Im afraid Ive heard this story more times than I can count anyone who has been involved in rescue for long has heard it, too: Family wants to do the right thing and adopt a shelter or rescue dog; family waits for just the right dog to come along to the shelter/rescue; family is matched with/meets dog, falls in love; family takes dog home . . . and somewhere in the first week, or even the first DAY, the dog is inadvertently given an opportunity that the family, who has been filled with anticipation for weeks or months, just didnt expect the dog escapes and disappears. Was it a stop at the gas station on the way home, when little Billy got out of the car to use the restroom and left the car door open for a minute? When the family thought the dog would follow them into the house when they arrived home with the dog and just let her out of the car? When a visitor who came over to the house lingered too long in the doorway, without thinking to block the dog from slipping outside?
However it happens, losing the new dogs is usually a huge disappointment for the family, who has waited so long. But its often an even more wrenching disappointment for the group or person who fostered the dog; they may have invested weeks or years in saving and rehabilitating the dog, providing medical care (something as simple as spay/neuter, for example, or as lengthy and involved as treatment for demodex or heartworm), and perhaps helping the dog make a transition from being a neglected dog on a chain, to learning to live with and enjoy humans and fellow companion animals inside a home, with a family. To learn that a dog you invested money and time and love has gone poof! Just heartbreaking.
I fostered an obese and anxious Labrador a couple years ago; she had been surrendered by an older man who had gone into long-term care (without hope of recovery), and had never spent more than an hour without him in her three-year-old life. She liked people, and was very jolly and friendly with me, and seemed perfectly content to hang out with me, but her constant panting and tense ears belied the jolliness. Her tension was confirmed the first time I unclipped her leash and let her out the back door of my house unbeknownst to her, into a very securely fenced backyard; she ran like a demon was chasing her. Only when she discovered there was no way out no open gate, no low or rickety fence did she turn back toward me, smiling as if that little escape effort hadnt happened.
Who knows why dogs do this? Why cant she see that we love her and want to provide everything for her? Shes been so abused why cant she see what a nice home this will be for her?
But most dogs arent looking at every new person or place like an orphan who has been spoon-fed fantastic stories about how great her new life is going to be with her new family. All they know is that they have been taken away by strangers once again, and even if the strangers are very nice, this isnt home. The instinct for the dog to find something familiar (even if what was familiar for the dog was not so nice) is VERY STRONG.
I guess its understandable that people look at the whole thing from a human perspective, but you have to TRY see it from the dogs point of view; dogs havent been anticipating and visualizing their new lives with a new family the way the new family has been imagining how the dog is going to complete their lives. You have to keep the dog long enough to bond to you before you can trust him not to bolt at the earliest opportunity.
It’s frustrating at best, dangerous at worst, when you can’t get your dog to come to you. Indoors, he may be suspicious that you’re going to do something aversive, such as treat his ear infection, or put him in his crate. Outdoors, he may also have an aversive association with coming to you, or he may just be having entirely too much fun. Whatever the cause, here are five tips for handling the crisis:
1. Stop calling the dog
Seriously. If he’s already not coming, calling him again isn’t going to miraculously make it happen. In fact, you’re likely to make your tone more commanding or angry, which is even less likely to make him come. So stop calling him and do something else.
2. Cue your dog for a different behavior
Does he love to target? Give him your touch cue and offer your hand as the target. It just so happens he has to come to you to touch your hand! Is his favorite cue “Find it”? Toss treats at your feet and give him the cue. There he is, gobbling them up right at your feet. Do his eyes light up when you ask him to weave?
Ask him to start weaving – lo and behold, he’s right under you! Does he drop like a rock on his “Down” cue? Cue him to down and stay – and then walk up to him with a happy smile and lots of treats. Is a car ride his idea of heaven? Open the car door and ask him if he wants to go for a ride. Got him! And, yes, now you have to take him for a ride or he might not come the next time you use this ploy.
3. Invite your dog to play.
Grab your tennis ball collection and ask him to start fetching. Pull out his favorite toy and offer to tug with him. Start swinging his flirt pole. Squeak a squeaky toy. Roll around on the ground. Blow bubbles. Show him his favorite puzzle toy and invite him to play with it. If you have more than one dog, play with your other dog to spark his interest. Whatever games he normally loves to engage in with you, start playing!
4. Run the other way.
Dogs love to chase things that move. Try running in the opposite direction instead of chasing after him. Yell “Hey, hey, hey!” or blow a loud whistle to get his attention and when he glances in your direction, run as fast as you can away from him. This works especially well if you incorporated “run away” in your training to get an enthusiastic recall.
5. Use an emergency recall cue.
You may already have one of these and not know it. Your emergency cue is a word that has a 100 percent positive association for your dog. Perhaps it’s “Cookies!” or “Dinner!” Stop and think; is there a word you have used with your dog that always means something wonderful? If so, you can use that word carefully as an emergency recall cue.
A caveat: If you use your emergency word and then do something aversive to your dog, you’ll “poison” it and lose the power of that word, too. If you haven’t created one accidentally already, you can train an emergency recall cue by associating your new chosen word (or a very loud whistle) with spectacular treats and play. Just remember to always follow it with fantastically positive stuff.
And, finally, I don’t think I have to say this to WDJ readers, but here I go anyway: Don’t ever punish your dog when he finally comes to you, no matter how aggravated you are. Put on your best happy face, tell him how wonderful he is, and give him all kinds of positive reinforcement. If you are angry with him when you finally get your hands on him, it will only be that much harder to get him to come to you the next time.
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, is WDJ’s Training Editor. Pat is also the author of many books on positive training.
Listen to Susan Paulsen’s story, and you’ll never look the same way again at your dog diving into your swimming pool or a glistening lake, or biting playfully at jets of water from your lawn sprinklers or garden hose.
Earlier this year, Susan was poolside at her home in Morgan Hill, California, tossing a ball for her water-loving Papillon, Kinetic. The 3½-year-old dog was a top-ranked agility competitor, with whom Susan planned to compete at elite agility events around the globe this year. Susan routinely cross-trained the little dog in the pool to build her muscle strength. Kinetic had just learned how to leap straight into the pool, and absolutely loved diving into the big blue expanse for her toy.
Susan was always careful to prevent Kinetic from overexertion; the dog’s name reflected her exuberant attitude about everything she did. So after the usual 20 minutes, Susan called a time-out for Kinetic to rest.
A half-hour later, Susan found her dog motionless on the couch. Kinetic was so lethargic and weak that her head bobbed and she urinated uncontrollably when Susan picked her up. In the car on the way to the emergency vet, things got worse: Kinetic started to foam at the mouth, her lips turned blue, and she passed out, lapsing into a coma from which she would never awaken. As the veterinarian did bloodwork, noting that her sodium-potassium levels were off, Kinetic slipped even further away. Her brain started to swell, and her organs began to fail. At 2 am, the veterinarians took Kinetic off the respirator.
In the space of six hours, Kinetic had gone from being an active, vibrant, butterfly-eared blur to a memory.
“She was fine,” Susan says, still in disbelief. “We didn’t do anything excessive, and she wasn’t exhausted. I had no clue that this could happen.”
The culprit was water intoxication, a relatively rare but frequently lethal condition that results from the body taking in more water than it can handle. When this happens, sodium levels outside the cells are depleted, a condition called hyponatremia. In an effort to rebalance itself, the body responds to the low blood sodium by increasing fluid intake inside the cells. Some organs, such as the liver, have room to accommodate the size of their swelling cells, but others – in particular the brain, which is encased in unyielding bone – cannot.
Signs of water intoxication include lethargy, bloating, vomiting, loss of coordination (stumbling, falling, staggering), restlessness, increased salivation, pale gums, dilated pupils, and glazed eyes. As the pressure in the brain increases and its cells begin to die off, the dog may have difficulty breathing, develop seizures, and lose consciousness.
Water Intoxication in Dogs is Frequently Misdiagnosed
“I think water intoxication is much more common than we think, and it’s often misdiagnosed,” says veterinarian Janet Dunn of Hollister, California, who owns some of Kinetic’s siblings and has made it her mission to find out just how much – or how little – veterinarians know about the syndrome that took Kinetic’s life.
Kinetic presented symptoms that were absolutely “classic” for cases of water intoxication, Dr. Dunn says, and yet, some of the first guesses at the veterinary emergency clinic about what was wrong with Kinetic included head trauma, hypothermia, and overexertion.
“I think the number-one problem is that many vets don’t know that water intoxication exists,” Dr. Dunn continues, adding that a dearth of published literature on the condition is partly to blame: One of the only scholarly works she found about it was published in 1925.
When a curious veterinarian asked about water intoxication on the Veterinary Information Network (VIN, an online community for veterinary professionals), Dr. Dunn noted that even internal-medicine specialists seemed perplexed at how a water-logged canine body can turn on itself. “One wrote and said, ‘I’d have guessed that as long as the kidneys are working, excess water should not be a problem.'”
Lower-than-normal sodium levels are a telltale sign of water intoxication, but they can also be misinterpreted, Dr. Dunn notes. “It’s not only how low the sodium falls, but it’s how quickly it falls.” By the time a dog gets into a vet’s office, the intake of water has stopped and blood-sodium levels may be starting to normalize. But the cellular damage has already been done.
In medicine, the saying goes that 75 percent of diagnosis is history, Dr. Dunn says. But with water intoxication, “I think it’s 95 percent. If a dog has neurological signs, anywhere from wobbling to seizures, and if the owner knows enough to say, ‘My dog was playing with the hose or was jumping in the pool,'” then water intoxication should be considered.
In theory, water intoxication can happen to any dog who ingests too much water, too fast. The condition advances more quickly in small dogs, simply because their bodies may be more easily overwhelmed by the excess fluid. But Border Collies and other high-drive dogs – including Jack Russell Terriers and Papillons like Kinetic – seem more likely to develop it than other breeds.
