Less Stressful Veterinary Visits

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February 16, 2010

A training friend suggested that I read Low Stress Handling, Restraint, and Behavior Modification of Dogs and Cats, by applied animal behaviorist Sophia Yin, DVM, MS. As an owner whose dogs have taken their fair share of visits to vet clinics, I really liked what I read. Dr. Yin’s text takes a critical look at how our pets are often handled in veterinary clinics – and it’s not pretty, as you may have seen yourself. Fortunately, she also offers common sense advice on approaching veterinary care so as to make it as stress-free as possible for our pets.

Popular myths abound that force is needed to get animals to behave. Instead, Dr. Yin focuses on how to modify behavior quickly in a veterinary setting using a systematic and positive approach. Her methods involve classical conditioning to change the pet’s emotional state; setting up the veterinary environment to ensure the pet’s comfort; teaching us how to handle animals with appropriate, rather than stronger, restraint; and how to behave around animals so as to avoid creating problems. The book is the result of over a thousand hours of work and features more than 1,600 photos and three hours of video. A copy belongs in every veterinarian’s hands; proactive pet owners can benefit as well (the text is pricey, however).

I interviewed Yin in late 2009 to hear more about her latest book and how we, as pet owners, can help our dogs have less stressful veterinary visits. The vet office does not have to be a nasty place, and Yin, as a veterinarian herself, wants to help us, our veterinarians, and their staff make the clinic experience a better one for all of us, especially our beloved dogs! Although lots of her ideas are common sense, if you’re like me, you’d welcome seeing them adopted by your dog’s veterinary hospital sooner rather than later.

Rodier: The book is a great resource, but very different from any behavior and training books that are out there. Who is the intended audience?

YIN: The book is for anybody who deals with many different dogs and cats or who just wants to know how to better handle their pet for everyday husbandry procedures.

Initially, I wrote it for veterinarians, as a complete guide to handling and dealing with animals. But really, it is for anybody who works with a lot of dogs and cats. That includes shelter workers, shelter volunteers, groomers, and even kennel workers. The book is not just about handling animals, it’s also about how to set up the environment so the animal is more comfortable, as well as how to act around animals so that you don’t introduce a problem that previously didn’t exist, how to read your pet’s body language, and how to gauge whether your techniques are having the intended effect. The book also has a lot of techniques that pet owners can use at home to better prepare their pet for a veterinary visit.

It was a huge undertaking. Why do it?

A number of veterinary behaviorists were recommending new techniques for handling animals – techniques that were very different from what vets have been taught for decades. For instance, they said that we shouldn’t be “scruffing” cats anymore. That’s one of the first things we learn in veterinary school, how to scruff a cat! It made me wonder: Which techniques should we use and how do we know which ones will work?

I started by observing what technicians and veterinarians were doing. I took a lot of video so that I could analyze why some people and techniques were successful and why others were not. At first, I thought the book might be quite thin; but the more I saw, I realized there was lots of room for significant improvements in handling. In fact, I found that most veterinary professionals do not handle animals well; they just get lucky! This finding includes first-rate veterinary technicians who have years of experience. It’s surprising, but no matter how long people have worked with animals, maybe 10, 20, or even 30 years, they might have been making the same handling mistakes the entire time!

That’s because we handle dogs the way we’ve been taught, or the way we think works. But people often aren’t very mindful of what the animal needs or if the technique they use is the best way. Does the animal feel comfortable the entire time, or are we doing things that make him feel the need to struggle? Or are we causing him to show signs of fear, or to be a little tense?

What I found is that handling is like a sport requiring skill and finesse. If you don’t know exactly where to have your hands and body in relation to the dog, you won’t be able to restrain him appropriately. This holds true even when doing something as simple as keeping a dog from pacing, lifting him on a table, or putting him onto his side.

On the DVD (that comes with the book) I included video footage of a technician flopping a dog on his side, something that happens at every veterinary hospital. The dog is standing and all of a sudden he’s on his side and hits his head during the transition! Can you imagine if you went to a physical therapist and she yanked your feet out from under you and you hit your head? Techniques like this should not be in use.

One bad veterinary experience can cause a dog to aggress on future visits. Why is this?

Many dogs are already fearful before even getting to the clinic. For example, the dog who usually behaves, but stands still and trembles due to fear. Because she doesn’t try to bite or struggle, everyone thinks she’s okay. The problem is that with each visit she’s likely to get worse, because each visit is frightening for her from start to finish. And if something that she perceives to be really bad happens to her, she can easily switch from being frozen or wanting to hide in fear, to feeling that she needs to defend herself by growling or biting for the first time.

Some dogs are able to take things like having blood drawn or being restrained for X-rays in stride; the fearful dog blows these experiences out of proportion.

So my dog’s had a bad experience at the vet. Now what? Can I fix it?

You can fix it. Depending what the experience was, we can do things to train the dog to associate the animal hospital with good things. You want to get help when you do this, somebody – a positive trainer or behaviorist who understands principles of behavior modification – to guide you through it, so you can do it efficiently and positively. The goal is to pair the clinic with good things, and handling with good things. The person you work with should be somebody who can list for you all the signs of fear and anxiety in a dog so that you would know how to recognize them. They should be able to use a number of different types of reward-based techniques, versus the “Let’s show ’em who’s boss” approach.

I don’t recommend using a choke chain or a pinch collar; this indicates a desire to give corrections. Choke chains and pinch collars are sort of a vague punishment of something you didn’t like; the information they send to the dog is not very good. They work by causing pain or fear of pain. The problem – a fear of veterinary experiences – is fear-based! We definitely don’t want to have pain or fear involved.

Head halters can be aversive to a dog, too, because the dog can’t move his head where he wants. However, they at least guide him into position, so you can more precisely give the dog information about what you want him to do.

You also want to avoid any trainer who says, “We don’t use food!” I gave a lecture on using desensitization and classical conditioning for veterinary procedures and showed video of dogs getting better using all these techniques. A fellow behaviorist heard a person from the sponsoring group say “Oh, her methods don’t work.” Then, publicly, the sponsoring representative said, “We do just what Dr. Yin does, but with less food.” The audience practically sighed out loud. They recognized that when training a dog to like having her toenails trimmed or getting injections, praise and petting were probably not going to cut it in most cases.

Food is a strong motivator for dogs. The food is being used to create a positive emotional state. You can use other things, too, but you don’t want to take away one of your strongest motivators! The person who helps you needs to understand that your goal is to change the emotional state of the dog from scared to calm, comfortable, relaxed, and happy.

I recommend that people bring their pets to the hospital hungry; withhold the previous meal and bring it along with tastier treats to the visit. Treats should be bite-sized so that the dog can consume a single treat in 1 to 2 seconds. Giving 5 to 15 small treats in rapid succession is better than giving one large treat because the sequence of treats can be used to extend the period of time in which the dog is in a positive emotional state.

In general, soft treats such as tiny pieces of hot dog, diced chicken, or chopped Natural Balance food roll work better than dry treats, although many dogs are fans of freeze dried liver or Liver Biscotti. Even consider using canned spray cheese or peanut butter spread thin on a spoon. Don’t worry about overfeeding or imbalancing the diet. A positive veterinary experience is more important than having a balanced diet on one particular day.

Is there a relationship between force-based training methods and the type of handling that has typically been used by animal professionals?

The traditional view is that if we want to get an animal to do something, we force it to do so. Face it, the easiest way for people to do things is without thinking, and force requires less thought. There’s also the attitude of “I’m just going to do what I did before, or what somebody showed me, and I’m not going to evaluate whether it’s working or consider whether there’s a better way.”

People don’t necessarily consider what works best for the dog. Take, for example, trying to guide a dog to sit. Many times a veterinary professional will guide the dog in a way that’s stressful for the dog. To get the dog to sit, he puts pressure on the dog’s body, but the dog doesn’t know what he wants. The handlers should notice any time the dog struggles to get away, or her ears go back; these things should make them question whether they’re handling the dog correctly.

If the dog struggles multiple times, more than two seconds, then you need to do something else. Coming from a traditional training background, there are times when I thought “I need to show this dog!” and those are the times I’ve gotten into trouble. I’ve been bitten only when I was doing that! It is hard to get rid of that mentality, but it doesn’t serve a good purpose. The “must win” attitude is about your ego, really.

Another problem with that “put him in his place” attitude is that once you’ve got the dog aroused, he’s more likely to react to a smaller trigger the next time. Once he’s excited, his epinephrine and corticosteroid levels have shot up. They’ll go down, but maybe not before another potentially high arousal event. It’s just like when you have a frightening experience like a near car accident, and then later in the day you see a spider. Although you usually can handle being near a small spider, when you’ve already had one scary incident earlier in the day, your threshold for other heart-pounding events is much lower and you’re more likely to freak out.

With dogs, that’s when we get the stories of people telling us that the dog bit or lunged “without warning.” Really, the person most likely just didn’t see the warnings, or because the dog is already aroused, his trigger was much smaller. Also, many times our dogs do something a little earlier that indicates they are fearful and an event is stressful for them, and when we fail to back off or help them, we push them to respond aggressively.

Will animal professionals really want to use new, gentle techniques even if they require time to learn and to use, margins are tight, and volume is the key to making money?

It’s actually way faster when you use “low stress” techniques; they can save time, manpower, and lost work days due to bite-related injuries. If the animal hospital staff can’t put their hands on the animal correctly every single time, then they’re going to make the animal worse. Once it gets worse, it takes a lot more time to make it better than if you do it right the first time.

Look, it doesn’t take long to offer a couple of treats to a dog in the clinic. When you classically condition a dog, you train him to like certain procedures; as a result, each visit gets better and the clients are happier. It’s rarely the case that dogs “just get better,” behaviorally, at the hospital, without some work.

But making it less stressful for the dog doesn’t just involve giving treats. It involves knowing how to set up the exam room, and even teaching the owners how to prepare their dogs beforehand. Maybe you need to get your dog into the exam room before he gets amped up from being in the waiting room with dogs and cats he’s afraid of. And then, in the exam room, the veterinarian needs to approach the right way, instead of scaring the dog by approaching head on, like a big scary ogre.

Every time the vet or technician interacts with the dog, they need to realize that the dog is learning something from them. How they place their hands on the dog, how they hold the dog’s collar, where they’re standing in relation to the dog; all of this is noticed by the dog. Even little things that people do can ruin the exam.

Can you give an example?

I worked with an excitable dog who belonged to a friend. She said, “How did you control her?! At our veterinary hospital, he was horrible.” It’s because the veterinarian there was letting the dog pace around. Instead of just quietly asking the dog to sit and then grasping the collar with one hand and perhaps placing the other hand on her hip so that the dog understood that he wanted her to hold still, the veterinarian just got down to her level and she climbed all over him. Good handling may involve something as simple as shortening the leash and keeping it short, but loose.

Here’s another example: If you want to guide the dog to sit, one thing is sure: his back legs need to bend in order for him to sit! And his weight needs to be off his front end and toward the rear end. If you’re unable to appropriately guide the dog into a posture that makes it easy for him to sit, he might become anxious and defensive, and even aggressive.

How do I convince my dog’s veterinarian to use these techniques?

I’ve heard from several trainers that their veterinarians have implemented the techniques, and the staff is so much better at handling. Let your veterinarian know that good handling is important to you, and let her know there is a credible textbook from which she can learn. Approached in this way, she’ll very likely take it into consideration. It’s about clearly communicating your expectations to the veterinarian.

Might this be offensive?

It’s your pet you’re talking about! If the veterinarian or her staff handles your dog poorly, and your dog becomes increasingly anxious or defensive, you might not be able to get continued medical care for him. Treatments are less successful if they are delivered under duress to a stressed dog. The worse our dogs’ experiences are over time, the worse they will become at the hospital. What if your dog has to stay at the veterinary clinic for a medical procedure? And how is he going to feel during that medical procedure if he knows he’s going to be handled poorly?

Consider what’s going on, physiologically: The higher the dog’s stress level, the more hormonal changes he’ll suffer, with a decrease in his immune function. If he’s staying in the hospital and he’s sick and scared about poor handling, it will be harder for him to recover. You are responsible for your pet. You shouldn’t be rude to the doctor or his staff, but you should let them know that your dog does better when he’s handled a certain way. The more you know, the more suggestions you can offer. It’s important to know your dog. If you don’t know how he’s going to respond or how to handle him, then leave it up to the veterinarian. But if you’ve used some of the techniques, worked through some of your dog’s issues, and know what your dog is well-behaved and trained, you need to share that information.

I have a client whose dog was really well behaved and well trained. The veterinarian took the dog away to perform a procedure and the dog was yelping and screaming. Well, all the veterinarian wanted the dog to do was lay on his side. So the owner said, “Bang!” to the dog, and the dog lay flat on his side, as he’d been trained to do on that cue. The more you can show that you have good control of your dog, the more authority you can have with how you want your dog handled. But, if you don’t actually have good control over your dog, it’s safer for the vet to be in charge of the handling.

How about vets who don’t perform procedures such as blood draws in front of us; how do we know how they’re handling our dogs?

I would see how the dog is when he comes back. Does he look more anxious or is he relaxed? If he was handled well, he should get better. He shouldn’t look worse than when he left you.

If our vets won’t follow these protocols, should we vote with our feet?

Some people are not going to be open to change, no matter what, so you might need to go to a different hospital. Or maybe it’s just one technician and you need to talk to the doctor.

If you tell them “I want you to handle my animal better,” they may not know what you want. But if you say, “Have you seen this book about proper handling techniques for veterinary practices?” They should be aware there is a credible source of pertinent, useful information. I’ve gotten feedback from trainers who are happy to have this resource for their vets.

How do you convince dog owners that it’s worth taking the time to follow some of the tips you offer?

Many people think that dogs are supposed to be afraid of the veterinarian; some people think that’s normal. And really, it’s not! Most veterinarians’ dogs are fine at the clinic, because their dogs visit often and at times other than for procedures. So I think, number one, the idea of the veterinary clinic being scary needs to change.

At home, we as pet owners can train our dogs to lie down on their sides, and to get in the different positions that the veterinary staff will require of them. We can teach them to enjoy taking pills, receiving shots, or having their nails trimmed. If you can show the veterinarian that you can do these things with your dog, he will be more likely to go along with what you say. Not every dog owner is going to be an ace at handling, but if he think that the handling is rough at the veterinary clinic he uses, and he at least knows that there are alternatives, he can inform the staff about those alternatives.

But it does come back to the veterinarians. They need to make their hospitals happier and more comfortable, with treats and toys, washable throw rugs, and a calm, not hectic, environment. Hospitals need to be an environment the animals experience as somewhat fun – especially for puppies! Pups haven’t had a chance for anything bad to happen yet, and they shouldn’t!

For more on Sophia Yin, DVM, MS, visit her website.

Lisa Rodier, a freelance writer, lives in Alpharetta, Georgia.

Should Your Dog Sleep on the Bed with You?

By

Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA

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February 16, 2010

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Contrary to the strongly held opinion of some training and behavior professionals, I’m generally pretty comfortable with allowing canine family members on their humans’ beds. In our family, two of our five dogs sleep with my husband and me. Scooter, a Pomeranian, routinely sleeps with us; Dubhy, our Scottish Terrier, graces us with the privilege of his presence on our bed only from time to time.

Trainers who adamantly oppose dogs on the bed mostly fall into the old-fashioned training camp, and often, they also buy into all the dominance stuff that’s been pretty much discredited by behavioral scientists. Chances are good I would differ with them on many dog training and philosophical issues, not just this one. The dog who wants to sleep on your bed isn’t trying to take over the world. He just wants to be close to his humans -and comfortable!

That said, there are times when I agree that allowing your dog on your bed may be inappropriate. Three of our dogs sleep elsewhere, for various reasons. Our Cardigan Corgi, Lucy, sleeps shut in her crate in our bedroom to forestall her predilection for midnight cat-chasing forays. Scorgidoodle Bonnie is also crated at night; she can’t seem to reliably hold her bladder until morning when given house freedom overnight. Her intense snuggling and licking behaviors can also be annoying in the wee hours of the morning. Missy, our 11-year-old Aussie, sleeps on a magnetic dog bed next to ours; she has weak hindquarters due to a formerly broken pelvis (acquired long before joining our family) and can’t jump on and off of the bed.

So how do you decide if bed privileges are the right choice for your canine pal? There are a number of things to take into consideration.

Letting Your Dog on the Bed is YOUR Choice!

All other issues notwithstanding, if you prefer that your dog not sleep on the bed with you, the case is closed. It’s your choice, pure and simple, and not one you should have to defend to anyone. There may be a rare exception, but I can’t think of any reason why a dog should have to sleep on your bed.

Of course, if he’s accustomed to sleeping on his human’s bed and you abruptly evict him, he’s likely to tell you how he feels about it in no uncertain terms. You may have to do some behavior modification to convince him that other bedtime arrangements are acceptable alternatives, but that’s doable. If you want your dogs off the bed, the only real issue might be a human bed partner who prefers them on. I’m a dog behavior professional; I’ll leave this human conflict for you to sort out with your marriage counselor!

Should Your Dog Be in the Bedroom At All?

Some humans restrict their dogs’ presence from the bedroom altogether, citing reasons such as allergies, and being disturbed by nighttime scratching, licking, and other typical canine behavior.

Some dogs are perfectly comfortable and confident when sleeping in other parts of the house; others benefit greatly from the six to eight hours of social proximity to their humans, even though there’s not much actual interaction going on. Sleeping in the same room is a nice, usually easy way for your dog to be with you, especially if you are gone at work eight or more hours a day. A white noise machine can cover up a lot of minor nighttime dog noises.

There are actually some behavior problems that can be resolved by bringing your dog into someone’s bedroom, whether yours or that of a responsible child. I heard from an owner recently whose 8-year-old dog, who had always slept downstairs, started barking in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. Efforts to determine the reason for the dog’s barking were fruitless.

