The highest possible inclusion of top-quality animal proteins. Look for a whole, named source of meat as the first ingredient (meaning the product contains more of that ingredient by weight than anything else). There are some good foods that list water or broth as the first ingredient and a meat ingredient second – but we’d choose a product with meat first on the label over one that listed meat second.
“Named” sources of any animal protein or fat, whether it’s a muscle tissue (in which case it will appear as chicken, beef, buffalo, etc.) or an organ meat (in which case it should specify which species it came from, for example, “beef liver”).
Whole grains or vegetables (if any are used in the formula).
Limited (if any) use of grain or vegetable by-products. For example, a food containing potato starch as the sixth ingredient would be preferable to one with the same ingredient in the third position on the ingredients panel. And a food that contained just one grain or vegetable by-product (such as oat bran) would be preferable to a product containing several (such as potato starch, oat fiber, and tomato paste).
The words “complete and balanced.” Some manufacturers produce a few wet food products that are meant for “supplemental or intermittent” use only. These products do not meet the specifications for a “complete and balanced diet” as defined by the model regulations developed by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) and adopted by each state. While these “supplemental” foods may be useful as part of a varied diet, they can’t be relied on to provide all the nutrients your dog needs.
Traits of Low-Quality Wet Foods
Unnamed animal sources, such as meat, meat by-products, poultry, poultry by-products, or animal fat.
Meat by-products or poultry by-products. There is a wide range in the quality and type of by-products that are available to pet food producers. And there is no way for a dog owner (or anyone else) to find out whether the by-products used are kept clean, chilled, and used fresh within a day or two of slaughter (as some companies claim), or are comprised of ingredients that were literally swept off a floor, dumped down the floor drains at the processing plant, and kept for hours or days on unrefrigerated loading docks and trucks. Because you can’t know, avoid by-products.
Wheat gluten. Wet foods often contain some sort of thickener or binder. Various types of “gum” (such as guar gum, from the seed of the guar plant, and carrageenan gum, from seaweed) are common thickeners. Whole grains, potatoes, and sweet potatoes also can be used to thicken wet food. But wheat gluten (and some other glutens) are generally used in wet foods both to augment the protein content of the food (albeit with lesser quality amino acids) and to act as a binder, to hold together artificially formed “chunks” so that they resemble chunks of meat. In other words, it’s a signal that the real meat content of the product is less than ideal. If chunks of meat are present in a wet dog food, they should be actual chunks of meat.
Sugar or other sweeteners. A food that contains quality meats shouldn’t need additional palatants to entice dogs.
Artificial colors, flavors, or added preservatives. Fortunately, these are rare in wet foods!
Pet Food Brand Examples
This one is easy.
This is Beneful’s “Savory Rice & Lamb Stew,” and it’s chock full of the “traits to avoid.” We won’t hold the fact that water is the first ingredient against the product; there are good foods with water as the first ingredient, too. But wheat gluten is the second ingredient. WOW. Think about that: By weight, there is more wheat gluten in this food than meat – which is crazy, because meat is full of moisture, which is heavy!
There are more “traits to avoid,” too: meat by-products (could be anything); “liver” (no species named); artificial and natural flavors (if the food contained a lot of meat, the maker wouldn’t need to add flavors to make it palatable); and added color (to make it pretty for you!).
Any “desirable traits”? Lamb and chicken are in there, but since they appear 6th and 8th on the label, their contributions are actually not very significant. Same goes for wild rice, peas, and carrots; appearing in the 9th, 10th, and 11th spots on the label, they aren’t contributing much.
Here is one of those mixed bags of good and undesirable traits.
This is Iams’ “Proactive Health Chunks with chicken in Gravy” and the ingredients start out nicely: Water (okay), chicken (great!), and then meat by-products and chicken by-products (sigh). Check out the addition of broccoli and spinach, way down under all the vitamins and minerals. Why bother, at that level of inclusion? (We can’t even imagine what such a tiny amount of broccoli and spinach would look like in a cooking vat full of this food!)
This next one is one of our approved canned foods.
It is Natural Balance’s “Limited Ingredient Diets Chicken & Sweet Potato Formula.” It has a lot going for it, including the fact that chicken appears first on the ingredients list, and the moisture (2nd) that’s been added for processing purposes is chicken broth: nice! Look what’s next, however: sweet potatoes, potatoes, and dehydrated potatoes. By the time you add up all that potato, does it outweigh the animal protein (even with chicken liver and chicken meal in 6th and 7th positions)?
One more thing. Look a little lower on the label, at the guaranteed analysis: The fat content is just 3.5 percent. That may make it highly appropriate for dogs who need a lower-fat food. And this is why you need to be aware of how much fat and protein you currently feed your dog, whether or not he needs to gain, hold, or lose weight, and given those factors, what effect this product may have if added to his diet.
Here is another one of our approved canned foods.
This is Natura Pet Product’s Innova. We love that there are two whole, named meats first on the ingredients list, and that the moisture that has been added (3rd) is chicken broth. There are more carbohydrates in here than there needs to be (brown rice, potato, carrot), but they are all whole and not repetitious (like when you see brown rice and white rice in the same formula), so as long as they work for the dog we are feeding, we’re fine with that.
However, look sharp: Check out that fat content, a whopping 8.5 percent! That might be super for your working Border Collie or field hunter, or a major problem for your Poodle with pancreatitis. Always read the label!
In the “Whole Dog Journal’s 2012 Canned Dog Food Review“ you will find a list of companies that make foods that meet all of our selection criteria for healthy, high-quality canned foods. Again, they all make great foods, but not all of the foods they make are appropriate for every dog, so check the ingredients panel and guaranteed analysis for every variety you consider feeding to your dog. The list is ordered alphabetically by the manufacturer, so if you don’t see the name of your favorite food, look at the label of the food to see what company makes it! As you try different products, keep track of your dog’s weight, and adjust the type and amount of food you feed accordingly.
Recently, a neighbor asked me for advice about her dog, who was vomiting and subdued. As part of our discussion about the dog’s upset stomach, I asked what kind of food she fed to the dog. She responded that she fed him high-quality wet food, “not the cheap stuff.” When I pressed her for the name of the brand, she said it was Beneful. Thankfully, her dog recovered quickly from whatever malady caused his vomiting, but our conversation haunted me for days. How does a person get the idea that Beneful is a high-quality food?
She’s not alone. There are apparently millions of people who buy Beneful and other pet foods made by Nestle Purina Petcare; the company is second on the list of highest grossing pet food manufacturers on the planet. Purina’s global retail sales in 2010 (the latest year for which complete figures are available) exceeded $14 billion. They must be doing something right, right?
In our opinion, what they are doing right isn’t optimum nutrition, however. The company may excel at marketing and manufacturing efficiency, but none of their well-known, popular wet foods are what we would consider healthful (we’ll explain why in a minute). But then, what global corporate behemoth makes truly healthy food? Companies with gargantuan production volumes can’t use ingredients of the highest quality in their foods; there isn’t a large enough global supply of ingredients of that quality!
