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Are Topical Flea Killers Safe?

By
Kathleen Dudley
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0

[Updated September 27, 2018]

Tempting as it may be to simplistically consider fleas as horrible insects, the bane of dogs everywhere, poisoning your dog in a vain attempt to wipe fleas out of existence doesn’t really make sense. Even though more than half a billion dollars annually are spent on products that kill fleas in that vain pursuit.

Of course fleas can make dogs (and everyone else in the household) perfectly miserable. But it’s not as if using toxic flea-killing chemicals is the only way to control fleas. When we attempt to get rid of our dogs’ fleas by utilizing chemicals that are toxic to the brain and nervous system, that may disrupt hormone (endocrine) systems, and that cause cancer, it’s sort of like burning the house down to get rid of ants – effective, sure, but what are you left with?

In the next issue of WDJ, we will describe effective, nontoxic methods of flea control. No dogs (or any other members of the household) will get sick from these methods, and no dogs (or any other members of the household) will die from them. In contrast, dogs do get sick and die from the toxic chemicals we will describe in this article.

spot on flea killers

Spot-On Products Aren’t Safer

All pesticides pose some degree of health risk to humans and animals. Despite advertising claims to the contrary, both over-the-counter and veterinarian-prescribed flea-killing topical treatments are pesticides that enter our dogs’ internal organs (livers, kidneys), move into their intestinal tracts, and are eventually eliminated in their feces and urine. Not only that, but the humans and other household animals who closely interact with dogs who have been treated with these chemicals can be affected by the toxins. What happens to the health of all exposed individuals during this systemic absorption and filtration process varies from animal to animal, but the laboratory and field trial results clearly indicate toxicity on the chronic and acute levels.

Until recently, foggers, flea collars, powders, sprays, shampoos, and dips containing organophosphates (chlorpyrifos, malathion, diazinon), pyrethrins, synthetic pyrethroids, and carbamates, were the cutting-edge solutions to our flea problems. They were effective, but unfortunately, they also caused disease and sometimes death. Given enough time, most pesticides eventually cause enough human and animal injuries that they are identified as hazards and are removed from the market.

While the newest flea products – so-called “spot-on” liquids that are applied monthly to a dog’s skin – are being marketed aggressively by the manufacturers and veterinarians and represented as safe alternatives to their predecessors, the fact is, they are simply newer. All the “active” ingredients in these spot-on preparations – imidacloprid, fipronil, permethrin, methoprene, and pyriproxyfen – have been linked to serious health effects in laboratory animals (see chart at end of story).

“The public must recognize that any decision to use a pesticide, or to otherwise be exposed to pesticides, is a decision made in ignorance,” says Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the New York Environmental Protection Bureau. “We do not know the identity of the chemicals to which we are exposed. We cannot make informed individual decisions on the acceptability of those exposures, a basic element in the maintenance and protection of our own health.” Spitzer adds, “The requirements for marketing a new product fall considerably short of providing safety for our animal and human families.”

Active and Inert Ingredients in Insecticides

To fully understand the risks associated with any of these products, it is important to understand the various components in a flea product, or any chemical product that you may buy, for that matter.

Like other chemical products, all flea products are made up of “active” and “inert” ingredients; strangely, the actual definitions of those phrases are very different from what they seem to connote. In the case of flea-killing chemicals, the “active” ingredient does, in fact, target and kill fleas – but some of the “inert” ingredients are poisons, too.

While the word “inert” suggests benign activity and even connotes safety in the minds of many consumers, legally, it simply means added substances that are not the registered “active” ingredient. This is important because most people assume that only the “active” ingredient in a chemical product is of concern. Many people feel comforted by the idea that a product contains only a minuscule amount of an “active” ingredient and up to 99.9 percent “inert” ingredients – a typical formula in many pesticide products. Actually, this makeup should frighten consumers.

Why? Because the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, the government agency that oversees the pesticide industry) requires a higher (if not high enough) standard of scrutiny for “active” ingredients; these must undergo a battery of tests to determine their toxicological profiles, be registered with the EPA, and be listed on the product inserts and packaging. In contrast, “inert” ingredients need not be listed on the product inserts and packaging and are subject to much less testing than the “active” ingredients; “inerts” are generally tested in short-term studies for acute toxicity only.

The word “inert” implies chemicals that are somehow inactive. In actuality, many “inert” ingredients used in pesticides are as toxic, or more toxic, than the registered “active” ingredients. For example, naphthalene, one of the “inerts” in an imidacloprid product, showed clear evidence of cancer activity through inhalation (nasal cancers), as well as anemia, liver damage, cataracts, and skin allergies. An unidentified “inert” ingredient in the flea product Advantage was implicated in the death of kittens who received doses within laboratory tolerances.

Why don’t pesticide manufacturers have to disclose all the ingredients in their products? This kettle began brewing in 1949, when the U.S. Congress passed the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), allowing manufacturers confidentiality on issues they claimed would otherwise make them vulnerable to market competition. “Inert” ingredients, in other words, became protected by industry as “trade secrets.” While protecting industry, this act supersedes the public’s right to know to what we are being exposed and the health hazards resulting from these exposures. And without full disclosure, we are unable to make educated decisions as to which chemicals we want to avoid.

Topical Flea Killer Laboratory Studies

Obviously, products undergo testing in order to qualify for EPA registration, and presumably, most of the overt dangers a product can exert are ameliorated before the product can be marketed. Scientists use healthy, adult, genetically identical mammals to test pesticides, and then extrapolate health information regarding the safety of the product to domestic animals and human beings. In the case of flea products, the laboratory tests are performed on live mice, rats, cats, and dogs.

These toxicological (poison) studies are performed to establish the LD 50 – the oral dose at which the product would kill 50 percent of a test population – and to determine the acute and chronic effects. Throughout and following the test, subjects are killed in order to study the specific system damage (lungs, kidney, etc.). Acute disease tests, such as nervous system and skin reactions, can be performed over a relatively short time period. Most studies are conducted for 3-, 13-, or 52-week intervals, and use exaggerated dosages to compensate for the short testing periods.

“Because of the short period under which the studies are conducted, the health effects resulting from the higher doses of the chemicals are relevant,” says Dr. Virginia Dobozy of the EPA’s Pesticide Division. These effects can include head-nodding; facial twitching; exaggerated blinking; gag responses; weight increase of the spleen, thymus, and adrenal glands; and/or atrophy of the thymus.

Long-term studies, needed to understand the chronic effects of the pesticides, are few by comparison. Chronic disease such as cancer, immune suppression, developmental or reproductive damage, and DNA damage can take months or years to manifest.

However, the cumulative effect – potential damage from continued use of one specific pesticide product or multiple products over a dog’s lifetime – is unknown. Also unknown is the potential for synergistic effects – combined impacts of chemical exposures from their home and outdoor environments. Neither the cumulative nor the synergistic effects of chemicals in products are required to be tested by the EPA before a product is made commercially available. So, our dogs may be more vulnerable to unknown chemical-related dangers than the happy commercials would have you believe.

Critics of the pesticide industry claim that the EPA registers pesticides not on safety, but on a cost-benefit basis, balancing health and environmental concerns against the economic gain to the manufacturer and the end user of the product. But even if the pesticide manufacturers and the EPA are not overly concerned about our safety, we as consumers and guardians should be very concerned.