I suggested that the owner have the dog sleep in her bedroom at night. The dog now sleeps quietly all night on a dog bed next to the owner’s. Problem solved—and the owner tells me it delights her to be able to look over the edge of her bed and see her beloved dog sleeping peacefully there. She can’t for the life of her remember why her canine pal had to sleep downstairs for eight years.

Non-Aggressive Bed Behaviors You Want to Prevent

There are many non-aggressive yet annoying, disruptive, dangerous, or otherwise inappropriate behaviors your uncrated and unsupervised dog can do at night. Lucy’s cat-chasing and Bonnie’s peeing are just two examples. Others include chewing on electrical cords and other potentially hazardous materials, destroying treasured possessions, romping on and off the bed, and getting into cupboards—behaviors that are disruptive and dangerous enough to demand nighttime confinement. For this reason, I recommend crating dogs who haven’t yet learned house manners (and especially young pups) at night.

Aggressive Bed Behaviors

This is the big one. What do you do when your dog offers aggressive behaviors on the bed? Does it mean instant eviction? Not necessarily.

This is where trainers who strongly believe that most unwanted dog behaviors are related to dominance (I’ve heard them dubbed “alpha-holics”) are likely to tell you that your dog is trying to take over the world. They will say that allowing the dog on the bed gives him status and a physical height advantage, reinforcing his sense of being in control. This may contain some grains of truth, but by no means can it explain what is always going on.

There is a legitimate classification of aggression now often referred to as “status-related aggression,” in which a dog behaves in an aggressive manner rather than deferring appropriately to his human. Bed-related aggression is sometimes one manifestation of this.

If a client of mine has a dog with aggressive bed behaviors, I may suggest revoking his bed privileges, but I may not. If I do, it has nothing to do with forcefully establishing a social hierarchy, and far more to do with managing an unwanted behavior to prevent it from being reinforced while we work, non-aggressively, to modify it.

Which tactic I take depends on the dog, the level of aggression, and what’s motivating it. If it’s a classic case of owner-guarding—wife is in the bed, dog growls at husband when he tries to get in bed—then yes, bed privileges need to be revoked. (The dog’s, not the husband’s!) If the spouse being guarded is reluctant to remove the potential threat to the spouse trying to enter the bed, it’s time for another trip to that marriage counselor! I take the same approach if the dog is guarding his or her territory; the dog needs to be evicted unless and until the behavior can be modified.

Keep in mind that removing the dog from the bed doesn’t modify the bed-guarding behavior; it only prevents the dog from having an opportunity to practice the behavior. Some owners are fine with management alone, while others are committed to modifying the behavior in the hopes of reinstating the dog’s bed privileges.

Modifying your dog’s aggressive behavior is not a bad idea; there’s a good chance that the dog who guards the bed may also guard the sofa and other prime pieces of household real estate. Help him become more comfortable with humans, and work to reduce or eliminate his perceived need to behave in an aggressive manner. This will help keep you and any other humans he comes in contact with safe, and increases the odds that he’ll stay in your home—and that your relationship with your significant other will last! (See Modifying Bed/Owner Guarding, below.)

Years ago, a client in Santa Cruz, California, asked me to come to her home to address a bed-guarding problem with her Yorkshire Terrier. Once there, I realized that bed-guarding was the tip of the problem-behavior iceberg. The Yorkie and the husband had a seriously adversarial relationship; simply banning the dog from the bed wasn’t going to resolve it. The little dog growled at the husband if the man approached him on the sofa, and even if he was sitting on the man’s lap. To make matters worse, the husband refused to understand or accept that he needed to change his behavior in order to help the dog change his. The man seemed to enjoy taunting the dog.

The icing on the cake, however, was that the wife obviously took satisfaction in the fact that the Yorkie wouldn’t let the husband in the bed. This was clearly one for the marriage counselor. The little dog was eventually rehomed to a more suitable environment.

If the bed-aggressive behavior is not about guarding or protecting humans or territory, the prognosis is not so bleak. What’s driving the behavior? Can the cause—the antecedent of the behavior—be managed without booting the dog off the bed?

Fixing a Dog’s Behavioral Problem While Maintaining Bed Privileges

When we adopted our Pomeranian bed-buddy, Scooter, he brought along a lot of behavioral baggage. He had failed his shelter assessment when he fiercely guarded a pig ear, so we knew about that one. We would quickly discover several more challenging behaviors.

We tried crating him the first night and he screamed his furry little head off, despite the fact that he had happily entered and stayed in his crate earlier for part of the day. House freedom was out of the question; we didn’t know him well enough yet, we didn’t trust our bigger dogs with him without supervision, and although at age seven he was a mature adult dog, he had already demonstrated his inability to hold his bladder more than a couple of hours. (The quarter-sized bladder stone our vet removed a month later explained this phenomenon.) So we put Scooter on the bed.

One of Scooter’s early behavior challenges was stress-licking. Our new pint-sized pooch woke me up in the middle of the night, constantly licking his front paws. Sleepily, I reached down to gently push his face away from his feet and BAM! In an instant he snarled ferociously and bit my hand three times in rapid succession.

There was no blood. In fact, I never even felt the pressure of his teeth on my skin. Despite his ferocious threat display, the little guy had admirable bite inhibition. He didn’t want to hurt me, he just wanted me not to push on him. So I obliged; I’m a fast learner! And yes, he stayed on the bed.

Over the months since we adopted him almost a year ago we’ve worked to get him more comfortable with being touched, nudged, and picked up, using counter-conditioning to give him a positive association with those interactions. And we use management. If we need to move him from one spot to another or interrupt his licking (which has greatly decreased as his stress has diminished), rather than push, we simply lift the covers to slide him to a new spot.

If you are experiencing bed-related aggression, take the time to analyze what’s going on. If it’s a non-guarding behavior that can be managed, you can manage and live with it, or manage and modify. If it’s guarding, or some other aggression trigger that’s not easily managed, then “off the bed” is a wise step, at least until the behavior can be modified.

How to Revoke Your Dog’s Bed Privileges

Of course, moving your dog from your bed to his crate can present its own challenges, especially if he isn’t already crate-trained or if he already has a negative association with crating (see “Dog Crating Difficulties,” May 2005). If your dog doesn’t already love his crate, you’ll need to transition your dog to nighttime crating gradually. Alternatively, you could put him in an exercise pen or use a baby gate to keep him in a safe area as an interim solution—or even a long-term sleeping arrangement if you prefer not to crate.

Get him accustomed to his soon-to-be new sleeping location as a daytime game, by using treats, stuffed Kongs, and other delectables to convince him that wonderful things happen in the designated area.

Meanwhile, add a blanket to your own bed for him to sleep on while awaiting the transition to his new quarters. When you’re ready to make the move, transfer his blanket to his new sleeping spot as well, so he has the familiar sleeping association in his bedroom.

When he’s happy to hop into his new quarters and stay in for an hour or more without a fuss during the day, start sending him there at bedtime. The first time you do, be sure he’s had a very full day with lots of exercise, so he’s ready for a good night’s sleep.

Our dogs seem content with their sleeping arrangements. Oh sure, the three dogs who sleep elsewhere would probably rather be on the bed with us! But even without their nighttime behavior challenges, three is company, four is a small crowd. If you count the two or three cats who occasionally join us on the bed, several more dogs on the bed are simply out of the question.

Modifying a Dog’s Bed- or Owner-Guarding

So you have a dog who guards the bed, or guards you on the bed. What next? You don’t necessarily have to prohibit him from ever getting on the bed (or other furniture), but you do need a way to peacefully remove him from furniture when you need him to get off. And ultimately you’d like him to peacefully accept people approaching the bed.

Note: Canine aggression is not something to play with. If the level of your dog’s growling or other bed-related aggression is intense; if you are trying to work with it and not making progress; or if someone is getting bitten, please seek the assistance of a qualified positive behavior professional. If you’re afraid of your dog’s behavior, don’t attempt any of the following without professional assistance.

• Teach “Off”

To start, you can teach an operant cue to ask the dog to happily hop off the bed when asked. This is pretty simple. Say “Up!” to invite him on the bed. Lure him up if necessary. When he’s up, click and treat. Then say “Off!” and toss a tasty treat on the floor. When he jumps off to get it, click; he’ll get the treat off the floor himself, thank you very much. After several repetitions of this, start fading the lure, by giving the “Up” or “Off” cue and then waiting a few seconds to see if he does the requested behavior.

If he doesn’t, motion suggestively but don’t toss the treat on the floor or lure him on the bed. When he responds, click and treat. Gradually reduce the suggestive movement until he’s doing the “Up” and “Off” behavior on verbal cue only. Then you can start alternating other forms of reinforcement. If you click you must feed the treat, but occasionally you can skip the click and treat, just praising instead, or giving him a scratch behind the ear, or inviting him outside for a game of fetch.

• Institute a “Say Please” program

“Say please” simply means teaching your dog to “ask” for all the good things by sitting first. “Sit” is a deference behavior, and when your dog learns to sit for the first time, he learns to be more deferent. “Want a cookie?” Sit first. “Want to go outside?” Sit first. “Want your dinner bowl?” Sit first. “Want me to throw the ball?” Sit first. You get the idea.

If status is part of what’s motivating your dog’s aggression when he’s on your bed, convincing him to be voluntarily more deferent to you by sitting for good stuff can help modify his bed behavior. Of course, that alone won’t likely fix it; you’ll still need to do some modification work.

Read, “Is Your Dog Spoiled?” for further details.

• Apply a counter-conditioning protocol

Your dog growls at someone approaching the bed because something about that approach is stressful for him. If you can change his association with and his emotional response to the person approaching, he will change his behavior.

If he’s growling at you when he’s on the bed, arm yourself with a pouch full of very tasty treats. Canned chicken, rinsed and drained, is my preferred treat for counter-conditioning. With your dog on the bed, walk casually past and toss a few bits of chicken to him on the bed. You’re not asking him to get off in this exercise.

If he growls at you anyway, walk past at a greater distance, and toss chicken. Do not make eye contact with him. Continue to walk back and forth past the bed, tossing chicken each time you pass, until your dog is happily anticipating your pass-bys because he knows chicken is coming. Then gradually decrease the distance between you and the bed.

Assuming he’s still making happy faces as you pass, start making your approaches more direct, until you can walk right up to him and get a happy “Where’s my chicken?” response. You have eliminated his negative stress association to your approach, and replaced his aggression with eager anticipation, as he has come to realize that your approach makes chicken appear.

If he’s growling at someone else approaching you in the bed, again, arm yourself with chicken. Ask your partner to stand at a distance where the dog sees him but isn’t growling. That may mean totally out of the bedroom! Have your partner take one step toward you, and immediately start feeding chicken to your dog; don’t wait for a growl.

After tossing several bits of chicken, have your partner step back, and simultaneously stop feeding the chicken to your dog. Repeat this process until your dog looks happy -and looks to you for chicken -every time your partner takes one step forward. Then, with your partner at the same starting spot, have him take two steps forward. Repeat until your partner can approach the bed without any sign of tension from your dog. Then have your partner do the walk-by chicken-tossing procedure described above.

• Consider using operant conditioning

Another option is to use operant conditioning to teach your dog a new behavior when someone approaches the bed; the goal of changing his emotional response will follow his behavior change. This procedure has been dubbed “Constructional Aggression Treatment,” or CAT (see “Modifying Aggressive Dog Behavior,” May 2008, and “Constructional Aggression Treatment,” December 2009). If you decide you want to try this approach, I urge you to work with someone who is skilled at reading dog body language and understands the CAT procedure; its success depends on the observer’s ability to identify very small changes in your dog’s body language.

In this process, you move toward your dog on the bed. As soon as you see any small sign of tension in your dog, stop and just stand still. Wait there until you see any small sign of relaxation, then move away. As you repeat the procedure, your dog learns that being relaxed makes you go away, so he becomes more and more relaxed. As his behavior changes and he becomes deliberately relaxed, the change in his emotional response follows.

It can work, but it can be a little tricky to see the changes in your dog’s body language. You definitely need an accomplished helper for this one.

Meanwhile, what do you do when your dog, ensconced on your bed, growls at you or your bed partner? Calmly stop, stand still, wait until he relaxes a little, and then stop doing whatever it was that elicited the growl. If you were touching him, stop touching him, and make a mental note to start counter-conditioning him to love being touched. If you were approaching the bed, invite him off with his “Off!” cue to defuse the current situation, and then start putting together a management and behavior modification plan.

There’s absolutely nothing to be gained by aggressing back at your dog with verbal or physical punishment when he growls at you. That’s so important I’ll say it again: Do not punish your dog for growling. Punishment is likely to make his behavior worse, because your aggression will add to his stress. It’s your job, as the one with the bigger brain, to figure out how to remove the stress from the situation for him. (See “Understand Why Your Dog Growls,” WDJ October 2005.)

DOGS IN MY BED?: OVERVIEW

1. Decide whether sleeping on the bed is appropriate for your dog and your domestic situation.

2. If not, help your dog learn to love his alternate sleeping arrangements.

3. If you want your dog on the bed but he has “issues,” take appropriate management and modification steps to help him become a good bed buddy (described below).

4. Refrain from “fighting fire with fire.” If your dog growls at you for trying to remove him from the bed, calmly defuse the situation without verbal or physical punishment.

Night, night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed dogs bite.

Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, is WDJ’s Training Editor. Miller lives in Fairplay, Maryland, site of her Peaceable Paws training center. Pat is also author of The Power of Positive Dog Training; Positive Perspectives: Love Your Dog, Train Your Dog; Positive Perspectives II: Know Your Dog, Train Your Dog; and Play with Your Dog.

Dog Hospice Care Options

By

Lisa Rodier

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February 16, 2010

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[Updated March 26, 2018]

HOSPICE FOR DOGS: OVERVIEW

1. Educate yourself about your dog’s condition to facilitate more productive conversations with your veterinarian.

2. Ask your veterinarian if he is comfortable helping guide you through hospice care or if he can refer you to other options and resources in your area.

3. Focus on your dog’s quality of life; continue to engage him in daily life while keeping him comfortable and pain-free.

4. Take care of yourself! Talk with dog friends, read books, utilize Internet resources, and seek out a pet support counselor or group to help you cope with transitions.

When we first adopt that pudgy puppy, or spring that delinquent adolescent canine out of a shelter, our new dog’s senior years and final days are far from our thoughts. But if we’re lucky enough to enjoy a long life together, eventually, we’ll spend a number of months or years caring for him as a senior dog – and sometimes, a challenging and emotionally difficult time seeing him through to a peaceful death.

Fortunately, there are many resources available to help us support our beloved canine companions – even those who have been diagnosed with chronic or terminal illness – in maintaining the best possible quality of life before they die.

Hospice care, or “pawspice,” the term coined by Alice Villalobos, DVM, former President of the American Association of Human Animal Bond Veterinarians (AAHABV) and founding member of the Veterinary Cancer Society, is supportive assistance in evaluating and managing our pets’ quality of life as they near the end of their days, a time period that can span from days to months.

“In-home ‘pawspice’ care is a wonderful next step,” says Dr. Villalobos, who has a practice in Hermosa Beach, California. “It should be introduced as an interval between the thought and the final act of euthanasia, if the owner really feels that their pet still has a quality of life.”

Another veterinarian, Nancy Kay, DVM, DACVIM, of Rohnert Park, California, and author of Speaking for Spot: Be the Advocate Your Dog Needs to Live a Happy, Healthy, Longer Life, commonly recommends hospice when clients simply want a bit more time for closure with their terminally or chronically ill pet. “They recognize the disease is not treatable (or they have chosen not to treat), but their dog or cat continues to have enough of a ‘sparkle in their eyes’ suggesting that it is not quite time to proceed with euthanasia.” Occasionally Dr. Kay has a client who, for moral, philosophical, or religious reasons, is opposed to euthanasia. She offers hospice as an option, but qualifies this decision.

“If I am concerned that a patient is suffering and we don’t have the means to either make the animal well or euthanize, I make sure that a medical professional is keeping close tabs on the patient and appropriate medications and supportive care are being administered to keep the patient as comfortable as possible. Once someone opts for hospice care at home, I try to connect them with a house call practitioner – someone who can then keep tabs on how the patient is within their home environment and administer appropriate medications.”

Pet hospice programs range from those in which clients are given guidance by veterinarians for managing their pets at home, to more formal programs such as that offered by Colorado State University’s Argus Institute, which goes so far as to offer in-home hospice care by trained veterinary staff and volunteers. For purposes of this article, we use the term “hospice” to describe veterinary end of life care for our pets who are chronically or terminally ill, and whose passing comes either unassisted or via euthanasia. The terms “natural” and “unassisted” death are used in the context of an animal dying on its own time, while under care.

Hospice for Dogs

As Cathy and Jim Maher of Dahlonega, Georgia, were dealing with the challenges of kidney and heart disease in their 14½-year-old Lhasa Apso-mix, Dakota, he began to develop additional medical issues. He was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Three months after that, Dakota suffered a scary bout of acute pancreatitis, and three months after that, he developed pulmonary hypertension, requiring additional medications to help his heart work more efficiently and open vessels and airways in his lungs. In addition to a number of conventional medications and regular appointments with his veterinarian, Susan Wynn, DVM, CVA, CVCH, RH, of Georgia Veterinary Specialists in Atlanta, Dakota received an assortment of complementary treatments, including frequent acupuncture, monthly chiropractic adjustments, and massage and acupressure at home.

A year and a half after Dakota’s initial diagnosis, Cathy recognized that the little dog had entered a new phase of failing health. With a heavy heart, she and Jim made the mental adjustment from trying to “cure” Dakota to providing hospice care. Their team of veterinarians continued to work on providing the right combination of treatments to ensure Dakota’s quality of life.