Seriously, ingredient sourcing is a hot topic in the pet food industry right now. Increasingly educated and ever-more emotionally connected owners want to feed their pets foods with high-quality ingredients. Pet food makers that utilize top-quality ingredients have to compete with human food producers for those ingredients, and prices for all types of foods are rising dramatically. Drought in the U.S. has severely impacted corn production; high temperatures in Russia have affected its wheat crop. Both of these things affect the price of cattle, pork, and poultry feed, and thus the price of dairy products, beef, pork, eggs, and poultry. And yet, somehow, the price of the lowest-cost pet foods don’t seem to rise much, while the price of the highest-cost foods seems to spiral ever-higher. What’s up with that?
The answer is ingredient quality. While the price of a product shouldn’t ever be considered the sole indicator of a quality food, you have to keep in mind that products that contain high-quality ingredients will necessarily be priced a lot higher than bargain brands. If that can (or pouch or plastic tray) is inexpensive, what’s in it can’t possibly be “what’s best for dogs,” which is meat.
Mighty Meat
We strongly believe that there is nothing more nutritious and healthful for dogs than a well-formulated, home-prepared diet containing fresh, “human-quality” ingredients. If you’re not up for home-preparation, however, there are some compelling reasons to feed canned food to your dog as part or all of his diet.
The main reason is that good canned foods contain far more meat than any kibble can be manufactured with. Dogs have absolutely no nutritional requirement for carbohydrates – they can not just live, but can thrive on diets that contain only protein and fats. The fact that they are wondrously able to make use of just about any type of food we give them, grains included, doesn’t mean that grain-heavy diets are what’s best for them. Many holistic practitioners believe that the canine obesity epidemic and rising incidence of canine diabetes and allergies are due to the biologically inappropriate diets we feed to dogs. Animal proteins (meat, fish, and eggs) are what dogs have evolved to eat; we’re asking for trouble, many believe, by feeding them such an unnaturally carbohydrate-rich diet.
Other Benefits
It’s also unnatural for dogs to eat such a dry diet. Most kibble contains about 10 percent moisture. Meat and fish contain anywhere from 50 percent to 80 percent moisture. Feeding canned foods, which contain (on average) about 78 percent moisture, is therapeutic for dogs who have any sort of kidney ailment, and may be beneficial for all dogs.
Most dogs digest wet foods with far fewer digestive problems (such as excessive gas, diarrhea, or constipation) than dogs who eat dry kibble.
Wet food is far more palatable to most dogs than dry food. This is a huge benefit to any dog who needs to gain weight, whether due to illness, age, or high activity. (It can be a hazard, though, to dogs who are fat or prone to becoming overweight. Most canned foods are much higher in fat than most dry foods, so if your dog is fat or at risk of pancreatitis, look for canned foods with lower percentages of fat.)
Canned foods (the term describes all wet foods that are cooked inside a sealed container, whether it’s a can, pouch, or plastic tray) enable us to feed a diet that is biologically appropriate (with a high moisture content and a high inclusion of animal protein) and yet is shelf-stable – without the need for artificial or natural preservatives. (That stability lasts longer than even artificially preserved kibble, too.) When vitamin/mineral supplements are added to ensure the diets are “complete and balanced,” the overall benefits of canned food are compelling.
Selecting a Good Canned Dog Food
If you’re sold on the idea of canned food, great! Now it’s time to look for good ones. As always, the best way for a consumer to do this is to examine the label, skipping the pretty pictures of steaks and the marketing verbiage. Don’t allow yourself to work up an appetite by descriptions of spring vegetables, rosemary chicken, seared beef, grilled lamb, and other phrases; trust us, none of those things appear in the food in the form you envision when you read those words. The only thing you should pay attention to is the fine print of the ingredients list and the guaranteed analysis. You need to know what is actually in the food, and how much protein and fat will it deliver to your dog. Ingredients appear on the label in order of their presence in the formula by weight. And the protein and fat content appears in the “guaranteed analysis” portion of the label.
What should the food contain? What ingredients are less-than-desirable? See the chart below for a guide to the traits of top-quality and low-quality foods.
What about the products in the middle, the ones that contain some good and some undesirable traits? That gets trickier, but your budget – and most importantly, your dog’s response to the foods – may tip the balance for you one way or the other. Let’s look at some labels and do some comparing.
Traits of a Good Wet Dog Food
The highest possible inclusion of top-quality animal proteins. Look for a whole, named source of meat as the first ingredient (meaning the product contains more of that ingredient by weight than anything else). There are some good foods that list water or broth as the first ingredient and a meat ingredient second – but we’d choose a product with meat first on the label over one that listed meat second.
“Named” sources of any animal protein or fat, whether it’s a muscle tissue (in which case it will appear as chicken, beef, buffalo, etc.) or an organ meat (in which case it should specify which species it came from, for example, “beef liver”).
Whole grains or vegetables (if any are used in the formula).
Limited (if any) use of grain or vegetable by-products. For example, a food containing potato starch as the sixth ingredient would be preferable to one with the same ingredient in the third position on the ingredients panel. And a food that contained just one grain or vegetable by-product (such as oat bran) would be preferable to a product containing several (such as potato starch, oat fiber, and tomato paste).
The words “complete and balanced.” Some manufacturers produce a few wet food products that are meant for “supplemental or intermittent” use only. These products do not meet the specifications for a “complete and balanced diet” as defined by the model regulations developed by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) and adopted by each state. While these “supplemental” foods may be useful as part of a varied diet, they can’t be relied on to provide all the nutrients your dog needs.
Traits of Low-Quality Wet Foods
Unnamed animal sources, such as meat, meat by-products, poultry, poultry by-products, or animal fat.
Meat by-products or poultry by-products. There is a wide range in the quality and type of by-products that are available to pet food producers. And there is no way for a dog owner (or anyone else) to find out whether the by-products used are kept clean, chilled, and used fresh within a day or two of slaughter (as some companies claim), or are comprised of ingredients that were literally swept off a floor, dumped down the floor drains at the processing plant, and kept for hours or days on unrefrigerated loading docks and trucks. Because you can’t know, avoid by-products.
Wheat gluten. Wet foods often contain some sort of thickener or binder. Various types of “gum” (such as guar gum, from the seed of the guar plant, and carrageenan gum, from seaweed) are common thickeners. Whole grains, potatoes, and sweet potatoes also can be used to thicken wet food. But wheat gluten (and some other glutens) are generally used in wet foods both to augment the protein content of the food (albeit with lesser quality amino acids) and to act as a binder, to hold together artificially formed “chunks” so that they resemble chunks of meat. In other words, it’s a signal that the real meat content of the product is less than ideal. If chunks of meat are present in a wet dog food, they should be actual chunks of meat.
Sugar or other sweeteners. A food that contains quality meats shouldn’t need additional palatants to entice dogs.
Artificial colors, flavors, or added preservatives. Fortunately, these are rare in wet foods!
This one is easy:
This is Beneful’s “Savory Rice & Lamb Stew,” and it’s chock full of the “traits to avoid.” We won’t hold the fact that water is the first ingredient against the product; there are good foods with water as the first ingredient, too. But wheat gluten is the second ingredient. WOW. Think about that: By weight, there is more wheat gluten in this food than meat – which is crazy, because meat is full of moisture, which is heavy!