Spot-On Flea Treatments: Too Good to be True

Today, spot-on flea preparations are considered by many as the Rolls Royce of flea products, and sell swiftly in veterinary clinics and pet stores. Each of the makers of these products claim that they are safe – safer than ever – and that only the targeted insects will be affected by the products’ neurotoxic impacts. The products are frequently advertised as safe for small children and adults as well as puppies (over eight weeks) and geriatric dogs. Do they sound too good to be true? Well, perhaps they are.

The spot-on flea products fall into four general categories of insecticides. All have neurotoxic effects. The first three – imidacloprid (a chloro-nicotinyl insecticide), fipronil (a phenylprazole insecticide), and permethrin (a synthetic broad spectrum pyrethroid insecticide) – all work by disrupting the nervous system of insects, killing by contact or ingestion. The fourth type contains insect growth regulators (IGR), which don’t kill, but interrupt the flea’s life cycle.

Imidacloprid is the first of its class of insecticides, and is relatively new on the block; it was introduced in 1994. Laboratory testing on mice, dogs, and rats, indicates that this insecticide can be neurotoxic to laboratory animals, causing incoordination, labored breathing, thyroid lesions, reduced birth weights, and increased frequency of birth defects.

Fipronil was introduced in the United States in 1996. It is a neurotoxin and suspected human carcinogen. Fipronil can cause liver toxicity, thyroid lesions (cancer), damage to the kidneys, increased cholesterol levels, alterations in thyroid hormones, incoordination, labored breathing, increased miscarriages, and smaller offspring.

In a review of the fipronil pet formulations, Dr. Virginia Dobozy of the EPA’s Pesticide Division states that “this is a persistent chemical that has the potential for nervous system and thyroid toxicity after long term exposure at low dosages.”

Permethrin, a synthetic broad spectrum pyrethroid insecticide, is suspected to be an endocrine disrupter and a carcinogenic insecticide (causing lung cancer and liver tumors in laboratory animals). Some permethrin products have additional “active” ingredients in lesser percentages, and include methoprene, and pyriproxyfen (described below).

Methoprene and pyriproxyfen are both insect growth regulators (IGR), which limit the development of juvenile fleas so they cannot reproduce. Test results indicate that methoprene causes enlarged livers and degeneration of parts of the kidneys.

All of the above active ingredients have induced responses in laboratory animals that give cause for alarm. While these new products are suggested as safer than their predecessors, they indicate high levels of acute and chronic poisoning from short-term use.

Go-To Methods of Action

Whether or not it is purposeful, manufacturers of these spot-on flea products have managed to convince many veterinarians and animal guardians that these products are not absorbed into our dogs’ systems. The companies’ literature describes in vague and contradictory detail how the chemicals don’t go beyond the hair follicles and fat layers of the dogs’ skin.

When the EPA’s Dr. Dobozy reviewed the results of a fipronil metabolism study (fipronil is the active ingredient in Frontline), she reported that “significant amounts of radio-labeled fipronil were found [not only] in various organs and fat . . . [but they were also] excreted in the urine and feces, and were present in other parts of the body…which demonstrated that the chemical is absorbed systemically.”

Veterinarians and pet owners who pay close attention can witness evidence that these products are indeed systemically absorbed. Dr. Stephen Blake, a San Diego veterinarian, relates a client’s experience: “We put Advantage on the backs of our dogs and could smell it on their breath in a matter of minutes following the application.” Blake stated that this indication of immediate absorption did not tally with what he had been led to believe by reading Bayer’s literature. He continues to question its safety for his clients’ animals.

Neurological Health Effects of Topical Insecticides

Logic tells us that a topical chemical that is not absorbed into the skin has no chance of causing neurotoxic effects. Then why do the Material Data Safety Sheets (MSDSs) for all the permethrin-containing pesticides recommend preventing their products from having prolonged contact with the skin? And why do they all state that skin sensations, such as “numbness and tingling,” can occur? Schering-Plough’s MSDS makes an additional statement about its Defend EXspot Treatment: “can be harmful if absorbed through the skin and harmful following inhalation,” causing headaches, dizziness, and nausea.

Bayer does not reveal more than 90 percent of the ingredients in Advantage, but its MSDS does warn us to “use a respirator for organic vapors” in order to avoid “respiratory tract irritation and other symptoms such as headache or dizziness” (symptoms of nervous system exposure). Bayer’s promotional literature for Advantage, however, states that “studies prove that using 20-24 times the dosage on dogs and cats does not cause any internal or external side effects,” and that “. . . switching to Advantage from another flea control product poses virtually no risk to your pet.”

Dr. Graham Hines, a veterinarian from the United Kingdom, treated a four-year-old female German Shepherd who had two Advantage Top Spot treatments. He reported that “both times she became unusually clingy, and would not leave her guardian’s side, yet paced up and down all day, very restlessly. These symptoms persisted for 48 hours before a gradual return to her normal state.” The neurotoxic effects were clear to Dr. Hines.

Dr. Blake also finds different results than the Bayer literature. “We are told that the product affects only insects’ nervous systems, not mammals’. Several of my clients told me that they accidentally got some Advantage on their hands and when they touched their mouths, their lips became immediately numb for several hours. So much for not having an effect on the nervous system of mammals.”

Acute symptoms of headache, nausea, and abdominal and lumbar pain are associated with carbitol, one of the “inert” ingredients in Frontline. According to the MSDS, carbitol induced these symptoms in laboratory settings.

Curiously, these potential side effects are not published in the literature accompanying the products, nor do many veterinarians know the dangers. But there are numerous anecdotal reports from veterinarians in the U.S. and the U.K. of dogs who were treated with spot-on products who have displayed signs of neurological damage, such as depression, lethargy, convulsions, underactivity, tremors, overactivity, stiffened limbs, and lameness.

Adverse Skin Effects

Topical skin irritation is listed on all the MSDSs of the products reviewed in this article; however, product literature inserts fail to emphasize the extreme nature of the problems. They all instruct the users that their products are for “external use only,” and to “avoid contact with the skin,” but only Merial’s product insert appears to suggest there is some possibility of adverse skin contact reactions.

Dr. Dee Blanco, a holistic veterinarian practicing in New Mexico, treated 20 dogs for adverse reactions to Farnam’s flea product. In a letter to the Farnam regarding a client who had used one of Farnam’s permethrin-based insecticides, Dr. Blanco stated, “All the dogs (20 out of her 24 dogs treated with BioSpot ) had pruritus (severe itching of the skin) with bleeding and cracking of the skin, various degrees of erythema (intense redness of the skin), many fluid vesicles (blisters), severe hair loss, and elephantiasis (thickening of the skin) with chronic itching. Many also showed severe mental depression, lethargy, and symptoms concomitant with aggravated liver toxicity. All symptoms appeared within two weeks after applications of your (BioSpot) product, also a consistent time-frame for liver toxicity after absorption through the skin. . . To date, most of the dogs have dramatically improved but a few still remain symptomatic.”

Dr. Blanco also stated that one dog died of liver cancer within three months of this BioSpot application, which she says “could have been exacerbated by the application of BioSpot.” Permethrin is indicated as a possible carcinogen by the EPA, causing liver enlargement and cancers in laboratory mammals.

When Dr. Dobozy reviewed the reports from fipronil product studies, she found that Frontline “does not adequately describe the severe reactions” reported by veterinarians – sloughing, “chemical burn” conditions, and extensively affected areas well beyond the application site. When these incidents were reported, Merial recommended bathing the dogs. That’s strange, because their literature indicates the product remains effective after bathing.

