Slippery elm for dogs is used to help treat digestive issues and skin irritation. The supplement (scientific name: Ulmus fulva) is one of the safest herbs commonly given to dogs, and one of the most beneficial.
Herbalists attribute many wonderful healing properties to slippery elm: demulcent (soothing, mucilage-forming), emollient (soothing and protective for skin), nutritive (providing specific nutrients), tonic (promoting healthy function of one or more body systems), and astringent (constricting, binding, or drying effect). It can be used both internally and externally. Slippery elm is one of the herbs used in the original formulation of “Essiac,” an herbal brew that has been widely promoted as a cancer-fighter.
The part of the tree used is the inner bark, which is soft and stringy. Simplest to use is the powdered form, which can be purchased loose or pre-packed in capsules at most health food stores. It is also readily available over the Internet from herb suppliers.
In the gastrointestinal tract, slippery elm acts directly. Think of it as a natural Pepto-Bismol (Pepto-Bismol itself should be used with caution because it contains salicylate, a.k.a. aspirin). Slippery elm’s mucilage content coats, soothes, and lubricates the mucus membranes lining the digestive tract. Slippery elm is an excellent treatment for ulcers, gastritis, colitis, and other inflammatory bowel problems. It is high in fiber, and so helps normalize intestinal action; it can be used to relieve both diarrhea and constipation. It may also help alleviate nausea and vomiting in dogs suffering from non-GI illnesses, such as kidney disease. A syrup made from slippery elm bark (see recipe below) can be used to help heal mouth ulcers.
Slippery elm is said to relieve inflammation of virtually any mucus membrane, and has been used in the treatment of inflammatory conditions of the lungs (bronchitis, asthma), kidneys, bladder (cystitis), throat (tonsillitis), and joints (arthritis).
This wonder herb also contains many nutrients (carbohydrates, protein, fat, ascorbic acid, beta-carotene, calcium, and several trace minerals) that can be beneficial for dogs recuperating from any illness, and it may stay down when other foods are not tolerated.
Externally, a soothing paste of slippery elm powder (mix the powder with a little cold water) can be used as a poultice for hot spots, insect burns, rashes, scratches, ulcerated areas, or other shallow wounds. Native Americans used slippery elm bark to stop bleeding. It forms a natural bandage that can be left in place for several hours, if you can convince your dog to leave it alone! Moisten with water to remove it.
Internal Uses of Slippery Elm for Dogs
Slippery elm is thought to soothe the bladder lining, making it helpful for dogs suffering from cystitis. Slippery elm bark contains natural pentosans, a class of complex sugars that contains the same compound found in the drug Elmiron, the major pain-relieving treatment for interstitial cystitis in women. However, slippery elm is somewhat high in magnesium and ash, so may be contraindicated in dogs who have an active infection with an elevated urinary pH, where struvite crystal formation may be a risk.
To administer internally, mix about a quarter-teaspoon of slippery elm bark powder with cold water for every 10 pounds of the dog’s body weight. (The quarter-teaspoon dose works fine for dogs who are less than 10 pounds, too.) The bulk powder may be very fluffy, so pack it down as much as possible to measure it.
Alternatively, use a half-capsule (per 10 pounds), opened and the contents mixed with water. Slippery elm powder will absorb many times its own weight in water, so be sure to add enough to make a moderately thick gruel. This gruel can be given before meals by syringe or eyedropper, or added to baby food, canned food, or a homemade diet. It has a slightly sweet taste and is usually well-tolerated by dogs when mixed with food. Administer the dose before or with meals for digestive tract problems, such as inflammatory bowel disease, until symptoms resolve.
Because slippery elm may interfere with the absorption of certain minerals and pharmaceuticals, I would recommend that it be given several hours before or after any concurrent drug therapy.
Slippery elm bark is inexpensive and easy to use; it would be a great addition to your holistic medicine chest!
Recipe for Slippery Elm Syrup
Author Anitra Frazier gives the following recipe for slippery elm bark syrup in her book, The New Natural Cat, which applies equally well to our canine companions when adjusted for weight:
Into a small saucepan, place a half-cup of cold water and one teaspoon powdered slippery elm bark. Whip with a fork. Bring to simmer over low flame, stirring constantly. Simmer one or two minutes or until slightly thickened. Cool, cover, and refrigerate. Keeps seven or eight days. Give a teaspoon of syrup (5 cc) per 10 pounds of body weight five minutes before a meal to minimize diarrhea, or to soothe and heal mouth ulcers.
Jean Hofve, DVM, is a regular contributor to WDJ. Her veterinary practice is in Englewood, Colorado.
Never, in the five-year history of WDJ, have we published an article that got our readers’ attention – and divided them into two disparate camps – as Kathleen Dudley’s examination of spot-on pesticides (“Are Spot-On Flea Killers Safe?” February 2002). And that’s interesting, because we’ve always discouraged our readers from using pesticides on and around their dogs, as part of the effort to reduce the toxic burden that most dogs labor under in their short lives.
Fortunately (for us!), about 90 percent of the calls, letters, and e-mail messages we received were appreciative of the article and its follow-up piece, “Eliminate Fleas Without Poisons,” published in the March issue. Some readers wrote to express how pleased they were to see an article that was critical of these products in print:
“Thanks for such an educational, honest article. The main reason I subscribe to WDJ is that it is difficult to get honest, unbiased reporting in other publications. I look to you to continue to report honestly on all sides of current canine health issues – how else are we going to learn about them?”
“I want to thank you for your informative article on flea treatments. The article was clear, concise, and gave me information I can’t seem to get from my veterinarian.”
Others wrote in to confirm that they have found non-toxic flea control methods to be effective and worthwhile:
“Our two-dog, three-cat household has been flea-free for nearly 10 years without pesticides. I’m convinced that the best defense against fleas is to have the healthiest animals possible.”
By far the most rewarding letters for me to read were the letters from dog guardians who corroborated Dudley’s assertions – including people who have witnessed the acute or chronic effects of these pesticides on their own dogs:
“What an eye-opening article! I almost jumped off the couch when I read the segment where the San Diego veterinarian’s clients stated they put Advantage on the backs of their dogs and could smell it on the dogs’ breath in a matter of minutes following the application! That is exactly what I told my vet, who told me that it wasn’t possible! I will no longer use these products.”
“I just received some information on Bayer’s product, Advantage, also obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Within one year of its introduction into the U.S., Bayer had received well over 600 incident reports, possibly close to 700 (Bayer’s reports to the US EPA were in poor condition and poorly documented, thus the EPA reviewers could only estimate the exact totals).
These reports included at least 70 deaths (17 dogs, 46 cats, 7 unspecified), 300 reports of skin irritation, 73 reports of central nervous system disturbances, including convulsions, 90 reports of lethargy, malaise, etc., and 92 reports of vomiting, diarrhea, or other gastrointestinal reactions. (Some animals had more than one reaction, but each animal was listed only one time in the above statistics.) . . . There are no short cuts without a price attached.”
The other camp But as I intimated earlier, not all of our readers had a positive take on our articles. A few readers were outraged that we saw fit to describe the potential dangers of using spot-on pesticides, given that “so few dogs have actually died” following use of these products. Each of these people expressed their unwavering support of the companies and veterinarians who make and sell these products. One went so far as to suggest that he would not only continue to use the products, but would make it his mission to propagate negative information about the article whenever he could! Another wrote:
“Apparently you have twisted sound, scientific evidence and testing to make your article more interesting. Shame on you for not investigating your author’s so-called ‘facts.’ I happen to have a copy of the Material Safety Data Sheet from one of the products she accuses of being a health risk to humans and animals. You claim that Imidacloprid (the active ingredient in Advantage Flea Adulticide) causes thyroid lesions in dogs and that carcinogenicity is “yet to be determined,” when in fact, based upon the MSDS animal toxicity data, Imidacloprid is labeled as having no evidence of carcinogenicity and there is nothing written about thyroid lesions in dogs . . .
“I am a very concerned pet owner who takes impeccable care of her animals. Articles such as this are very hard to stomach and hopefully you will do the right thing and recant your false information. Granted, some products can be very dangerous to animals, but to include products such as Advantage and Frontline in the same category is just plain wrong. I have provided several of my friends with the article and hopefully you will be hearing from them, too; we are satisfied users of Advantage and trust our veterinarians’ advice.”
To which I can respond only that I did, in fact, personally witness the mounds of documentation that our author compiled in support of her article. It’s true that there are not easily accessible reports on the potential health effects of these products – but they do exist.
I also have seen how difficult it is to obtain information about pesticides in general and spot-on products in particular. Our author had to submit Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain access to the full results of the pesticide makers’ tests. It took some companies more than six months to respond to these requests (which they are legally required to respond to); some companies have not yet responded, nine months later.
The makers of these products are not unique. Like most pesticide manufacturers, they are in a race against time, and they have a vested interest in stalling.
There is a certain window of opportunity for all pesticide makers, in which their products can be aggressively marketed. The window opens when they have passed the EPA’s initial safety tests. The products are put into use in the consuming public – and then adverse effects reports begin to come in. As the number of these reports rises, the target of the pesticides begins to adapt and develop resistance to the poisons.
It may take years or even decades, but eventually, the window closes, when the products are no longer effective due to target-resistance and/or when the number of product injuries is so high that the EPA must finally file “stop action” orders against the chemical makers.
This is history, not speculation. In the past couple of decades alone, dozens of pesticides have been ordered out of existence for these reasons. This includes several flea-killing pesticides, including (most recently) chlorpyrifos (Dursban).
All of us take risks every day, and it’s up to us to weigh the risks and benefits of all of our actions for ourselves. In our articles, we are not judging you or the decisions you make for your dogs. We simply want to faciliate your ability to make informed decisions. You may well decide that the risk of injury to your dogs and your family is so small, it’s not worth worrying about. Others may decide it’s an unneccesary risk. Finally, here’s another aspect to consider:
“My reason for writing is to point out one more urgent reason not to use these toxic products. You didn’t explicitly confront the issue, but it was horrifyingly evident in the data presented: the products are tested on laboratory animals, including DOGS! The description of laboratory studies brought me to tears. What an obscene concept to torture and kill laboratory dogs in toxicological studies so that the manufacturers can assure us the products are ‘safe’ to use on our companion dogs. I hope other readers will take note and stop using them.”
What about ticks? Some readers were disappointed that we did not discuss ticks and tick control methods in these articles. I’m sorry that I failed to direct readers to our last article on the subject, “Ticked Off,” August 2001 issue.
However, while fleas and ticks may be (to some extent) successfully treated with some of the same pesticides, the two types of insects pose very different dangers and control challenges to dog guardians. The habitat, feeding patterns, and life cycle of the tick is very different from that of the flea, and they are not nearly as easy to target with an integrated pest management (IPM) system as are fleas. In the August 2001 article, we do discuss the issue of balancing the dangers of tick-borne diseases against the dangers of pesticides, as well as mention some IPM methods for tick control.
Losing our nerve? As I mentioned earlier, flea control seems to be an incredibly polarizing issue for most dog guardians, and the letters we received were, with one exception, either strongly supportive or strongly critical of our articles on pesticide use for fleas.
The one exception was when we both scored and bombed. This reader was initially thrilled that we “took on” the pesticide issue, but was also saddened that we offered suggestions for those who were not yet ready to give up their use of spot-on pesticides. In response to our suggestions for a “reductionistic” approach, she wrote:
“I just wrote you a letter praising you for your courage to publish the truth about topical flea killers. Then I accessed the latest issue online and couldn’t believe my eyes after reading, ‘Addicted to Spot-Ons?’
“How can you publish an article one month confirming that these products are comprised of known carcinogens, then the next month say ‘Well, if you have to use these products . . .”? This article seems like a concession to somebody, but I don’t know who. Are you worried about alienating the users of these products and thus losing their subscriptions? Shouldn’t you be more worried about alienating the subscribers who either don’t use these products and are grateful for the validation and/or the ones who were using them and will reconsider based on this new information?
This undermines the truth of the valuable message delivered in the February article. Please don’t abandon your stand once you’ve taken it.”
I’m sorry this is how the “at least, reduce your use” article appeared. Actually, it was an effort to offer some practical compromises – ones that would benefit dogs – to people who are adamant that they cannot control fleas without pesticides. We do strongly believe that dogs, humans, and the environment would be far better off with reduced, and better yet, zero toxic pesticide use.
As always, thanks for your close attention and support of WDJ.