Most important to the Mahers was that Dakota, a retired long-time therapy dog, was comfortable. They also focused, more than ever before, on cherishing and documenting the memories, particularly the good ones, that they had with him. Under the guidance of their veterinary team, they administered medications, supplements, and fluids at home, sometimes prioritizing them when it became difficult to administer all of the recommended medications.

“We took walks every evening, just not as far as we used to,” says Cathy. “When he was tired, we carried him. When he had to urinate more frequently because he was receiving fluids subcutaneously twice daily (which we administered at home), we outfitted him with diapers so that he could be more confident and comfortable. But the most important part was taking time to just sit in the sun together, take naps – I spent a lot of time sleeping on the floor with him! – and just enjoying each moment. I took time off when I needed to be at home. It also meant preserving memories and having family photos made with him.”

If you’ve just been handed a big dose of reality and learned that your senior dog has a chronic or terminal illness and perhaps six months or less to live, you might ask now what? According to Dr. Wynn, founder of the newly formed dog hospice program at Georgia Veterinary Specialists, the journey begins with first having the best possible understanding of your pet’s condition.

Do as much research as you can about your dog’s condition, gathering information from the best sources you can. Some of Dr. Wynn’s favorite resources include VeterinaryPartner.com, particularly for their great drug monographs; American Animal Hospital Association’s (AAHA) pet care articles, FAQs, and practice guidelines; and Morris Animal Foundation’s Resources for Pet Owners with Cancer Patients.

“Once you comprehend your pet’s illness and the goals of his treatment plan, you will be able to have a better conversation with your veterinarian,” says Dr. Wynn. “In hospice, patients generally have chronic or terminal conditions, but the goal is to manage the disease as well as possible to increase quality of life. The primary objective of palliative care is relief from pain or discomfort and emotional support for the owner.”

Utilizing the team approach common to human hospice care, emotional support is more typically available from outside sources – ideally recommended by the veterinarian, rather than being provided directly by the veterinarian. Inspired by a presentation given by Dr. Villalobos, Dr. Wynn shares with her own clients information gleaned from Villalobos’ work and provides us the following as critical issues that need to be addressed when our senior dogs reach the hospice stage of their lives:

Jim Maher

Critical Factors of End of Life Care for Dogs in Hospice:

1. Recognizing When Our Dog is in Pain

We, as pet owners and even veterinarians, are terrible at recognizing pain in our dogs, yet pain management is critical to quality of life. “Pain can be very detrimental to a pet,” says James Gaynor, DVM, MS, and author of Handbook of Veterinary Pain Management. “Physiologically, pain can be so detrimental that it can decrease healing and can actually cause problems with other organ systems.” But, he points out, it’s natural for dogs to hide pain. He cites research performed by investigators at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine in which dogs were videoed for 24 hours continuously after routine spay surgery. Throughout the monitoring period, researchers would enter the kennel and interact with the dogs. During the time of interaction, the dogs would hide their pain, greeting the researchers at the cage door and wagging their tails. When the researchers left the dogs alone, they were restless and showed signs of discomfort.

Although a physical exam and radiographs can help a veterinarian detect pain (or potentially painful conditions), owners would be wise to look for subtle changes in their dogs – often the most significant indicator of a problem, and one that needs to be communicated to the dog’s veterinarian. If your dog is lethargic, reluctant to rise or walk, grumpy, or displays other behavioral changes, you should suspect that he’s in pain.

Dr. Kay adds, “I am the first to admit that reading pain can be extremely difficult in dogs and cats. Scientifically speaking, blood pressure measurements seem to be the most reliable indicator of pain status (blood pressure increases when pain is present). Needless to say, continuous blood pressure monitoring isn’t feasible outside of the hospital environment. Animals are so variable in terms of how they outwardly manifest pain. Many people expect to hear whimpering or whining. My sense is that only the minority of dogs and cats vocalize when in pain. Inappetence and reclusive behavior are likely more reliable outward indicators.”

At home, the most objective measure we can use is the dog’s pulse and respiration, and before a crisis strikes is a good time to get a baseline, says Dr. Wynn. An increase in either pulse or respiration can be an indicator of pain.

What’s normal? For small dogs and medium dogs, 70 to 100 beats per minute (bpm), and 60 to 90 bpm for large/giant dogs. Your dog’s pulse should be easily palpated, strong, and regular, and a relaxed dog might have a slower pulse. Normal respiration for dogs is 10 to 30 breaths per minute. Ask your veterinarian to show you how to read both on your dog.

2. Managing a Dog’s Pain

Dr. Wynn reports that, “In practice, veterinarians now tend to give the animal the benefit of the doubt, and administer analgesics if there is any possibility of pain. An improvement in behavior or activity proves the principle.”

Pain can be managed with both conventional and complementary methods. Anti-inflammatory drugs (Rimadyl, Deramaxx, Metacam, Previcoxx, Etogesic) and analgesic drugs (tramadol, buprenorphine, and others) most likely will be necessary to keep the hospice patient comfortable. Anti-inflammatory and analgesic herbs can be used in concert with prescription pain medications, as can acupuncture, which has been shown to release serotonin.

Dr. Wynn also recommends massage, saying, “We should all be thinking about using massage a lot more; it is known to help relieve pain and depression. In humans, it is one of the most proven effective alternative therapies in cancer patients to relieve pain, nausea, and especially fatigue.” Find a massage therapist who is trained and certified (Certified Massage Therapist or CMT) in massage for dogs.

3. Keeping the Dog Hydrated

In human medicine, dehydration is suspected to increase sensitivity to pain. Dehydration can cause discomfort in the canine hospice patient, too; he might feel sluggish, lose his appetite, and experience constipation. Humans can suffer from headaches when dehydrated, and some vets speculate that this is possible in dogs, as well. When an individual is close to death, however, one must observe the dog closely to determine whether fluid administration seems to brighten the dog’s demeanor or make him feel worse; for example, fluid administration in dogs with certain conditions can cause edema, which can induce breathing difficulties.

A well-hydrated dog’s skin should snap back immediately; if it takes two or three seconds, typically you’re seeing dehydration. Note that older dogs typically have some loss of skin elasticity, so this test can be variable depending on the dog. You might also find that your dog has dryer, tackier mucous membranes, to the point that when you open your dog’s mouth, the saliva will be sticky; normally, the mouth and gums should be wet.

You can hydrate your dog orally and subcutaneously, but trying to use a syringe to do so is typically a tough job: An average dog requires approximately 60 milliliters (2 ounces) of water per kilogram of body weight per day just to maintain normal function. In a dog experiencing increased water loss due to frequent urination, vomiting, or diarrhea, you’ve got an even bigger job. It’s important for you to learn, from your dog’s veterinarian, the maintenance amount that you need to administer to keep your dog hydrated. Subcutaneous fluid administration is easy to do; your veterinarian can teach you how to give fluids at home.

4. Happiness/Responsiveness to the Dog’s Environment

What gives your pet joy? Happiness and responsiveness to his environment are both big parts of quality of life. Dogs can get “down,” especially in periods of change. If our dogs can’t do many of the things they used to enjoy, why wouldn’t they become depressed?

At a minimum, Dr. Wynn says, we know that dogs experience boredom. “Dogs are intelligent animals. It’s important to think of ways to get them engaged in their environment. For example, obedience dogs and other dogs who have had ‘jobs,’ are used to thinking through problems and being rewarded; it’s important to get creative and think of other problems for them to solve. Like putting kibble under a cup, and letting them find the right cup.” For the dog who has been accustomed to grooming, bring out the brushes. If your dog has always enjoyed going for rides in the car, that’s a great way to get her out, and to help her to engage with her environment.

Lisa Rodier

“We know for sure that anxiety occurs in dogs,” Dr. Wynn adds. “If your dog is confined to an area like a crate or a bed, move the bed closer to where the family spends time. Dogs are smart, and they certainly know if their environment has changed, or worse, if the attitude of their caregivers has changed. Your dog has been losing senses of sight, hearing, smell, and now you’re away from them? You need to be proactive about preventing that.”

5. Your Dog’s Mobility

Keeping your hospice patient mobile increases her circulation. It’s also critical to minimizing anxiety and problems with hygiene by helping the dog to maintain her normal elimination habits. Getting your dog up also keeps her engaged in her environment and reduces the incidence of pressure sores.

It’s our job to keep our pets moving, particularly if they can’t do so on their own. Early on, in the stages when the dog can still walk, ramps are useful for maintaining a level of independence, and body harnesses allow for a little extra assistance when needed. In later stages when the dog has more trouble getting around, consider rear end slings, whole body slings, and properly fitted carts.

6. Dog’s Hygiene and Grooming

Maintaining your dog’s grooming routine and keeping her clean is critical to her well being. If the dog is incontinent, she can easily get urine and feces on her skin, making her more prone to infection, so use diapers and special beds to manage that issue. Keep the dog comfortable by keeping her hair groomed, clipped, and free of mats.

Don’t neglect her eyes, nose, and mouth; wipe with a damp cloth, squirt water in her mouth, and even brush her teeth. Dr. Villalobos favors the comforting “mother tongue technique,” in which the dog is wiped with a warm damp cloth, using long strokes to mimic the grooming of a mother dog.

7. Nutrition of Dog in Hospice

For many pet owners, this is a very emotional topic; we tend to get upset when our dogs won’t eat! Dr. Wynn explains, “Our main goal is to identify treatable reasons that the pet is not eating, such as pain or nausea. While nutrition is a concern for hospice patients, we must realize sick animals may no longer feel hunger, and since the body is unable to store nutrients for future use anyway, force feeding would lead to deterioration in quality of life.”

This explains why a feeding tube is often not recommended; the primary purpose to use one is to more easily administer medication. “We don’t want them to starve,” she says, “but we don’t want to force food on them. What we can do is tempt them. Warm their food so they can smell it better – aging pets have diminished senses of smell and taste – and present small amounts of novel and smelly foods, such as baby food, cheddar cheese soup, pizza, Alfredo pasta, fast food hamburgers, bacon, braunschweiger, or add a drop of smoked flavoring to other foods.”

Appetite stimulants such as mirtazapine and prednisone can be used, although Dr. Wynn particularly likes to utilize acupuncture because it is an anti-depressant, good for pain, releases serotonin, and can quell nausea. It’s also recommended that you identify the daily caloric goal for your dog (about 100-130 kcal/pound of bodyweight per day), and compare it to the amount the dog consumes to better regulate food intake and know whether your dog is taking in enough calories.

Your Dog’s Quality of Life During Hospice Care

Ask anyone, “What is quality of life?” and you’re certain to engage in a lively philosophical discussion. While researching this article, I came upon a definition that made lots of sense to me, particularly because it was discussed in the context of hospice care for pets. (The book is Geriatrics and Gerontology of the Dog and Cat, a veterinary textbook; the quote was from “Owner Services and Hospice Care,” a chapter written by veterinarians Guy Hancock, Franklin D. McMillan, and Tina R. Ellenbogen.) Quality of life, the authors contend, is driven by feelings. “Feelings appear to play such a central role in quality of life that feeling states can be regarded as the single common denominator for all factors that influence quality of life . . . . Any factor that does not have an influence on feelings is not a factor in quality of life.”

Feelings contribute pleasantness or unpleasantness on a continual basis and can be of emotional or physical origin. Physically unpleasant feelings include weakness, nausea, pain, pruritus, hypoxia, thirst, hunger, constipation, and temperature extremes, while physically pleasant feelings come from physical contact and gustatory (taste) pleasures. Emotionally unpleasant feelings include fear, anxiety, boredom, frustration, loneliness, separation distress, depression, hopelessness, and helplessness; emotionally pleasant feelings are evoked by social companionship, play, and mental stimulation.

The authors use removal of a lipoma, a toe amputation, or loss of hearing in one ear as examples of factors that are unlikely to affect the dog’s feelings and therefore his quality of life. In contrast, factors that would induce negative feelings include osteoarthritis, glaucoma, and social deprivation.

“A pet does not need to be in pain in order to be suffering,” comments Dr. Kay. “I suggest that an owner thinks about how she feels when she has a bad case of the flu; she may not be in pain, but she may certainly suffer!”

Quality of life is a balance between pleasant and unpleasant feelings, and one way to think of quality of life is via a scale with pleasant feelings on one side and unpleasant on the other; the goal for our pets is to achieve a balance. But if even a single unpleasant feeling is strong enough, it can tip the scale and alone make quality of life very low.

Various quality of life scales are becoming increasingly utilized in veterinary hospice care. As you begin the journey with your pet, ask your vet whether she has a quality of life scale that the two of you can utilize to more objectively assess changes in your dog’s condition.

Dr. Villalobos utilizes a scale called “HHHHHMM” (Hurt, Hunger, Hydration, Hygiene, Happiness, Mobility, More Good Days than Bad Days). Patients are scored in each category on a scale of 0-10, with 10 being best. In general, a total score of 35 or higher is indicative of a continuing “good” hospice experience but use your dog’s veterinarian as a sounding board. It’s important to have an ongoing dialog with your her about what you’re seeing, so don’t try to go it alone.

Lisa Rodier

Knowing When It’s Time

In some cases, owners use hospice care for their pets in the same way that it’s used in human medicine: to maintain the patient until her natural death. Others use hospice until they feel that allowing the animal to continue to die at his own pace is cruel, and they have the patient humanely euthanized.

According to Dr. Wynn, “End of life changes signal that it’s time to consider whether we will choose euthanasia or for our pet to die at home. Changes can include starvation due to prolonged anorexia, changes in behavior, decreased urine production, changes in breathing, temperature changes, loss of bowel or bladder control, lung congestion, restlessness, confusion, and decreased responsiveness.” When the signs indicate that our pet is in a transition stage, she recommends that we shift our focus from quality of life, to quality of death. We need to ask ourselves the following difficult, but necessary, questions:

– What would a quality death be like?

– How would I prefer to say goodbye: during an episode of suffering or a calm doze?

– When I look back, what would be important to me about how my pet’s death was handled?

– What is the worst thing that could happen regarding my pet’s death?

Most of us yearn for a peaceful death for our pets, typically one that involves them passing away in their sleep. Unfortunately, this is not very common.

Dr. Kay says, “Certainly most of my colleagues would guess that more than 90 percent of pet caregivers will need to make the decision to euthanize their pets. When someone tells me their pet passed away on its own, I let them know how incredibly lucky they are. Hospice care, in my experience, does not always translate into death by natural causes. Most of the time it is implemented to maintain comfort until it is clear to the decision makers that euthanasia is indicated. In my mind, end-of-life care is all inclusive. Hospice until death occurs naturally is just one version of end-of-life care, as is hospice until the family opts for euthanasia.”

Dr. Wynn gently reminds us that dying is part of the experience of owning a senior pet. She suggests we consider the following: Will euthanasia be easier later than now? Is the proportion of good days to bad days “right”? Will there ever be another day or hour of good quality life that is better than right now? What regrets would you have if euthanasia occurs too soon or too late? What is the bottom line for you: invasiveness or cost?

Holistic veterinarian Ella Bittel, DVM, of Los Alamos, California, supports pet owners who wish to allow their pets to die on their own time (while under care), reserving euthanasia for when the animal’s pain or comfort level cannot be managed by the “best care that we can provide.” Pet caregivers who strive for this type of death for their animals, she says, optimally would follow the hospice model of care (palliative and comfort care sufficient to keep the dying and their family comfortable) and ideally have 24/7 access to a veterinary professional should a crisis arise.

Dr. Bittel qualifies this by saying that we need to be aware that there can be situations when euthanasia is warranted, despite our wishes, given the animal’s condition. She believes that many veterinarians lack education about hospice, and as a result, sometimes advise their clients to choose euthanasia too quickly.

“Because hospice care is not yet a part of the curriculum in veterinary schools, many veterinarians lack information about what true hospice care entails, are uncomfortable supporting owners seeking hospice for their animal, and often think that the dying process as it unfolds without euthanasia equals unbearable suffering,” she says. Dr. Bittel also takes issue with the use of the term “hospice” when describing end-of-life care services for our pets that culminate in death via euthanasia close to 100 percent of the time, maintaining that the term hospice comes from the human hospice model that supports individuals in dying peacefully in their own time.

Whose Decision Is It?

While it would be so much easier to allow someone else to make the heart-wrenching decision to euthanize our pets, it’s almost always in our best interest to decide ourselves. While Dr. Kay will guide a client through the decision-making process, she says it must be the client who makes the final call. “If I believe a situation is hopeless, I will tell her. I make sure she is staying ‘real’ rather than floating on the river in Egypt (denial). But I always want the decision to be the client’s, not mine. The very best way to ensure the client’s long-term peace of mind is when she has made the end-of-life decision for her pet.”

Dr. Kay hosts a support group for grieving owners at her practice, and observes, “Those who end up stuck in various stages of guilt (some have been in the support group I facilitate for more than a year) tend to be people who feel that the decision-making was taken out of their hands – a relative made the decision or an intimidating veterinarian said, ‘You should…’ I coach people who are reluctant to euthanize by acknowledging their desire to avoid making the decision too soon. I then let them know how some people experience long-term suffering when they recognize they’ve waited too long.”

I asked Cathy Maher, who was extremely bonded to Dakota, how she knew that it was time to say good-bye to him. With tears in her eyes she recalls, “Dakota refused all food beginning on a Thursday in June 2009. His last meal was homemade pizza (approved by Dr. Wynn) the night before. I came home during lunch on that Thursday, and he was walking around, but still refused food. That evening, he continued to refuse food and spent a majority of time lying in his bed or in my arms. He had difficulty drinking from his water bowl, so I gave him water through a syringe. We made an appointment to see his internist, Todd Green, DVM, the next morning so that he could assess Dakota.

