Most essential oils used in aromatherapy are obtained by steam distillation, at the end of which a small amount of essential oil is extracted from a large amount of water. But that isn’t just any water, for the liquid that condenses after steam drives volatile material from blossoms, stems, leaves, fruit, roots, or seeds is itself an aromatic substance with significant healing properties.
That liquid is called a hydrosol, hydrolat, hydrolate, flower water, floral water, or distillate water. Regardless of name, hydrosols are aromatherapy’s hot topic – and for pet lovers, they’re ideal. They combine the therapeutic benefits of essential oils, which they contain in minute amounts, with the safety of herbal teas. Make that very strong herbal teas, for hydrosols are 20 to 30 times more concentrated than any steeped or simmered tea.
Hydrosols have become buzzword ingredients in cosmetics and skin care products, where they are valued for their pleasant fragrances, hydrophilic (water-loving) acids, and mild but effective anti-inflammatory, astringent, and antiseptic properties.
The most familiar hydrosols are rose water, orange blossom water, and lavender water. But these culinary and hand lotion ingredients are usually made from water and perfume oils, not by steam distillation. The difference is significant, for true hydrosols contain water-soluble components that never appear in essential oils. As a result, hydrosols are gentle, powerful, versatile, therapeutic, and unique.
Quality Hydrosols Are Hard to Find
The first step toward improving your dog’s health with hydrosols is finding them. Until recently, few essential oil distributors sold hydrosols, and even now they’re unusual. That’s because hydrosols take up more space, cost more to ship, require more careful storage, and have a far shorter shelf life than essential oils. In addition, all of the quality concerns that apply to essential oils apply to hydrosols. For best results, buy from recommended suppliers (see sidebar list) and treat hydrosols with care.
In her book, Holistic Aromatherapy for Animals, Kristen Leigh Bell explains that the best suppliers identify hydrosols by species, country of origin, growing method, plant parts used, date of distillation, and other details. Most hydrosols have a shelf life of one to two years, so inquire about expiration dates. In addition, ask how the hydrosol has been stored, preferably refrigerated in sterilized dark glass bottles that receive minimal handling. Were preservatives added? Ethyl alcohol, grapefruit seed extract, and synthetic chemicals are common preservatives, but therapeutic-quality hydrosols are preservative-free.
Ask for samples. Good suppliers offer free or low-priced samples for tasting and testing.
Only Use Hydrosols That Have Passed A Test
“As soon as your hydrosols arrive,” says Bell, “wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water and pour a small amount into a clean glass. Hold it up to the light and check for particulate matter or a milky appearance. Fresh hydrosols are clear or have only a hint of color and should not contain a surface residue or large chunks or strings of particulate matter, all of which are evidence of a bacterial ‘bloom.’ Report spoilage to your supplier at once.”
Next, she says, “Smell your hydrosol. It won’t smell exactly the same as its essential oil, but it shouldn’t smell spoiled or rancid. Sniff carefully for any trace of alcohol. If all seems okay, taste it. The more you know about hydrosols and the more you use them yourself, the more effectively you’ll use them for your dog.”
Store hydrosols in the refrigerator or, if that’s not possible, in a cool, dark location. Some suppliers ship hydrosols in spray bottles, which prevents air from entering the bottle whenever you use it. Bottles that are frequently opened are easily contaminated.
Unlike essential oils, hydrosols are either slightly acidic like lavender hydrosol (5.6 to 5.9 pH) or very acidic like rock rose (2.9 to 3.1 pH). Suzanne Catty, one of the world’s leading authorities on these gentle yet powerful products, lists 70 hydrosols and their optimum pH values in her groundbreaking book, Hydrosols: The Next Aromatherapy. Catty recommends using special pH test strips – available at a low cost from home-brewing catalogs – to check a hydrosol’s shelf life. As soon as it arrives, check your hydrosol’s pH, and write this value on its label or in a notebook, along with the date. Report any questionable pH values to your supplier for a refund or replacement.
After six months, test the hydrosol’s pH again. Any value change of 0.5 or more indicates the presence of bacterial growth. Note that added preservatives affect a hydrosol’s pH, giving you another reason to rely on this method for testing a hydrosol’s quality.
Hydrosols are best replaced after their expiration dates. Use “expired” hydrosols that are still fresh in bath water or your dog’s shampoo, as air fresheners, as a dog bedding freshener, or in floor, dish, or laundry wash or rinse water. If you have plants that like acid soils, water them with expired hydrosols. Spoiled hydrosols should go down the drain or into the garden or compost pile.
Most Common Uses for Hydrosols on Dogs
Once you find a therapeutic-quality hydrosol, you can do all kinds of things with it. Here are some suggestions from Suzanne Catty.
To give a hydrosol in food or water, start with ½ to 1 tablespoon per day for a dog weighing 50 – 70 pounds. For toy dogs, give 1 to 1½ teaspoons per day, preferably diluted. For large and giant breeds, give up to 2 or 3 tablespoons per day. Adjust the following recommendations (based on 50 – 70 pounds) for your dog’s size.
For digestive problems, divide a daily dose of ½ to 1 tablespoon of coriander, peppermint, yarrow, fennel, carrot seed, oregano, basil, or rosemary hydrosol between water and food for three weeks.
For diarrhea, feed ½ tablespoon undiluted cinnamon bark hydrosol every 30 minutes for four doses, then hourly for four doses. “This usually does the trick,” Catty explains. “The cinnamon not only calms the stomach and digestive tract but also helps kill any bacterial cause of the diarrhea.”
For urinary tract problems, you can give your dog ½ tablespoon juniper berry, yarrow, cypress, sandalwood, or goldenrod hydrosol three times daily plus 1 tablespoon hydrosol in the water dish daily for three weeks. In case of infection, try winter savory, oregano, scarlet bee balm, or thyme (chemotype thymol).
For respiratory problems, give 1 tablespoon hydrosol twice or three times daily, and rub 2 tablespoons undiluted hydrosol on the chest and abdomen twice daily for three weeks. Try eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus), inula, rosemary (any chemotype), thyme (any chemotype), oregano, or winter savory, or a blend of two or more. Catty recommends supplementing this treatment with the use of essential oils, such as a blend of equal parts ravensara, Eucalyptus radiata, and palmarosa, with a drop or two of patchouli or vetiver. This blend can be dabbed onto the dog’s bedding or diffused into the air with a nebulizer, available from aromatherapy supply catalogs.
For additional recommendations for pet use from Suzanne Catty, see Hydrosols: The Next Aromatherapy.
You Can Be Creative
One of the easiest things to do with hydrosols is add them to your dog’s shampoo. Try diluting a natural shampoo or liquid soap (one that doesn’t contain synthetic chemicals) with an equal quantity of hydrosol. Do the same with your dog’s conditioner, and add a splash of hydrosol to the final rinse water. The hydrosols of flea-repelling essential oils, such as cedar or rosemary, can help keep your dog flea-free. Where ticks are a problem, use any hydrosol that has a rose fragrance, such as rose geranium, palmarosa, or true rose – although true rose is so expensive and luxurious, you’ll want to save it for spritzing on your own face.
In Madison, Tennessee, Marge Clark runs Nature’s Gift, a leading supplier of therapeutic-quality hydrosols and essential oils. “Many of our customers have dogs,” she reports, “and it’s important that these animals not experience an aromatherapy overdose. A dog’s nose is so sensitive that exposure to essential oils might be painful. The hydrosols are safe, gentle, and effective. My dog, Max, is an 11-year-old, 5-pound Pomeranian. Because of his tiny size, I have to treat him the way I would a human infant. Hydrosols are perfect for him.”
Clark’s favorite hydrosols for canine application are yarrow for hot spots and other skin irritations; lavender, the all-purpose “must-have” hydrosol, which is gentle, soothing, relaxing, and antibacterial; St. John’s wort, which relieves sore muscles and other pain; and neroli, which alleviates stress and anxiety. Helichrysum is her best-selling hydrosol and, at $22 for 4 ounces, the most expensive. This powerful anti-inflammatory is best known for its skin-healing properties.
Jenine Stanley, who lives in Columbus, Ohio, with two Golden Retriever service dogs, has experimented with Nature’s Gift hydrosols and recommends three “essentials” to all of her friends with guide dogs.
The first is tea tree hydrosol, which provides most of the benefits of tea tree oil without the problems that oil can cause. Tea tree oil is controversial because its application has caused temporary paralysis in some dogs and skin burns in others. Organic tea tree hydrosol, which Clark considers “totally safe,” is Stanley’s favorite for drying, disinfecting, and clearing up oozing hot spots or lick granulomas.
“Tea tree hydrosol is also an incredible ear wash for killing yeast in dogs’ ears,” says Stanley. “I saturate several cotton balls and clean the ear as usual. If the ear is crusty or moist, I apply the hydrosol directly to the ear canal – outdoors to accommodate head shaking to clear the debris and liquid.”
Oregano hydrosol has proved valuable for cleaning cuts, insect bites, stings, and even hot spots that have become infected. “I wash the area first with oregano,” Stanley explains, “then apply tea tree hydrosol as a drying agent. Yes, your dog will smell like pizza, but he will be much happier without the infection.”
Her third hydrosol of choice is witch hazel. “It’s an effective drying agent,” she says, “and it keeps the skin inside the ears at an appropriate pH. Witch hazel hydrosol smells good, is soothing, and helps prevent what we affectionately call ‘swamp ears.’ As our two dogs are guide dogs, they are often in tight quarters in public, airplane cabins, elevators, and crowded store lines. Using the hydrosols keeps them fresh, clean, and free from infections.”
At Prairieland Herbs in Woodward, Iowa, Maggie Julseth Howe and Donna Julseth experiment with hydrosols daily. “My Great Pyrenees had chronically ‘dirty’ ears,” says Howe, “and comfrey hydrosol was a wonderfully gentle way to keep them clean. We have also used comfrey hydrosol as an eyewash – not on our dogs, because the occasion has not arisen, but on kittens and a horse, with wonderful results.”
Bathing her Great Pyrenees is such an undertaking that Howe uses other means whenever possible. “A good brushing and a few spritzes of lemon balm hydrosol do wonders for coat shine and smell,” she says. “Commercial dog sprays send her running for the nearest patch of dirt to roll in, but like most dogs, she seems to tolerate the gentle, all-natural scent of hydrosols much better. Last but not least, a light spritz of a mint or other pleasantly scented hydrosol is a great way to freshen up a dog’s favorite bed or sleeping place, or even your couch or car seats.”
Finding Reliable Hydrosol Sources
According to Suzanne Catty, the major problem relating to hydrosols is not contamination, but rather fake or synthetic products sold as hydrosols, real hydrosols to which preservatives and/or stabilizers have been added, or real hydrosols that were improperly collected at distillation, resulting in nontherapeutic, unstable, and only slightly aromatic waters. “True therapeutic hydrosols that are free from preservatives, alcohol, or stabilizers and properly handled are a healing boon for animals of all kinds,” Catty says.
Suppliers find these hydrosols through research, networking, testing, and trial and error.
“If I love a distiller’s hydrosols,” says Marge Clark, “I’m a loyal and enthusiastic customer forever. I never, ever, make a sourcing decision based on price. I’ve done that and regretted it! We have the majority of our oils tested by a well-known chemist with gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, assuring that an essential oil is not adulterated, that it falls within the ‘expected range’ for components. But that testing will not distinguish between a so-so specimen and an extraordinary one. Personal selection makes that distinction, and it involves looking for intangibles, like the vibrancy or life in the aroma. Sometimes there is an energetic difference that can be felt.”
We recommend that you start with suppliers listed below and learn everything you can from them. They are generous with information, recommendations, and suggestions – and they sell superior-quality hydrosols, everything from familiar lavender to rare “boutique” hydrosols like cardamom or comfrey. The only factor that will interfere with your hydrosol collection is availability, for hydrosols are seasonal items that often sell out. When that happens, you have to wait for the next distillation.
Are any hydrosols potentially dangerous for dogs? Clark suggests avoiding the topical application of Australian lemon myrtle (Backhausia citriodora) because this powerful antibacterial hydrosol, which is best used as a room spray, can irritate the skin. “We don’t use it on our own skin,” she says, “so I wouldn’t use it on my dog’s.”
Hydrosols are still so new on the aromatherapy scene that discoveries about their benefits are being made every day. You and your dog can be in the forefront of this exciting new therapy.
HYDROSOLS FOR DOGS: OVERVIEW
1. Use a hydrosol for a gentle, effective treatment that can complement your dog’s conventional care.
2. Buy products only from reputable sources; test the quality (with pH test papers) regardless of the source.
3. Use hydrosols as a topical mist, dropped directly into your dog’s mouth, in her food and water, and/or in her shampoo.
4. Keep track of the hydrosol’s expiration date. Discard and replace expired products.
CJ Puotinen is the author of The Encyclopedia of Natural Pet Care (Keats/McGraw-Hill) and Natural Remedies for Dogs and Cats (Gramercy/Random House). She also wrote the foreword for Kristen Leigh Bell’s Holistic Aromatherapy for Animals.
Few topics excite the passions of dog lovers as much as food. Should dogs eat meat? Bones? Fruits? Vegetables? Grains? Dairy? Should their food be commercially prepared? Home-prepared? Raw? Cooked? Fresh? Frozen? Should dogs eat what people eat? What dogs in the wild eat? Whatever the choice, is it safe? Is it dangerous?
For thousands of years, domesticated dogs ate whatever their humans fed them plus whatever they could find on their own. No one worried about fat/protein ratios, the role of carbohydrates, or how much calcium is too much.
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For help in planning the ideal canine menu, some turn to canine species in the wild, especially wolves. But even here there is confusion and misinformation. What exactly do wolves eat?
To find out, Melinda Miller, who consults to veterinarians, pet supply stores, pet food companies, and the Wolf Conservation Center of South Salem, New York, invited one of the world’s most respected experts on the wolf, David Mech, Ph.D., to present a seminar about what wolves eat.
Since 1958, Dr. Mech (pronounced Meech) has studied wolves, first on Isle Royale in Lake Superior in Minnesota, then in Canada, Italy, Alaska, and Yellowstone National Park. A founding board member of the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minnesota, he is an internationally recognized expert on wolf ecology and behavior, predator-prey relations, and wolf population regulation. Mech’s latest book, coedited with Luigi Boitani and published in November 2003, is the encyclopedic and definitive Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation.
Dr. Mech has been a senior research scientist for the U.S. Department of the Interior since 1970 and is an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota. His research in Denali National Park in Alaska measured the interactions between wolves, caribou, moose, and Dall sheep. On Ellesmere Island in Canada’s Northwest Territories, which is so remote that its wolves are unusually tame, he documents the interactions of pack members and their pups around their den, plus wolf interactions with musk-oxen and Arctic hares. His research in Yellowstone National Park involves the interactions of wolves with their prey.
All of Dr. Mech’s research involves the gray wolf, Canis lupus. Gray wolves live throughout Europe, Asia, and North America, and it was from this species of wolf that the dog was domesticated.
On September 25, 2004, Dr. Mech presented a “what wolves eat” seminar in New York. It was attended by about 100 people, some of whom had traveled from New Zealand, Denmark, Quebec, Ontario, Texas, California, and the Midwest.
No consensus yet
Dr. Mech began his seminar by asking the audience which animal on the planet has been most researched with regard to health and diet. The answer? Human beings. But despite decades of intense study, scientists have yet to prove that any one diet is ideal.
“If science doesn’t have definite answers regarding human health,” said Dr. Mech, “it certainly doesn’t have them regarding dogs and wolves. There is simply too much that we don’t know. In addition, dogs were domesticated from wolves somewhere between 13,000 and 100,000 years ago, so their diets should not necessarily be the same.”
What scientists do know about wolves, he said, is that they are opportunistic omnivores. Left to their own devices, they will eat whatever they can whenever they can.
“This varies by location, season, and conditions,” he explained, “so wolves in one place may have a radically different diet from wolves in another. Their preference is freshly killed meat, but when that’s not available, they’ll eat anything that could remotely be considered edible.
“For example, there are few prey animals in Italy or Israel. Most people don’t even know that wolves live in those countries, but they do, and they eat whatever humans throw away. In Italy, there are about 500 wolves and around 500,000 feral dogs, and they have the same basic diet – whatever they can scrounge from garbage cans and local dumps, as well as whatever livestock they can kill.”
In the wild, says Dr. Mech, wolves hunt live prey. In British Columbia, where game is abundant, that includes moose, bison, wild hare, two types of deer, goats, mountain sheep, elk, caribou, and assorted small animals. In other locations, there may be only a single prey species.
“Any variety is provided by circumstances, not by conscious effort, and some wolves have thrived for decades or even hundreds of years on a monotonous diet of one or two prey animals,” said Dr. Mech. “Yellowstone’s wolves are at the high end of the wolf prosperity scale, for elk are so abundant in the park that wolves eat whenever they’re hungry. Wolves in other areas go through periods of feast and famine.”
The wolves’ work day begins in the early evening, and they will typically hunt all night, then sleep from mid-morning to late afternoon. If fully fed, they may sleep for 12 hours or more. If hungry, wolves hunt all day, often traveling 15 to 30 miles or more in search of prey. Although they usually hunt in packs, single wolves acting alone have been recorded killing all of the wolf’s large prey, including moose, bison, and musk-oxen.
What’s for dinner?
What does the average adult wolf eat? That’s hard to say because wolves are difficult to observe. When fitted with radio transmitter collars and tracked by aircraft, at least a few wolves can be monitored. “We have a good idea of what those wolves eat during winter months because they’re easy to find when there’s snow on the ground,” Dr. Mech explained. “Assuming there is sufficient game, they eat an average of two to ten pounds of meat per wolf per day. In summer, no one knows, but I expect the totals are similar.”
Those figures are averages, said Dr. Mech, because wolves eat as much as possible at every opportunity. An 80-pound wolf can eat 22 pounds of meat in one sitting. When game is scarce, wolves can go for weeks, even months without eating. If sufficiently fat at the outset, a wolf can fast for up to six months.
According to Dr. Mech, wolves that live in areas populated by large prey (such as elk or caribou) kill mostly old, maimed, sick, or very young animals, such as newborn calves. “I wouldn’t say that a wolf could never kill a healthy adult. But it’s more likely that an adult animal that appears healthy and is brought down by a wolf is not as healthy as other animals in the herd. It may have been deaf, for example, or had a malnourished grandmother. Starvation is a hazard that all animals face, and malnutrition affects two or more generations.”
Wolves that hunt large prey have to be careful because they risk their lives every time they attack. “Elk, moose, and other large animals can and do kill wolves,” he said. “All it takes is a well-placed kick. One of the most interesting findings of our research was the very low percentage of successful wolf attacks. You think of wolves as killing machines, and they are, but wolves may chase a hundred or more prey animals before they succeed in bringing one down. That’s why it makes sense for wolves to study the herds, watching for anything out of the ordinary – an elk that doesn’t hold his head high, for example, or one with a limp.”
These shopping expeditions were easy to see in the videos Dr. Mech showed of Yellowstone wolves trotting through elk herds. From time to time they would chase an elk, testing the animal’s strength and resilience, and when they chose a target, the animal was easy to spot, for its posture and gait didn’t match that of the rest of the herd.
Much has been made of wolves’ tendency to kill more than they can consume, but this “surplus killing,” as it is called, is not as wasteful as it first appears.
“Wolves can’t eat more than their stomachs can hold,” explained Dr. Mech, “but they store the excess by burying it in a cache, a hole in the ground, for later consumption. The contents of a cache can be half a calf, the leg or bones of an adult elk, or even regurgitated meat. The cache is usually some distance from the kill, up to a mile or more away. When game is scarce, cached food will keep a pack alive. I’m convinced that wolves remember where they cache their food because I’ve seen them come back as much as a year later and walk without hesitation to the exact location.”
Wolves also regurgitate to feed their young and, in the case of breeding males, to feed their mates.
“Alpha” is out
Dr. Mech no longer uses the term “Alpha” to describe the dominant male and female; rather, he describes them as the breeding pair. “The family structure of wolves is much like our own,” he explained. “The whole business of Alpha wolves came about because the first wolf researchers didn’t understand wolf families, and they put unrelated wolves from different locations together. While the wolves sorted out who was in charge, the researchers concluded that every wolf pack had an ongoing fight for dominance, hence the so-called Alpha, Beta, and Omega wolves. That’s just not how it works.
“In the wild, a pack is a family. A breeding pair has a litter of pups, and the following year, they have another. Now the pack consists of two parents, who are in charge of things, plus yearlings, who are one year old, and infant pups. The following year, the pack is older and larger, with two-year-olds, yearlings, and pups. By the time they are three or four years old, most young wolves have dispersed, gone out to start their own families.”
