Training Your Diabetic Alert Dog is a clear, easy-to-read resource for anyone training a dog to alert to changes in blood glucose levels. It offers some general information, such as what it is like to live with a service dog, advice on choosing the right dog, and how to find a qualified trainer. The majority of the book, however, gives step-by-step training protocols with just the right amount of information. It was hard to put the book down; I found it very compelling. I wanted to know: How do you train for alerts? How does a dog learn to recognize the scent? What does the dog need to learn to be able to do night alerts or car alerts?
The authors, Rita Martinez and Sue Barns, are among those who have pioneered diabetic alert dog (DAD) training and protocols. Along with assisting clients in training their dogs, Martinez is a frequent speaker with trainer groups and service dog organizations looking to learn more about training DADs. Barns is an experienced service dog trainer, and the founder of the Diabetic Alert Dog program at Assistance Dogs of the West.
With clicker training protocols throughout, the authors’ positive methods match the positive tone of the book. They recommend that individuals with diabetes work with a qualified service dog trainer rather than try to train on their own. However, the training advice is so clear that even a novice trainer could follow the steps and practice the basics between sessions. And for the rest of us training enthusiasts, it is simply fascinating to learn the steps involved in training a medical alert dog.
One of the things I liked best about this book is the support it shows for the diabetic alert dog, or any service dog for that matter. While showing great sensitivity and respect for the needs of the person, this book is also clear that only a dog who enjoys the job should ever be doing this work. The authors emphasize partnership and appropriate job matches.
The book defines the most important qualities a dog must have to become a DAD. Among those are that a DAD must be easygoing, naturally resilient, and confident in all settings to be considered for public access partnership (the type of service dog that accompanies the person everywhere). The book also says that it is unfair to require a dog to be in situations where he is not comfortable. Although I would have loved to have seen even more on the actual training for public access, realistically that is beyond the scope of this focused book.
Martinez and Barns bring a combined 50 years experience in dog training – and it shows in Training Your Diabetic Alert Dog. They have written a book that shares their experience and provides a terrific resource for anyone wishing to learn more about the process of DAD training.
This book is available through createspace.com/4157849, as well as Amazon and other book retailers. – Mardi Richmond
In the not-too-distant past, if you heard the word “dog” and “mind” in the same sentence, someone was probably talking about obedience, as in: “My dog minds pretty well.” Or, “You’d better mind me, or else!” Today, if you hear those two words in relation to each other, you are at least as likely to be listening to someone talking about canine cognition – the fascinating possibility that dogs are far more able to process thoughts and grasp concepts than previously given credit for.
Only in the past 15 years has the domestic dog begun to be accepted as a study subject for behavioral research. Brian Hare, PhD, professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, is one of the people who have legitimized the field, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to interview him recently, on the occasion of the publication of his enlightening new book, The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs are Smarter Than You Think (Dutton, 2013).
Dr. Hare opened the Duke Canine Cognition Center (DCCC) in the fall of 2009. With his wife and co-author Vanessa Woods (a research scientist at DCCC, as well as an award-winning journalist and author of Bonobo Handshake), Hare wrote the book to provide a comprehensive review of what they’ve been studying at the DCCC – everything about dog cognition or, as they call it, “dognition.” Their goal was to bring historical and current information about canine cognition to the general public.
The Genius of Dogs covers a lot of material. Dr. Hare writes about his own dog-related experiences, professional and personal, such as visiting Russian scientist Dmitrii Konstantinovich Belyaev’s famous silver fox breeding compound in Novosibirsk, Siberia (Belyaev died in 1985, but others continue his work there); working with New Guinea Singing Dogs at the New Guinea Singing Dog Conservation Society in Eugene, Oregon; and struggling with training challenges he encountered with his own dog, Milo, a probable Lab/Chow mix. It’s a fascinating book, even given that other behavioral scientists have been critical of some of Hare’s conclusions about canine cognition, accusing him of overreaching at least a little.
Hare was a delight to interview. He is wildly enthusiastic about his work and can only be described as effervescent when speaking about his book, the Dognition website, and canine cognition in general.
Pat Miller: Your new book on canine cognition, The Genius of Dogs, co-written with your wife, Vanessa Woods, recently made the New York Times Best Seller list. Why did you write it?
Dr. HARE: There were a few things we wanted to communicate:
1) Science is really excited about dogs. That’s not always been the case.
2) There was not a book written that tried to do a historical review of the field of behavior aimed at the general public/dog-owning audience. We wanted to write that book and make the information accessible.
3) We wanted to explain how scientists think about intelligence.
4) And we wanted to discuss how an evolutionary approach can help us understand our dogs – and ourselves.
Miller: Thirty years ago, the words “canine” and “cognition” weren’t often used in the same sentence. Why has that changed?
Dr. HARE: Because a cognitive revolution has occurred, just in the last 10 to 15 years. What’s going on in the minds of animals has become central to our understanding of psychology.
Miller: You say that another cognitive limitation is that dogs do not understand what someone knows or doesn’t know. How do we know that? Is it possible we may find out otherwise down the road, just as we once said animals didn’t feel pain, couldn’t use tools, didn’t have emotions?
Dr. HARE: It’s absolutely possible. It’s important to understand what science is: It is fun and powerful and you can be part of it (you don’t have to have a PhD). It’s also fluid. In part it’s about discovering “truth” – and even more, it’s about falsification of past conclusions. The entire thesis of this book could be wrong – and could be falsified by future studies. Science is eternally a work in progress.
Miller: How is “understanding what an owner can see” (p. 245) different from “understanding what someone knows or doesn’t know”? Is it about what the person knows in the present versus what the person knew in the past?