There are more “traits to avoid,” too: meat by-products (could be anything); “liver” (no species named); artificial and natural flavors (if the food contained a lot of meat, the maker wouldn’t need to add flavors to make it palatable); and added color (to make it pretty for you!).
Any “desirable traits”? Lamb and chicken are in there, but since they appear 6th and 8th on the label, their contributions are actually not very significant. Same goes for wild rice, peas, and carrots; appearing in the 9th, 10th, and 11th spots on the label, they aren’t contributing much.
Here is one of those mixed bags of good and undesirable traits:
This is Iams’ “Proactive Health Chunks with chicken in Gravy” and the ingredients start out nicely: Water (okay), chicken (great!), and then meat by-products and chicken by-products (sigh). Check out the addition of broccoli and spinach, way down under all the vitamins and minerals. Why bother, at that level of inclusion? (We can’t even imagine what such a tiny amount of broccoli and spinach would look like in a cooking vat full of this food!)
This next one is one of our “approved canned foods”:
It is Natural Balance’s “Limited Ingredient Diets Chicken & Sweet Potato Formula.” It has a lot going for it, including the fact that chicken appears first on the ingredients list, and the moisture (2nd) that’s been added for processing purposes is chicken broth: nice! Look what’s next, however: sweet potatoes, potatoes, and dehydrated potatoes. By the time you add up all that potato, does it outweigh the animal protein (even with chicken liver and chicken meal in 6th and 7th positions)?
One more thing. Look a little lower on the label, at the guaranteed analysis: The fat content is just 3.5 percent. That may make it highly appropriate for dogs who need a lower-fat food. And this is why you need to be aware of how much fat and protein you currently feed your dog, whether or not he needs to gain, hold, or lose weight, and given those factors, what effect this product may have if added to his diet.
Here is another one of our “approved canned foods”:
This is Natura Pet Product’s Innova. We love that there are two whole, named meats first on the ingredients list, and that the moisture that has been added (3rd) is chicken broth. There are more carbohydrates in here than there needs to be (brown rice, potato, carrot), but they are all whole and not repetitious (like when you see brown rice and white rice in the same formula), so as long as they work for the dog we are feeding, we’re fine with that.
However, look sharp: Check out that fat content, a whopping 8.5 percent! That might be super for your working Border Collie or field hunter, or a major problem for your Poodle with pancreatitis. Always read the label!
In the “Whole Dog Journal’s 2012 Canned Dog Food Review” you will find a list of companiesthat make foods that meet all of our selection criteria for healthy, high-quality canned foods. Again, they all make great foods, but not all of the foods they make are appropriate for every dog, so check the ingredients panel and guaranteed analysis for every variety you consider feeding to your dog. The list is ordered alphabetically by the manufacturer, so if you don’t see the name of your favorite food, look at the label of the food to see what company makes it! As you try different products, keep track of your dog’s weight, and adjust the type and amount of food you feed accordingly.
Recently, one of my friends bought a puppy. Don’t judge! She did everything right: She is familiar with the breed, she researched the breeder thoroughly (including references from past puppy buyers), and had the results of veterinary exams and xrays in hand before picking up the pup.
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It was immediately apparent that the breeder had done everything right, too. Super socialized and well-adjusted, the puppy settled into my friend’s home like he had lived there his whole life, handling his interactions with her mature dogs, cat, livestock, and human visitors with confidence and grace. Yes, grace. He is calm, friendly, playful, and inquisitive. He learned basic behaviors like “sit” and “wait” quickly and easily. His new owner is thrilled with him, as she should be.
This isn’t to suggest that all well-bred and well-raised puppies are without issues – that’s just not possible. Any puppy can have a frightening experience that undermines his confidence and sets a lifetime of fear or anxiety into motion. And even pups from the best bloodlines in the world can be born with a genetic predisposition to fearfulness or anxiety.
But the odds of this happening with a well-bred, perfectly raised pup are far lower than they are with poorly bred or randomly raised dogs. After volunteering for years in a shelter, and fostering one misfit dog after another – and taking weeks or months to help each of them develop into a better-behaved, better-adjusted dog and find an appropriate home for each – I have to say that my friend’s smooth, joyful experience with her well-bred pup is, well, damned attractive.
And, though my dog is from a shelter and I fully expect each of my next dogs to come from a shelter, too, I have to admit: Part of me is jealous. If you know how to raise and train a “damaged” dog, do you know how easy it would be to raise and train a well-bred puppy who has been brought up in ideal conditions? Well, it might not be perfect – again, adverse events can negatively affect even the best, most emotionally healthy dog – but wow, would it ever be easier than trying to train an adolescent dog who has been rehomed three times already, or erase the fear of humans from an older dog who has been abused or neglected, or socialize a puppy who has spent his first eight weeks in a dirty garage, rarely catching sight of a human.
I’m happy for my friend; if everyone did things this well, there wouldn’t be dogs in shelters! By extension, I’m happy for all educated, responsible dog owners who “do things right” with their dogs from day one. And I’m more than a bit jealous to hear reports about the pup’s super-fast progress. It sounds like an exquisitely enjoyable doggie dream.
But then I go to the shelter and see what we’ve got there. A perfectly mannered but grey-faced Chihuahua. A gorgeous, calm American Bulldog who is predatory to cats and other small animals. A whip-smart Border Collie who has been returned to the shelter three times for three different reasons. A litter of Lab-mix pups who barely know what a human is. A Boxer-mix who is eager to engage and play any sort of training game once she’s with a handler outside, but barks in the kennel all day, every day. And so on. I think to myself, “Could I really buy the purebred puppy of my dreams when all these worthy dogs need homes – especially homes with people who are experienced and educated enough to cope with their problems?”
So far, the answer is no. But that doesn’t mean the answer will always be no.
Here are some trade secrets to getting your control harness to work better for you and your dog:
–With several of the simpler styles (SENSE-ation, SENSE-ible, Easy Walk) if you can’t get the harness to fit quite right, try putting it on upside down. (Doesn’t work with any of the “two-points-of-contact” harnesses.)
–If the front strap still slips down, clip your leash to the front-clip ring and the collar ring. This may diminish the effectiveness of the harness a little, but it will keep the front strap up and in place.
–If your dog seems worried when you attempt to put the harness on him, use high-value food treats to give him a positive classical association with the harness, and do several sessions of “harness = food” before putting it all the way on him. If his eyes light up when he sees the harness, you’re ready to proceed. (Many dogs take to the harness right away and don’t need the conditioning step.)
–When attached to the front of your dog’s harness, make sure your leash comes directly to you in the shortest line possible (not around the dog’s other side and over his shoulders).
–Do several practice sessions with the harness in low-distraction environments so the two of you can, together, figure out how it works, before trying it in the real world.
–Keep slack in the leash when your dog is not pulling. If he starts to pull, stand still to brace yourself, and put gentle pressure on the leash to turn his front end back toward you. Mark (click or “Yes!”) and give him a treat, and walk forward again. Remember to reinforce him often for walking politely!
