitewater, even with her life jacket on.)

Stand-up paddleboarding is a relatively easy sport with few equipment needs. At a minimum, you need a board (with a nice-sized deck pad that extends to the bow so both you and your dog have good footing), a paddle, a personal flotation device for you, and one for your dog. I recommend that you develop your own basic stand-up paddleboarding skills and gain some confidence on the water before teaching your dog to enjoy the sport with you.

Paddleboarding Prerequisites for Your Dog

Your dog should possess a few traits and skills before you consider her seriously as a paddleboarding partner:

1. Love of the Water.

Many dogs naturally take to water and swimming, so if your dog already loves the water, fantastic. If not, you may be able to develop her enthusiasm for water. Find a lake or pool with a shallow area and bring out the fun! Pair the new experience of two or four paws in shallow water with an enjoyable game of tug, or feed your dog high-value treats while her paws are in the water.

One caveat: Don’t ever push or throw your dog in the water. Dogs are always making decisions about what’s safe and what’s not, so make sure your dog has a pleasant experience near and in the water. And some dogs might not ever take to swimming. Our 6-year-old male Australian Shepherd is one such dog; Cody is comfortable only in very shallow water. This sport would not be for him and that’s okay. There are plenty of other activities we can enjoy together that don’t involve water.

2. Ability to Swim.

Swimming didn’t come naturally to our other Aussie, Willow, either, but she developed this skill over time, and to watch her now, you would never know that she wasn’t always comfortable in water. As a pup, she liked wading in the shallows, but wouldn’t go more than belly-deep on her own. To help her gain confidence, I cradled her under her belly, let her dog-paddle for a few seconds, then quickly set her back down where her paws could touch bottom. I also used friends’ water-loving dogs to encourage Willow into the water.

A canine flotation device can help a dog feel more comfortable. There are a variety of well-made dog lifejackets available. I use the Hurtta jacket because of its secure fit, multiple buckles for adjustment, and wide, stretchable belly band. As with many dog lifejackets, the back is made with a sturdy handle that allows the handler to easily guide the dog in the water or lift the dog out of the water. If your dog jumps or falls off the board, you can use the handle to get her easily back up on the board.

3. Basic Foundation Skills.

Before paddleboarding with your dog, she should have mastered basic foundation skills such as sit, down, targeting, wait, and recall. Recall is extremely important, since your dog will be off leash before, during, and immediately after your SUPing adventures. If you’ve already done some shaping with your dog, these skills will come in handy.

Teaching Your Dog to LOVE Your Board & Paddle

Once you are confident that your dog possesses all the prerequisites for paddleboarding, use classical conditioning techniques to help your dog develop a positive association with your SUP and paddle and to think the board is the best toy in the universe. To your dog, the board and paddle are new, unusual pieces of equipment. Many dogs, including our older Aussie, Cody, shy away from a long paddle when it’s held in a vertical position. Go slowly during the introduction period and move at a pace that’s comfortable for your dog.

Because Willow is such a confident dog and was only eight months old when I began teaching her, it took just a few short sessions for her to become comfortable with the equipment. However, if your dog adjusts slowly to new, unusual things or environments, spend as much time as necessary for your dog to show you through her exuberance that she loves the board. You know that “Whoopee!” look you get when you pick up your dog’s leash? That’s the look you should get when you pull out your board.

If you have room, place your SUP and paddle inside your home in an area where your dog already enjoys spending time with you. This is a great way to pair fun experiences with your new SUP. You can play games with your dog near the board, have fun training sessions near the board, let your dog enjoy a food-stuffed Kong toy beside or on the board, and even feed your dog meals from a bowl on the board.

Do the same exercises with the paddle. When it’s time to pick up the paddle and hold it vertically, enlist the help of a friend to hold and move the paddle while you’re feeding your dog treats or playing games with her around the moving paddle. Our home is so small that bringing the board inside wasn’t an option, so I did all these things outdoors.

Once your dog is comfortable with the board inside, it’s time to do some outside training on dry land. Willow has such a positive classically conditioned response to the board that I can barely begin to pick it up before she’s trying to hop on it.

I’m a clicker trainer; I build behaviors by using the sound of a clicker as a signal to let the dog know when she does a behavior I like, and then reinforce her with a yummy piece of food. I also do a lot of shaping, which helps a dog learn to interact with new objects. Because I’ve done so much shaping with Willow, when I first placed the board on the grass, she immediately began interacting with it. I merely clicked the clicker and gave her a treat for any interaction with the board (a sniff, a nose touch, a paw up, etc.) and before long she was readily hopping onto the middle of the board.

You can use food or a toy to lure your dog on and off the board (see Photo 1, facing page), but you’ll want to remove or “fade” the use of any lures as quickly as possible, so your dog understands that it’s getting on and off the board that is being rewarded, not just following the lure.

You can use any of these techniques to encourage your dog to hop on and off the board. Once your dog is happily moving on and off the board, add some cues for getting on and off. My hop-on cue is, “Surf’s up!” and my get-off cue is “Off!”