Dr. HARE: That’s a great question, and one that can keep cognition scientists engaged in long discussions. “Understanding what an owner can see” is, in a way, understanding the geometry of the situation – understanding what the human knows in the present. The dog can see how the human orients in relation to what the dog does.
“Knowledge” is much more complicated – it involves an understanding of what was known in the past. We don’t currently think dogs can do this. We could be wrong.
Miller: You’re kind of hard on trainers and behaviorism in the last part of your book. You relegate trainers to two categories, neither of which is very flattering: the “top dog” school and the “more is better” school. Is there not a third group that currently exists – trainers who meld the work of Pavlov and Skinner with an interest in and awareness of dogs’ cognitive abilities? What role does behaviorism play, if any, in your vision of the perfect approach to dog training?
Dr. HARE: It was not my intent to be harsh toward trainers, and I apologize if that’s how we came across. I have great respect for trainers; I’m a pitiful trainer!
The goal was to say “Let’s look at these two schools of thought, and let’s look at what’s in the literature about them. And in fact, there’s not much about dog training in the scientific literature. It’s an opportunity that begs for attention.
I actually do think trainers are using a cognitive approach – because they use terms like “the dog knows,” and “the dog wants to perform.” Those are terms of cognition, not behaviorism. But trainers haven’t had access to the literature. In academia, behaviorism says operant and classical conditioning are the only approach to canine learning. There’s no room for cognition in behaviorism. And it’s not that operant and classical conditioning don’t work – of course they do. It’s just that they are one kind of intelligence and learning – one kind of many occurring in the dog’s mind. I think trainers know this. It’s perhaps just a miscommunication about definitions.
Miller: What’s your opinion of what you call the “top dog” or “alpha” approach to dog training?
Dr. HARE: Again, I’m not a trainer, but let’s look at the science. Is the rationale behind the alpha approach to training backed up by good science? There is not good evidence in the literature, and it doesn’t make much sense. In fact, the alpha thing is based on a big mistake: using wolves as a model for dog behavior.
It’s easy to get befuddled by evolution. Dogs are descended from wolves, therefore dogs are like wolves. In some ways, this is correct. But it’s also correct that dogs are a different species than wolves, and therefore they are not like wolves.
In fact, a much better model for dog behavior is the behavior of thriving packs of feral dogs. The feral dog social system is nothing like that of wolves: there is no alpha pair, no reproductive suppression, no infanticide, no fatal aggression over territory. In fact there is very little aggression in feral dog packs; the leader is simply the dog with the greatest number of affiliative relationships – the dog with the most friends.
There is one caveat – a significant difference between feral dogs and our dogs. In an established feral pack, over generations the dogs all end up being of similar size (a medium size) at maturity. The similarity in size helps to minimize aggression. We have such a huge variation in size in our companion dogs, so we do see significant aggression, both in our homes as well as places like dog parks.
Miller: You talk about the dog’s ability to “learn how to learn” as a part of cognitive training. How does this differ from what modern trainers call “learning how to learn” as a part of positive reinforcement-based training?
Dr. HARE: It probably doesn’t. It’s just an acknowledgement – one that many trainers seem to be aware of and are making use of – that canine learning goes beyond the behaviorism interpretation of simply learning and solving the same problem over and over again. Rather, dogs, through learning and experience, possess a learning set; they can actually form a concept and apply it to new problems. That’s cognition. The idea would make Skinner roll over in his grave.
Miller: You say (on page 246) “When an experimenter shows where food has been hidden but then points at another location, dogs do not search for the food they saw but instead go to where the human pointed.” I did the Dognition games yesterday with my Corgi, Lucy, and she went for the food she had seen 100 percent of the time, rather than where I pointed. Can you explain?
Dr. HARE: Studies involving dogs utilize a small sample size – usually fewer than 30 dogs. We develop group statistics based on this sample and then try to apply our conclusions to the whole population. It doesn’t necessarily mean they all do it. So if, in our study, 60 percent of the dogs go to where the human pointed, we say that’s what dogs generally do, even though 40 percent of the dogs did something else. Some dogs, like your Lucy, rely on their own memory (knowledge) more than they rely on signals from their humans.
Miller: You’ve also recently launched the online service “Dognition.” Can you describe what is offered at Dognition? Why did you create it?
Dr. HARE: As a scientist, I’m excited about outreach – communicating to people that science is fun and powerful, and they can participate in it. I see it as a service: to give people a fantastic experience and the opportunity to gain more information and better explanations about their dogs’ behaviors, to help them see and understand things about their dogs, and to enhance their relationships with their dogs.
Of course, we’re seeking to make discoveries about dogs, and to have fellow dog lovers participate in making those discoveries. We are also working to be good canine citizens; we’re offering Dognition memberships to shelters for free, to give them another tool for working with the dogs in their care.
We also plan to fund more behavioral research, and look forward to working with trainers to develop an even more cognitive approach to dog training. We really would like to see the application of our research – to help trainers see things about dogs they wouldn’t see otherwise. Our ultimate goal is to see a quantum leap forward in our ability to help dogs.
We’re already happy with what we’re seeing on the site. It’s very rewarding to see the many comments like, “I had no idea my dog was capable of doing that!”
Subscribers to Dognition will receive a new game every month to play with their dogs. They will be the first to see new discoveries in our work with canine cognition, and have access to scientists’ comments and scientific content.
The punch line for Dognition – it’s a place where you can play fun games with your dogs. “Just like we feed their stomachs, we need to feed their minds.” Dognition can help people understand that.