The MSDS for Bayer’s Advantage tell us that “prolonged contact with the skin can cause defatting of the skin due to solvent component in the products,” to “avoid skin contact,” “to wear appropriate gloves when handling the product,” and to “wash off any contamination.”

Chronic Disease Linked to Flea Killers

Based upon toxicological studies, a dog suffering from liver, kidney, thyroid, adrenal, spleen, lung, brain or gonadal conditions could experience heightened states of chronic diseases, with the potential for development of cancer, when spot-on flea preparations are used. Permethrin is linked to malignant liver and lung tumors and autoimmune system disease, and at very low levels suppresses the immune system. Thyroid lesions have developed in laboratory studies in dogs during imidacloprid tests. Further studies are necessary to understand the possibilities of malignancy. Thyroid cancer has been linked to fipronil, according to the EPA. The data from the metabolism and chronic toxicity studies for fipronil indicate that ” . . . this is a persistent chemical and has the potential for nervous system and thyroid toxicity after long-term exposure at low levels,” according to Dr. Dobozy.

In the Journal of Pesticide Reform, author Caroline Cox cites studies that show thyroid sensitivity to imidacloprid can result in thyroid lesions, as well as increased incidences of miscarriages, mutagenic (DNA damage) abnormalities, and abnormal skeletons in animal studies. In addition, one metabolite (breakdown of the chemical into new chemical compounds during the metabolism process in the body) of imidacloprid appears to be far more toxic to mammals than the imidacloprid itself.

General Risk Factors

Of course, not all dogs exhibit immediately noticeable symptoms when dosed with a commercial spot-on flea product. Adult animals and those in the peak of health are less likely to show immediate signs compared to animals that are young, old, or suffering from chronic disease. Animals with a heightened sensitivity to chemicals or with exposures from multiple sources such as a flea collar; other dips, sprays, dust, or flea bombs; yard pesticides; and house termite extermination, are most likely to react. The cumulative and synergistic impacts of pesticides can take a heavy toll on animals.

Dr. Jerry Blondell, of the US EPA Office of Pesticides, has indicated clearly “not to use pesticides on the old, the sick, or the young.” While some of the literature for the spot-on products does discourage this usage, many dog guardians and veterinarians overlook or disregard these written precautions.

Although the number of dogs reported to react to these products may seem small, this does not suggest the overall impact is small. First, spot-on products are relatively new, and many problems are cumulative.

Second, reactivity to chemicals in a population is similar to other population statistics and is represented by a bell-shaped curve. In other words, at one end of the spectrum are sensitive individuals, and at the opposite end are resistant individuals; these groups are relatively small compared to the vast middle group, who show varying degrees of susceptibility – but who are all susceptible. Thus the sensitive group – dogs who have displayed signs of toxicity – happen to be the sentinels for the younger, healthier ones who will eventually be affected; it’s just a matter of time.

Safer Alternatives to Flea Resistance

Integrated pest management (IPM) is a nontoxic approach used to eradicate any insect infestation. Simply, it is a way of thinking about how to preserve the quality of life on this planet and within the earth’s stratosphere – of understanding not only the damages of the pesticide to all species and the environment, but also understanding the consequences of insect resistance to the constant parade of new, more sophisticated, and perhaps more toxic pesticide formulas. The IPM process was initially designed to safeguard all species, including the environment, from the ravages of pesticides.

In the next issue, we will present a complete indoor and outdoor IPM treatment program for effective, non-poisonous flea control.

Also With This Article
Click here to view “Flea Control: Best, Safest Practices”
Click here to view “Flea Tip #1”
Click here to view “Natural Herbs for Flea Relief”

Kathleen Dudley is a writer and photographer who lives in New Mexico.

Letters 02/02: A Grape Mystery

By
Nancy Kerns
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Have you heard anything about grapes and raisins being toxic to dogs? I read on one of the dog lists that a dog died after eating a box of raisins. I give grapes as treats and use organic raisins as training treats. Should I discontinue this practice?

-Ann Schallert
via e-mail

Contrary to rumors sent to us by several readers, grapes and raisins haven’t suddenly gained toxicity. A review of poisoning cases in the database kept by the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center in Urbana, Illinois, revealed the grape/raisin overdose danger.

In all, researchers found 21 cases where a dog had become sick following the ingestion of a large amount of either grapes or raisins. The poisonings occurred in a 12-year period, from 1989 through April 2001. The authors of the study are now conducting an even more thorough database search of poisoning cases, and according to one of the authors, have found numerous additional cases where an overdose of grapes or raisins may be implicated in a poisoning case; further study is ongoing.

The 21 incidents described so far were very serious; 20 of the 21 dogs developed evidence of renal dysfunction; 3 dogs died, and 4 were euthanized due to poor response to treatment. Initially, most of the dogs vomited; more than half had diarrhea, and about a third displayed a lack of appetite, lethargy, and/or abdominal pain. Researchers are trying to determine what was responsible for the acute renal failure: mycotoxins, pesticides, heavy metals, or a toxin that has yet to be determined.

Unfortunately, the amount of grapes or raisins that were ingested could be estimated in only 12 of the 21 cases. One case involved a dog who ate about 2 pounds of red seedless grapes. The raisin eaters consumed 8 to 16 ounces in one sitting. The smallest dosage seen in the cases equaled 1 ounce of fruit per 2.2 pounds of the dog’s body weight (10 ounces of fruit eaten by a 22-pound dog, for example). A variety of fruit was implicated: fresh grapes came from both grocery stores and vines on private property; one dog ate fermented grapes from a winery. The raisins were commercial raisins of various brands. The ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center provides telephone assistance to veterinarians and animal guardians 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Center charges a flat fee of $45 for a phone consultation, which includes as many follow-up calls as necessary. To consult the APCC, call (888) 426-4435.

We would hesitate to call for a complete ban on feeding grapes or raisins based on these reports. However, we suggest exerting absolute control over your dog’s access to these foods don’t leave grapes or raisins anywhere a dog might be able to reach them and limiting his total intake of both foods. And, of course, if your dog eats a large amount of either food, OR displays any sign of illness after eating any amount of these foods, take him to your vet ASAP.

Download the Full January 2002 Issue

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Loose Ends

By
Nancy Kerns
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You may not be aware of the time lag between your reading a new issue and us preparing it. Often, by the time you are just finding out about recent events in WDJ’s life, those events have been long since resolved, or the situation has changed completely. And then I forget what people are referring to when they say things like, “So, is Carly okay?” So, as a New Year’s type of resolution, I’m going to try to catch you up on recent news and gossip.

Like Carly, for instance. In the December issue, I mentioned that while I was babysitting her for my next-door neighbors, I negligently left her playing with a stuffed fleece toy while I was preoccupied on my computer. Hours later, I found a lot of fluff and the squeaker from the toy, but I could not find the fleecy cover of the toy anywhere. I was terrified that Carly had eaten the darn thing, and it was all my fault.

Days went by, and my neighbors and I kept the closest eye on that rascally dog, but she suffered no symptoms. Yay! I can’t tell you how glad I am that she lived to run and play another day (and model for WDJ – that’s her with “packmates” Brendan and Michael on page 19). Still, I searched and searched and could not find the toy.

Okay, okay, mystery solved. I was picking up poop the other day and found it mostly buried under a rose bush, just one tiny hunk of fleece visible above ground. I tell you I looked for signs of digging and burying, with no luck.