In July 2012, Megan Miller of Folsom, California, lost Kai, her 2½-year-old Border Collie, to water intoxication: It happened after a 45-minute fetching session in a lake they visited almost every day during summer. Because a friend had a Papillon who survived water intoxication several years before, Megan suspected what was wrong, but even prompt veterinary intervention and an accurate diagnosis couldn’t save Kai: She was simply too far gone.
“I think in the agility community we’ve got more dogs who are more prone to water intoxication because our dogs don’t have much fat on them – there’s not much extra tissue to take on that extra fluid,” Megan says. “And even if they’ve swallowed a bunch of water and feel sick, they’ll still work.”
High Drive, High Risk
Dr. Dunn agrees that super-focused, high-energy dogs may be at greater risk, simply because of their personalities. “We breed high-drive dogs for agility, and these dogs are obsessive about doing what they do,” she says. “It can be any breed of dog, but it’s usually the driven dog who wants to jump in a lake for a toy, or the obsessive-compulsive dog who just bites water over and over again.”
Water-centric sports such as dock diving might seem to pose a higher risk of water intoxication, but dog trainer Sally Saxton, KPA CTP, CTDI, of Performance Pups in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, says she hasn’t seen any cases at the freshwater lake where her dock-diving students have their lessons. Even so, she says, “I share the message of what to look for and how to combat it” – including taking breaks from swimming and using a flat toy for water retrievals so the dog’s mouth doesn’t gape open.
Perhaps another reason for the low incidence that Saxton sees is that in dock diving, dogs catch their toys in mid-air, and have their mouths closed around them by the time they hit the water. Also, their time in the water is limited, and they have plenty of opportunity between runs to rid their bodies of any extra fluid.
Dogs bred for water work or retrieving, such as Labrador Retrievers, Newfoundlands, and Chesapeake Bay Retrievers (to name a few), don’t usually come up in anecdotal discussions of water intoxication on the Internet. This may be because for generations these dogs have been bred to move through the water with their mouths tightly closed, creating as little surface disturbance on the water as possible in order to best do their work.
You May Have Heard of Water Toxicity (in Humans)
Dogs aren’t the only ones who can get ill or die from imbibing too much water: Human endurance athletes can also develop “exercise associated hyponatremia” (EAH), when their bodies expel sodium through perspiration and, super thirsty, they guzzle down too much water or sports drinks too quickly.
In perhaps the most high-profile case of water intoxication in people, suburban Sacramento mother of three Jennifer Strange died in 2007 after competing in a radio contest called “Hold Your Wee for a Wii.” In a bid to win the gaming console, the 28-year-old drank almost two gallons of water in little more than three hours. She died in her bathroom just hours after winning second place and a pair of concert tickets. A wrongful-death lawsuit was filed against the station, and a jury awarded Strange’s widower and three children $16.5 million.
Salt Water Toxicity in Dogs
The opposite of water intoxication is salt-water toxicity, in which a dog ingests large amounts of water with a high saline content. The initial symptoms of hypernatremia, or salt poisoning, include vomiting and diarrhea, which can then progress into neurological symptoms such as lack of coordination and seizures as fluid is drawn out of the brain and severe dehydration begins. As with water intoxication, careful administration of IV fluids to help restore electrolyte balance is required. As a precaution at the beach or seaside, offer your dog fresh water, and give her frequent and shady rest breaks.
Treatment and Prevention
Dr. Dunn notes that mild cases of water intoxication may simply resolve themselves without the owner noticing. “The dog might come out of the water staggering, and then become undiluted by producing urine,” which helps remove extra fluid before the body is overwhelmed.
Because water intoxication involves a lack of sodium, carefully replenishing that important mineral is crucial. Treatment includes administration of moderate levels of electrolytes (super-concentrated sodium can cause severe neurological problems in its own right), drugs such as Mannitol (to decrease intracranial pressure), and diuretics such as Lasix (to help speed the removal of fluid).
“Really severe cases probably won’t survive because their brain stem dies, which controls respiration,” Dr. Dunn says. “When they get that bad, there’s too much permanent damage.”
Owners of dogs who have survived water intoxication sometimes report varying degrees of brain damage as well.
Megan’s new Border Collie, Reckon, swims just like Kai did. “She holds her head very low in the water, and she’s definitely a candidate” for water intoxication, Megan says.
“We still go to the lake, and we still play, and my dogs now are still addicted to swimming,” she continues. “But I won’t throw a toy more than five times, and then I give them a 5- or 10-minute break.”
Megan no longer throws tennis balls (“The dogs’ mouths are so wide open, I can see water go in”), instead preferring flat toys like West Paw Design’s Bumi, an S-shaped floatie that also works for games of tug; and Chuckit’s Heliflight, a triangle-shaped flexible flyer. The latter gets in the dogs’ line of vision when they are retrieving it in the water, she adds, “so they feel like they have to hold their head up to see.”
Dr. Dunn stresses that the best way to deal with water intoxication is to not let it happen in the first place.
“Just pay attention,” she warns. “I promise you, it is out there.”
Precautions to Take
With its rapid onset and dismal prognosis, water intoxication is certainly something to be concerned about anytime your dog gets near the wet stuff. But it shouldn’t mean that you swear your dog off any contact with water. Just take adequate precautions, including:
Choose flat rather than round objects to retrieve. It makes sense: A dog who is retrieving a round object like a tennis ball has to keep his mouth open wider than a dog who has closed his mouth around a flatter object.
Know your dog. Being aware of how your individual dog interacts with water is key. Some dogs are very careful swimmers, keeping their noses pointed toward the sky and their mouths clamped shut. But others are more enthusiastic. Does yours like to splash in the pool, or bite at the stream of water from the hose or sprinkler? Then she’s likely at greater risk than another dog who is more reserved.
Discourage diving for toys.The key to avoiding water intoxication is curtailing any activity that can lead to water intake. Biting the water from a hose is also a no-no: Because that water exits under such high pressure, and it’s so fun (read, rewarding) your dog could ingest far more than is good for him.
Take frequent breaks. Regular time-outs on terra firma not only interrupt any ingestion of water, but also give a dog the opportunity to rid her body of extra fluids by urinating. Also, tired dogs tend to swim lower in the water, and may inadvertently take on more water than their better-rested counterparts.
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.
We’ve all seen dogs who exude impulse control – the ones who are calm in the face of excitement, and patient when it comes to getting what they want. Of course, we’ve all seen those dogs who are lacking impulse control, too – dogs who can’t seem to handle excitement and become overexcited, pushy, or reactive. Sometimes that lack of impulse control results in problem behaviors such as chasing cars, barking for balls, and jumping to say hi. Can dogs who are lacking impulse control learn this important life skill? Absolutely!
I recently had the pleasure of watching an Aussie-mix pup learn about impulse control from another pup. The 14-week-old Aussie started out pouncing and biting a little too hard for his Spaniel-mix playmate. The Spaniel started calmly stopping the play each time the Aussie went over the top, and inviting play when the Aussie calmed down. With each repeated stop and start, the Aussie began to pay attention to his body, his enthusiasm, and his teeth! He began approaching more slowly, pouncing more softly, and keeping his mouth open rather than clamping down. This lovely young Aussie learned about impulse control through a totally fun play session. (And the Spaniel obviously enjoyed the interaction, too!)
These pups clearly demonstrated that the key to learning impulse control is through experiences and actions . . . and the consequences those actions bring. They also showed that impulse control can be learned quickly when the consequences involve fun.
All types of consequences (both positive experiences, such as invitations to play, and negative experiences, such as the play ending) influence the development of impulse control. Fortunately, most dogs can learn this important skill from us as well as through their interactions with other dogs. A very effective way to help your dog learn impulse control is through a variety of enjoyable games and interactions.
Relaxing Is Rewarding
Many dogs who have trouble with impulse control really don’t understand that being calm is an option. For these puppies and dogs, learning that they can settle and that calm behavior is rewarding is the first step. Here are two activities you can incorporate into your daily life to help your dog learn that a calm, relaxed state is always a good option.
First, simply catch your dog in the act of being relaxed, for example, when she has settled on her bed or is sunning on the patio. When you see your dog settled, approach calmly with quiet praise or a gentle touch, and then drop a treat right near her paws or nose.
The first few times you do this, your dog may get up and follow you around to see if more treats might be forthcoming. If she does, simply go back to what you were doing without giving her more attention. After a few repetitions, your dog will learn to settle right back in after being rewarded.
A second activity is to reward your dog for relaxing at your feet. Start with your dog on a short leash so he can’t wander off or engage in another activity. Go to a nice quiet place. Stand or sit and wait for your dog to lie down. Please don’t cue your dog or otherwise encourage him to lie down. You may have to wait a long time – longer than you’d like to! – but just keep waiting. (This game is also a good way for people to practice impulse control; it really is best to wait for the dog to offer the behavior!)
When your dog offers the down, calmly say, “Good dog” and drop a treat between his front legs. You can offer additional treats to help your dog stay relaxed and settled.
Tips: Don’t use a clicker or other reward marker for this exercise, as this may encourage excitement instead of calm. If your dog is staring at you, do not treat. Wait until he is no longer thinking about the food before you drop another treat at his feet.
Waiting Is Worth It
Sit and wait is one of the most common impulse-control exercises because it works! Impulse control is in action as the dog learns to hold the sit or stay seated while you move away. Impulse control can be reinforced by generously rewarding when your dog stays sitting, even in the face of increasing distractions.
To make sit and wait fun, try adding “sit for everything” into your daily life. More specifically, ask your dog to sit before he gets anything he finds fun and valuable: Sit before walks. Sit to start tug, fetch, and chase games. Sit for treats and dinner. Sit before snapping off the leash for a romp in the woods. Whatever your dog gets excited about, have him sit and wait before doing it. Your dog will soon associate sitting and being patient with the opportunity to have fun and engage in enjoyable activities.