We tend to think of intelligence as that which can be measured by an IQ test. By that standard, our dogs fall low on the scale. But there are many different ways to measure a dog’s capabilities. If dogs were to develop an IQ test it might well rely on the ability to find scent – in which case they would be brilliant and we would be the dullards!
Inferences: Having heard about Rico, the German Border Collie who learned the names of more than 200 objects, retired psychology professor John Pilley adopted an 8-week-old Border Collie pup and decided to see how many object names his dog could learn. Over a period of three years, Chaser learned the names of more than 1,000 different objects. Both Rico and Chaser, when asked to fetch an object they weren’t familiar with, unerringly picked the one object in the group for which they hadn’t learned the name. The dogs inferred that it must be the correct object, since they knew the names of all the others. Researchers tell us that this is similar to how children can learn the names of new objects.
Pilley took this research game with his dog one step further. Children are able to categorize objects. “Sock,” for example, is not just one object that happens to be a sock, but rather is a category name for all sock-objects of different sizes, colors, shapes, and textures. When scientists suggested that babies could learn words as categories and dogs could not, Pilley took up the challenge. He taught Chaser that his toys were classified into different categories. Then he mixed toys from different categories, and asked Chaser to fetch a category of toy. Chaser performed flawlessly.
Symbols: Canine cognition doubters also suggested that if dogs truly learned words, they should also be able to learn symbols. If you show a child a replica of a toy, a child understands it is a representation of a real life thing. If you show a child the replica and ask him to go get the thing, he can do it. Could a dog? Dr. Juliane Kaminski, the scientist who did the original studies with Rico in 2004, pursued this question. She used Rico and several other Border Collies, asking them to fetch toys in another room by showing them a replica of the toy, rather than using the name of the toy. Some of the replicas were the same size, some were miniatures. All of the dogs were successful at retrieving the correct object after being shown the replica. Rico and one other dog were even able to retrieve the correct toy when they were just shown a photograph of the object.
This means dogs are able to grasp concepts – the idea that something can symbolize something else. We can only wonder – and wait – to see what other incredible things the world of canine cognition science has yet to uncover about our dogs’ intelligence. Or maybe you don’t have to sit idly by and wait. You and your dog can participate!
Dr. Hare is not the first nor the only researcher working to bring attention to the cognitive abilities of the canine mind. Even the facility he founded, the Duke (University) Canine Cognition Center is not unique; similar facilities now operate at Harvard, Barnard College, the University of Florida, and many other places; in fact, you can find them all across the U.S. and Europe.
In her 2010 book Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know, cognitive scientist Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, who runs the canine cognition lab at Barnard College, addresses the workings of the canine brain.
Dr. Marc Beckoff, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, touched on the subject back in 2002 in his book Minding Animals; Awareness, Emotions and Heart (this book is mostly about wild animals), and has written extensively about canine ethics, emotion, and intelligence over the past decade. In a July 19, 2010 post on his “Animal Emotions” blog on PsychologyToday.com, Beckoff ascribes to dogs the quality of metacognition: the ability to know what someone else knows, a concept that was long held to be a prerogative of the human brain.
Dr. Marc Hauser, an evolutionary biologist and a researcher in primate behavior, animal cognition, and human behavior, was a Harvard University professor from 1992 to 2011, regarded as “a leader in the field of animal and human cognition”. In 2011, the university found him guilty of scientific misconduct (fabricating and manipulating research data in some monkey studies) and he resigned. Reportedly, he now works with at-risk youth.
As part of his ongoing work on canine cognition, Hare and his colleagues have created a website (dognition.com) that invites – nay, begs for! – public participation. Using suggestions on dognition.com, you and your dog have fun playing cognition games together. You learn more about your dog, and your results are compiled as data for current and future studies.
According to the website, “A key aspect of the Dognition methodology is our use of Citizen Science – research that can be conducted by everyone, not just people with PhDs. By gathering this data we can begin to understand more about all dogs, much more quickly and on a broader scale than if scientists had to conduct this research themselves.” Citizen science. I love it!
In preparation for my interview with Dr. Hare, I worked through the Dognition Toolkit games with my 9-year-old Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Lucy. It was fun – and a little stressful (for example, when I had to set her up to “disobey” her “Leave it” cue). I was bemused to discover in one of the games that Lucy does not do what the majority of dogs do: Rather than going to the empty upside-down cup I point to, she consistently goes to the upside-down cup on the opposite side, where she saw me hide the treat . . . meaning she relies on her own observation more than she relies on me indicating where the treat might be. Isn’t that just like a herding dog?
I recently paid the membership fee to join Dognition for a year. I admit I initially balked at the idea of paying to play, but I really am enchanted by the idea of citizen science, and the curious part of me couldn’t resist the opportunity to see some of the results. And hey, Lucy and I get to be a part of making cognition history. How could we resist that? Maybe we’ll see you there.
I am writing to express my concern at seeing the photograph on the cover of the April 2013 Whole Dog Journal that depicts a man running with a dog who is wearing a restrictive harness. As a specialist in canine sports medicine, I have significant concerns about the use of harnesses that wrap around the front of dog’s forelegs, particularly in circumstances like this, where a dog is exercising using a gait that requires forelimb extension.
I have studied the effect of restrictive harnesses using a well-validated gait analysis system and demonstrated that there are significant alterations in a dog’s gait (both the amount of forward extension of the legs and even the amount of weight borne on the front legs) when wearing the harness, even without a leash attached.
I would hope that Whole Dog Journal, which has been a leader in so many areas of dog care, would be a leader in canine sports medicine as well. I hope that you will consider correcting the record by publishing a photograph of a dog with a non-restrictive harness and providing an explanation of why the use of such a harness is important, particularly in dogs who are exercising.