In other news, my dog Rupert (who recently passed his 12th birthday) is hanging in there. We’re still trying to get his medication for cardiac arrhythmia dialed in just so; we’ve visited the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital at University of California, Davis, so much lately that Rupert has fallen in love with his cardiologist, Dr. Karen Sanderson, a delightful woman who always has cookies in her pockets. Rupert drags me into the building to see her, which makes me wonder whether he makes his heart go pitter-pat-pat-pitter just to further his friendship with her. Don’t laugh! Border Collies are awfully smart.

Say, this issue is exceedingly full of training articles. We’ll be catching up with the health and nutrition departments with the very next issue. One of our favorite contributors, veterinarian Jean Hofve, has been out of commission for a while following, get this, a severe cat bite on her hand. I don’t want to get all species-ist on you, but the fact is, we’ve never lost a writer due to dog bites. (Forgive me, I have a friendly little competition going with the editor of our sister publication, Whole Cat Journal.)

My last desk-clearing resolution is to improve my record of responding to your calls and letters. The volume of mail I receive here, e-mail in particular, is staggering, especially since the advent of the WDJ Web site. I do really appreciate hearing from readers, even if I can’t acknowledge all of them.

However, I have a favor to ask: Please don’t write to WDJ asking for urgent advice regarding your dog’s health. Contact the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association (the contact numbers appear in “Resources” on page 24 of every issue) to find a holistic practitioner near you, and then establish a relationship with that vet. Many of us use conventionally trained veterinarians for routine care and specialists for in-depth issues, and rely heavily on our complementary practitioners to oversee and coordinate the “big picture” of our dogs’ health. It’s a lot of phone numbers to keep track of, but worth it.

-by Nancy Kerns

Making Peace With Death

By
Nancy Kerns
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0

One great and inescapable sorrow awaits all of us who share our lives with dogs: Sooner or later we shall have to face the decline and death of our beloved companions. Painful though it is to contemplate this loss, ask yourself the following question: If it were within your power to provide it, what sort of death would you wish for your dog?

Chances are, you would wish him the same death as you would wish yourself: to die when he is ready, peacefully in his sleep, at home, in bed, surrounded by loved ones.

However, very few dogs actually die this way. For the vast majority, death will come in the form of euthanasia at the veterinarian’s office. Although in most circumstances this experience is mercifully quick and painless, it’s not what anyone would call ideal.

People may debate whether the dog experiences discomfort in the veterinary hospital setting – the dreaded odor of the clinic, the steel table, memories of recent painful treatments for a terminal illness, strangers coming and going. This setting is unquestionably uncomfortable for the grieving human, and may even leave her with the lingering feeling that she has in some indefinable way failed or betrayed the trust of her beloved canine friend.

However, conventional veterinary clinic-based euthanasia may one day be the exception rather than the rule. A small but growing number of veterinarians and animal guardians are beginning to challenge the way we typically deal with our animals’ terminal illnesses and are developing a compassionate alternative: veterinary hospice care.

Hospice history
The concept of hospice is not new; it was originally introduced more than 30 years ago by the British physician Dr. Cicely Saunders. In her work with terminally ill human patients, she came to realize that what her patients feared most was not death, but pain. By effectively controlling their pain, she was able to give back to her patients a vastly improved quality of life, even though their days were numbered.

Dr. Saunders’ work was expanded by others, including Dr. Elisabeth K bler-Ross, internationally known author of On Death and Dying. Eventually, the hospice philosophy has come to embrace several key concepts:

• Care for a terminally ill patient should neither prolong the patient’s life, nor hasten his death, but allow him to live as fully and comfortably as possible until death comes. Those who work with hospice patients accept with equanimity the fact that death is approaching, and seek to allow it to arrive as naturally and painlessly as possible.

• Once a patient enters hospice care, the particular diagnosis of his disease is no longer of central importance. Heroic efforts to effect a cure cease and the focus shifts to meticulous attention to the well-being of the patient, with a strong emphasis on pain control and the maintenance of comfort and dignity.

• Death is not a circumscribed event, but a process whose course is unique to each individual. Therefore, the care of each dying patient must be responsive to that individual’s needs.

• The emotional and spiritual needs of the dying patient and his loved ones strongly color the way they experience the patient’s death, so spiritual and emotional support for the patient and his family is one of the cornerstones of hospice care.

Also, the patient and family are regarded as a single unit, and care is delivered by a team which addresses the many different (and sometimes conflicting) needs of this unit as death approaches. Nor does care cease with the death of the patient; grief and bereavement counseling and the emotional support of the family may continue for many months after the death.

Hospice for animals
Veterinary hospice care is closely modeled on its human counterpart. Hospice care is usually chosen only once it becomes obvious that the animal’s disease has ceased to respond to conventional treatments and that its progress can no longer be held in check.

Typically, this point is reached only after a succession of visits to the veterinarian’s office, during the course of which the guardian has of necessity become very familiar with the various therapies and procedures the veterinarian has been using to control the disease. It is usually not too great a step at this stage for the veterinarian to hand over some of the basic supportive measures to the guardian to begin implementing them at home. With the use of available pharmacology – fentanyl patches, for example, or morphine – pain can quickly be brought under control and the patient made comfortable.

Of course, not every dying animal is a candidate for veterinary hospice care; there are circumstances, for example, where there is overwhelming trauma, or where quality of life is so very poor that your veterinarian will justifiably lead you toward the swift release of humane euthanasia. Other considerations must also be taken into account when weighing whether hospice care is an appropriate choice. For example, the animal’s guardian must be able to devote the considerable time and financial resources that may be necessary to sustain a dying pet through his last illness. Can the guardian be at home full- or part-time to monitor the patient?

Hard though such questions may be, they must be faced squarely at the outset, for no veterinarian will be willing to embark on the hospice journey with a client who cannot make a full commitment to see it through.

In some cases, the guardian may receive assistance from a veterinary technician. With the objective of avoiding the need for office visits altogether, the veterinarian might arrange for a vet tech to visit at regular intervals both to monitor the patient’s status and to provide support and assistance to the guardian. If the vet tech finds anything amiss or needs to change or add medications, she can do so after consulting by phone with the veterinarian. The vet tech also assumes responsibility for instructing the guardian in nursing skills such as rehydration, dealing with incontinence and avoiding pressure sores, etc.

Many holistic veterinarians also integrate alternative or complementary modalities such as flower essences, aromatherapy, color therapy, and/or homeopathy into their hospice care regimes, in some cases avoiding the need for the traditional opiates.

Eric Clough, DVM, of Merrimack, New Hampshire, is one of the hospice movement’s founding members and most enthusiastic advocates. He feels strongly that hospice is a more humane way of dealing with dying and death. “As a clinician, when you accept the hospice philosophy, you take on a different set of expectations in terms of disease management,” he says. “You no longer focus on increasingly intrusive diagnostics, frequent blood tests, etc. Instead, you turn your attention to what I call ‘Aggressive Comfort Therapy.’ The goal is to make death into a safe, loving, comfortable experience, rather than viewing it as a terrible defeat.”

Euthanasia and hospice
This is not to say that euthanasia is shunned by practitioners of veterinary hospice. Euthanasia has its place in veterinary hospice care and remains an option throughout the progress of the patient’s final illness. However, the hope of many who choose the hospice route is that euthanasia may never be needed, and that with careful nursing and effective symptomatic relief, patients may be able to find their own way, peacefully and without pain, to a natural death.