“When we saw Dr. Green, we asked that he administer pain management medication, and we took Dakota home. It was our intention to allow Dakota to pass peacefully at home in his bed, and we planned for euthanasia as a back-up if Dakota was in pain and distress.

“However, within an hour, Dakota began to whimper and cry. I knew in my heart that he was actively dying and in distress, and continuing to support a natural death was no longer an option to us. We lived within 10 minutes of the veterinary hospital, so we called to let them know we were returning. On the way, Dakota’s eyes became glassy and distant and his cries and screams intensified. Dr. Green met us on the back porch of the clinic and Dakota was euthanized under a tree in the nature preserve.”

Although it’s still difficult today (think waterworks!) for Cathy and me to discuss this, she is confident that Dakota’s hospice journey, despite it being overwhelming at times, was a good one, and the right decision for their family. She is also quick to point out that the role of your dog’s veterinarian in the success of your plan cannot be underestimated. Dakota’s veterinarians, particularly Dr. Wynn, were an integral part of helping them to help Dakota enjoy the rest of his life.

“Dr. Wynn’s will to help him be comfortable and his will to live were amazing,” says Cathy. Dakota Maher passed away on June 12, 2009. Because of the Mahers’ journey with Dakota, Cathy was inspired to create “Pawprints,” a pet caregiver support network, whose mission will be to honor the human-animal bond by providing compassionate support, resources, information, and educational opportunities to individuals and families caring for their aging, chronically or terminally ill companion animals.

“Anticipatory Grief” During End of Life Care for Dogs

A term that I encountered while researching this altogether was “anticipatory grief.” For an explanation of the term, particularly in relationship to pets, I queried Sandra B. Barker, Ph.D., NCC, LPC, who is a professor of psychiatry and director for the Center for Human-Animal Interaction at the VCU – Medical Campus, and also founded the pet support hotline at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. She describes anticipatory grief as a normal process for individuals facing the death of a person or pet.

“Anticipatory grief occurs when pet owners begin grieving for a pet who is still living, but often terminally ill or declining in health such as occurs with older pets. Owners may experience sadness, loneliness, and other symptoms of grief as they think about life without their pet.

“In my experience working with pet owners, anticipatory grief has been helpful for pet owners, in that it begins to prepare them for the death of their pets and often helps them accept the loss with less difficulty after the actual death. Some owners will consider what they want to do for their pet now, knowng that they won’t be around for much longer. It might be a last trip to the beach, special treats, or a celebration of the pet with those who loved the pet. Owners may also begin to consider how they want to treat their pet’s remains after death, how they want to commemorate their pets, or whether to obtain another pet. These types of anticipatory expressions are generally helpful for the owner.”

Drs. Barker and Kay both recommend that joining a pet support group prior to your pet’s death can be helpful. Dr. Kay facilitates a group at her clinic that is open to the community and is comprised equally with individuals who have lost a pet and those with pets who are terminally ill.

Lisa Rodier lives in Alpharetta, Georgia, with her husband and two Bouviers, and volunteers with the American Bouvier Rescue League.

Take a Class

Editorial

By

Nancy Kerns

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January 14, 2010

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Last March, I attended Expo West in Anaheim, California, an enormous “natural products” trade show with a good representation of natural pet product makers. In July, I took a trip to Indiana and Ohio, where I toured a dry pet food manufacturing plant, a poultry processing plant, a high-volume daycare and boarding facility (that also houses foster dogs for a rescue group), and the main research facility for one of the country’s largest pet food makers. In October, I attended the annual conference of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT).

These trips expand my store of knowledge about responsible dog care -in ways that, I hope, enable me to bring you more and better information about products, food, and training methods to benefit your dogs.

They also produce a consistent side-effect: they make me really excited about going home and doing further investigation about what I learned. I find myself spending days reviewing materials that I picked up on my trips, and performing behavior modification experiments on my dog. Each time, my batteries got recharged; I found a new interest and enjoyment in my dog -and my job! Anyway, I can’t recommend extended learning enough. Especially because there are so many inspiring and fascinating educational opportunities available! Need examples? How about these:

• The “Well Adjusted Dog Workshop: Secrets to Understanding Canine Behavior,” presented by Dr. Nicholas Dodman, founder and director of the animal behavior clinic at Tufts University. Dr. Dodman will present this two-day workshop for owners, trainers, vets, and vet techs in March (California), April (Illinois), and June (New Jersey). Topics will include canine anxiety, phobias, compulsive behaviors, aggression, and more. For more information, see thepetdocs.com.

• Safer Vaccination and Pet Health Care, featuring world-renowned vaccination experts Drs. Jean Dodds and Ronald Schultz and benefitting the Rabies Challenge Fund, March 28, San Diego, California. See petseminar.org or call (858) 755-8820 for more info.

• Holistic Veterinary Medicine Symposium presented by the University of California at Davis Holistic Veterinary Medicine Club, May 22, Davis, California. Send an e-mail to ucdhvmc@gmail.com for details.

• Introduction to Small Animal Acupressure by Amy Snow and Kim Bauer, April 25-27, Pittstown, New Jersey. Call the Tallgrass Animal Acupressure Institute at (303) 681-3033 or see tallgrasspublishers.com for more information.

Foster dog update
I found a perfect home for the little Beagle-mix I fostered for a few weeks in December. She is a bright, fast, and super-sweet dog, and finding her a home should have been a snap, but, due to separation anxiety, she also displays some fairly vexing behavior when left alone. Then I found a family with four boys (ages 5 through 13); Dad has wanted a dog his whole life, and Mom is a full-time, stay-at-home mom. This family was tailor-made for a snuggly but energetic dog with separation anxiety!

Delivering her, freshly bathed and in a new collar, to their home at 6:30 on Christmas morning totally made my day, week, month, and year. And hearing their reports about her integration into the family has given me a warm glow going into these cold winter months. The mom told me, “The boys argue about who she loves best, which is funny because she really does seem to love them all!”

Whole Dog Journal’s 2010 Dry Dog Food Review

By

Nancy Kerns

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January 14, 2010

0

By every measure, the “natural and holistic” segment of the U.S. pet food market has enjoyed spectacular growth over the past decade – far greater than that of the pet food market as a whole. As one example, figures supplied to Petfood Industry magazine by industry analyst Packaged Facts show that the U.S. pet food market as a whole grew at a rate of 5.3 percent from 2003 to 2007, but the “natural foods” segment of that market grew 24.6 percent in the same span. And the “organic” segment experienced an astounding 48.1 percent growth rate.

A rising tide lifts all boats. And the success of the “natural and holistic” niche has been lifting the quality of offerings from the pet food industry as a whole. What pet food company owner or wouldn’t look at those numbers and immediately ask his employees to run out and concoct a product to compete in the “natural foods” niche?

The answer is, apparently, none, because just about every pet food maker has rolled out products claiming to be natural and/or holistic, containing organic and/or “wild” ingredients. That should be a good thing, right? Well, yes. And no!

It’s good because there are more and more better-quality foods available to dog owners. Today, the medium-quality foods have gotten better, and what we would consider true “premium” foods are much more widely available than they used to. They now appear regularly in most independent pet supply stores (historically the leaders in finding and promoting the healthiest products) but also in chain retail stores. In 1998, the year Whole Dog Journal was launched, the “big box” pet supply stores had little to offer owners who were looking for the very best-quality dog foods; today, they carry a wide variety of good foods. A few premium foods even appear in higher-end supermarkets!

On the other hand, so do what I’d call “posers” – the catch-up products churned out by the pet food industry giants in an effort to grab some of that “natural and holistic” market share. These products beg the question: Can corporate titans produce foods of the same quality as the little “boutique” companies that were founded on the concept of producing only the very best, healthiest dog foods?

I’d like to quickly dismiss the idea that any of the giants – Iams and Eukanuba, Purina, Science Diet, et. al. – could possibly make dry dog foods that are as good as the foods that have a regular presence on Whole Dog Journal’s “approved foods” list. The fact is, though, of course they could; they have all the resources needed to do so. They could bury most of the competition in the “natural and holistic” niche . . . if they followed through and used only the same high-quality ingredients typically used by the smaller, boutique brands. But they generally stop short – perhaps because they are unaccustomed to paying a lot for their raw materials, or marketing the products at a correspondingly high sales price?

Advantages and disadvantages of scale
The sheer size of a company doesn’t disqualify it from making truly premium foods (although we’ve been accused, falsely, we think, of promoting that idea). The corporate giants have some amazing advantages over the boutique food producers; they really shine at some aspects of food production – not incidentally, the very tasks that the smaller companies don’t always do very well.

As an important example, economies of scale enable the giants to conduct more frequent and more thorough quality and safety tests, to produce larger batches with greater consistency (fewer production glitches), retain better-paid and more highly trained employees – in short, to do a better job of producing safe, consistent products.

The giants also employ legions of brilliant food scientists, who are able to conduct incredible research into animal nutrition and health. Their products are better-researched and more thoroughly tested than their small competitors’ products – some of which were dreamed up by people with very little education or experience in animal nutrition.

But for all that, what the giants can’t seem to do – yet – is to formulate foods using the high-quality ingredients that the “little guys” are using. Many of the companies whose products are on our “approved foods” list buy their ingredients from local farms, ranches, and fishermen. Most source their ingredients themselves; they don’t leave procurement to their co-manufacturing partners or ingredient brokers, so they can be absolutely certain of the origin and quality of every ingredient used in their products. We think that the recalls of 2007 proved the critical nature of this sort of rigor.

It’s the ingredients
Nutrition experts don’t agree on everything, but one thing they generally concede to be true is that all animals enjoy the best health when given a balanced and varying diet of fresh, species-appropriate foods. They also generally agree that highly processed foods are not as healthy as lightly processed foods; some of nature’s value is always lost to oxidation, heat, pressure, and chemical interactions. Dry food (kibble) is the most processed type of food available to dog owners – but foods that are made with already highly processed (and sometimes, as a result, rather aged) ingredients are at a big disadvantage, compared to those that are made with fresh, whole ingredients.

It’s bad enough that most pet foods are made with meats and fats that are far inferior in quality to what’s known as “edible” (“human quality”) meats and fats. I’m talking about the things that may go into pet food that cannot go into human-edible products, like meats that don’t pass inspection and meat from animals that are dead before they can be slaughtered. Also, the handling and storage of ingredients that are diverted at the processing plant for “non-edible use” – in other words, for pet food – is far inferior to the processes used for “edible” ingredients. (In short, edible ingredients are kept clean and cold all the way through the food production chain; pet food ingredients are not.)

We’d certainly like to identify and promote only those products that contain “edible” meat sources. Unfortunately for consumers, there is no reliable way to do this. A company can say they use only edible ingredients, but few (none?) can legally prove it; according to Federal law, any ingredient that is present at a pet food plant is, by definition, “inedible.” So, if a truckload of fresh, refrigerated, wholesome chicken headed to your local supermarket pulls over at a pet food plant, and opens the back door of the truck, the contents of the truck are now “inedible” by law. It’s perfectly fine food, but the food maker is not legally permitted to say that it’s edible.

Only human-food plants – inspected by the USDA – can legally claim they use edible meats, and this is only if not one single inedible ingredient is on the premises.

Barring the ability to identify the companies that use edible ingredients, we suggest that you look for other evidence of quality. Will – or can – the company identify the sources of its ingredients? Are the ingredients unprocessed, or lightly processed? Or are they a waste product from the production of human food?

We don’t have studies to prove it, but we regard it as a founding principle of holistic healthcare: A diet made with fresh, whole, species-appropriate ingredients (think animal proteins, rather than plant proteins) is far healthier than one made with cheap fats discarded from restaurants, inexpensive carbohydrates produced as waste from the brewing industry, and plant proteins such as corn gluten meal.

Not that many years ago, the pet food industry became a convenient place for the human food industry to dispose of its waste products, without paying landfill fees. Pet food makers were pleased to have ready supplies of inexpensive ingredients. Owners were happy to buy something to feed their dogs that was so convenient to store and feed. Dogs, as they have been for centuries, were thrilled to get whatever their humans would share with them. The ingredients panel on a bag of dog food was rarely considered.

But today, we’re putting the pieces together: diet affects health. Consumers are responding to the positive changes they’ve seen in their dogs on improved diets, and many companies are responding to consumers’ feedback. But the only way to distinguish the passionate, committed, knowledgeable food makers from the posers is to start looking at, and understanding, the ingredients panel.

Representative “top foods”
Here is our “approved dry foods” list for 2010. All these products meet our selection criteria – including our newest criterion, that the company discloses the name and location of its manufacturers. It’s by no means a list of the only good foods on the market; it’s meant as a fair representation of the good-quality foods that are available. Rest assured that any food that you find that meets our selection criteria is just as good as any of the foods on our list.

What if your favorite dog foods don’t meet our selection criteria? It’s up to you. If you have been feeding what we would consider to be low-quality foods to your dog, and she looks and appears to feel great, good for you! She’s one of those genetically lucky animals who can spin straw into gold, digestively speaking. But if she has allergies, chronic diarrhea, recurrent ear infections, or a poor coat, we’d recommend that you upgrade.

Note that we’ve listed the foods alphabetically, by the name of their manufacturers. Some companies make several product lines. We’ve listed each product line that meets our selection criteria from each manufacturer. We’ve also highlighted one product from each company as a representative, to show what sort of ingredients and macro-nutrient levels (protein, fat, fiber, and moisture) are typically found in that maker’s foods. Be aware that some companies offer dozens of different products with varying nutrient levels and ingredients. Check the company’s website or call its toll-free phone number to get information about its other varieties.

Unwanted Barking at The Front Door

By

Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA

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January 14, 2010

2

[Updated December 14, 2018]

Unexpected visitors have pulled into your driveway, exited their car, and are walking up the steps to your front door. You brace yourself. You know what’s coming next. “Ding-Dong,” goes your cheerful doorbell, and your dog charges to the door, unleashing a frenzy of ferocious barking. Frustrated and angry, you yell at her to be quiet – to no avail – while you try to grab onto her collar and open the door to greet your guests. Her doorbell display is so embarrassing that you’re becoming more and more reclusive, meeting friends at restaurants rather than inviting anyone to your home for social events.

Don’t despair; you’re not alone. In fact, doorbell arousal behavior is pretty common. And there is hope.

Why Do Dogs Hate Doorbells?

Thousands of dog owners around the country have canine family members who present similar distressing doorbell behaviors. These dogs may be naturally somewhat protective, and quickly come to associate the ringing doorbell with the presence of an intruder on their property. Barking at the bell may send a serious “Go away or I’ll eat you” message. Even when there’s no aggressive intent, the excessive vocal display serves to announce an event they want the rest of the family to be aware of. “Someone’s here! Someone’s here!” If a doorbell-aroused dog is very social, his frenetic barking may also signify an excited, “Hurry, hurry, hurry and let ‘em in so I can jump all over them and say hi!”

From early puppyhood, dogs realize that the ringing of the doorbell itself is an event – it gets you excited. Really. What happens when the doorbell rings? One or more humans in the home jump up and move quickly to the door, usually with human body language arousal signals, including fast movement, alert or excited facial expression, tension in the muscles, and loud vocalization (“I’ll get it!” or “Be right there!”). It’s no wonder our dogs learn to get excited right alongside us as we dash to the door, “barking” our heads off.

It doesn’t even have to be the doorbell. Some dogs are equally aroused by a knock at the door, or the sound of footsteps up the walkway, or even a car pulling in the driveway. These are all things they’ve come to associate with the excitement of the event – someone coming to, and often coming in, the door.

Manage, Modify and Train Your Dog’s Doorbell Behavior

A good doorbell manners program is a combination of management, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning. Ideally, you implement the program before your dog learns inappropriate door behavior. If it’s too late for that, it’s never too late to start changing behavior.

If you start by programming appropriate classical and operant responses to door arrivals from day one, your dog will quickly learn incompatible operant behaviors in response to the environmental cues that someone is approaching his home. He will also make a different association with the arrival of guests, and as a result his emotional response will be relaxed and positive. If you’re having to undo previously programmed inappropriate behaviors, your training and modification program will take longer, but you can still accomplish your goal of calm instead of chaos when visitors arrive on your doorstep. Here are several options for achieving doorbell calm:

Mostly Classical

Classical conditioning means giving your dog an association between two stimuli. In the case of the doorbell or other “arrival” stimuli, you’re going to convince the part of your dog’s brain that controls emotion (the amygdala) that someone ringing the doorbell, knocking on the door, or walking up your front steps makes absolutely wonderful stuff happen. For our classical conditioning purposes, “wonderful stuff” likely means very high-value food, such as canned chicken (rinsed and drained), or some other moist, meaty, tasty treat that she doesn’t get in the normal course of events.

1. Have your dog on leash, preferably some distance from the door, and a large supply of very high-value treats.

2. Instruct another family member to ring the doorbell. Immediately feed your dog a high-value treat. Or ring the doorbell yourself and feed a treat, if a helper isn’t available. Look for a remote battery-powered doorbell at the hardware store or on the Web – one that sounds like your existing doorbell. Alternatively, you could record the doorbell ringing, and play the recording. Or download a recording of a ringing doorbell from the Internet and play that. (You can find doorbells, knocking, and just about any other sounds you can imagine online at findsounds.com/ISAPI/search.dll.) Practice at least twice a day, five minutes per session (more is better) until your dog looks happily to you for a treat when she hears the doorbell ring.

This is called a “conditioned emotional response” or CER. Note: If your dog already goes from zero to 100 the instant she hears the bell, you can reduce the intensity of stimulus to keep her below threshold by starting as far away from the chime box as possible, by reducing the volume of your chime box if you have that feature, or by using the recorded doorbell sound and turning the volume down low enough that she doesn’t go “over threshold” immediately upon hearing it. Part of your program will then also include gradually increasing the volume of the bell, before you move on to Step 4.