M. Christine Zink, DVM, PhD; Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Pathologists; ACVP, Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation
Baltimore, MD
We will be interested to see research on this topic, as well as learn more about what sort of harnesses don’t present risk of injury to exercising dogs.
Regarding WDJ’s food reviews: Not only do I research quality, I like to price compare.
Kristen Michalski
Via email
Kristen, we do, too. We don’t report on the prices of the food in our reviews for several reasons. The first is that the prices vary so widely from store to store and geographic region to region. The prices I pay here in California tend to be quite high!
Also, cost is relative. If an owner is accustomed to buying Ol’ Roy, for $10 per 30 pounds on sale at Walmart, they may well regard a $30/30-pound bag of food as wickedly expensive – while other owners are ready and willing to pay $70 for the same-sized bag of super high-end stuff. We know that not everyone can afford the best stuff on the shelves. We prefer to let consumers find a food that meets their own criteria for price and availability.
I truly appreciate what you have done to educate me about dog food. I believe I can now make much more informed decisions. I just read the criticism in the Letters column in the March issue. It would wear on me to have yahoos criticizing my well-balanced, objective work. Please know those of us who value your contributions vastly outnumber the sourpusses. We just don’t get motivated to write as often.
Doug Bell
Via email
Thank you! I do really appreciate hearing positive feedback! The only problem is, sometimes the sourpusses (sourpie?) have legitimate criticism or concerns. When they do, I genuinely appreciate that, too, even if it’s not very nice. That said, I often wonder why people who are concerned about whether a company ever had a recall, or who equate corn, wheat, or soy with poison, or who don’t like any companies that are “too big,” would even consider feeding any dry food to their dogs. Even the best dry foods are not the healthiest diet, after all; no processed food can compete with fresh foods.
I have a problem that you push extra-cost publications and don’t put information on such subjects as flea control in the Whole Dog Journal. I may consider letting my subscription lapse.
Robert Anderson
Via email
I’m sorry we haven’t had an article on flea control in WDJ lately;
I think you are correct in observing that a new one is overdue, and we’ll get something rolling. In the meantime, remember that all of our back articles are available for no charge to current subscribers on our website. If you are a current subscriber, all you need to do is register a user name and password on the site. Have a current issue with the address label at hand; you will be asked for your subscriber number.
After experiencing a collar-related near-fatality (see facing page), I’ve been checking every dog I know, to be sure their collars are equipped with quick-release buckles. Suddenly, I’m a safety nut, which is interesting, because I’m more commonly accused of putting my dogs at risk (because I often walk with them off-leash on trails).
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The fact is, there are innumerable risk to our dogs’ health and safety. And each owner gets to – has to – do a little risk/benefit analysis and decide for herself which risks to take with her dog. I’ve heard about dogs being hurt by all of the following (and experienced a few with my own dogs): – Keeping a collar and ID tags on a dog at home, or in a crate (could get caught) – Feeding home-prepared diets (incomplete and unbalanced) – Feeding diets that contain raw meat (Salmonella) – Feeding raw bones (choking, intestinal perforation) – Feeding commercial foods (contamination, lack of wholesomeness) – Offering rawhides or pizzles (choking, obstruction, Salmonella) – Using a reduced vaccination schedule (disease) – Driving with a dog in the back of a truck, loose or secured (debris hits dog/injures eyes, dog falls out of vehicle) – Driving with a dog loose in the car (dog gets flung from car in accident and gets injured or lost) – Leaving a dog in the car while shopping/banking (injury/overheated/stolen) – Leaving a dog tied outside while you get coffee or ice cream or something (injury, attack by another dog,stolen) – Using spot-on flea or tick pesticides (poisoning, cancer) – Not using spot-on tick pesticides in tick-laden areas (tick-borne disease) – Letting a dog eat grass (possibly sprayed) – Letting a dog off-leash on trails (can run away, chase/harm animals, cause problems with other dogs/hikers/bicyclists/equestrians) – Letting a dog off-leash anywhere else (can run away or be hit by car) – Bringing a dog to a dog park (disease, dog fights, traumatic social interactions) – Taking a dog on a boat (drowning) – Shipping a dog by air (dog can get sick, or be lost, traumatized, or killed) – Boarding a dog (illness, injury, loss, mistreatment) – Sledding, hunting, search and rescue, and all other outdoor activities with dogs (injury, exhaustion, loss)
Personally, I don’t think it’s conscionable to tell people what they must or must not do with their own dogs, or to disparage them for the choices they make. I do want people to be aware of the risks of various choices, and will sometimes tell an owner about the risks of something she is doing with her dog – and, of course, sometimes other people tell me! But I also accept that people have the right to take responsibility for their own decisions, even the ones I suspect they will regret.
Sometimes this is painful to watch. For example, I can’t bear to see dogs ride loose in the backs of trucks. I almost had a nervous breakdown once driving behind a flatbed truck with a stock-dog who was pacing back and forth behind the cab of the truck, barking, completely unsecured in any way. But it may have been just as painful for the owner of that dog to watch me feed my dog a raw chicken neck.
I was pretty traumatized recently by a phenomenon I had heard about many times but had never before seen: the intense, chaotic, life-or-death struggle that ensues when one dog gets his jaw stuck in another dog’s collar.
It happened to some dogs that live a few houses down from my home office. I was working at my computer when I heard a dog screaming. I leaped up from my desk and ran down the sidewalk toward the screaming.
It was two young Lab-mixes in the front yard of a house down the street. One had grabbed his friend’s collar and then mostly likely rolled over, twisting his lower jaw in the collar. His tongue, trapped under the thick nylon, was being lacerated by his own lower teeth; he was the one making all the noise.