To continue reading this article or issue you must be a paid subscriber. Sign in
If you are logged in but cannot access this content, a) your subscription may have expired; b) you may have duplicate accounts (emails) in our system. Please check your account status hereorcontact customer service.
Immediate access to this article and 20+ years of archives.
Recommendations for the best dog food for your dog.
Dry food, homemade diets and recipes, dehydrated and raw options, canned food and more.
Brands, formulations and ingredients all searchable in an easy-to-use, searchable database.
Plus, you’ll receive training and care guidance to keep your dog healthy and happy. You’ll feed with less stress…train with greater success…and know you are giving your dog the care he deserves.
Subscribenow and save 72%! Its like getting 8 issues free!
Once a month, at a minimum, I receive a note from someone who complains about WDJ’s use of the word, “owner.” “By using that sort of language, you perpetuate the owner/slave hierarchy, which encourages humans to regard their animal companions as property,” is a (paraphrased) common criticism. What’s more, some readers have pressed, as a “progressive,” animal-friendly publication, WDJ really ought to be leading the drive among dog magazines to strike such paternalistic, repressive language from our pages. According to the real hard-liners among you, we shouldn’t even imply ownership with phrases such as, “your dog,” as used in a sentence like, “Pet your dog at every opportunity.”
I’m very sympathetic to these complaints. But for goodness’ sakes, what can I replace the word “owner” with?
I often use “guardian,” which seems to be the leading contender among those who hate “owner” and all the evil it implies, but others resist this solution. “The word ‘guardian’ also implies a child/parent type of dependent relationship,” someone wrote me the other day. Others worry that “guardian” seems to open the door for humans to shirk their animal-care responsibilities and liabilities. “Caretaker” and “keeper” suffer the same problems.
Whenever I can, I substitute “owner” with the phrase, “canine companion.” But let’s face it, this is a little unwieldy, and upon repetition in a how-to type of article, this would drive me nuts – and probably you, too. “Give your canine companion a reward of some kind every time she sits on cue. Make sure your canine companion is aware of the treats or toy you are using as a reward . . .”
(Say, did you notice that we alternate feminine and masculine personal pronouns in our text? We may actually have a slight preponderance of hypothetical females in our articles.)
As much as some of you readers despise the use of “owner,” there are some alternatives I just can’t bring myself to use – at least, not very often. Sharp-eyed readers may infrequently catch WDJ describing a specific human as “Fido’s person,” but it makes me feel queasy every time I allow a writer to do this. I can perfectly visualize my journalism professors doubled over in laughter as they ridicule this usage.
I may be the only dog-loving person alive who objects to the use of “mother” or “father” to describe the relationship between a dog and a human. Sorry, I am not “Mom” to the Border Collie who shares my home, heart, and (I swear) my checking account.
I don’t have a hard-and-fast solution for this semantic issue, but I’m willing to consider any solutions you may want to propose. In the meantime, forgive WDJ’s inconsistent but hopefully sensitive attempts to solve the problem.
Eddie Pepper’s muscles flex as his compact body flies over the jumps and scrambles up the A-frame. Eddie’s guardian, Bonnie Vogt, rewards him for hitting the contact zone and then signals him through the tunnel and over the teeter. When Eddie takes the last obstacle in the sequence, he races back to Vogt for a quick game of tug and a whole lot of praise.
By now, if you’re into dogs, you’ve probably heard about agility. Maybe you’ve even seen it in action or tried it with your dog. Agility is one of the fastest growing dog sports in the world, and with good reason – it’s fun! “Of all of the dog things I’ve done, agility is the most fun,” says Vogt, a resident of Scotts Valley, California, who has participated in a multitude of dog activities, including search and rescue, obedience, hunting tests and flyball, as well as agility.
The Ultimate Team Sport
Agility is fun for a whole bunch of reasons. It’s fast. It’s always different. The dogs love it. The handler is constantly challenged. But perhaps the most wonderful part about agility is the way the dog and handler work together as a team. It is the ultimate team sport – and like any team sport, the relationship of the team members is key.
“It’s a really active and involved thing,” says Bud Houston, a long-time agility teacher and seminar leader who resides in Ostrander, Ohio. Houston has written numerous books on agility and is founder of the Just For Fun (JFF) agility organization. He points to his dogs’ joy and enthusiasm for the sport when he describes why he loves agility. “They really light up when we go out to the training building.”
Vogt echoes Houston’s sentiment. “Playing agility has brought us closer, sealed that bond a little tighter. Eddie seems to thoroughly enjoy the running and playing, and it’s helped us have more of a partnership.”
From the beginning, agility seemed to be a hit with dogs and people. Agility began as a demonstration event at the Crufts Dog Show in England in 1978. The obvious enjoyment of the dogs and the enthusiasm of the crowd at the first agility demonstration could have predicted the future popularity and growth of the sport. Today, agility is practiced throughout the world. In North America alone, you can find more than 10 organizations that sanction agility trials.
The goal in agility is for the handler and dog to run an obstacle course, with the handler directing the dog through and the dog navigating the obstacles. The course generally consists of between 14 and 20 obstacles that are designed to test a dog’s balance, speed, jumping, and climbing ability as well as the communication between the dog and handler. The obstacles commonly include:
• Jumps: A variety of jumps are used in agility including single jumps, double jumps, triple jumps, winged and non-winged jumps, panel jumps, broad jump, and tire or hoop jumps. The height of the jumps varies depending on the size of the dog.
• Tunnels: Flexible tunnels, 15 to 20 feet long, are used, as well as a collapsed tunnel made with a barrel opening and a fabric sleeve that the dog pushes through.
• A-frame: One of the “contact” obstacles (an obstacle that the dog must touch in a yellow-painted zone to insure a safe performance on the obstacle), the A-frame is a large climbing structure that the dog runs over.
• Teeter-totter: Also called the seesaw, the dog tips the board as he runs across. The teeter-totter is another contact obstacle and the dog needs to touch the yellow zones for safety.
• Dog walk: This contact obstacle is a type of balance beam that is three to four feet in the air. The dog runs up a ramp, across the beam, and down the descending ramp.
• Weave poles: Up to 12 weave poles are found on a standard agility course. Weave poles are often considered the most difficult obstacles to teach a dog.
• Table or pause box: The dog gets on the table and stays in either a down or sit position for five seconds. This is a control exercise and requires a dog to stop in the midst of running through the course.
In a competition, the course must be run within a certain amount of time and the team can be judged “faults” for mistake, such as taking the wrong obstacle or knocking down a jump bar. The courses are always different, making communication between the handler and dog as critical as the dog’s ability to navigate the obstacles.
Agility Not Just for Superdogs
Big dogs, little dogs, fast dogs, slow dogs, mixed breeds and pure breeds – all types of dogs can do agility. In fact, agility is one of the few dog sports providing as many opportunities for mixed breed dogs as for pure breeds. With the exception of AKC Agility, every dog agility organization in the United States welcomes mixed breeds in competition. Dogs as small as a Papillon and as large as a Great Dane can and do enjoy agility. Of course, not every dog (or person) is cut out for competition and only a select few will win national championships. But almost all dogs can enjoy some version of the sport.
Agility is an obvious choice for high energy and athletic dogs. It gives dogs that are often seen as “hyper” a place to put their drive and energy. It is also a good way to help timid or shy dogs build confidence. It’s a great way for both people and dogs to get some exercise.
“Agility keeps Eddie and me both in better shape,” says Vogt. “We both need the exercise and he needs a job to do.”
In general, dogs who play agility should be physically able to do the sport safely – they should have sound hips, elbows, good vision, and be in good physical shape. But even dogs and handlers with some physical limitations can enjoy the just for fun experience of agility. For example, jump heights can be lowered for a dog that is not physically able to jump full height. A dog shouldn’t do agility if it will make a condition worse, cause pain, or be unsafe in any way. It’s a good idea to have your veterinarian conduct a basic health examination before beginning agility.
Agility for Competition or Fun?
As with all sports, agility encompasses elements of competition. The competition can be as intense as professional basketball or as casual as a pick up game of softball on a sunny afternoon. In other words, agility can be played at the Olympic level, the city league level, or strictly for fun in the backyard or park.
In agility trials, teams compete in two ways. First, the dog and handler run against the time on the clock, with the goal of completing the course under the time limit and with no faults (called a clean run). In addition, the team is also competing against the other dog and handler teams within their class and height for placement – generally first, second, and third place dogs are recognized and awarded ribbons. The competition for a clean run and title are not the same as competing against other dogs. You can have a clean run and not win. You can also win and not have a clean run. As in other dog sports, you can compete at different levels and earn titles on your dog.
In addition to the standard agility course, dozens of games can be played in agility. Games range from those commonly found at trials, like Jumpers (which tests the dog’s speed and the person’s handling skills), Gamblers (which offers challenges in distance handling), and Snooker (which incorporates elements of both strategy and control), to those designed for fun or to help build specific skills.
But do you have to compete to do agility? Absolutely not. Some people do agility with the goal of winning at the highest level. Some people run their dogs with the goal of a clean run and earning a title, but aren’t really concerned about winning. Others play agility strictly for fun, without ever needing or wanting to compete. Agility can be enjoyed in a totally non-competitive fashion. That means that you can teach your dog the obstacles, learn to direct him through course, and run courses either with or without a time limit. Playing agility non-competitively eliminates the pressure to perform – so you and your dog really can just get out there and have fun.
Agility practice, even without competition as a goal, is a wonderful way to build everyday skills. Agility strengthens basic training such as the down, stay and recall. It is a fun way to work on off-leash behaviors and develop off-leash reliability. It can help dogs become more confident in the world, and it can help people learn to better train and communicate with their dogs. (If you can teach a dog to run through a set of weave poles – which is anything but a natural behavior for a dog – you can probably teach him just about anything!) Quite simply, agility practice can improve relationships between dogs and people.
“I’d like to get to the point where we can compete,” says Vogt, when she talks about training with Eddie. “But if we don’t, that’s OK too.”
Houston, who has competed and earned many titles on his dogs, says that one of his dogs, Ringer, will probably not become a dog he takes to trials. “Ringer gets carsick if we go more than about four miles,” says Houston. “So he will probably never do a lot of agility trialing in the world. But, he loves the game and he’s developing very nicely.”
Houston strongly promotes the recreational aspects of agility, and cautions against making agility into something that validates the handler, rather than something that is fun to do with your dog.
“It’s not about winning, you know,” says Houston. Houston emphasizes that agility is a recreational sport we play with the canine members of our family. It is about the relationship, the fun, and enjoyment of playing with your best friend.
Houston also stresses that agility should be accessible to anyone who is interested and can be a “lifetime sport” that we share with our dogs. With this spirit in mind, Houston formed Just For Fun agility. JFF’s slogan, “dog agility for the rest of us,” is helping to make the sport more available to those who may not have the perfect “competition” dog as well as to those who cannot afford the time or money needed to train competitively and enter trials.
JFF agility does promote a degree of competition, but emphasizes that it should always be low cost (or no cost) and fun. With that in mind, JFF agility launched the idea of league play – a version of the sport that can be organized and played on a local level, similar to local softball or basketball leagues offered through park and recreation programs. As with local softball and basketball leagues, anyone can join and play at the level at which they are comfortable. In JFF, each person chooses the jump height that is most appropriate for his dog’s ability.
Positive Training and Agility
The sport of agility has, perhaps inadvertently, become a huge promoter of positive training methods. You can probably imagine that it would be difficult to drag a reluctant dog over an A-frame or force a dog to run at top speed through a set of weave poles. Agility training generally incorporates positive-oriented training techniques, including clicker training, lure and reward, and classical conditioning. Dogs are motivated and rewarded with food, praise, and toys. Although some agility instructors do use punitive methods, most do not.
Nancy Gyes, co-owner of Power Paws Agility and a top level agility competitor in the United States, addressed the very issue of using compulsion methods in training at a recent seminar in Watsonville, California. Gyes admitted to the seminar crowd that she is so competitive that if using a pinch collar on her dog would help her win, she might use it for training in agility. But that the fact is, according to Gyes, positive reinforcement training methods work better in building accuracy, speed, and enthusiasm. Gyes went on to point out that the leading agility competitors in the country all use some elements of clicker training in working with their dogs – even those who do not consider themselves clicker trainers.