The rationale of euthanasia is unquestionably a noble one: to spare animals pain and suffering. Those who advocate hospice care do not dispute the compassionate basis of euthanasia; they do, however, question its timing, and even its inevitability. They also tend to view the disease process in an uncombative manner, accepting the approach of death without a sense of impotence or defeat. Instead, they channel their energies into addressing the patient’s pain and providing symptomatic relief on a day-to-day basis. If, however, the efforts of the animal’s guardians to provide comfort and relief from pain are fruitless, they may still decide to employ the option of humane euthanasia. Ideally, this would be delivered peacefully, at home, if possible.

Criticism of veterinary hospice
Hospice care is not embraced by all veterinary medical practitioners. Medical teaching – both human and veterinary – tends to reflect the larger culture and ours is a culture that is deeply uncomfortable with death. The military metaphor pervades medical thinking; we speak of fighting disease, beating infection, waging war on cancer. We train our physicians and veterinarians to view death as something to be conquered at all costs, and when a patient dies, we speak of that patient as having lost his battle.

Sadly, this has the unintended effect of making our doctors feel as though they have somehow failed when confronted with a life-limiting disease that will no longer respond to treatment. In the veterinary context, euthanasia can become in a sense a surrogate for treatment; it gives the veterinarian an additional treatment to administer – one more thing they can offer to “help” their patients. This may explain why some veterinarians guide their clients toward euthanasia – with what can often feel to the animal’s guardian like indecent haste – almost as soon as they diagnose an animal’s incurable illness.

“Vets are first and foremost medical thinkers,” comments Guy Hancock, DVM, Director of the Veterinary Technology program at St. Petersburg Junior College in Florida and an advisory board member of The Nikki Hospice Foundation for Pets. “This can make the transition from conventional treatment to hospice very tough for them, since in hospice care the medical aspects are secondary to the psychosocial aspects.”

Interestingly, the strongest criticism of the growing veterinary hospice movement has come from some who, professing to advocate for animal rights, find the notion of withholding immediate euthanasia from dying animals both unethical and abhorrent. They see it as yet another example of humans willfully subordinating the needs of animals in order to gratify needs of their own.

Hospice proponents counter this argument by pointing out that the raison d’être of hospice care is the relief of suffering, and that euthanasia is not by any means the only (nor even at times the best) way to accomplish this goal. They see such objections as simply another manifestation of our generalized cultural squeamishness about dying, and point to the example of Japan, where reverence for the elderly and a more dispassionate attitude toward the process of dying are strongly enshrined culturally – and where, correspondingly, the practice of veterinary euthanasia is extremely rare.

Even so, many who are dealing with terminal illness in their animal companions find themselves in the unenviable position of being pressured, sometimes none too subtly, by family and well-intentioned friends who don’t understand the concept of hospice or palliative care, and who feel that sustaining life in a dying animal is fundamentally cruel. Such pressure can induce agonies of self-doubt and confusion in the mind of the unfortunate pet guardian at a time when emotional resources are already stretched to breaking point.

Those who choose the hospice route will need to rely heavily on an experienced, sympathetic veterinarian and her staff for reassurance that they are indeed doing the right thing. A skilled veterinarian who knows her patient well can often tell from the look in the patient’s eyes whether his life is still worth living. It helps enormously to know that one’s veterinarian will blow the whistle if she honestly feels that the animal’s condition has reached a point where pain control can no longer be assured or quality of life is untenable.

It is also worth remembering that although animals assuredly do feel pain, they do not necessarily suffer quite the way we do. Although an animal may have pain, we can never know with certainty whether that animal is able to interpret the meaning of its condition, to have expectations or to worry and fret about impending death the way humans typically do. Those who know animals well and have studied them extensively often remark on the “philosophical” way in which animals seem to approach death, as though they both understood it and had no fear of it.

Different hospice approaches
Dr. Hancock, a staunch proponent of veterinary hospice care who is also deeply involved with the human hospice movement, believes strongly that the psychosocial tenets of the hospice movement are paramount. Just as with terminally ill human patients, he says, no animal should die alone.

“The family is the unit of care, and grief counseling should be available both before and for up to a year following the death.”

Debbie Mallu, DVM, a holistic veterinarian with a practice in Sedona, Arizona, is another hospice advocate who draws on human hospice ideology. Dr. Mallu says she no longer performs euthanasia, but even when she did, she would not euthanize an animal without its human guardian present.

Dr. Mallu’s growing interest and respect for the Buddhist philosophy has guided her in her veterinary practice, and she has incorporated some of her Buddhist beliefs into her hospice work. She encourages her clients to participate fully in the death process of their pets. As she sees it, her clients need help with their feelings almost as much as they need veterinary help for their pets, and their fear of death must be addressed before all else. “I try to teach them to let go of the outcome of the illness,” she says.

Although Dr. Mallu does on occasion make use of the full pharmacological battery for pain control, she uses mostly holistic modalities of treatment. “I prefer not to ‘dope up’ my patients if I can possibly avoid it,” she says. She teaches her clients to hold their dying pets, to stroke them in calming, comforting ways as the death progresses, and, as she puts it, “to be mindfully there, minute by minute, with a loving heart.”

Christina Chambreau, DVM, a holistic veterinarian from Sparks, Maryland, finds less and less reason to euthanize animals; she says she has euthanized only 10 animals in the past 10 years. “I operate on the assumption that the spirit goes on after death,” she says. “One can let go of the fear of death by realizing that only the physical body dies; the spirit lives on.”

Although Dr. Chambreau says she takes her patients’ pain very seriously and treats it aggressively, she reminds her clients that animals live in the moment, and don’t reflect on the significance of their symptoms. “People are apt to project their own fears of various symptoms onto their pets,” she says, “whereas the animals themselves may not find those symptoms overly troublesome.”

For some people, the most valued gift of hospice is its offer of a precious interval of time, however limited, in which the animal’s guardian can begin to say goodbye to her friend and the difficult but essential task of grieving can begin. As Rita Reynolds puts it in Blessing the Bridge, a wonderful book on the subject of animal death:

“My friend and teacher joined me in this lifetime in the form of a honey-colored terrier named Oliver. Through his living and dying, he taught me there is no such thing as life versus death, or success versus failure. Love given and received, moment by moment, is all that really matters.”

Also With This Article
Click here to view “How to Prepare For a Dog’s Death”
Click here to view “How to Grieve For The Death of a Dog”

-by Louise Kehoe

Louise Kehoe is a writer and garden designer who lives in New Hampshire. The author of a memoir, In This Dark House (1995, Random House), Kehoe has written for numerous publications including the Sunday Times (London) and the Chicago Tribune. This is her first article for WDJ.

Finding Your Dog a Warm Winter Coat

By
Nancy Kerns
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[Updated January 16, 2018]

Note: The editorial team at Whole Dog Journal is working on a brand new winter coats for dogs review for 2019. For now, follow the guidelines below. Also be sure to learn about when winter coats are appropriate for your dog.

Putting a coat on your dog shouldn’t be about making a fashion statement. Rather, it should be about keeping a chilly dog warm, thereby preventing hypothermia, a dangerous condition characterized by a reduced internal body temperature. (The normal canine body temperature is 100.5 to 102 degrees. A dog whose temperature drops below 95 degrees can die.)