Tips: At first, simply request a brief sit from your dog before releasing him for fun or food. What if your dog doesn’t sit when you ask? Put more distance between your dog and the source of the excitement and try again. Gradually work closer to the excitement and extend the time your dog sits. Be sure to reward your dog when he starts to anticipate the sit and offers it without your asking. This is impulse control at work!
Get High and Settle
An important skill for impulse control is the ability to settle in the face of excitement. My favorite game for helping dogs learn to quickly calm down when they are super “high” is a tug/down/tug game. To play this game, your dog will need to understand a “Drop it” cue, a “Down” cue, and a release such as “Okay” or “Free.”
When you first play this game, do so at an intensity level that is low enough to keep your dog calm. Initiate a game of tug with whatever cue you use, such as “Tug!” or “Get it!” After just a few seconds, use your cue for asking your dog to drop the toy. When he drops it, immediately say “Okay” or use your release cue, and then start the game again. Repeat this first step a couple of times until your dog gets the idea that dropping the toy is what keeps the game going.
Next, begin the game of tug, ask for him to “Drop it,” and then cue your dog to “Down.” As soon as your dog hits the ground, give your release cue and start the tug game again with “Tug” or “Get it!” After a few repetitions of this, ask your dog to drop the toy and then wait for your dog to offer a down. Your dog may experiment or try something else – keep waiting. When your dog finally tries the down, immediately release him and initiate another great game of tug!
When your dog quickly offers the down, you can start to extend the time he stays down before you release him. At first you might just wait two or three seconds, but gradually wait to release him until he shows some sign of calming. For example, I look for my dog’s excitement to drop a notch as evidenced by a change in her breathing or eyes softening, and then I resume the tug game.
Over time, you can increase the intensity of the game so that your dog learns to listen, play, stop, and settle even in the face of increasing excitement.
Tips: If your dog gets overexcited in this game, play a very calm version of it with just a moment or two of tug. If your dog does not like to tug, try another similar “get excited and settle” game such as running around together with a stop and settle. Or, play with a flirt pole (a toy on the end of a rope, which is fastened to a pole) to get your dog running, and then incorporate the stop and settle.
Leave It Alone
Leave it (sometimes called “Off”) is a very powerful impulse-control exercise. It involves having the dog turn away from something that he is interested in and make eye contact with you instead. My favorite way to jump-start this behavior is through a “Doggy Zen” exercise. (Doggy Zen: In order to have the treat, you must leave the treat.)
Have a handful of super-exciting treats and one rather boring treat available. Put the boring treat in one hand and the good treats in a pouch or container behind your back. Present the boring treat to your dog in a closed fist (so she can smell it, but can’t get to it). Allow your dog lick and sniff your hand, and try to get to the treat.
The moment your dog backs away from your treat/hand a tiny bit, mark the moment with the “click!” of a clicker or with a verbal marker such as the word “Yes!” and give your dog one of the super-good treats from your other hand. Be very patient; the first try or two can take several minutes before a dog gives up and backs away.
Once your dog understands the game and quickly backs away from the treat in your fist, change it up a little by switching which hand is holding the boring treat. Again, reward with the yummy treat from your other hand.
Once your dog easily backs away from a boring treat in either hand, pause a moment after your dog backs away from the treat (without immediately marking or rewarding the behavior). Watch your dog carefully; almost always, after a few moments of not getting the expected reward, dogs will look at your face for information, trying to figure out why they haven’t been rewarded yet. The moment he offers that eye contact, click (or “Yes!”) and reward him.
When your dog easily backs off a treat and subsequently makes eye contact with you each time, add a verbal cue such as “Leave it.” Present the treat first, and when your dog takes notice, say “Leave it,” and click/”Yes!” and reward when your dog makes eye contact.
Tips: Be patient when waiting for your dog to back off from your fist; let your dog figure out what finally earns him the reward. To take this game to the next level, you can advance from holding the treat in a closed fist to an open hand, to putting the treat on the floor, or using a toy instead of a treat. By gradually increasing the difficulty of the “Leave it” task and rewarding your dog generously, he will learn that leaving something alone is more exciting and interesting than going for it!
Tricks for Tosses
Most dogs love to chase, run, and play. As with the “sit for everything” exercise described earlier, you can ask your dog to do another behavior before you start any active play-and-chase games.
With this game, instead of having your dog sit and wait, ask your dog to do an activebehavior – something that makes your dog move – before you toss a toy or release him to run with his pals. Some behaviors to ask your dog for include hand-targeting, spins, leg weaves, fall in to heel or go behind to heel, or coming to you from a short distance. By asking your dog to do something active, he will learn to pay better attention to you when his arousal level is still high. This helps your dog learn to “listen” to you even when he wants to chase, run, or play – a real challenge for some dogs.
Tips: Make it easy for your dog at first and ask for a behavior he knows very well. Some dogs will love this game from the start and consider the tricks all part of the fun; others may become frustrated by having to do something to make the ball fly. To keep your dog’s spirits and interest in the game high, try asking for just one trick and reward with several tosses.
Be Rewarding!
Building impulse control can take time and energy, but it can also be a totally fun way to spend time with your dog. Rather than making it all about self-containment, make sure your dog understands that calm and focused behavior is the way to keep fun happening, and a great way to keep rewards of all types flowing.
Because impulse control is challenging for some dogs, it’s important to make sure all of your impulse-control games and activities are offset with plenty of activities where your dog can let loose and have some uninhibited fun. In fact, to keep a dog enthusiastic about offering impulse control, balance every minute or two of impulse-control activities with several more minutes of fun.
For example, if you are playing the tug/down/tug game, every minute or so, take a quick break and simply toss the toy and let your dog have it, run around, and be goofy. The formula I use with my dog is that for every minute of impulse-control games, I incorporate five minutes or more of active, expressive activity.
Building impulse control can take time. Some dogs pick up the skills quickly, but some need a little more assistance. Just as the Aussie and Spaniel pups showed, experimentation, consequences, and having fun are the keys to successful impulse-control training.
Author/trainer Mardi Richmond, MA, CPDT-KA, lives and works in Santa Cruz, California. She shares her home with a wonderful partner and a joyful Cattle Dog-mix. Mardi is the owner of Good Dog Santa Cruz, where through classes and private training she helps dogs learn impulse control and other things.
It’s always been interesting to me that few people know why young puppies have to be vaccinated several times, a few weeks apart – and yet, few question the practice. There’s a term for it: puppy shots! The concept is widely accepted – and rarely explained. In my experience, when people ask why a puppy needs repeated vaccinations, they are told something vague and inaccurate, such as, “It takes a few shots to build the puppy’s immunity.”
It’s a similar situation with annual or semi-annual so-called vaccine “boosters” – not many people know much about their dogs’ vaccination status, so they take their veterinarians’ word that their dogs are “due” for more vaccinations.
The truth is, there is no single vaccination protocol that will protect all dogs for all things, without over-vaccinating most of them. Vaccination really ought to be determined on a case-by-case basis, because each dog’s risk factors are unique, based on his age, genetic inheritance, current health, geographic location, and lifestyle.
That said, there is a very useful tool that can help an owner gain solid information about whether her dog is likely to be protected against the most common infectious diseases: the vaccine titer test. Positive test results can also give a dog owner some solid ammunition for countering those who blindly promote (or require, in the case of some boarding or training facilities) so-called “current” vaccinations, which can mean many different things to different people.
Core Canine Vaccines
The closest thing that there is to a universal list of recommendations for canine vaccinations in North America is produced by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA). The veterinary medical experts who have contributed to the AAHA’s recommendations agree that there are a handful of infectious diseases that pose a threat to all dogs and that all dogs should receive vaccinations for those diseases; these are commonly referred to as the “core” vaccines.
Core vaccines include:
Canine distemper virus (CDV, commonly referred to as distemper)
Canine parvovirus (CPV, parvo)
Canine adenovirus (CAV, better known as canine hepatitis)
Rabies
Among healthy dogs, the first three “core” vaccines are expected to induce a protective immune response lasting at least five years. However, much longer protection from these vaccines has been demonstrated in dogs in many studies – sometimes, even as long as the dogs’ lifetime.
Rabies is a slightly different case. Because the disease poses a significant risk to human beings, it’s the only vaccine that is required by law to be administered to dogs. Each state has its own legal requirements for rabies vaccination. Some require annual rabies vaccinations; the rest require the vaccination be given every two or three years (depending on the state). There is ample evidence that rabies vaccines confer protection from rabies for longer than three years, but given the public health risk to humans, there is considerable pushback from public health officials to the idea of extending the legal requirement for rabies vaccines.
Noncore Vaccines
There are also a number of vaccines for infectious diseases that can pose a risk to some dogs, depending on individual risk factors and geographic location. These are called the “noncore” vaccines, and they include:
Bordetella bronchiseptica (Bb, kennel cough)
Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme disease)
Canine coronavirus
Canine parainfluenza virus (CPiV, parainfluenza)
Leptospira spp. (leptospirosis)
Measles virus
Most of these vaccines are useful in certain circumstances, but the evidence falls short of proving that they are helpful to all dogs everywhere. Further, there is proof that some of the noncore vaccines can be harmful to certain dogs. For these reasons, the AAHA recommends that the administration of these vaccines should be decided on an individual basis by a veterinarian familiar with the puppy or dog and the local risks.
As just one example, Lyme disease is prevalent in some parts of the country, and quite rare in others, and it is transmitted by tick bites. Also, some dogs can suffer serious side effects from the vaccine. So if a dog lives in a part of the country where Lyme is not common, and/or if you have a dog who has very little exposure to environments where ticks are likely, the risks of vaccinating that dog for Lyme outweigh the potential benefit.
A Test of Protection
Let’s go back to the diseases that every dog should be protected from; these are the ones that are most likely to appear on the reminder postcards sent out by your veterinarian – and the ones that you will experience the most pressure (from your veterinarian’s staff) to repeat in order to keep “current.” Depending on your vet, “current” may be defined as annually, every three years, every five years, or longer. As little as 20 years ago, it was widely thought that annual vaccinations “couldn’t hurt, and might help,” and most veterinary practitioners recommended that their clients vaccinate every dog annually. But today, we understand that canine vaccines don’t “wear off” or “become due” in any standard amount of time. Also, it’s better understood today that randomly stimulating the immune system can have negative consequences that we don’t fully understand, so we should be more discriminating about vaccinations.