Getting Your Dog Started
Because agility is still relatively new, many of the people who are currently involved started out self-taught – building equipment, reading books, watching videos, attending seminars, and learning by trial and error. With the growing popularity of the sport, however, agility-training facilities are popping up everywhere. If you’d like to try agility, you could begin on your own, but your best bet is to find a trainer in your area to help you get started. When you are looking for a trainer, look for someone who:
• Focuses on safety and the well-being of the dogs above all else.
• Uses motivational methods. Forcing a dog onto equipment can ruin the fun for both of you.
• Can help you understand both how to teach your dog to use the equipment and help you learn to direct your dog through the course. Agility is a 50/50 team sport. You both need to learn your part.
If you do not plan to compete, your instructor does not need a competition background. But if you do want to compete, look for a teacher who has competition experience to mentor you through the process. If you or your dog have any special needs or limitations, ask the instructor if she is willing to work with you around those areas.
Because agility training is a long-term training process, it becomes especially important to find an instructor with whom you enjoy working.
Backyard Agility Fun
Interested in giving agility a try, but don’t have a training center near you? Here are a few things you can try at home. Remember to make these exercises as easy as possible until your dog gets the idea, offering lots of rewards along the way. Never force a dog to do any agility exercise. One of the most important aspects of agility is the dog’s enthusiasm and willingness to play the game; forcing a dog to participate may spoil his natural inclination for fun. In addition, make sure your dog is physically able to comfortably do the exercises you are asking of him.
Most adult dogs can safely try out the exercises below, but if you have any doubts, check with your veterinarian first. For serious agility training, your dog should be at least a year old and in excellent condition. Excellent condition for agility means a dog who has good hips and elbows, who is a good weight (for agility, this means scrawny – you will want to be able to easily feel your dog’s ribs when he is in a standing position). In addition, a dog who trains for agility should run off leash for at least 20 minutes four or five times a week. Walks alone are not enough to keep a dog in shape for agility.
Practice Handling
Because agility means working with your dog on both sides of you and making lots of twists and turns while running together, it’s helpful to practice “handling skills” with your dog. You will want to do these “on the flat” without any agility obstacles in the picture. First, try running in a straight line with your dog off leash on your left side. Then try it with him on your right side. If he’s a bit confused, you can put a treat in your hand to help him follow you, giving him the treat when you stop. Use the palm of your hand to guide your dog as you move.
Once your dog can run in a straight line, try turning to the left, then to the right. Help your dog understand where you are turning by using your foot, shoulder, and hand closest to your dog to motion to where you want him to go. Practice turning and moving in the opposite direction, too. Try having your dog turn toward you, and then have your dog move away from you.
Jumping into Action
You can put together a make-shift jump by placing a broomstick on top of two cinder blocks, or you can build or buy practice jumps made out of PVC pipe. When you begin teaching your dog to jump, use a very low jump – below your dog’s elbows. As he begins to get the idea, you can gradually raise the jump to between his elbow and shoulder. Unless your dog is in very good shape and conditioned to jump, do not raise the jump above his shoulder height.
Begin teaching your dog to jump by having him stay on one side of the jump. You move to the opposite side and then invite your dog over. You can use a treat or a toy to encourage him the first couple of times. When your dog is coming over the jump, click and treat. Once your dog is happily coming over the jump to you, start sending your dog away from you, over the jump, to a target. The target can be a touch object like a small plastic lid. Or, have your dog wait, toss a toy over the jump, and then send him over to get the toy. When he goes over the jump to the target or toy, lavish him with praise. Next, try walking, then running with your dog as he goes over the jump.
Fun with a Play Tunnel
You can purchase a small tunnel for kids at a toy store or use a long box (like those that hold hot water heaters) with ends cut off as a play tunnel for a smaller dog. For larger dogs, you can put together a makeshift tunnel with chairs and a bed sheet. As with jumping, begin by encouraging your dog to come to you through the tunnel. You may need to get down on the ground and stick your head in the tunnel, reaching through with a treat to get your dog to go through the first few times. When your dog comes through the tunnel to you, click and treat. As with jumping, after your dog can come to you, practice sending him to a target, and then practice< running next to your dog as he goes through the tunnel.
Walk the Plank
A 12-inch wide board, eight to twelve feet long, balanced on two cinder blocks is a fun way to start the dog walk. Encourage your dog to walk across the board. Walk with your dog if necessary. Be sure to click and treat when your dog is on the board, not when he steps off. Then spend some time helping your dog understand where his back feet are (so he won’t slip off when moving quickly), by having your dog do tricks like sitting, laying down, or changing direction on the board. Encourage your dog by clicking and treating for keeping all four feet on the board. Once he gets the idea of walking across the board and knows where his back feet are, try running in both directions and with you on each side.
Putting it All Together
Once your dog can jump, run through the tunnel and across the board, you can try putting it all together in a mini course. At first, put your obstacles in a straight line, 10 to 15 feet apart. Try running back and forth with your dog. You can encourage your dog by clicking and treating each obstacle at first. Once you have mastered running together with the obstacles in a straight line, try with the obstacles in a circle.
Remember to keep it fun and give your dog lots of rewards. Try treats, ball play, or a great game of tug. Experiment and see what motivates your dog the most.
Dog Agility is Addictive
When asked what he would say to someone who was considering trying agility, Bud Houston responds, “You’ve got to do this. It’s too much fun!” Anyone who has tried agility can tell you that it’s addictive. You just may end up with jumps in your backyard, weave poles in your living room, and a whole new set of vocabulary words. You may end up practicing front crosses and reverse flow pivots as you vacuum. You may start muttering terms like “clean runs” and “yards per second” in your sleep. Like any person exhibiting signs of addiction, your friends and family may wonder if you’ve lost your mind – or just given it to the dog.
Mardi Richmond is a writer and editor living in Santa Cruz, California. When she’s not busy playing with her dogs, Mardi teaches Just for Fun Agility classes. She is also the co-author of Ruffing It: The Complete Guide to Camping with Your Dog.
Dogs don’t experience heart attacks the way humans do, but this doesn’t mean they don’t die of heart disease. Heart failure is increasingly common in America’s dogs, with many showing symptoms by age seven or eight. Even some young dogs develop congestive heart failure, inheriting the propensity for the disease from their parents.
Conventional medical practitioners consider congestive heart failure and other circulatory problems to be progressive and irreversible, but holistic veterinarians know that in many cases, heart disease can be slowed, reversed, and even cured. Understanding heart disease will help you prevent it in healthy dogs and treat it in dogs who are already ill.
UPDATE: For information on another common heart disease, dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in dogs, see Whole Dog Journal‘s September 2018 story.
What Does Congestive Heart Failure in Dogs Look Like?
The symptoms of congestive heart failure (CHF) are easy to overlook, and the illness is often mistaken for other conditions, such a respiratory infection or the normal aging process. In short, the condition is an inability of the heart to pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs, because of a failure to adequately empty the venous reservoirs.
In congestive heart failure, the heart doesn’t actually fail or stop beating; instead, its valves become thick with scar tissue, which prevents them from closing properly. Leaking valves cause fluid to accumulate on either side of the heart, and the heart grows larger as it works harder. Fluid accumulating on the right side of the heart produces lung congestion and coughing; fluid on the left side leads to edema (fluid retention) in the abdomen. Arrhythmia, or an uneven heartbeat, can occur as well.
In dogs as in humans, there are four functional classifications of CHF. Class 1 has no obvious signs. This early phase, during which the heart begins to malfunction, can last for years.
In Class 2 CHF, fatigue and shortness of breath begin to accompany active exercise or heavy physical activity. There are no symptoms when the dog is sitting still or lying down. A lack of circulation in the extremities in this and later stages may interfere with wound healing, and mental confusion can occasionally result from a lack of oxygen in the brain.
In Class 3 CHF, even slow walking on a level surface can produce shortness of breath and fatigue. Other possible signs include a persistent dry or hacking cough, wheezing, sudden collapse, and a bluish discoloration of the tongue and gums during exercise. Because the accumulation of fluid in the chest interferes with deep breathing, the dog may seek fresh air more than usual.
In Class 4 CHF, the patient is uncomfortable at all times, even while resting. Edema can affect the legs and feet as well as abdomen and chest area. In advanced cases, fluid collecting in the chest cavity can push on the heart and collapse the lungs. In contrast to the long time lag between Class 1 and Class 2, the illness progresses quickly from Class 3 to Class 4, so that a dog that seemed healthy and active may suddenly enter a critical condition.
Conventional vs. Complementary Approaches to Congestive Heart Failure
Conventional medicine treats CHF with diuretics, which remove accumulated fluids; digitalis or other heart drugs, which stimulate and temporarily strengthen the heart muscle; oxygen, which improves the animal’s breathing; and a low-salt diet, which helps prevent further edema. These treatments effectively treat the symptoms of the disease, vastly improving the quality of the animal’s remaining life, but do nothing to prevent the progression of the illness.
Generally, holistic practitioners also employ the effective conventional drugs to suppress the symptoms of CHF and seek to augment conventional treatments with nutritional support and herbs. Their goal is to improve whatever underlying imbalances or deficiencies the dog may be experiencing, which may help to slow or stop the progression of disease.
Since all drugs used to treat symptoms of CHF have some adverse effects, another goal of holistic practitioners is to facilitate the safe reduction or even elimination of the dog’s conventional prescriptions. Of course, success depends on the type, severity, and duration of the dog’s illness, but many veterinarians and dog guardians have seen great improvements in their patients with this approach.
Nutritional Support for Dogs with Congestive Heart Failure
Vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and other nutrients play a crucial role in maintaining circulatory health.
• Vitamins: In the 1940s, Drs. Wilfrid and Evan Shute, who were brothers, began a 40-year study of the effects of vitamin E on the heart. Wilfrid Shute’s research involved dogs as well as humans, for he was a show judge and Doberman Pinscher breeder. Soon, thanks to his efforts, vitamin E improved the health of dogs around the world.
As Wendell O. Belfield, DVM, reports in his classic book How to Have a Healthier Dog, many of these cases were dramatic. In 1945, Dr. N. H. Lambert in Dublin, Ireland, learned of the Shute brothers’ work and began giving vitamin E to dogs, the first of which, a nine-year-old Griffon, was dying of heart disease complicated by an inflammatory uterine condition. Conventional treatment had been unsuccessful. “Placed on vitamin E, she made a spectacular recovery,” Dr. Belfield reports. “Lambert said she became quite rejuvenated and lived for another six years.
“Among the virtues of vitamin E is the prevention of excessive scar tissue production,” he adds.
Vitamin C is another crucial nutrient for heart health, as it stabilizes blood vessel walls by supporting the production of collagen, elastin, and other connective tissue. Some physicians consider congestive heart failure a form of scurvy, caused by a deficiency of vitamin C. A powerful antioxidant, vitamin C protects the cardiovascular system as well as speeds wound healing throughout the body, including tiny lesions and wounds within blood vessel walls. In addition, vitamin C is a cofactor for enzymes (biological catalysts) that improve the metabolism of cholesterol and triglycerides.
But of all the vitamins associated with heart health, the most important may be those of the vitamin B complex, including one that has never been recognized as important to human health (vitamin B4, or adenine), even though animal research has shown that withholding it produces congestive heart failure. Vitamin B4 is found in yeast, liver, and wheat germ.
In the last 20 years, Bruce West, DC, has treated thousands of congestive heart failure patients with nutrition rather than drugs. Although he works with humans rather than dogs, his explanation of how congestive heart failure develops applies to both. The cause in most cases, he says, is what he calls American beriberi, or beriberi of the heart. Beriberi is a B-vitamin deficiency that causes nerve conductivity problems, weakness, and muscle paralysis. “Congestive heart failure,” he says, “is a problem of poor nerve conductivity to the heart, an almost paralyzing weakness of the heart muscle, and the resultant failure of the heart muscle to be able to pump out blood.”
Dr. West recommends nutrient-rich foods that contain the entire B-vitamin complex as well as all of the nutrients important to circulatory system health. Unlike prescription drugs, these supplements help the body repair itself by providing the nutrients whose deficiency caused the damage in the first place.
According to Dr. West, most human patients who follow his protocol reduce their prescription drugs and diuretics within a few months and stop them altogether within a year, and this is quite possible for canine patients, too. “Heart drugs are powerful and can prolong life,” he notes, “but when they are no longer needed, they can do serious damage to the heart and kidneys and should be discontinued.”