3. When you are getting consistent CERs from your dog at the sound of the doorbell, repeat the exercise with your dog off-leash, a short distance away from you. When she looks at you with her “Where’s my chicken?” CER and walks the few steps to you, feed her treats. You are adding operant pieces to her behavior now: she has the classical association between doorbell and chicken, but she’s choosing to come to you. That’s operant behavior.

4. When she’ll hustle to you from any point in the same room, build in a sit before you feed the chicken – more operant behavior. You may need to cue it at first, but your goal is to create an automatic sit, so that when the doorbell rings she runs to you and sits politely every time. You can encourage your dog to sit with your body language – stand up straight, and move your hand toward your chest if necessary – and eventually fade those cues by minimizing your movements, until she offers sits automatically.

5. Gradually increase the distance between you and your dog, until she comes running to you from any room in the house when she hears the doorbell, and offers a sit.

6. Now practice Steps 1 through 4 with real visitors coming to the house. You may have to bribe your friends with the promise of food; schedule a dinner party but ask your guests to arrive at 5- to 10-minute intervals so you get several practice sessions in a short time. If your friendships are strong you can even ask them to leave and come back a few times during the evening so you get more chances to practice.

When your dog is solid on the Step 5 behavior, you can slowly begin to diminish the frequency of your treat delivery. Make it random; don’t just suddenly stop treating, but skip one here and there, and use some other form of reinforcement that your dog loves, such as happy praise, a scratch in her itchy spot, or her favorite toy. Eventually you can phase out treats altogether, but be ready for remedial practice sessions if her door manners start to deteriorate.

Utilize the same process for door knocks, for people coming up the walk to your door, and for cars pulling in the driveway. Associate the stimulus with good stuff in order to give your dog a different behavioral response to the various sounds of visitors arriving.

Mostly Operant

Alternatively, you can choose a training approach that focuses on operant behavior from the start, by simply teaching your dog that the doorbell (or knock) is her cue to do a specific behavior, such as lie down on a dog bed you’ve strategically placed in your foyer, or run to her crate in the living room.

For best results, use backchaining for this exercise, meaning you’ll teach the last piece of the behavior first, and build backward until you’ve completed the entire behavior chain. If you’re going to teach your dog to lie down on a dog bed in your foyer, it would look like this:

1. Stand a foot from the bed and either lure or shape your dog to lie on the bed. To lure, say “Go to bed!” or “Doorbell!” or whatever cue you want to use, put a tasty treat in front of her nose and lure her onto the bed, then cue her to lie down. Click and give her a treat.

To shape the behavior, wait for any micro-movement toward the bed: even just a glance or a lean toward it. Then click and toss a treat behind your dog so she has to get up to eat it. When she comes back toward you (and the bed) take advantage of the “reset” to click while she’s moving, and toss the treat to reset her again – giving her another opportunity to move toward you (and the bed) and get clicked. When you have shaped her to go to the bed and lie down on it, then add your cue. (See “The Shape of Things to Come,” March 2006.)

2. When your dog will lie down on her bed on cue when you are a foot away, move another foot away from the bed and repeat the exercise (this part should go quickly).

3. Gradually move farther and farther away from the bed, making sure she does the “go to bed” behavior reliably at each new location before increasing distance. Practice from all different directions, until she will go to her bed on cue from anywhere in the foyer.

4. Now add the doorbell as a new “go to bed” cue. Whenever you add a new cue, you put it in front of the known cue, so you will ring the doorbell, then say “Go to bed,” and click and treat when she complies. You are saying to her, “Dog, this ‘ding-dong’ sound means the same thing as your ‘go to bed’ cue.”

5. With repetitions, you will see her start to move to her bed when she hears the doorbell, even before you give the verbal cue. This means she’s made the connection between the new doorbell cue and the old verbal cue. Click and jackpot with several treats one after the other when she lies down on her bed. You may need to remind her with the verbal cue few more times, but she’s there.

6. Now increase distance until she’ll go to her bed upon hearing the doorbell cue from anywhere in the foyer, and then generalize to anywhere in the house. Now when your dog hears the doorbell she’ll automatically run to her bed from anywhere in the house, and lie down.

If you prefer the crate in the living room scenario, just substitute “crate” for “dog bed” and follow the same steps. Note that while you were focusing on operant behavior in this training approach, your dog was also getting a positive classical association with the doorbell, because she was getting treats in close proximity to the sound of the chimes. Classical and operant conditioning are always both in play, even when we’re focusing on one or the other.

Management

As you work to create associations, modify behavior, and train new operant responses to the doorbell and other “visitors arriving” cues, you’ll want to include the always useful management piece of your behavior program.

When your dog has successfully arrived on her bed – either in response to your “in-progress” verbal cue, or to the doorbell itself – you can tether her there to prevent an after-the-fact aroused rush to greet your guests. To reinforce polite greeting as well as appropriate doorbell manners, offer your visitors treats and ask them to walk over to your dog and feed her treats as long as she is sitting or lying down. Tell them that if she stands up, jumps up, or barks, they should step back, wait for her to sit again, then feed her the treat and give her a scratch under the chin. (See “Greetings and Salutations,” April 2005.)

Note: If your dog barks aggressively at guests as they approach her on her tether, you’ll need a separate behavior modification program for the aggression. Please consult with a qualified positive behavior professional for assistance with this behavior challenge. Meanwhile, teaching your dog to run to her crate may be a better option for her than running to her bed in the foyer.

If you’ve chosen the crate instead of the dog bed, management is as simple as closing the crate door. When your guests have been greeted and made comfortable, barring aggressive behavior you can let your dog out, on-leash if necessary, for introductions. Depending on the degree of your dog’s doorbell arousal, baby gates and closed doors, or even a leash, can also effectively dampen or divert intense guest-arrival behavior.

Other Options for Changing Doorbell Responses

There are many other creative options for programming or modifying doorbell behavior. Here are two.

• Try changing your doorbell sound. If your dog has a very strong emotional response to the existing doorbell, it will be easier to give him a new association with a new sound. Don’t actually use it as your new doorbell until you’ve conditioned a very positive response for your dog (or trained him to perform an appropriate operant behavior in response to the new chime). When your training is completed, then substitute the new doorbell in place of the current one.

• Get a toy: You can teach your dog that the doorbell is her cue to run to fetch a toy. You can toss the toy for her to fetch (have her offer a sit first!), and thus focus her energies on the toy instead of the doorbell or your guests. You can also teach her to take the toy to your visitors, and construct a polite greeting behavior that includes sitting until they toss the toy for her.

• Manners Minder: This unique remote treat-delivery gadget was developed by veterinary behaviorist Sophia Yin for a variety of training and behavior applications, including door manners! The concept is simple. When you push a button, the unit beeps and delivers a treat. Your dog makes the classical association between the “beep” and treat, and quickly learns (operantly) to run to the machine when she hears the beep. The beep becomes the cue to run to the machine.

Then add the doorbell as the new cue to run to the machine, as in Step 4 of the “mostly operant” approach, above. Ring the doorbell, beep the beep, and the machine delivers. When the doorbell alone sends your dog to the machine, fade the beep cue by utilizing the “mute” feature of the remote: you press the button to deliver a treat but no beep occurs; the doorbell alone sends your dog to the machine for her treat. Gradually increase your dog’s distance from the machine so the doorbell sends her running to her Manners Minder from anywhere in the house.

It Takes Work, But It Works!

So there you have it: lots of ways to install appropriate doorbell manners in your dog. They work. One of my early clients had an Australian Shepherd with inappropriate doorbell behavior; she would run to the door barking fiercely when the doorbell rang. In a matter of just three weeks, Sasha learned to run to her bed and lie down calmly at the sound of the doorbell. Her owner was amazed and delighted. So was I.

DOORBELL BARKERS: OVERVIEW

1. Determine which approach to teaching good doorbell manners appeals to you and is most appropriate for your dog.

2. Make sure all family members are on board with the program; enlist friends, too, to help with implementation.

3. Remember to have fun with training. You and your dog will be most successful if you enjoy yourselves while you’re training!

Alternatives to Surgery for Ligament Injuries in Dogs

By

CJ Puotinen

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January 14, 2010

18

LAMENESS IN DOGS: OVERVIEW

1. If your dog is limping, bring him to your veterinarian to determine the cause. Chances are your dog has a cruciate injury.

2. Keep a dog with a ligament injury quiet and confined.

3. Understand the risks and benefits of knee surgery for dogs so you can make an informed decision about which direction to take.

4. Explore physical therapy and other treatments that strengthen joints.

5. No matter the treatment, speed your dog’s recovery with nutrition, physical therapy, and other support.

Why is My Dog Limping?

Dogs go lame for all kinds of reasons. Arthritis, Lyme disease, paw injuries, muscle sprains, bee stings, interdigital dermatitis, and dislocated kneecaps can make any dog limp. But when an active dog suddenly can’t put weight on a hind leg, the most common diagnosis – for more than a million American dogs every year – is a torn cruciate ligament. In 2003, according to the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, cruciate ligament dog surgery costs exceeded $1.32 billion, and the price tag keeps rising.

The most common prescription for dog knee injuries is surgery. Unfortunately, operations don’t always work and some patients, because of age or other conditions, are not good candidates. In recent years a nonsurgical approach called “conservative management” has helped thousands of dogs recover from ligament injuries, and it is growing in popularity. At the same time, conservative management is not a cure-all. It doesn’t always prevent the need for surgery, it is not necessarily less expensive, and it can require as much time and effort as post-surgical rehabilitation. At its best, conservative management improves the outcome of whatever treatment is needed for full recovery.

“Conservative management consists of any nonsurgical treatment of injuries,” says Faith Rubenstein, who founded an online forum devoted to the subject in 2004, “including physical therapy, chiropractic adjustments, acupuncture, massage, nutrition, the use of a leg brace, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, medicinal herbs, prolotherapy, weight loss for overweight dogs, and other noninvasive treatments.”

Rubenstein, who now lives in Austin, Texas, first encountered dog CCL injuries when her 100-pound Briard, Dakota, then six years old, experienced a partial tear of his cranial (anterior) cruciate ligament. “When our veterinarian recommended that we see an orthopedic surgeon,” she says, “I went looking for answers.” An academic researcher who is now a private investigator, Rubenstein discovered the term “conservative management” in a veterinary textbook.

The orthopedic surgeon diagnosed a partial tear in both of Dakota’s knees and recommended immediate TPLO (tibial plateau leveling osteotomy) surgery. In this procedure, the tibia is cut, then rotated and held in place with a metal plate and screws so that after the broken bone heals, weight-bearing exercise stabilizes the knee joint.

“I had misgivings about this method,” she says, “especially because surgeons at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania don’t use it. I spoke with Gail Smith, the head of the University’s department of clinical research, and with Amy Kapatkin, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon who was then at Penn. What Dr. Kapatkin said made perfect sense to me. She asked, ‘Why break a bone to fix a ligament?’ My whole interest in conservative management was triggered by my fear of the TPLO.”

The University referred Rubenstein to an orthopedic surgeon who used other methods. He found Dakota to have so few symptoms that he agreed to write a prescription for physical therapy in hopes that it might make surgery of any kind unnecessary.

“Physical therapy and exercise made all the difference,” she says. “Dakota never needed surgery, and neither did his littermate, Aubrey, who tore his cruciate ligament a few months later. Many veterinarians believe that the only effective treatment for these injuries is surgery – either TPLO or another surgery – but that simply isn’t true. Conservative management is a TPLO surgery alternative that can help most patients, including those who eventually have surgery, and then recover to lead active, happy lives.”

Understanding Ligament Injuries in Dogs

The stifle (knee) connects the femur (thigh bone) and tibia (leg bone) with a patella (kneecap) in front and fabella (a small bean-shaped bone) behind. Cartilage (the medial meniscus and lateral meniscus) cushions the bones, and ligaments hold everything in position.

Two key ligaments, the anterior (front) and posterior (back) cruciate ligaments, cross inside the knee joint. In animals, these ligaments are called cranial and caudal, respectively. The anterior or cranial cruciate ligament prevents the tibia from slipping out of position.

Veterinarians see most ligament patients immediately after their injuries, when symptoms are acute, or weeks or months later, after symptoms become chronic. If not immediately treated, most ligament injuries appear to improve but the knee remains swollen and abnormal wear between bones and meniscal cartilage creates degenerative changes that result in osteophytes (bone spurs), chronic pain, loss of motion, and arthritis. In some patients, osteophytes appear within one to three weeks of a ligament injury. Swelling on the inside of the knee, called a “medial buttress,” indicates the development of arthritis in patients with old injuries.

The main diagnostic tools for ligament injuries are X-rays, which can rule out bone cancer as a cause of leg pain, and a procedure called the “drawer test,” in which the veterinarian holds the femur with one hand and manipulates the tibia with the other. If the tibia can be moved forward, resembling a drawer being opened, the cruciate ligament has been torn or ruptured.

The drawer test is not necessarily conclusive because the tense muscles of a frightened or apprehensive dog can stabilize the knee temporarily. To produce more accurate results in such cases, patients may be sedated before being tested.

In the tibial compression test, which is another way to check for ligament damage, the femur is held steady with one hand while the other flexes the dog’s ankle. A ruptured ligament allows the tibia to move abnormally forward.

“A completely torn CCL in dogs is always a surgical case,” says Stacey Hershman, DVM, of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, “since otherwise the knee cannot function as a hinge joint.” Advocates of conservative management recommend that whenever the tear is partial, nonsurgical techniques be given an eight-week try. If symptoms improve during that time, they say, the odds favor ACL recovery without surgery. If symptoms don’t improve, conservative management techniques can be used as pre- and post-operative conditioning and therapy.

Which Dogs Are at Highest Risk for Leg Injury?

Any dog can injure a cruciate ligament, but large breeds are most susceptible. According to one study, Neapolitan Mastiffs, Newfoundlands, Akitas, Saint Bernards, Rottweilers, Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, and American Staffordshire Terriers lead the list. Most veterinary clinics have seen ligament injuries in Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, German Shepherd Dogs, and other popular large breeds.

Young, athletic dogs playing hard can turn or step the wrong way and suddenly not be able to walk. Cruciate ligament injuries are unfortunately common in dogs who compete in agility, obedience, ﬁeld trials, and other active sports.

Some veterinarians report progressive lameness in young Labrador Retrievers, Rottweilers, and other large-breed dogs resulting from a partial rupture of the cranial cruciate ligament. This may not be associated with a speciﬁc injury but may instead result from poor stiﬂe biomechanics combined with a yet-to-be-deﬁned conformation abnormality.

Older large-breed dogs can develop weakened ligaments that eventually tear, especially in dogs who are overweight. When a weakened ligament is stressed, its rupture can be triggered by activities that are otherwise insigniﬁcant, like sitting on cue, stepping over a curb, or jumping off a sofa.

A small dog’s size may not prevent a ligament injury, but smaller dogs usually recover faster. One study that compared dogs six months after their cruciate ligament ruptures found that 85 percent of those weighing less than 30 pounds had regained near normal or improved function while only 19 percent of those weighing more than 30 pounds had regained near normal function. Dogs in both groups needed at least six months to show maximum improvement.

Helping Your Dog After An Injury

If your dog is injured, visit your vet as soon as possible, but be an informed consumer. Many veterinarians consider cruciate ligament surgery necessary, routine, fast, easy, highly effective, and the only treatment that will help. For many dogs this has been the case, but some veterinary research places the cruciate ligament surgery for dogs success rate at well below 50 percent. If surgery is necessary, your investment in conservative management may pay dividends in faster recovery and better overall health.

Canine health and nutrition researcher Mary Straus recommends simple first-aid strategies for dogs with knee injuries. Straus learned about the benefits of such an approach when her dog, Piglet, had surgery for dysplasia on both elbows before her second birthday, followed by surgery for a ruptured cruciate at age three. “First and most importantly,” she says, “exercise must be restricted. No running, no jumping (including on and off furniture), and no stairs. Walk your dog on-leash when going outside to potty. The dog doesn’t necessarily have to be crated, which can restrict movement so much that it increases stiffness and limits flexibility, but should be confined to a small room or ex-pen, or kept on-leash while with the owner. Exercise restriction must be continued for at least six to eight weeks.”

Second, inflammation needs to be controlled. “I would use nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs),” she says. “Inflammation contributes to cartilage degeneration and accelerates the development of arthritis. Don’t avoid NSAIDs in the hope that pain will keep your dog from overusing the leg. There are natural anti-inflammatories like bromelain, boswellia, quercitin, and turmeric, and I would use those as well, but they may not be strong enough alone. You could use white willow bark, which is comparable to aspirin, but it should not be combined with other NSAIDs. In addition to anti-inflammatories, I would give glucosamine-type supplements to try to protect the cartilage and slow arthritic changes. It’s questionable how much these help with cruciate injuries, but they do no harm and I would include them.”

Dr. Hershman prescribes Glycoflex, a nutritional supplement that contains freeze-dried Perna canaliculus or New Zealand Green Lipped Mussel. This product is recommended for joint and connective tissue support, for geriatric and working dogs, and as a follow-up to orthopedic surgery.

In addition, she gives subcutaneous Adequan® injections or teaches the owners to do so at home. Adequan Canine (polysulfated glycosaminoglycan) is a prescription, water-based, intramuscular, polysulfated glycosaminoglycan that helps prevent cartilage in the dog’s joint from wearing away. “I give injections twice a week for two weeks,” says Dr. Hershman, “then once a week for maintenance.”

She also recommends Wholistic Canine Complete Joint Mobility, which is a powder containing organic vitamins, minerals, digestive enzymes, hydrolized whitefish, immune-support ingredients, and pharmaceutical-grade glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM (methyl sulfonyl methane), all of which support healing, speed tissue repair, or help alleviate pain and inflammation.