Some trainers scoff at the use of tools such as control harnesses, claiming that you are simply “managing” a problem behavior rather than training the dog.
A well-designed control harness, properly used, does give you a physical advantage so that you can prevent your dog from dragging you around (and reinforcing himself by reaching the thing(s) he wants). If that’s all you use it for, then you are using it solely as a management tool. While that may work for some dogs, others may eventually learn to pull hard enough to defeat the physical advantage, and you’re back to square one, now with a dog who can pull you around on his control harness.
To make the best use of these tools, be sure to take advantage of the opportunity the harness gives you to prevent your dog from self-reinforcement for his pulling, and reinforce your dog very well for his polite walking. If you do, eventually you may not need your control harness, or if you do choose to continue using it, it will continue to effectively allow you to control your dog if or when he does pull.
I’m sitting at my desk, which is piled high with control-type walking harnesses for dogs, and reveling at how this market niche has expanded since the introduction of the first front-clip model, the SENSE-ation Harness, more than a decade ago. It’s hard evidence of the growth of positive reinforcement-based training, and confirms a robust desire on the part of dog owners to find gentler and more effective ways to work with their canine companions.
Once upon a time, a harness was the last thing you wanted to use for a dog who pulled, because they were designed to make pulling comfortable. By distributing pressure evenly across the chest they removed pressure from the throat, where damage could be done to a dog’s trachea – sometimes even to the point of tracheal collapse. Harnesses are better for the dog from a health perspective, but from a training viewpoint, a standard harness actually encourages pulling. There’s a reason sled dogs wear harnesses!
Head halters were introduced in the late 1990s as a gentle control tool. While they did, indeed, work well to control a dog’s head (and where the head goes, the body follows), some trainers noticed that a significant number of dogs found head halters to be fairly aversive, requiring, in many cases, extensive conditioning to convince the dog to accept them. Thus, the SENSE-ation Harness was introduced by the folks at Softouch Concepts, Inc., as a more dog-friendly walking tool, while still following the “control-the-front-end” concept. Reception from the training community was lukewarm at first, but trainers eventuallybegan test-driving them and discovered that they were, indeed, an effective tool, and that most dogs accepted them easily, with little or no conditioning needed.
A clear sign of the success of the product was the advent of a slew of imitators. Within a few years several competing products arrived on the shelves, and the market has continued to evolve. There are several brands for the training harness aficionado to select from, each with its own variation on the no-pull theme.
We recently acquired samples of eight models of training harnesses and evaluated them on construction and materials, ease of use, effectiveness, and cost, to arrive at our “Top Pick” choices. Our findings appear on the following pages, from least to most expensive (prices may vary from different sources).
Petco Non-Pull Harness, $20
Discourages pulling with straps that go under the dog’s armpits and tighten when tension is put on the leash. The leash attaches to a ring at the dog’s back.
-Construction and Materials: This harness seems reasonably solid, although “Made in China” can sometimes indicate poor construction. There are no snaps to accidentally pop open, but the plastic adjustment buckles and the metal hardware appear to be made of low-grade materials. An elastic piece across the chest improves the comfort. The flat nylon straps are a nice medium weight and moderately soft. We like the fleece tubes covering the leg straps to protect the dog’s armpits from chafing, but the straps themselves are narrow (skinny straps inflict more discomfort if the dog pulls) and not particularly strong. A dog whose owner is inattentive could bite through them in a hot second. Three sizes.
-Ease of Use: To put on the dog, you slide this harness over his head, then guide his legs through the straps. This is difficult with the high-energy dogs who need a control harness! Instructions included are minimal, and make no suggestions for training, other than a small-print caveat “intended for short-term training use only.”
-Effectiveness: We’re not fans of the Petco No-Pull harness. While the novelty of the under-the-leg pressure can inhibit the dog’s movement (and therefore, pulling) initially, many dogs quickly habituate to the sensation and thus the harness rapidly loses effectiveness. Also, having the single point of contact in the middle of the dog’s back allows for little control, especially if he spins.
-Comments: I would not choose this harness for my dogs or recommend it for my clients’ dogs.
Halti Harness, $20
Don’t confuse this with the Halti Head Halter! This is a standard front-clip style harness made in the United Kingdom.
-Construction and Materials: The nylon straps of this harness are a nice weight, and softer than the Petco No-Pull, while the hardware, both plastic and metal, also appears to be better quality. We especially like the padding stitched in for extra comfort at the joining of the chest and belly straps. A nice feature unique to this harness is the metal clip on the chest strap, which can be used to attach to the dog’s regular flat collar – both to help keep the harness in place as well as act as a “safety belt” attachment should the dog manage to wriggle out of the harness. We also like the addition of a ring on the back strap, which provides two points of contact and allows for greater control.
However, we find the martingale loop on the chest strap (which provides a tightening or squeezing action when the dog pulls and the leash tightens) to be unnecessary and bulky. Three sizes.
-Ease of Use: The single snap style makes this harness relatively easy to put on – just slip the belly strap over the dog’s head with the ring on top, and connect the snap underneath the dog. When connected the snap is low enough on the strap to avoid chafing under the arm. Buckles adjust easily (three points of adjustment provide a good fit for all shapes of dogs), and a detailed booklet offers good instructions for use.
-Effectiveness: This harness worked well for us, other than a little annoying bunching of the small martingale loop, and an overlong strap that wanted to dangle when its loose-fitting nylon keeper failed to do its job. If we were using this harness on a regular basis we would cut the strap to shorten it, and stitch it down.
-Comments: I would use the Halti harness.
Sense-Ible Harness, $23 +/- and Sense-Ation Harness, $25 +/-
The folks at Softouch Concepts, Inc. were the creators of the original front-clip harness design, and we owe them our heartfelt thanks for that. The SENSE-ation was their first product; they added the SENSE-ible, using less-expensive material and offering fewer size and color choices, so they could offer a harness at a lower price point.
-Construction and Materials: Both harnesses are made of good quality, soft nylon, and good quality plastic and metal hardware; they are made both in the U.S. and in China. Both styles are available in multiple sizes; price varies slightly, with smaller sizes costing less.
-Ease of Use: Again, a single snap design makes this an easy harness to put on the dog; just open the snap, slip the harness over the dog’s head, and connect the snap underneath. The snap is low enough on the strap to avoid chafing under the dog’s front legs. Three points of adjustment provide a good fit for all shapes of dogs. The plastic slide buckles on the slightly more expensive SENSE-ation adjust easily; the metal slide buckles on the SENSE-ible required a bit of struggle. A multi-page packet of information came with these harnesses, offering in-depth information about fitting and proper use.
-Effectiveness: The first time I used a SENSE-ation harness, I was speaking at a seminar, and a shelter brought a strong, adolescent Doberman on a prong collar for me to work with. I asked the handlers to remove the prong collar, and it was suggested that I would not be able to hold him. They were correct; he could drag me on his flat collar. I just happened to have a SENSE-ation harness with me, and I put it on the dog. I was able to finish my talk while holding the dog’s leash with one finger. These are very effective at controlling a dog who tries to pull.