A dog’s natural protection against cold varies from breed to breed. Labradors and certain Northern dogs (Huskies and Malamutes, for example) have developed with special physiological responses for coping with cold. However, many other breeds (and certain individual dogs) benefit from extra warming layers in cold weather, including:

• Thin dogs, who may not have adequate fat stores to keep themselves warm

• Extremely short-haired dogs and/or breeds accustomed to exotic climates

• Immune-compromised dogs, who should be protected from the stress of cold

• Older dogs, especially those in poor health

Warming up these dogs actually helps them stay healthy, by sparing the dog’s body from having to generate as much heat as it would have to otherwise. By simply slipping an extra layer on these dogs, you can help them preserve their physiological resources for the maintenance of general health and vitality.

Dog Coat Shopping Tips

If you shop in stores, you have a huge advantage over catalog shoppers. You can try several coats on your dog to check their fit and ease of application, and you can examine them closely for good-quality zippers, seams, and Velcro fasteners, and thick, warm fabric.

The only drawback to shopping for a coat in person is finding a store that carries a broad-enough selection of quality designs to choose from. Catalog shopping, in contrast, may seduce you with a fantastic selection of pretty coats, but it’s hard to tell from the photographs whether the coats are thick and well made. And don’t count on being able to return coats that you try on your dog and then return due to poor fit. Although none of the companies we ordered coats from told us this in advance, we found that many will not accept returns of products that have any dog hair on them. It’s understandable, but regrettable. Before you place an order or hand over your plastic, ask the sales representative about the business’s return policy.

Keep your climate in mind as you shop. Do you live in perennially wet, cold Seattle? The dry, windy cold of Denver? Look for a coat that offers protection from the combination of weather conditions your area generally experiences. Some degree of waterproofing is needed in rainy Washington, for example, a wind-blocking fabric is a must in the plains states, and greater insulation is needed in areas that hover at freezing temperatures all winter.

Also, keep your dog’s body type in mind as you examine coat candidates. Some designs are clearly intended for deep-chested, narrow-waisted dogs like Greyhounds. Others better suit block-bodied dogs such as Golden Retrievers. Check the placement of the closures to see whether they can be adjusted to accommodate your dog.

If you buy from a catalog, or are shopping without your dog’s company, be prepared with his or her measurements. Every coat manufacturer sizes their coats differently. Some use the measurement from the dog’s collar to the top of his tail, some use the dog’s collar size, and still others use the measurement around the widest part of the chest. Measure all of these, as well as the dimension of your dog’s waist at its narrowest point, and take these numbers shopping with you.

Some Winter Coat Models We Liked

Because you need to find a coat that suits your climate and dog’s physique, this is one of those instances where we can’t possibly test every coat available, or even tell you which ones we tested and decided were the “best.” Instead, we’ll describe some of the products we liked a lot, and tell you what it was about each coat that earned our admiration. With luck, one of the coats we chose to feature would suit your dog’s needs.

The Snuggy
The Snuggy is simply one of the best fitting coats we have tested, and one of the easiest to put on the dog. Made of a thick Polarfleece fabric and fastening on both sides of the dog with a wide swath of Velcro, this coat offers superior warmth, but little protection from wind and none from rain. The coat is available in a wide range of sizes (separated by two-inch increments) and colors. We ordered from Valley Vet Pet Supply. Price depends on size, from $20 for the smallest and up to $37 for the largest. Worth every penny.

PC Panache Polarfleece
We ordered this coat directly from the manufacturer, who is so determined to provide coats with superior fit that she actually prefers to make your dog’s coat to order (for only a few dollars more). However, our experience was that, carefully measured, the “off-the-rack” coats fit beautifully. The Panache Polarfleece features an elasticized collar that easily slips over the dog’s head, and a nylon belt (fastened with a metal clip) that secures the coat around the dog’s waist. The workmanship is gorgeous, and the personal customer service divine. Expect to pay more: $35 for the small sizes, and up to $56 for the largest. Again, fleece coats do not offer much protection from wind or rain.

We should mention that PC Panache also makes a very nice raincoat that provides superior protection from wind and rain, though it is unlined and so offers no insulating properties. Their thickest coat is the wooly fleece-lined Denim “City Coat,” another attractive, easy-on model. Panache Rainslicker $35-$50; Panache City Coat $45-$66. PC Panache, (610) 296-3846.

Avery Neoprene Dog Parka
The first time we reviewed dog coats, way back in 1998, a reader chastised us for not including a coat that offered protection from a freezing rain. I tried to explain that as a native Californian, such a thing had never occurred to me! However, this coat is just the solution for keeping warm, if not dry, in that sort of nasty weather.

Designed to keep hunting dogs warm even when they are soaking wet, this Neoprene suit offers superior insulating abilities, but hopelessly flunks any sort of attractiveness test. Available in two different camouflage patterns, “Wetlands” and “Shadow-grass.” Fastens with Velcro strip that runs along the dog’s spine. Easy on and off. $35 from Dunn’s Supply Catalog, (800) 353-8621.

Therapet Standard Ultrex Coat
This simple coat features a nylon shell for wind protection (and some water resistance) and a soft fleece lining for insulation. It fastens with two Velcro straps, one at the neck and one around the waist. $15-$33; a special Greyhound model fits dogs of that physique, $50. We ordered from The Dog’s Outfitter, (800) 367-3647.

Arrowhead Dog Jacket
This is another nice fleece-lined coat with a windproof and water-resistant exterior shell. The coat fastens at the front with a single Velcro strip; the wide belly band fastens with two fairly adjustable Velcro strips.

Like the Snuggy, the Arrowhead coat is available in an impressive range of sizes: from the Toy (5-10 pounds) to the XXXL (120-140 pounds). Despite the fact that we ordered one that was a little too small for our model (the Dalmatian in the center photo), the coat stayed securely fastened, even while the dog ran and played. Affordable at $25-$50. We ordered from KV Vet Supply, (800) 423-8211.

Fido’s Wind & Rain Gear
Once again, I’m not sure who is going to want or need a coat capable of protecting a dog from gale-force wind and rain, but if that person exists, so does the coat. Mann Design Ltd., of (wouldn’t you know it?) Minneapolis, Minnesota, makes what they describe as “one of a kind garments” to thoroughly protect a dog from the worst kind of blustery weather.

I’ll admit that this isn’t the easiest coat to put on. For one thing, you have to put the dog’s front legs through the sleeves – not as bad a job as it could be, since the maker put a small Velcro tab at the “wrist” to widen the sleeve for putting it on, and then fastening it close once on the dog. Next, you seal up the long Velcro strip along the dog’s spine, as well as another Velcro strip at the dog’s throat. The hood is easily attached or detached with another strip of Velcro. Finally, you tighten the elastic drawstring at the dog’s waist to keep his chest sealed from wet and wind. I suspect I could safely take a dog through a carwash in this outfit – only kidding!

I bought the coat from a local pet supply store; you can buy direct from Mann Design at www.fidostuff.com or (800) 343-6779. $20-$50, depending on size.

Also With This Article
Click here to view some of the coats tested.

Force-Based Training Methods and Some Unintended Consequences

By
Nancy Kerns
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Most people, unwittingly or intentionally, use a lot of physical force when raising and training their dogs.