Standard Process products for improved ligament health include Ligaplex, which contains organic raw bone, herbs, and minerals, and the veterinary product Canine Musculoskeletal Support, which contains anti-inflammatory herbs, Perna canaliculus, and whole-food ingredients that enhance tissue regeneration and improve joint health.

It is important to keep injured dogs from gaining weight, which can easily happen when their exercise routine is interrupted. “Overweight dogs have a harder time recovering from a cruciate ligament injury,” says Straus, “and they are more at risk for injuring the other knee. I would feed a high-protein, low-carbohydrate, reduced-fat diet. Fat is high in calories and so should be limited, but too little fat will leave the dog feeling hungry all the time. Protein helps with wound healing and also to create and preserve lean muscle, while carbs are more likely to be stored as fat. For those who feed kibble, I would cut back on the amount fed and add fresh, high-protein foods such as eggs, meat, and dairy. For seriously overweight dogs, this is one situation where I might consider using the drug Slentrol to help speed weight loss.”

Physical Therapy for Injured Dogs

Faith Rubenstein’s Dakota received physical therapy from Carol Wasmucky, PT, a licensed physical therapist for humans in Herndon, Virginia, who founded Pet Rehab Inc. and works full-time with animals by referral from veterinarians throughout Northern Virginia.

She began Dakota’s treatment by measuring his hind legs, one of which had atrophied and was smaller than the other. “Our goal,” says Rubenstein, “was to have both legs measure the same. Dakota and I worked with a holistic veterinarian, who put him on nutritional and herbal supplements, and we did acupuncture as well. I restricted his activity so he was not allowed to run off-leash for six months, and during that time he had regular physical therapy. Dakota wasn’t a swimming dog but he became one, for swimming was the perfect exercise for him. After six months, both hind legs were the same 17 inches in girth. He was in great shape, his drawer test results improved to nearly normal, and he didn’t need surgery.”

Dogs who are intermittently lame with a partial tear of the cruciate ligament are ideal physical therapy patients, says Wasmucky. In addition to providing weekly or twice-a-week ultrasound, laser, and electrical stimulation treatments, she puts patients on a home strengthening program with range-of-motion and stretching exercises. “Every program is different depending on the dog’s condition,” she says. “The owners are involved every day; I show them what to do. It’s just like working with human injuries; if you want the best results, you have to do your homework.”

Wasmucky, who has worked with thousands of canine patients over the past 10 years, encourages anyone whose dog has a partial tear to use physical therapy to build muscle so that even if surgery has to be performed, the dog goes in and comes out in better shape. “This means shorter rehab time,” she says, “and a faster recovery.”

Swimming is such effective exercise for injured dogs that many veterinary clinics have installed swimming pools. “Dogs who can’t yet do weight-bearing exercises can start in a pool,” she says, “and as they get stronger, they’re able to progress through the exercise program. I check their progress in weekly appointments and make adjustments as needed. It takes time to heal from ligament injuries and I like to be sure that dogs are completely well before they resume agility or other demanding sports.”

She requires a major commitment from owners. “It’s usually an hour or so every day in twice-a-day sessions,” she says, “and this can go on for months. It’s a big investment of time and energy, and it requires a motivated dog as well as a motivated owner, but it can make a world of difference in mobility and overall health.” For more about canine rehabilitation, see “The Benefits of Canine Rehab & Conditioning,” September 2009.

Prolotherapy for Dogs

Although most veterinary experts agree that there is no way to repair a damaged ligament, one alternative therapy claims to do exactly that. Prolotherapy, also known as proliferative or sclerosing therapy, has been used for over 30 years to treat musculoskeletal pain in humans, including arthritis, sports injuries, and damaged or partially torn ligaments, tendons, and cartilage.

The term “prolo” is short for proliferation, as this treatment is said to cause the proliferation (growth or formation) of new tissue in weakened areas. Ligaments have a limited blood supply, which slows healing, but in prolotherapy, injections of dextrose (sugar water) or other benign substances cause localized inflammation that increases the supply of blood and nutrients, stimulating tissue repair.

Health columnist Jane E. Brody described prolotherapy as “injections to kick-start tissue repair” in the August 7, 2007 New York Times, where she wrote that most scientifically designed controlled studies of prolotherapy have shown “a significant improvement in the patients’ level of pain and ability to move the painful joint.” In studies of human knee injuries, she said, patients with ligament laxity and instability experienced a tightening of those ligaments, including the anterior cruciate ligament (also known as the ACL). Other studies showed a significant improvement in the symptoms of arthritis in the knee one to three years after prolotherapy injections.

In Royal Oak, Michigan, John Simon, DVM, uses prolotherapy to repair damaged cruciate ligaments in dogs. He explains, “Prolotherapy is a way of tightening up loose, unstable, hyper-mobile joints by injecting a ‘sclerosing’ agent in and around the joint. The resulting thickening of the joint capsule and the ligaments surrounding it act like scar tissue and eventually contract with time. The thickening and contraction of the ligaments and joint capsule increase joint stability and relieve joint pain.”

Most canine cruciate ligament patients receive five sessions at three-week intervals. “Although I tell caregivers not to expect any positive results until at least the third treatment,” he says, “I am occasionally surprised to see improvement after just one. Other modalities that I often recommend in conjunction with prolotherapy are soft laser therapy and pulse magnetic therapy. These treatments reduce pain and help the joint recuperate.”

According to Dr. Simon, the best candidates for prolotherapy ligament repair are dogs whose injuries do not involve torn meniscal cartilage in the joint. During the past three years, he has treated 35 dogs for cruciate ligament problems and estimates that 80 percent experienced significant improvement.

Getting Your Dog A Leg Brace

Debbie Kazsimer, who lives in Pennsylvania, knows a lot about cruciate ligaments. Trouble, her Shepherd/Husky mix, had TPLO surgeries at ages six and seven, and her Shepherd/Malamute mix, Fly, had a TPLO when she was two.

In 2005, the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association published the case of a German Shepherd Dog who developed bone cancer after her implant corroded. Two years later, Trouble was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, and when his leg was amputated, its metal implant was found to be corroded. The biopsy report linked the cancer to his 2004 TPLO surgery.

As a precaution, Kazsimer had Fly’s implant removed. “But by then five years had passed and it was too late,” she says. “The damage was already done.” Within months, both dogs died of osteosarcoma.

Four weeks after Fly’s death, Kazsimer’s six-year-old 100-pound Shiloh Shepherd, Kimber, tore a cruciate ligament. By then, Kazsimer had learned about conservative management and knew she didn’t want to put another dog through a TPLO surgery. Because of her experiences with Fly and Trouble, she was familiar with range-of-motion and physical therapy exercises, and she studied massage with her husband, Ken, an Integrated Touch Therapy canine massage therapist. She spent an hour or two daily on Kimber’s rehabilitation.

“I thought a leg brace would be a big help to her,” she says, “but my veterinarian refused to fit her for one because he was convinced it wouldn’t work. So my husband and son helped me to cast her leg with a casting kit from Orthopets. The brace supports the knee externally, just as surgery supports it internally.”

Kimber went from walking on three legs to walking on four, then swimming, then finally bearing full weight on her leg. Eight months after her injury, Kimber’s regimen of supplements, physical therapy, massage, swimming, and wearing the brace have enabled her to recover well without surgery. “She runs around like a wild girl!” says Kazsimer, who has posted videos of Kimber online, where you can see her running, swimming, and playing with and without her brace on. “It’s wonderful,” she says. “Kimber is able to do everything she did before she got hurt.”

Holistic Therapies and Home Treatment for a Dog’s Torn ACL

The most popular “hands-on” treatments for injured dogs include acupuncture, acupressure, chiropractic, and massage.

Dr. Hershman, a certified veterinary acupuncturist, treats patients with acupuncture to alleviate pain and enhance healing of the torn ligament. “I do this once or twice per week for the first two weeks,” she says, “depending on the dog’s level of pain, then once a week for five to six weeks, then once every two weeks, and finally once a month. When the dog is weight-bearing and in less pain, I stop.” Dr. Hershman is also a certified veterinary homeopath who prescribes homeopathic remedies according to the patient’s symptoms.

In the article “Post-op Acupressure” (August 2006), Nancy Zidonis and Amy Snow describe how stimulating specific acupressure points with a thumb or fingertip can help with pain management, clear the effects of anesthesia, minimize the building of scar tissue, and reduce swelling. Acupressure can be learned at home and applied whenever needed.

Veterinary chiropractors help speed the healing of injuries and surgeries by making adjustments that improve skeletal alignment and musculoskeletal function. (See “Chiropractors for Canines,” March 2008.) Chiropractic adjustments help restore normal nerve activity by gently moving bones, ligaments, and tendons back into alignment, and when ligaments are injured, adjustments help realign the body to improve balance and speed healing.

Canine massage therapists used to be unusual, but now they play an important role in maintaining and improving our dogs’ health. Efflurage, passive touch, kneading techniques, and stroking increase circulation, release muscle tension, reduce pain and soreness, relieve stress, and accelerate the repair process. Massage books and how-to videos make it easy for caregivers to apply these same techniques at home.

Online Support for Injured Dogs

Thanks to the Internet, anyone whose dog suffers a cruciate ligament injury can find a wealth of information about canine anatomy, surgical options, and alternatives to cruciate ligament dog surgery online.

The conservative management forum that Faith Rubenstein founded five years ago now has more than 2,000 members around the world. Paola Ferraris, who lives in Italy, is one of its moderators. “What I would like to stress is that conservative management is not an easy (and often not cheap) alternative to surgery,” says Ferraris. “Successful conservative management requires just as much commitment as post-op care. It’s tough love and careful management. Your work is basically the same as rehabbing a dog who has had surgery; in fact, a number of our members have had surgery done on their dogs and use the list for pre-op and post-op support.”

When her own dog suffered an ACL injury, Ferraris had to make decisions with little information. “The best way to discuss treatment with your veterinarian is when you understand the available options and their pros and cons,” she says. “I had to educate myself by spending nights doing research online, after the fact. I would have appreciated having more available information, which is what we now offer.”

Co-moderator Ansley Newton of Pownal, Maine, became interested in conservative management when her chocolate Lab, Dooley, injured his second knee. “The first knee had TPLO surgery,” she says, “so I was excited to try conservative management with the second knee.

Unfortunately after four months he did not get better and I chose to have a traditional surgery, which was very successful for this 90-pound dog. Then one day my large chocolate Lab, Nutmeg, came inside with that familiar limp. I again decided to try conservative management along with a knee brace, acupuncture, massage, swimming, and some other supportive techniques. Within six months she was back to normal with very little arthritis.

“After three ligament injuries, I thought I was done. But no, two years later Nutmeg came in limping again. I again went the conservative management route and things were going fine until the second month when Nutmeg had an oops moment. She was limping again, so I decided to do surgery but had to postpone it for a couple of months because I tore my own anterior cruciate ligament and damaged my meniscus at the same time!

“So here I was running a farm by myself on crutches and wearing a knee brace with a dog in a knee brace. What a sight we both were. I wish I had taken a picture. We were forced to stay with conservative management because there was no one to take care of the farm and I couldn’t drive Nutmeg to get her surgery. We limped through several months together and lo and behold, we both healed. Nutmeg was good to go in six months and it took me closer to 10. Nutmeg recently passed away from lymphoma. She was 14 years old and despite those two ligament injuries, her legs were still fine.”

The Surgical Options for Torn ACLs in Dogs

While it is not possible to repair canine ligaments surgically, lateral suture stabilization, or LSS techniques, can stabilize knee joints so that they function well.

In the extracapsular repair procedure, tom or partially torn ligament tissue and bone spurs are removed along with the damaged portion of the meniscus. Through a hole drilled in the front of the tibia, a large, strong suture is passed around the fabella behind the knee, which tightens the joint and replaces the cruciate ligament.

The intracapsular repair method, which is no longer popular in the United States but still widely used in the United Kingdom, replaces the cruciate ligament with a strip of connective tissue after the damaged meniscus and ligament fragments are removed. This “new ligament” is sewn into place or attached to an implant.

A ligament repair technique called the Tightrope procedure utilizes a ﬁber tape suture material developed for human ankle and shoulder reconstruction. This material
replaces the damaged cruciate ligament and stabilizes the stiﬂe joint.

Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy, or TPLO surgery, involves breaking and resetting the tibia. The meniscus cartilage is removed and, if badly damaged, the remains of the cruciate ligament may be removed as well. The repositioned bone is held in place with a metal plate and screws. This procedure treats an estimated 50 percent of all cruciate ligament injuries in the US. and its popularity helped double the number of American veterinary surgeons in a single decade (1995-2005). TPLO surgery requires a specialist and typically costs twice as much as extracapsular repair.

Tibial Tuberosity Advancement, or TTA, which was developed in 2002 at the University of Zurich, repositions the top of the tibia by separating and then anchoring it with titanium or steel implants. Like TPLO surgery, TTA requires special equipment and expertise.

None of these procedures work for every patient and all carry risks associated with the use of general anesthetics, post-operative infections, and other complications. The TPLO and TTA are most expensive and most invasive.

Which surgical method is best? Every procedure has its advocates and many veterinary surgeons claim high success rates, but the results of research studies can be sobering. In
2005, the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association published a study* comparing the results of lateral suture stabilization (LSS), intracapsular stabilization (ICS),
and TPLO surgery on 131 Labrador Retrievers with ruptured cranial cruciate ligaments and injury to the medial meniscus. Limb function was measured before surgery and again two and six months after. Treated dogs were also compared to 17 clinically normal Labrador Retrievers. Compared with the clinically normal dogs, only 14.9 percent of the LSS-treated dogs, 15 percent of ICS-treated dogs, and 10.9 percent of TPLO-treated dogs had normal limb function. Overall improvement was seen in only 15 percent of dogs treated with ICS, 34 percent of those treated with TPLO, and 40 percent of those treated with LSS.

* “Effect of surgical technique on limb function after surgery for rupture of the cranial cruciate ligament in dogs,” by Michael G. Conzemius, DVM, PhD, DVACS, et al. Journal of
the American Veterinary Medical Association, January 15, 2005, Vol. 226, No. 2, p. 232-236.

CJ Puotinen is a long-time contributor to WDJ and author of The Encyclopedia of Natural Pet Care and Natural Remedies for Dogs and Cats.

Disc Dog Competitions

By

Terry Long

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January 14, 2010

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The cattle dog-mix races across the turf, his claws digging into the ground, pushing hard into his next stride, building momentum, faster, faster, faster. With a final turbo blast powered by his rear legs, he pushes off the ground and vaults into the air, seemingly weightless as he stretches his neck into the sky. A sudden twist of shoulders propels his torso and hips 180 degrees as he changes direction midair and snatches the prize from the air – a simple, round plastic disc.

Disc Dog Competitions — Photo by Jen Gregg

Eyes alight with the thrill of the chase and the kill (catch), he lands nimbly and races back to his handler. Can we do it again? Can we, can we? Yeah, we can.

This is the sport of disc dog. It’s been around since Frisbees became popular in the early 1970s and the players’ dogs chased the players’ errant tosses. When a bad toss resulted in a disc rolling on its side, that was fine by Fido. When a disc skimmed the ground, that was fine, too. And when the disc floated, tantalizing in the air, that was simply perfect, allowing Fido to analyze velocity and drift and match his body’s physical prowess to the job at hand. If he got a little too excited at the prospect of a toss and jumped up at his person and ricocheted off his body as the disc sailed away, how cool was that? All of these (and more) eventually made their way into disc dog training and competition.

History of Disc Dog

The first disc dog exhibition to grab the public’s attention was in 1974 in Los Angeles at a baseball game between the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds. Alex Stein, a 19-year-old college student from Ohio, crashed the game with his Whippet, Ashley. In the eight minutes before he was escorted from the field and arrested, Stein and Ashley Whippet wowed the crowd with 35-mph runs and breathtaking vaults and catches. Interest in the sport skyrocketed.

Since then, a multitude of official sanctioning organizations have been created to promote competition and the sport in general. Local and regional clubs sprouted everywhere and in some locales formal group classes are offered to help people and dogs prepare for competition. Some top-flight competitors even turned their hobby into livelihoods, offering exhibitions for hire for public demonstrations to draw crowds to a variety of events.

Disc Dog Competitions

As with many of the other sports we have featured in this series, not everyone who trains for a particular sport chooses to compete. This is especially true with disc dogs. Many people love the challenge of training a particular routine, but get as much enjoyment from going to the local park and playing with their dogs as some get from competing. Playing in the park, however, can entice some into the competition ring.

That’s what happened to Chris Sexton, who got his first dog (Laika, a Border Collie) in 1995. Chris had been playing “disc golf” since 1990 and had a friend whose dog loved to fetch. “This crazy Lab-mix would fetch for hours. We discovered we could wear him out faster with a disc. When we saw an ad in the paper for a local Frisbee contest, we entered him. It was a lot of fun! Then we found out about another, bigger event coming up. I entered Laika in that one, and I was hooked.”

Sexton founded a disc dog club in Fort Collins, Colorado, called the Northern Colorado Disc Dogs, which later merged with the Front Range Flyers to form Colorado Disc Dogs. Then, in 2000, he and a few friends started the UFO World Cup Series, an international competition series organized like NASCAR or World Cup Skiing, where teams accumulate points to qualify for the final “World Cup Final” championship event. So, be forewarned: like many dog sports, this one can be addictive!

There are several different events for which teams train and compete. Points are accumulated for titles as well as to qualify for larger, national events.

• Toss and fetch: This is the bread and butter of the sport and the event that most people start with. This short-distance event goes by a variety of names such as “mini distance,” “throw and catch,” and “distance/accuracy,” but the goal is the same: You have a set amount of time – as little as 60 seconds – to throw a disc as many times as you can, with your dog retrieving it before it is thrown again. The field is marked with increasingly longer distances and you are judged on the distance and the number of tosses and catches. The average distance is about 40 to 45 yards.