Handy Targeting Lessons

Stand-up paddleboarding demands that you and your dog learn to balance. You are most stable when you’re standing near the middle of the board and your dog is positioned in front of you. “Targeting” is a great tool to use to get your dog to go to the best spot on the board for stability. To target, you teach your dog to touch a part of her body (usually, her nose, paw, or shoulders – whatever you choose) to your hand or an object (such as a “target stick,” a short stick with a ball on one end).

I used both nose targeting and body targeting to teach Willow where to be on the board. She already knew how to follow my hand into various positions in order to touch it with her nose. Using this technique, I taught her to walk through my legs from behind me and sit right in front of me. With her behind me, I stood with my legs wide apart, placed my target hand in front of and in between my knees, and cued her to target my hand, and then sit. Voila! She was right where she needed to be (see Photo 2). Once she was reliably moving through my legs and into a sit, I added the cue, “Peek!”

This exercise came in handy when SUP training on land to help me position her body where I wanted her to be on the board. It was also incredibly useful when we made our maiden voyage on flat water. Excited, she wanted to wander around the board, which made it challenging for me to balance. Having her target my hand was an easy way to position her so that we could successfully paddle around without falling.

Another targeting technique is to use a mat to teach your dog to put her body in a certain place. To start, you teach your dog to sit and wait with her entire body on a mat. Practice with the mat in a variety of locations in your home, outside on your porch, in your yard, on a dock, and on grass by a lake. When she understands her “go to the mat” cue, put the mat on your paddleboard – at first, on land! Because your dog has learned to sit and wait on the mat in a variety of places, the exercise should transfer well to your SUP. Begin with a mat large enough to fit your dog’s entire body, then decrease the size of the mat by cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces, until you fade it out entirely.

Achieving Balance

I’ve had Willow on all manner of wobbly, rolling surfaces since she first entered our home at nine weeks of age, so she already had good balance and was comfortable on a variety of moving surfaces before I started SUPing. When traveling and staying in hotels, I’ve had Willow hop up on a rolling luggage cart and fed her yummy treats as I slowly rolled the cart around.

If you haven’t already, help your dog become comfortable with balancing on a moving surface prior to beginning board work on the water. A couple of fun training tools are a wobble board and a FitPAWS Balance Disc. Be creative!

Time to Hit the Water!

Once you’re certain your dog is comfortable and has a positive association (that “Whoopee!” look) with the board, the paddle, and moving surfaces, it’s time for the water work.

paddleboarding with a dog

Choose a nice, warm, sunny, calm day on a flat water surface. I’m fortunate to live near many beautiful lakes, but even a small pond can work. Begin with the board partially in the water and partially on land (see Photo 3). Cue your dog to get on the board, praise her for doing so, and feed her bits of yummy food the entire time she’s on it. When she steps off, stop the “food bar,” thus classically conditioning her to better enjoy being on the board than off!

Make her time on the board only seconds at first, then slowly increase the length of time you ask her to stay on the board. You want your dog to have a positive experience, so go slowly. If at any time, she seems uncomfortable, move back to dry land beside the water and continue there until she has that “Whoopee!” look.

paddleboarding with a dog

Once your dog is comfortable with being on the board partially in the water, place the board fully in shallow water (avoiding any rocks or hard surfaces; see Photo 4. While steadying the board with your hand, cue your dog to get on the board. Be fun and upbeat, and praise and reward her as you slowly move the board around. If she hops off before you cue her to do so, no worries. Just begin again and eventually she’ll get the hang of it. If your dog seems at all uncomfortable, go back to where she was last happy and successful and spend more time on that step before proceeding.

Next, sit on the board with your dog and paddle around. Then kneel on the board and paddle around. Once your dog is comfortable riding the board with you kneeling and paddling on flat water, it’s time to stand up!

Standing and balancing with your dog on the board is a new challenge for both of you. Either one of you could lose your balance and fall off, so practice doing some fake falls (or just jumping in)and make it a fun experience for both of you. That way, when the unexpected fall happens, you’ll both be better prepared.

When you’re ready to stand, come up onto all fours (both knees and both hands), positioning your knees on either side of the handle in the middle of the board. Your paddle should be perpendicular to the board and your palms should be on the paddle. Come up on one foot, then the other, by bringing your feet toward your hands. If you’re feeling a bit wobbly, your dog may be, too, so continue to be upbeat and praise your dog for being the “best dog in the whole world!”

paddleboarding with a dog

Be prepared to shift your position on the board in response to your dog’s movements. Ideally, both you and your dog will stay in one spot on the board. Make your maiden voyage very short, praising your dog the entire time, then return to your knees before getting off the board (providing more stability for both you and your dog).
It’s natural for dogs to move about the board when they’re first learning (yes, even if you’ve cued them to wait). It’s a new, unusual experience for them, so until they learn to be still, you’ll need to make minor or even major adjustments when they move unexpectedly. Remember to smile through it all!