Dr. Mech added that in a wolf pack, all of the parents’ energy and resources are focused on reproduction. “The male helps feed his mate through the winter to keep her in good reproductive health,” he said. “Both parents feed the infants, and if prey is abundant, older offspring may do so as well. Pups typically nurse for one to four minutes every three hours, and they’re weaned at seven to nine weeks.”
The first solid food that wolf pups eat is regurgitated meat, which is introduced at about three weeks. As they get older, this is supplemented by fresh meat and bones that the other family members carry to the den. At eight weeks, the pups are moved from the den to a rendezvous site, where they wait while the older wolves hunt. Eventually, at around four to five months, they begin following the adults from the rendezvous site and feed on prey where it is killed.
Preferred cuts
What parts of their prey do wolves typically consume, and in what order?
“That depends,” said Dr. Mech. “They’ll eat almost anything, but their preference is for fresh rather than frozen meat and for internal organs before anything else. The first choice goes to the wolf in charge of the kill, which is almost always the breeding male or his mate. They are the largest and most experienced hunters. They will typically rip the abdomen open to reach the liver and other organs.”
Despite what many “raw feeders” claim, Dr. Mech said the wolves he has observed do not eat the digestive tract contents of their prey. “They will remove the guts and shake them a few times to get rid of whatever they contain, and they’ll eat the rumen from around the contents. This isn’t to say that they won’t swallow some of it. They’re not washing it out; they’re just trying to remove as much of the predigested greens and other stomach contents as possible.”
In contrast, the organs themselves – the liver, heart, and guts – these are prized, said Dr. Mech. So is fat, which is hard to come by in the wild. “Wolves usually catch the weakest, least healthy animals. We have measured the fat content of Yellowstone elk killed by wolves, and it’s low. My best guess for wolves in general is that less than five percent of their diet is fat,” said Dr. Mech.
“If they’re really hungry, the wolves will eat everything – organs, bones, skin, fur, whatever’s there – as quickly as possible. If they’re generally well fed, they’ll eat the internal organs and choice meats first, then rest and come back later for more. They won’t eat antlers, very large bones, or the tooth rows of adult prey.”
As far as bones are concerned, Dr. Mech said, “Wolves eat all of the other bones, everything they can crack open. Some wolves succeed in breaking the skull to eat the brains. Skull bones are hard, though, and this is where many wolves injure their teeth. If the prey is small, like a mouse or bird, the wolf may swallow it whole.”
A pack of 10 to 15 wolves makes short work of its prey, even animals as large as moose, said Dr. Mech. “They work from the inside out, then after sating themselves rest a few hours and eat again. The next day, they eat the remaining meat, which in winter is frozen, as well as the hide, and there is always recreational bone chewing. By the third day, they pull the skeleton apart. They may leave the lower legs and hooves or cache them. If they leave the leftovers, they may return for them, or a scavenging lone wolf may find them.”
In spring and fall, other animals such as beaver may be available, or the wolves may find birds’ eggs. “Wolves would eat eggs year round if they could find them,” said Dr. Mech. “but they’re a seasonal item, like berries. Wolves do eat fruits and nuts and grass on occasion, but meat is their primary food. Their diet is almost all protein with some fat. I estimate that vegetation makes up less than one percent of the food of wolves worldwide. They simply didn’t evolve to eat vegetables.
“A lot of people assume that wolves eat large quantities of hair and fur,” he continued. “Well, they do, but if you’re judging by a wolf’s fecal matter, the percentage of hair, hide, and fur seems larger than it really is. That’s because wolves digest meat first, and they do an excellent job of it. The small amount of fecal matter produced by meat shoots out of them as a liquid. It’s not technically diarrhea, but it’s a very loose stool, and that’s healthy and normal. Then there are longer-lasting stools that are solid and that contain hair, hide, teeth, and bone residue that looks white and chalky.”
Different life-stage diets?
When pregnant and nursing, the female wolf eats the same foods as usual, just more of them. “In most cases, she’s out hunting and traveling with the pack until a couple of days before whelping,” said Dr. Mech. “Most have litters of five to six pups, with larger litters in more temperate climates where game is more abundant, and smaller litters in extreme conditions or when game is scarce.”
Dr. Mech said that wolf pups get their permanent teeth at around six months, which is when they stop receiving preferential treatment. Physically mature at 12 to 14 months, most wolves begin reproducing at age two to four years.
In Minnesota, where Dr. Mech has kept population statistics since 1968, about one wolf in every 500 lives to be 10 years old. “Once a wolf reaches age six or seven, it’s a little past its prime,” he said. “That would be comparable to a 40-year-old human. An elderly wolf is 10, 11, or 12 years old. Most wolves in the wild live around five years, but captive wolves can live to be 17.”
It’s not their diet that shortens the lives of most wild wolves; there are many causes of wolf mortality, says Dr. Mech. Wolves kill each other in territorial disputes. If there’s too much snow on the ground, prey animals can’t find the food they need, so their population goes down, and when there isn’t sufficient prey, the wolves starve. As mentioned earlier, wolves are also killed or injured by their prey, and an injured wolf is at a serious disadvantage. By far the greatest risk to wolves, though, is human exploitation.
When asked about tooth and gum health, Dr. Mech said that wolves, despite the tooth wear that comes with a lifetime of bone chewing, have strong, healthy teeth with no decay, abscesses, or gum disease that he has seen, and no other problems except for occasional injuries that break teeth. Most older wolves have a broken tooth, but it doesn’t slow them down.
According to Dr. Mech, wolves may carry internal parasites, but those parasites seldom have a detrimental effect until the wolf becomes elderly or is weakened by malnutrition. “The presence of internal parasites is not an accurate health indicator,” he said.
The key to a healthy wolf population, Dr. Mech concluded, is abundant prey. When there’s enough food, wolves reproduce, raise healthy pups, maintain a strong pack, and enjoy the social benefits of a large, active family. In return, they strengthen herds of animals by culling the weak, injured, or diseased, and play an important role in our wilderness ecology.
Some describe wild wolves as sickly creatures, infested with parasites and leading a miserable existence. Because of starvation or the stresses of human intervention, some wolves may fit that description, but to imply that all wolves in the wild are frail and diseased is the grossest misrepresentation. When wolves live in the conditions in which they evolved, on large tracts of land with large prey to hunt, these ancestors of the modern dog are among the earth’s fittest, most powerful, most intelligent, vital, healthy animals. Their strong social bonds and rich family life have fascinated humans for millennia. Their howls speak to us, though in a language few can fully understand.
Dr. David Mech’s lifetime of wolf research offers an extraordinary glimpse into the lives of these elusive, misunderstood, and very special animals.
-CJ Puotinen is author of “The Encyclopedia of Natural Pet Care” (Keats/McGraw-Hill) and “Natural Remedies for Dogs and Cats” (Gramercy/Random House).
1. If your dog seems to always have gas, make an appointment for a veterinary examination to rule out serious problems. Chronic flatulence may be a symptom of pancreatic disease, intestinal disease, parasites, or irritable bowel syndrome.
2. If you haven’t already, switch from that bargain-basement food to a high-quality food rich in animal proteins.
3. Keep track of the ingredients – at least, the major sources of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats – in each food you give your dog, and whether his gas improves or worsens with each. It may be that his problem is with one type of grain.
Borborygmus is not a sun-drenched isle in the Mediterranean. Nor is it an exotic species of houseplant. Borborygmus is the term given to the rumbling-gurgling sound one hears as precursor to flatulence, the expulsion of intestinal gas. Every dog lover is bound to experience their canine pal’s flatulence from time to time – some more than others.
This brings us to the latest case in my life. Just minutes ago, Cedar, my Australian Cattle Dog, scored a mouth-watering bite of my bean and cheese burrito. Cedar loves food – any food – and contrary to my better judgment sometimes I will slip him a treat that doesn’t quite fit into the scheme of natural canine nutrition.
And someone always pays the price.
Sure enough, a cry of disgust resonates from the other room, “Oh Cedar! What on earth died inside of you!?”
The truth is quite the opposite; nothing has actually died inside of Cedar. In fact, millions of Clostridia and other intestinal flora are very much alive and are working overtime to metabolize his treat. The problem is, they are doing a poor job.
Why? Because dogs, being carnivores, do not digest carbohydrates very well. Their bodies are deficient in the digestive enzymes needed to break down the indigestible fiber, oligosaccharides, and other carbohydrates that are contained in my burrito. So, rather than being properly digested, the flour, beans, and cheese of my burrito are fermenting in his intestine, causing the production of hydrogen, methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and other gasses that lead to…Well, you know what.
Fortunately, Cedar’s flatulence will be short-lived. He has a cast iron stomach, and he seldom has bad gas. And of course, this bout could have been avoided altogether – but Cedar just loves his occasional bite of a bean and cheese burrito, and who am I to deprive him of a little decadence once in awhile?
Unfortunately, many other dogs seem to always have gas. And sadly, many people accept this as simply the way their dogs are. In fact, some dog owners even punish their companions for having chronic gas – by forcing them to live outside, never go on car rides, or prohibiting them from socializing with human house guests.
This does not have to be. Even the most severe cases of chronic flatulence can usually be corrected.
Flatulence can be relieved quickly in dogs by use of simethicone, the same anti-foaming drug that is marketed for humans in a variety of over-the-counter preparations. Simethicone is generally accepted as safe for dogs, even in human-sized doses. However, there may be some drawbacks to the use of Gaviscon, Gas-X, or any other simethicone product in your dog.
First, it is important to realize that these remedies can only suppress the symptoms of your dog’s digestive problems; they do not represent any real cure, especially for chronic problems.
Also, many of these products also contain antacids drugs, some of which have the ability to alter pH levels in the canine gut. Although generally not a problem in short-term applications, long-term use might lead to some real problems. Dogs must maintain high acid levels in their digestive tracts to efficiently break down foods and to protect their bodies from food-borne pathogens. Remember, all dogs are scavengers at heart, with a nose and palate geared to some very unsavory things. Therefore, their digestive systems are set up to digest food and to protect the body from what might be living on that food. In other words, if digestive acid levels are continually reduced by frequent use of antacids, your dog may be at higher risk of bacterial infection – especially if he eats raw meat.
Another reason to reconsider the quick fix of anti-gas drugs is that chronic flatulence may be a symptom of more serious illness, like pancreatic disease, intestinal disease, parasites, or irritable bowel syndrome. To a holistic thinker like myself, symptoms such as flatulence represent the body’s effort to correct itself. Symptoms also tell us where to look next for a curative solution, and when they are suppressed, the care provider is deprived of valuable clues that are needed to render effective treatment.
That said, most cases of flatulence are not very serious, and can be effectively treated with changes in diet, adjustments in feeding behavior, and proper exercise. But if your dog’s gas is associated with vomiting or chronic diarrhea, or if he exhibits symptoms of pain, a hunched posture, restlessness, or adopts an unusual “praying” position when he lays down, get him to a veterinarian right away, since these symptoms may be signs of bloat or other serious conditions.
Fermentation of poorly digested food material in the intestine is the most common cause of canine flatulence, but other factors may also come into play. Other possible contributors or causes include air gulping during fast or competitive eating, overeating, improper feeding frequency, and lack of exercise or too much rigorous exercise in close proximity to a meal.
Assess and Improve Your Dog’s Diet
The first thing to consider is the composition and quality of your companion’s food.
Dogs do not metabolize carbohydrates as efficiently as we do. This is unfortunate, because many commercial dogs foods are chock full of them, especially the bargain-basement brands that contain mostly low-quality grains and grain by-products. These contribute more to canine gas and indigestion than to canine nutrition.
Take a close look at the labels of the products you are feeding. If corn, soy, grain hulls, several grain meals, or any kind of sugar are listed in the first few ingredients, then you may have already found an answer to your dog’s gas problems; switch to a better-quality food!
Poor quality meat ingredients can also contribute to the issue. Be wary of any meat by-products or generic meat meals – those not listed as being sourced from a specific species (i.e., chicken meal, beef meal, etc.).
If you already feed good quality commercial food or a home-prepared diet, make it as digestible as possible by adding a digestive enzyme supplement to each meal. This will aid the breakdown of food and optimize waste elimination. Be sure that the supplement you purchase contains a variety of enzymes that serve in the digestion of various starches, fiber, and carbohydrates (examples include cellulase, hemicellulase, alpha amylase, beta amylase, and bromelain). Of course, your dog also needs enzymes for protein digestion (e.g. protease) and fat digestion (e.g., lipase; pancreatin). All of these are components of a good digestive enzyme product.
Probiotics (beneficial bacteria), such as bifidus and acidophilus, can be beneficial too, as these little beasties will further aid with digestion and reduction of fermentation. Follow the manufacturers directions for feeding.
Assess Your Feeding Schedule
When dealing with a chronic farter, do not free feed. Whether you choose to feed your companion once, twice, or several times daily, it is best not to leave food on the floor all of the time. Allow at least a few hours between feeding to allow complete digestion of each meal. This by itself has “cured” many cases of chronic canine flatulence!
Moderate your dog’s exercise immediately before and after he eats. Too much panting, jumping, running, and playing with a full tummy can lead to bloating and flatulence.
Also, if your dog tends to compete with other dogs for his food he may be eating too fast. Cedar has this problem. If Willow (or even the cat) is nearby, he practically inhales his food without chewing it. This often leads to bloating, indigestion, and you guessed it! GAS.
If your dog is prone to such behavior, put her into a “safe,” noncompetitive environment when she eats. Or load her food into some Kong toys or other safe chew toy – the kind that requires the dog to lick and chew for an extended period to extract the food.
Exercise and Love
Healthy exercise and lots of lovin’ are integral components of your dog’s health and happiness, and of good digestion.
Regular exercise serves to stimulate metabolism and promote elimination of stool. It also helps to expel gas. Just remember – take it easy immediately before and after meals.
Play and other quality time with your dog are also very important. High-spirited, hyperactive individuals, jumpy-nervous types, fear-aggressive dogs, or those who have suffered emotional trauma are often prone to eating disorders and digestive problems. Just like many humans, dogs will sometimes manifest their nervousness and emotional distress in the form of digestive upset.
Above all else, these dogs need extra love and attention, and added levels of understanding from their guardians. I encourage you to find some extra time to better understand his troubled world. There are several excellent books out there on the subject of dog behavior; read them, and learn to look into his world to better understand “why he is” and where he is coming from. You might find that a lot more comes out of your efforts than simple relief from flatulence!
Herbs for Flatulence Relief
Several safe and accessible herbs come to mind for effective relief of flatulence and indigestion. But before I mention any of them I want you to remember this: All these herbs do is relieve symptoms. They do not represent a silver-bullet solution.
Think holistically. Even if herbs do an amazing job at relieving your pup’s gas symptoms, you should always be looking deeper into the issue, especially if his problem is a recurrent one.
With that golden rule of holistic herbal medicine in mind, here are my favorite carminative herbs for use in gassy dogs:
At the top of my list is fennel seed (Foeniculum vulgare). Fennel has been used for hundreds of years as a reliable anti-gas and colic remedy in humans and animals alike. The seed contains an assortment of volatile oil constituents that combine to provide antispasmodic and antifoaming activities to the gut, and it does this without compromising normal acid concentrations or flora populations in the digestive tract.
Fennel seed is safe enough to give to dogs of any size. Grind the seeds with a coffee grinder or a mortar and pestle and serve 1 level teaspoon with as little food or broth as possible. Better yet, make a tea, by covering 1 tablespoon of the ground seeds with 8 oz of boiling water. Allow to steep until completely cooled, then squirt or spoon ½ to 1 teaspoon of the infusion directly into the dog’s mouth. If that is not possible, add the tea to a very small amount of food.
An alcohol-free, glycerin-based tincture of fennel can very effective, too, and adds the advantage of easy administration; glycerin is very sweet. Squirt ½ to 1 ml (about ¼ to ½ of a pipette dropper) directly into the mouth, whenever needed.
Don’t have any fennel seed? Then search the spice cabinet for any one of the following alternate choices: dill seed, anise seed, caraway seed, chamomile, catnip, or peppermint. All of these herbs have carminative (gas-relieving) properties, and can be used by the same methods and formulas.
Well, Cedar won’t need any herbal remedies today. His gas has passed, and the grumbling has stopped – whew!
“Come on boy, let’s go play ball. Then, after a rest, I’ll share part of my dinner with you! We’re having your favorite vegetable tonight!”
Yum! Cedar just loves broccoli!
Greg Tilford is a well-known expert in the field of veterinary herblism. An international lecturer and teacher of veterinarians and pet owners alike, Greg has written four books on herbs, including All You Ever Wanted to Know About Herbs for Pets (Bowie Press, 1999), which he coauthored with his wife, Mary.
1. Before adding a new dog to your family, take into consideration your tolerance for barking, and select a type of dog whose genetic propensity for vocalizing matches your tolerance level.
2. Appreciate your dog’s voice as a useful communication tool and teach her how to control and use it appropriately.
3. Don’t reward – purposely or accidentally – any type of barking that you wouldn’t want to live with indefinitely.
Quiet reigns in my house – for the moment, anyway. I look at young Lucy sleeping on her bed on the floor next to my desk and appreciate the rare moment of tranquility.
Like so many herding dogs, the year-old Cardigan Welsh Corgi lying at my feet is vocal. She barks when she’s excited. She barks when she’s playing. She barks when she wants something. She barks to alert us to visitors. She barks out of frustration. She barks when she hears a dog bark on TV. Not just any bark, mind you, but a shrill, high-pitched bark that grates on your nerves.
When we were in the final stages of completing her adoption from the local Humane Society, the animal care supervisor approached me with an expression of concern on her face. “That little dog you’re adopting … she’s, um, pretty vocal,” she warned.
I shrugged. Dogs bark. What’s the big deal? I could train her to be quiet, I thought to myself confidently. Little did I know what a challenge it would be in this case.
Dogs do bark – some more than others. Like Lucy, they bark for a wide variety of reasons. Fortunately, like Lucy, most dogs can learn to control their barking – at least enough that we can live with them in relative peace and harmony. Some, however, are easier to teach than others
Why Do Dogs Bark?
While dogs are primarily body language communicators, they also use their voices to share information with other members of their social group. Compared to their wild brethren, however, our domesticated dogs use their voices far more – a tendency we have genetically encouraged. We’ve created herding breeds, including Shelties, Border Collies, Welsh Corgis, and others, who use their voices when necessary to control their flocks. We’ve bred scent hounds to give voice when they are on the trail of prey.
We’ve also created a lot of breeds whose predilection for barking is a side effect of their main purpose. For example, we created many terrier breeds for hunting small rodents. These dogs are often notoriously barky, perhaps from generations of excited pursuit of their prey. Likewise, many of the toy breeds are known to be “yappy,” serving double duty as door alarms as well as lap warmers.
For what it’s worth, we’ve also produced breeds that have a reputation for quiet. Many of the guarding breeds tend not to announce their presence, but instead carry out their duties with a quiet intensity. Chows, Akitas, and Mastiffs are more likely to escort you off the property with a low growl or a short warning bark rather than a canine chorus. And of course, Basenjis don’t bark at all; they scream when they are displeased.
7 Reasons Your Dog Barks
We’d probably all be pleased if our dogs limited their barking to those situations for which they were bred to give voice, but of course they don’t. Those who have inherited a propensity for using their voices freely in one situation are highly likely to use them freely in others as well. And so, we end up with “nuisance” and “problem” barking.
Problem barking comes in a variety of flavors, each with its own unique triggers and solutions. Your dog might bark in several different situations, requiring a multipronged behavior modification program. We’ve outlined the most common triggers and solutions below.
Whatever the cause of your dog’s barking, don’t make the mistake of yelling “Quiet!” (or worse) at your dog. This is likely to increase his excitement and arousal, adding to the chaos rather than achieving the desired effect of peace in the kingdom. Even if you do succeed in intimidating him into silence, you risk damaging your relationship with him, as he learns to be quiet through fear.
Instead, use your human brain to figure out how to manage and modify your dog’s penchant for pandemonium. Fortunately, with a commitment of time, effort, training, and management, most barking can be controlled. Start out by identifying the type of barking your dog practices most frequently and applying the appropriate solution.
1. Boredom Barking
The largest category of nuisance barking is caused by boredom. Boredom barkers are the dogs who are left out in their yards all day, and sometimes all night, with nothing to do but patrol their territory and announce the presence of anything and everything. Sometimes it seems they bark just to hear themselves bark; perhaps they do.
Boredom barking often has a monotonous tone, and can go on for hours. The greatest numbers of barking complaints received by animal agencies are generated by boredom barkers.
The Fix: Fortunately, there’s an easy fix for outdoor boredom barking. Most of these dogs, if left inside, are happily quiet in their human’s den. The complicating factor is the length of time a dog can be safely left alone in the house. Crates and exercise pens are good management solutions for dogs who haven’t yet learned good house manners, and dogwalkers can be enlisted to provide midday potty breaks if owners work long hours. (Dogwalkers need not be professionals; you can often enlist the help of a friend, family member, or a neighbor.)