Recommended dosages vary widely, depending on the prescriber’s philosophy. Practitioners of orthomolecular medicine use very high doses of synthetic vitamins to treat heart disease and other conditions. In Keep Your Pet Healthy the Natural Way, Pat Lazarus lists the supplements used by Richard J. Kearns, DVM, to treat canine heart disease, which include 400,000 International Units (IU) of water-soluble vitamin A, 20 to 25 grams of vitamin C, and up to 4,000 to 6,000 IU of water-soluble vitamin E. Megadoses of synthetic vitamins have a drug-like effect and require professional supervision.
At the opposite end of the spectrum are those who use whole-food supplements rather than synthetic vitamins or isolated nutrients. Even though they supply individual nutrients in minute quantities, whole-food supplements such as those made by Standard Process and Wysong contain all of the C-complex, B-complex, and other families of vitamins, plus hundreds of other nutrients. Food-source supplements are readily absorbed and utilized, have no adverse side effects, and work synergistically to repair damaged tissue.
• Coenzymes:Coenzyme Q10 is used by holistic practitioners for many heart ailments, including CHF. Coenzyme Q10 (generally written as CoQ10 and pronounced “Coe-cue-ten”) is a vitamin-like substance that resembles vitamin E in its action, and strengthens the heart muscle and enhances immunity.
For his canine CHF patients, San Diego-based veterinarian Stephen Blake (see “Holistic Veterinarians Propose Other CHF Causes and Treatments” sidebar at end of story) prescribes one milligram of oil-based CoQ10 per pound of body weight per day, or two milligrams of powdered CoQ10 per pound of body weight.
• Amino acids: The amino acids taurine and L-carnitine are popular supplements because they have been shown to help strengthen the heart muscle, increase its output, and help relieve edema. These amino acids work best when given with high-quality protein and are usually recommended for CHF in doses up to 10 mg per pound of body weight.
• Minerals: Of the many minerals that help maintain heart health, the most important are found in raw bones. Dogs on a raw bone-based diet ingest these minerals daily. Calcium supports the contraction of muscle cells in the heart as well as the conduction of nerve impulses that trigger heartbeats. Magnesium helps normalize an irregular heartbeat, and works synergistically with calcium to strengthen the heart. Trace elements such as zinc, manganese, copper, selenium, chromium, molybdenum, and boron are also important, but are needed in only small quantities.
Supplements such as Calcifood, Min-Tran, and Organic Minerals from Standard Process or Wysong’s Orgamin and Chelamin contain all of these important nutrients. Powdered kelp (½ teaspoon per 15 pounds of body weight) and liquid colloidal minerals (½ teaspoon per 30 pounds of body weight) can be added to food for additional support.
• Essential fatty acids: Essential fatty acids (EFAs) can be important supplements, especially for dogs fed a grain-based commercial diet. EFA supplements that contain fish oils (marine lipids) provide omega-3 fatty acids that improve heart function by correcting EFA deficiencies and balances.
• Enzymes: Systemic oral enzyme products such as Wobenzym and Nutrizyme help repair damage to the heart and other organs, especially where inflammation is involved. Systemic oral enzymes are enteric-coated digestive enzymes taken between meals on an empty stomach.
“Instead of staying in the stomach and digesting food,” explains enzyme researcher Charles Green, “these enzymes circulate through the body, removing inflammation, breaking down scar tissue, and restoring healthy tissue.” According to Green, this therapy reduces inflammation quickly, within a matter of days or even hours, while the removal of scar tissue takes place more slowly. These products have been proven safe even in large doses for long-term use.
Herbs for Your Dog’s Heart
Of the many herbs that support heart health, several are suitable for use with dogs.
The hawthorn berry (Crataegus oxyacantha), is gentle, effective, and nontoxic. Hawthorn’s flavonoids increase coronary blood flow while slightly enhancing the force of the heartbeat; it stabilizes the pulse, increases the heart’s tolerance of oxygen deficiency, and increases cerebral blood flow. Because it has a gradual effect, hawthorn should be taken over a long period, such as several months or years, for maximum effectiveness. Prolonged use is safe, as hawthorn has shown extremely low toxicity in every animal species tested. Any hawthorn preparation sold for human use can be given to dogs, adapting label directions to the patient’s weight.
Another herb with impressive cardiovascular benefits is garlic. Garlic improves cholesterol balance, inhibits harmful platelet congregation, and acts as an antioxidant. There is much debate about which type of garlic is best, and every preparation (fresh, dried, cooked, raw, aged, or extract) has its proponents. Although side effects are rare, garlic does thin the blood and should not be used by dogs with bleeding disorders. Otherwise, it is usually safe to take in “courses” of five days on and two days off for four weeks, then discontinued for one week before resuming, with occasional breaks of a month or more.
Cayenne pepper (Capsicum annuum), another culinary herb with cardiotonic properties, helps stop internal bleeding, relieves pain, strengthens tissue, and improves circulation. Cayenne capsules are widely sold and easy to administer in food.
Other tonic herbs with circulatory system benefits include ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), gotu kola (Centella asiatica), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), and bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus).
Liver support, which is important in most cases of congestive heart failure, is well provided by dandelion leaf or root (Taraxacum officinale) and milk thistle seed (Silybum marianum).
For best results, work with a veterinary herbalist to determine which herbs would benefit your dog, adjust the dosages, and monitor their effects. As mentioned earlier, success with nutritional support or herbal medicines may enable you to reduce your dog’s conventional medications. However, this must be done under a veterinarian’s supervision. Contact the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association to find a holistic veterinarian in your area.
Holistic Veterinarians Propose Other CHF Causes and Treatments
It’s in the Food
To Australian veterinarian Tom Lonsdale, author of the book Raw Meaty Bones and a longtime advocate of raw diets for dogs, the cause of almost every case of canine congestive heart failure is commercial pet food. “Domestic dogs that are fed the way a wolf or dingo feeds itself bloom with health,” he says. “I’m talking about whole carcasses or large lumps of raw meat and bones as the staple of the diet. Congestive heart failure is rare in dogs that eat the diet nature intended.
“Heart disease usually starts in the mouth,” he continues. “A diet based on raw meaty bones provides the nutrients and exercise that keep teeth and gums clean and healthy, while commercial pet food promotes periodontal infections like gingivitis and pyorrhea. These infections have consequences for other body systems. Harmful bacteria drain from the mouth and spread throughout the body, leading to multiple problems, including heart disease.”
According to Dr. Lonsdale, congestive heart failure involves collagen, the connective tissue that holds the body together. Dietary deficiencies and mouth infections affect all of the body’s collagen adversely, he says. As circulatory system collagen loses its flexibility, inflammation results, producing scar tissue, leaky valves, and circulatory insufficiency.
“As with so many things,” says Dr. Lonsdale, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This is especially so with dogs that have an audible congenitally acquired heart murmur. If one can improve the patient’s dental hygiene and diet before signs of congestive heart failure arise, then, despite the heart murmur, general health often remains surprisingly good. That’s a relief because drug treatments are at best unreliable.”
Detoxification
San Diego veterinarian Stephen Blake agrees that congestive heart failure is a syndrome rather than an isolated illness. “It’s a mistake to focus exclusively on the heart,” he says, “because the heart is only part of the problem. Ninety percent of the congestive heart failure patients I see also have some kind of liver problem, which isn’t surprising considering our toxic environment. Dogs are exposed to toxins in their food and water, not to mention vaccines and prescription drugs, all of which overwhelm the liver. So in most cases, in addition to supporting the heart, I’m going to be treating the liver.”
Dr. Blake begins this process by removing as many toxins as possible from the dog’s environment and diet. “Anything that’s not natural should be eliminated,” he says. “I recommend that the dog not receive vaccinations, heartworm preventatives, flea or tick treatments, food that contains chemical preservatives, or anything that might contain pesticide residues or other chemicals. If the patient is on prescription medication, I consider whether going off the drug would be beneficial or dangerous. For example, if the dog has diabetes as well as congestive heart failure, I’m not going to pull him off insulin. But in most cases, you can discontinue prescription drugs by providing herbs or supplements that have similar effects.”
One patient who recovered on Dr. Blake’s protocol of improved nutrition, herbs, homeopathy, and acupuncture is Mia, a Chow who, two years ago, had a chronic lung infection and congestive heart failure. Despite conventional treatment with antibiotics, heart drugs, and diuretics, her condition was rapidly deteriorating.
“She was on a low-protein food for senior dogs,” he says, “and that has to be the worst kind of diet for the heart. We increased the amount of protein in her diet and improved its quality by switching her to raw meat and bones. I had her take colostrum, which is rich in growth factors and helps promote tissue repair, as well as Cardio-Plus and glandular products from Standard Process for support of the heart. Then I chose a homeopathic remedy to fit her constitutionally.
“At her first appointment, this dog could barely breathe, coughed all the time, was extremely uncomfortable, and was close to death. Now she no longer takes Lasix (her prescription diuretic) or other medications except for one heart drug, which she takes at a reduced dose. She just turned 16 and is in great shape, full of spit and vinegar.”
Homeopathy and Energy Medicine
Gloria Dodd, DVM, uses homeopathy, nutrition, and energy medicine to treat dogs with CHF. Her Web site features beforeand-after photos of some of her patients, including Snookie, a 12-year-old spayed female Poodle who had severe congestive heart failure, emphysema, plus liver and digestive problems. She was also deaf.
After treatment with an improved diet and Dr. Dodd’s homeopathic combination for CHF, Snookie looks years younger. Her lungs are clear, she plays like a puppy, and her hearing has returned.
Dr. Dodd’s interest in energy medicine prompted her to design a halter that combines color therapy, quartz crystals, pyramid configuration energy, heart chakra energy, and an antiradiation bead. The first dog to wear the harness, which now comes in different sizes, was her own Poodle, who had CHF and a severe mitral heart valve murmur. After wearing the halter, her CHF and heart murmur disappeared. Now 18 years old, the Poodle has remained active and free from disease for the past four years, with all clinical exams and blood tests remaining normal.
“The basis of all my treatment for any illness is one of detoxification and support, which I describe on my Web site,” says Dr. Dodd. “I find that in order to effect a cure (and that is what I aim for; I don’t espouse repressive therapy even with natural methods), one has to ferret out the true cause of disease. It is multilayered, and I consider energy medicine my most important tool.”
Unorthodox Approaches
As one might guess, the ideas forwarded by these holistic practitioners are not supported by most conventional practitioners, who generally treat CHF with modern pharmacology alone. If your conventionally oriented veterinarian scoffs at your queries regarding complementary therapies, look for a holistic veterinarian who can augment your healthcare options. The American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association (AHVMA) can help you find a practitioner in your area.
In Conclusion
Congestive heart failure has many possible causes and many possible treatments. By focusing on diet and nutrition, by avoiding conditions and products that add stress to the body, and by providing appropriate support therapies, many patients with CHF can experience a total restoration of health.
Freelance writer CJ Puotinen is the author of The Encyclopedia of Natural Pet Care and many other books.
Your dog might seem to love being around your children – and still be at risk of biting one of them. It depends on what her specific stressors are. You need to know what her stressors are, and manage her environment carefully.
There are few things quite as disconcerting as having your own dog bite you. I can recall with crystal clarity the time our Scottie nailed me in a classic case of redirected aggression. He had taken an intense dislike to a Labrador Retriever who had entered the room, and when I touched him on his back to try to distract him, he whirled around and redirected his aroused state, and his substantial Scottish Terrier teeth, at my hand.
Despite the horror stories of free-roaming Pitbulls mauling children as they walk to school, the majority of dog bites occur in the owner’s home. The majority of dog bite victims are friends or members of the owner’s family. Sixty-one percent of dog bites occur in the home or a familiar place, and 77 percent of bite victims are family members or friends, according to attorney Kenneth Phillips, who specializes in dog bite cases. A relatively small percentage of bites are inflicted by errant stray dogs. This means that most bites leave a shocked owner feeling betrayed by his loyal canine, and wondering whether he can ever trust his four-footed friend again.
Why Do Dogs Bite?
Why did your sweet dog bite you? All dogs can bite, and given differing circumstances, all dogs will. Although we humans regard any bite as aggression, for dogs, biting is a natural and normal means of canine communication and defense. It’s actually surprising that our dogs don’t bite us more often than they do!