-Comments: I would use either of these harnesses, but prefer the SENSE-ation for ease of adjustment.
Walk Your Dog With Love, $27
This is simplest of the harnesses we reviewed. It’s a front-clip style, made in the U.S.
-Construction and Materials: This harness is made of a different material than any of the other products; instead of using some form of nylon, the maker uses polypropylene citing its resistance to stretching under tension and its lack of absorbency of moisture. (When a nylon harness gets wet, it becomes heavy with moisture; polypropylene does not. Also, supposedly, polypropylene does not absorb odorous oils from the dog’s coat, and won’t require frequent washing to keep it from getting smelly.) Owners who are used to softer nylon products (like myself!) may not like the feel of this stiffer material.
The straps are wide, to prevent them from being too severe or cutting into the dog’s flesh. However, I am concerned that the stiffness of the material, as well as a buckle placed near the dog’s elbow, could cause chafing problems. I didn’t test the harness for long enough to determine if this occurs; the manufacturer, of course, says he has not found this to be the case.
There are bits of reflective tape on both side straps and the front strap of the harness, which provide visibility during nighttime walking – a nice touch.
The harness is meant to be minimalist, and can be adjusted in just two places: the dog’s girth and on the front of the chest. However, I found that if the dog isn’t one of the bulkier breeds, and the chest strap had to be tightened a lot in order to fit the dog snugly, the strap in the front dangled so much as to be awkward. The harness is available in multiple sizes.
-Ease of Use: This harness is easy to put on the dog, with the one-snap over the head style common to several of the harnesses. The belly strap was easy to adjust; the front strap, with two layers of nylon, was a little harder, but still easier than the SENSE-ible’s metal buckles. Only very perfunctory fitting instructions, and direction to the product website, were provided with the harness.
-Effectiveness: Other than the extra length of strap in front, which we found annoying, this harness worked well to discourage our test dogs from pulling.
-Comments: WDJ Editor Nancy Kerns and I were evenly split about recommending this harness. I found the polypropylene straps to be very off-putting; I have seen enough chafing issues even with softer materials to expect problems with this one. However, Nancy Kerns has been using the harness for walking shelter dogs who pull, and appreciates the simplicity and ease of adjustment specifically for use on a variety of dogs (where she needs to make quick adjustments from dog to dog) and for very short distances (where chafing is not an issue).
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Freedom Harness, $30+-
Full disclosure: This is the harness I currently use and sell at my training center. A front-clip style, it has several unique features and options that I like.
-Construction and Materials: This harness is made in the U.S. of good quality material – a wide but soft nylon webbing, covered with velveteen where the strap passes under sensitive armpits – no chafing here!
This harness has two points of contact: a ring on the front of the dog’s chest, and one with a martingale loop on the top of the dog’s back, which offers a slight tightening sensation effect to the front-clip function. The hardware is robust and sturdy, with two plastic snaps rather than one; the snaps sit well above the dog’s elbow. Available in multiple sizes.
-Ease of Use: Much as we like this harness, we have to admit that it is more complicated than several of the others. The two-snap design invites confusion, and some of my trainers tell me it’s too complicated for some of their students. This harness was accompanied by a well-written brochure with easy-to-follow instructions. The maker will replace up to two chewed straps for just the cost of shipping.
-Effectiveness: This harness fits well and works well. If you use the double-ended leash that you can purchase with it (optional) it’s almost like holding the reins of a horse – although, again, some owners find that too complicated, especially if they are also trying to hold onto a clicker and treats.
-Comments: I love this harness for myself. While I’m not usually a fan of martingale straps (seen in the photo at right – the loop at the top of the dog’s back), this one performs well and does not bunch up as it tightens (when the dog pulls) and relaxes (when the leash is slack). We get mixed reviews from clients because of the increased complexity of the harness.
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Easy Walk Harness, $30
Brought to you by Premier Pet Products and made in Taiwan, this was another early entrant to the control-harness market. There are two clips on the girth strap (one above the chest strap and one below it) and a martingale loop in the front chest strap.
-Construction and Materials: The nylon used here has a slightly harder edge than the two SENSE-harnesses or the Freedom. The plastic snap attached to the belly strap sits immediately under the dog’s right elbow and may chafe. Available in multiple sizes.
-Ease of Use: Although this harness has two snaps, it’s designed so that you only undo one – allowing you to undo the bottom snap to slip it over the dog’s head to put it on and take it off easily, or if you choose, undo the upper snap and have your dog step in or out of it. Still, having two snaps always complicates things, and increases the odds that someone will get confused. Personally, I have always found the front martingale strap (a loop that tightens if the dog pulls) to be a bother. As you can see from the photo, when fitted tightly enough to keep it from sagging down the dog’s chest, it pulls the girth
strap forward, which interferes with the dog’s shoulder action and pinches behind the elbow. A detailed instruction pamphlet was included in the packaging with this product.
-Effectiveness: If properly fitted, this harness works well, although you must be on guard for chafing.
-Comments: Not one of my favorites, in large part because of the martingale loop. (Note: Runs small. The “medium” size was far smaller than the other products’ “medium.”)
Dean & Tyler No-Pull, $55
As the price suggests, this harness is in a class of its own. The nylon straps are two inches wide (compared to ¾ to 1 inch on all the others), and the entire piece looks like it’s made for Cane Corsos and larger; the company’s website indicates that it specializes in “products for medium, large, and very large dogs.”
-Construction and Materials: Made (according to the company) in eastern Europe, the quality of materials and construction is exceptionally sturdy – to the point of being bulky. The metal and plastic hardware are heavyweight, and there are several rings for leash or pulling options. There might be some chafing concerns with the extra-wide straps; however the rolled nylon handle on the top of the harness is convenient for when you might need to grab and restrain a lunging dog. Comes in larger sizes only.
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-Ease of Use: The two plastic snaps on this harness offer the same options as described for the Easy Walk harness – over the head, or step-in and drop off.
Effectiveness: While this harness is set up so that it works well as a front clip control harness, with additional rings for attaching a leash (or a double-ended leash) on the dog’s back and on each side, it’s clearly a multi-function tool. No instructions were included with this harness, but we found information about the options for its use online.
-Comments: This is way more harness than I can imagine needing for my dogs, or my clients for theirs. However, if you had especially an large, strong dog, or wanted multiple points of leash attachment for some reason, this could be a useful tool.
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, CDBC, is WDJ’s Training Editor. She lives in Fairplay, Maryland, site of her Peaceable Paws training center, where she offers dog training classes and courses for trainers.
Joan Morse, CPDT-KA, CA-P1, CNWI, of Tailwaggers Canine Campus in Newark, Delaware, recommends Leslie McDevitt’s “Pattern Games” when teaching loose-leash walking. She describes one of those games:
“The Two Step: drop a treat on the ground. Take two steps forward while the dog eats the treat. The moment he looks up at you, click, drop another treat right by you and take two more steps. This game develops a pattern or rhythm for the dog that will keep his attention on the handler and keep him moving as she moves. You usually get a nice loose leash walk quickly.”