Boredom barking can also be reduced by enriching your dog’s life, by increasing his physical exercise and mind-engaging activities. A good, tongue-dragging, off-leash run or fetch and some interactive games and toys such as stuffed Kongs, Iqubes, and Egg Baby Turtles, daily, can minimize the tedium of a lonely dog’s day. (See “King Kong,” WDJ October 2000, and “Toys to Keep ’em Busy,” May 2004.)
2. Play Barking
These are the dogs who can’t handle too much fun. They are the canine equivalent of cheerleaders, running around the edges of the game giving voice to their arousal while others play. Herding dogs are often members of this group. Bred to keep livestock under tight control, they often experience an inherited compulsion to control anyone or anything that moves.
The Fix: This is such a hardwired behavior that it’s difficult to modify. You do have several options:
• Accept and allow the behavior. Determine a time and place where the barking is least objectionable, and let the dog do it.
• Manage the behavior. Remove the barker from the playing field when others want to engage in rough-and-tumble or chase-me games.
• Use “negative punishment,” a gentle, nonviolent form of punishment that can be effective if applied consistently. Negative punishment is the behaviorial term for any situation in which the dog’s behavior makes a good thing go away. If your dog is playing (an activity he enjoys) and starts barking (the thing you don’t want), you remove his opportunity to play. Use a cheerful “Oops, time out!” and remove him from the game for a brief (perhaps one to five minutes) session in the penalty box (say, another room).
• Teach a positive interrupt (see sidebar below). Use it when he barks to invite him to come to you and briefly stop the barking, then release him to go play again.
• Encourage him to carry his favorite toy in his mouth during play. As we discovered with Lucy, a mouth full of highly valued toy makes it difficult to bark. If she does, at least the sound is muffled. Caution: This is not a good option to select if your barking dog also “resource guards” his toys from other dogs.
3. Demand Barking
This is less annoying to neighbors, but it can be very irritating to you. Your dog is saying, “Bow wow GIVE it to me NOW!” Demand barking may be encountered in the early stages of positive training, as your dog tries to figure out how to make treats, play, and attention happen. It often starts as a low grumble or soft “whuff,” and if not nipped in the bud can turn into a full-scale, insistent, persistent bark.
The Fix: It’s easy to derail demand barking when it first starts by ignoring the dog. When your dog barks for treats, attention, or to get you to throw his ball, simply turn your back on him until he is quiet, then say “Yes!” and return your attention to him. His goal is to get you to give him good stuff. Your goal is to teach him that barking makes good stuff go away.
At first, you’ll need to say “Yes!” after just a few seconds of quiet, but fairly quickly extend the period of quiet so he doesn’t learn a behavior chain of “Bark, be quiet for a second, get attention.” At the same time, you’ll need to reinforce quiet when he doesn’t bark first, again, to prevent the behavior chain.
It’s more challenging to extinguish demand barking when your dog has had lots of reinforcement for it. Remember, any attention you give him reinforces demand barking. Eye contact, physical contact, verbal admonishment – all of these give him what he wants: attention!
The process for modifying the behavior of a veteran demand barker is the same: remove all reinforcement. However, be prepared for an extinction burst – a period when the behavior gets worse rather than better. The behavior used to work, so the dog thinks if he just tries harder, surely it will work again. If you give in during an extinction burst, you reinforce the more intense barking behavior, and guess what happens next time? Right – your dog will offer the more intense behavior sooner, and it gets even harder to extinguish the barking. Oops!
4. Alarm Barking
This is Lassie’s “Timmy’s in the well!” bark. It means something is seriously wrong – or at least your dog thinks so. The alarm bark usually has a tone of urgency or ferocity that’s absent in most other barks. Because your dog’s judgment as to what constitutes a serious threat may differ from yours, after many false alarms you may fall into the trap of asking him to stop barking without investigating the cause. Don’t! This may be the time a fire is smoldering in the kitchen.
The Fix: Always investigate. It could just be the UPS driver leaving a package on the porch, but it might be something serious. Sometimes Timmy really is in the well! Investigate, use a positive interrupt to stop the barking, and then reinforce the quiet. I also like to thank my dogs for letting me know something important was happening.
5. Greeting Barking
Dealing with inappropriate greeting behavior could be a whole article in its own right; in fact, I discuss this in the article, “Teaching Your Dog to Greet People without Jumping,” WDJ, April 2005. Here’s a brief preview:
Your dog may be giving an alarm: “Danger! Intruder at the door!” Or he may be barking in excitement: “Huzzah! Dad’s home!” or “Hooray! Company’s here!” His tone – ferocious versus excited – will tell you the difference.
The Fix: If you have guests arriving, the management/modification program is complicated by the fact that you have to answer the door! Ideally, a second person answers the door while you use the positive interrupt to halt the barking. If there is no second person available, use the interrupt, secure your dog in another room or tether him, then go greet your guests. (You may want to put a note on your door asking guests to be patient if it takes you a minute or two to come to the door!)
You can also help minimize greeting barking by remaining calm when the doorbell rings, because otherwise, your dog may get excited and bark at your excitement. In families with children, you may have to spend some time training the kids not to rush excitedly to the door, too!
Often, people unwittingly train their dogs to bark when they come home, by greeting the dog in a boisterous manner. It’s human nature to enjoy it when another being seems glad to see us! But it’s one thing to be greeted by a wagging, wiggling dog, and another to be greeted by a cacaphony of loud, maniacal barking. And with some dogs, one often leads to the other.
If your dog is barking as you approach your door, wait outside until he is quiet for at least a few seconds. Then enter the house, remaining very calm and quiet yourself. If your dog starts barking as you enter, ignore him until he is quiet, then greet him calmly. After you have been home a little while and he is calm, you can initiate a play or affection session.
6. Frustration Barking
Frustration barking can be identified by its tone of shrill insistence. When Lucy first joined our family and we used tethers to manage her cat-chasing, for a time she became a master at frustration barking. She still gives shrill voice to her frustration when we confine our dogs to the tack room while we move horses in and out of the barn, but she settles quickly, having learned that it doesn’t get her released any sooner.
The Fix: Frustration barking is a close relative of demand barking, but is more likely to occur when you are a distance from the dog, or when it is directed at something other than you. You handle it the same way. Ignore the behavior you don’t want (the barking) and reward the behavior you do want (quiet). A reward marker such as the click! of a clicker, or a verbal “Yes!” is very useful to mark the quiet, since you are often at a distance from the dog when the barking and the moment of quiet happen.
As with demand barking, the more your dog has been rewarded for frustration barking in the past, the more committed and consistent you’ll need to be to make it go away, and the more likely you’ll have to work through a significant extinction burst.
7. Anxiety Barking
Hysterical vocalization is just one of several manifestations of separation anxiety (SA), often accompanied by destructive behavior, extraordinary efforts to escape confinement, and/or inappropriate urination and defecation. Separation anxiety is a complex behavior – a full-blown panic attack (see “Learning to Be Alone, July 2001, and “Relieving Anxiety,” August 2001). To modify SA barking, howling, or screaming, you must modify the entire anxiety complex.
The Fix: While it can be modified through a program of counter-conditioning and desensitization, SA barking usually requires the intervention of a professional trainer/behavior consultant, sometimes with the assistance of behavior modification drugs. If your dog’s barking is related to anxiety, we suggest you contact a good, positive trainer/behaviorist to help you with the complex and difficult anxiety behavior.
Preventing a Barking Habit in Bark-Happy Breeds
DAY ONE: Owners are in the backyard enjoying the company of their nine-week-old Toy Poodle pup, flown to California from a breeder across the country at age six weeks, stricken with pneu-monia on arrival, finally recovered enough to play in the garden on a warm day.
The tiny white ball of fluff is totally engaged in discovering a brand new world. Everything that moves is cause for excitement, and with each new discovery, she lets out a cautious little “Woof!” and runs back to Owners’ laps, who chuckle, enchanted by their pup’s adorable antics.
DAY TWO: Similar scenario, except Owners are now frowning in consternation, as the cautious “Woofs” have advanced to shrill alarm barking at every sound: neighbors’ voices, the jingle of dog tags from another yard, the rustle of a squirrel dashing through a pile of leaves. Each new round of alarm barking elicits a frustrated and ineffective response: “Maggie! Stop! Maggie, SHUSH! Maggie, STOP!”
This has the classic signs of a nuisance barker in the making. Unless Maggie’s owner changes tactics, and promptly, she could be facing a lifetime of ineffective “Maggie, SHUSH!” commands, annoyed looks from neighbors, and perhaps even visits from Animal Services as nearby residents lose patience with the loss of tranquility in the neighborhood.
It’s easy to understand Maggie’s behavior. She’s a toy breed — one of several known for their ability to be generous with high-pitched vocalizations. Her breeding may have bestowed a less-than-resilient temperament, causing her to find the world more alarming than necessary. She may have been born into an environment that provided little early socialization to temper a timid personality, separated from her litter earlier than ideal, and subjected to the sometimes traumatic experience of air travel.
When she took ill in her new home, she was quarantined indoors for three more weeks of her optimum early socialization period, forestalling remedial socialization. By the time she was introduced to the world, she had missed out on important life lessons, and the wash of stimuli bombarding her in the backyard was more than she could handle.
Time for Maggie’s human to play catch-up! Maggie’s owners need to expose their tiny dog to stimuli more gradually, for shorter periods of time, and associate new sights and sounds with good stuff (yummy treats) instead of harsh verbal corrections that add to the overstimulation and goad Maggie into further barking. They could walk with Maggie into the backyard briefly, feed a few treats, and walk back inside, gradually extending the length of backyard visits as the pup gains confidence. They could teach Maggie a positive interrupt indoors, in preparation for longer visits to the backyard. Then, if Maggie does become aroused and start to bark, a cheerful “Over here!” could end the eruption quickly, before community peace is shattered.
Dogs generally do better in training when told what to do (“Come over here to me for a goodie!”), instead of what not to do (“STOP barking!”). Redirecting the behavior in this manner occupies the dog’s brain with the new behavior, rather than leaving a behavior vacuum that is filled with the next burst of barking.
Last but not least, Maggie’s owners could enroll her in a well-run positive puppy class, to give her more opportunities for socialization before the optimum time for this task ends at 16 to 18 weeks. They’d better do something, and soon. The longer a dog practices a behavior, the harder it is to change. If they ignore their puppy’s barking much longer, they — and their neighbors — will likely be living with it for the next 15 to 20 years.
An Incredibly Useful Training Tool: The Positive Interrupt
The positive interrupt is a well-programmed, highly reinforced behavior that allows you to redirect your dog’s attention back to you when she’s doing something inappropriate, like barking. Ideally, you want your dog’s response to the “Over here!” cue to be so automatic — classically conditioned — that he doesn’t stop to wonder whether what he’s doing is more rewarding or interesting than turning his attention toward you and running to you for a treat. He doesn’t think — he just does it, the way your foot automatically hits the brake of your car when you see taillights flash on front of you on the highway.
Here’s how to program a positive interrupt:
1. Install the cue in a low-distraction environment.
Use a phrase such as “Over here!” or “Quiet please!” as your interrupt cue. Say the phrase in a cheerful tone of voice when your dog is paying attention to you, then immediately feed him a morsel of very high value treat, such as a small shred of canned chicken or sardines. Repeat until you see his eyes light up and his ears perk when you say the phrase.
2. Practice with the cue in a low-distraction environment.
Wait until your dog is engaged in a low-value activity, such as wandering around
the room, sniffing something mildly inter-esting. Then say your interrupt phrase in the same cheerful tone of voice. You should see an immediate interrupt in his low-value activity, and he should dash to you for his treat. If he doesn’t, return to Step I, per-haps with an even higher-value treat.
3. Practice with the cue in a low-distraction environment with minor distractions.
Still in the low-distraction environment so you can control the distraction level, add moderate distractions — one at a time — and practice the interrupt. For example, sit in your kitchen (low-distraction environment) with a helper such as one of your friends or family members. Give your helper a bag of chips. At your cue, ask your helper to help themselves to a chip or two; this should be a fairly minor distraction. Gradually increase the intensity of the distraction. Your helper can noisily crunch the chips, or get up and walk around — and eventually hop around while crunching chips.
Gradually move up to major distractions in your low-distraction environment while practicing the positive interrupt. If you lose your dog’s automatic response at any step, return to the previous step.
4. Move your lessons to an environment with real-life distractions.
Go for a walk around the block with your dog on leash. Use the interrupt when he becomes preoccupied with a mild to moderate real-life distraction, such as an interesting bush he would like to sniff or a fast-food bag on the sidewalk he’d like to check out. If a major distraction presents itself, including a stimulus that causes him to bark, give the interrupt a try! Don’t get discouraged if it fails to work in a challenging situation; just keep practicing in less-difficult surroundings. And make sure the treat you use is irresistibly delicious.
5. Use the positive cue to interrupt barking.
When your dog automatically turns his attention to you in response to your cue when confronted with major real-life distractions, you have a valuable tool for interrupting his barking. Be sure you practice occasionally with mild distractions as well, to keep the cue “tuned up,” and remember to thank him and tell him what a wonderful dog he is when he stops barking on your request.
The Neighborhood Barker
Sometimes it’s not your dog barking, it’s your neighbor’s! This can present a challenge: your neighbor may — or may not — be interested in fixing the problem. How do you handle this?
WHAT TO DO: Your first step is to gently inform your neighbor that her dog is barking excessively, and when. This is best done during the day, not with an irate phone call when the dog wakes you up at two o’clock in the morning again. Assume she’s not aware of it, or at least not aware it’s disturbing to her neighbors.
If she seems receptive, show her this article to give her some ideas about how to modify her dog’s barking behavior. If you’re feeling generous, give her a copy of Terry Ryan’s book, The Bark Stops Here, for more in-depth information on barking.
Even if you’ve already had some negative interactions with your neighbor over her dog, it may not be too late to try again, and mend fences. Approach her with an apology for any past bad words, and let her know you’d like to help with her dog’s barking, if you can. Even short of doing actual behavior modification, offers to let her dog play with yours (if they’re compatible) or taking her dog for walks (if you can safely manage the dog) may enrich the dog’s environment and provide enough exercise to reduce or eliminate the barking.
If she’s not receptive, or if your neighbor is such a threaten-ing presence from the dark side that you’re not comfortable contacting her, you can file a complaint with the animal authorities in your community. Most will not disclose the identity of a complainant, but you should double-check with them to be sure. You may need to make follow-up complaints if their initial contact with the dog owner doesn’t effect an adequate change in behavior.
WHAT NOT TO DO: Do not attempt to work with a neighbor’s dog without the permission of the owner. Even with your best of intentions, you could be bitten, you could be sued, and you could actually intensify the bark rather than reducing it. And do not install any electronic anti-barking devices. We are hearing reports that these can be quite aversive, perhaps even painful, for the dogs at which they are directed.
Not All Dog Barking is Bad
A dog’s voice can be a useful thing, especially the bark that lets us know a dog needs to go outside, or is ready to come back in. Some service dogs are trained to bark to alert their owners. Dogs warn us of intruders and tell us of pending emergencies. I can think of numerous times when the Miller dogs’ barking served a valuable purpose. There was the time they let me know that our horses had escaped and were trooping down our driveway toward the road. I smile whenever I remember Dusty, our eight-pound Pomeranian, standing his ground, ferociously barking, preventing our 1,000-pound Thoroughbred mare from walking through a gate accidentally left open.
When Lucy’s shrill voice causes me to grit my teeth, I remind myself that there will be times when she, too, will use that same voice to tell me something important, and I’ll be glad she has a voice to use.
Pat Miller, CPDT, is WDJ’s Training Editor. She is also author of The Power of Positive Dog Training and Positive Perspectives: Love Your Dog, Train Your Dog.
– Try giving your dog a low-gluten or gluten-free diet if he has chronic health issues.
– Keep your veterinarian apprised when making changes to your dog’s diet and/or medication. In the best case scenario, your dog’s improvement on a gluten-free diet teaches the veterinarian something!
– Read the labels of all foods and treats you give your dog. Don’t forget the foods you share with your dog.
Does your dog suffer from allergies, joint pain, epilepsy, recurrent ear infections, or other chronic health problems? Have you tried lots of treatments – alternative and conventional – but you just can’t seem to help your dog get well and stay that way? You might want to look a little closer at the diet recommendations of John Symes, DVM.
For the last four years, he has advocated (in his clinic and on his Web site) a feeding regime for dogs that eliminates gluten grains (including wheat, barley, and rye), all dairy products, soy, and corn. “The response was so dramatic that I was afraid at first that I’d cure myself out of practice,” he jokes.
Dr. Symes, who calls himself “Dogtor J,” himself suffered for more than 40 years from a variety of health problems. He had allergies, heartburn, depression, chronic fatigue, intestinal problems, memory difficulties, joint pain, balance issues, and fibromyalgia. He took a small pharmacopoeia of drugs to ease his symptoms, but didn’t feel well.
Then his brother was diagnosed with celiac disease. “My brother gave me a list of 20 symptoms of celiac disease; I had every one of them,” explains Dr. Symes. He went to his doctor and was tested. His self-diagnosis was confirmed; like his brother, he had celiac disease.
Celiac disease, also known as gluten intolerance, is a condition in which glutens – proteins found in some cereal grains – cause destruction of the villi in the small intestine. The damaged villi are unable to function properly, resulting in poor absorption of nutrients.
Eliminating the offending foods will usually bring about a reduction or even elimination of symptoms, sometimes in just a matter of days. After adopting a new, gluten-free diet, it wasn’t long before Dr. Symes was off his drugs and feeling better than he had in a very long time.
“It was amazing how quickly I felt better,” he says. In just four days, he had a noticeable improvement in his health and well-being. And he said the same quick results often happen with dogs, too.
Grains and Inflammation
As Dr. Symes researched his own ailment, he began to see similarities between problems suffered by gluten-intolerant people and the ailments of many of his four-legged patients. This made him start wondering whether the commercial canine diets, most of which are loaded with gluten-containing grains, were causing the problems he saw most frequently in his veterinary clinic.
Dr. Symes dug deeper into the problem of why gluten caused so many health issues for people and pets. “In a nutshell, after all of my research, I decided that the center of our health universe lies in the duodenum, a ‘J-shaped’ stretch of intestine that I now call Pandora’s box,” he explains.
The duodenum is key to digestion in both dogs and people. A variety of digestive enzymes, such as protease and amylase are secreted there, as are hormones, bile acids, and other substances needed for efficient digestion. The duodenum is lined with the tiny, finger-like villi. As the enzymes and acids break up the food molecules into even smaller parts, such as amino acids, sugars, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals, these nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream by the capillaries within the villi.
With celiac disease, the body reacts to gluten by producing IgE antibodies. This onslaught of antibodies damages the villi, sometimes irreversibly. This may cause the appearance of allergy symptoms, such as itchiness and diarrhea. The internal damage, however, is even more insidious. Without adequately functioning villi, vitamins, min-erals, and other nutrients are not properly assimilated, creating a kind of subclinical malnutrition. This process is sometimes referred to as malabsorption or “leaky gut syndrome.”
Gluten can act like glue in the intestine, clogging the villi. This in turn can result in villous atrophy in those who are susceptible. “It’s the nature of the starches to be sticky,” says Dr. Symes. “As it turns out, the foods that are the ‘stickiest’ are the ones that cause the most problems. Wheat and soy are the worst, while oats and rice seem to be the best – the least sticky. Corn is in the middle.”
Now he can see why lamb and rice foods have become so popular. “Rice is the least of the adhesives and thereby the least potentially allergenic,” he says.
Dairy-Free, Too?
People whose villi have become damaged due to celiac disease (and other causes) often experience difficulty in digesting foods that contain lactose. This is because “lactase,” the enzyme needed to break down lactose, is produced in the microvilli. When the microvilli are inflamed and irritated – by celiac disease or other causes – they stop producing the amounts of lactase needed to properly digest lactose, and the person suddenly becomes lactose intolerant. Many doctors recommend that their patients with celiac disease go on a gluten-free and a dairy-free diet, to give the microvilli a chance to rest and recover. Often, after a period of a gluten- and dairy-free diet, the person can start eating dairy products again.
When Dr. Symes moved to a gluten-free diet, he also stopped eating any dairy products. He suggests that owners moving their dogs to a gluten-free diet also cease feeding their dogs any dairy products.
Treating Disease with Diet
Of course, Dr. Symes recommends a gluten-free diet for all of his canine patients who suffer from apparent allergy symptoms or poor digestion. What you may not expect is that he also recommends a gluten-free diet for ALL dogs! Not all his clients are willing to switch foods, or see any need for a change in their dogs’ diet. However, the ones that do are often pleasantly surprised and wouldn’t change the food back.