Aggression and bites are generally caused by stress, which can come from a variety of sources. Some dogs have high bite thresholds – it takes a lot of stressors to make them bite. Some have low thresholds – it doesn’t take much to convince them to bite. A dog with a high bite threshold may seem like the best choice around kids. This is often true, but if noisy, active children are very stressful to the dog, even a high-threshold dog might bite them. Conversely, a dog who has a low bite threshold may be a fine child’s companion if children are not one of his stressors, and if he is kept in an environment that is free of the things that are stressors for him.
Pain, fear, anxiety, arousal – any kind of threat to the dog’s well-being can be considered a stressor. A timid dog whose space is trespassed upon will retreat, but if prevented from retreating, will bite out of fear. A mother with pups whose space is trespassed upon may feel threatened by the intrusion, and bite. A resource-guarder bites because he is offended (stressed) by his perception that the human might take a possession. The bite often resolves the situation for the dog and relieves his stress, which is why a dog may bite in one instant and seem fine the next. When the resource-guarder bites, the human (generally) withdraws; with the threat to his food bowl gone, the dog is perfectly calm and happy again. Wounds to the human victim’s skin often heal far more quickly than the breach in the relationship between dog and human. This is unfortunate, because the majority of bites are perfectly justified – from the dog’s point of view – although often misunderstood by the human.
If humans better understood dogs, we would realize it’s about behavior, not trust. Many biting dogs could easily remain in their homes and lead long and happy lives, with a low risk for a second bite, if their owners only understood how to identify and minimize their dogs’ stressors.
What to Do If Your Dog Bites Someone
If your dog bites, you have at least four options:
Manage his behavior to prevent him from ever biting again
Implement a comprehensive behavior modification program
Rehome the dog
Have the dog euthanized
1. Manage his behavior to prevent him from ever having the opportunity to bite again.
While difficult, this is possible. It means greatly restricting his movements so he has no access to humans, other than adult family members. If company comes over, the dog is crated in a closed room. If the grandkids visit, he is crated or sent to a kennel that is equipped to safely handle a biting dog. Even if he adores the grandkids, the fact that he has bitten puts them at unacceptable risk. Unless you are 100 percent confident that you know what his stressors are and can prevent them from occurring during the kids’ visit, you cannot take the chance.
Of course, selecting this option means a reduced quality of life – no more walks in the park, on or off leash; no more rides in the car; and no more spending hours on his own in the fresh air and sunshine in the fenced backyard.
2. Manage his behavior to prevent him from biting while you implement a comprehensive behavior modification program. This requires a serious commitment.
Most owners, however, need the (sometimes costly) help of an experienced, positive behavior counselor or behaviorist to help them succeed. The behavior professional will help identify your dog’s stressors, and set up a program to use desensitization and counter-conditioning to convince him that the things he now perceives as “bad” (stressors) are really “good.” If he changes his perception, they will no longer cause him stress, and they won’t push him over his bite threshold.
This doesn’t happen overnight. The longer your dog has practiced his aggression responses, the longer it takes to modify them. The more committed you are to working with him, the more opportunities he will have to reprogram his responses and the faster it will happen. Meanwhile, he must be crated or kenneled while visitors or grandkids are at the house, and not taken for walks, car rides, nor left to his own devices in the backyard.
3. Rehome him with a new owner who is willing and able to do one of the first two.
Rehoming a dog that bites is a long shot. Depending on the circumstances of the bite and the dog’s general nature, some dogs who have bitten may be accepted into training programs for government drug or bomb-sniffing dogs, or as police K9 units. Your average adoption home, however, is no better equipped than you to make the commitment necessary to safely keep a biting dog. Most rescue groups will not accept dogs who have a history of biting, and shelters that do accept them will often euthanize, rather than take the risk (and the liability) of placing them in a new home.
If you rehome him yourself, you risk having the dog fall into the hands of someone who will punish him severely for biting, or otherwise not treat him well. You may even continue to bear some liability, moral if not also legal, should the dog do serious damage to someone at his new home.
There are millions of dogs looking for homes who haven’t bitten anyone. You love your dog and are trying to rehome him. What are your chances of finding someone to adopt him who is willing to take the risk of bringing home a biting dog?
4. Have the dog euthanized.
This is never a happy outcome. Still, you need to think long and hard about this dog’s quality of life. If you can only manage his behavior, will he be happy, or miserable, being shut out of the activities he loves? Can you guarantee that the home you find for him will treat him well? Once a dog bites, will he bite again?
If you can manage and modify, and still maintain your own quality of life as well as his, by all means, that is the best choice. But if not, remember that aggression is caused by stress, and stress is not an enjoyable state of being. If the dog is so stressed that you can’t succeed in managing and modifying his behavior and he is a high risk for biting someone else, he can’t be living a very enjoyable life. Nor can you! As difficult as the decision may be, it is sometimes the right and responsible one for the protection of all of your loved ones, including the dog.
What you should never do is close your eyes and hope and pray that he doesn’t bite again. You are responsible for protecting your family as well as other members of your community. Denial will only result in more bites.
The most dangerous course of action – for the dog and the human – is also the one taken by most uninformed owners of dogs who bite. Many people react to their dog’s bite by physically and sometimes severely punishing the dog into submission. Some dog trainers even recommend this method, to be employed at the dog’s first sign of aggression. A warning growl or snarl is met with a harsh verbal correction and a leash jerk, followed by more serious measures such as hanging or helicoptering if the dog continued to resist. While this method does manage to “whip” some dogs “into shape,” others will escalate their resistance, fighting back until dog, human, or both, are seriously injured or even dead. You should NOT punish a dog for biting.
This method may also teach the dog not to give a warning prior to the bite. It certainly doesn’t do anything to minimize the dog’s stressors. If anything, it increases the stress, since the dog now associates a severe beating along with whatever other negative feelings he has about the stressor.
Let’s say, for example, a dog is not fond of children. A child approaches and the dog growls – his attempt to let us (and the child) know that her presence is stressful to him. We jerk on his leash and tell him to knock it off. He snaps at us in response to the jerk, so we punish him harder, until he stops fighting and submits. The end result is a dog who isn’t any happier about being around small children, who has now learned that it isn’t safe to growl. This dog is now more likely to bite a child next time he sees one, rather than growling to warn her away, since he has learned that his growling makes us unreasonably aggressive. We may have suppressed the growl, but we haven’t helped him feel any better about being around kids!
A growl is a good thing. It tells us that our dog is nearing his bite threshold, and gives us the opportunity to identify and remove the stressor. Snarls and air-snaps are two steps closer to the threshold – our dog’s last-ditch attempts to warn off the stressor before he is forced to commit the ultimate offense: The actual bite.
If your dog growls or snaps frequently, you need to take notice. He is telling you that there are lots of stressors pushing him toward his bite threshold. If you don’t take action, chances are good that he will eventually bite. And if your dog bites a child – then what? Let’s just say dogs who bite tend to have short lifespans.
Dog Bite Classifications
Well-known veterinarian, dog trainer, and behaviorist Ian Dunbar has developed a six-level system of classifying bites, in order to make discussions of dog biting behavior more consistent and understandable. Those levels are:
Level 1 Bite
Harassment, but no skin contact. This is the so-called snap. Don’t kid yourself. A snap is an intended “air bite” from a dog who did not intend to connect. He didn’t just “miss.” It is a lovely warning signal, telling us that we need to identify his stressors and either desensitize him or manage his behavior to avoid exposing him to the things that cause him undue stress.
Level 2 Bite
Tooth contact on skin but no puncture.This is from a dog who wanted to bite but didn’t break skin, and a warning that this dog is serious. It’s a very good idea to remove the dog’s stressors at this point, before he graduates to the next level.
Level 3 Bite
Skin punctures, one to four holes from a single bite (all punctures shallower than the length of the canine tooth).
Level 4 Bite
One to four holes, deep black bruising with punctures deeper than the length of the canine (which means the dog bit and clamped down) or slashes in both directions from the puncture (the dog bit and shook his head).
Level 5 Bite
Multiple-bite attack with deep punctures, or multiple attack incident.
Level 6 Bite
Killed victim and/or consumed flesh.
Can a Dog Who Bites Be Rehabilitated? Dog Biting Can Usually Be Improved
The good news is that relatively few dogs are beyond help. If you make a commitment to helping your dog feel more comfortable with the world, there’s a good chance you will succeed. You will understand why he has bitten in the past, and be able to avoid his stressors while you work to convince him that what are now stressors for him are actually good things.
Like my own encounter with my Scottie’s capable canines, you will realize that the bite wasn’t personal, but simply the end result of a chain of events that were beyond your dog’s control. What a proud day for you both, when you can take him out in public with confidence, knowing that he is as safe as any dog can be in the face of the unknown elements of the real world.
Four Steps to Modify Aggressive Dog Behavior
Aggression is a classically conditioned response. Your dog does not generally take a seat and ponder whether he is going to bite the next time you try to clip his nails or remove him from the bed. When a stressor occurs, it triggers an involuntary reaction – the dog’s brain screams, “Nail clipping – BAD!” and the dog bites. If you want the dog to stop from biting when you clip his nails, you have to change his brain’s reaction to “Nail clipping – GOOD!” See how disciplining a dog for biting is counterproductive yet?
You will use food, a very powerful positive reinforcer, to change the way your dog’s brain responds to a stressor, using “desensitization and counter-conditioning” (D&CC). Here is one possible program for a dog who bites during nail trimming, as an example. You can change the steps to fit any situation that typically causes your dog to bite.
NOTE: Because the risks associated with a failed program for aggression are high, I strongly recommend that you work with a competent positive behavior professional to implement a D&CC program. The following program is not intended to take the place of professional guidance.
1. Write down every step of the process.
Record every single step you normally take for nail trimming, (or whatever situation your dog has problems with). Your list may look something like this:
a.) Set the nail clippers on the coffee table
b.) Grab dog
c.) Drag dog to coffee table; keep stranglehold of dog’s collar
d.) Grip dog in unbreakable headlock
e.) Pick up clippers
f.) Pick up dog’s right front paw with the left hand while maintaining headlock
g.) Move clippers toward paw
h.) Touch paw with clippers
i.) Clip first nail
j.) Clip second nail, etc., all the way through all the dog’s nails.
2. Determine how to separate different elements of this procedure into separate goals for Desensitization and Counter-conditioning.
Separate goals might look like this:
a.) Develop positive association with clippers
b.) Teach dog to sit quietly and accept paws being held
c.) Convince dog to allow nail clipping
3. Create a mini-D&CC program for each separate element.
Work on each program separately but concurrently so you can put them all together later.
a.) Positive association with clippers. Purchase several nail clippers. Leave them around the house next to his dinner bowl, on the coffee table, etc. Carry them in your hand as you go about your daily routine. Feed the dog treats while you are holding the clippers. Teach him to touch the clippers with his nose for a high-value reward. (This training technique is called targeting.) Pet him with the clippers in your hand and feed him treats.
b.) Teach your dog to accept paw-holding. Have dog sit quietly with you. Touch him at a point that does not elicit tension – perhaps the top of his head. Feed him a high-value treat. Repeat several times, giving him a treat each time, then move your hand slightly down his neck and feed him a treat.
Repeat this process, giving him treats all the while, very gradually moving down to his elbow, his knee, his paw. It may take several sessions just to get to his elbow. If at any time you elicit signs of aggression – a growl, snarl, or snap – you have moved too quickly. An ideal D&CC program never elicits the behavior you are trying to eliminate. Continue this gradual process until you can lift each paw and hold it longer and longer without resistance.
c.) Convince the dog to allow nail clipping. Your dog now thinks that nail clippers are GOOD and paw holding is GOOD. You must now convince him that the actual clipping is GOOD as well.
Do this gradually. Hold the clippers in one hand while you repeat the paw desensitization step (step 3b) with the other, to show him that paw touching in the presence of clippers is also good. Be generous with your high-value treats. Then use the hand with the clipper to repeat step 3b until he is happy about having you touch his paws with the clipper. Continue by closing the clippers near his toenail, then against his toenail, then by actually clipping the very tip off one nail.
4. NOW STOP!
If he handled this well, it is tempting to go on to the next nail, but it is important that you stop here. One nail clipped without resistance is a huge success. Don’t spoil it by pushing him into feeling stressed, and undoing your work.
Repeat the process the next day, and if all goes well, clip the next nail. The third day, if he still does well, try clipping the next two nails. Eventually, when he is comfortable with the whole process, you can sit down and clip all his nails in one session, without risk of being bitten.