Jackie Moyano, of Wholistic Hound in Alexandria, Virginia, suggests targeting. “If the dog can target the end of a stick, the walker can hold the stick at knee level and have the dog target during the walk.”
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Viviane Arzoumanian, CPDT-KA, CBCC-KA, PMCT-2, of PumpkinPups Dog Training in Brooklyn, New York, likes the tried-and-true “treat-spitting” method: “Teach your dog to catch tossed treats, and teach yourself to spit treats for the dog to catch (I use string cheese). Practice walking with the dog first without distractions, spitting treats to the dog for eye contact and being at your side.
Trainer Barbara Tran and her mixed-breed dog Tashi are the picture of perfect on leash walking skills. They both look relaxed and happy, attentive and alert. Tran developed this ability by playing “variable and unpredictable” walking games with Tashi off-leash. The leash got clipped on only when Tashi thoroughly “got” the game.
I’m sure I’m not the only dog trainer who sometimes shakes her head in frustration and dismay at her students’ apparent lack of success with teaching their dogs to walk politely on leash. Oh, they can do it just perfectly in the training center as I coach them to click and treat at random intervals. But when I stand at the window and watch them walk to their cars after class, the majority of dogs are leaning on the ends of their leashes as they strain to sniff enticing odors on their way back to their cars.
“Where have we failed?” I may think to myself – and then stop to remind myself that perhaps we haven’t. At this moment our students aren’t asking their dogs to walk politely, therefore no one is failing anything. I’m reminded of a cartoon I saw a while ago, of a dog marching by his owner’s side in perfect heel position, looking perfectly miserable while a stream of fascinating stimuli pass by that the dog would obviously love to investigate and can’t. The thought balloon over the dog’s head says, “Whose walk is this, anyway?”
Different Kinds of Dog Walking
There are, in fact, a variety of ways to walk on leash. The perfect-heel-position pas-de-deux dance required for obedience competition, while head-spinningly beautiful when performed well, requires focused concentration at both ends of the leash, with a high rate of some kind of reinforcement – treats, praise, or eye contact from the owner. It’s good for dogs and their people to know how to do this when requested, but unreasonable to expect them to walk this way all the time. Humans don’t want do that on a casual walk around the block, nor do their dogs. My own dogs, like those of my students, are quite capable of doing this when they know the perfect-heel game is on, but they’re not about to walk glued to my side when we’re strolling – or hiking – around the farm. In addition to the “Heel!” walk that we do in the training center (gaze with concentration into my eyes in perfect heel position, a.k.a. my walk), my dogs know two other ways to walk on when we’re on their walks. “Let’s walk!” is the cue I use to mean “You need to stay close to me but you can wander, sniff, and pee,” while “Be a dog!” means “You can range to the end of the leash in any direction, just don’t drag me.”
Each type of walking is taught according to the same basic formula: the dog is reinforced for being where I’ve asked her to be. The less freedom the dog has – the closer I want her to be by my side – the higher the rate and value of the reinforcer I use to train the behavior. When I want her to be in heel position, all the reinforcement comes from me, in the form of high-value treats and silly chatter. When the dog is fluent at walking by my side, I begin decreasing the rate of reinforcement, so she can walk politely for longer and longer stretches between reinforcers. When I offer more freedom on our walks, I can make use of the environment to reinforce my dog by doing “penalty yards” when the leash tightens. “Want to sniff that tree? Oops, the leash is tight, the tree goes farther away!” (We back up). “Now there is slack in the leash – look, the tree is getting closer!” (We move forward).
Make Walks Fun for Your Dog
Still, unless you’re a training junkie, practicing polite leash walking can be, well, let’s face it, pretty boring. If, however, you can make it a game, it suddenly becomes more fun for you and your dog. Play enough games, and your days spent on the other end of a tight leash may be over. Positive reinforcement training encourages creativity and fun. My own favorite approach is simply to be variable and unpredictable. If my dog never knows when I might toss a high-value treat on the ground, pull out a favorite toy, or head off on a tangent, she has to keep half an eye on me at all times. My goal is to happily surprise my dog; often enough that she decides it’s well worth her while to stay close to me.
There is no limit to the training tactics that can be used to teach leash walking in an enjoyable manner. Just leave it to a bunch of positive reinforcement trainers to come up with games designed to make leash walking fun. Here are a few examples:
Barbara Tran, CPDT-KSA, PMCT, in Toronto, Canada, takes “variable and unpredictable” to a new level with her leash-walking game, “Catch Me If You Can!” With this method, you “capture” the desired behavior (dog staying close to you) and the leash goes on only after the dog has been reinforced for staying near your side so much that she chooses to stay there. Tran describes how she played this game off-leash with her dog, Tashi. “Heeling doesn’t need to be dreadfully boring. I tried to dodge Tashi; if she got within a few feet of me, I marked her success with a clicker and fed her a treat. There was no force. It was completely her choice. Tashi chose to try and catch me because it was fun. “At first, we did this always at a fast pace and with lots of changes in direction, so it was truly a job for her to keep an eye on me. I released the treats beside my left leg, so she was always receiving her food rewards in proper heel position. Gradually, I began to introduce brief (initially, just a step or two) snippets of heeling at a normal pace. I clicked and rewarded her for paying attention to me while walking and then, we resumed our fast-paced game. Very gradually, and in an unpredictable pattern, I extended the periods of normal walking, so that sometimes there was little to no running. “Sometimes, I used running rather than food as a reward for attentive heeling. Sometimes, I threw a toy and released Tashi to go get it. Fun, fun, fun! Walking side by side became a predictor that we might play the ‘Catch me if you can’ game, or I might throw a toy, or I might supply a tasty treat.”
Lisa Waggoner, PMCT2, CPDT-KA, of Cold Nose College, in Murphy, North Carolina, says, “I like to get the dog accustomed to the ‘leash clasp hanging down’ (which means the leash has to be loose). I click/treat while the dog is standing still, clasp down/leash loose. The dog has to think, ‘It can be this easy?’ After a few rounds of this, we do what we call ‘the Box Step.’ We have fun with our clients talking about all those dancing lessons (we have mostly 60-80 year old clients).
Trainer Lisa Waggoner uses a modified dance step to teach her dogs to follow her lead! She frequently reinforces the dog for staying in position at her side, with the treats delivered right at her side, too.
“The Box Step involves taking a tiny step to the right. The dog may or may not move with us, but as long as the clasp is hanging down and the leash is loose, we click/treat. Then take a tiny step to the left; click/treat. Then a tiny step back; click/treat. Step forward; click/treat.
“Before long, the dog decides that staying very near is quite fabulous. Once the dog follows me in the small steps right/left/back/forward, then I transition, with the dog at my left, to taking two or three steps forward, clicking as the dog moves with me, taking treats at my left knee.”
Dawn Kalinowski of Poised Pups, LLC, in Norfolk, Virginia, takes the “penalty yards” technique mentioned previously and goes one step further, turning it into an training exercise. This exercise teaches the dog that a loose leash allows him to get closer to the prize but a tight leash causes him to lose ground. She suggests, “Start in a quiet room in your house. For this exercise, have a handful of tasty treats, or a toy if your dog is motivated by toys. Using a six-foot leash, tether your dog to something in a place where he can watch what you’re doing. Show him the yummy treat or toy. Walk about 8 to 10 feet away and place the treats or toy on the floor. “Walk back to your dog and pick up his leash.