But the most dramatic turnarounds Dr. Symes has seen in his patients has been with dogs suffering from one of two chronic conditions: allergies or idiopathic epilepsy. He’s had dogs who were scratching themselves raw stop scratching just days after changing their diet to a gluten-free one. He’s also had canine epilepsy patients who stopped having seizures once their diets were switched.
Max, a Beagle belonging to Alabama residents Jan and Mark Davidson, is a perfect example. “He always had bad ears, and was constantly scratching. He never sat still, he was scratching, scratching, scratching. It was constant,” explains Jan Davidson. All of that scratching brought him to the point of bleeding again and again, despite having been on prednisone for years.
Allergy testing confirmed that Max was allergic to the ingredients of every food he’d ever been fed. On top of that, he had inhalant allergies to 35 of the 40 substances he was tested for. Dr. Symes recommended switching Max to a duck and potato food.
“I remember how amazing it was when we switched his food,” says Davidson. “Immediately the situation reversed itself.” That was more than three years ago. Max, now 13, still occasionally needs an antihistamine tablet when his inhalant allergies flare up, or will need an extra thorough ear cleaning. The rest of his once ubiquitous allergy symptoms are gone.
“I often see the worst of the worst respond that quickly,” says Dr. Symes. “It’s amazing how quickly their immune systems get back to normal.”
Dr. Symes has noticed a similar effect with himself. After changing his diet to combat his celiac disease, he found that he no longer had the full-blown allergic response he had always had with cats.
These diet recommendations also have profoundly helped some of his patients with idiopathic epilepsy. “After switching their diets to a gluten-free diet, they stopped all seizures within days, now are off all medications and seizure-free,” says Dr. Symes.
“Buddy was having at least one grand mal seizure a week that we knew of, God knows how many he had during the day while we were gone,” says Brenda Strain. Buddy, a Standard Poodle-cross, started having seizures shortly after the Strains adopted him at five years old. He was also troubled by allergies and received antihistamines regularly to control his symptoms.
“His seizures were pretty dramatic. He would try to crawl over to us, and hit the floor and furniture,” says Strain.
Strain took Buddy to see Dr. Symes. His first suggestion was to change Buddy’s food. Strain switched Buddy to IVD’s rabbit and potato variety dry food, and then later to the duck and potato type.
“Buddy didn’t have another seizure for months, except once when I ran out of food,” says Strain. She didn’t make it to the clinic in time to pick up Buddy’s food, and purchased a bag of lamb and rice food to tide him over until she could get his special food. Within 24 hours, Buddy had a seizure. “We now buy two large bags of the duck and potato food at a time,” says Strain. In addition to the seizures stopping, Buddy has had some relief from his allergies. “The diet seems to help a lot, he’s not as itchy.”
Every dog may not have the same dramatic results as some of Dr. Symes’ patients. However, a change in diet may be a great place to start if you’ve hit dead-ends with other treatment options. As Dr. Symes says, “If dogs can be cured of epilepsy almost overnight with a change in diet, what else can a change in diet do?”
Dr. Symes’ Diet Recommendations
It is important to carefully read the labels of dog foods (whether they are dry, canned, frozen, or dehydrated) and the labels of treats. Some foods contain hidden sources of the following items.
Choose foods WITHOUT the following ingredients:
– Wheat, barley, and rye. Dr. Symes regards oats as the safest grain, as far as allergies are concerned. He says that oats do contain high levels of glutamate and can contribute to pain and epilepsy in some animals.
– Dairy. This includes milk, cheese, whey, casein, etc.
– Soy.
– Corn (including corn gluten meal), if allergies persist. Dr. Symes thinks this is especially important with asthma, pain, lower GI problems, and epilepsy.
– Rice, if allergies persist after removing the grains listed above. At this point an owner is down to dry foods that use potato or sweet potato for carbohydrates.
– Beef and fish, only if allergy systems are present and persist after eliminating the above ingredients. In Dr. Symes’ experience, some dogs have secondary allergies to these proteins, and improve on other protein sources.
– Artificial preservatives and colors.
Shannon Wilkinson is a TTouch practitioner, life coach, and freelance writer who lives with a dog and cats in Portland, Oregon.
Digestion involves the balanced interaction of several biodynamic systems. A healthy animal ingests raw materials (food), changes these raw materials into usable nutrients, extracts from these nutrients the essentials for life and vitality, and excretes (in the form of feces) those substances that have not been digested or that weren’t utilized.
The entire process of digestion is the result of many organs and systems, but for this article we will concentrate on the digestive tract, beginning with the mouth and esophagus, proceeding downward through the stomach, then through the intestines, and finally passing out through the rectum.
Notable components of the digestive system that will not be covered in this article but will be discussed in later articles include the liver and pancreas. On the other hand, we will discuss three “organ systems” that are essential components of the digestive system (but that are not typically thought of as such by conventional Western medicine): 1) the immune system, 2) the nervous system, and 3) the dynamic population of “bugs” that live in the gut.
GI Anatomy in Dogs
The mouth and its related structures (see “Your Dog’s Mouth” to learn more about it!) form the beginning of the “tube” where digestion occurs. The dog has several salivary glands located around the jaw and mouth. In humans, saliva plays an important part in digestion by providing the enzyme, amylase, which converts starch to the simple sugar, maltose. Saliva of the dog (and cat), however, has no enzymatic activity of note. Its functions include lubricating the passage of food to the stomach and moistening the oral mucous membrane. In addition, saliva aids in heat loss for dogs; salivation increases dramatically as the ambient temperature rises.
The esophagus is a muscular tube that propels the food bolus, after swallowing, from the mouth into the stomach. The act of swallowing begins when the animal uses its tongue to push the food to the back part of the mouth, where the upper esophageal sphincter relaxes to allow passage. At the same time, the epiglottis closes over the opening to the trachea, halting respiration for a moment and preventing food from being passed into the lungs.
Once in the esophagus, the food is moved to the stomach by automatic peristaltic activity. Peristalsis is a wave of muscular activity that passes through tubular organs – including the esophagus and the intestines – in a wormlike fashion, forcing substances within the tube to move steadily from the beginning of the tube to its terminus. As the food reaches the stomach, the lower esophageal sphincter relaxes to allow passage into the stomach. After food passage, this sphincter is closed to prevent reflux of the stomach contents.
Digestion begins in the stomach, a thick-walled, muscular organ where food can be stored long enough to be mixed with gastric juices. These juices are mucoid, highly acidic, and contain pepsin (a protein-digesting enzyme) and gastrin ( a hormone that controls the digestive process via feedback mechanisms).
The canine stomach is adapted to accept huge quantities of food in any single session. It can create extra space by relaxing the muscular fibers in its walls and “unfolding” into a large reservoir where the food is churned and mixed before it is passed through the terminal part of the stomach (the pylorus) into the small intestine. The partially digested food, combined with gastric juices, is termed chyme (from the Greek chymos, juice), and is creamy and gruel-like.
How Do Dogs Digest Differently?
The dog’s digestive tract is quite different from ours. In the dog, partially digested foods spend a far greater amount of time in the stomach (some four to eight hours, compared to a half hour or so in humans). Then, the dog’s relatively short intestinal tract usually allows foods to pass through in much shorter times, although transit times vary widely in both species depending on the composition of the food.
The digestive activity of the stomach is also controlled by the composition of the meal and neural and hormonal controls. In the healthy animal all these work in harmony to produce an ideal inner environment conducive to complete digestion. Commercially prepared, highly processed food hinders normal digestion, since it does not resemble the diet the dog’s digestive system has, over eons, been adapted to use. Many drugs also alter the digestive process. Stress, too, can change digestive patterns, sometimes producing diarrhea and/or vomiting.
Chyme enters the small intestine where further digestion takes place and where most of the absorption of nutrients occurs. The small intestine is comprised of three segments (duodenum, ileum, jejunum). Each has a slightly different structure and function, but their overall function is to complete digestion so that absorption can occur.
A duct from the liver and one from the pancreas terminate near each other in the beginning area of the duodenum. The duct from the liver supplies bile (also called gall), which alkalinizes the intestinal contents and plays a major role in fat absorption by dissolving the products of fat digestion.
The pancreas has two major functions, divided into the exocrine and endocrine portions. Pancreatic exocrine function secretes acid-neutralizing bicarbonate and several digestive enzymes. The endocrine pancreas supplies hormones that circulate throughout the body and help control metabolism. Glucose is the endproduct of the nutrients that are destined to produce energy, and its metabolism and distribution to various body parts is under control of the pancreatic hormones. A lack of (or inadequate usage of) one of these hormones, insulin, results in diabetes mellitus.
After the nutrients have reached the small intestine, they are absorbed through numerous fingerlike folds called villi, which are in turn covered with millions of tiny microvilli. The microvilli perform multiple functions, including producing digestive enzymes, absorbing nutrients, and blocking absorption of waste products.
Protein digestion cleaves long chains of amino acids into individual amino acids, which are absorbed into the intestinal veins and then transported to the liver where they are further processed for use by the body.
Chyle, a milky fluid consisting of lymph and droplets of triglyceride fat (chylo-microns), is taken up by the intestinal lymphatic system during digestion. Chyle passes into veins (via the thoracic duct) where it is mixed with blood.
Together, the large intestine (colon) and rectum comprise a much shorter segment of the digestive tract than the overall length of the small intestines. There are no villi for absorption in the colon; its surface is lined with mucous-secreting cells.
The main function of the colon is to act as a reservoir for storage; there is almost no active digestion in the large intestine except that done by the intestinal bugs. Absorption there is limited to fluids, electrolytes, fatty acids (produced as the bacteria ferment dietary fiber), and vitamins A, B, and K. To allow for storage time so there will be complete absorption of fluids and electrolytes, peristaltic movement through this portion of the intestine is slowed by segmental gut wall contractions.
The principal stimulus for motility in the large intestine is distention by its contents, the undigested material entering the colon. Colon contents stimulate both the segmental contractions that limit the speed of transit and the propulsive peristaltic activity that speeds transit time. Thus, paradoxically, adding bulk (fiber) to the diet is beneficial for treating both diarrhea and constipation. (With diarrhea, adding bulk to stimulate segmental contractions slows transit time and allows more complete absorption. With constipation, increasing bulk will stimulate mass propulsive activity necessary for fecal evacuation.)
Common Diseases of a Dog’s Digestive Tract
I’ll discuss the most prevalent diseases of the GI tract by the site of disturbance.
Salivary glands
These glands are not a common site for disease, but they can be affected by inflammation that is either primary or that occurs as a consequence of other diseases such as distemper or other viruses. Trauma may produce swelling, which typically goes away on its own. Sometimes, after trauma or foreign body penetration, one of the dog’s glands fills with mucous and saliva, producing a dramatic swelling that needs to be drained surgically. Tumors of salivary glands do occur, but they are rare.
Esophagus
There are several rather uncommon abnormalities of the esophagus, including esophageal dilatation, idiopathic mega-esophagus, and esophageal stenosis/stricture. Symptoms of these diseases may vary, making accurate diagnosis difficult; surgery may be indicated for severe conditions. Some cases may respond to diet changes and/or alternative treatments.
Inflammation of the esophagus is frequently due to gastric reflux (often from persistent vomiting), but it may also be instigated by anesthesia or other drugs. Conventional Western medicine will treat severe cases with antibiotics, steroids, and drugs to stop the vomiting. Alternative practition-ers might use herbs and acupuncture to soothe the tissues and for their antibiotic and immune-enhancing activities.
Foreign bodies – bones, needles, fishhooks, wood splinters, etc. – are a relatively common occurrence in the esophagus; radiographs may be needed to diagnose their presence. They may cause salivation, vomiting, gagging, and reluctance to eat. Whenever possible, esophageal foreign bodies should be removed (by your veterinarian) through the mouth via an endoscope or speculum. If this is not possible, surgery may be necessary. Whatever the method of removal, consider using herbal remedies to help combat inflammation.
Stomach and intestines
Gastritis (inflammation of stomach) and enteritis (inflammation of the intestines) offer a panoply of diseases, caused by the usual culprits: bacterial, viral, fungal, protozoal, traumatic, and neoplastic diseases. For the holistic practitioner, almost all these can be lumped under the general term “dysbiosis” (from two Greek terms “dys,” meaning bad, abnormal, or difficult; and “bios,” meaning life or living organisms). The term seems to fit almost all the digestive problems seen in dogs; treatment protocols for dysbiosis are discussed below.
Of special interest are viral disease complexes that affect the intestines, including parvovirus, distemper, and coronaviral gastroenteritis – highly contagious diseases that can be severe, especially in puppies. Symptoms vary with the disease and its severity, but typically include diarrhea (possibly severe) and perhaps vomiting. Vaccines are available for the viral diseases mentioned above; their safety and efficacy are topics for discussion another day.
The large intestines can also be infected, although rarely, with a myriad of microorganisms, parasites, and mechanical disorders. The most common symptom is diarrhea. Conventional Western medicine uses a variety of drugs to control the diarrhea; holistic treatment concentrates on returning the bowel microflora to normal.
IBD and Leaky Gut Syndrome
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and “leaky gut” have received recent notoriety, perhaps because we see so many cases today. Most of my holistic practitioner friends believe this is a direct result of changing our dog’s diets so drastically over the past 50 years. Both of these disease complexes involve a compromised immune system that in turn creates a chronic dysbiosis in the gut.
In healthy digestion, proteins are broken down into amino acids that can be absorbed into the bloodstream; large particles of protein are held in the lumen of the gut until they can be fully digested. With the leaky gut syndrome, the cells of the gut wall loosen their normally tight attachments, and food proteins are absorbed before they are fully broken down. The body’s immune system regards these proteins suspiciously, and classifies them as foreign invaders, inciting the immune system to react to fend off the “invaders.”
Leaky gut syndrome can be instigated by a number of factors: food allergies, Candida overgrowth (most often from excessive antibiotic or steroid use), or stress. Symptoms can be highly variable; many chronic diseases such as arthritis, skin and other allergic disorders, and fatigue and malaise have been attributed to a leaky gut.
Inflammatory bowel disease is also due to an immune system gone awry. IBD has many of the same symptoms as leaky gut, with perhaps a more profound immune system response. Either of these diseases may predispose the patient to the other disease, and both can become chronic.
Conventional treatments for leaky gut and IBD include antibiotics, and interestingly, steroids or other drugs that shut down the immune system. Holistic practitioners, in contrast, will try to balance the immune function of the digestive system by encouraging a normal flora and by providing immune-enhancing treatments such as herbs and acupuncture.
Specific treatment protocols for either of these diseases will, of course, vary for the individual case, and treatments are too complex to be discussed in depth here. In my clinical experience, I’ve relied on the general protocol for dysbiosis below, adapting it for each individual.
A common misconception when treating either IBD or leaky gut is that you can effect a cure simply by changing the diet – from beef to an exotic protein source, such as kangaroo or ostrich. While diet changes may be effective for the short term, an unhealthy digestive tract will eventually react to (and may become allergic to) whatever protein it is exposed to most. Long-term healing will always rely on returning the gut to health. Re-establishing a healthy, more natural gut microflora is the one necessary step common to all cases of dysbiosis.
Harmful GI Parasites
There are hordes of gastrointestinal parasites that infest the digestive tract, from the mouth to the anus. While some of these can cause severe problems, for the most part they are easily controlled with commercially available drugs. Holistic practitioners tend to look at internal parasites as another cause of intestinal dysbiosis; our challenge is to keep the parasite load to a minimum (it is not always in the best interests of the animal to eliminate all parasites) without using medications that may be toxic. We will discuss nontoxic parasite control in a later article.
Ulcers in Dogs
Ulcers are not a common problem in dogs, but to me, they represent much of what is wrong with current-day, Western medical thinking. There’s been a big push lately to put the blame for ulcers on one bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, thus making it easy to effect a “cure” with antibiotics.
There are several problems with this approach. First, while H. pylori can be isolated from most (human) patients who have ulcers, there are a percentage of patients (30 percent or more) who have ulcers without the presence of the bacteria. Second, H. pylori can be isolated from many perfectly healthy individuals. Third, animal studies (dating back to my early days as a pathologist) indicated that it is almost impossible to infect an animal with H. pylori and produce ulcers, unless the animal is concurrently stressed. Stress, of course, almost certainly plays a role in producing ulcers, if it is not the primary cause.
Despite all this scientific evidence, apparently it is far easier to sell a magic bullet treatment (antibiotics that kill H. pylori) than it is to get folks to look for long-term, holistic ulcer preventatives, or to lower the stress levels in their dogs’ lives.
A cynical view would suspect that the antibiotic-producing drug companies have spun the scientific findings to enhance their bottom line. Of far more concern than all this, however, is the fact that H. pylori is a bacteria that mutates rapidly when it is exposed to antibiotic pressures, much more rapidly even than most other bacteria. So, we have a very rapidly mutating bacterium, to which Western medicine responds with newer and better antibiotics, to try to keep up with the mutations. Who knows what evil ogre of a Frankenstein bacterium we will ultimately produce with our inappropriate overuse of antibiotics?
Gastrointestinal Tumors
While neoplasia (tumors) are relatively rare, they may occur anywhere throughout the GI tract. Symptoms will depend on the severity and location of the tumor; X-rays and/or biopsy may be required for proper diagnoses. Lympho-sarcoma may create an infiltration of lymph cells throughout most of the length of the gut wall, thereby making nutrient absorption nearly impossible.
Some neoplasias, notably lymphosarcoma and mast cell tumor, may respond to chemotherapy. Surgery may be indicated for nodular or well-circumscribed tumors. Holistic practitioners use a variety of methods to treat neoplasia, including homeopathy, acupuncture, and herbal remedies.
Anal Sac Problems
Anal sacs are two structures located slightly below and lateral to the anus. Their function is unknown, although many veterinarians believe that some evil entity created the pox of anal sacs as a way to aggravate veterinarians and to befoul their exam rooms with what I consider the most noxious and fetid odor on this earth – and I am a pathologist, accustomed to all sorts of obnoxious aromas.
Anal sac disease is the most common disease entity of the dog’s anal region. Small breeds are predisposed. Large or giant breeds, and in my experience, “country” dogs that are able to roam over some range are rarely affected. The disease can result in impaction, infection, or abscesses.
Conventional medicine treats anal sac problems with the usual antibiotics and glucocorticoids or surgery if severe. The conventional recommendation is also to manually express the sacs periodically, supposedly to keep them cleaned out. However, I am convinced that proper exercise and a more natural diet will virtually eliminate most, if not all, anal sac problems.
Dysbiosis and Treatments for Dogs
The term dysbiosis seems to fit almost all the digestive problems seen in dogs. From the holistic perspective, nearly all problems that arise in the digestive tract are best treated, long term, by remembering that symptoms are a signal that something bad has happened to the living organism (and especially to the trillions of living organisms, the helpful flora of the gut); something abnormal has made their lives difficult or impossible.
Also, keep in mind that all animals, but particularly the dog, have an amazing inner ability to maintain their own system in eubiosis (“eu,” from Greek meaning well or good; the opposite of “dys”). Dogs seem especially well adapted for coping with all sorts of intestinal insults. Think here of the ancient dog whose diet often consisted of decaying meats, and the more recently domesticated dog whose diet has been (until 50 to 100 years ago) whatever was left over from the human table – fish heads, animal guts, and scraps of meat, fat, and bone.
Our modern dog evolved a tremendous capacity for dealing with meats, fats, and decaying matter; its digestive system is set up to allow for natural detoxification.
As we have seen, compared to the human digestive tract, the dog’s is much shorter and transit time is thus shorter, which gives toxins much less time for exposure to the gut. In addition, the dog appears to have the ability to decrease intestinal transit time rapidly, allowing for some often dramatic bouts of transitory diarrhea. Dogs also seem to have the ability to vomit quite easily. (You and your rugs probably already know this.)
The bottom line is: Don’t get too excited if your dog pukes a few times, has a few bouts of diarrhea, or refuses to eat for a day or two. These are his natural methods of detoxification. The time to become concerned is when vomiting or diarrhea is severe, when either the vomitus or the stools are bloody, when he has a concurrent fever, or when either the diarrhea or vomiting has persisted for more than eight hours or so.
The basic steps I take when treating dysbiosis are as follows, and I’ll discuss each in turn below:
Detoxification
Soothing the intestinal tract
Alternative therapies, including acupuncture, homeopathy, and herbal remedies
Returning the gut to its normal microflora
Maintaining a diet that is natural for the canine
1. Detoxifying your dog
Our world has become laden with toxins, many of which are carcinogens. Our dogs are exposed to an even higher toxic load than we are; their noses are constantly sniffing the ground, where toxins accumulate. We throw even more toxins into the mix every time we use pesticides or medications to kill internal parasites, and when we feed them foods heavy with artificial preservatives, colors, and flavors.