To minimize your dog’s other stressors, make a complete list of all you can identify, then create and apply a program such as the one above to desensitize and counter condition him to each. There may be some stressors for which this is impossible, but remember that the more stressors you desensitize him to, the more likely it is that he will spend the rest of his life bite-free.
A dog’s eyes, like those of its human companions, change with age. The passage of time and the progression of certain illnesses increase the risk of canine cataracts, glaucoma, and other vision-related problems.
Fortunately, not all age-related vision changes are serious, and some that are serious can be prevented and even reversed. By being aware of the eye conditions that are common in aging dogs, we can do much to help our canine companions see well throughout their lives.
Canine Cataracts
Cataracts make the lens of the eye opaque or cloudy, which gradually reduces vision to the point of blindness. In their early stages, cataracts cause blurring and distortion of vision, but they are invisible to the naked eye. By the time most owners notice them, cataracts involve more than 60 percent of the dog’s eye. Cataracts often accompany other illnesses, such as diabetes and hypothyroidism (low thyroid function).
Surgery performed by a veterinary ophthalmologist is the only treatment considered effective in conventional veterinary medicine – and is indicated only in cases where the cataracts are not a result of a secondary disease such as diabetes.
Lenticular sclerosis, also called nuclear sclerosis, is very different from cataracts, though the two are often confused. “Lenticular sclerosis is a normal age-related change in the canine eye,” explains Jeff Wayman, DVM, of Belton, Missouri. “As the dog ages, the interior portion of the lens becomes harder and more compact, producing an indistinct greyish-blue haze. Your veterinarian can easily distinguish cataracts from lenticular sclerosis with an ophthalmoscope.”
Some veterinarians believe that lenticular sclerosis does not interfere with vision at all, while others say it causes slight blurring and interferes with depth perception. “This would be more of a problem if dogs had to read or if they were strongly dependent on central vision,” says Mike Richards, DVM, at www.vetinfo.com, “but they don’t read and they don’t lose the ability to see movement, which is more of a peripheral vision ability. Most dogs with lenticular sclerosis will continue to see well enough to get around for the remainder of their lives.”
Glaucoma in Dogs
One of the most common causes of vision loss in dogs, glaucoma is caused by a buildup of fluid in the aqueous humor of the eye, which results in increased pressure. Several factors can interfere with the normal drainage of fluid from the eye, including structural problems with its filtration (known as primary glaucoma) or mechanical problems caused by a displaced lens or the accumulation of blood and other debris in the eye (secondary glaucoma).
Glaucoma can be chronic, in which the illness’s gradual progression may result in tunnel vision, or acute. Acute glaucoma is a medical emergency requiring veterinary attention. A common symptom of acute glaucoma is the sudden development of a red, painful eye. The pain, which may not be obvious at first, can manifest as lethargy, a loss of appetite, or excessive sleeping.
If this condition goes untreated for 48 hours, it may be impossible to save the eye’s sight, and when one eye has succumbed to glaucoma, the other usually follows. While dogs of any breed can develop glaucoma, those most associated with primary glaucoma are Northern breeds such as the Norwegian Elkhound, Siberian Husky, Malamute, and Samoyed, as well as the Bouvier de Flandres, Basset Hound, Chow, Cocker Spaniel, Shar Pei, Poodle, and Shih Tzu.
Elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) damages the retina and optic nerve, resulting in partial to complete vision loss. “Early recognition of glaucoma is vital if vision is to be preserved in the eye,” says Dr. Wayman. “In my opinion, most glaucoma cases should be managed by a board-certified ophthalmologist if possible.” Conventional treatment includes drug therapy and surgery, including the removal of eyes blinded by glaucoma, as this disease can cause severe pain.
Retinal Degeneration
Most common in Collies, Irish Setters, Miniature Poodles, Labrador Retrievers, and Cocker Spaniels, inherited retinal degeneration or PRA results in vision loss, usually starting with night blindness or difficulty seeing in low-light situations. Sudden acquired retinal degeneration (SARD) can occur in any breed and is believed to result from metabolic disorders such as Cushing’s disease. There is no conventional veterinary treatment for blindness caused by retinal degeneration.
Prevention of Eye Problems
Although injuries can be a factor, holistic veterinarians believe that the leading cause of cataracts, glaucoma, retinal degeneration, and other vision problems is inadequate nutrition.
In his book, Natural Health for Dogs and Cats, holistic veterinarian Richard Pitcairn notes that cataracts frequently accompany immune disorders and chronic diseases such as diabetes. “Many dogs with chronic skin allergies, hip dysplasia, and ear problems will develop cataracts as they get older,” he says. Removing the lens surgically may help, he explains, but unless underlying conditions such as diet are addressed, the eye will never be healthy.
Research on humans has shown that glutathione may help prevent cataract formation and correct damage from free radicals. Some studies have shown that many lenses affected by cataracts contain only 20 percent of the glutathione found in healthy lenses. Glutathione is composed of three amino acids, cysteine, glycine, and glutamic acid. Natural sources include eggs, broccoli, avocados, and garlic, and glutathione is sold as a nutritional supplement.
Wendell O. Belfield, DVM, a pioneer of nutritional therapy for pets, cites human studies that show vitamin C improves the vision of elderly patients suffering from cataracts. He describes one veterinarian who successfully treated hundreds of dogs with cataracts and related eye conditions using injected and oral vitamin E and selenium.
In addition, the famous vitamin E researcher Dr. Wilfrid Shute told Dr. Belfield how he treated a champion Doberman Pinscher that stopped siring and went blind with cataracts at age seven. After a few weeks of taking 300 International Units (IUs) of vitamin E daily, the dog sired several litters of puppies and, within three months, his cataracts cleared up.
Another veterinarian mentioned by Dr. Belfield successfully treated canine cataracts with 20,000 IUs of vitamin A daily for 10 weeks. “There are many different types and causes involved with cataracts,” he concluded. “My opinion is that a good diet and supplementation program will contribute to preventing them and may, as the above cases show, eliminate them should they occur.”
It is so difficult to treat glaucoma in dogs that prevention is crucial. Some veterinarians recommend vitamin C and/or the mineral selenium because deficiencies of both have been found in human glaucoma patients. Vitamin C was found to lower intra- ocular pressure in many studies, even in patients who did not respond to prescription drugs.
Cod liver oil has dramatically lowered intraocular pressure in rabbits, humans, and other animals, and oils rich in omega-3 fatty acids, such as flax seed oil, also help lower pressure. Bioflavonoids such as grapeseed extract and the herb bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) help prevent glaucoma by maintaining healthy collagen in the eyes. The herbs gotu kola (Centella asiatica) and ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) may help lower pressure by increasing circulation in and around the eyes, while coleus (Coleus forskohlii) relaxes smooth muscles in the eye and helps lower pressure. For best results, consult an herbalist or holistic veterinarian to determine the best preparations and doses for dogs at serious risk of glaucoma.
Advocates of natural feeding plans claim that dogs raised on well-balanced raw food rarely develop retinal degeneration or PRA.
The same vitamins, herbs, and supplements that help prevent glaucoma and cataracts can prevent or slow the progression of retinal atrophy. Bilberry, which British World War II pilots used to improve their night vision, is especially appropriate. Because there are strong links between the eyes and the liver, many holistic veterinarians use herbs and supplements to support liver function while treating PRA. The herbs milk thistle seed (Silybum marianum) and dandelion leaf or root (Taraxacum officinale) help tone and repair the liver, as do supplements containing liver.
Acupuncture is an important support therapy for dogs with vision problems. It corrects energy imbalances throughout the body, stimulates self-repair, and strengthens individual organs, including the eyes and liver. Acupressure and massage are also helpful.
With a lifetime of good vision as their reward, any improvements we can make in our dogs’ food, supplements, and support therapies are investments worth making.
CJ Puotinen, a frequent contributor to WDJ, is the author of The Encyclopedia of Natural Pet Care, Natural Remedies for Dogs and Cats, and several books about human health including Natural Relief from Aches and Pains.
Remembering what occurred in a few quick seconds on that sunny December afternoon seems like watching a film running in slow motion to Karen Scussel, co-owner of a 12-year-old terrier mix named Petey. Returning home from Christmas shopping on December 19, 2000, Karen looked forward to Petey’s usual greeting as he raced around to the drivers side of her car after she had entered the garage and turned off the engine. But, at just the moment before the garage door closed, Petey spotted a squirrel across the road, and dashed after it in typical terrier fashion.
Karen describes what happened next as Petey hitting a car, rather than Petey getting hit by a car. The terrier ran right into the side of an automobile that was passing by their house. Fortunately, the car did not run over his body, but the impact did launch him up in the air and he landed hard in the road.
Horrified, Karen rushed to Petey’s side and saw he was unconscious and bleeding from the mouth. His left eye appeared damaged. She scooped Petey up and immediately drove him one short mile to the Adobe Animal Hospital in Los Altos, California.
At the animal hospital, veterinarian Dave Roos stabilized the little dog and controlled the bleeding, then began to investigate the extent of the damage to Petey’s body. As she watched Dr. Roos care for Petey, the trauma of the events that had occurred in just the last few minutes descended on Karen. “I lost it,”she says. “The doctor’s assistant asked me for my telephone number because that’s how the animal hospital files its patient records. I couldn’t even speak to answer their questions. Because he was not responding at first to Dr. Roos’s treatments, the doctor advised Karen that Petey might not survive the accident.”
Determined guardians
Karen and her husband, Curt Riffle, first discovered Petey at their local humane society shelter in 1990. Scheduled for euthanasia the next day, the shelter considered the little dog, then four months old, to be un-adoptable. Unsure of his background, they thought he might have suffered an accident in the recent past, as he had shaved patches on his legs as though he had received anesthesia.
But Karen and Curt found his blond terrier coat and his dark brown eyes irresistible, and he became a welcome member of their family, which already included a Dachshund/Chihuahua mix named Rascal. Petey proved to be a sweet, mellow, 14-pound pet, with a low-key temperament, and no behavior or health problems. An affectionate fellow, he developed a special attachment to Karen.
As her canine friend lay unconscious in the veterinary hospital, Karen phoned her husband and told him about Petey. When Curt arrived at the hospital, the veterinarian told the couple that, although Petey’s chances of recovery were questionable, his x-rays, amazingly, revealed no broken bones. Originally concerned that Petey might have broken his back, Dr. Roos concluded that Petey suffered a severe concussion and spinal contusion, and that his injuries may have inflamed his brain. Petey had regained consciousness, but he could not see and was not able to walk or even stand. Dr. Roos could not assure Curt and Karen that their dog would ever regain his sight or mobility.
Though they were devastated by Dr. Roos’s words, Curt and Karen committed to doing everything possible to help Petey.
We were both on Christmas vacation from our jobs, Curt explains. We visited Petey at the animal hospital every day, all day, during the three days following the accident. Rascal even came to visit Petey, too. When Rascal and I saw Petey after the accident, Petey wagged his tail. That’s when Dr. Roos said Petey had a small chance to recuperate to some extent. Petey realized that we weren’t going to give up on him, so he decided not to give up, either.
In the Intensive Care unit, Curt and Karen constantly talked to Petey, and gently stroked him. Although the dog received nourishment through IVs, Karen encouraged him to eat baby food. Dr. Roos told us that Petey should be able to eat and drink before he could return home. Although his jaw was not working properly, I was determined to get him eating, and I did. On the third day following his accident, Curt and Karen brought Petey home, still blind and unable to stand, but able to eat with difficulty.
At first, Curt and Karen carried Petey outdoors, supporting him so he could relieve himself. During the first week, Petey took a few wobbly steps and his sight returned; however, Curt and Karen noticed that Petey’s body curved sharply to the left and his abdomen seemed twisted to the left side of his body. When Petey walked, he constantly turned to the left. I felt very guilty and sad to see him that way, Karen admits. I thought he must be so confused to suddenly find himself in that condition, but the doctor told us not to worry about it as Petey wouldn’t know the difference after a while.
Petey in the swim
Not satisfied with Petey’s condition after leaving the hospital, Curt decided to research holistic therapies that might be suitable. He and Karen subscribed to WDJ, but had no experience with complementary therapies for themselves or their animal companions. A horse owner, Curt did know other equestrians who were enthusiasts of holistic practices, so he thought it was worth researching for Petey.