His buddy was not screaming; he was fighting for his life, and being choked to death by his own collar. Both dogs were thrashing in pain and fear. The owner of one dog was trying to get close enough to them to free them, and I tried to help.
I grabbed one dog by the scruff; she grabbed the other. I frantically ran my hands through the mass of writhing fur, trying to find a buckle on the collar. I felt a quick-release buckle and released it – but it was the wrong one, not the collar that was threatening their lives.
Then I saw the other buckle; it was in the mouth of the dog whose jaw was trapped. And it was a standard metal buckle – the kind that you have to tighten slightly to free the metal prong from a hole punched in the nylon fabric. It was already so tight, there would be no way to tighten it enough to release it, if I even could get my hand in the dog’s mouth.
Just then, the owner of the other dog ran out of the house with a pair of scissors. I was doubtful that they could cut through the thick nylon, but they did. And in the nick of time! Even as the young woman worked, feverishly, the dog who was choking released his bowels. He was seconds from death.
Imagine what would have happened if that young woman hadn’t had the scissors handy. Or if the same thing happened at a dog park; maybe someone would have had a sharp-enough knife. What if the dog had been wearing a choke chain or pinch collar? I’ve seen dogs wearing these while playing at dog parks – but I’ve never seen a person there with bolt cutters.
These dogs survived the experience. But since I’ve been telling my friends about my experience (with all the fervor of the recently converted), I’ve heard about a number of dogs whose jaws were broken in similar situations – and other dogs who didn’t survive an experience like this. Don’t let it happen to your dog!
Here are five things you can do to keep your dog safe when he’s playing with other dogs.
1.Play Naked! Remove your dog’s collar or harness. A harness may not present the same choking hazard as a collar if another dog got tangled in it, but on the other hand, a harness has many more straps to get caught in.
2.Use a Collar With a Quick-Release Buckle. If you’re nervous about having your dog naked (and without ID), use a collar with a buckle that can be released even under tension. Another option is a safety breakaway collar, such as Premier Pet Product’s KeepSafe Break-Away Collar.
3. Don’t Allow Your Dog to Play With Dogs Who Are Wearing Gear. At times, this may mean your dog won’t be able to play at a dog park, because it’s nearly impossible to get everyone to comply with sensible rules at a dog park. If I had a young dog who really liked wrestling and mouthing other dogs, I just wouldn’t take him to a dog park that was crowded with collar- and harness-wearing dogs. Not after what I saw.
4. Spread The Word. I’m now telling every dog owner I know about the way, the truth, and the light. Many people have never considered this potential hazard and may be open to hearing about how they can prevent a tragedy happening to their dogs.
5. Keep Something Sharp Handy. This is quite a long shot – and yet, I now know a young woman who saved two dogs’ lives with sharp scissors. I now have a box cutter in my car, and another one on a shelf near my office door. I hope to never witness this again, but I feel a little better knowing that there would be more I could do to help.
Drug of choice for treating tick-borne disease and heartworm is unavailable (or unaffordable) due to supply bottleneck.
When my newest search and rescue partner, Cole, fell apart during a certification test in May 2012, I had accumulated enough hard lessons to know my next move. We didn’t need to revisit our training protocol or take his nose in for a tune-up. We were at our vet’s office the next morning for bloodwork.
I left with a scrip for doxycycline, the drug of choice to treat Lyme disease in both humans and dogs. When I filled it at the Giant Eagle pharmacy, my bill was $0, thanks to the chain’s program of free prescriptions for common generic antibiotics. Many other pharmacy chains offered it for loss-leader prices ranging from $1.99 to $10. At average retail prices, the cost would have topped out at about 30 cents per pill, or $16 for the full course.
Cole was a lucky boy. His infection was detected very early, and he responded so well to treatment that his titer is negative a year later. Cole’s owner was lucky for those reasons, and because the specific drug that best treats Lyme disease, among other tick-borne infections such as ehrlichiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and anaplasmosis was readily and cheaply available.
Just under a year later, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania dog owner Karen Kirk and her Lab/Husky-mix, Buddy, were less fortunate.
Buddy’s cryptic symptoms appeared suddenly in late March 2013; what first appeared to be a sprained hock developed rapidly over 24 hours into a critical situation, including complete hind-end paralysis and lethargy. Knowing that Buddy had several recent tick exposures, Kirk opted to run a tick-borne disease titer panel before taking radiographs; her hunch was also on target, as Buddy too returned a positive test for Lyme disease infection.
Kirk’s veterinarian prescribed a very high dose of doxycycline because of Buddy’s severe acute symptoms, and provided an initial supply of the drug, warning Kirk that there appeared to be an issue with acquiring the antibiotic, and that she should be ready to seek it at an outside pharmacy to continue the course.
Two weeks later, when Kirk called her local Giant Eagle pharmacy, the pharmacist’s assistant looked up the cost of Buddy’s prescribed dose and told her “This can’t be right. It says $1,000.”
After repeated checking, the pharmacy staff verified that the cost of Buddy’s prescription had skyrocketed to nearly $12 per pill, or $72 per day of treatment – for a staple generic drug that was so cheap 10 months earlier that they had been giving it away.
The news was no better at other Pittsburgh-area pharmacies; most simply could not supply doxycycline at any price. Buddy, who had responded to doxycycline treatment dramatically and was walking within 24 hours of his first dose, finally caught a break. Kirk’s veterinarian was able to scrounge enough of the drug at close to the pre-shortage price to complete a month of treatment. According to Kirk, “Now he’s acting like a badass like he always does, and propelling himself off the back of my couch.”