Let’s put a fine point on it: The core vaccines are an important and life-saving component of responsible dog care when administered properly – neither too frequently nor inadequately. Which brings us back to the original question: How do you know when your dog is protected – or unprotected – against the core diseases?
The best tool at our disposal today is something called a vaccine titer test, and in our opinion, every dog should be tested at least once, and again every three years or so.
When we vaccinate a dog, we administer disease antigens (in a weakened, modified, or killed form that can’t cause disease) in order to stimulate the dog’s immune system to produce antibodies, molecules that are produced to recognize and neutralize that specific antigen, should they ever cross paths. A vaccine titer test checks for and quantifies the amount of antibodies to specific diseases that a dog has circulating in his blood.
The technology exists to detect any specific antibody for which we may have vaccinated a dog; we can test whether a dog possesses circulating antibodies for any disease. But as it turns out, that’s not necessary.
There are two types of antibodies that are highly predictive of the competence of a dog’s overall immune response to vaccines: distemper and parvo. If a dog has been vaccinated against distemper and parvo, and develops antibodies to these diseases, the odds are very good that he has developed antibodies for any other core disease for which he has been vaccinated.
In other words, a positive vaccine titer test for parvo and distemper can put your mind at ease – and should put your veterinarian’s mind at ease – that your dog is adequately immunized against the core disease vaccinations he has received.
The AAHA – and vaccine-savvy veterinarians – recommend that puppies receive a vaccine titer test about two weeks after they have been given their final puppy core vaccinations (which should occur when the puppy is about 14 to 16 weeks old). Again, a positive result for both distemper and parvo antibodies indicates that the puppy is properly immunized. The AAHA’s recommendation is that adult dogs are tested about every three years, to ensure that they still possess circulating antibodies for the core diseases.
Negative Results
What about when vaccine titer tests come back negative for distemper and/or parvo antibodies? The significance of this result depends on a few factors, including the dog’s age and vaccination status, and the vaccine used.
If the test was for a puppy who recently completed a series of core vaccines, he should be revaccinated promptly, and then a titer test run again about three weeks later. The most likely explanation is that something called “maternally derived antibodies” (MDA,antibodies he received via colostrum from his mother) were still active in his bloodstream when the vaccines were given, and they neutralized the antigens present in the vaccines.
Maternal antibodies don’t last forever, however; they “fade” at an unpredictable rate. The maternal antibodies can fade quickly (or may be absent) if a pup’s mother was unvaccinated, or he received very little or no colostrum from his mother. If his mother had an unusually high antibody titer herself (the highest levels result from surviving an infection with the disease itself), her pups’ MDAs might take longer than usual to fade. This would render all of the puppy’s early vaccinations useless; only vaccinations given after the MDA faded would stimulate the puppy’s own antibody production.
However, if the puppy was undoubtedly more than 20 weeks old when he was vaccinated the final time, and his vaccine antibody titer test results (from a sample taken three weeks after the last vaccination) were still negative, it could indicate that he was a “non-responder” – a dog who could not be properly immunized.
It’s been estimated that 1 in 1,000 dogs are not able to respond to the canine parvovirus vaccine; those dogs will be at a lifetime risk of contracting the disease (though the risk if greater when they are puppies; adults are more likely to pull through with prompt and dedicated care). Far more rare are dogs who cannot respond properly to the distemper vaccine antigen; this is estimated to occur in about 1 in 10,000 dogs.
The third possibility for the dog’s failure to produce antibodies in response to vaccination: bad or improperly stored vaccine. In this case, a different vaccine should be used, and the dog re-tested a few weeks later. According to the AAHA guidelines, “If, after one or more attempts at revaccination with a product different than the one originally used, the dog fails to develop an antibody response” to distemper or parvo vaccines, the dog should be considered a nonresponder.
Canine vaccine experts agree that if a dog previously had a positive antibody titer for both distemper and parvo, and upon later titer testing is negative for one or both antibodies, he should be revaccinated with the core vaccines, and another titer test should be ordered about three weeks later.
There are people who disagree, however. The antibodies may no longer be in circulation, but if they had been present earlier in the dog’s life, the dog should have immune memory cells – that we can’t detect with lab tests – which should, if a dog is exposed to the disease antigen, recognize the antigen and re-start production of the appropriate antibodies.
It’s a valid theory . . . but the most-respected small-animal vaccine expert in the country, Ronald D. Schultz, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, disavows the wisdom of the practice. Dr. Schultz has studied animal vaccines for decades, and as a consultant and researcher, has helped develop many of the ones on the market. “You have to consider a dog who has no detectable antibodies against disease to be unprotected for that disease,” he says firmly. “I would revaccinate the dog. The risks of contracting the disease are far greater than the risk posed by vaccines – particularly in a very infrequently vaccinated animal.”
Titer Caveats
I can tell you from personal experience that it can be difficult to be the first in your veterinarian’s practice to ask for a vaccine titer test in lieu of automatic revaccinating. The staff may not understand which test to order; a practice manager once told me it would cost $50 – $100 for a test of each vaccine in the combination shot the vet wanted to give my dog Otto. I actually helped them find and order the appropriate test from their laboratory catalog, but switched veterinarians shortly afterward.
During my second visit to the next veterinary clinic I tried, one of the practice owners spent 20 minutes arguing with me about the value of titer tests. “There is no way to know what titer numbers are protective,” she stated, and added that “even dogs with positive titers can contract disease.”
Those statements are both technically true – but it’s very, very rare for a dog who has any circulating antibodies to a disease to become infected with that disease upon exposure. Practitioners who make statements like this are unlikely to add the corollary to this – that dogs who do not have detectable antibodies to a specific disease may be able to fend off a challenge (exposure) to that disease, again, thanks to as-yet immeasurable “cell-mediated immunity.”
I want a collaborative professional relationship with my dogs’ veterinarian. If we have very different opinions about something as basic as vaccination, the chances are we will butt heads over other treatments, too. I advise looking for a new doctor to work with if your vet is resistant to running a titer test in lieu of needless and potentially harmful overvaccination. In my experience, veterinarians who are either under 40 or interested in holistic medicine (or both) will readily and with professional curiosity order a titer test for your dog.
The veterinary medical laboratories that provide vaccine titer tests all offer a combined canine distemper/parvo vaccine titer test that is less than the cost of running two separate tests. The price you pay will vary, depending on which lab your vet uses and how much your vet charges for taking a blood sample for your dog and sending it to a lab; your veterinarian may also mark up the cost of the test.
The labs founded by veterinary vaccine experts Jean Dodds, DVM (Hemopet) and Ronald Schultz, PhD (CAVIDS Titer Testing Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison) charge a flat fee for the tests, but you still have to pay your veterinarian for taking and shipping the blood sample. The CAVIDS Titer Testing Laboratory has the lowest-cost test of $40; this price is partially underwritten by Maddie’s Fund, as the samples submitted become part of ongoing studies in vaccine research.
The large national labs charge different prices depending on the size of the local market and the volume of tests (all the lab tests, not just titers) ordered by your individual veterinarian.
Some vets now offer in-office vaccine titer tests, such as the Synbiotics TiterCHEK® CDV/CPV test. This can be run while you and your dog are in the clinic for an examination, making it possible for you to follow up on the spot with a vaccination if your dog has a negative result. Again, the price charged by your own veterinarian will vary for these tests.
I adopted my mixed-breed dog Otto from a local shelter in June 2008. He was estimated to be about 7 months old and had been turned into the shelter in early May, about six weeks before I adopted him. At the time I adopted him, he had been vaccinated five times already, with four combination vaccines and once for rabies.
Given his estimated age when I adopted him – at least 6 or 7 months old – I felt confident that no maternally derived antibody would interfere with any of those vaccines, and that Otto was more than adequately immunized. (In fact, it’s likely that he was overvaccinated, a practice that is typical in shelters.) Had he been younger, so that maternally derived antibodies could have nullified his vaccinations, I probably would have ordered a vaccine titer test at the time of adoption, to confirm his immunization status.
In May 2009, Otto was due for and received a (legally required) rabies vaccination. Standard practice calls for the use of a one-year vaccine when the dog is first vaccinated for rabies, and then vaccines that are approved for longer periods after that. In California, the longest period that a dog can legally go between rabies vaccinations is three years, so I asked for a three-year rabies vaccination at that time.
The veterinarian who saw Otto for that visit gently recommended another combination vaccine, but I demurred and this sufficed. However, the invoice I received for the visit indicated that Otto was “due” for a “DHLPP-C annual vaccine” and a “Bordetella annual vaccine” the following month – a year after his last combination vaccine. No one seemed very concerned about the vaccinations at this time, least of all me.
In April 2010, I made an appointment with the veterinarian who had seen Otto the previous spring; I needed to get a new prescription for heartworm preventatives for Otto. At this appointment, the vet (a gentleman who is probably in his late 60s or early 70s) pressed hard for Otto to receive another combination vaccine. We bantered a bit about vaccination schedules and overvaccination. I finally asked if he’d feel better if we had a titer test result that showed Otto still had circulating antibodies to parvovirus and distemper. He said he would, so I had him take a blood sample and send it off to IDEXX Laboratories. (Despite his age, this was probably a first for his clinic. The office manager first quoted me $500 for the titer test. When I insisted that was too much, she admitted that she was looking at a price book for the lab and wasn’t certain which of the tests she was supposed to order. I helped her locate the code for the correct test, which IDEXX called the “Vaccination Profile Canine (ELISA),” and paid $100 for the test.