By the time they are a few years old, our pets have been so exposed to the plethora of toxins that exist in their (and our) world, I think every holistic, long-term health maintenance protocol needs to include an entry period of detoxification. Then, I believe all of us and our pets should undergo a mild detoxifying program several times a year, perhaps coinciding with the four changes of the seasons.
Detoxification programs vary somewhat, depending on the specific needs of the animal and the seasons. They should be used periodically, not daily. Following are some basic principles:
• Fasting: Give the body a chance to get rid of some of the junk that is swimming around in the gut and bloodstream. Remember that over thousands of years the canine digestive tract has become well-suited for the predatory lifestyle of long periods of “food famine,” followed by a kill, which provides a short-term glut of nutrients.
A periodic day or two of fasting is good for all of us, and it is especially beneficial for our canine companions. (Some of my holistic veterinary colleagues recommend a three- to five-day fast, several times a year.) You may want to include a mild herbal laxative before the fast, and be sure to make sure your dog drinks plenty of water during and afterward. Discuss the exact protocol with your holistic veterinarian.
• Detoxifying supplements and foods: Fiber and/or mild herbal laxatives stimulate peristalsis and encourage stools to pass quickly and easily. Bulk fibers such as psyllium husks, more potent herbal laxatives, and/or diuretics (to help detoxify via the kidney) may be recommended.
• Enhance healthy flora: The most important step. See below for more detail.
2. Soothing the intestinal tract
Demulcent herbs soothe and protect the digestive tract membranes. Demulcent herbs include marshmallow root (Althea officinalis), oats (Avena sativa), and slippery elm bark (Ulmus fulva).
Antispasmodic herbs relax any nervous tension that may cause digestive colic. These include chamomile (Anthemus nobile or Matricaria chamomilla), hops (Humulus lupulus), and valerian (Valeriana officinalis).
3. Nonconventional therapies
It’s been my experience that alternative and complementary medicines are extremely effective for alleviating almost all functional problems of the digestive system, and they cause far fewer long-term problems. The primary therapies I use for acute cases include herbs, homeopathy, and acupuncture (Traditional Chinese Medicine).
• I first look to herbal remedies for treating intestinal problems because they have such a wide range of specific activities. Also, they offer a mild and safe therapeutic input that will help harmonize a system temporarily out of whack. There are many categories of herbs that can be helpful; some of my favorites are listed below.
Carminative herbs contain volatile oils that affect the digestive system by relaxing the stomach muscles, increasing the peristalsis of the intestine, and reducing the production of gas in the system. Herbs in this category include cayenne (red pepper, Capsicum spp.); chamomile (Anthemus nobile or Matricaria chamomilla), fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), ginger (Zingiber officinale), peppermint (Mentha piperita), and thyme (Thymus vulgaris).
For antispasmodic and demulcent herbs, see my comments above (under “Soothing the intestinal tract”).
There are several hepatic herbs that enhance the liver’s activity. Dandelion root (Taraxacum officinale), goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), wild yam (Dioscorea villosa), and yellow dock (Rumex crispus) strengthen and tone the liver. Cholegogues are herbs that increase the production of bile by the liver. These include artichoke leaves (Cynara scolymu), dandelion root, rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), and turmeric (Curcuma domestica).
Laxative herbs include mild-acting herbs that enhance digestion, such as dandelion root, licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra), and yellow dock. More potent laxatives include cascara sagrada (Rhamnus purshiana) and senna (Cassia spp.). Antimicrobial herbs may be used when the cause of the upset is microbial, either bacterial or viral. Many herbs have broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity; some of my favorites for intestinal conditions include chamomile, echinacea (Echinacea spp.), Oregon grape root (Berberis aquifolium), and thyme.
Check with your holistic veterinarian or herbalist for dosages; these will vary according to the size of the animal, the type of delivery system used, and whether your dog needs a therapeutic or maintenance dose.
• Acupuncture/Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) fully appreciates the complexity of the GI system, and the TCM treatment for GI problems helps balance the interaction of several biodynamic systems.
According to TCM theory, the body’s energy or chi flows through meridians that pass thru the body, connecting specific acu-point locations.To treat an animal’s disease, an acupuncturist will place needles along the meridians to balance the flow of chi and thus produce health.
There are also easy-to-find points that anyone can activate (with a light-touch, circular massage directly on the point) to help create a balance in the digestive process. You can learn more about do-it-yourself acupressure in texts such as Four Paws, Five Directions, by Dr. Cheryl Schwartz; Veterinary Acupuncture, by Dr. Allen Schoen; and The Well Connected Dog: A Guide to Canine Acupressure, by Nancy Zidonis and Amy Snow.
Finally, if you want good healthy chi for your dog (or for yourself), you need to provide food that contains good healthy chi. Healthy food for dogs has vitality (is not overprocessed), is close to the canine’s natural diet, is fresh, and does not contain artificial additives.
• There are dozens of homeopathic remedies that are indicated for treating a variety of intestinal problems. Treating acute intestinal conditions is one example where I might use the acute approach to a homeopathic therapy. (See below.)
Perhaps the king of all remedies for vomiting is Nux v. Other remedies for intestinal upset include Arsen. alb. (for simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea); Ipec. (vomiting); Merc. sol. (pasty, non urgent diarrhea); Merc. cor. (straining with a forceful spurt of diarrhea); Rhus tox. (straining with bloody, mucoid, watery or frothy stools); Phos. (loose, yellow stool).
For acute cases (where the animal is otherwise healthy) a high potency is indicated (200c to 1X or higher, perhaps several doses, repeated every four to five hours during the first 24 hours). I have found the homeopathic remedies, when used in classical fashion (again, see below) to be very helpful for long-term therapy, especially when they are used in combination with other methods for re-establishing and maintaining a normal gut flora.
4. Returning the gut to its normal microflora
I hope that by now I’ve convinced you that a normal gut microflora is essential for maintaining your dog’s healthy gut and its active digestive system. And I hope you understand that antibiotics, glucocorticoids, inappropriate foods, an overload of toxins, and high levels of stress are all detrimental to the good-guy microflora.
In a perfect world, a dog’s intestines would naturally create an ideal environment for the growth of healthy microflora. Unfortunately, our dog’s world is not nearly perfect, and today’s realistic world creates a plethora of negative influences that adversely affect the gut’s microflora. With all these negative outside influences, it makes sense for us to try to recreate a healthy microflora by resupplying some or all of the healthy bugs a dog’s belly needs.
Unfortunately, there is no simple, single way to accomplish this. Since the gut flora constantly changes, depending on many factors including dietary intake, it is almost impossible to predict what kinds of bugs are needed. Plus, the microflora of the dog is likely very different from that of the healthy human, but most of the experimental work has been done on humans.
Many of the healthy bugs are destroyed in a highly acidic medium (that is, in the stomach), so, in theory, using the oral route to supply the bugs might not work, although surely in nature, ingestion of healthy microflora is the way animals obtained their healthy bugs.
Given these problems, here are some suggestions for supplying healthy micro-flora for your dog:
• Add small amounts of healthy micro-flora on a periodic basis, at least four or five times a week.
• Use a product that contains several different genera and species of bacteria; give the gut the most options possible.
• Use products that contain live and active cultures.
• Keep the product refrigerated, and make sure it has been refrigerated in the store. The bugs die quickly when not refrigerated.
• Don’t use sweetened products; the sugar only enhances the possibility for yeast overgrowth.
In order to simplify all this, I usually recommend using a good organic and unsweetened yogurt product, one that lists the bacteria on the label and one that claims their cultures to be “live” and “active.” It’s been my experience that, even though the bugs aren’t supposed to survive in the acid media of the stomach, dogs seem to have healthier guts when they are fed a dollop of yogurt every day or so.
5. Feed a natural diet
After you’ve helped your dog create a healthy gut environment, you can help maintain it with a good-sense diet. Consider that the canine’s intestinal tract has evolved to eat meats, fats, and rotting and decaying matter. The dog’s GI system is not prepared to process the refined carbohydrates most people feed their dogs, and it is certainly not functionally capable of utilizing or detoxifying the many synthetic substances it is exposed to today.
As the final step you can take to help insure intestinal health for your dog, consider a home-prepared diet.
“Acute” or “Classical” Homeopathy?
In acute homeopathy (as opposed to “classical homeopathy”), remedies are chosen to match the disease symptoms occurring at the time. Acute use implies that you are expecting to palliate (ease the symptoms) rather than to cure (treat and eliminate the deeper causes of the disease).
Conventional Western medicine’s drugs and methods typically palliate symptoms; seldom is any thought given to curing the deeper causes. Classical homeopathy, in contrast, selects a deeper remedy that matches the totality of the animal’s symptoms, which include the short- and long-term physical, mental, and emotional components of the dog, as well as the ongoing physical symptoms of the current disease crisis. Classical homeopathy requires taking an extensive history of the animal’s totality of symptoms, past and present. This in-depth intake alone may take an hour or more.
Interestingly, I have noticed that many of the patients I have the opportunity to treat classically (say, following up after an acute health crisis) seem to have a totality of symptoms that matches the remedy I had chosen to use acutely. In these cases, it is a simple matter to continue with the classical approach to remedy selection, after the initial acute dosing.
An example of this might be a vomiting dog that responds favorably to Nux v., and later is found by the diligent veterinarian who provides maintenance care to have many of the characteristics of a “Nux personality” – nervous, irritable, cannot bear noises or odors, sullen, does not want to be touched, has an “irritable” bladder, feels worse in the mornings, and may have periodic bouts of constipation and/or asthmatic-type coughing.
Three Extra “Organ Systems” Associated with the Digestive Tract
Intestinal microflora
Inside the intestines, mostly in the large intestine, resides a living mix of dozens of bacterial, viral, protozoal, and fungal species – billions of beneficial “bugs” in each gram of undigested material. Since the totality of this microflora engage in activities that enhance health and healing, these bugs are best thought of as a functional unit, or organ system, absolutely necessary for the well-being of the animal.
The most common bacteria in the large intestine include several species of Bacteroides and Bifidobacterium, along with high numbers of Streptococcal and Clostridial species and several types of lactobacilli. The total numbers of these helpful bacteria and the ratio of one species to another depend on the overall health of the intestines, and on other factors such as diet, local immune responses, levels of stress, and the use of drugs – particularly antibiotics and glucocorticoids.
The beneficial activities of the normal flora of the intestines are almost endless, but here’s a short list of the most important:
◆ Improve nutrient absorption
◆ Produce and enhance the absorption of several vitamins including vitamins A, B, and K
◆ Maintain the integrity of the intestinal tract and help protect against “leaky gut” syndrome
◆ Prevent and treat antibiotic-associated diarrhea
◆ Prevent the growth of disease causing microbes such as Candida spp., E. coli, H. pylori, and Salmonella
◆ Enhance the functional ability of the immune system
◆ Help acidify the intestinal tract, providing a hostile environment for pathogens and yeasts
◆ Help bind and either eliminate or prevent the absorption of a variety of food-borne toxins
◆ Evidence indicates that intestinal microflora may be protective against several types of cancer
In contrast, while your dog’s gut bugs naturally promote health, changes in the intestinal environment (with the use of antibiotics, for example, which indiscriminately kill most bacThree Extra “Organ Systems” Associated with the Digestive Tract teria, including the helpful ones) may cause the helpful bacteria to mutate into pathogenic (disease-causing) species. And, changes in the natural interrelationships – again, with drugs that upset the normal balance between bacterial species – may let other pathogenic bacteria gain a foothold in the gut.
Further, it should be noted that this “organ system” of helpful bacteria is in constant flux; the total numbers, activities, and the ratio of species varies constantly, depending on the dog’s diet, level of toxins and/or synthetic antibiotics presented to the gut, and levels of stress (or the levels of “synthetic/artificial” stress from glucocorticoid use).
Finally, it’s important to note that much of the experimental work on gut microflora has been done in the human species. It may not be appropriate to transpose all these data to our dogs, who are unfortunately undergoing a rapid transformation from their ancient, primarily carnivorous diets to today’s commercial diets, which are excessively high in carbohydrates.
Intestinal immune system
Current (human) research indicates that about 70 percent of the immune system is located in or around the digestive system. Called gut-associated lymphatic tissue (GALT), it is located in the lining of the digestive tract, especially in lymphoid-rich structures called Peyer’s patches. The system acts as a sentinel, on constant alert for foreign substances. It’s likely this is why so many of the chronic diseases we see in dogs can be traced back to the gut, back to something in the ingested foods that has overly-activated or otherwise interfered with natural immune functions.
Nervous system
The digestive system has its own nervous system, which can function on its own without the brain’s help. In this second nervous system, we can find every neurotransmitter that is found in the brain. “Gut feelings” can thus be very real, and when a dog is stressed, those feelings can profoundly upset the normal digestive processes. Calm dog; calm gut. Calm gut, normal and healthy digestion.
YOUR DOG’S DIGESTIVE HEALTH: OVERVIEW
1. Use safe, gentle herbal teas to help soothe and protect the GI tract.
2. Under the direction of your holistic veterinarian, occasionally fast your dog.
3. Several times a week, increase and enhance your dog’s GI microflora by feeding him organic, unsweetened yogurt containing live, active cultures.
Dr. Randy Kidd earned his DVM degree from Ohio State University and his PhD in Pathology/Clinical Pathology from Kansas State University. A past president of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association, he’s author of, Dr. Kidd’s Guide to Herbal Dog Care and, Dr. Kidd’s Guide to Herbal Cat Care.
What do Russian tigers, mold, lost pets, cancer cells, bomb-making equipment, illegal drugs, tortoises, termites, and knapweed have in common? They are all subjects of innovative training programs that work with dogs to seek out a growing list of unique targets for our benefit.
Humans have taken advantage of dogs’ incredibly keen sense of smell over the ages for such uses as hunting, tracking lost and fugitive humans, and more recently, the detection of bombs, narcotics, and other contraband. It’s well known that a dog’s nose is many times sharper than our own – estimates range from 10,000 to 100,000 times superior to ours, with a far greater number and variety of scent receptors in their noses, more neurons linking the nose to the brain, and a greater proportion of their brains devoted to smell.
We accept this without question as we routinely utilize our dogs’ sense of smell to locate tennis balls we toss into deep grass in the dark; find treats and toys we stash around the house; search for us when we play hide-and-seek in the woods; and in Utility Obedience, retrieve the one item that has been handled by the owner out of a pile of identical-looking objects. Our dogs, if they ever thought about it, would have to conclude that we humans are seriously disabled in the nose department – we couldn’t even begin to come close to duplicating the feats that they accomplish without thinking twice about it!
In addition to the now-familiar uses for a dog’s smelling talent, trainers and researchers are only just starting to realize the best potential ways to make dog noses work for humans. For example, in 2002-2003, biologists in Russia trained dogs to help monitor a threatened species of tiger, the Amur Tiger, through a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The research team trained two dogs, not just to track tigers in general, but to actually identify individual tigers; one to 96 percent accuracy, the other to 89 percent accuracy.
Other new uses for dog noses include:
Mold and termite detection for home repairs and sales
Searching out desert tortoises (a threatened species) in the U.S. to help preserve critical habitat
Locating an invasive, nonnative weed in Montana for eradication purposes
Sniffing out the deadly venomous brown tree snake in produce shipments from Asia to prevent accidental international transport
Detecting cancer cells in human urine for diagnosis and treatment
Locating leaks in pipe lines
Finding missing pets to prevent their suffering and allay human grief over the loss of beloved companions
Alerting Forest Service personnel to the presence of masses of gypsy moth eggs, so the destructive pests can be eradicated before they mature, spread, and destroy forests
Which Dogs Have the Best Sense of Smell?
According to Dr. Larry Myers, canine scent expert and professor of veterinary medicine at Auburn University in Alabama, all dogs have noses good enough to do scent work. However, trainability and interest in doing the job are important qualities; just because a dog can do scent work doesn’t mean he will. For some kinds of work, the size of the dog and his coat length may determine suitability. (A large, heavy-coated dog may not be the best candidate for working in a desert, for example.)
Carole Schatz, CPDT, of San Diego, California, is the training director for a cancer detection study, still in the development phase, at Scripps Research Institute’s General Clinical Research Center. Dogs selected for the Scripps study include Schatz’s own dog, a Golden Retriever/Poodle mix, a Border Collie mix, Corgis, a Chihuahua mix, a Boxer, a Bernese Mountain Dog, an Italian Greyhound, German Shepherds, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, and an Aussie/Cocker mix. Schatz recruited the trainers for the program, and all the dogs are personal companions of the selected trainers.
In contrast is Hal Steiner of Bozeman, Montana, the owner of Rocky Mountain Command Dogs, a company that provides basic training services and also specializes in scent work. Steiner uses a specialized breed of dog that he created specifically for scent work purposes. He developed the “Rocky Mountain Shepherd” over decades, from Czech border patrol stock and hybrids of the red European wolf, and uses this breed almost exclusively for his scent work, although he does occasionally rescue dogs of other breeds that might be suitable for his purposes.
David Latimer, of Vincent, Alabama, owns FSI K9 Academy. In addition to training bomb, arson, narcotics, and tracking dogs, Latimer trains dogs to detect water leaks, mold, and termites. He uses small to medium-sized dogs such as Beagles, Rat Terriers, and Border Collies for mold and termite work; they fit better into some of the confined spaces where their quarry is sought. Most come from local shelters and rescue groups and some are donated. He rarely purchases a dog.
“I look for dogs who have what I call a strong ‘work ethic,’ says Latimer. “I want a dog with a high hunt drive and a high energy level coupled with a strong desire to please his handler. In addition, I look for dogs that are nonaggressive toward people and other animals.”
Kathy “Kat” Albrecht, of Clovis, California, too, follows the eclectic approach to scent dog selection for her “pet detective” work. A former police detective and search dog trainer/handler, Albrecht began a new career finding lost pets when injuries sidelined her from police work. She now specializes in training what she has dubbed “missing animal response” (MAR) search dogs that are trained and certified to locate various lost pets. Albrecht trains dogs for three types of work: MAR Cat Detection K9s detect live and deceased cats; MAR Specific Scent K9s can detect the scent of any missing animal within a confined search area; and MAR Trailing K9s are trained to discriminate the scent of a lost dog and follow the scent trail to establish direction of travel in hope of finding the missing dog.
“Dogs best suited for MAR work are fixated on one of three things: cats, treats, or other dogs,” she says. “For cat detection dogs we look for dogs who absolutely pine for kitties and give a physical response (tail-wiggles, butt-wag, etc.) when they detect a cat’s scent. For specific-scent dogs, we want dogs who will fixate their attention on a piece of hot dog and do anything for that hot dog, ignoring all distractions. For trailing dogs, we look for the “dog park” type of dog who loves to play with other dogs.”
Since Albrecht’s goal is to develop a system to train a massive corps of certified MAR K9 handlers around the world, she keeps an open mind about breed possibilities, with just a few limitations. Albrecht thinks that pug-nosed dogs (Pugs, Boxers, Pekinese, etc.), tiny dogs (Chihuahuas, Teacup Poodles, etc.) and giant breeds (Great Danes, Irish Wolfhounds, St. Bernards) are just not appropriate for MAR work due to their physical limitations. She also looks for dogs that are at least six months old and no older than eight years to enter the MAR training program.
Positive Training Techniques Ideally Suited for Scent Work
All of the trainers we interviewed agreed that scent work was trained most effectively using reward-based, positive training methods, although there were differences of opinion over whether the reward should be food treats or “life rewards,” such as the opportunity to play with a coveted toy.
As in every field of dog training, however, some of the trainers we spoke to hold fast to the notion that corrections are necessary during training, especially during the foundation “obedience” phase, in order to achieve reliability. The idea that there must be “consequences” for objectionable behaviors is difficult for many old-fashioned trainers to get past.
In contrast, we have found that the use of “negative punishment” (the removal of a desired object or outcome to decrease unwanted behavior) is a gentle but effective consequence that, in combination with positive reinforcement, can produce very dependable work dogs.
Carole Schatz, Certified Pet Dog Trainer and training director for a study at Scripps Research Institute’s General Clinical Research Center for canine detection of cancer, told us why she uses primarily positive reinforcement in her training and sought out trainers with a similiar training philosophy to participate in the study:
“In the 1960s I was a reading teacher,” Schatz says. “My kids learned the fastest because I bought pretzels. Each child was tested daily and if they learned the lesson, they earned a pretzel. My kids were always the first ones to learn to read. Thus, when I went into dog training in 1975, I was completely open to using positive rewards – goodies. It was lonely until I met Dr. Ian Dunbar in 1978 and traveled to his classes and seminars. Here was validation.