Trainer Dawn Kalinowski teaches her dogs that pulling on the leash just delays or prevents them from being able to reach what they want, via a “penalty yards” walking game.
Holding your leash hand close to your body, walk very slowly toward the ‘goodies.’ When your dog pulls toward the goodies (thus tightening the leash), give a ‘no reward marker’ (NRM) such as ‘Oops!’ and take him back to the starting place. When he is calm, again start your slow walk toward the goodies. When he pulls again say “Oops!” and once again go back to the starting position. “Continue this exercise until your dog can reach the goodies without any tightening of the leash. Ask him to wait, pick up the treats or toy and give him the goodies. Once your dog catches on, bring in exciting new goodies for him and change locations to different rooms in the house.”
Susan Kaminsky, CPDT-KA, PMCT, of The Country Dog, LLC, in Norwalk, Connecticut, utilizes “luring” to help the dog find opportunities for reinforcement in the desired walking position. She explains, “I work first with ‘follow me’ – in the house, a fenced-in yard, or on a long line – and I point a finger down in front of the dog’s nose, initially with a strong-smelling treat in that hand. Eventually I just use my finger. It is a fun game and the dog learns to pay attention to me without the restraint of a leash. I start walking at a fast trot, which also helps gain the dog’s attention, and I change direction frequently. This idea developed from a Patricia McConnell technique, but I added the pointing finger as I like having a visual cue.”
Tricia Lude, of Manassass, Virginia, is a dedicated dog hobbyist who competes in agility. Having her dogs work at her side while running is vital to her competitive success – and she takes her competition seriously. Lude says, “I do a lot of foundation work/games to get my dogs to love being at my side because in agility (which is my main focus), I need them driving along my side and not turning into me. I never actually train them to heel. After doing all these games, all they want to do is be at my side. Whenever I give them a treat or reinforcement, I turn so that they are at my side. When I cue them to sit, I have them at my side instead of in front of me. Since they get so much reinforcement at my side they tend to stick there. I also do the same thing when playing fetch or other such games. I have them sit at my side and wait before I throw the ball, and then I release them. Sometimes I just drop the ball, as if I was tossing a treat into their mouth, while they are at my side.
Tricia Lude teaches her dogs to stay at her side even if she rotates 180 or 360 degrees.
“I also do ‘perch work’ with them to get them to want to love to be at my side. I shape them to put their paws on a phone book wrapped up in duct tape or some other type of small perch type object. I click and reward them a lot for having their front paws on the perch, standing next to me. Next, I have them sit-stay a few feet to a few yards behind me and then release them to run to the perch by my side. I’ll start to add distractions by putting a food bowl about 10 feet in front of me. They have to run to the perch at my side, then I release them to get the treat or get a lick of peanut butter in the bowl. “I also shape them to spin in a circle around the perch. I add myself into the picture when they have learned to rotate around the perch. They then rotate into me. My dogs get so much reinforcement for being at my side that they that they want to be at my side no matter where I am. I can walk into the ring at an agility trial and they are glued to my side. I can walk backward, forward, or spin in circles, and they stay right there even without a leash. I fade the perch fairly quickly by using flatter books and then a piece of paper. In no time, they are running to my side and walking with me off leash with no problem.”
More Dog Walking Ideas
So there you have it. Boring leash-walking is out; fun leash walking is in. One of the marvelous things about positive reinforcement training is that there is no “one right way” to do things. There are as many ways as there are creative trainers to think them up. We’re betting there are a lot more leash-walking games out there that we haven’t heard of. We’re challenging you, again – this time to come up with more fun ideas for keeping your dog walking happily with you on a loose leash. Submit your ideas to WDJEditor@gmail.com and we’ll post our favorites on our WDJ Facebook page. In the meantime, keep on having fun walking with your dog! The exercise and fresh air is good for both of you.
Some are reluctant to perform surgery on old dogs because of anesthesia risks or complications, but these risks are minimal in the case of most lipomas. Modern anesthesia protocols are far safer than they used to be, and complications are generally minor, usually limited to superficial infection or delayed healing. There is no reason not to remove lipomas from older dogs when they interfere with their quality of life.
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Tia Nelson examined a 12-year-old Lab whose owners had made the painful decision to put her down because she just couldn’t get around any more. But her problem wasn’t old age, it was a five-pound lipoma on her side just behind and partly under her shoulder blade. “I removed it,” says Dr. Nelson, “and the dog enjoyed another two years.”
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In a report published on his blog “Your Pet’s Best Friend,” Everett Mobley, DVM, of Kennett, Missouri, describes the case of Ling Ling, a 15-year-old Collie-mix who developed a large tumor in front of her left shoulder. “It was about 6 inches long, 3 inches wide and 1.5 inches thick, which is pretty big, even for a 57-pound dog,” he says. “We did a fine-needle aspiration and it turned out to be a lipoma. Because Ling Ling was so elderly and the tumor was large enough to require lengthy surgery, plus it didn’t seem to bother her, we decided it was something she would probably die with, instead of something she would die from.”
But in May 2012, Ling Ling lost weight while her tumor grew.
“It grew so much,” says Dr. Mobley, “that it appeared to have disrupted its own blood supply. There was a nasty-looking bulge that looked like it would soon die and rot and burst open. Not so good. She made it through 90 minutes of surgery like a champ. The tumor was so big it was like delivering a baby. It weighed three pounds and was as big as her head.”
Because the mass had disrupted the attachment of Ling Ling’s shoulder muscles, Dr. Mobley re-attached them. She made a full recovery.
I’ve liked individual dogs of pretty much every breed at some point or another. But there are times when I’ve also NOT liked dogs of some breed when it wasn’t even warranted. I guess you’d call it profiling or discrimination.
For the October issue of WDJ, I needed a dog to model a number of no-pull harnesses, so I could photograph them before sending them to WDJ Training Editor Pat Miller to review them. I purchased a size “medium” in all the harnesses so that Pat would stand the best chance of finding dogs to wear and try out the products. But for the photographs, I had additional requirements of the models: they also had to be a light color and short-haired, so the harnesses could be seen easily.
Unfortunately, none of my friends’ dogs were the right size, color, and had the right coat. So I went to my local shelter and looked for a candidate. The only dog in the adoption ward who immediately fit the bill was a muscle-bound bully breed, light grey, with a short coat. However, he also had a rather impassive expression that I couldn’t read. He neither growled, nor did he wag – and given his breed type, I was nervous about giving him a shot. Instead, I tried several other candidates, and each failed miserably. Either they were not the best color for what I needed or they wouldn’t stand still for photos. I wasted at least an hour passing that bully guy by, until out of desperation, I opened his kennel door.