Veterinarians Scramble to Supply Treatments as Spring Tick Season Commences According to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) online index of drug shortages, the supply interruption for doxycycline was first noted in mid-January, and projected to be corrected by early March. As of mid-April, the listing showed only four extant manufacturers, of which two were supplying “limited” quantities and/or forms of the drug, and two were listing the drug as “available.” The reasons for the supply issues were listed, variously, as “manufacturing delays” and “increased demand.” As of April 10, FDA personnel had not returned multiple phone messages requesting an interview, and the FDA had released no further information about the causes and expected duration of the shortage.
While the shortage of this common antibiotic affects human medicine – where doxycycline is used to treat tick-borne diseases, acne, some sexually transmitted infections, and even anthrax – veterinarians are keenly aware of the pinch, as veterinary practices serve as pharmacies as well as physicians for their animal patients.
Dr. Dan Murray, who practices at the Animal Care Center in Green Valley, Arizona, has not yet exhausted his clinic’s supply of oral doxycycline, and continues to dole it out to patients on an as-needed basis. Anticipating that he will not be able to restock, Dr. Murray has ordered minocycline, a related tetracycline-class antibiotic, to replace doxycycline for the tick-borne ehrlichiosis and anaplasmosis that he commonly sees in southern Arizona, as well as for treating kennel cough.
But veterinarian Tom Beckett of the Camino Viejo Animal Clinic in Austin, Texas cautions that, although minocycline is in the same class as doxycycline, it has not yet been shown to be equally effective against the same rickettsial diseases, or as a pre-treatment for dogs who will undergo heartworm treatment. Dr. Beckett is also drawing from a stockpile of doxycycline at this time, and worries “I’m at a loss, like everybody else, about what we’re going to end up doing, how cheap and available the minocycline is going to be.” Dr. Beckett has a special interest in tick-borne diseases, which are enzootic among the former racing greyhounds that he helps to rehabilitate; both efficacy and cost are factors for this population of dogs.
A web search for minocycline prices found a best price of $1.70 per 100 mg tablet – six times higher than a typical price for doxycycline prior to the current shortage.
One reason for doxycycline’s effectiveness against notoriously recalcitrant bacterial infections such as Borrelia burgdorferi (the spirochete bacterium that causes Lyme disease) and the rickettsial bacteria that cause Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, anaplasmosis, and ehrlichiosis, is its high lipid solubility, which allows it to attack pathogens that have set up shop in the central nervous system and in the synovial fluid of the joints. Minocycline has an even higher lipid solubility; human clinical results suggest that it should prove a suitable, if expensive, alternative to doxycycline for treating tick-borne diseases.
Readers who handle shelter dogs or others who are heartworm positive may also need to turn to minocycline or the older drug tetracycline for the 30-day antibiotic treatment prior to administering an adulticide to kill heartworms. The aim of this pre-treatment is to gradually eliminate the symbiotic rickettsial Wolbachia bacteria from the guts of the parasitic worms, preventing a toxic bolus of dead Wolbachia from overwhelming the treated dog’s cardiovascular system.
The Dangers of Hoarding and Stockpiling Consumers must exercise caution when using stockpiled doxycycline, or any drug of the tetracycline group. All sources agree that antibiotics of this family that are long past their expiration dates are not only ineffective, but can break down into toxic substances that cause severe kidney damage.
Unfortunately, no sources can or will specify how far past the manufacturer’s expiration date is cause for concern, even though there is wide agreement that these dates are broadly, even excessively, conservative, and that “just expired” product is almost certainly safe and effective. Dr. Beckett cautions that variations in storage conditions – antibiotics should be kept cool and dry – are a confounding factor in shelf life. Ensure that you acquire antibiotics of this family only from reliable sources.
Heather Houlahan is the proprietor of First Friend Dog Training and raises pastured livestock and poultry. She has been a search and rescue dog handler for 22 years, and is the canine director of Allegheny Mountain Rescue Group. She lives with three English shepherds, one German shepherd, a revolving cast of foster dogs from National English Shepherd Rescue, and a mostly housetrained husband on Brandywine Farm, north of Pittsburgh, PA. She has had Lyme disease twice.
I’m exhausted. I’ve been dealing with a challenging family situation for the past couple of months, a home construction project for the past few weeks, and oh look! We owe more than we thought we would on our taxes. (Both my husband and I are independent contractors and pay quarterly taxes, but somehow we always owe at least a bit more than the estimates.) And I just shipped the May issue of WDJ to the printer, a few hours late, even after putting in 14-hour days for the past week, solid.
But am I going to go to bed? Eat a bowl of ice cream (Haagen Daz vanilla, with fresh strawberries and chocolate syrup)? Take a bath? Have a good cry? Zone out with a few episodes of Mad Men on Netflix?
Well, yes, I’ll probably do all those things. But not until I’ve taken the dogs out for a good long walk in the spring air. It’s noon, the sun is shining, and the wildflowers are blooming here in Northern California. The dogs have been antsy for days. Tito the Chihuahua alternates between moaning, whining, and grumbling near my desk chair, and throws his tennis ball at my feet. Otto is more polite, but no less compelling. He’ll sit next to my chair, very upright, and stare at me. If I fail to notice, he’ll dramatically sigh deeply from time to time. If I turn to look at him, his eyes will widen and sparkle, and he’ll wag his tail as invitingly as he knows how. “Yes? Can we go outside now?”
We can – finally – and so we will. These dogs are so much fun to walk with – vibrant and alert to nature, fit and active, and highly responsive and obedient to my whistle to return to my side. We’ll head out to a local trail, one that follows the Feather River, where we are sure to see osprey and eagles, wild turkeys and ducks, and if Otto is lucky, a jackrabbit or two. By the time we get home, I probably won’t need the ice cream, the tears, bed, or TV. Although the bath is still highly advisable.