I have ordered annual vaccine titer tests for Otto ever since, and every one has come back with strong positive results. He was vaccinated with another three-year rabies vaccine in 2012, and is next required by law in early 2015. I have no plans to vaccinate him for anything else unless one of his titers comes back negative.
In January of this year, my son adopted a puppy from the same shelter. Cole’s estimated age was 12 weeks. He had been vaccinated with a combination vaccine four times since he arrived at the shelter.
I brought him to see my veterinarian at the estimated age of 18 weeks for a titer test. The result came back positive for parvo, but negative for distemper! Oh no! Did we inadvertently adopt a non-responder, who would be at risk for distemper throughout his lifetime?
I had ordered the test from Dr. Shultz’s lab, and the results take a little longer than from the big commercial outfits, so it was two weeks before I took Cole back to the vet to discuss the results. We agreed we should revaccinate with a different product, and then run another titer test. During this consultation, the vet examined Cole thoroughly, and suddenly was struck by Cole’s teeth. “I don’t think he’s 20 weeks old,” she said. “I bet he’s more like 16 weeks today.” We surmised that “maternal interference” was to blame for his negative titer for distemper antibodies.
We revaccinated Cole and ran another titer two weeks later. This time, the results were a nice high positive. Whew! I can rest now, knowing he’s protected.
Life with any dog has its moments of agony and ecstasy. The ecstasy happens when our dogs’ behaviors are top notch, and all systems seem to run smoothly. The agony happens when our dogs have an “oops” moment, and we know we’re responsible.
I’ve yet to meet a dog owner who does not have at least one embarrassing story to share, of an unguarded moment in time, when in a public place, his or her dog acted in a socially inappropriate way.
Part of learning is making mistakes, and as trainers or companion dog owners, we learn to survive those “oops” moments. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when we wish we could don a cloak of invisibility.
As a now-retired service dog trainer, I’ve spent countless field trips teaching my dogs to work comfortably and reliably in public environments. We teach service dogs to respond appropriately in places where pets are not allowed; obviously, we also teach them to display appropriate behaviors in public places as well. Our wonderful canine companions help us with many tasks as we accomplish our errands and work, but they must also behave appropriately during our leisure actitivities in public, such as when we meet a friend for a cup of coffee at an outdoor café, attend an art festival, or enjoy a festive picnic in a park.
It happens when we least expect it: Our dog is standing quietly by our side on a loose leash, ignoring distractions, when he suddenly unloads his bladder while waiting at a crosswalk for a light to change, splattering shoes of other people also waiting to cross the street.
We might be browsing items in a booth at an outdoor art festival with our dog standing or sitting quietly at our side, and our attention is drawn away from our dog for a moment. In the single second we take our eyes off our dog, he swivels his head and sticks his nose into another shopper’s crotch, inhaling dreamily. Though we instantly cue the dog to focus on us again, it’s too late. The crotch sniffer has already goosed his gander.
We may have thought we’d adequately prepared for these kinds of responses by allowing our dog ample time to “empty out” before going into stimulus-rich environments, and we may have practiced “leave it” in as many diverse environments as possible. But sometimes, especially with young, more easily distracted dogs, the occasional “oops” will inevitably happen when we least expect it.
It’s Not a Criticism, Just Information
I chalk these moments up to “learning experiences” for the trainer/handler, and see it as simply helpful “information” – a hint that we need to be more vigilant and proactive during future training outings. It’s also a chance to suck up our embarrassment, and learn to laugh through the red-faced moments. We learn along with our dogs – our greatest teachers.
When I was a novice service-dog trainer/handler, my first service dog was a 10-pound Papillon named Peek. He was nearing the end of his first year of training, well on the way to becoming a very reliable service dog, and was generally extremely well mannered in public. I knew the first rule of public access-training was to never take your eye off your dog for very long, and to always be aware of your dog’s body at any given time.
Peek was becoming so reliable in stores, never sniffing nor soliciting attention from other shoppers, that I began to relax my guard a bit; honestly, I became somewhat complacent. Inside a craft store, I focused more on the craft items I wanted to buy that day, and too little on the fact that my dog was still learning lessons in appropriate public behaviors.
Stopping at one aisle for a few minutes, I lost my focus on my dog, gathering items to put in my lap basket as I rolled through the store in my wheelchair. I’d occasionally glance down at my dog, but he remained nicely in a heel position, so I kept shopping. Finding my last item, I headed to the cashier’s counter and put my items on the conveyer belt. When the cashier had scanned all the items in my lap basket, she paused, smiled, and said, “I’m just waiting for your last item, ma’am.”
I looked down at my lap, thinking perhaps something had come out of my basket and was between my legs or stuck between my leg and the seat of the chair, but I saw nothing. I looked back up at the cashier in bafflement. She whispered, “Your service dog is carrying your last item, ma’am.”
Knowing I hadn’t asked him to hold anything, I looked down, this time looking at his head, not just seeing that his body was parallel to the wheels of my power chair. I didn’t notice that though he had stayed in perfect heel position, he had a death grip on a white rabbit pelt, which he’d somehow pilfered off a bottom shelf when I wasn’t paying attention. It was now clamped securely between his chops, dripping with ropy drool.
Horribly embarrassed, I tried to cover by saying, “Oh, I’m so very sorry – I completely forgot about that item.” I cued Peek to release the item into my hand. Peek released the item to me, and never moved, but he drilled a hole through that rabbit pelt with his eyes, willing it back into his mouth.
Holding the pelt by two fingers, I try to wipe it off with a couple of wadded-up tissues, but it was hopeless. That ropy, sticky drool was embedded in the thick white rabbit pelt. The cashier looked at the dripping pelt, grimaced, and said, “That’s okay, ma’am. You just read the numbers to me and I’ll key it in manually instead of scanning it.” No way was she touching that slimy object.
It was a sobering moment to realize my inattention had allowed my dog to shoplift an item from a store. Yes, it was back to “Dog Zen” and refining the dog’s ability to bypass the urge to sniff and pilfer items he had not been asked to carry.
Beware the Rewarding Environment
Another time, when I lived in the Sonoran desert, I had a 6-month-old puppy named “Dandy,” a young service-dog hopeful. For desert dogs, water is an excellent primary reinforcer. After a nice down-stay or a sit, a cupful of water is a most coveted reward. Dandy, however, was a duck-in-training. Papillon by birth, he seemed to be more waterfowl or fish by nature.
On our river walk that day, the green Palo Verde trees on the newly landscaped path were being watered by effluent -recycled water used for irrigation. It’s common in the desert for landscapers to dig moats around the trees for the water to pool up and gradually soak into the hard, desert sand and clay soil.
Young Dandy trotted along next to my wheelchair on a loose long leash, as it was a relaxing “sniff and jog” trip, and he’d stop every few bushes to hike a leg and post a pee-mail message.
Suddenly, Dandy darted to the left, pulling the long leash loose from my hands as he spotted the irrigation sprinklers pop up and spurt fountains of water up into the air around a tree.
Before I could get “Dandy, COME!” out of my mouth, he’d jumped into the water, and started swimming around the tree, wrapping the leash twice around the thin tree trunk. Dandy looked up, shook off (standing in water that was over his belly), and tried to move toward me, but he could only walk a few steps before the securely wrapped leash stopped him.
He began swimming back and forth, paddling water, ducking his head, lifting it out of the water, shaking his head and diving his head back under the water again. He looked like a mallard duck in training.
I realized I had no choice but to slide out of my wheelchair and crawl across the dirt and cacti, into the moat of muddy water, to untangle his leash. I crawled from my chair to the water’s edge, and slid into the waist-deep effluent and attempted to untangle the leash.
Happy for a playmate, Dandy snapped at the fountains of water coming out of the irrigation tubes, then rolled over, submerging his body, and leapt up like a dolphin to grab another sip, vaulting over the top of the rubber tube. Clearly, this was the best water park he’d ever seen.
Dandy was happily barking at the spurting water as I laughed heartily while unclipping the leash from the top of his harness. I giggled out the recall cue and Dandy swam toward me, glad to be unfettered. Reaching me, he climbed up onto my lap, leapt over my shoulder and dove back into the water.
We splashed each other with water until we were both covered with mud, and I have to admit that on that 100 degree day, it felt mighty refreshing.
A lone, perspiring jogger dashed by, tipped his baseball cap at us, and quipped, “Nice day for a swim, isn’t it?”
New Behaviors
I had a lovely Border Collie named Finn, a change-of-career dog. He was a gift from Virginia (Broitman) Dare, after I lost my service dog Peek prematurely from congestive heart failure. Virginia thought that all Finn’s past media work for print and video could easily transfer over to service work with just a bit of tweaking to turn a trick into a task.
Finn was used to crowds, noisy equipment, bright lights, and lots of people scurrying around. Nothing much fazed him.
When Virginia delivered him to me, we went for a training outing at a local casino here in Las Vegas. Finn flawlessly pressed handicapped door openers, picked up trash and put it in the trash bins, did nice sits and downs for extended periods, and ignored all the distracting food treats we’d thrown on the floor to test him.
I’d spent a decade using a different set of cue words and phrases for my own service dog. Virginia wrote down as many words and phrases she could think of that were already in his repertoire, admitting she could not remember them all. I cued Finn to pick up his leash, accidentally using my own default cue phrase of “Get your leash.” Finn’s cue for that behavior was “Take it.” Finn had never heard my particular cue words coupled together, but he knew “Get your. . . .” And he filled in the blank with a behavior he thought I might have meant.
He reached back, picked up his left rear leg, and held it in his mouth. Virginia and I broke out in laughter at my miscued directive, and we couldn’t stop laughing while Finn stood there holding his left leg in his mouth. He remembered a behavior he’d once been taught years prior, of “get your leg.”
In moments, a crowd had gathered, watching in amazement as this dog stood there holding his back leg and beckoning us with his eyes for the release cue. New handler error! And of course, there was a nice reward for the problem-solving dog who had no fear of trying new behaviors, as he’d been shaped regularly to think up compound cues and adduction.