“I love it when the dogs learn fast and have fun doing it. It also gives me great pleasure to see their happiness. It’s win/win. Using punishment makes the dog fearful and unhappy and then I’m unhappy. It also takes longer because you have by-products of fear and confusion.
“The training methods involved in this study are no different than training anything else – ignore the wrong and reward what’s right. My goal is happy dogs who love what they’re doing and happy trainers. Alerting to cancer is frosting on the cake.”
Scent Work Training Methods and History
While scent dogs are trained primarily with methods that focus on positive reinforcement, there is considerable variation as to how that operant principle is applied.
Cancer detection is a very new field of canine scent work. A study in England published in the British Medical Journal in September 2004 described how six pet dogs were trained to alert to the urine of patients with bladder cancer. The results of a double-blind test of the dogs at the conclusion of a seven-month training period showed the dogs successfully alerted to the urine of patients with bladder cancer 41 percent of the time (14 percent would represent a random response).
The researchers involved with the study, including trainers from Hearing Dogs for Deaf People and medical researchers from the Erasmus Wilson Dermatological Research Fund, feel they have not only demonstrated the promise of this form of cancer detection, but also designed a successful training protocol and stringent controls in the testing phase suitable for extending the work. Their future goals are to optimize the experimental process and to study the potential for dogs to detect other types of cancers, particularly skin cancer.
A study that will be conducted in this country at Scripps Research Institute’s General Clinical Research Center is still in the development stages. Trainer Carole Schatz and Dr. Robert Gordon are collaborating with Dr. Larry Myers, canine scent expert and professor of veterinary medicine at Auburn University in Alabama. The Scripps study will attempt to teach 12 dogs to alert to an odor signature in the urine of patients with prostate and breast cancer. One of these dogs is Schatz’ own two-year-old Golden Retriever/Poodle mix, Josie. Josie is already a certified assistance dog and a registered therapy dog.
The dogs in the Scripps program will be trained with various positive methods. “Every dog is an individual,” says Dr. Robert Gordon, principal investigator for the Scripps study. “We have to learn which technique works best with each individual dog.”
Dog trainers in the study are given latitude to experiment with their own training techniques to see what works best. Some are training their dogs to alert to the scent of vanilla. The alert signal is then transferred to the presence of the odor signature of cancer in urine. In a separate study being conducted by Dr. Myers at Auburn University, dogs are first trained to alert to the banana-like scent of n-amyl acetate, then transitioned to cancer cells.
One of the questions the researchers hope to answer is whether the cancer substances that are excreted in urine are universal to all cancers, or specific to individual cancers. For example, prostate cancer may be aggressive or nonaggressive, and there is currently no way to tell which is which. If dogs could be trained to distinguish the difference, it could make a big difference in how the cancers are treated.
“There is real scientific, humanistic value in this project,” Dr. Gordon says excitedly. “If this project proves out, we could train teams to go places where modern diagnostic equipment isn’t available. This could make a huge difference in the quality of peoples’ lives.” In between training sessions, the cancer detection dogs live normal lives, or as Schatz says, “They are all pets.”
Smelling Weeds for a Purpose
Kim Goodwin, a rangeland noxious weed specialist with Montana State University, contacted scent dog trainer Hal Steiner in 2003. She asked if he could train dogs to detect knapweed in the field, and Steiner agreed to give it a try. He selected a Rocky Mountain Shepherd (a breed he developed himself) to be the test dog for the project. The dog was so successful, he later dubbed her “Knapweed Nightmare.”
Phase One of the knapweed detection program was successfully completed and field-tested in the fall of 2004. At completion of the testing, Nightmare was finding the nonnative invasive plant with a 93 percent success rate, proving that dogs can detect low densities of the invasive plant efficiently. Steiner sold Nightmare to the university, which is now seeking funding to continue the work.
Steiner, while still using primarily positive training methods for the scent work, takes a different approach. From the time his professional working dogs are born, they never “play” the way a companion dog might.
“She’s not a pet; she’s not played with,” Steiner says of Nightmare. “We start with basic obedience training, using corrections if necessary. Then, using ‘game theory,’ we addict the dog to a certain type of toy, in Nightmare’s case a towel or piece of plastic tubing with knapweed wrapped inside. When she’s not working, she’s in her pen.”
Handlers in Steiner’s program praise the dog – no food rewards – when she reacts to the scented toy. Steiner then hides the toy in places that are progressively harder to sniff out. As Nightmare becomes proficient, the trainers add distractions, to teach her to stay focused on her task.
The Rocky Mountain Shepherd was also trained to indicate her finds by digging at a spot of knapweed for 10 seconds so the global positioning system (GPS) attached to her collar could mark the location of a knapweed find.
“You don’t want bomb dogs digging aggressively at a package of explosives,” Steiner chuckles. “We want them to indicate finds gently. But Nightmare needed to stay in position for 10 seconds (for the GPS unit to record the spot), and the easiest way to get her to do that was to encourage her to find aggressively, by digging at the spot for a bit, then moving on. Humans check the spot later to confirm the find.”
Pest Detection
David Latimer tells us that dogs have been doing termite detection for at least 20-25 years in the U.S. Mold detection developed originally in Europe about 10 years ago. Latimer uses positive reinforcement, and acknowledges the importance of timing when rewarding desired behaviors. He also subscribes to what he calls “fair and just discipline” as a part of training dependable working dogs.
Among other training exercises, Latimer uses a “scent board.” This is a piece of 2×4 with eight, 4- to 6-inch sections of PVC pipe attached vertically, secured with screws to the board. Each section of pipe is capped with a screw-on cap to conceal the contents; the caps have small holes drilled through the center to release the scent. The target odor – termite-infested or moldy material – is placed inside one or two of the pipes, and distracting odors are placed in several of the other pipes. In order to earn a reward, the dog must correctly identify which pipe or pipes contain the target odor.
Finding Lost Pets (People Too)
Kat Albrecht says that the use of dogs specifically for finding lost pets goes back to the 1970s, when a Bloodhound handler in Texas used his dogs to search for missing dogs. This trainer reportedly died in the early 1980s, and while an occasional search dog may have been used for this purpose since then, no one until Albrecht has attempted to do it on a large, formal scale.
Today Albrecht is the founder of Pet Hunters International, the world’s first pet detective academy, and Missing Pet Partnership, a nonprofit organization that provides training for animal welfare organizations and conducts research into the behavioral patterns of lost pets. Albrecht is also the author of The Lost Pet Chronicles, a nonfiction book about her work.
For cat detection dogs, Albrecht conceals gregarious, dog-friendly cats in a crate in some shrubbery, and rewards dogs for responding to the scent of the cat. Dogs are reinforced for giving a physical alert to the presence of the cat, then encouraged to run back to and jump on the handler, then do a “re-find” by taking the handler back to the crated cat, where they are rewarded. The reward in this case is treats plus the opportunity to play with the uncrated, harnessed and leashed cat.
For the specific scent training, Albrecht uses a clicker to teach dogs to search for treats by sniffing a sterile gauze pad that contains the matching treat scent. She progresses to hiding baby food jars with various scents, and uses the gauze pad to teach “smell this smell, find this smell.”
Her dog-trailing dogs are trained using a modification of the method used to train Bloodhounds to follow the scent trail of a human, only using a scent article from a “target dog.” The reward for the scent dog is to play with the dog he finds!
Success Stories
Latimer likes to tell about one of his handlers who was called to do a real estate purchase inspection on a lake house, and had the dog alert on an area outside the home. “Upon investigation,” Latimer relates, “the handler found that extensive termite damage had been cosmetically concealed prior to his arrival. Apparently another company had found the termite infestation on an earlier inspection, and the homeowner tried to conceal it from the handler in order to get a termite clearance.”
Albrecht’s favorite story included the participation of her cat, Yogi, as an impromptu pet detective. As Albrecht walked out of her house one morning, she noticed Yogi sniffing a spot in the road, unusual for the cat, who was normally terrified of the roadway. That evening, when Albrecht’s neighbor mentioned that her cat, Rocky, was missing, Albrecht remembered Yogi’s unusual behavior.
Albrecht took her Weimaraner, Rachel, a retired cadaver dog, out to look for blood in the roadway. Rachel urinated on the road – her somewhat unorthodox alert indicating that she’d found decomposing blood or tissue. Her find suggested to Albrecht that the cat was injured, not just lost or stolen, which prompted her to suggest the owner focus her search within the cat’s territory.
“Sure enough,” says Albrecht, “Andrea found Rocky under his deck, one back leg hanging by a thread, but alive. Rocky is now a happy three-legged kitty who was saved because of his curious neighbor cat and a trained search dog.”
As these programs gain momentum, and as trainers develop more programs that use our dogs’ incredible sense of smell, we will no doubt hear of more exciting ways that dogs can demonstrate their value. Most exciting to us is the comment of many trainers, that “any dog” can do scent work. That means you and your dog can do it too! Remember, if it has a scent, a dog can be trained to find it. The possibilities are endless.
SCENT WORK FOR DOGS: OVERVIEW
1. Test your dog’s interest in scent work by hiding his favorite toy, initially while he’s watching, and then, once he understands the “game,” in places he has to use his nose to find it.
2. Reward your dog’s successful location of a hidden item or family member with “high-value” treats, whether that means bits of fresh chicken or playing with a tug toy.
3. If he shows consistent interest and/ or talent at using his nose, shop for books and videos on training a scent dog.
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, is Whole Dog Journal‘s Training Editor. She is also author of The Power of Positive Dog Training, and Positive Perspectives: Love Your Dog, Train Your Dog.
A dog’s cardiovascular system is physically and mechanically an incredible assemblage, and its capabilities are almost mystical – literally and figuratively driving the dog’s vital force. However, there are several conditions that can adversely affect the heart in a small percentage of dogs (a much lower percentage than that of humans with heart or vascular disease).
Fortunately, there are also several good, natural, and alternative approaches that can be used to treat canine cardiovascular disease. In my experience, these treatments have been as effective (and safer) than the Western medicine treatments I once used.
Ways to think about the canine cardiovascular system:
Conventional Western medicine views the heart as a simple mechanical pump – a very complex piece of machinery with a simple function as a pumping machine. Other scientists have studied the heart from the perspective of its bioenergetics – studies of the bioelectrical and biomagnetic fields are often centered in the heart, and scientific advances in these areas have led some practitioners to conclude that healthy “cardio-energetics” may be the most important contributor to vibrant overall health.
Many holistic practitioners recognize that the heart is also a primary source of the body’s bioelectric and biomagnetic fields. These energetic fields may be the body’s major source of inner information, necessary for proper functioning of the immune system and other organ systems.
Energy fields may also be responsible for much of the body’s ability to create cellular, organ-related, and whole-body memory fields that are in turn connected to other animals and to the natural environment. According to this line of thinking, since the heart is the primary producer of bioelectric and biomagnetic fields, it may be the organ with the highest intelligence in the form of memory. And the heart is almost certainly the organ that has the most potential for interconnecting with other animals (including humans).
Finally, we now know that the heart’s energetics extend into the surrounding environment almost infinitely. Some traditions have said that it is this heart connection – man to beast – that is the reason the animals were sent here in the first place.
How the Heart of a Dog Works
Okay, enough of theory. Mechanically, the heart consists of two pumps, located side by side and joined along their entire length. Each of these muscular pumping stations is comprised of two chambers, the atrium and ventricle. The atria, located at the cranial part of the heart (nearest the head), are primarily receiving chambers where the blood from veins is collected before its passage into the ventricles. Separating each atrium from its adjacent ventricle is a one-way valve consisting of two or three leaflets, or cusps. The valve on the left has three cusps and is called the tricuspid valve. There are two cusps on the valve between the chambers on the right side of the heart, close together in a shape that resembles a bishop’s miter (thus it is called the mitral valve).
The right side of the heart supplies blood to the lungs where the oxygen from outside air is added and carbon dioxide from cells is expired. This part of circulation is a relatively short course, thus the right side of the heart is not as muscular as the left.
After being aerated by the lungs, the blood circulates into the left atrium (via the pulmonary vein). Then, through the tricuspid valve, it enters the left ventricle. From here the muscles of the ventricle propel the blood through miles of vessels, beginning at the aorta. The heart must not only have enough power of contraction to propel the viscous fluid though miles of vessels, but also maintain a constant beating, as they say, 24/7 for the lifetime of the animal.
There are several factors that control heart rate and rhythm. The sinoatrial (SA) node, located in the muscles of the right atrium, instigates the electrical flow that initiates contraction and propels it across the heart. (Surgically implanted artificial pacemakers can be used to stimulate the SA node when necessary – and yes, this surgery has become relatively common in dogs.)
Heart rate is also under biochemical influence. Stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system (with epinephrine or nor-epinephrine, for example, either provided via injection or from the natural “flight or fight” mechanisms) results in increased heart rate; parasympathetic stimulation slows the heart. Heart rate is also inversely related to systemic blood pressure – when blood pressure increases, heart rate decreases, and vice versa. Blood pressure is further controlled by chemicals (angiotensins) that operate at the kidney to conserve or eliminate fluids in the urine.
The Sounds a Heart Makes
The heart has a voice of its own, and the audible dictation of the cardiac voice is easily heard. The closing of each set of valves is forceful enough to make a slight thupping sound, which is easily heard by placing your ear on your dog’s chest. The first of the thups issues from the tricuspid and mitral valve closures and the second from the pulmonary and aortic valves (the egress valves that prevent regurgitation of blood back into the chambers). The thups create the familiar “lub-dup, lub-dup, lub-dup” sound we are all familiar with.
With a low-tech ear-to-the-chest method you can detect obvious heart murmurs, which I would describe as a “mushing” or “slushing” of the lub-dup sound. Heart sounds are, of course, more apparent when a stethoscope is used to amplify them. Electrocardio-grams, echocardiograms, and MRIs may also be employed for capturing the best possible “sound” of the heart.
Checking Your Dog’s Pulse
A normally functioning cardiovascular system should pump blood to all areas of the body with equal force and rhythm; an animal’s pulse is a reflection of the overall health of the system.
Pulses are especially important in Eastern medicine. Traditionally, the character of the wrist pulse is examined and correlated with a diagnosis that then indicates a direction for treatment. The pulse is taken with three fingers, and three depths of pressure are used for the final determination that combines the nine “readings” into a comprehensive diagnosis.
Our dogs don’t have a good “wrist” site for pulse readings, but some veterinarians have substituted the carotid artery (in the neck) and/or the femoral artery (on the inside of the hind leg) for the traditional wrist readings. My own take on this is that we don’t yet have enough information on these “new” sites to be certain they are giving us readings that are accurate for diagnosis, and I know for a fact that my fingers are not trained well enough to feel the subtleties that a Chinese-trained practitioner has learned with decades of practice.
Electrocardiograms for Dogs
Muscle activity requires a transfer of ions from outside muscle cells into their interior; as these ions are transferred across the cell wall, a minuscule electrical charge is produced. An electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) records the electrical potential, generated by the electric activity of the heart, taken from electrical leads placed on the surface of the thorax and body extremities. Thus the ECG represents the extracellular electric behavior of the cardiac muscle tissue.
ECGs have become a relatively common form of diagnostic aid, available in many veterinary hospitals. Dog and human ECGs are obtained in the same manner – you get the patient to relax, hook her up to several leads that are connected to the ECG recording machine, take readings on a moving graph paper for several minutes, and interpret the readings.
The heart’s “beat” is created by an electrical activation sequence that proceeds, in a self-propagating wave, from the muscles of the apex of the heart to the muscles at the base. Abnormalities can be detected in the frequency and amplitude of the electrical waves, in the spacing between segments, and in the character of the segments and waves.
However, ECG interpretations are notoriously inconsistent; not even the most skilled interpreters (Board Certified cardiologists) agree with regularity. Numerous studies have shown that family practitioners fail to properly diagnose a high percentage of ECG readings. Also, correspondence between computer models of readings, cardiologists, and general practitioners is not good. I know of no studies that evaluate the reader accuracy of veterinarians, but my guess is that we would fare no better than our physician counterparts.
To summarize, I think it is more important that the practitioner has the ability to get his nose out of the machinery and look at the whole animal. And, until I’ve been able to evaluate the animal’s condition – including his energetics – I always take machine-based results with a grain of salt.
Symptoms of Heart Disease
Common symptoms of heart disease include exercise intolerance; persistent, low-grade coughing; reluctance to move; difficulty breathing or forced respirations; poor blood perfusion (delayed capillary refill time or cyanosis with exertion); and, the animal may sit with his elbows out. Remember that these are the same or similar to the symptoms seen with respiratory disease; it is important to separate these two conditions.
Common Heart Diseases
Heart disease is the number one killer of humans. In dogs, however, heart disease is not nearly so prevalent, affecting only about 10 percent of all dogs. Furthermore, the most common types of heart disease in dogs are not the same as the typical heart conditions in people. Following are some of the more common types of canine heart disease.
Congenital heart disease is perhaps the most common heart disease in dogs with an overall rate of affected animals around 1 percent of the total population. Many diseases such as cardiomyopathy and degenerative valvular disease of small breeds of dogs may have a significant heritable component.
Almost any physical part of the heart may be defective at birth. Symptoms vary with the location of the defect, but most often can be detected by listening for a murmur. The murmur may be characteristic for the type and location of the defect, or more likely, ECGs or other diagnostic aids will be needed to pinpoint the problem. Many animals with defects (and audible murmurs) live a quality life without any signs that a problem exists; others may require surgery to repair the defect.
Valve and endocardial diseases can be caused by any number of conditions including genetic abnormalities; aging, worn valves; and infections (many valve conditions can be traced back to gingival infections; as we advised in “Your Dog’s Mouth“, it’s important to keep your dog’s teeth clean).
Adult heartworms can mechanically interfere with heart valve function. Anytime a heart condition is diagnosed, ask your vet to test for heartworm adults and larvae.
Myocardial disease is also a condition with any number of potential causes including hereditary, nutritional, and infectious. Dilated cardiomyopathy can, for example, be due to a carnitine (an amino acid) deficiency in some dogs that apparently inherit an inability to properly metabolize carnitine. Parvovirus and certain drugs can also induce dilated cardiomyopathy.
Today’s most common form of dilated cardiomyopathy affects only large breed dogs, and tends to be an acute problem that occurs in middle-aged dogs. In this disease, cardiac contractile function is lost, cardiac output decreases, the body compensates by stimulating the sympathetic nervous system – which tries to inappropriately increase heart rate, ultimately resulting in arrhythmias and/or heart failure.
Congestive heart failure can also be caused by a number of conditions. Regardless of the cause of heart disease, the body reacts to a decrease in cardiac output by activating the sympathetic nervous system (increasing heart rate and cardiac contractibility), constricting vessels, and activating the biochemical system (angiotensin) to retain fluids and increase blood pressure. While these mechanisms are life-saving in the short term, if they become prolonged, they produce undue stress for the heart muscle. Unchecked, conditions that affect the function of the heart may ultimately lead to complete or congestive heart failure.
Arrhythmias are abnormalities of cardiac impulse formation, conduction, rate, and regularity. Their causes include poor nutrition, genetic defects, problems with electrical conduction across the myocardium, and biochemical disturbances. Quiet, healthy dogs have a heart rate that is slightly irregular, so diagnosing true arrhythmias requires an ECG or other diagnostic aids, and any diagnosis needs to be correlated with clinical signs – if they exist.
Exercise the Dog, Strengthen the Heart
Oxygen is at the top of the list of nutrients needed by a healthy heart, and exercise is the way to be sure your dog’s myocardium (heart muscle) gets a generous supply. All dogs should have at least a daily 20- to 30-minute aerobic trot-along and a few heart-stimulating romps (after having his heart vet-checked as okay), along with several additional trips to the fireplug during the day.
The second best “medicine” for your dog’s heart is an environment that helps him keep from getting fat. Basic metabolism isn’t all that difficult to understand: Whatever the amount of energy (in the form of calories from food) that goes into the body, it will be utilized first for fueling bodily activities (basic metabolism and muscular activity or exercise), and then, whatever calories that are left over as excess will be deposited as fat. So, to keep it simple, if your dog is putting on weight, you need to either decrease the calories he consumes, or increase his amount of daily exercise – or better yet, do both!
Conventional Heart Treatment
Your conventionally trained vet will be able to tell you a lot about Western veterinary care for your dog’s heart condition – especially if she or he has graduated from vet school in the past decade – so I won’t use much space discussing conventional care. Conventional Western treatment for cardiac conditions, of course, depends on the condition, but a normal protocol would include some or all of the following:
• Diuretics – to remove excess body fluids present because the heart isn’t moving them along properly.
• Digitalis (or digoxin) – to improve heart function
• Vasodilators – to lower blood pressure. Nitroglycerine might be the drug of choice here, or others may be selected.