I have calendars that are dedicated for noting things about my pets’ health. Time and time again they have come in handy when trying to investigate an abnormal condition. In recent months, notes on the calendar (and the clipped-out ingredients lists from their food labels, taped to the dates that I opened the bags of food) helped me put it together that Tito’s stool get loose every time I feed him a food that contains lamb, and that Otto is reluctant to eat foods that contain any fish or fish oil (probably due to oxidation in the fragile fish oils). Someday, I hope to be smart enough to use them to ANTICIPATE problems that arise annually.
In recent weeks, Otto has been licking and chewing himself more than usual. I told him to “knock it off!” several times without thinking much about it, before I finally thought to check him for fleas. I didn’t find a single flea – not on him, nor on Tito nor the cats. Huh, I thought. That’s as far as my thoughts went.
Today I was going back through some old blog posts, looking for a reference to something I had written about a couple of years ago, when I saw a blog post I wrote on March 22, 2011. It was about spring allergies in dogs. In it, I mentioned that Otto had been licking and chewing himself – severe itching is the most common symptom of allergies in dogs – and that the pollen counts were off the charts.
I grabbed the 2012 calendar dedicated to notes on Otto and Tito (the cats have a separate one). There it is, on March 11: “Otto licking/chewing daily.”
Okay, three years in a row? Otto starts licking and chewing in March? Ya think maybe I could use this trend and start being proactive rather than reactive? In early March each year, I could start bathing him more frequently (or at least wiping his coat several times daily with a damp towel), and making him sleep inside (slightly more protected from the veritable rain of pollen that is coating our deck right now). I could also dose him with some mild antihistamines on bad pollen days (like I do for my own spring allergies).
Thank goodness for online calendars: I’m setting up an alarm for March 1, 2014. “Consider Otto’s spring allergies.”
Does your dog suffer from any annual or seasonal conditions?
When approached from a holistic perspective, long-term flea control does not begin with insecticide flea sprays, dips or shampoos. It begins only after the caregiver reaches an understanding of how fleas live, behave, and how they select their hosts. From this perspective we can see that it is the effects of fleas, and not their existence, that cause so much misery to our dogs – the fleas themselves are only a single symptom of deep-seated and complex health problem.
To clarify, let’s take a look at what I call the “Flea vs. Host Dog” scenario.
Dogs have been host to fleas, as well as thousands of other parasites, for millions of years. Certainly, like all cross-species relationships, nature maintains certain checks and balances that allow parasites and their hosts to coexist in symbiotic harmony.
But in the case of fleas and domesticated canines, we keep seeing the same scenario repeat itself: Host Dog is completely tormented by fleas while his canine companion, although in the same house, seems relatively trouble-free. Why? Because the natural countermeasures that exist between flea and Host Dog are no longer working. The parasite-host relationship is out of balance.
Flea problems do not actually stem from the mere presence of fleas, but from health-related and environmental circumstances that allow parasites to wreak havoc upon a weakened host.
Like all parasites, fleas are opportunistic, preying on the easiest meal they can find. While it is true that dogs with healthy skins and coats are usually less bothered by fleas than those with flaky, dry skin and constantly shedding coats, this is only part of the picture. Deeper toward the root of the problem are issues involving Host Dog’s immune system and the way his body reacts to flea bites. Host Dog is allergic to flea bites, and for reasons that have little to do with the fleas themselves, his body system can neither repel nor tolerate their bites.
I’ve heard of it happening, but have never witnessed it before tonight: the horror of a dog getting his jaw twisted in another dog’s collar. May I never witness it again.
I was working at my computer when I heard a dog down the street, screaming. The only other times I’ve heard a dog scream like that were when one was hit by a car and another was kicked by a horse. I ran out my office door and down the street toward the noise. There is a black Lab-mix who is often playing in a fenced front yard two doors down, and I saw a young woman bent over what I thought was just that one dog. My first thought was that he had somehow broken a leg and she was restraining him. I ran through the gate and saw that she was, in fact, bent over TWO black Lab-mixes. I couldn’t tell at first what I was seeing, just this tangle of screaming dogs. I yelped, “What’s happening?” And the young woman shouted, “They’re stuck, I don’t know how!” It was SO confusing because both dogs were solid black and writhing around.
Then I saw the collar around the lower jaw of one dog. “”It’s the collar!” I yelled. “Do you have anything to cut it?!” My mind was racing but I couldn’t think of a single thing I had in my office that would cut it. The young woman yelled at someone else – her roommate, it turned out. “Get something to cut the collar!!”
I was also feeling all over the collars for a buckle. I felt a quick-release buckle and released it – but it was the release on the collar of the dog who had his jaw stuck. Just then I smelled poop; the dog whose collar was twisted was collapsing, and had just evacuated his bowels. He was being choked to death right in our hands.
I finally located the other buckle. It was a plain metal buckle. It was also in the mouth of the dog whose jaw was twisted inside. There was NO WAY I could get it to release.
The woman who was holding the dogs with me was screaming for her roommate. I said, “Let’s try to roll them to untwist it.” We grabbed the dogs’ bodies and tried to figure out which way would release the twist, but we simply could not see the solution in the mass of twisting black fur. One dog was moaning, the other gasping.
The other woman ran out with a pair of sharp scissors and a knife. I doubted the scissors, but it looked safer than a knife. She tried to jam the scissors under the collar and it was incredibly tight. She quailed for a moment, yelping, “I’m afraid to cut him!” And I said, “Just do it! Stitches are better than dying!” She jabbed the lower blade of the scissors under the collar and worked them with all her might, and by some miracle, the material started to separate. “Yes! Good! You’re doing it! Keep going!” the two of us holding the dogs encouraged her. We were ALL gasping for air at this point.