Some dogs prefer to ride toward the bow (front) of the board. If this is the case with your dog, move backward a step or two to balance the board so that it tracks through the water with ease. Too much forward weight will cause the bow to dip under the surface. Too much weight on the stern (back of the board) will cause the stern to dip under water and the bow will be too far above the water.

Safety First Always!

As I mentioned earlier, before you ever invite your dog to join you on a SUP, it’s imperative that you are comfortable on your board and that you have practiced falling off and getting back on. The more experience you have with practice falls, the better you’ll be when the unexpected happens. Always have yo¬¬¬ur dog wear a lifejacket, no matter how well she swims, since you may find yourself having so much fun that you paddle far from shore. Make it a habit to check the weather forecast before you head out. Take the right clothing for the weather, and always remember to bring drinking water for you and your dog.

Ready to Give It A Try?

If you think you might enjoy this sport, try renting a SUP first; most surf shops now rent paddleboards and there are many niche SUP shops popping up all over the country, especially in areas with lakes and rivers. Take advantage of a day’s rental and find out how fun SUPing can be. If you really like it, then you can look for a paddleboard to buy (new or used; don’t forget craigslist.org!), and start honing your skills on the water while doing dry-land training with your dog. Before you know it, you’ll be SUPing into the sunset with your favorite furry friend on board.

Video Links & Recommended Equipment

Video of Stand-up paddleboarding for beginners
Stand-up Paddlingboarding Basics
How to Choose a Paddleboard

Using social facilitation to help a dog learn to love water
youtube.com/watch?v=qeOzv1-T7Fs
youtube.com/watch?v=amUuNFaBgSU

Safety and comfort with doggie life jacket
tinyurl.com/swimmingpractice

Hand Targeting on Maiden Voyage
youtube.com/watch?v=zfYDuhf6bwQ

Recommended Equipment

The following prices are for new equipment. Buying used equipment can help reduce your investment.

Stand-up paddleboard $600 – $1,500
Boards with extended deck pads are preferable so that your dog has a safe, non-slippery area.

If the deck pad doesn’t extend to the bow, a textured surface on the bow is preferred, though you can add deck padding to either a textured or slick bow.
Length/weight of the board depends on combined weight of you and your dog.

Paddle $80 – $225

Personal Flotation Device (pfd) for your dog $25 – $75

PFD for you $50 – $200
A paddleboard is considered a vessel by the U.S. Coast Guard, whose regulations require that adults have a Coast Guard-approved Type I, II, or III personal flotation device (PFD) on board when paddling beyond the limits of swimming or surfing areas.

Proper clothing
You’ll need different clothing depending on the weather (wetsuit or drysuit for colder weather, T-shirt and shorts or bathing suit for warmer weather).

Whistle and light $5 each
These are safety measures should you need to summon help and/or are unexpectedly caught out after dark. There are many waterproof LED lights available for various sports (such as bicycling).

Safety Leash/tether $14 – $30
A safety leash or tether is recommended in any type of moving water or in ocean surf. If you fall off your board, the ankle leash keeps your board near you. Coiled and uncoiled leashes are available. These are not necessary for lake paddling, though they’re nice to have if you’re on a slow-moving river or in the ocean.

Drinking Water for you and your dog $30 and up
If you paddleboard in salt water, brackish water, or potentially polluted water, bring clean drinking water for your dog, as well as a collapsible bowl. You can carry the water in a collapsible water bottle or wearable hydration pack (such as Camelbak, etc.).

First-aid kit $15 and up 
Should include sunscreen, emergency contact info, your dog’s info (including vaccination records) and your vet’s contact info.

Dry bag $3 – $25
These are the perfect thing for holding snacks for you and your dog, as well as dry clothing. I’ve used water resistant “dry bags” from Walmart that cost only $3 and worked fine, although they were never submerged (the real test of a quality dry bag). More expensive models designed for kayaking and other water sports can be submerged and still keep their contents dry.

Stay tuned for Lisa Lyle Waggoner’s Stand-Up Paddleboarding DVD from Tawzer Dog, which will be available before the end of 2014.

A passionate advocate for humane, science-based dog training, Lisa Lyle Waggoner is a CPDT-KA, a Pat Miller Certified Trainer Level 2, a Pat Miller Level 1 Canine Behavior & Training Academy instructor, and a dog*tec Dog Walking Academy Instructor. The founder of Cold Nose College in Murphy, North Carolina, Lisa provides behavior consulting and training solutions to clients in the tri-state area of North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. 

How to Get a Dog to Behave

By
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA
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Trainer Sandi Thompson (Bravo!Pup, Berkeley, CA) uses a food lure in her hand to get the dog to sit from the down position. Photo by Nancy Kerns

Listen to a mom tell her child to “Behave!” You know what she really means is “Stop doing that annoying behavior!” Similarly, for a long time in the dog-training world a dog who “behaved” was seen as one who didn’t do much; he just sat or lay quietly around the house.