Alternative Care for the Heart
While Western medicine requires a definitive diagnosis before a proper treatment protocol can be initiated, most alternative medicines are prescribed for symptoms. Furthermore, most of the natural and alternative remedies used have a wide range of effectiveness for many conditions, and they are typically safer (although perhaps not as potent) as conventional drugs.
Heart-Healthy Nutrition
The best preventative “medicine” you can provide for your dog is heart-healthy nutrition. The cardiac-impaired patient should be on a well-balanced diet that helps maintain his ideal body weight. If your dog is overweight, a mild reduction in food intake is recommended – about 80 to 99 percent of caloric maintenance levels. Ideal weight reduction would amount to a slow, steady weight loss of 1 to 3 percent of total body weight per week. For specifics on a weight-loss program, see your vet.
Many heart patient dogs are older animals who also suffer from kidney and/or liver disease. Years ago, very low-protein (14 to 15 percent) diets were automatically prescribed for dogs with kidney or liver disease, as high protein diets force the kidney and liver to work overtime. Unfortunately, some of these animals, particularly those who are on this diet long term, may develop malnutrition. Today, we prescribe a diet with a slightly higher level of protein, with a special emphasis on the protein’s quality (high biologic value) and digestibility for these dogs.
Dogs with severe and chronic heart disease may also show signs of protein-energy malnutrition, seen as loss of both fat and lean body mass (“cardiac cachexia”). A diet containing high-quality protein will help prevent this condition. B vitamins, choline, and inositol are good supplements to help maintain a healthily functioning liver.
Diets high in salt may increase blood pressure, which in turn adds to the physical stress to the heart. Low salt diets that include 0.05 to 0.5 percent (dry matter) sodium are indicated for the canine cardiac patient. In addition, stop sharing any salty human treats such as potato chips, pretzels, processed meats, canned fish and vegetables, and cheeses. Many commercial dog treats also contain high salt levels, so check the label for salt content when feeding or treating your cardiac-compromised canine.
Whenever we supplement the diet, the most important consideration is to maintain a balance of nutrients. One of the first things I do with new clients is to look at the supplements they already give their dogs. Invariably, there are several products that contain the same or similar nutrients. Overdoses of any substance can be dangerous. And digestion, assimilation, and metabolism often depend entirely on the overall balance of several independent nutrients. Talk to your vet; don’t just “wing” it!
Human patients with chronic cardiac failure are frequently deficient in iron, zinc, magnesium, potassium, chloride, and B vita-mins. Although similar problems are not well documented in dogs, B-vitamin supplementation is recommended, provided in a balanced vitamin-mineral supplement. Vitamin E (along with a balanced level of selenium) has been shown to be beneficial for heart muscles in many people, and vitamin C has healing activity and helps maintain the integrity of the heart walls and blood vessels.
Some types of diuretics cause decreased levels of potassium (hypokalemia), which predisposes the patient to digitalis intoxication and to cardiac arrhythmias. If your dog receives a diuretic medication, check with your vet to see if potassium supplements are recommended. Also see dandelion (in the herbal section, below) for a natural diuretic that restores potassium levels.
At least two amino acids, taurine and carnitine, have been directly implicated in heart conditions in some species. There is evidence that carnitine may be involved in occasional canine heart problems.
L-carnitine (the bioactive form) is similar to the B vitamins, and its main function is to help transport fatty acids, which are then burned within cells to provide energy. Carnitine deficiency is usually the result of genetic factors that cause the patient to require higher amounts of carnitine than normal. Deficiencies at the cellular level may contribute to some types of muscular problems including muscular dystrophy and cardiac myopathy.
The normal dog’s body can manufacture carnitine if sufficient amounts of iron, vitamins B-1, B-6, and C and the amino acids lysine and methionine are available. Carnitine is naturally available from meats and other animal-origin foods.
Coenzyme Q-10 (Co Q-10) is a vitamin-like antioxidant substance whose actions in the body resemble those of vitamin E. Co Q-10 plays a critical role in the production of energy in every cell of the body, aids circulation, stimulates the immune system, increases tissue oxygenation, and has anti-aging effects. It also counteracts histamine and is thus beneficial for treating allergies, asthma, arthritis, or respiratory disease. It has been shown to be effective in reducing mortality in experimental animals afflicted with tumors and leukemia, and it may reduce the side effects of cancer chemotherapy.
Co Q-10 has a great impact on heart tissue, and it has become the supplement to consider for treating and preventing heart disease. Its mode of action is to strengthen the heart muscles, and it has proven beneficial (in humans) for treating congestive heart failure and high blood pressure. It is thus used for almost any heart condition.
Natural sources high in coenzyme Q-10 include mackerel, salmon, and sardines, and it has also been found in beef, peanuts, and spinach. The amount of Co Q-10 present in the body declines with age, so the aging dog is a prime candidate for supplementation. It is oil soluble and should be taken with oily or fatty foods.
Fatty acids are the basic building blocks for fats and oils. Those that can’t be made by the body and that are necessary for health are called essential fatty acids (EFAs). Every living cell of the body requires EFAs for rebuilding and producing new cells. They are also involved in the production of prostaglandins, the chemical messengers and regulators of various body processes. In addition, EFAs are beneficial for healthy skin and hair, for reducing blood pressure, as an aid in the prevention of arthritis, for lowering cholesterol, and to reduce the risk of blood clot formation.
The two basic categories of essential fatty acids are Omega-3 and Omega-6. Omega-3 EFAs include linoleic and gamma-linolenic acids; they are found in raw nuts, seeds, and legumes and in unsaturated vegetable oils from borage, grapeseed, primrose, sesame, and soybeans. Omega-6 EFAs, including alpha-linolenic and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) are found in fresh deepwater fish, fish oil, and certain vegetable oils including canola, flaxseed, and walnut. Note that these oils need to be consumed in liquid form, they don’t tolerate heat, and they are subject to spoilage.
Once again, consult with your holistic veterinarian to ascertain proper dosages of any supplements. Dosages should vary for each individual patient and will depend on whether maintenance or therapeutic dosages are desired. Also, you should be absolutely certain you provide the supplements in a balanced format for proper absorption, assimilation, and metabolism, and for correct interaction with other supplements.
Herbal Remedies for Dogs with Heart Problems
Herbal medicine has much to offer canine cardiac patients. Most herbal remedies convey mild, supportive care without appreciable adverse side effects.
Hawthorn (Crataegus oxyacanthoides) is the queen of all cardiac tonics, with ample scientific evidence to justify its claims. Hawthorn has many beneficial effects on the heart including enhancing oxygen utilization by the heart muscles; improving blood supply to the heart by dilating the coronary arteries; improving metabolism in the heart, which increases the heart’s force of contraction; helping stabilize cardiac activity, thus eliminating some types of rhythm disturbances; and reducing blood pressure.
In short, hawthorn acts on the heart in a normalizing way, by either depressing or stimulating the heart’s activity, depending on the need. It is thus an excellent herb to consider whenever a general tonic is needed for the circulatory system. It is used for treating heart failure or weakness, congestive heart failure, arrhythmia, and high blood pressure (due to its tonic activity, it will normalize high or low blood pressure).
In addition, hawthorn helps stabilize collagen, perhaps via its synergistic activity with vitamin C. Collagen stabilization helps make capillaries less permeable and fragile. Hawthorn reduces destruction from any inflammatory process such as periodontal disease, arteritis, and arteriosclerosis. It can thus be used as an aid for treating the cartilage deterioration and ligament instability associated with arthritis.
Compared with digitalis, in general, hawthorn is safer and milder in activity. Digitalis has a direct action on the heart; hawthorn lowers blood pressure by dilating the peripheral vessels, thus preserving critical reflexive blood pressure regulation. Hawthorn does not cause the cumulative effects that occur with digitalis.
Hawthorn can be used by itself or in combination with digitalis, where it has a synergistic effect. With the combination, your practitioner may be able to lower the digitalis dosage to about one-half the normal dose. Further, the herb may partly ameliorate undesirable effects of digitalis.
Hawthorn toxicities have not been reported, although you should use caution if it is being used along with digitalis, and at least one report recommends that it not be used along with beta blockers as it may antagonize them.
I like it that hawthorn was once considered a sacred herb. Hawthorn has long been recognized as a healer of that part of the heart that is not simply mechanical or biochemical – a healer of the spirit and soul that may reside within our hearts.
Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) is an excellent herb often found growing as a weed along fence rows or at the edges of lawns. Motherwort has three primary actions: as a cardiac tonic; sedative and antispasmodic; and as a tonic that helps stabilize the female reproductive tract. It is thus indicated for all heart conditions, but especially for those that are associated with anxiety and tension. It is often used to treat increased heart rates.
Motherwort has been shown to improve metabolism in the heart, reduce heart rate, increase coronary perfusion, inhibit platelet aggregation, and may cause mild hypotension. Sensitive people may develop a contact dermatitis from the plant, but other toxicities have not been reported.
If the heart is not functioning properly, fluid can build up in the lungs, causing respiratory distress. Enough of a fluid backup can cause edema (water collection at various parts of the body). Dandelion root (Taraxacum officinale) is an excellent diuretic and general tonic, and has beneficial activity for the liver and gall bladder. In animal studies, dandelion has proven to be a strong diuretic, comparable to the action of the drug, furosemide. However, while furosemide depletes potassium from the body, dandelion, with its high levels of potassium, re-supplies it naturally. Dandelion is a very safe herb to use; virtually no adverse side effects have been reported.
Cayenne (red or chili pepper, Capsicum spp.) is probably the most useful of the systemic stimulants, regulating blood flow and equalizing and strengthening the heart, arteries, capillaries, and nerves. Cayenne is a general tonic and is specific for the circulatory and digestive systems. It has the ability to balance blood pressure, correcting it to a normal range.
As a stimulant, it can be used any time an animal is debilitated – whenever the circulation is stagnant or there is congestion in the body and whenever there is a lack of energy or vitality. Cayenne is also an outstanding carrier herb, helping in the transport of other herbs and medicines to various parts of the body, but especially to the heart, stomach, and brain. Very high doses over long periods can cause internal problems such as chronic gastritis, kidney and liver disease, and neurological effects.
I find that many pets (cats included) really like food seasoned with a pinch of one of the many kinds of cayenne, and since there are at least 1,700 different pepper varieties, you should be able to fine one that your dog enjoys.
Other heart-healthy herbs to consider:
• Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is a standard herb for treating fevers, and it is used externally as a wound-healing aid. It also lowers blood pressure and tones the blood vessels.
• Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) has long been considered to be an effective memory aid, and it is used to stimulate the appetite and to promote digestion. It also stimulates blood circulation, and it is a good tonic herb for the aging dog.
• Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) improves brain function by enhancing blood flow to the brain, stabilizing cellular membranes, and improving oxygenation of tissues. These cell-level activities may also be directly beneficial to heart tissues.
Homeopathy and the Heart
Homeopathic remedies are used to treat the symptoms of disease, and several have been used to help with heart conditions. Crataegus may used in cases of heart weakness and also for irregular heartbeat, myocarditis, and edema. For arrhythmia Convallaria is a good choice, and for valvular disorders Adonis vernalis may be helpful. Rumex may be helpful for the long-standing heart disease in older animals, and Spongia tosta is also a good remedy for chronic cases where the respiratory pattern is gasping and violent.
Flower Essences for Heart Health
Flower essence remedies are used to alleviate emotional problems. Fix the emotions, the theory goes, and the physical problems will also clear up. Flower essences that may be beneficial for heart problems include mimulus (also a remedy to restore courage in the animal that has a fear of known things or is shy or timid); oak (the remedy that restores resilience, endurance, strength, and stamina, and is especially indicated for dogs dealing with chronic and serious heart disease); and Rescue Remedy (the emergency remedy to be used for any acute event that may be related to the heart).
Improving Matters
No matter what medical approach we take to try to help the heart patient – whether it’s Western, alternative, or a complementary mix – we may do no better than alleviating the worst of the symptoms. And if the problem is structural (a physical defect in the heart, for example), medicines will not fix the defect; the best we might accomplish is to enhance the dog’s quality of life. However, in the case of debilitating cardiac conditions, that’s a lot! As always, I suggest that guardians explore all their medical options for care and treatment of their canine companions.
YOUR DOG’S HEART HEALTH: OVERVIEW
1. Have your dogs examined by a holistic veterinarian annually. Discuss any and all nutritional supplements with him or her.
2. Make sure your dog exercises daily, for at least 20-30 minutes.
3. Feed your dog a food that contains the highest-quality protein you can afford.
4. Two words: Hawthorn tea.
Dr. Randy Kidd earned his DVM degree from Ohio State University and his PhD in Pathology/Clinical Pathology from Kansas State University. A past president of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association, he’s author of, Dr. Kidd’s Guide to Herbal Dog Care and, Dr. Kidd’s Guide to Herbal Cat Care.
The decision to add a new dog to the pack shouldn’t be taken lightly. I counsel prospective owners of new dogs to be clear about their needs and preferences rather than making spur-of-the-moment rash decisions, because their success at integrating a new dog into an existing “pack” so often depends on their ability to make informed decisions. These choices include what kind of dog to adopt, how to prepare their home to accommodate the new dog, how to introduce the new dog to the existing household members, and how to incorporate her into family routines.
Bringing a new dog into the family can be fraught with unexpected developments, no matter how experienced a dog owner is, how well her home is prepared, and how good-natured the dogs are that she already owns. I’ve incorporated a new dog into my family dozens of times in my lifetime, counseled hundreds of clients about how to do it, and written a number of articles about it for this magazine (see “New Puppy Survival Guide,” this issue), and I still am surprised by the issues that can arise when a new dog comes home. However, with preparation, flexibility, and dedication to principles of positive training and behavior management, most dog owners can get through the adjustment period with peace in the pack.
Open your heart
I recently had the chance to practice what I preach when the loss of Dusty, our valiant Pomeranian, left a vacant spot in our pack last spring. Dusty had been my almost constant companion for close to 15 years, and though it’s been nearly five months, the pain of his passing is still close to the surface. I often tear up as I think of his dear little fox face and boundless good cheer.
One of the things I do to help ease the overwhelming hurt of losing a close companion is to remind myself that it also means there’s room in our family for another. Without actively looking, I know that a new furry face will one day draw my attention and grab my heart, as surely as if I had hung out a “Vacancy” sign. So it was early this summer, when I was doing behavioral assessments at the Humane Society of Washington County, where my husband, Paul, serves as the executive director.
As is my custom on the day that I do assessments, I made a quick pass through the kennels before picking up paperwork for the day’s list of dogs. In one ward, a brindle-and-white pixie with huge stand-up ears, a low-rider body, and an excessively generous tail with one decisive curl in the middle captured my attention. A Corgi pup? I glanced at her kennel card. Sure enough – a five-month-old Corgi, and a Cardigan at that. (Pembrokes are the Corgis with short tails, Cardigans have long tails.)
I have long been enchanted by Corgis, and occasionally fancied adding one to the family some day. Perhaps this was the time?
Dashing back to the Operations Center, I placed the Corgi’s paperwork on the top of the stack. I was determined not to make too rash a decision – we would at least evaluate her before I lost my heart.
Develop a list of desired traits
In my case, I knew that I was looking for a small- to medium-sized dog, with a preference for a short-coated female. With three other dogs in our home already, a smaller dog would fit better than a larger one, and with one neutered male dog at home who could sometimes be aggressive with other male dogs, estrogen seemed like a wiser choice than testosterone. I lean toward the herding and working breeds; I like their genetically programmed work ethic. As much as I adore our most recent addition to our canine family (Dubhy, the Scottie), I really wanted a dog who was more hard-wired to work closely with people, and one who would (I hope) grow up to be highly social with people and other dogs. And I like to adopt dogs who are five to 10 months old – past the worst of the puppy stuff, but still young enough to be programmable. With that checklist in mind, the young Corgi seemed to fit the bill – so far.
The results of her assessment were mixed. On the positive side:
• She was highly social; she couldn’t get enough of humans – so much so that I was confident she’d be a good off-leash hiking partner on our farm.
• She was very bright and trainable; she quickly learned to offer sits during the training portion of the process.
• She was resilient and nonassertive, responded well to the startle test, and offered appeasement signals rather than aggression during the “stranger danger” test.
In the negative column:
• She did pretty persistent tail-chasing during the evaluation. Uh-oh … a dog with obsessive-compulsive behaviors at the tender age of five months. That’s a red flag!
• She never stopped moving. This little girl clearly is more energetic than the average dog.
• She was very vocal – and her voice was very shrill. Despite my intent to make an unemotional clear-headed decision, I was smitten. I carried her into Paul’s office and set her on the floor. He looked at her, glanced at my face, smiled, and said, “When are we doing the paperwork?”
We weren’t quite that foolhardy. We were confident that Tucker and Katie could manage to live with her, but knowing that Dubhy can be selective about his canine friends, we arranged to bring him in to meet her. If he gave the nod of approval, we would adopt. One week later, Lucy (short for “Footloose and Fancy Free”) joined the Miller family.
As we set about assimilating Lucy into our social group, I was humbled by the reminder of how challenging it really can be to adopt a young dog in sore need of good manners training. There’s nothing like having to use the suggestions and instructions yourself that you routinely offer your clients to give you a much better appreciation for how well they sometimes work – and sometimes don’t.
Modify to the individual
There are exceptions to every rule. No matter how well a technique may work with most dogs, there are some dogs who require their owners to stay flexible and be willing to tailor the technique to their needs.
Case in point: I frequently use tethering in my training center, and often offer it as a solution for dogs whose behaviors need to be under better management and control in the home. Such a simple, elegant solution – what could possibly go wrong? I was about to find out.
Lucy’s initial introduction to the rest of the pack was easy. We let them meet in the backyard, where the open space was more conducive to successful relationships. As we had expected, she offered appropriate appeasement behaviors to Katie “the Kelpie Queen” and was permitted to exist. She and Dubhy had already met and seemed to remember each other. She wriggled her way up to Tucker, the Cattle Dog-mix, and he accepted her annoying puppy presence easily.
Indoors, however, we discovered that at the tender age of five months she was already a dedicated cat-chaser. Perfect time for a tether, I thought – and quickly discovered that she still charged the cats when they entered the room, only to hit the end of the tether at full speed, moving a very heavy coffee table several feet, and risking injury to her neck. Tethered in my office, she promptly began guarding the entire space with ear-splitting barks and ugly faces.
She also gave shrill voice any time she was left tethered by herself in a room for even a brief moment. Leaving her a stuffed Kong or other valuable chew toy simply elicited serious resource-guarding behavior toward the other dogs. Too much tether time also triggered the obsessive/compulsive tail- chasing that worried me during her evaluation. Life quickly became very stressful. I experienced more than a few “What have I done?” moments.
Ultimately – as in four months later! – I finally succeeded in getting Lucy to lie by my chair rather than chase the cats. To accomplish this, I had to use less tethering and more counter-conditioning and desensitization (“Cats make really good treats happen!”). Our cats can again tread softly into the living room to spend the evening on our laps without fear of a Corgi attack.
Appreciate the successes
On the bright side, Lucy was everything I had hoped for in other areas. Our first day home, we went for a long hike with the rest of the pack. Halfway through, I took a deep breath, crossed my fingers, and unclipped her leash. As I had hoped, she stayed with the other dogs, and came flying back when I called her.
I smiled to see her bounding through hayfields, leaping after the butterflies that scattered in her path. She quickly learned to paddle in the pond and stick her head down groundhog holes with the other dogs. She will even happily traipse alongside my horse as we ride the trails – an even better source of exercise than hikes with the pack!
The daily exercise did wonders for her tail- chasing, which vanished in less than a week, returned when we had to restrict her activity following spay surgery, and vanished again as soon as she could run in the fields.
Feeding time was another challenge. Lucy’s propensity to resource-guard gave rise to a few dramatic meals, but the other dogs solved this one for me. Dubhy, a skilled resource-guarder in his own right, quickly set her straight about intruding on his dinner, and Lucy decided that she was best off with her nose in her own bowl. I knew that the commonly offered solution of feeding in crates wouldn’t work for her. She already guarded her crate space from the other dogs.
Adding food to the crate equation would have been a disaster!
Lucy came with some other behavior challenges. When taking treats, her hard mouth – “sharky” – actually drew blood from my fingers during our first few weeks together. This time, the advice I usually give worked, although it took longer than I expected, and it was even more difficult in the presence of the other dogs.
I began offering treats to her enclosed in my fist. If she bit hard enough to hurt, I said “Ouch!” and kept my fist closed until her mouth softened. When she was gentle, I opened my hand and fed her the treat. It was a delight to feel her begin to deliberately soften her bite, even in the presence of the other dogs or with a very high value reward. Now, five months later, I realize I haven’t “Ouched” for several weeks. Progress does happen!