As trainers, handlers or companion-dog owners, we all have experienced those moments of enjoying the ecstasy and enduring the agony. But it’s also a journey filled with unexpected mirth and great lessons, which makes every outing fresh and original.
Debi Davis is a retired professional calligrapher and service dog trainer. She is a former faculty member of Clicker Expo, and has presented at service dog training seminars and workshops. Peek, her first service dog, was a 1999 National Service Dog of the Year and participated in animal assisted therapy in a hospital rehabilitation department. Davis and Peek carried the Olympic torch during the Salt Lake City Games. Debi is an advocate for reward-based training, and enjoys being an informal ambassador of goodwill in the service dog and disability communities. She currently lives in Las Vegas, NV, with her husband and service dog in training, Cooper.
I met a small dog recently who had breath that could knock you over. Because I’ve had small dogs before, I knew enough to lift her lip and take a peek at her teeth. Even so, I was shocked, though not surprised, by the appearance of her teeth. That is, you could barely SEE white tooth material, for the accumulation of hard calculus tartar on her teeth. Her gums were inflamed and swollen, too.
It apparently didn’t occur to anyone who knew or handled the dog that her bad breath wasn’t some sort of character flaw, it was an actual health problem exacerbated by neglect. Rather, she was criticized as a “fussy eater.” I imagine I’d be a fussy eater, too, if I was in excruciating pain from infected gums.
Small dogs, especially the ones with crowded mouths (overlapping teeth) or underbites or overbites that keep the mouth partially open at all times, are prone to more dental disease and accelerated accumulation of dental plaque. Daily brushing is highly recommended and annual exams and frequent veterinary cleaning is critical to prevent the relatively fast development of such a serious tartar build-up (the dog I’m describing is only four years old!).
She’s since had her teeth cleaned and eight of them had to be extracted. She’ll receive pain meds for 4 days and antibiotics for 10. Her breath is now completely inoffensive, and she’s eating anything offered to her.
The experience made me check my own dogs’ mouths. Both of my dogs are 6 1/2 years old. Tito the Chihuahua has had one dental cleaning already, about two years ago. His breath is not at all bad, and his teeth look pretty good. I was surprised (when I took a whiff ) that my big dog’s breath is not as fresh as I expected it to be, and when I lifted his lips to examine his teeth, I saw no tartar at all . . . on ONE side of his mouth! On the other, I found a rather large chunk of tartar on one of his upper molars. I think of myself as being fairly aware of what’s going on with my dogs’ health, and completely missed this! He was examined by a veterinarian recently, too, for an annual health checkup, and she hasn’t spotted it, either. I’ll be taking him back in for a further exam – and likely, a cleaning — this week.
How often do you check your dog’s teeth? Make sure you look at the ones all the way in the back, too.
Given the opportunity to examine an older dog, I’ll very likely find at least one or two cutaneous (within the skin) or subcutaneous (just beneath the skin surface) lumps and bumps. Such growths are common by-products of the canine aging process. In this regard, I liken them to the brown spots that appear on our skin as we get older.
The good news is that most cutaneous and subcutaneous canine tumors are benign. It’s the small population of malignant masses that keeps us on our toes. They are the reason it’s important to have your veterinarian inspect any newly discovered lumps and bumps your dog develops. The smaller a cancerous growth is at the time of treatment, in general, the better the outcome.
Pet Your Dog to Find Tumors
In terms of “lump and bump patrol,” your first order of business is to pet your dog. No doubt you and your best buddy already enjoy some doggie massage time. What I’m asking you to do is a more methodical petting session. Once a month, slowly and mindfully slide your fingers, palm sides down, along your dog’s body. Move systematically from stem to stern while inspecting for any new lumps or bumps.
Also, look and feel for changes in the size or appearance of those previously discovered. Any new findings should be addressed with your veterinarian, who relies upon your help with this surveillance. Imagine your vet trying to find a tiny growth on a shaggy Sheepdog or Sheltie during the course of a single exam. Some lumps and bumps are bound to be missed without your assistance.
When to See Your Veterinarian
Does finding a new growth suggest that you must see your veterinarian right away? Not necessarily. Say that you’ve just spotted a new bump in your dog’s skin that is no larger than the size of a pea. She is due for her annual physical examination in three months. Must you rush to visit your vet with this new finding, or can it wait the three months? The answer depends on the behavior of this newly discovered growth.
My recommendation is that you continue to observe it once a week. Examining it more frequently can make it difficult to accurately assess change. If the mass is growing, or otherwise changing in appearance, best to have it checked out sooner rather than later. If no changes are observed, waiting to address it at the time of the annual physical exam makes perfectly good sense.
In contrast, say that in the course of examining your best buddy you discover a prune sized, firm, subcutaneous growth that feels attached to the shoulder blade. Based on the larger size and deep attachment of this mass, it’s best to have this one checked out right away. If ever in doubt, give your veterinarian a call to figure out the best course of action. As with most things medical, better to be safe than sorry.
In advance of your veterinary visit, mark the location of any lumps or bumps requiring inspection. You can clip some hair over the site or mark the fur with a ribbon, hair band, or marking pen. Growths discovered at home when an animal is lying down in a relaxed, comfortable position have a habit of magically disappearing when the dog is upright and uptight in the exam room.
Fine Needle Aspirate for Cytology
If a newly discovered growth is large enough, the usual first step your veterinarian will recommend is a fine needle aspirate for cytology. Cytology refers to the microscopic examination of cells. The purpose of this step is to attempt to noninvasively clarify the cell type within the mass, and whether it is benign or malignant.
Collection of a fine needle aspirate is a simple process that is easy on the dog and rarely requires any sort of sedation. Using a needle no larger than the size of a vaccination needle along with some gentle suction, your vet will remove a smattering of cells from the growth. These cells are then spit out onto a glass slide and evaluated under the microscope.
Some cytology interpretations are a slam-dunk, and can readily be interpreted by your family vet. Others require the eyeballs of a specialist – a clinical pathologist who works in a veterinary diagnostic laboratory. Remember, the goal of the cytology testing is to determine the underlying cell type, therefore whether the growth can be left alone or requires more attention. Fine needle aspirate cytology is often (but not always) definitive. If the results do not provide clarity, a surgical biopsy of the mass may be recommended.
If your veterinarian recommends surgical removal of a mass as the very first step (chooses to forego the fine needle aspirate), I encourage you to consider getting a second opinion. It is disappointing and frustrating when a veterinarian foregoes cytology, proceeds with surgery, and the biopsy report reveals a malignancy with cancer cells extending beyond the margins of the tissue that was removed. In other words, cancer cells were clearly left behind. Had the veterinarian known in advance from the cytology report that the tumor was malignant, a different approach (much more aggressive surgery and/or radiation therapy) would have been undertaken, almost certainly resulting in a better outcome.
A second “bad news scenario” that can arise from forging ahead with surgery without benefit of fine needle aspirate cytology is failure to identify a cancerous growth that may have already spread elsewhere in the body. If the cytology reveals a malignancy, screening the rest of the body for metastasis (spread) is a logical next step. If metastasis is discovered, removal of the originally discovered mass is unlikely to provide any benefit. Rather, such surgery will only subject the patient (and the client’s pocketbook) to a needless procedure. Leaping into surgery to remove a mass without the benefit of cytology is risky business.
Lipomas (Fatty Tumors)
Lipomas are one of the most common types of canine tumors. Fortunately, the vast majority of them are completely benign. They arise from fat (lipid) cells and grow in subcutaneous locations, primarily in the axillary regions (armpits) and alongside the chest and abdomen. Occasionally one will develop within the chest or abdominal cavity. Rarely does a dog develop only one lipoma. They tend to grow in multiples, and I’ve examined individual dogs with literally hundreds of lipomas.
Should lipomas be treated in some fashion? In the vast majority of cases, the answer is a definite, “No!” This is based on their benign, slow-growing nature. The only issue most create is purely cosmetic, which dogs could care less about!
There are a few exceptions to the general recommendation to let sleeping lipomas lie. A fatty tumor is deserving of more attention in the following situations:
A lipoma that is steadily growing in an area where it could ultimately interfere with mobility. The armpit is the classic spot where this happens. The emphasis here is on the phrase “steadily growing.” Even in one of these critical areas there is no reason to remove a lipoma that remains quiescent with no discernible growth.
Sudden growth and/or change in appearance of a fatty tumor (or any mass for that matter) should prompt reassessment to determine the best course of action.
Every once in a great while, a fatty tumor turns out to be an infiltrative liposarcoma rather than a lipoma. These are the malignant black sheep in the family of fatty tumors. Your veterinarian will be suspicious of an infiltrative liposarcoma if the fine needle aspirate cytology reveals fat cells, yet the tumor feels fixed to underlying tissues. (Lipomas are normally freely moveable.) Liposarcomas should be aggressively surgically removed and/or treated with radiation therapy.
Occasionally a lipoma grows to truly mammoth proportions. If ever you’ve looked at a dog and thought, “Wow, there’s a dog attached to that tumor!” chances are you were looking at a lipoma. Such massive tumors have the potential to cause the dog discomfort. They can also outgrow their blood supply, resulting in potential infection and drainage from the mass. The key is to catch on to the mass’s rapid growth so as to surgically remove it before it becomes enormous in size and far more difficult to remove.
How can one prevent canine lipomas from occurring? No one knows. Anecdotally speaking it is thought that overweight dogs are more predisposed to developing fatty tumors. While I’m not so sure I buy this, I’m certainly in favor of keeping your dog at a healthy body weight.
Sebaceous Adenomas
These are the most common benign skin tumors in dogs. Sebaceous glands are microscopic structures found just beneath the skin surface. They secrete an oily substance called sebum that is transported to the skin surface via microscopic ducts, and can arise from the gland or the duct.