Today, thanks to the shift toward positive-reinforcement-based training and a better understanding of the science of behavior and learning, dog trainers and owners are coming to understand the value of dogs who offer behaviors. “Behave” is actually an action word.

There are several different ways to get your dog to do lots of stuff. You can lure,  shape, capture, use imitation, and, yes, you can even coerce and physically manipulate your dog into performing certain behaviors. Coercion was the mainstay of old-fashioned training, and carries with it a high likelihood of unwanted side effects, including fear, aggression, and learned helplessness (shutting down).

Today’s educated, competent, modern, positive-based trainers strenuously avoid the use of coercion and manipulation, relying instead on the first four techniques in order to get their dogs to happily and willingly offer behaviors during the training process.

Keep in mind that getting the dog to do something is just the beginning of that process. In order to “train” a behavior, you start by getting it to happen; once you are able to get your dog to perform a certain behavior (using any of the methods described in this article) you reward and thus reinforce it, so as to increase its frequency. The next step is to associate the behavior with a cue, which will replace whatever you originally did to get the behavior. This is an important step; many amateur trainers fail to ever “fade” (eliminate) whatever method they used to originally get the dog to perform the behavior, and the dog never manages to figure out the cue.

The goal is to get the dog to quickly realize and reliably understand that the cue – not the luring or shaping, etc. – indicates that he has an immediate opportunity to earn a reward for performing a specific behavior. (Act now! Limited time offer!)

“Luring” Your Dog

“Luring” involves the use of a desirable object, often food, to entice your dog into doing the behavior you want. To lure a dog to sit, put a treat at the end of his nose and raise the treat up and back over his head (not too high, he’ll jump up instead of sitting!). To lure a sitting dog into a stand, put the treat in front of his nose and move it away from him, parallel to the ground. To lure him into your car, take his favorite toy, get in the car yourself, and show him the toy. Squeak it, bounce it, and/or toss it in the air to increase its value.

training dog with a lure
Trainer Sandi Thompson (Bravo!Pup, Berkeley, CA) uses a food lure in her hand to get this dog to sit from the down position. Photo by Nancy Kerns

You can also lure-shape, which means luring and reinforcing pieces of the behavior until the dog can do the complete behavior. Since many dogs won’t lure all the way down to the ground on the first try, we often use lure-shaping to get a dog to lie down. While luring is frowned upon by some trainers, especially by shaping “purists,” it can be an effective way to get a behavior relatively quickly.

Disadvantages of Luring Dogs

Dog and human can become dependent on the presence of the lure to get the behavior. The dog may learn to wait until the lure is offered to do the behavior. The human may believe her dogs won’t be able to do the behavior without the lure. You must “fade” the lure quickly in order to avoid lure-dependence.

Some humans are not skilled at fading the lure.

Luring can be seen as a form of coercion – when the dog doesn’t really want to do the behavior, but because he wants the treat so badly he feels compelled to do it. There may be fallout in the form of increased stress for the dog, or worse.

Example: The dog is fearful of strangers, but his owner has given a stranger a high-value treat and asked him to offer it to the dog. The dog doesn’t want to approach the stranger, but he really wants the treat, so he does. He accepts and eats the treat and then, realizing he is way too close to the scary stranger, bites.

We use luring a lot in the Basic Good Manners classes at Peaceable Paws (my training center in Fairplay, Maryland). Novice dog owners tend not to have the patience or the understanding, at least a first, for the complexities of techniques like shaping. I may also use luring with a novice dog who hasn’t been introduced to shaping, if I need to get a behavior quickly for some reason, and don’t have time to teach him the concept of shaping or imitation.

“Shaping” Your Dog 

“Shaping” is the process of breaking a behavior into small steps, reinforcing the dog many times at each step before moving to the next, until, through successively more accurate approximations, you build the entire behavior.

Captain Jack Cricket’s owner/trainer Laura Dorfman shaped him to push this pint-sized shopping cart. Photo courtesy of Laura Dorfman

To shape a dog to pick up an object, for example, you might first click and treat him for glancing at it. When you see that he deliberately looks at it in order to make you click and treat, you could click/treat him for looking at it while moving his head very slightly toward it. It might take several steps (numerous repetitions and reinforcements at each step) until he is at the “sniff the object” step. The next step might be to touch the object with his nose, then open his mouth slightly, and so on, until he is picking up the object.

Shaping is a fantastic way to develop a dog who is quick and eager to offer behavior. This makes training new, sometimes amazingly complex behaviors, happen much more easily and quickly than does luring. In fact, there are some complex behaviors you’d be hard-pressed to figure out how to lure that might be relatively simple to shape.

There are actually three versions of shaping:

Pure Shaping. You have a goal behavior in mind, you create a shaping plan, and work as described above until you have the full behavior.

Lure Shaping. As described in the Luring section above, you use a combination of luring and shaping to get the behavior you want.