In the October 2000 issue of WDJ, he discovered an article about hydrotherapy as a rehabilitative treatment for injured dogs, and noted that one of the hydrotherapy clinics mentioned in the article, the Animal Fitness Center in San Jose, was close to home. During hydrotherapy, the dog floats with support in a warm pool where its muscles can relax; a trained therapist guides the dog through appropriate exercises, helping the dog overcome muscle, skeletal, and nerve damage.
Curt discussed the therapy with Karen, and together they decided to let Petey try it. In late December, they brought Petey to the Animal Fitness Center for his first hydrotherapy session with Kathy Kern.
A veterinary technician and hydrotherapy practitioner for 17 years, Kathy herself experienced the healing effects of hydrotherapy after a drunk driver struck her car. She underwent shoulder surgery following the accident, but was not able to regain full range of motion or freedom from pain. A physical therapist recommended hydrotherapy, which was key to a successful recovery. Shortly after her own success with the therapy, Kern began training to become a veterinary hydrotherapist.
Petey exhibited an overall lack of circulation due to his injuries, Kern remembers. The injury interrupts the circulation and the body forms collaterals, or circulation paths around the blocked blood vessels, but these paths are not efficient and delay healing. The sooner we treat dogs after an injury, the more effective we can be, because they have not yet created too many collaterals. Petey couldn’t get his circulation going again through his injured paths because he could not support his body weight enough to exercise properly and restart his circulation.
Animals and people retain brain memory from traumas that cause them to anticipate pain from attempted movements. Floating in a pool heated to about 92 degrees, a body can relax and move in new ways that are not painful. Kern calls this process erasing erroneous pain patterns from the brain, allowing the brain to accept movement without attaching painful memories to the effort. In contrast to chiropractic, where the therapist manipulates the patients body, a hydrotherapist provides physical support in the pool, and a relaxed environment, allowing the animal to make its own adjustments.
Kern recommends one-hour treatments each day for three consecutive days to treat almost all conditions. The owners remain in the pool area during treatment, helping the dog to feel secure and focused. The treatments are as good for the owners as they are for the dog, she says. Seeing their dogs in the pool moving freely again, and without pain, encourages the owners and makes them feel good, too, says Kern.
Curt and Karen noticed that Petey’s body was much straighter after the hydrotherapy treatments. However, he still had trouble eating, drinking, using his tongue, and grabbing and holding objects in his mouth. During January 2001, Curt and Karen debated the need for additional treatments for Petey, and wondered whether Peteys current improvements represented the best recovery he could make. We had already gone beyond our traditional response to a medical situation by arranging for the hydrotherapy treatment. We weren’t sure we wanted to go overboard by layering other therapies on top of hydrotherapy, says Karen.
In January, as they pondered Petey’s condition, they adopted a third dog from the shelter. A bright and happy-go-lucky Spitz-mix they named Chloe, she seemed to help Petey to lighten up. Curt and Karen began to suspect that Petey could improve even further.
After his three hydrotherapy treatments, Kern had asked Curt and Karen to consider acupuncture to further support Petey’s healing, and to encourage the long-term recovery of his damaged nerves, both in his body and in the left side of his face. Hydrotherapy improves most muscle and skeletal conditions, traumatic and chronic, but Petey had also suffered significant nerve damage, and nerve regeneration proceeds very slowly. Kern thought that acupuncture might be just the thing for Petey.
Another adjunct
Back Curt went into his WDJ archives, and found the July 2000 issue with an overview of acupuncture. We were so pleased with the success of our first venture into holistic therapies that we were now open to learning about and trying another new therapy, if we could again enhance the quality of Petey’s life, says Karen. We made an appointment with Dr. Sarah Skiwski, who had just started practicing acupuncture at the Adobe Animal Hospital. We felt we were off on another learning adventure.
Petey’s severe left-side weakness was readily apparent to Dr. Skiwski. He had significant problems working his mouth and tongue, which seemed beyond his conscious control. On the left side of his face his muscles had atrophied from a lack of nerve impulses stimulating them, and you could see his jaw bones through his skin, reports Dr. Skiwski. Nerves take an especially long time to heal, she adds, and I knew I had to get Petey’s circulation going in his face before the muscles atrophied beyond repair.
To calm Petey, Dr. Skiwski inserted one acupuncture needle on the top of Petey’s head, in a location that aids in relaxation. She added another needle in the left side of his face. The animal relaxes, and then tells me when the treatment is finished, notes Dr. Skiwski. Usually after about 15 minutes, the animal starts to move around and acts restless. Then I know the needles have done their work and its time for them to come out.
Karen, who accompanied Petey to his sessions and held him while Dr. Skiwski placed the needles, was astounded by Petey’s reaction to the acupuncture. I could feel Petey relax as soon as Dr. Skiwski inserted the needles, Karen recalls. Then I could actually feel his body heat up and, sometimes, going home in the car, Petey would pant. I knew the acupuncture was getting things moving again. Dr. Skiwski also instructed Curt and Karen to massage Petey on certain pressure points she identified around his head. They performed this treatment at home twice a day, for two to three minutes each time.
After three acupuncture sessions, Petey showed great improvement in his ability to eat. By the fourth session, he was able to grasp his toys more tightly in his mouth. By the eighth session, much of his facial paralysis had diminished, the muscles on the left side of Peteys face had begun to fill out, and he was able to blink his left eye normally. We consider about seven or eight sessions a course of treatment, explains Dr. Skiwski. We often get resolution within that time.
Petey’s owners played a key role in Petey’s improvement, Dr. Skiwski emphasizes. They encouraged him to use his mouth by playing ball and tug with him. They didnt baby him too much it took a little bit of tough love on their part. Also, their expectations were reasonable. I told them that healing nerve damage would be a slow process, and they stuck with it all the way.
An almost total recovery
Today, Petey eats and drinks normally, plays with his Kong toy, and joins his family on long hikes in the California hills. If you know what to look for, says Curt, you can still tell that he drifts slightly to the left when he walks. But its barely noticeable. We are delighted with his recovery. Previously without any experience with holistic therapies, Karen states that now she is much less inclined to agree to invasive treatments until she has tried appropriate holistic therapies.
Curt summarized what he believes were the key ingredients in Peteys successful recovery:
Providing emotional support in intensive care: Curt, Karen, and Rascal spent many hours each day with Petey in the intensive care unit of the animal hospital. They spoke to him, touched him, and hand fed him, and Rascal licked his face. Petey knew his family would not give up on him.
Relishing little victories: Petey responded so well to each course of treatment that Curt and Karen did not become depressed or discouraged for long. They valued the small advances Petey made, one at a time. But, eventually, the small successes all added up to big improvements.
Adding Chloe to the family: A fun-loving and playful dog, Chloe helped to keep Petey alert and active during his recovery period. He herded her as she ran around the yard, and they became fast friends. Her spirit helped to heal Petey’s body, and regenerate his own spirit.
Addressing quality-of-life issues: Although the veterinary hospital provided excellent emergency medical treatment, it was up to Curt and Karen to fully research and select the therapies that could impact the quality-of-life aspects of Peteys recovery. Curts initiative in identifying holistic therapies, and Karens willingness to attempt holistic treatments, provided the impetus to return Petey to the level of health he enjoys today.
Enhancing all elements of Petey’s lifestyle: As Petey responded so well to the hydrotherapy and acupuncture, Curt and Karen decided to begin using the high quality dog foods recommended by WDJ, supplemented with fresh vegetables. We are able to keep Petey at a good weight for his structure now, said Curt. He has lots of energy for the exercise that keeps him fit.
Curt calls their experiment with holistic therapies a great adventure and learning experience that really worked. Karen agrees and adds, I’m so glad we didn’t give up on my best buddy.
-by Lorie Long
Lorie Long is a freelance writer and an avid agility competitor living in North Carolina.
Interactive toys that require your dog to do something to make the toy pay out food treats are a great invention. They can assist with behavior modification programs and help to keep your dog busy, out of trouble, and well-behaved in your home. The more time your dog spends pursuing one, the more energy she expends in your absence, the more tired she is by the time you get home. And a tired dog is a well-behaved dog.
First on the interactive scene was the Buster Cube, followed by the Roll-A-Treat Ball, now joined by a whole host of other interactive products. We decided it was high time to compare some of these treat-dispensing toys to see which ones can give you and your dog the most value.
We evaluated several features in our test products: sturdiness, rate of treat payout, ease of treat-loading, steepness of the learning curve for our test dogs, value as an interactive toy, safety, noise factor, and cost. We also looked for the following traits:
• sturdy enough to withstand the assault of frustrated canines’ canines when the well of treats runs dry
• no parts that can be easily removed and swallowed; no holes big enough to trap doggie jaws
• ability to keep dogs active and interested for long periods
• offer a high enough payout rate to hold the dog’s interest but not so high that the treats run out in five minutes
• quiet enough that they don’t drive you (or your next-door-apartment-dwelling neighbor) crazy
• easy to load with treats
• simple enough for the dog to learn how to use them in a reasonable period of time
• and, of course, affordable.
All of the top-rated products are hard to clean, by the way. When they need cleaning, we suggest sending them through the dishwasher, then doing your best so shake out excess water and setting them out to finish drying before loading them up with treats again.
Teaching Fido to treat himself
Dogs who have not been exposed to treat-payout toys will probably need to be shown what to do. This is simple. Just load your treats into the toy, show it to your dog, and tip it so a treat falls out. Encourage her to sniff and paw at the toy. If your dog has been taught to target, you can use the “touch” cue to get her to push at the ball with her nose. (See “Right on Target,” WDJ March 2001.) It may be necessary to tip out a few more treats until she gets the idea. An occasional dog never gets the idea, but most will catch on sooner or later.
Once your dog has learned the technique, you can use these products to keep her occupied and to use up excess energy by making her work for her meals while you are away all day working for yours. The toys can even help with separation anxiety, by getting the anxious dog to focus on something other than your imminent departure. Instead of plopping her breakfast in her bowl, load her kibble or other morsels of food into the ball and give it to her shortly before you leave. While she is engrossed in pursuing her breakfast, quietly pick up your car keys and escape.
Caution: This obviously does not work for dogs who are crated during your absence, or for dogs who will have to defecate if they eat their meal while you are gone. It is also not appropriate for multiple-dog packs whose members include one or more dedicated food-guarders; in order to avoid dogfights, these dogs should be separated if you are going to leave them with treat-payout products.
Also, remember that safety and sturdiness are relative – one dog’s lifetime play object may be another dog’s five-minute hors d’oeurve. Be sure to judge the safety of these products for yourself, based on your own dog’s history and behavior.
Top dog toys
We started with the Buster Cube, since it’s been on the market the longest and has lots to like. It is made of a sturdy hard plastic and the payout cylinder is adjustable, so once your dog learns how to use it at maximum payout level, you can set it to minimum and make the fun last longer for her.
It is moderately easy to load, and we love that the company recently came out with the Mini model, since the original cube was definitely a challenge for small dogs to maneuver.
There are a few things we don’t like about it, but they aren’t significant enough to take away a 4-paw rating. The Buster Cube’s learning curve can be too steep for some dogs. While our assertive Scottish Terrier tester had no trouble working the cube, some of our “softer” dogs never did get the hang of it. It was also difficult to move the loading cylinder from maximum to minimum – we had to use a screwdriver to accomplish this.
The Buster Cube is more time-consuming to load than some of the other products. Made of hard plastic, it can make a lot of noise. And, while the price range for treat payout products is narrow (from $3 to $20), this one is at the higher end of the range at $12 – $15.
We were pleasantly surprised by the Molecuball. Very simple, with no moving parts or adjustable payout, it is made of hard rubber-like plastic in a “molecule” shape that tends to cause dog teeth to slip off rather than destroy. The softer plastic also makes it a much quieter play toy, which can be a sanity and neighbor-relations saver. It rolls more easily than the Buster Cube, so might be a better choice for softer dogs. Our Scottie adored it, and continued to play with it long after the treats were gone, and most of our less forceful test dogs were able to make it work as well. It’s very affordable, easy to load, and dishwater drains out easily.
It’s not perfect, however. The rubber-like plastic is nowhere near as indestructible as a Kong; an aggressive chewer could probably succeed in destroying the Molecuball fairly easily.
The Roll-A-Treat Ball is our favorite choice for soft dogs who can’t or won’t push hard enough to make the Buster Cube or Molecuball work. It rolls at the touch of a feather, and our Scottie had a wonderful time playing high-speed soccer with it. Our softer dogs also had no problems learning how to make it work, although they preferred following the Kelpie, happily picking up the treats that she ignored, as she was more obsessed with making the ball roll than eating treats. The payout cylinder is easily adjustable from minimum to maximum, and the ball is very easy to load – just remove the cylinder and pour in the treats, reinsert the cylinder. We love the price and the choices of sizes and colors.