Think outside the box
When a tried-and-true approach doesn’t work, don’t persist in hammering that square peg into a round hole. Instead, be creative and try to adapt your favored approach to your dog’s situation.
Lucy decided early on that she didn’t like going out the back door to the fenced yard. She quickly learned the back door means she’ll be out in the backyard for a while with the other dogs. She much prefers the side door, which means either hikes in the field, stall-cleaning time, or off to the training center – all of which she adores.
All my first responses to the problem only made it worse. The door is at the end of a narrow hallway, so calling her or walking down the hall and turning to face her, only made her less interested in going out. I tried continuing through the door onto the back deck myself, with no luck. Luring with treats worked twice; she got wise to that very quickly. Even though she is pack-oriented, she never fell for the trick of chasing the rest of the dogs enthusiastically out the door. Reaching for her collar to lead her out made her wary of my hands moving toward her.
We finally found two strategies that worked, and continue to use them both in hopes of getting her happy about going out the door rather than just tolerating it:
• Fetch! Lucy loves retrieving, so I have made it a point to frequently pair going out the back door with an energy-eating round of fetch the doggie disc.
• Leash! While Lucy quickly learned to avoid my reaching for her collar, she is happy to munch a treat from one hand while I slide a slip lead over her head with the other. Once leashed, she follows willingly out the back door and stands while I feed another treat and slip the leash off her head.
Patience pays off
I counsel owners not to adopt a second dog until the first is trained, because the difficulties encountered when trying to train two at once are more than most people can successfully take on. It’s challenging enough to train one dog – and it’s even harder to get much done if two or more dogs are out of control at the same time.
Although my other dogs are reasonably well trained, I made it a point to work with Lucy separately, at least at first, until she knew a new behavior, before I asked her to do it in the company of her canine companions. I had the luxury of a separate training center to work in, but even if I hadn’t, I could have worked with Lucy outside while the others were in, or vice versa. I could have trained Lucy in one room while the other dogs were shut in another part of the house, or crated them with yummy, food-stuffed Kongs so they didn’t feel deprived while I focused my attentions on the new kid. A dog can even learn to sit quietly in his own spot while watching another dog in training, knowing that the reward of his own turn is coming soon.
Lucy is nowhere near perfect. While she heels beautifully in the training center, she’ll still pull on leash outside unless she’s wearing a front-clip no-pull harness, preferably the K9 Freedom Harness (available from waynehightower.com). I found myself losing my patience with her pulling until I started using the harness. Now we both have more fun when she has to walk on a leash. We both prefer the off-leash hikes, of course.
She still jumps up, but not nearly as much as she did at first. Our persistence in ignoring the jumping up and rewarding polite greetings is paying off. She still has a shrill voice, but doesn’t use it quite as often as she used to. I must constantly remind myself – and Paul – to redirect her behavior when she’s barking, rather than falling into the natural trap of yelling at her to be quiet.
She now spends a lot of time lying quietly on my office floor instead of traumatizing kitties, hasn’t chased her tail in months, and chews only on toys provided for that purpose. She hasn’t had an accident in the house for several weeks now, and although she and Katie have small arguments almost daily, I don’t usually have to intervene.
Last night, as Paul and I sat watching TV, I looked up at all the dogs sleeping quietly on their beds, and realized that it’s been quite some time since I’ve had one of those “What have we done?!” moments. She has become a full-fledged member of the pack. She will never be Dusty, but she is Lucy, and that’s all she needs to be to stake her own claim to my heart. I hope your next adoption goes as well.
-Pat Miller, CPDT, is WDJ’s Training Editor. She is also author of The Power of Positive Dog Training, and Positive Perspectives: Love Your Dog, Train Your Dog.
1. If your dog is a breed at high risk for bloating, discuss with your vet the merits of a prophylactic gastropexy at the time of neutering.
2. Familiarize yourself and your dog with the emergency veterinary services in your area, or anywhere you’ll be traveling with your dog. You never know when you’ll need to rush your bloating dog to the animal hospital.
3. Feed your dog several smaller meals daily rather than one or two bigger meals to reduce your dog’s risk of gastric dilatation.
4. Consider feeding your dog a home-prepared diet; while there have not been studies that support the assertion, many dog owners who make their dogs’ food swear that it prevents GDV.
Imagine seeing your dog exhibit some strange symptoms, rushing him to the vet within minutes, only to have the vet proclaim his case to be hopeless and recommend euthanasia. For too many pet parents, that’s the story of dog bloat, an acute medical condition characterized by a rapid accumulation of gas in the stomach.
In fact, that was exactly the case with Remo, a Great Dane owned by Sharon Hansen of Tucson, Arizona. “He was at the vet’s in under seven minutes,” says Hansen, in describing how quickly she was able to respond to Remo’s symptoms. He had just arisen from an unremarkable, hour-long nap, so Hansen was stunned to see Remo displaying some of the classic symptoms of dog bloat, including restlessness, distended belly, and unproductive vomiting.
Despite Hansen’s quick action, Remo’s situation rapidly became critical. Radiographs showed that his stomach had twisted 180 degrees. Remo was in great pain and the vet felt the damage was irreversible. Hansen made the difficult decision to have Remo euthanized at that time.
Canine bloat, or more technically, gastric dilatation and volvulus (GDV), is a top killer of dogs, especially of deep-chested giant and large breeds, such as Great Danes and Standard Poodles. A study published in Veterinary Surgery in 1996 estimated that 40,000 to 60,000 dogs in the United States are affected with GDV each year with a mortality rate of up to 33 percent.
Gas accumulation alone is known as dog bloat, or dilatation. The accumulation of gas sometimes causes the stomach to rotate or twist on its axis; this is referred to as torsion or volvulus. Bloat can occur on its own, or as a precursor to torsion. In this article, to simplify the terms, bloat and GDV are used interchangeably.
Both conditions can be life-threatening, although it often takes longer for a straightforward gastric dilatation without volvulus to become critical. “Bloats without torsion can last for minutes to hours, even days in low-level chronic situations, without it becoming life-threatening. But with torsion, the dog can progress to shock rapidly, even within minutes,” explains Alicia Faggella DVM, DACVECC, a board-certified specialist in veterinary emergency and critical care.
“A dog can go into shock from bloat because the stomach expands, putting pressure on several large arteries and veins. Blood does not get through the body as quickly as it should,” continues Dr. Faggella. In addition, the blood supply gets cut off to the stomach, which can cause tissue to die, while toxic products build up.
While some less acute cases of dog bloat may resolve themselves, it often takes an experienced veterinarian to know just how serious the problem may be, and whether surgical intervention is required to save the dog’s life.
Symptoms of Bloat in Dogs
– Unproductive vomiting
– Apparent distress
– Distended abdomen, which may or may not be visible
– Restlessness
– Excessive salivation/drooling
– Panting
– The dog’s stomach is hard or feels taut to the touch, like a drum
– Pacing
– Repeated turning to look at flank/abdomen
– Owner feels like something just isn’t right!
Dog Bloat is Frighteningly Deadly
Various studies have estimated the mortality rate for dogs who have experienced an episode of GDV, and while the results varied, they were all frighteningly high – from about 18 percent to more than 30 percent. The rates used to be much higher, however.
“Veterinarians over the past two decades have reduced dramatically the postoperative fatality rate from gastric dilatation-volvulus from more than 50 percent to less than 20 percent by using improved therapy for shock, safer anesthetic agents, and better surgical techniques,” says Lawrence Glickman, VMD, DrPH, and lead researcher on a number of studies related to GDV at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
In many acute cases of GDV, surgery is the only option to save the life of the animal. In addition to repositioning the stomach, it may also be “tacked” to the abdominal wall in a procedure called gastropexy. While dogs who have had gastropexy may experience gastric dilatation again, it is impossible for the stomach to rotate, as in volvulus or torsion.
What Causes Bloat in Dogs?
Theories about the causes of bloat in dogs abound, including issues related to anatomy, environment, and care. Research from Purdue University, particularly over the past 10 years, has shown that there are certain factors and practices that appear to increase the risk of GDV, some of which fly in the face of conventional wisdom.
“We don’t know exactly why GDV happens,” says Dr. Faggella. Some people do all of the “wrong” things, and their dogs don’t experience it, she says, while some do all of what we think are the “right” things, and their dogs do.
The most widely recognized and accepted risk factor is anatomical – being a larger, deep-chested dog. When viewed from the side, these dogs have chest cavities that are significantly longer from spine to sternum, when compared to the width of the chest cavity viewed from the front.
This body shape may increase the risk of bloat because of a change in the relationship between the esophagus and the stomach. “In dogs with deeper abdomens, the stretching of the gastric ligaments over time may allow the stomach to descend relative to the esophagus, thus increasing the gastroesophageal angle, and this may promote bloat,” says Dr. Glickman.
Can Small Dogs Get Bloat?
It isn’t just large- and giant-breed dogs that can bloat; smaller breeds do as well. “I’ve seen Dachshunds, Yorkies, and other small Terrier breeds with bloat,” says Dr. Faggella. She emphasizes that all dog guardians should be familiar with the signs of bloat, and be ready to rush their dog to the vet if any of the symptoms are present.
Likelihood of an incident of dog bloat seems to increase with age. Purdue reports that there is a 20 percent increase in risk for each year increase in age. This may be related to increased weakness, over time, in the ligaments holding the stomach in place, Dr. Glickman explains.
Another key risk factor is having a close relative that has experienced GDV. According to one of the Purdue studies that focused on nondietary risk factors for GDV, there is a 63 percent increase in risk associated with having a first degree relative (sibling, parent, or offspring) who experienced bloat.
Personality and stress also seem to play a role. Dr. Glickman’s research found that risk of GDV was increased by 257 percent in fearful dogs versus nonfearful dogs. Dogs described as having a happy personality bloated less frequently than other dogs. “These findings seem to be consistent from study to study,” adds Dr. Glickman.
Dogs who eat rapidly and are given just one large meal per day have an increased susceptibility to GDV than other dogs. The Purdue research found that “for both large- and giant-breed dogs, the risk of GDV was highest for dogs fed a larger volume of food once daily.”
The ingredients of a dog’s diet also appear to factor into susceptibility to bloat. A Purdue study examined the diets of over 300 dogs, 106 of whom had bloated. This study found that dogs fed a dry food that included a fat source in the first four ingredients were 170 percent more likely to bloat than dogs who were fed food without fat in the first four ingredients. In addition, the risk of GDV increased 320 percent in dogs fed dry foods that contained citric acid and were moistened before feeding. On the other hand, a rendered meat meal that included bone among the first four ingredients lowered risk by 53 percent.
Another study by Purdue found that adding “table foods in the diet of large- and giant-breed dogs was associated with a 59 percent decreased risk of GDV, while inclusion of canned foods was associated with a 28 percent decreased risk.” The relationship between feeding a home-prepared diet, either cooked or raw, hasn’t been formally researched.
Anecdotally, however, many holistic vets believe that a home-prepared diet significantly reduces the risk of bloat. “I haven’t seen bloat in more than five years,” says Monique Maniet, DVM, of Veterinary Holistic Care in Bethesda, Maryland. She estimates that 75 to 80 percent of her clients feed a raw or home-cooked diet to their dogs.
Dr. Faggella also noticed a difference in the occurrence of bloat while in Australia, helping a university set up a veterinary critical care program. “I didn’t see bloat as commonly there [as compared to the US],” she says. They feed differently there, with fewer prepared diets and more raw meat and bones, which may contribute to the lower incidence of GDV, she adds.
It is often recommended that limiting exercise and water before and after eating will decrease the risk of bloat. However, in one of the Purdue studies, while exercise or excessive water consumption around meal time initially seemed to affect likelihood of GDV, when other factors were taken into account, such as having a close relative with a history of GDV, in a “multivariate model,” these factors were no longer associated with an increased risk of bloat.
Or, more simply put, “there seems to be no advantage to restricting water intake or exercise before or after eating,” says Dr. Glickman.
How to Prevent Bloating in Dogs
Because the theories and research on what causes bloat aren’t always in agreement, the ways to prevent GDV can conflict as well. One thing that everyone can agree on, though, is that feeding smaller meals several times a day is the best option for reducing the risk.
One of the top recommendations to reduce the occurrence of GDV from the Purdue researchers is to not breed a dog that has a first-degree relative that has bloated. Results of their study suggest that “the incidence of GDV could be reduced by approximately 60 percent, and there may be 14 percent fewer cases in the population, if such advice were followed.”
In addition, Glickman says they recommend prophylactic gastropexy for dogs “at a very high risk, such as Great Danes. Also, we do not recommend that dogs have this surgery unless they have been neutered or will be neutered at the same time.”
The concern about performing a gastropexy on an unneutered dog is that it “might mask expression of a disease with a genetic component in a dog that might be bred.”
While gastropexy hasn’t been evaluated in its ability to prevent GDV from happening the first time, research has shown that just five percent of dogs whose stomachs are tacked as a result of an episode of GDV will experience a repeat occurrence, whereas up to 80 percent of dogs whose stomachs are simply repositioned experience a reoccurrence.
Raised Bowls Raise the Risk of Bloating
It has long been an accepted practice to elevate the food bowls of giant-breed and taller large-breed dogs. The theory is that, in addition to comfort, a raised food bowl will prevent the dog from gulping extra air while eating, which in turn should reduce the likelihood of bloat. However, this recommendation has never been evaluated formally.
It was included in the large variety of factors followed in a Purdue study,* and one of the most controversial findings. The research suggests that feeding from an elevated bowl seems to actually increase the risk of GDV.
The researchers created a “multivariate model” that took into account a number of factors, such as whether there was a history of GDV in a first-degree relative, and whether the dog was fed from an elevated bowl. Of the incidences of GDV that occurred during the study, about 20 percent in large-breed dogs and 52 percent in giant-breed dogs were attributed to having a raised food bowl.
The raw data, which doesn’t take into account any of the additional factors, shows that more than 68 percent of the 58 large-breed dogs that bloated during the study were fed from raised bowls. More than 66 percent of the 51 giant-breed dogs that bloated during the study were fed from raised bowls.
* These findings were reported in “Non-dietary risk factors for gastric dilatation-volvulus in large- and giant-breed dogs,” an article published November 15, 2000, in Volume 217, No. 10 of Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. The study followed more than 1,600 dogs from specific breeds for a number of years, gathering information on medical history, genetic background, personality, and diet.
Phazyme: The Controversial Gas-Reliever
After Remo’s death, Sharon Hansen learned that some large-breed dog owners swear by an anti-gas product called Phazyme for emergency use when bloat is suspected. Phazyme is the brand name of gelcaps containing simethicone, an over-the-counter anti-gas remedy for people. GlaxoSmith-Kline, maker of Phazyme, describes it as a defoaming agent that reduces the surface tension of gas bubbles, allowing the gas to be eliminated more easily by the body.
Less than a year and a half later, Hansen had an opportunity to try the product when her new rescue dog Bella, a Dane/Mastiff mix, bloated. “Bella came looking for me one afternoon, panting and obviously in distress,” explains Hansen, who immediately recognized the signs of bloat.
Hansen was prepared with caplets of Phazyme on hand. “I was giving her the caplets as we headed out to the car,” says Hansen. Almost immediately, Bella began to pass gas on the short ride to the vet. “She started passing gas from both ends,” Hansen says. By the time they arrived at the vet, Bella was acting much more comfortable, and seemed significantly less distressed.
At the vet’s office, gastric dilatation was confirmed, and luckily, there was no evidence of torsion. Hansen credits the Phazyme for reducing the seriousness of Bella’s episode. This is a generally accepted practice among guardians of bloat-prone dogs, but not all experts agree with it.
Dr. Faggella cautions against giving anything by mouth, as it could cause vomiting, which could lead to aspiration. “If you suspect bloat, simply bring your dog to the vet immediately. The earlier we catch it, the better,” she says.
Dr. Nancy Curran, DVM, a holistic vet in Portland, Oregon, agrees that trying to administer anything orally could lead to greater problems. However, she suggests that Rescue Remedy, a combination of flower essences that is absorbed through the mucous membranes of the mouth, may help ease the shock and trauma. “Rescue Remedy helps defuse the situation for everyone involved. It won’t cure anything, but it can be helpful on the way to the vet,” she says, recommending that the guardian take some as well as dosing the dog.
Holistic Prevention of Dog Bloat
“We may be able to recognize an imbalance from a Chinese medical perspective,” says Dr. Curran. She’s found that typically dogs prone to bloat have a liver/stomach disharmony. Depending on the dog’s situation, she may prescribe a Chinese herbal formula, use acupuncture, and/or suggest dietary changes and supplements to correct the underlying imbalance, thereby possibly preventing an episode in the first place.
Dr. Maniet also looks to balance a dog’s system early on as the best form of prevention. Each of her patients is evaluated individually and treated accordingly, most often with Chinese herbs or homeopathic remedies.
Both holistic vets also recommend the use of digestive enzymes and probiotics, particularly for breeds susceptible to canine bloat, or with existing digestive issues. “Probiotics and digestive enzymes can reduce gas, so I’d expect that they will also help reduce bloat,” explains Dr. Maniet.
Another avenue to consider is helping your fearful or easily stressed dog cope better in stressful situations. While no formal research has been conducted to confirm that this in fact would reduce the risk of bloat, given the statistics that indicate how much more at risk of GDV fearful dogs are, it certainly couldn’t hurt. Things to consider include positive training, desensitization, Tellington TTouch Method, calming herbs, aromatherapy, or flower essences.
While there is an abundance of information on how to prevent and treat bloat, much of it is conflicting. The best you can do is to familiarize yourself with the symptoms of GDV and know your emergency care options. While it may be difficult to prevent completely, one thing is clear. The quicker a bloating dog gets professional treatment the better.
Case History: Laparoscopically Assisted Gastropexy
On May 6, 2004, Dusty, a nine-year-old Doberman, was in obvious distress. “He was panting, pacing, and wanting to be near me,” his guardian, Pat Mangelsdorf explains. Dusty didn’t have any signs of tenderness or injury, and his appetite and elimination were fine. Mangelsdorf wasn’t sure what the problem could be. After a few hours, his behavior didn’t improve, so she took Dusty to the vet.
“By that time, he had calmed a bit, and there still wasn’t any tenderness or distension. Radiographs showed some arthritis in his spine, so we thought that was causing him pain,” she says. A few hours later, Dusty lay down to rest and seemed normal.
Three days later, Mangelsdorf received a surprise call. “A radiologist had reviewed the X-rays and noticed that Dusty had a partial torsion,” she says. The vet suggested that to help prevent another incident of torsion, Dusty’s activity level, food, and water should be more tightly controlled, and a gastropexy should be considered to rule out future occurrences.
Mangelsdorf began researching her options. Was the surgery necessary? If so, which would be best, the full abdominal surgery or the laparoscopic procedure? Before she could decide, Dusty had another apparent torsion episode. “He had exactly the same symptoms,” says Mangelsdorf. Dusty spent a night at the emergency clinic, and more radiographs were taken, but they were inconclusive. Nevertheless, Mangelsdorf had made up her mind.
After reviewing the options and the potential risks and rewards, Mangelsdorf opted for a laparoscopically assisted gastropexy, rather than a traditional gastropexy with a full abdominal incision. “A laparoscopic gastropexy is minimally invasive, with just two small incisions,” explains Dusty’s surgeon, Dr. Timothy McCarthy, of Surgical Specialty Clinic for Animals in Beaverton, Oregon. Dr. McCarthy, who specializes in minimally invasive surgeries and endoscopic diagnostic procedures, has been performing this type of gastropexy for about four years.
This specialized procedure for gastropexy was developed by Dr. Clarence Rawlings, a surgeon and professor of small animal medicine at University of Georgia. The technique involves two small incisions. The first incision is to insert the scope for visualizing the procedure, the second incision is used to access the stomach for suturing. After palpating the stomach, it is pulled up toward the abdominal wall, near the second incision. The stomach is then sutured directly to the abdominal wall, as in a standard gastropexy. The incisions are then closed as normal, usually with staples.
“This is a very quick procedure. An experienced surgeon can do it in 15 minutes,” says McCarthy. While quick, the surgery isn’t inexpensive. It costs about $1,500 at McCarthy’s clinic.
On July 27, Dusty underwent surgery. The procedure went well, without any complications. Later that evening, Dusty started heavy panting and shivering, but X-rays and bloodwork showed everything normal. With IV fluids, he was more settled in a few hours, and back to normal by morning.
“Afterwards, we did short walks, no stairs, and three or four small meals a day for two weeks,” says Mangelsdorf. Gradually, she increased Dusty’s exercise until he was back to normal levels. She added acidophilus as well as more moisture into his diet, including cottage cheese and canned food, while keeping his water bowl at lower levels so he doesn’t drink excessive amounts at any one time.
Shannon Wilkinson, of Portland, Oregon, is a freelance writer, life coach, and TTouch practitioner.
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