Free Shaping.Also known as “101 Things to do With a Prop,” free shaping is an exercise intended to encourage your dog to offer lots of different behaviors – a very useful skill down the road when you are working to shape complex or particularly creative behaviors; some of the most amusing tricks come out of this exercise. (See “101 Things to do With a Prop.”) It’s important when doing free shaping to studiously avoid having a behavior goal in the back of your mind, but rather to celebrate (and reinforce) a variety of behaviors.

Disadvantages of Shaping a Dog

Shaping requires patience, good observational skills, and good timing. It can be frustrating for a novice trainer to shape behaviors.

Novice shapers tend to “lump” (look for and reinforce big pieces of behavior) rather than “split” (look for and reinforce very small pieces of behavior).

It can be frustrating – and boring – for the dog as well as the human, if the handler isn’t skilled at shaping. If the handler is “lumping,” the dog doesn’t get reinforced enough to keep him playing the game. If the handler’s timing is bad, the dog can’t figure out what on earth he is getting clicked for, and the shaping moves forward very slowly, if at all.

I use shaping almost exclusively now with my own dogs because, once they understand the concept you can teach new behaviors very quickly. At my training center, we also use it in the advanced classes, where students have demonstrated their commitment to and interest in a greater understanding of behavior and learning.

“Capturing” a Behavior

This “cover your eyes” trick could have been shaped OR “captured” when the dog wiped his face and was reinforced. Photo by Nancy Kerns

“Capturing” is so easy it almost seems like cheating. You just need to have your reward marker handy (hence the value of teaching your dog a verbal marker as well as a clicker), and easy access to treats or some other high-value reinforcer. Anytime your dog just happens to do something you like, mark it and give him a treat. In time, your dog will start to offer the behavior in order to make you click.

Capuring is easiest to do with behaviors that are somewhat predictable. Does your dog always stretch when he comes out of his crate? Be ready to click the instant he does it. This can be a terrific way to train behaviors that your dog offers spontaneously and that are challenging to lure or shape.

Disadvantages of Capturing a Behavior

You can capture only behaviors that your dog offers.

You have to be quick, with excellent timing to capture spontaneous behaviors with enough frequency that your dog gets it and starts offering the behavior. (Note: Dogs who are clicker-savvy and who have done a lot of shaping are likely to catch on most quickly.)

I use capturing (with a verbal marker) as described above when one of my dogs offers a spontaneous behavior that I want to encourage – especially one that might be difficult to shape or lure. (It’s usually something cute.)

Teaching Your Dog to Imitate You

A spanking-new concept for the dog-training world, “imitation” involves teaching your dog a cue that means “Copy what I just did.” While not yet a mainstream technique, it shows a lot of promise, especially for shortcutting the training of complex behaviors. Once your dog has learned the imitation concept, you simply have him sit and watch while you demonstrate the behavior, return to him and give him your “Copy” cue. Then he does the behavior.

Imagine for a moment the painstaking process of teaching your dog to run weave poles for agility. Now imagine that all you need to do is have your dog watch you while you run the weave poles, return to him, tell him “Copy!” and sit back and watch him run the poles, letter-perfect. Okay, maybe it’s not quite that easy, but still . . . a lot of service-dog skills and a whole host of other behaviors could lend themselves quite well to imitation.

Sandra Goodstein was looking for a “paws in the air” behavior from her Aussie, Ash. Photo courtesy of Pat Miller
And Ash almost gets it. At this stage Ash still needed a little prompting to offer the “paws up” behavior. Photo courtesy of Pat Miller

Disadvantages to Imitation

It requires an investment of time in the training process to teach your dog the imitation concept.

You cannot use imitation for behaviors that your dog does with you or to you because you cannot demonstrate them. How would you demonstrate heeling? Or weaving between your own legs?

You cannot use imitation for behaviors that are beyond human capability. Some humans can do a back flip, for example, but I would be unable to demonstrate that behavior for my dog.

While I have taught our dog Bonnie the imitation concept, I admit that I haven’t taken it further to teach her new behaviors. I am working with a group of four students in their sixth week of class, and their dogs are just reaching the point where they may be ready to try learning new behaviors using imitation. Stay tuned for updates!

As you can see, there are many different ways to get your dog to “behave” by developing happy and willing participation in the training process and encouraging your dog to offer behaviors. There is no “right” way; you have many choices, depending on your dog, goals, and training skills. If you’re stumped by shaping, or eager to try imitation, find a qualified positive-training professional who can help you add those new techniques to your repertoire. Now – if you want your dog to “behave” – go teach him to do lots of stuff!

“Click and treat” – This term is used by many trainers who use positive reinforcement as a major tool in their training toolbox – even if they don’t actually use a clicker!
To “click” is to use a consistent signal – often, but not always the “click” of a clicker – to let the dog know that the thing he just did just earned him a reward. In order to be effective, this signal needs to be sharp and discrete, as it’s being used to “mark” the desired behavior as cleanly as possible. Clickers make a distinctive and highly consistent sound, which is more effective than a sound that changes each time in pitch and tone, but most dogs are capable of understanding and lumping together similar-sounding or similar-looking signals.