The Roll-A-Treat ball does have some flaws. It makes an ungodly racket, especially on cement or hardwood floors, and can do some damage smashing into furniture when it gets up to speed. Carpet slows it down, but the noise can be very annoying, and repeated impact can cause significant wear and tear on your household.
Even more serious, the payout cylinder is way too easy to remove. A dog intent on mayhem could probably gnaw it out in short order, munch it, and risk intestinal damage from sharp plastic pieces. We would recommend this ball for dogs who are not determined chewers, and suggest that you supervise the activity at first to be sure they don’t dismantle the innards.
The Wobble Bone is entertaining, and a relatively safe hard plastic, but it’s a stretch to call it a true interactive toy. The treat reservoir is small, located in the small end of the bone, and the dog tips the toy over to make the treats fall out. The weighted bottom then makes the toy stand back up. Our Scottie figured it out in no time, and also delighted in picking it up by the slender “waist” and carrying it around. Some of our softer test dogs also got the hang of it easily, but our two older dogs never did manage to figure it out.
The Wobble Bone loads easily, but its real shortcoming is that the treat reservoir is so small and the treats fall out so easily that it takes only a couple of minutes to empty it. That leaves at least seven hours and 55 minutes of an eight-hour day for your bored dog to get into mischief.
The Talk To Me Treat Ball is actually a combination of two different types of toys. It does dispense treats, but it also has a small, battery-operated, motion-activated, recording and playback unit snugly screwed into one end.
You can remove the unit, record your own voice, screw it back in, and when your dog pushes the ball around he hears your voice. It’s a cute gimmick.
As a treat ball, it’s a decent product. Although the payout isn’t adjustable, it’s easy to load and the treats fall out at a reasonable rate. There’s no cylinder to come loose as with the Roll-A-Treat Ball, and the recording unit fits tightly enough to not be a concern, except perhaps, for the most aggressive of chewers. It is, however, made of that noisy hard plastic, and another good candidate for annoying the neighbors.
While an interesting novelty, the recording aspect is not likely to do much to resolve your dog’s separation anxiety or loneliness as advertised. The recording quality is poor – your dog may not even recognize it as your voice – and our test dogs paid little or no attention to it. Plus, that novel feature jacks the price to the top of this list of toys.
Overall, it’s a fun gadget to give to a fellow dog-lover as a gift, a decent but expensive interactive treat ball, and a better choice than the Roll-A-Treat Ball for aggressive chewers.
The highway-orange product called Tricky Treats confounded us. Although the package calls it “indestructible,” it is made of a rubbery plastic with concave craters of various sizes that showed significant damage from our Scottie’s unforgiving jaws after just moments of attention. Worse than that, the treats simply don’t fall out.
The design is extremely poor – when the treat opening is toward the floor, all the treats collect at the bottom, blocked by the interior lip, and can’t get to the hole to fall out. Our intrepid Scottie couldn’t get a single treat to come out, which frustrated him and made him chew harder on the soft plastic. Even vigorous human shaking was only mildly successful at releasing treats from the ball prison. If you want a bright orange fetch-ball with craters, go for it. If you want an interactive treat ball, look elsewhere.
In our opinion, the Crazy Ball has few redeeming qualities. It’s a hard plastic ball within a hard plastic ball, which compounds its noise potential.
The treats are loaded with some difficulty into the interior ball through bone-shaped slots (to match the shape of Nylabone’s so-called “Healthy Edibles Bacon Mini-Chew” treats, included with the ball). Loaded with artificial colors, the treats are definitely not WDJ-approved. Also, you can’t adjust the rate of payout.
You could, of course, use your own treats. Still, this doesn’t alleviate our concern about this toy’s worst flaw: A dog could get her jaw or paw stuck between the two balls. We suggest you avoid this product.
Thanks so much for all your calls and letters about our annual dry dog food review (Choose the Best Dry Food, WDJ February 2002). Most people especially new readers, who are not yet accustomed to magazines that take a stand on products! We’re happy to have access to that sort of material.
But no one can win all the time. Other readers still had questions after completing the article, and still others took exception to their favorite foods lack of presence on our list of Top Foods. We’d like to take the opportunity to answer those concerns here.
We’ve also received a mountain of mail concerning the articles in our February and March issues concerning spot-on flea control products. We will publish a number of those letters and answer questions about the topic in the next issue.
Thanks for your interest in WDJ!
-Nancy Kerns, Editor
———-
A reader writes:
I find your top dry dog foods list to be extremely useful. However, it concerns me that a consumer might stop using a food that has been on a previous list because they dont see it mentioned in your article. People I talked to about the top dog foods list were alarmed that [one particular food] was not mentioned this year.
From now on, we promise, whenever we review foods, we will run a list of all the foods we’ve ever selected as Top Dry Foods. Such a list appears below. In our defense, we did mention in the text that all the foods we have listed as approved before still meet our criteria as good foods.
As we’ve stated many times, the foods that we highlight in our lists of Top Dry Foods have met our selection criteria, based on a review of the ingredients listed on the food labels. We describe the ingredients that we think should be in a food, the ingredients that ought to be present in a food in only limited amounts, and the ones that ought not be included in a food at all. Our criteria has not changed in any significant ways from year to year. If a food meets our stated criteria, it will always do so unless its ingredients have changed.
———-
I was dismayed that [the food I use] did not make your list. Can you look at the enclosed label and tell me what you think of it?
Our lists of foods contain only some foods that meet our selection criteria; with thousands of foods on the market (some available only in one state or area of the country), we can’t list (or even look at) every good food.
However, if you apply the selection criteria we describe in the Top Dry Foods article, you can judge the food for yourself. Does it have lots of items described in our list of hallmarks of a high quality food? If so, that’s good! Does it have lots of ingredients that are included in our list of hallmarks of a low-quality dry food? That’s bad. Then there are the items we listed under, high quality foods should contain a minimum of the following. If your food has more than two or three of these ingredients, the quality of the food is lessened.
———-
If you don’t inspect the plants that make the foods you have selected, or conduct lab tests, how seriously can I take your results?
As stated before, we simply read food labels and judge their ingredients against our stated criteria.
In past articles, we have spoken about the fact that so little regulation of this industry takes place, and how what the company says is in the bag might well differ from what is in the bag. We’ve even discussed how companies have six months from the time they change a recipe to actually change the list of ingredients on their bags!
There are state and federal regulations that would, conceivably, catch and punish a food maker if they were lying about what is in their foods. Every so often, food makers are caught. This seems to be enough to keep most of them honest.
———-
I live in a rural area, so top quality dog foods are hard to find. I would have to travel quite a distance, probably over 50 miles one way, to look for one of the foods listed in your list. Plus, it would be cost prohibitive for me to order the foods you recommend because I have many dogs.
Many people have complained about the lack of local availability of some of the foods we highlighted. Again, you may be able to find a local food as good or better than the ones we list. Many of the makers of the foods we highlighted will sell directly to pet owners, sometimes splitting shipping costs. In other cases, we’ve heard of people approaching their local groomer, breeder, or pet supply store not national chain stores, which generally carry only the foods that the national office allows them to and asking the store owner to carry one of the foods they like best. If the buyer can tell the store owner that he or she will buy a certain amount of the food monthly, and convince X number of their friends to buy that food, too, the store owner may be able to expand his inventory to include that food.
We can’t address the high cost of good foods. Top quality foods are necessarily expensive because top quality ingredients are expensive. You can’t sell a 30-pound bag of fresh cuts of quality meats, fresh vegetables, and whole grains for less than the cost of those ingredients. Assiduous price comparisons and not overfeeding your dogs will help. People who keep a large number of dogs, or a few very large dogs do have a problem. If they choose to feed those dogs a lesser quality, lesser-cost food, that is their decision. However, many dogs can live and thrive on any food. If your dog maintains peak health on low cost, low quality food, were truly happy for you. You and your dog are lucky.
———-
Look, I want to feed my dog the best food possible and money is no object. Which food is the BEST one?
As we’ve said many times before, we believe that the BEST food for a dog would be similar to what you eat yourself maybe better! In our opinion, and that of the nutrition and veterinary experts we have consulted, well-researched home-prepared diets, containing human-quality, fresh foods are truly what’s best for dogs. We have published numerous articles about home-prepared diets and even commercial diets made of human-grade, fresh, frozen foods, and will run many more. (In just the next few months, you will see at least three more articles on these subjects.)
If what you are interested in is the best dry dog food for your dog, well, you are going to have to ask your dog. Selecting a food is an individual matter. The food our dog thrives on gives our neighbor’s dog diarrhea. The food she eats makes our dog itch. Both of the foods are what we would consider great foods.
Dogs, like people, are individuals. Some people (and dogs) can’t tolerate dairy products; some are allergic to wheat. That doesn’t make foods that contain dairy products or wheat bad foods.
All you can do is to select a good food, and try it on your dog. Watch her carefully: her coat, eyes, and ears should be clear. She shouldn’t itch or scratch. She shouldn’t develop digestive problems, or hair loss, or ear infections. If she does, it’s not proof that the food is bad, it just means it’s not the best food for that individual.
Another food-related letter Im a recent subscriber to WDJ so I’m not sure if you’ve done any articles about the food called Balance Diet, made by a New Mexico company called Veterinary Nutrition Corporation, also known as NutriVet. Balance Diet is a grain-free, kibble-type food, but made by a fermentation process rather than baking or extrusion. I wonder if a steady diet of fermented food is safe for dogs? The company’s Web site (www.balancediet.com) contains a lot of information, but it’s a bit cloudy for my taste.
Also I’ve read on message boards about the company having poor customer service in the past. I’ve looked at the New Mexico Better Business Bureau site and see that complaints have been lodged against the company. But Ive also gotten samples from them and my dogs really loved the stuff. Could or would WDJ be willing to turn their investigative eye on the situation presented?
-Name withheld by request
We did mention Balance Diet’s products several years ago (What’s New in Food? November 1999). We agreed that the company’s product is interesting and unique, and that most people we knew who have fed it to their dogs report that the dogs love it. Many people wrote or called to say their dogs looked and felt great when fed Balance Diet.
However, we also received calls and letters from people who said their dogs experienced digestive problems on the food. We also mentioned that numerous readers had complained to us about the companys business practices, including allegations that consumers were overcharged, paid for product that never arrived, never received promised refunds, and so on. We searched the database of the New Mexico Better Business Bureau (www.bbbnm.com/reports/reports.html), which included the following statement: Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to unanswered complaints.
After we wrote to her office, we received a note from Joyce Lincoln, of the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office:
Thanks for your inquiry about Veterinary Nutrition Corporation. When you do your next story about them, please mention that the Attorney General’s Office would like to hear from consumers who have purchased products directly from the manufacturer. They can download complaint forms off our Web site at www.ago.state.nm.us. Go to the Consumer Protection link on the navigational bar. It must be mailed with any documentation that may be applicable. Or, they can call our consumer protection number at (800) 678-1508.
Balance Diet’s ingredients look great. However, because of reports from readers who had problems with either the food or the company, we are uncertain about what to advise you about the food.
Readers: If you have had experiences with the company and its products good or bad could you drop us a line and let us know? -NK
To continue reading this article or issue you must be a paid subscriber. Sign in
If you are logged in but cannot access this content, a) your subscription may have expired; b) you may have duplicate accounts (emails) in our system. Please check your account status hereorcontact customer service.
Immediate access to this article and 20+ years of archives.
Recommendations for the best dog food for your dog.
Dry food, homemade diets and recipes, dehydrated and raw options, canned food and more.
Brands, formulations and ingredients all searchable in an easy-to-use, searchable database.
Plus, you’ll receive training and care guidance to keep your dog healthy and happy. You’ll feed with less stress…train with greater success…and know you are giving your dog the care he deserves.
Subscribenow and save 72%! Its like getting 8 issues free!
I have never owned a dog with separation anxiety, thank goodness. The condition is hard on the dog who suffers from the condition and hard on the dog’s caretakers, too, including owners, vets, groomers, pet sitters, and dog walkers. Care must be taken to prevent triggering the dog’s panic at being left alone—in severe cases, even just long enough for the person caring for the dog to use the restroom!