The purposeful ones have a whole variety of reasons. Some may have read about behavioral theories regarding dominance and “the importance of showing the dog who’s boss.” Fans of these theories may advocate imitations of canine behavior such as “scruff shakes” or “Alpha rolls” to convince the dog he’s at the bottom of the family hierarchy. Others may have been influenced by advocates of traditional, military-style training – think of yanking collar ‘corrections’ or using the leash leveraged under their foot to forcibly pull a dog into a Down. Still others may be practicing old-fashioned folk “wisdom” when they do things like push a puppy’s nose into a puddle of pee, or smack a rowdy pup with a rolled-up newspaper when he jumps up on the couch.

Then there are the people who aren’t intentionally or mindfully using force on the dog, but who end up doing just that in the course of struggling to get him to behave. My guess would be that this is the majority of dog owners, those of us who reflexively smack the dog for jumping up on our clean clothes, who don’t yet know the trick to walking the dog without his pulling our arms from their sockets, and who have seen hundreds of people using the “push the puppy’s bottom down while repeating SIT!” method of training.

The thing is, sometimes these methods work. So people – some people – keep using them.

However, I doubt that anyone would admit to enjoying inflicting discomfort, pain, or intimidation on his or her dog (and hey, if they did, they probably would read some other magazine!). I’m fairly sure that most of the people who “take a hand to” their dogs are unaware of all the consequences. And I’m absolutely certain that if they learned an easier, more enjoyable, and more effective way to get their dogs to do what they want them to do, most people would. And that’s where WDJ comes in!

The following are discussions with two trainers who use and advocate non-force training. Each has different reasons for wanting to avoid the use of compulsion-based training techniques, and different, compelling explanations for why they think that dog owners should employ positive training techniques. I learned a lot in my conversations with them, and I hope you will, too.

———-

Creating Dogs with Initiative and a Desire for Partnership

Nina Bondarenko is the program director for Canine Partners for Independence (CPI) in Hampshire, United Kingdom. A native of Australia, Bondarenko has trained dogs for show and competition, judged Schutzhund trials and breed suitability tests, and now lectures regularly on canine behavior, development, and cognition.

Bondarenko says her start in dog training in Australia was inadvertently oriented toward positive methods, “because I didn’t know better,” she jokes. She got her first Rottweiler when she was a young teenager. She trained him herself to the best of her abilities, and he went everywhere with her.

Eventually, Bondarenko became interested in more advanced training for her dog, and she sought the advice of some local dog experts, including an old man who lived nearby who raised “very ferocious crossbred dogs” that were used to hunt and kill kangaroos. Bondarenko says that when the old man, who had a slight build, would go into the kennels, sometimes the dogs would try to pin him against the wall, but he would quite confidently fend them off.

She says the sight was terrifying, but he explained to her that “you just have to show them you’re not scared of them. You don’t have to bash them or strangle them or kick them or anything, you just have to be completely confident around them – so that’s what I did with my dog.”

She also sought advice from the man’s wife, who took the leash of Bondarenko’s young dog and demonstrated some classic force-based obedience methods. “She told me, ‘See, you’ve just got to do this to him, you’ve got to make him do this.’ And she started flinging him around at the end of the leash. I said [in a tremulous voice], ‘Oh, whoa, he doesn’t know how to do that!’ and my poor dog was looking like [in a squeaky voice], ‘I need some help, what’s going on?’ He was trying to comply, but he didn’t know what hit him!”

Bondarenko says she took her dog home and thought about what she had seen. She decided, “Naw, I can’t do that. If he’s going to be my mate [pal] and go with me everywhere, I can’t do that.” Instead, she says she watched him play with other dogs and would try to mimic what other dogs did when they wanted to control each other. “For example, if he was doing something I didn’t like, I’d go menacingly still, and he’d get the message.” Probably because of her unwitting confidence, her good relationship with the dog, and because she never tried to force him to do things, her Rottweiler complied with her wishes without incident.

Bondarenko became a big fan of the breed, and even began breeding Rottweilers. However, as she pursued her interest, she says she was told numerous times by unappreciative Australians that “Rottweilers are stupid, stubborn, ugly, ignorant, untrainable, aggressive, and lazy.” Her experience with the dogs was quite different.

“I was training them just by guesswork, and they were lovely dogs; smart, eager to learn, affectionate, and loyal,” Bondarenko says. However, as she gained an interest in showing the dogs, she joined a training club, and with her new female dog, started learning about and using the traditional, force-based training methods that were in style at that time. In no time at all, she says, her dog “suddenly became stupid, stubborn, ugly, ignorant, untrainable, aggressive, and lazy!”

For example, the instructor would say, “Say ‘Heel’ and jerk the neck! Say ‘Heel’ and jerk the neck!” Bondarenko says it didn’t take long for her dog to start growling at her when she said “Heel!” because she knew to expect a jerk on the neck.

“The other thing was, if your dog broke the ‘Stay,’ you were supposed to let him come to you, then drag him back to position and throw him down . . . The first time I tried to do that, my dog went very rigid and tense. The second time I tried to do it, she was up and waiting for me – and she would have had me,” says Bondarenko. Even the instructor’s own dog discouraged Bondarenko’s interest in this style of training. “He had a little Corgi that used to attack everyone and had to be kept tied up, so this wasn’t a very encouraging example,” she laughs.

Force won’t work here
Bondarenko continued to pursue her interest in dog breeding and training, and studied animal behavior in college. Today, after 20-plus years of professional training and advanced studies, she says she has two main concerns about force-based training. First, there is a limit to what you can accomplish with force; it can be effectively used for stopping a behavior, but can’t be used to get dogs to offer behavior. Positive reinforcement training, on the other hand, is “absolutely brilliant” for getting a dog to take initiative and find every way possible to be helpful and responsive to his or her handler.

In her work at Canine Partners for Independence, Bondarenko developed what she calls a puppy education system where the selected puppies start “training” in the homes of volunteers at seven weeks. The handlers have been taught to use operant conditioning, whereby the puppies learn to solve problems and accomplish their goals – from finding the right place to go to the bathroom to pressing light switches – by offering behavior. They are rewarded for using their noses, mouths, and their feet to touch and manipulate objects, and taught that if they want attention and petting, they must offer some behavior.

By never winning rewards of any kind for the “wrong” behavior, and always getting what they want when they display the “right” behavior, Bondarenko says the puppies “grow up incredibly cooperative, compliant, and easy to train and motivate. When they do the right thing, it gets reinforced right away. And when they are wrong, nothing happens. This is absolutely non-threatening, and it makes sense to them,” Bondarenko describes. In other words, they are infinitely motivated to show initiative.

When the puppies are between 12 and 15 months old, they are returned to the CPI training center where Bondarenko and her trainers begin to teach them to refine the behaviors they have learned. For example, while a puppy may have learned to nudge a light switch with his nose, he is now taught to press it really distinctly, and perhaps three or four times. The third and final phase of training gets the dog and his new disabled partner used to each other. “Here, the dog has to learn again,” describes Bondarenko. “His new handler may speak very differently or move differently from his previous trainers. He may have to learn a new way of going through a door, or picking up crutches and getting them properly into the hands of his handler.”

Even after many years of working with assistance dogs, Bondarenko says she’s amazed and thrilled with the things that a positively trained and motivated dog can do for people. “Look, there’s no way you could force a dog to do these things,” she says. “Imagine an aversive trainer trying to get the dog to help with the laundry. How could he make the dog open the washing machine door? Will it work to smack the dog if he doesn’t do it? Not likely!”