Audible signals (such as a click or a spoken word, such as “Yes!”) are the easiest for many handlers to use, but visible signals are needed for deaf dogs (or senior dogs who are on their way to deafness). Many trainers of deaf dogs use the flash of a small flashlight or a thumbs-up gesture as their marker signal.

In almost every article we present about training, we use the word “click” to indicate the use of a marker signal, but you can mentally replace it with whatever marker you prefer.
As to the “treat” – The click or other marker is followed, every time, as immediately as possible, with a reward. Most dogs like food, and are willing to work for bits of high-value, super-yummy food, like chicken, roast beef, hot dogs, cheese, etc. But some dogs are more highly motivated by toys, and still others by praise and petting. Make sure, however, that whatever you use as a “reward” is truly rewarding for your dog. If you pet him, and he moves away – that’s not a reward, that’s a punishment. His response tells you he does not like it and does not want more of it. Use whatever rewards rivet your dog’s attention on you.

Often, trainers start a session by “charging” the clicker, by clicking it no matter what the dog is doing, and giving him a treat after each click. You generally have the dog’s rapt attention after four or six clicks and treats! That’s all most dogs need to undersand the concept: when he hears a click (or experiences another consistent marker signal), he’s going to get a treat. It’s also usually enough to elicit most dogs’ interest in doing things – offering behavior – in order to get more of those clicks and treats.

101 Things to Do With a Prop

This exercise started out as “101 Things to do With a Box“. Then trainers realized it doesn’t have to be a box, you can play “101 Things to Do” with any prop – a traffic cone, a stool, a metal pan, a child’s wagon, or… ? The goal is to encourage your dog to offer behaviors until he has a large repertoire. Then, in the future, when you are trying to shape a specific behavior, he will give you lots of behaviors to choose from.

Click/treat every new variant your dog tries: tapping the box with a paw or nose; stepping in with one, two, three, or four paws; sitting inside it; pushing it across the floor; and so on. Photo courtesy of Pat Miller

Your dog can be on leash or off (if he’ll stay with you). Set a chair a few feet back from the box or object, sit in the chair, and wait. (I use a “Do it!” cue to let my dog know the game is on.) If your dog glances toward the box, leans toward it, steps toward it – anything – click and feed him a treat. Look for tiny pieces of behavior to click and treat – any behavior that relates to the prop – a look, a step, a sniff, a push . . . .

You have no specific goal in mind, and you don’t have to build up to a behavior – in fact you shouldn’t; random behaviors are desirable. If your dog seems hung up on one particular behavior, stop clicking that one and wait for something else. I use a “Try something else!” cue to let my dogs know I’m not going to click that particular behavior any more.

The more confidently your dog offers behaviors, the more easily you can quit click/treating one thing and wait for another. At some point, if you wish, you can decide on a goal behavior for that prop based on the ones your dog has offered, and shape it into something specific. Don’t be in a hurry to do this unless your dog is already skilled at the 101 Things game!

How to Fade Using the Lure

One of the criticisms of lure-training is that dog and human become dependent on the lure to get the behavior; if the dog doesn’t see the treat in your hand, he doesn’t perform. It is a valid and unfortunate criticism – unfortunate because it is really pretty easy to fade the lure from your training.

The moment you can lure the behavior easily, it’s time to fade the lure. With your treat-hand behind your back, cue the behavior. If your dog does what you asked for, click and treat. If he doesn’t, bring the treat out and lure (or prompt) the behavior as you normally would. Click and treat. Gradually (and variably) increase the length of time you wait after giving the verbal cue before you use the lure or prompt. You must give your dog’s brain time to process the information and to send the cue message through the nervous system to his muscles. Watching this thought process is one of the great joys of positive training! Be patient. As long as it looks like he’s trying to figure it out, wait. If he gets distracted or loses interest, try again.

If he still doesn’t perform the behavior, fade the lure or prompt more gradually. Cue the behavior, pause, and if your dog doesn’t do the behavior, do a partial lure.
For example, if you are working on “down,” say “Down,” wait several seconds, and then bring out your lure and being to move it toward the floor. When your dog begins to go down, instead of moving the treat all the way to the floor, whisk it parallel to the ground (so you don’t inadvertently lure him upward) and quickly behind your back, and let him finish the down on his own. Gradually lure less and less, until he’s lying down on cue without any luring.

Note: I am not a fan of prompting with a “pretend” cookie in your hand. You may have faded the actual treat lure, but you have added in an extra step, and deceived your dog in the process. Now he may not believe you when you do have a treat in your hand, and you still have to fade the empty hand prompt.