Dogs are scored on their ability to catch the most discs, but can earn extra points for catching the discs while completely airborne (where the dog’s body leaves the ground). Thus, if the handler is good at throwing the disc predictably longer and higher, the team has a better chance of scoring higher than teams whose throws are shorter and lower.

• Freestyle: This event is where some of the most amazing acrobatics happen. Jumping off handler’s bodies, vaulting and twisting high in the air, and racing around and/or through the handler’s legs are common pieces of increasingly elaborate and complex routines. Each routine is between 30 seconds and 3 minutes long and individually choreographed by the handler. Each piece of the routine (e.g., leg weaving) is trained individually and then linked together into the final routine performed to music selected by the handler.

Teams are judged for creativity, athleticism, difficulty, showmanship, etc. As the sport has matured, routines have become more and more spectacular and have become the most popular event at public exhibitions.

• Long distance: This event is rarer than the two above. It pits teams against each other in an elimination-style event, with the winning teams successfully throwing the longest distances. This event has separate classes for women and for men. Women in this long-distance event typically throw 50 to 60 yards, although some have thrown in excess of 65 yards. For long-distance men, 70 to 80 yards is considered competitive, although throws of 90-plus yards have been recorded.

Some clubs and sanctioning organizations promote a variety of other events in addition to the ones listed above. As with many of the dog sports, dogs should be in good physical condition and be at least 12 to 18 months of age before competing.

Disc Training

Not all dogs hit the ground running, chasing, and leaping after plastic discs. If yours does, you are one of the lucky ones. Most dogs – and handlers – still need training to perfect the individual pieces of a routine, or to catch a disc in midair instead of waiting for it to hit the ground. Most people learn and train on their own or with local clubs since formal classes are quite rare.

“I learned primarily on my own,” remembers Chris Sexton. “There wasn’t very much in the way of videos or books, so the way that I learned new throws and tricks was to go to contests and watch, and then go home and try to replicate what I saw.

“Today, with the Internet, people can watch videos, read training articles, and ask anyone any question. This access to information means that people can get up to speed even if they are isolated. I saw this in action in 2009 on a trip to China. Chinese disc dog people have been watching people in Japan, Europe, and the U.S. on the Internet for years. They copy the moves and read the articles, so the level of talent there is respectable.

“One other aspect that has helped the sport a lot is the proliferation of clubs. The disc dog clubs started in the mid 80s, but took off really big in the mid to late 90s. Having a group of people to practice with and participate with is a really big help. I think the clubs are the source of most ingenuity in the sport, and bring the most people in.”

Most training starts with straight tosses to the dog at very short distances. Once the dog catches those with a high degree of success, distances are increased and the height of the toss is increased. Eventually, discs are tossed just over the dog’s head and the dog leaps a bit to catch it. The handler has to work hard to ensure that the timing of the disc toss is well timed with his dog’s speed.

The websites of disc dog sanctioning organizations and clubs often provide training information and/or links to other sites; see the next page for contact information and Web addresses.

Disc Dog Team Attributes

Owners are often motivated by seeing their active dog have a fun outlet for his energy and talents. Although some people search for dogs with the energy for the sport, some gravitate to the sport because they ended up with a dog with too much energy to be expended by walks around the block.

Dave Rosell, a competitor from Huntington Beach, California, remembers when he got his first dog, Hook. “I wanted to get a dog to take on walks, go hiking with, and such. What I ended up with was a high-drive Australian Shepherd. He was full of energy and never seemed to tire even after having him fetch tennis balls or play tug for hours -well, it seemed like hours! So I started looking on the Internet for training and different activities I could do with him. I found Dog Services Unlimited, which offered not only obedience training, but also basic agility, flyball, and disc dog. I took all the classes.”

Energetic dogs who live to chase and retrieve love this sport. Sexton, who competes with two herding dogs, says a variety of dogs do well in disc dog events. “Herding breeds and retrievers are usually naturals. Their instinctive behaviors lend themselves very easily to disc play. Most smart dogs will enjoy the game and the challenge and interaction of the training as well. Border Collies, Aussies, Labs, Poodles, shepherds, some terriers, all do well. But, if there is one group that stands out, it would have to be the mutt! These dogs often have several aspects of those desirable qualities. Many mix-breeds excel in the sport.”

People who love this sport tend to love competition and share a love of seeing their dogs thrill at being in action and learn new physical tricks. Some competitors incorporate very physically demanding handler maneuvers, while others do very little, leaving the acrobatics to their dogs.

This sport is physically demanding on the dogs, but Sexton believes that, with care, you can safeguard your dog from injury. “It really depends on the dog and the handler, but in general, it’s no harder on dogs than playing outside and running around like a normal dog. The method to keep it safe is to start low and simple and build up to the more difficult tricks over time. This allows the dog to gradually learn the harder tricks and the body control required, which will make the tricks safer.

“Thankfully, injuries are not common in this sport! But you do see occasional tweaks and twists to legs that might cause a dog to come up lame for a bit. These are usually mild and rare. Another injury is in the form of cumulative damage from excessive height. In addition to normal aging-dog symptoms, I have seen a few dogs that had unusually stiff or arthritic joints when they were older. This can be partly genetic, but I think that the style of play can also be a factor. Excessive height in jumping is not only unnecessary, but even if the dog seems to land clean, he might accumulate long-term damage that could make for a less-pleasant retirement. Like many things, a little common sense goes a long way.”

Steven Donahue is a professional photographer who has taken photos for Purina Incredible Dog Challenge events for a number of years. When people see his photos of disc dog aerial superstars twisting through the air, or even fully upside down in mid-catch, they frequently comment, “Wow! I’ll bet those dogs get hurt a lot!” He replies, “I’ve been following the disc dog sport closely for about five years. I have seen hundreds of dogs who have been in the sport for years. During that time, I only know of a few minor injuries, and one career- (not life-) ending injury.

“With all that said, I would strongly discourage novice handlers from attempting advanced moves. First and foremost, know your breed, know your dog, and perform safe maneuvers with those limitations in mind. Secondly, know how to place/throw the disc for a safe flip or small vault before you ever even think about attempting it with a dog. Dogs with high drive will put themselves in danger attempting to catch poorly thrown discs.

“A personal example on knowing the limitations of your breed/dog. I have a Flat-Coated Retriever who is insane for the Frisbee. He would try to do this kind of stuff if I let him. However, he is awkward in the air compared to these Border Collies and Aussies. He doesn’t land safely on all fours if I do anything other than simple toss-and-fetch throws for him. So, that’s all we do.”

Easy to Start, Difficult to Perfect

Dave Rosell of Huntington Beach, California, trains and competes in three sports with two of his three dogs. When put on the spot and asked to compare his three chosen sports — agility, flyball, and disc dog — he does a good job of highlighting the attraction of each. But he has a soft spot for disc dog.

“Disc dog is great because you can start competing once you are good enough to throw a disc and your dog can catch it. But it also takes a tremendous amount of work and skill to be good enough to compete at the pro freestyle level. You probably have to spend as much time without your dog to learn your throws and routines as you do with your dog.

“I love the excitement that my dogs have when we play discs, but also the camaraderie that you have with the other disc doggers out there. They’re always there to congratulate you, give you advice, or help in any way. Another neat thing about disc dogs is you only need a couple of discs for your dogs to play, whereas with the other sports you usually have to have all kinds of equipment laid out before you can start practicing,

“Disc dog clubs help a lot. If you join a club, you get a lot of help and camaraderie i in addition to discounts on entry fees! Disc Dogs in southern California puts on most of the competition events in that area as well as joint ventures with other clubs. Its website has some training aids, a calendar of events, results of competitions, links, and information about the sport. Periodically it puts on ‘play days’ where the members and prospective members get together and the more experienced members help with some throws, with routines, and maybe even have a mini competition. But the big thing is that the people in the club are just a great bunch of people. We are a bunch of friends who get together with one thing in common: we are all disc dog crazy.”

Disc Dog Activity Expenses

The beauty of this sport is that all you need is your dog and a plastic disc and some space to throw it. Many of the websites listed in Resources will direct you to find the best discs (the hardest ones are not good on your dog’s mouth) as well as training materials. Entry fees and travel will be your biggest expenses, and these are still modest compared to many of the other dog sports.

If you can find a class, costs are usually modest – from $35 for classes and seminars to $80 per hour for private lessons. Competition fees run anywhere from completely free to $30 per class. Gas and lodging might be your next biggest expense, but the popularity of disc dogs has made competitions and exhibitions more plentiful than ever so you might not have to travel too far.

How to Get Started

Even if you don’t want to compete, joining a local club will be the fastest way to get up to speed. Club members are typically very helpful to newcomers and have a lot of experience to share. You and your dog can gain competition ring experience by first participating in public demonstrations with the club. Then, just take your dog and disc, smile, and toss!

Terry Long, CPDT, is a writer, agility instructor, and behavior counselor in Long Beach, CA. She lives with four dogs and a cat and is addicted to agility and animal behavior.

Download The Full February 2010 Issue PDF

By

Nancy Kerns

-

January 14, 2010

0

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Best Options for Boarding Your Dog

By

Stephanie Colman

-

January 1, 2010

9

There are many things to consider when choosing to share your life with a dog. Knowing who will care for your dog or dogs when you have to be away from home is just as important as knowing how you’ll provide for their everyday needs. Even if overnight travel isn’t part of your regular routine, it’s wise to think ahead and have a plan for overnight care – just in case it’s ever needed. You never know when a family or local emergency may force you and your pets to spend a night or two apart.

Fortunately, today’s dog owners have several choices for pet care, ranging from in-home care provided by visiting pet sitters, to a wide range of commercial kenneling options. Each comes with its own unique list of pros and cons and no one choice is right for every dog. It’s important to do your homework when considering boarding. After all, you are literally putting your dog’s life in the hands of another.

In-home care
Providing care for your dog in your own home is one option, by either recruiting a trusted friend or family member or contracting with a professional pet sitter or sitting service.

You may never find a boarding facility that will make your dog feel this comfortable when you have to leave him behind for a vacation or business trip. But it would be nice if the staff members tried!

Some people choose to have a pet sitter visit several times each day, while others prefer hiring someone to temporarily take up residence in their home. Unless the visiting sitter will make multiple visits throughout the day, this option provides the least amount of supervision for your pet.

In this scenario, your dog is left alone and unsupervised for an unusually long period of time, and for that reason, this option is generally considered to be the most risky.

In contrast, arranging for someone to live in your home while you are gone can provide a greater amount of supervision of your dog with the least amount of disruption to your dog’s daily routine. In-home service providers can bring in the mail, water plants, and give your home a lived-in appearance.

When choosing an in-home pet care provider, it’s important to consider the unique needs of your dog and the experience level of the sitter. While a friend or family member may opt to help care for your dog at no charge, and may have a personal history with your pet, they may not be as educated in the fine details of dog care, particularly in things such as recognizing the early signs of stress or distress, or the myriad ways a determined escape artist can find to Houdini his way out of a seemingly secured area.

With a reputable pet sitting service, employees should be screened, professionally trained, bonded, and insured, and pet sitters should be well-versed in all aspects of domestic animal care. As an added bonus, large pet sitting companies generally employ enough personnel to be able to accommodate last-minute bookings, something not often possible when calling on the aid of a friend, family member, or single-sitter service. This professional training and flexibility comes at a price, however.

Similar to recruiting someone to temporarily reside in your home, you may opt to have your dogs stay overnight at the home of a trusted friend, family member, or professional pet sitter. This is slightly more disruptive for your dog than staying in her familiar environment, but it works well for many pet owners, especially when the pet knows the person with whom he’ll be staying and/or when the pet is older and not as apt to adjust well to a busy kennel.

Before packing your pup’s overnight bag and dropping him off at Aunt Betty’s, it’s important to be aware of environmental differences that could impact your pet. Does the host have dogs of her own? If so, how do your dogs get along? If they haven’t met, be sure to arrange a meet-and-greet prior to travelling so that personality conflicts can surface and be dealt with in advance. Double-check to make sure your pet cannot slip through fencing or other enclosures. Be sure to educate your pet’s host on any behavioral quirks that may impact his safety, such as a tendency to door-dart or ingest stray socks! If your host has a swimming pool and your dog has not been taught how to safely swim to the steps, ask that your dog not be left outside unsupervised.

Commercial options
A variety of options exist for owners who prefer to professionally board their dogs. Pet owners can choose from conventional kennel environments to upscale “resort- style” facilities that offer extra services such as group playtime, interactive food puzzles, training time, or grooming and spa services. Many facilities offer “cage-free” boarding where the dogs spend their time roaming with fellow guests and bedding down for the night on dog beds in a common area, while others have dogs confined to their kennels throughout the day except while being exercised by kennel staff.

Keep in mind that what works best for one dog might quickly spell disaster for another. Regardless of the type of service or facility you choose, it’s imperative to get to know the ins and outs of the service provider. The following considerations can be helpful in making an educated decision:

Compliance with state and local regulations and adherence to professional standards and practices. The kenneling industry is unregulated at the Federal level, leaving individual cities and states to implement regulations as they see fit. According to Pet Care Services Association (PCSA), a non-profit organization dedicated to assuring standards of quality and professional care, only about 20 states have adopted any formal regulatory standards for boarding kennels.

As such, many kennel owners operate with little more than a standard business license. When regulations do exist at the city or state level, they are usually minimal and simply address things such as preventing animal cruelty and requiring that adequate food, water, and shelter be available – not exactly standards that put your mind at ease when leaving your pet for the weekend.

“The pet-owning public has expectations when it comes to boarding,” says Charlotte Biggs, CKO and board president of PCSA and co-owner of Stay N Play Pet Ranch®, Inc., in Dripping Springs, Texas. “There are so few regulations available. Our mission is to fill that void.”

For a fee, membership in PCSA is open to any individual or legally operating business that is actively engaged in the non-veterinary care of pets as a primary service. All active members must agree to adhere to the organization’s Code of Ethics and Pet Owner’s Bill of Rights, both of which are available for review online at petcareservices.org. Member facilities may also opt to pursue volunteer PCSA accreditation though the Voluntary Facilities Accreditation (VFA) program.

In order to be considered for accreditation, facilities must be in business for a minimum of six months, must submit a detailed binder of information documenting all of their business and pet care practices and demonstrating that they meet the standards set forth by PCSA, and must pass an on-site inspection. It’s a comprehensive process that takes an average of six months to complete. Facilities are subject to random inspections throughout the year and must repeat the accreditation process every three years.

In addition to professional trade organizations, pet owners are wise to look for membership in local Chambers of Commerce and the Better Business Bureau. The more ways in which a professional’s reputation may be on the line, the greater the chance he will do everything in his power to ensure a successful boarding experience for his clients.

While professional and civic memberships demonstrate a certain level of professionalism on the part of the business owner, pet owners should not rely on memberships alone. Once you’ve verified that your prospective pet sitter or boarding kennel is in compliance with local regulations and adheres to a set of professional ethics and practice standards, there’s still much research to be done!

Staff requirements and training. In any business, a well-trained, competent staff is critical to success. In the kennel industry, a well-trained and competent staff is what ensures the health and safety of your pet. A love of dogs or distaste for retail work isn’t an adequate job qualification! Kindness, patience, compassion, and an ability to keep one’s own emotions in check are all important traits that must be combined with a solid understanding of dog behavior and a natural ability with dogs. This is critical in facilities that allow dog-to-dog interaction among guests.

Ask how employees are trained and how much (if any) continuing education is required. Laurie Zurborg, owner of Wags and Wiggles in Tustin, California, requires that all new employees undergo comprehensive in-house training and that all employees participate in retraining every six months. Wags and Wiggles is a daycare facility that provides boarding for clients, so it’s imperative that facility staff be especially skilled in the often subtle nuances of dog body language – such as facial expressions and body posture; how to recognize, prevent, and interrupt bullying; and how to safely break up a dog fight.

Wags and Wiggles also requires that any staff member who interacts with a dog in a training capacity (often available in boarding kennels as an add-on service) should be certified by the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers. Unless you board your dog at your usual, familiar trainer’s facility, we suggest that you not authorize training during boarding, unless you have taken the time to thoroughly screen the trainer and her methods.

Where are dogs housed? When it comes to professional boarding kennels, accommodations come, literally, in all shapes and sizes. Kennels range from high-volume, no-frills facilities with the ability to house upward of 150 dogs to smaller, boutique-style kennels housing a very limited number of dogs – and everything in between!

When choosing a kennel, be sure to make arrangements to visit far in advance. Don’t be surprised if the facility requires that you schedule your visit or only visit during certain hours rather than simply popping in unannounced. Barb Gibson, owner of The Pawmer House Pet Hotel in Wilton Center, Illinois, explains that for her, preventing random visitors is all about reducing stress and ensuring the safety of the dogs in her care. Guests at The Pawmer House participate in mandatory “quiet time” from 11:30 am to 2:00 pm and for at least one hour after each meal.

Unless there’s an emergency, no one is allowed inside the kennel area during quiet time. The arrival of a human in the kennel area – especially a new human – sets off a cacophony of barking. Limiting such outbursts is an important part of managing the overall stress level of the dogs. Gibson also advises visitors to be prepared to wait if arriving unannounced because staff may be busy tending to the needs of the dogs, and the needs of the dogs come first.

When visiting a facility, pay attention to the area where your dog will be housed. Is it secure? How tall is the fencing? Are at least some of the kennels enclosed on the top to prevent jumpers and climbers from escaping? Is it clean? How is it sanitized? Does it smell? If housed in kennel runs, can the dogs directly see other dogs on either side and across from them?