Sebaceous adenomas tend to be small, no more than 1/4 to 1/3 of an inch in size. They may appear round, or they can have a wart-like appearance. Sebaceous adenomas occur primarily in middle-aged and older dogs. Any breed can develop sebaceous adenomas, but certain breeds are particularly predisposed: English Cocker Spaniels, Cocker Spaniels, Samoyeds, Siberian Huskies, Alaskan Malamutes, West Highland White Terriers, Cairn Terriers, Dachshunds, Miniature Poodles, Toy Poodles, Shih Tzus, Basset Hounds, Beagles, and Kerry Blue Terriers.
Because of their benign nature, the vast majority of sebaceous adenomas require no treatment whatsoever. There are some exceptions to this general rule, and they are as follows:
Surgical removal is warranted for those sebaceous adenomas that recurrently bleed or become infected because of self-trauma (the dog bites or chews at them) or because they get in the way of the groomer’s clippers.
Some sebaceous adenomas secrete oodles of sebum, creating the constant appearance of an oil slick on the dog’s hair coat. The grease rubs off on hands, furniture, and anything else the dog contacts. No fun!
Some sebaceous adenomas are pretty darned unsightly, looking like warty little aliens poking through the hair coat. Although this is not bothersome for the dog, it can be a significant issue for the person living with that dog.
If a mass believed to be a sebaceous adenoma is growing or changing in appearance, it is important to ask your vet to have another look. What was thought to be a benign adenoma may be its less common cancerous cousin, a sebaceous carcinoma.
The Importance of Histopathology for Your Dog
If your veterinarian surgically removes a growth from your dog, do not, I repeat, do not let that tissue sample wind up in the vet clinic garbage can! A far better choice is to have the mass submitted for histopathology (biopsy) to a veterinary diagnostic laboratory. There, a veterinary pathologist will evaluate paper-thin slices of the mass under the microscope to confirm the identity of the mass.
Even if fine needle aspirate cytology indicated that the growth was benign, histopathology is warranted. On occasion, the pathologist discovers something quirky such as a malignant tumor within the center of a benign lipoma.
If histopathology is not affordable, ask your vet to place the growth that was removed in a small container of formalin (preservative) that you can take home for safekeeping. This way, should multiple masses begin growing at the surgery site or should your dog develop a tumor at another site, you will still be able to request histopathology on the original sample. Formalin is toxic stuff, so keep the container lid sealed tightly.
Lumps and bumps are a very normal part of the canine aging process. Teaming up with your veterinarian to assess them on a regular basis is the best way to insure that they never create a health issue for your best buddy.
Nancy Kay, DVM, DACVIM, is the author of Speaking for Spot: Be the Advocate Your Dog Needs to Live a Happy, Healthy, Longer Life,and Your Dog’s Best Health: A Dozen Reasonable Things to Expect From Your Vet. She lives in North Carolina. You can read her blog at speakingforspot.com/blog.
The ability to carry a little dog onto an airplane with you is one of the greatest advantages of owning a small dog that can’t be shared by owners of medium or large dogs. Most (though not all) of the risks of flying a dog on a commercial flight are posed by the dog’s handling by airport employees behind the scenes and by the dog’s unattended experience in the cargo hold of the plane; in contrast, the risks to a dog who is with you at every moment of your flight are very slight – and under your control. That said, there are a lot of things you need to know and contingencies for which to prepare if you are going to subject your dog to air travel. Here’s how to make the carried-on dog’s flight as enjoyable and stress free (for both of you) as possible.
Prepare Your Dog for Air Travel
Before you count on being able to bring your dog on any flight with you, you should be aware that there is no cut-and-dried rule regarding the size of dogs who can be carried on a plane. Most accurately, the limiting factor for which dogs can be carried onto a flight is the size of the dog’s carrier, and how well the dog appears to fit inside it. But every airline has different maximum dimensions for kennels and soft-sided carriers – and airlines sometimes have different maximum dimensions for the various types of airplane that may be employed on your journey. And there is quite a range! I found airlines with stated maximum carrier heights as small at 7.5 inches (in this case, for a hard-sided carrier on Alaska and United), and as much as 11 inches (and in this case, specifically for a soft-sided carrier on United). The maximum dimensions for the width and depth of the carrier vary quite a bit, too. We found a range of maximum carrier width from 11 to 19 inches, and a range of maximum length from 12 to 19 inches.
In addition to their carrier dimension limitations, some airlines also have a weight limit for the pet and her carrier. For example, JetBlue dictates that the combined weight of the dog and carrier cannot exceed 20 pounds.
Dogs are supposed to be able to stand up, turn around, and lie down naturally and comfortably in the carrier. It doesn’t pay to try to stuff a borderline too-large dog into a small kennel; airline representatives, who may or may not be knowledgeable about pets, can refuse to allow you to board with your dog if they feel the kennel is too small and causing (or potentially causing) your dog undue distress.
On top of the size and weight considerations, there are federal regulations regarding the minimum age for puppies who can be carried on a plane. These regulations (and common sense) require puppies to be at least eight weeks old and weaned at least five days before flying.
If your dog is small enough to fit comfortably into a carrier that will meet the airline’s size specifications for the plane used on the journey you plan to take, read on!
Buying the Plane Ticket
It’s weird and annoying: I haven’t yet seen an airline’s website that allows a traveler to indicate that she would like to bring a pet on board for a flight. Generally, you first book the flight for yourself, and then call the airline directly to reserve a spot for your dog. That’s a weird order of operations, given that airlines allow only a limited number of pets on any given flight; if the flight you have booked for yourself already has reached its capacity for pets, you will have to select a different flight. Although the airline won’t charge a “change fee” for this, if the new flight costs more than the one you originally booked, you will have to pay the higher price. Take home point: Book your flight as early as possible, and call the airline to reserve a spot for your dog immediately after booking.
Dog Health Requirements for Air Travel
When you make the phone call to reserve your dog’s spot on your flight, ask the reservation agent whether any health certificates or vaccinations are required for your dog for that flight. A health certificate, issued by a veterinarian who examined your dog within a short period (usually 10 days) before your flight, is required for all international flights, but generally not for domestic travel in the U.S., with a couple of notable exceptions. Because Hawaii is the only place in the U.S. that is completely free of rabies, that state has special requirements for inbound pets. And certain destinations in Alaska have vaccination requirements (for canine parvovirus and rabies).
Pay a Pet Travel Fee
All airlines charge an extra fee for your carried-on dog, and the price (like all airline add-on fees) has gone up in recent years. Unlike the price of your ticket, the fee doesn’t seem to be dependent on the length of the flight; a flat fee is applied no matter how long (or short) the flight is, and varies from airline to airline, from about $125 to $200 (one way). Payment for the pet fee is made at the counter when you check in for the flight.
Getting Your Dog Ready to Fly
Ideally, you’ve bought your ticket and made your dog’s reservation months (or at least weeks) in advance of your flight. That gives you time to prepare your dog for some of the experiences she will be subjected to on the day of travel, so she’s not miserable on the airplane – and so you and your fellow passengers aren’t made miserable by her distressed behavior, either.
It’s most important for your dog to practice spending time in a small carrier – and, while there, being jostled about and subjected to strange noises and movement. Small dogs who are regularly carried in soft-sided bags are likely to accept everything about the air travel experience with ease. But if your dog has rarely graced the inside of a crate, or is unhappy being in one, you need to start conditioning and desensitizing her to this ASAP. (See “The Benefits of Crate Training,” WDJ January 2011, for more information about teaching a dog to be comfortable in a crate.)
Flying with Your Dog
Once your dog is comfortable spending time in a crate or carrier at home, make sure she is equally comfortable being carried in it, subjected to the sounds and motion of a vehicle in it (people who crate their dogs in the car, with the crate securely belted or strapped in, are way ahead of the game here), and will go into it happily at any time. Ideally, your dog will be familiar with and comfortable in the carrier you plan to use on the trip well before you travel; don’t subject her to an entirely new carrier on the day of the flight if you can help it.
You may need to take your dog out of and put her back into the carrier several times during your travel. The airline representative at the front counter might want to see your dog out of the carrier to make sure she’s in a correctly sized carrier. You will be asked to remove her from the carrier again when you go through security. If you have to change planes, you will probably want to seek out a “pet relief area” at the midway airport so your dog can go potty. You want to be able to remove your dog from the carrier without her trying to escape in a panic at all of these points, as well as at your final destination. So in the weeks before the flight, practice asking your dog to enter the carrier, and taking her out of it, in all sorts of different environments: dark, bright, loud, indoors, outdoors, etc. Keep the experience highly rewarding (with high-value treats and praise) each time she enters and exits calmly.
It’s also a good idea to bathe your dog a day or two before your trip, so that she’s odor free and comfortable.
Finally, make sure your dog’s nails (including the dewclaws, if any) are clipped short. A dog who tries to paw or dig her way out of a carrier can easily catch and tear a nail, especially in a soft-sided carrier. Bleeding, whining, and distress can follow. Having all the nails short and sound (not split and snaggy) will help prevent a slightly stressful trip from turning into a very stressful one.
Day of the Flight
It should go without saying that your dog should be wearing an ID tag with your current contact information on it; ideally this includes your current mobile number. It’s also best if your dog is microchipped (in case he somehow got his collar or harness off) and that the microchip registration is also up-to-date.
It’s usually recommended that you not feed your dog within six hours of a flight; you really don’t want him to vomit, urinate, or defecate in the carrier on the plane if you can help it. But whether or not you heed this recommendation totally depends on how well conditioned your dog is to spending time in the carrier. Dogs who are super comfortable spending even long stretches of time in their carriers aren’t likely to vomit or need to eliminate any more than usual. But if your dog is not as well accustomed to the carrier as he should be, is a nervous traveler anyway, can’t yet go for very long without needing to eliminate (like most puppies), or suffers from motion sickness in a car, you may want to withhold food and give him just small amounts of water in that time frame before flying.