Then it was done. The collar fell off and the dogs literally fell apart. The one who was being choked coughed and gasped. The one with his jaw twisted ran away from us across the yard, then ran back with his tail between his legs – scared but ok. We encouraged the other dog – Good boy! You’re ok! – and he got to his feet, wobbling, and wagged his tail weakly, but it was apparent that he was regaining strength moment by moment. I said to the young women, “Are you ok?” “Yes, yes, are you?” We were all ok.
For the next 20 minutes or so, we talked and watched the dogs. In those minutes, both dogs defecated. The choked dog peed, too, and a few minutes later, he vomited. He seemed just really shaken but ok. I ran back to my office and found one of Otto’s older quick release collars to give them. We all hugged each other and the dogs.
Thank God the dog hadn’t been wearing a choke chain; I don’t have bolt cutters hanging around and don’t know anyone else who does either. That dog would have been dead if he had been wearing one.
Please: If your dog has a buckle collar – or one that has to be pulled over the dog’s head to take it off — PLEASE remove it before he or she plays with other dogs. Better yet: Don’t ever put any collar on your dog that doesn’t have a quick-release buckle.
Plants provide vital natural sources of vitamins, minerals, and trace elements that many of today’s commercial diets just don’t provide, what with poor-quality and over-processed ingredients. And in our increasingly urbanized environment, many dogs don’t have the opportunity to forage and ingest healing plants they instinctively seek out when feeling distressed.
From herbal treatments, animals can derive not only nutritional benefits, but also gentle, non-invasive medicinal therapy. Herbal medicine works by strengthening the body’s physiological systems, rather than treating only individual presenting symptoms.
Just as in people, arthritis is probably the most common chronic health condition in older dogs. It is characterized by chronic inflammation and calcium deposits in the joints, leading to stiffness, swelling and pain.
A classic herb tea for arthritis uses equal parts alfalfa, burdock, and white willow. The first two are excellent detoxifiers, and white willow is an effective anti-inflammatory and pain relieving agent. In addition, alfalfa is full of nutrients. This is best administered as a tea, mixed in with the dog’s food and water. The liquid has a pleasant taste, but if a dog refuses it, squirt a teaspoon of the mixture into his mouth two or three times a day.
Not how I like to start my day: With a dog of the above description in my front yard.
There are two gates in my front yard – one leading up the front path to my door, and a double set in the driveway. There are also gates on either side of my house leading to the backyard. Just this morning, I came through one of the side gates into the driveway with Tito (the Chihuahua). As I walked up to my car, one of my cats brushed up against my legs. I opened the car door so Tito could hop in – and then saw my cat suddenly make a panicked face and run for the backyard. She leaped over the five-foot chain link gate in a hurry. I turned to see what set her off, and saw the mouse-colored dog. The moment he saw me see him, he blanched and ran across my front yard. I walked to the driveway gate and closed them, so the dog couldn’t escape.
I looked up and down the street to see if anyone was looking for him: no one. I turned to look at him, and he ran and hid under a bush as far away from me as he could get. I went inside the house and got some lunch meat, then went outside and tried to make friends with the big, well-muscled dog. He was shaking and terrified, and wanted nothing to do with me or the meat. I called Animal Control, and asked if anyone had called looking for a dog of his description; no one had, at least yet.
My choices were:
1. To simply let him go on his way and hope for the best – to hope that he wouldn’t be hit by a car as he tried to find his way home. He was fearful and panicked; he didn’t seem like the type that would attack someone’s leashed dog (or toddler, or elderly person) on the sidewalk. The risk of letting him go would be mainly his (although I’ve heard of plenty of car accidents that happened when someone tried to avoid hitting a stray dog who was running across a street).
2. To hold him at my house and put up “found dog” signs. To try to socialize him while letting Animal Control know where they could direct any owner who came in or called looking for him. However, this option is simply not fair to my Chihuahua, cats, chickens, husband (who is not crazy about unfriendly dogs) – or even Otto, my big, neutered male dog. They’d all be at risk if the dog turned our to be predatory or aggressive.
3. To ask Animal Control to send an officer to come pick up the dog. They would do so, and if an owner was looking for him, this would be the best place for the pair to be reunited. However, if the owner couldn’t or wouldn’t go to the shelter to look, the dog’s prospects there are, frankly, dim. It would be different if he were socialized and friendly – or even if were extremely cute or tiny. Friendly, cute, or small dogs are reliably put up for adoption if their owners don’t claim them. But a large, strong dog who is afraid of people? Not a great candidate in my shelter. We don’t have too many people looking to foster or adopt dogs of this description.
What would you choose? A potential calamity in your family, on the street, or in the shelter?
I chose to call Animal Control. The officer came and spent 10 minutes under the bush with the dog, until he was able to gently ease a leash over his head and coax him out from under the bush. “He’s so soft!” he called to me as I waited by the gate. (I love this officer; he’s great with all animals, very patient and kind.) We decided the dog is an indoor dog, he was so sleek and clean. This made me feel a bit better – like someone would definitely miss him and would go to the shelter to look for him.
The thing that makes me so angry and sad: Large, well-muscled male dogs are the worst dogs to fail to dress with identification, to fail to socialize, to fail to contain – and even to fail to neuter. His chances are so much worse than almost any other dog that could be sent to stray on a street.
Years ago, I had high hopes for participating in dock diving sport with my now-9-year-old dog, Woody. But it turned out that my high-jumping, strong-swimming dog absolutely hates getting water in his ears!