Long story short, he was PERFECT. He was a strong puller on leash, and yet, he stood patiently while I adjusted harness after harness on him, and then stepped back to take photo after photo of him. I was immediately remorseful for having not tried him in the first place, all because I made assumptions about him because of his type. I just didn’t want to tangle with a dog who might be too strong, too wiggly, preoccupied with other dogs in nearby runs, or impatient with me and all the gear and possibly aggressive.
I’d be willing to bet I’m not the only one who is guilty of stereotyping, even though I know better. I know a lot of owners of large dogs who are biased against small dogs, saying that small dogs are “always” the ones who start trouble when they pass on the street – and in my experience, Chihuahuas and terriers ARE often out of control and apt to behave aggressively on-leash.
On the other hand, I know owners of small dogs who pick their small dogs up when they pass dogs of certain larger breeds, worrying that the big dogs will make a predatory grab for their tiny brethren – and I’ve seen that happen, too. Veterinarians will note “BDLD” in a small dog’s medical chart when a “Big Dog” attacks a “Little Dog,” perhaps mistaking it for a prey animal.
As I confessed my “sin” of prejudice to one of the employees at the shelter, however, she said I wasn’t altogether incorrect to worry about the big dog’s stereotypic traits. “It’s a good thing you didn’t take him by the cat room!” she told me. “He goes berserk when he sees a cat; it takes everything you’ve got to hold him back.”
Have you been guilty of breed prejudice? Ever made a highly incorrect assumption about a dog based on his breed or type – or have you mostly had your stereotyping confirmed?
Today my dog Boo and I visited with my ex-husband. We are good friends, with too little time to visit frequently, and Jim misses and loves Boo tremendously. Boo is a dog who doesn’t vocalize much in general. When he sees Jim, he whines and howls in excitement. He jumps on him, howls and dances and groans with a great display of animation. He doesn’t do this with anyone else. We haven’t lived together for at least 5-6 years. Yet every time Boo sees Jim, he can hardly contain himself. When we part company after our visit, Boo doesn’t want to get in the car, and he stares out the back window at Jim, howling as we leave. It breaks my heart. On the other hand, after our visit, Boo has a smile on his face, and appears to be very grateful for this visit. When Jim used to visit us at the Marin Humane Society where I worked, for the following three weeks, Boo would try to seek out any man that he saw from afar to see if it might be him, pulling hard on the leash, something not usually in his repertoire.
DeeDee was another of our dogs involved in this change of family make-up. There was never any doubt that she would stay with me. This was my heart dog, and certainly too much dog for Jim to take on. She loved Jim, and when we visited with each other, she said hi with great enthusiasm, then came back to find me, knowing this was her spot.
Ella was another of our dogs; she came to us after we fostered her and her pups (who were born in the shelter). The pups got adopted, Ella stayed. She never needed a leash, as she never had any inclination to venture far from our sides. Of course, as I was the primary dog person, she was with me most of the time, never taking her eyes off of me, usually tripping me due to her desire to stay right next to my side. When Jim and I separated, Ella stayed with me for a bit, but then she went to live with Jim. This was a perfect match since Ella was so low maintenance and a great fit for Jim, who is a “regular” pet owner, not inclined to want a project. When we visited after our split, Ella would say hello to me, but in short order, found her spot next to Jim. She never made much fuss over me once she knew who her real person was.
At the shelter, adopters ask if the dogs would learn to love them. I used to tell them that dogs are very adaptable and that they learn to love their next phase in life, and will attach to someone who provides them with all the right stuff. In truth, most do so with great skill and enthusiasm. It is the only option, of course. What else can they do? But some don’t adjust. Some shut down, some reveal a lack of trust in their new lives, showing behaviors that aren’t acceptable when cohabiting with us. Some become so dependent on anything resembling security, they can’t find it in their ability to be left alone for any period of time.
I found myself becoming more and more sensitized over time to seeing them in kennels in a shelter. What are we doing to them, taking them away from their lives they know, housing them in noisy kennels, with random people coming to take them out for short periods, then putting them back to spend their nights alone, curled up on their beds? We are doing the best we can, but for some it isn’t enough. And for some, it is a temporary hiccup that they endure and overcome when the next wonderful family finds room in their hearts for a new family member. They find that they can get through this period just like so many of us do when our lives get turned upside down.
Whenever Boo and I visit with Jim, I am reminded of how much we underestimate dogs; their memory, their affection for special people in their lives, their desire for consistency, their amazing adaptability to the lives we impose on them. We had a great visit today. We walked, we caught up with each other. Boo was in heaven and is now happily back home, at my side, playing with Aspen, initiating a game of fetch, not something he generally does. I think he is happy for the day he had.
They are amazing beings, and I am very grateful for their presence in our lives. And I always strive not underestimate them, or to take them for granted.
Tricia Breen has been involved with horses and dogs for most of her life. She studied biology and animal behavior in college, and spent years training her dogs and helping others to teach their dogs while moving around the country. Once settled back in her native California, she participated in and taught classes at her local dog training club, then taught classes and conducted behavior consults at the Marin Humane Society. For the past five years, Tricia was the Director of Animal Care and Adoptions at Marin Humane Society, always keeping an eye toward helping dogs and volunteers with shelter life. She recently left this role and went back to helping people build relationships with their dogs, and consulting with behavior and training issues. She can be reached via www.trishking.net as a new partner in this endeavor, or at triciabreen1@gmail.com.
Not two weeks ago, I posted a piece about the possibility that competition among the dogs in my “pack” had encouraged my dog Otto to develop previously unseen swimming and fetching skills. Here is the flip side: An un-socialized, formerly feral dog who I am fostering seems to have inspired both Otto AND Tito the Chihuahua to start chasing my cats off my property!
Otto has never chased my cats. Tito has, occasionally, but he’s the same size as my cats, and if they stand their ground, he halts in mid-charge and seems to pretend that he was in the middle of something else, like trying to remember his cell phone number. But suddenly, with the arrival of a mid-sized foster dog who has no qualms about chasing the cats, both Otto and Tito have decided that the activity *is* great fun. And I’m having trouble convincing one of my kitties to come home (from the far side of my fences) at all.
If I hear the sound of thundering paws across my back deck, I can step outside quickly and Otto, at least, will immediately change course and run for the house. Whoops! Sorry! If I catch Tito in the act, however, he persists in chasing the cat in question, in full hysterical Chihuahua cry, even if I’m running right behind him threatening his life. Only after the cat is over the fence will he turn around and face the charges, albeit defensively and without a shred of remorse. And the foster dog – well, as a former feral, he’s already got it all figured out. Sit pretty as long as the humans are around, but if they are busy inside the house, it’s on, kitties!
For now, it’s all about management. I have had to more closely monitor the location of all the dogs than ever before, and make sure that the three dogs are never all together in the backyard unsupervised at the same time. And at night, when the cats are most active (especially now, at the tail end of a hot summer), I’m crating the foster dog, Tito is sleeping inside, and only Otto – the most reliably cat-friendly dog – is free to wander the backyard with the cats.
So far, this is the only naughty thing my dogs have picked up from the foster dog, but it’s enough! I’m curious, though: Am I alone in this? Have one of your guest dogs ever taught, encouraged, or inspired your dog to behave badly?