Note: If you are flying with a very young puppy, or a toy breed puppy of any age, don’t withhold food before flying; you don’t want to add to the risk factors of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). Hypoglycemic attacks can be brought on by stress, and may result in seizures, listlessness, muscle weakness or staggering, tremors (especially in the face), coma, and even death. The stress of shipping is a common cause of hypoglycemia in puppies, especially those of the toy breeds. Other causes include missing a meal, becoming chilled, and exhaustion (this can happen when people get a new puppy and, thrilled with their new friend, keep instigating play and not letting the puppy rest).
Start your day as early as necessary in order to have enough time to walk your dog far enough (or be outside long enough) so that he eliminates as fully as he ever does! Once you have arrived at the airport, give him a leisurely (not rushed) chance to urinate one more time outside before putting him in his carrier and taking him inside.
Never Accept Travel Condition Changes for Your Dog
Imagine this for a moment: You have arrived at the airport, dog in carrier and carrier in hand, and were told at the front counter that a mistake had been made and there was no room in the cabin for your dog after all. The airline could, however, put your dog in the cargo area. What would you do?
If this happened to you – as it has happened to more than one person I know! – I strongly suggest that you calmly refuse to allow your dog to be put in the cargo area, even if it meant you had to take another flight. If you had a legitimate reservation for your dog to be in the cabin, you should hold the airline to it, or accept their offer of reticketing (without fee) on another flight with an upgrade.
The only possible exception would be if your dog were completely comfortable being in a crate, without you, and with travel; you had an appropriately sized “hard” crate already; your dog is a fit, healthy, adult, non-brachycephalic breed; the weather conditions were perfect (neither at all hot nor at all cold); and the flight wasn’t a terribly long one. In my opinion, those are the only conditions under which any dog should be shipped via cargo – but honestly, somebody’s life would have to be at risk before I would consider letting my dog travel that way.
En Route
Check all the zippers and fasteners on your carrier carefully, to make sure they are completely closed, and can’t be pawed or nosed open. Some bags have double zippers with tabs that can be clipped together with the snap from your leash to ensure that the bag cannot be unzipped without unsnapping the tabs first.
Consider teaching your dog to lick water from the slightly opened spout of a sports bottle (sort of like a rabbit’s water bottle). You can bring an empty bottle through security, and fill it up from a water fountain in the gate area. That way, you can offer your dog an occasional lick of water on the flight if she’s panting or seems hot. If you are certain she won’t try to escape, you can offer this by unzipping one of the carrier’s doors just enough to permit the insertion of the tip of the sports bottle. Or just hold the tip up to the mesh of the bag; if she licks the mesh, she can still get enough water to wet her mouth.
Don’t break the rules and allow your dog out of her carrier on the plane; she’s far safer, and your fellow travelers will be far more comfortable, with your dog contained. Also, if your dog did vomit or relieve herself in the crate, letting her out will only make matters worse in terms of the mess and odor! Wait until you deplane to try to improve the situation. Ask a flight attendant or the gate attendant (upon deplaning) for the location of the nearest pet relief station and head straight there.
It should be a huge relief to you for both of you to have arrived safely!
Should You Tranquilize Your Dog?
Veterinarians generally advise against administering a tranquilizer to dogs for air travel. The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has a Traveling with Your Pet FAQ page on its website, with this statement: “It is recommended that you DO NOT give tranquilizers to your pet when traveling by air because it can increase the risk of heart and respiratory problems. Short-nosed dogs and cats sometimes have even more difficulty with travel. Airlines may require a signed statement that your pet has not been tranquilized prior to flying.”
The AVMA goes on to quote Dr. Patricia Olsen of the American Humane Association (AHA): “An animal’s natural ability to balance and maintain equilibrium is altered under sedation and when the kennel is moved, a sedated animal may not be able to brace and prevent injury.”
If you are concerned about your dog’s behavior or anxiety on an upcoming flight, spend time daily getting him accustomed to being in his carrier. See “The Benefits of CratingTraining,” WDJ January 2011, for tips on teaching a dog to be happy in a crate.
What About Large Dogs as Cargo?
There are people who routinely airship dogs as cargo across the country. I am not and will never be one of those people.
The federal government requires airlines to report incidents to the U.S. Department of Transportation every time an animal on a commercial flight is injured, lost, or dies. The reports appear online in a remarkably timely fashion. The owners’ names are redacted but all the other basic facts about each incident are recounted in the reports.
If you spend a few hours reviewing those “animal incident reports,” you may find yourself turning in your dog’s wings. The reports describe pets who were sickened, injured, escaped from their crates, or lost during air travel – as well as those who were dead on arrival at their owner’s destination.
The reports certainly do serve to educate. Ongoing analysis of the reports (compiled since the law mandating their collection went into effect in 2005) has exposed the most potent dangers of air travel to pets. For example, in 2010, analysis of five years’ worth of animal incident reports revealed that dogs with short muzzles (such as Pugs, Boston Terriers, Boxers, some Mastiffs, Pekingese, Lhasa Apsos, Shih Tzus, and Bulldogs) are much more likely to die on airplanes than dogs with normal-length muzzles. One-half of the 122 dog deaths associated with airline flights in that time span involved these short-faced breeds.
An alarming number of incident reports involve dogs who manage to escape from their crates (and are found by the ground crew at their destination loose in the cargo hold), dogs who were injured in frantic attempts to escape from their crates – descriptions of blood-spattered crates and limping dogs dot the incident reports – and crates that are found to be cracked upon arrival.
Industry observers say that since the airlines (those operating airplanes that seat more than 60 passengers) have been required to collect and publish these reports, the number of incidents have gone down. Industry spokesmen tend to minimize the number of pet losses; you will find all sorts of projections – based on estimations of the total number of pets flown on airlines – as to the rate of pet injury or loss that make air travel look very safe for your dog.
However, it’s far less safe for your pet to fly than it is for you. It’s telling that most of the airlines have increased the number of limitations on which pets they will accept as cargo, on which routes, and at what times of year. And some airlines no longer accept pets as cargo at all.
Alternatives to Cargo Flights For Transporting a Dog
Before flying a dog as cargo, I would recommend exhausting every other option for moving a dog from one place to another, such as:
-Chartered flight (where even large dogs are allowed in the cabin). Example: Magellan Jets
– Professional pet ground transportation service. Example: Royal Paws
– Driving the pet yourself.
– Transatlantic move? Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 (QM2) is the only ship that allows the transatlantic transportation of dogs.
No Alternative?
If you had to ship a dog as cargo, consider the following:
– Dogs with any sort of breathing or cardiac impairment, those who are elderly, obese, and/or in poor health, very young puppies (especially those of toy breeds), and brachycephalic (flat-faced dogs) are at extremely high risk when flying.
– Do not ship during times of year when extremely hot or cold weather can add to the risk.
– Choose an itinerary with the shortest flight time and direct route to minimize extraneous moving (and potential mishandling) of your dog’s crate.
Thoroughly condition and desensitize your dog to spending long periods in the crate, and being in the crate when it is transported. Load and unload the crate into your car with your dog in it, and take long drives with him in the crate. If he shows signs of anxiety or discomfort during these trips (panting, whining, barking, pawing or chewing at the gate, trying to escape, etc.), understand that he will be even more anxious (if not panic-stricken) in the crate as it is handled by baggage crews – and when unattended in the baggage hold during the flight or flight delays.
Buy the strongest, heaviest crate you can buy.
Follow (and exceed) all of the airline’s rules for fastening and labeling the crate. Experienced shippers drill holes near the crate door and use plastic zip ties to keep the door closed in the event that the spring-loaded latch gets jostled open.
Get more information on flying with your dog at Dogster.com.
Is it my imagination, or is a plague of ticks currently in effect? Everywhere I go with my dogs these days, they come back crawling with ticks. I use Frontline on them, though I’ve used Advantix in the past – as well as apple cider vinegar rinses and essential oil sprays and Skin-So-Soft wipedowns. For whatever reason, Frontline seems to work better than anything else on my dogs, in my area, though I hear contrary reports from other dog owners in other places. I’m seriously considering making a line of Tyvek canine coveralls, instead.
Due to the tick plague, I have to allot extra time for walking the dogs, or rather, for combing them after walks. I pour a glass of water, put a little dish soap in it to reduce the surface tension, and drop all the ticks I find into it as I work. The little insects immediately sink, waving their tiny legs, but not for long.
Every time I have ever mentioned dropping ticks into water, I get letters from people who insist that you can’t drown a tick. I invite you to do some “citizen science” and put your own ticks in a jar of water, and follow this fun activity with observing the results. You can even dry out their little dead bodies afterward to see if they “come back to life.” Trust me; ticks drown.
They can also live without food for a week or two (but not forever) in a jar that contains no water. Ask me how I know.
You can Google these things, but sometimes you just have to see for yourself. Like, when I was reading about ticks the other day (I’m mildly obsessed right now), I kept coming across the stated fact that ticks can’t jump. I just can’t fathom how they are so damn successful at getting all over my dog, who runs like the wind the whole time we’re out on walks, if they can’t at least launch themselves quickly toward something. So, after combing and pulling ticks out of Otto’s coat on our last walk, I saved a few individual ticks in a dry jar, and ran a few trials. I released one tick at a time onto a white plastic folding table (so I could be sure to spot and apprehend any escapees from my “test lab”). They sure do ambulate faster than I could bear to watch for long, but I didn’t observe any jumping activity – but then, I never let them get close enough to the table’s edge for reliable data regarding jumping off something onto someone. I guess I’m going to take Google’s word for that bit of trivia.
There’s just one bit of good news on the tick front: I have discovered the world’s best tool for removing ticks, one that surpasses all previous favorites. It’s called the Pro Tick Remedy, and it features a V-shaped slot that narrows tightly enough to scoop up and pull out even the tiniest, most freshly latched-on tick. It comes on a keychain paired helpfully with a small magnifying glass, so you can confirm that you really did get the whole thing. I bought six, so I could have them stashed everywhere I might happen to be petting Otto and feel a tick. I’ve never been so grateful for something that costs so little (less than $5).
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