The Top 5 Things to Look for on a Commercial Dog Food Label

By
Nancy Kerns
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0

I prowled the aisles for over an hour, shaking my head in wonder and appreciation for the amenities in the store, and the sheer volume of quality products therein. It felt heavenly to a dog-food and dog-equipment geek like me. But at one point, as I was examining all the brands and varieties of dog food in the dry food aisles, I found myself crossing paths several times with another shopper. After the third time that I sidestepped out of her way saying, “Sorry, excuse me” without taking my eyes off the shelves, I finally made eye contact with her. I smiled and said, “I don’t work here, but can I help you find something?” She laughingly replied, “If I knew what I was looking for, I’d tell you. There are too many foods here! I can’t tell them apart and I don’t know what to get!”

pet store food aisle

I agreed with her that the selection was overwhelming – but in my view, it was overwhelming in a good way. I love having a lot of products to choose from! But then again, I know what I’m looking for and feel confident when reading labels. When it’s time to buy food for my dogs, I find it interesting and even enjoyable to move down the aisles checking ingredients lists and “best by” dates as I go: “No. No. Nope. Wow, no way. Hmm, maybe. Maybe. Yes! Here we go! Yes! Whoops! No again!”

The encounter was a good reminder that I may be in the minority in this; some dog owners feel oppressed (rather than excited) by the sheer number of choices at their local pet supply stores. “Read the label,” we always advise in WDJ, but where should they start? What information is trustworthy and important on the label, and what text is hyperbolic marketing gobbledygook? How can a dog owner choose?

Hey, take a breath! Relax! Allow me to explain the top five things to look for on a dog food label.

1. Start with the ingredients panel, Looking for real food ingredients.

That might sound silly, but only if you’ve not yet taken the opportunity to read the ingredients on at least one variety of each company’s dog foods in your local pet supply store. If you’ve never done this, do it as soon as you can; you may end up slightly horrified, because the vast majority of dog foods on the market are comprised of ingredients that bear only a passing resemblance to food.

Look for products with ingredients that you can readily identify as actual food ingredients. If you couldn’t explain to someone what a given ingredient is, it probably isn’t a good thing. If you don’t know what may or may not be legal to include in something like “meat and bone meal” or “chicken by-product meal,” perhaps you shouldn’t feed it to your dog. If you can’t immediately visualize what is meant by “corn gluten meal” or even “brewer’s rice,” you can bet that it’s a waste product from some human food manufacturing process – meaning it’s been processed in one place and then shipped to another, losing freshness and vulnerable to adulteration along the way.

In contrast, things that sound like whole, real food ingredients are desirable – things like chicken, duck fat, rice, oats, apples, or carrots.

As you are looking for real food ingredients, focus on nouns and ignore the adjectives. It can be difficult to disregard the influence of descriptive words, but at least try to be aware that they are present specifically in order to manipulate you. Apples are great; they don’t have to be “fresh, whole, Red Delicious” apples in order to provide beneficial flavonoids and soluble fiber. “Sun-cured” alfalfa is alfalfa; “whole ground brown rice” is brown rice.

Don’t concern yourself too much about the ingredients that sound like chemicals that appear low on the ingredients list. Virtually all dog foods contain vitamin and mineral supplements; if you look them up, you’ll find that most of those chemicals are some vitamin or mineral source.

Owners who get really into food will be picky about these, too – looking for only chelated minerals and food-sourced vitamins, and eschewing anything synthetic. If you are a label-reading novice, don’t worry about any of this for now. There are bigger, far more important details to worry about – things that can have a much greater impact on your dog’s well-being. 

2. Look for meat. 

That is, named meats such as chicken, turkey, duck, lamb, beef, pork, or rabbit. I know it’s confusing, but you don’t actually want to see the word “meat.” “Chicken” can contain only chicken, but “meat” could be just about anything.

The more named meat there is in dog food, the better, so you want to see these named meat sources as high on the ingredients list as possible – ideally, in the first couple of positions on the ingredients list. Remember, on all food labels, for humans and dogs, the ingredients are listed according to how much weight they have contributed to the food. There is more of whatever is listed first on the ingredients list than anything else on the label, so the first thing on a dog food ingredients list ought to be a (named) meat.

3. Now look for the “guaranteed analysis” box and check the protein and fat levels.

Do you know how much protein and fat is present in the food you currently feed your dog? You don’t?! Well, you should – because otherwise, how else would you know whether the new food you are thinking about buying contains twice as much protein and three times as much fat as the one you have been giving him? Go now and look at the label of the food you already have, and note those numbers somewhere.

The range of protein and fat levels in the variety of dog foods present in any given pet supply store will astound you in their breadth. If you’ve always been under the impression that “dog food is dog food,” you will be stunned to learn that one food may have three or more times as much protein and fat than the food sitting next to it on the shelf. There really isn’t a single “ideal” number for all dogs; you have to take your own dog’s age, breed, size, weight, activity level, and health into account when choosing a food that has the “right” amount of protein and fat. And you have to know where your dog is now – how much protein and fat he is already being fed – to know what effect a new food with different amounts of protein and fat will likely have on him.