If the enclosure has no direct access to an outdoor potty area, ask how frequently dogs are taken outside or if they’re expected to eliminate in the enclosure. If the latter, how quickly are messes cleaned up and where is the dog during the process? What, if any, “comforts” are provided (such as beds, blankets, toys, and chews) and how are they sanitized between dogs? What personal items are allowed from home? Does the kennel require that all guests eat a facility-provided kibble, or can owners bring their pet’s food from home? Will the kennel accommodate special diets such as home-cooked meals or raw food?

It’s also important to know in advance what vaccinations are required, how they need to be documented and what, if any, exceptions exist. As thoughts regarding vaccination evolve, many kennels now accept titers or statements of vaccine exclusion from a veterinarian in lieu of following a strict vaccination protocol.

Well-managed dog play groups. Many kennels offer the option of recreational play groups. When considering this option, find out how guests are screened to determine their eligibility for play groups. As with day care and cage-free facilities, play groups must be closely supervised at all times by well-trained staff.

How large are the play groups? How are play pals selected? How much time do dogs spend engaged in off-leash play? What is the procedure for breaking up a dog fight and how are dogs handled immediately following, as well as for the duration of their stay? Are owners notified? If you don’t wish for your dog to participate in a play group, how will your dog be exercised?

Emergency plans. Accidents happen and an emergency can strike at any time. Make sure the facility has detailed emergency plans in place. Can they safely evacuate guests in the event of a natural disaster? Where are the animals evacuated to? Are client records backed up off-site so that owners can be notified of an evacuation should the facility be compromised? Seventeen dogs were killed when a propane tank exploded at a boarding facility in Pennsylvania in March 2009 (including Martha Stewart’s Chow Chow), and several others were injured or temporarily lost after fleeing in a panic. Many client files were destroyed in the fire, making it difficult to notify owners about the emergency.

Every kennel should maintain excellent working relationships with local veterinarians and 24-hour care facilities. Find out how emergencies or potential emergencies are handled. When vet care is needed, are owners contacted ahead of time? For minor issues, how is the need for vet care decided and by whom? You should feel comfortable knowing that medical issues will be promptly addressed without sending your dog to an after-hours emergency facility at the first sign of soft stool.

Go with your gut
Once you’ve done your homework and thoroughly checked out your list of potential facilities, often the best way to make a selection is to go with your gut instinct. If deciding between two different facilities that seem equal in terms of experience and standards of care, ask yourself if one just simply feels better? On the other hand, if for any reason you feel uncomfortable with a facility, regardless of its memberships or glowing recommendations, trust yourself and your ability to know what’s best for your pet.

Agility Sports That are Perfect for the Action Junkie in Your Canine

By

Terry Long

-

December 22, 2009

0

Agility is probably the most popular and best known of all the sports for canine athletes. It’s easy to see why. Your dog gets to do what dogs like to do: move around, jump, run, climb on things, and play!

Agility is a high-speed sport in which the handler directs her dog through an obstacle course of jumps, tunnels, weave poles, teeter-totter, and other obstacles. The goal is for the dog to complete the course without exceeding the “standard course time” and without incurring any “faults.” Faults include knocking jump bars, not completing an obstacle, going around a jump instead of over it, and failing to touch “contact zones” – places that the dog must touch as she navigates certain obstacles, to prevent excessive speed and dangerous leaps from the obstacle.

The rules for each level of competition vary; the novice level has more lenient rules and the higher levels of competition are more exacting. At the highest levels of competition no faults are allowed at all in order to “qualify.”

Training your dog for agility is fairly complex. Although your dog readily demonstrates how he can jump over the back of the couch in pursuit of the family cat, he might be stymied by your attempts to lure him over an agility hurdle. If you are willing to invest some time and effort in the training, however, agility can be very rewarding for both dog and human. In fact, the more training you put into the project, the more new avenues of communication open up between you and your dog.

There are two types of agility from which to choose: recreational and competitive. Some classes focus distinctly on one while others let you decide later if you want to compete.

History
According to most accounts, agility got its start as a demonstration to entertain the audience at the United Kingdom’s Crufts dog show in 1978. (Although other reports credit a demonstration by the Royal Air Force Police Dog Demonstration Team, it was the Crufts demonstration that caught Britain’s attention and led to more widespread interest in agility training for the average dog and dog owner.) By 1979, several dog training clubs were offering agility training and by 1980 Britain’s Kennel Club had established rules for competition.

During the 1980s, agility activity picked up in the United States, with several organizations (and varying philosophies and rules) in place by the early 1990s, including the United States Dog Agility Association (USDAA) and the North American Dog Agility Council (NADAC).

Competition
Each of the sanctioning organizations (see list on page 22) has specific requirements for qualifying a dog for a title at each level of competition, i.e., novice, advanced, and masters. At each of these levels there are a variety of “classes” or games in which you can compete.

For example, USDAA has one “standard” class and four “games” in each of its three levels or “divisions,” i.e., novice, advanced, and masters. The standard class is comprised of 15 to 20 obstacles that the judge has arranged into a “course” of obstacles, run in a set sequence. The four games are Jumpers (all jumps and tunnels), Snooker (a strategy game), Gamblers (a distance game), and Pairs Relay (two handlers in a relay race). There are also three “tournament” classes that test advanced handling, i.e., Grand Prix, Steeplechase, and Team (three handlers compete as a team in five classes).

Among the various agility organizations, Canine Performance Events (CPE) and NADAC offer the most agility classes, closely followed by USDAA, with AKC offering the fewest.

All of the agility organizations impose a “standard course time” that the team must not exceed for each class, as well as a variety of other rules, such as not knocking bars; touching the yellow “contact zones” on the A-frame, dogwalk, and teeter; and taking only the obstacles indicated on the course. Titles and placements (e.g., 1st place, 2nd place) are awarded at each level; additional, advanced titles are available in each of the agility organizations.

Training
Agility training involves teaching the individual at each end of the leash. The human must implement all the obstacle training taught in class, and learn handling skills such as when and how to use verbal and physical cues to direct her dog around the course. The canine must be taught how to perform each obstacle (see page 19).

In addition, the dog must be taught to immediately respond to all those verbal and physical cues in a fast-moving, changing environment. No two courses are ever the same, so the handler must make decisions about handling based on the course in front of her. The dog must closely attend to the handler in order to detect cues that come one after the other.

If you have competed in other dog sports, the learning curve may not be as steep as it is for people who have never trained for a performance sport. That said, the agility world is filled with people who tried agility as their first dog sport and became hooked.

Natalie Reusch of Hacienda Heights, California, is a good example of a dog sports neophyte who was captivated by agility. Reusch was not allowed to have a dog when she was growing up; her first dog didn’t come home until Reusch was married. “Go-fer” lived to the ripe old age of 18, and her second dog, Cami, lived to 13. Natalie and her husband, Dave, called Cami their “million dollar dog” because of the costs involved in addressing all her health issues. Dog sports were not even a topic of discussion.

Then came Boxie, a Boxer/Dachshund-mix. “Boxie was my inspiration because even though I knew nothing about agility, I could recognize potential when I saw it. And she definitely had that.”

Reusch started by enrolling Boxie in a class for basic pet manners, and then one for advanced manners. She found that both she and Boxie enjoyed the training process, which she had never done with her prior dogs. By the time she started agility training, Boxie had the basics under her collar, so to speak. It is difficult, if not impossible, to train your dog in agility if you and your dog have not mastered these prerequisites.

Before enrolling your dog in an agility class, you and your dog should be able to work in a distracting environment (both handler and dog have to be able to focus well!) and have mastered basic pet manners behaviors. These include sit, down, stay, come when called, and leash manners. The most challenging aspect of an agility class is keeping your dog focused on you and able to learn new skills in a group class environment. Dogs that are tremendously motivated by toys and food do the best. Additionally, depending upon your instructor, previous clicker training will be advantageous since that training technique is used more and more in this sport.

Recreational or competitive?
There are two broad categories of agility training: recreational and competitive. Recreational classes often focus on getting dogs on all the agility equipment as quickly as possible, using luring and leash guidance. Handling skills that cue the dog to turn, decelerate, switch to the other side of the handler, etc., are taught later, or, in some cases, not at all. These kinds of recreational classes are best for people who want a weekly class that provides fun and entertainment.

Competition classes tend to focus initially on “foundation” skills, including handling. This means that the instructor spends more time focusing on how to use your body to cue your dog. For example, you will learn the proper footwork for cueing your dog forward, for turning, and for decelerating versus accelerating. Foundation skills also include wobble board training (before allowing your dog to get on the teeter-totter) and target training (used later to teach the A-frame and dogwalk). Instructors who specialize in training for competition tend to offer much more structured classes that require students to do a fair amount of homework to keep up with the class.

Some instructors are adept at teaching students who don’t intend to compete at the same time as teaching students with competition goals. Once their dogs become competent on the equipment, however, students who plan to compete in agility require specialized, in-depth instruction. If you know from the outset that you want to compete, you will probably benefit more from an instructor who actively competes herself. Also, keep in mind that retraining is always much more difficult than training your dog correctly from the start.

Team attributes
Your dog should be physically fit and enjoy physical and mental stimulation. Agility is a physically demanding sport. If your dog is overweight, her joints are subjected to much more abuse than those belonging to dogs who are in optimum condition. Make sure you exercise your dog appropriately and regularly, so she is fit enough to withstand the demands of a weekly class. Swimming, jogging, and running up and down hills are excellent conditioning exercises. As agility has matured, more information has become available about the benefits of physical conditioning, massage, and chiropractic care for canine athletes.

Handlers must be able to sprint, stop quickly, accelerate quickly, turn, and twist. This sport can be hard on aging knees and backs. Many students who choose to compete recognize the benefits of a conditioning program for themselves as well as their dogs!

Supplies and equipment
Some agility equipment is heavy, most of it is costly, and there is a lot of it. That said, most people don’t buy the more expensive and heavy, space-hogging equipment such as the teeter, A-frame, dogwalk, and competition-grade tunnels; they train on this equipment only at facilities that offer agility instruction.

More frequently they practice at home with the lower cost agility obstacles: jumps, weave poles, and a tunnel. Four to six jumps and a set of weave poles will cost about $300 to $500. A good 15-foot tunnel will cost another $200 to $250. With those basic pieces of equipment, you can practice a variety of handling maneuvers, as well as help your dog become proficient in the weave poles. It will take a long time to train your dog to negotiate the weave poles if you practice only once a week in a class; having your own set will drastically reduce your training time.

Expenses
The most expensive part of this sport is investing in the basic equipment listed above and paying for ongoing classes. Beyond that, trial entry fees and travel and lodging are the big-ticket items. Competition fees run anywhere from $8 per class to $20 depending upon the sanctioning organization (AKC fees tend to be the highest) and the type of class. For example, it costs an average of $14 for a standard class in USDAA and $8 to $10 for each of the four games. The first class you enter in an AKC trial will cost $20, and the second class will cost $15.

In all venues except AKC, you will have the opportunity to run three to six classes per day. For example, five classes a day at a CPE trial would cost you about $50. Enter for both days of a weekend, and there goes $100.

Gas and lodging will probably be your next biggest expense. However, if you do AKC trials, which are rather plentiful in most areas of the country, you might not have to travel too far. And if you expand your horizons to include several of the different agility venues (USDAA, CPE, ASCA, etc.), you might be able to stay closer to home than if you only compete in one of them.

Agility classes tend to cost more than an average dog training class; they require a lot of expensive equipment, a large space, and the cost of maintaining that space and equipment. As a result, a weekly agility class that runs for six to eight weeks may cost as much as $225. Plan on staying enrolled in classes for months or even years; access to all that equipment is what keeps people coming back week after week. Check for public classes through your city/town, private training facilities, and even some larger shelters offer classes. You can also go to the Clean Run website (cleanrun.com) to search for trainers near you.

How to get started
Due to the maturity of this sport, there are many books, DVDs, seminars, and schools available. Try a basic or introductory class, or just go and watch one, to see if agility is something you and your dog might enjoy. Check to see if the class has a waiting list; the popularity of agility has resulted in waiting lists for many classes. While you wait for a class to start, refresh your dog’s basic pet manners, enroll in a clicker training class, and start a conditioning program for you and your dog.

If your dog has more mental and physical energy than you know what to do with, and you enjoy physical activities, this is probably your sport.

Reusch aptly describes agility’s appeal. “Agility offers a way of bonding with my dog, and working together as a team to develop skills, solve problems, and overcome obstacles. The better we get, the more fun it becomes. We aren’t doing this for a championship; we’re doing it because it’s fun and exhilarating. I enjoy the feeling of connecting with my dog when we’re running a course together, everything clicking into place. And then there is the big smile on my dog’s face and the excitement in her eyes after she finishes a run. That’s priceless.”

Dog Products of the Year 2010!

By

Nancy Kerns

-

December 22, 2009

0

Whole Dog Journal frequently brings you reviews of products we have tested on real dogs and with real dog lovers. We’re always looking for new and particularly useful products to recommend to our readers (and to use for our own dogs!). We limit our attention to products that provide an actual service, that help owners keep their dogs healthy, happy, safe, and well-trained. As 2010 begins, here’s looking forward to some of the year’s best bets.

Pal Dog Bath Products
The rosemary/mint shampoo can transform the smelliest dog into a sweetest-smelling pal in a matter of minutes, and the lavender/aloe conditioner soothes skin and makes any coat silky-soft. “Freshen-Up” Spray is for use between baths, or when bathing is restricted. Juno’s Garden lists all product ingredients; all are natural, safe, and organic whenever possible.

Pal Dog dog bath products – $15
Juno’s Garden
Pacifica, CA
(888) 738-8390
paldog.com

Click! Dog Training System
It’s too late for holiday gift-giving, but never too late to educate your friends and relatives about the benefits of intelligent, dog-friendly dog training. This kit helps make clicker training understandable and accessible, even for novice owners. The kit includes only a clicker on an adjustable lanyard and a very clear, well-illustrated, unintimidating book written by Karen Pryor, the founder and leading proponent of “clicker training” (based on operant conditioning). This kit is sold by Barnes & Noble, online and in stores and is perfect for inexperienced or young dog owners. (More advanced owners might get more out of Pryor’s self-published books, offered on her site, clickertraining.com or by calling 800-472-5425.)

Click! Dog Training System – $10
Barnes & Noble

210

Lyndhurst, NJ
(800) 843-2665
barnesandnoble.com

Pogo Plush
Photos don’t do it justice, unless you can detect the extraordinary enthusiasm on the face of the dog playing with one. It looks like a simple ball of fleece with a squeaker inside, but it’s not. An inner rubber frame keeps the ball puffed up, and the location of the squeaker unpredictable. The spring-back action makes most dogs do a double-take when they first grab it, and then they don’t seem to want to give it back.

Pogo Plush – $8-$11
Premier Pet Products
Midlothian, VA
(888) 640-8840
premier.com

(picuture of Tugzees in Otto’s Pick PDF, picuture of Pogo Plush in Dogg Walkie Belt PDF)

Whole Dog Journal reviews dog food, dog toys, and dog health and care products, and also teaches positive dog training methods.

Rodier: The book is a great resource, but very different from any behavior and training books that are out there. Who is the intended audience?

It was a huge undertaking. Why do it?

One bad veterinary experience can cause a dog to aggress on future visits. Why is this?

So my dog’s had a bad experience at the vet. Now what? Can I fix it?

Is there a relationship between force-based training methods and the type of handling that has typically been used by animal professionals?

Will animal professionals really want to use new, gentle techniques even if they require time to learn and to use, margins are tight, and volume is the key to making money?

Can you give an example?

How do I convince my dog’s veterinarian to use these techniques?

Might this be offensive?

How about vets who don’t perform procedures such as blood draws in front of us; how do we know how they’re handling our dogs?

If our vets won’t follow these protocols, should we vote with our feet?

How do you convince dog owners that it’s worth taking the time to follow some of the tips you offer?

Letting Your Dog on the Bed is YOUR Choice!

Should Your Dog Be in the Bedroom At All?

Non-Aggressive Bed Behaviors You Want to Prevent

Aggressive Bed Behaviors

Fixing a Dog’s Behavioral Problem While Maintaining Bed Privileges

How to Revoke Your Dog’s Bed Privileges

Modifying a Dog’s Bed- or Owner-Guarding

• Teach “Off”

• Institute a “Say Please” program

• Apply a counter-conditioning protocol

• Consider using operant conditioning

DOGS IN MY BED?: OVERVIEW

HOSPICE FOR DOGS: OVERVIEW

Hospice for Dogs

Critical Factors of End of Life Care for Dogs in Hospice:

1. Recognizing When Our Dog is in Pain

2. Managing a Dog’s Pain

3. Keeping the Dog Hydrated

4. Happiness/Responsiveness to the Dog’s Environment

5. Your Dog’s Mobility

6. Dog’s Hygiene and Grooming

7. Nutrition of Dog in Hospice

Your Dog’s Quality of Life During Hospice Care

Knowing When It’s Time

Whose Decision Is It?

“Anticipatory Grief” During End of Life Care for Dogs

Why Do Dogs Hate Doorbells?

Manage, Modify and Train Your Dog’s Doorbell Behavior

Mostly Classical

Mostly Operant

Management

Other Options for Changing Doorbell Responses

It Takes Work, But It Works!

DOORBELL BARKERS: OVERVIEW

LAMENESS IN DOGS: OVERVIEW

Why is My Dog Limping?

Understanding Ligament Injuries in Dogs

Which Dogs Are at Highest Risk for Leg Injury?

Helping Your Dog After An Injury

Physical Therapy for Injured Dogs

Prolotherapy for Dogs

Getting Your Dog A Leg Brace

Holistic Therapies and Home Treatment for a Dog’s Torn ACL

Online Support for Injured Dogs

The Surgical Options for Torn ACLs in Dogs

History of Disc Dog

Disc Dog Competitions

Disc Training

Disc Dog Team Attributes

Easy to Start, Difficult to Perfect

Disc Dog Activity Expenses

How to Get Started

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