Pay no attention whatsoever to phrases including Light, Lite, Healthy Weight, Reduced Calorie, and so on. Look at the protein and fat numbers on the Guaranteed Analysis – that’s all, because one company’s “Reduced Calorie” food may contain twice as much fat as another company’s regular Adult food. It’s just another place where you have to dismiss the adjectives and look at the bottom line.

Speaking of calories, you can look for a number, but you may not find it (the calorie content of foods is not yet required on dog food labels in every state) – and you may not be able to easily compare one food’s calorie content to another product’s. One might list kilocalories per cup of food, and another might list kilocalories per kilogram of food. The protein and (especially) the amount of fat listed on the Guaranteed Analysis will be a more useful guide.

4. Look for the product’s “AAFCO” statement. 

You will find the words “complete and balanced” on almost every dog food label – sometimes, in many places on the label. But this phrase, which means that the product contains all the nutrients your dog needs, only really counts in one spot: where it references the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). No, that’s not a branch of the government you’ve never heard of; it’s an advisory group that establishes standards that are adopted by (and regulated by) feed control officials in each state. Pet food may not be labeled as “complete and balanced” in any state unless it has one of two possible statements on it: one referencing AAFCO “animal feeding trials” that have confirmed the nutritional adequacy of the food; or the other, indicating that the food has been formulated to meet the AAFCO nutrient guidelines (or “nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles”).

We’ve explained the differences between and compared the relative merits of these two statements in several past articles in WDJ, and discuss them briefly in all of our annual dry and wet food reviews. For now, though, as long as the product has one statement or the other, let’s not worry about that. To make sure you are buying an appropriate food for your dog, the words you really need to notice in this statement have to do with the dogs mentioned within the statement. Does the statement say the food is complete and balanced for “all dogs,” “puppies,” or for “maintenance” (sometimes specified as “adult maintenance”) only? If it says it’s for “all dogs” (or “all life stages”), the product meets all the standards. The nutrient requirements are the lowest for products labeled as for “maintenance only.”

Note that if a pet food label does not say it is “complete and balanced” anywhere, it should have a statement saying that it is for “intermittent or supplemental feeding” only. It should be obvious that a food labeled thusly should not be used as a dog’s sole diet.

By the way, you may have to look really hard for this statement. It might be just a line or two of really small type, located somewhere inconspicuous. But it has to be there by law; check it out.

5. Find and check the date code and/or “best by” date.

Every product label will have a code stamped on it somewhere, identifying where and when the product was made. These batch codes are used to identify the origin of the product in case of a recall or any problem with the food. However, thatinformation is coded; you won’t be able to find out exactly which manufacturing plant in which state made the food. If you have a problem with the food, and give the date code to the pet food company, they will know, and will use the information to look up batch records and perhaps test their own retained samples from the same batch.

dog food label nutritional statement

While you are standing in the pet supply store, looking at labels, none of that information is important; I only mentioned all that because sometimes the batch code is incorporated into the date codes, and sometimes it’s stamped on the bag separately. When you are about to buy your dog’s food, the critical part of any coding you can find on the label has to do with the date of manufacture. You need to know how old that particular container of food is, because the older it is, the more likely it is to have lost nutritional value. This is less of an issue with canned foods, because they last far longer. But with dry dog foods, the age of the food has everything to do with its potential rancidity. For in-depth information about this, see “Fats’ Chance,” in WDJ’s December 2012 issue. Suffice to say here that rancid (oxidized) fats are really bad for dogs.

Again, though, just to make things a little more challenging than they really should be, this information will be hard to find and inconsistent from brand to brand and label to label. Some companies stamp their bags with a date of manufacture; this requires you to be knowledgeable about how long the food should be expected to last. Other companies use a “best by” or expiration date; that’s far more helpful, but understand that food that is close to these dates is actually months older than it ought to be; ideally, the product would be consumed by your dog within a couple of months of its manufacture. It’s best of all when the company stamps the product with both dates – the manufacturing date and the “best by” date, so you stand the best chance of identifying the freshest product possible.

Consumers who are armed with this information are 
hard on store owners, because they rifle through the nice neat stacks of food and reject the sacks on the top of the piles, which the stock persons have placed there hoping to sell them first, before they expire.

A really good store manager will understand the importance of selling you the most wholesome product possible, however, and will want your dog to have the best possible digestive experience with the food, so you come back to her store and buy some more. What’s more, good managers manage their product orders carefully, so they aren’t stuck with literal tons of products that are close to their expiration dates. If a salesperson gives you a hard time about sorting through the stacks (looking for freshly made foods), or if there are no relatively freshly made foods available, look for another product to buy.

After 17 years of writing about dog food, I still learn new things about the industry and canine nutrition, but these five label-reading tips will do more to help you find an appropriate, healthy diet for your dog than everything else. So grab your reading glasses and start with the label of the food you currently feed! I promise you will learn something new and interesting.

Nancy Kerns is the editor of WDJ.

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