Plus, as Bondarenko points out, even if physical corrections did work to make dogs do things, this solution could not be put into practice by many disabled people who currently enjoy an assistance dog partnership.

“Say the dog is going to be given to a thalidomide survivor whose arms are three inches long. What’s she going to do if the dog has been trained with pulling and smacking, and he doesn’t do something he is supposed to? ‘Watch out, dog, or I am going to look at you quite fiercely!’ No, assistance dogs can’t be forced to work. They have to be a willing partner, an enthusiastic participant in everything the person does.”

If, in contrast, the dog is punished when he offers a behavior and it is the wrong one, his mistrust of the handler and fear of using initiative will grow. Eventually the dog will avoid using any initiative at all – a behavior that is apt to result in his being labeled “stubborn” or “sulky.”

Fallout of force
Bondarenko’s second major concern with the reliance of force to control the dog has to do with the risk of pushing the dog into behaving in one of several undesirable ways. She explains:

“Everyone has heard the expression ‘fight or flight.’ In dog training, I suggest that there are four main behavioral responses that you are apt to see when a dog has been frightened or stressed: fight, flight, freeze, or fool around.

“A dog that is very self-confident will fight when you threaten him. You say, ‘You had better do that,’ and the dog says, ‘I’ll take your hand off if you try to make me.’

“Flight is the dog who tries to run away. He’ll pull backward, or tremble and lag behind you when you are trying to get him to heel.

“The dog that freezes will just go rigid and throw calming signals like crazy. He’ll go still, lower his body, and will close down in an effort to avoid doing something that will stimulate more of your aggression.

“Then you get the dog who fools around – the one who gets extremely excitable, the class clown. He throws extreme behaviors – pawing and submissively throwing himself down and then jumping up all over you, grabbing the lead, getting tangled . . . this is anxious, insecure behavior. Or the dog who is jumping and wagging his tail, putting his ears back, and pulling his lips back in a big grin is saying, ‘Hey everyone, laugh! And then let’s go do something else now!’

“You may get any (or some combination) of those four responses from using threats on a dog who doesn’t really understand what that is all about. If he’s frightened, and he doesn’t know what he can do to avoid punishment, he’s likely to try some or all of the above.”

Negative results of positive training?
Bondarenko says that the chances of positive-reinforcement training harming the dog’s confidence or psyche are quite slim, though she has seen positive methods, inexpertly applied, cause a dog some frustration and even aggression. The difference is, she says, this resulted in a dog who may be frustrated enough to bark angrily, but who had no reason or trigger to make him attack his handler, whereas a dog who is frustrated and then punished or hurt may well bite to defend himself.

“Positive training gives the dog the opportunity to walk away, to lie down, to stand and do nothing. . . there is lots of room for the dog to avoid being pushed into a very bad, unwanted response,” she says.

Bondarenko sees potential for trouble with positive training in a few, specific instances. For example, when a person has a very confident, independent dog that wants his own way, and is not particularly interested in complying or cooperating, she says, “You have to be able to engage the dog’s interest, you have to get them to want to do it and eager to learn – and not everyone is capable of getting that from their dog.”

And then there are the people who are looking for shortcuts – who just want the dog to be trained as quickly as possible, with little effort. “Behavior shaping is such a wonderful and useful tool, but it’s also complex, demanding, and not everyone can use it very well. Some people use a little bit and then go, ‘Aw, this doesn’t work.’ Or they say, ‘I think it was faster when I just jerked the dog.’ ”

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Ian Dunbar: Promoting “Dog-Friendly Dog Training”

Punishment,” says Dr. Ian Dunbar, “is an advertisement that a dog isn’t trained yet.” Dunbar is a veterinarian, has a Ph.D. in animal behavior, and is often credited with pioneering the puppy education movement when he founded Sirius Puppy Training, in Berkeley, California, in 1980. He also has written and produced numerous books and videos on dog training, founded a publishing company (James & Kenneth Publishing) that specializes in books about positive dog training, and founded the Association of Pet Dog Trainers in 1993.

Whether Dunbar has stirred up the wave of positive dog training so popular today or he simply managed to surf its crest for more than 20 years is, perhaps, not worth debating. Throughout that time, he has been a tireless advocate of what he calls “dog-friendly dog training,” focused on helping owners get along with their dogs happily and safely.

To achieve these goals, Dunbar advocates taking the simplest effective approach to dog training possible. Any method of dog training had better be “all the E’s,” he says: “It has to be effective; there is no point in doing it if it doesn’t work. It has to be efficient, because people won’t do it if it takes a long time. It has to be easy, for the same reason. And if it is enjoyable, and people have fun doing it, and their dogs do, too, then they will do more of it, and be more successful.”

For example, Dunbar uses lots of lure-reward training – using a food treat or toy that the dog will follow to get him to perform certain behaviors, such as holding the lure slightly over the dog’s head to get him to sit. He also teaches handlers how to employ the difficult-sounding but fiendishly simple “operant conditioning” – rewarding the dog when he performs the desired behavior or a successively closer approximation, “reinforcing” the desired behavior.

In contrast, undesirable behavior goes unreinforced; the handler strives to make certain that the dog derives no reward from his “bad” behavior, and soon the dog loses interest in repeating it.

While Dunbar does address exotic misbehavior and serious transgressions such as aggression in his books, videos, and lectures, he says the bulk of his work has to do with helping people deal with normal dogs exhibiting normal dog behavior: eliminating in the house, digging in the garden, chewing the family’s possessions, chasing the cat, barking at strangers, and so on.

“What most people want is a dog who is fun and easy to live with,” he explains. “Once upon a time, dog training was all about this military stuff, and practiced mostly by people who wanted to show their dogs in obedience. You used to pick up training books and they would talk mostly about leash corrections.

“But in recent years we began talking about pet dog training, and we invoked the notion of relationship; we’re not just training dogs to do things, we’re training dogs to live with us and be our pals. After all, this is a dog I sit on the couch with and give tummy rubs to. This is the friend I walk with and chat with. I want the dog to like me. I want my dog to enjoy training, and if he does, I will too.

“Within the last 10 years, there has been an explosion of dog-friendly dog training,” Dunbar continues. “Now, the average family living with a dog has so many options, so many new, warm, friendly tools in the toolbox. Now we talk about training dogs to have bite inhibition; to like people, other dogs, and other animals; and we can talk about the notion of dealing with behavior problems.”

Love me, love my training
Dunbar says that in his opinion, the biggest current topic in dog training is teaching trainers and owners alike to avoid punishing their dogs. “My definition of training is to eliminate the need for any punishment,” he says. “If I use a force-based method, my goal is to eliminate that method as soon as possible.”

Dunbar believes there is definite “fallout” from using force- or pain-based training methods. “Even the mildest correction – just saying ‘No!’ – can result in baggage,” he says. “The point of training is to get the dog to like you and to be enjoyable to live with. Trust me, he won’t be fun to live with if he doesn’t like you and doesn’t trust you. In contrast, the fallout of training with treats is that the dog likes the handler.”

Putting yourself in your dog’s shoes is appropriate here; you wouldn’t want to spend hours and hours taking music or dancing lessons from someone with whom you felt uneasy. Dunbar gives an example from his home: “My son has favorite subjects in school because he likes the person who is teaching them. He’s even taking a Chinese history course because the instructor is so wonderful. You want the dog to want to sign up for any course you are teaching – and he won’t do it if he gets yelled at or struck in class.”

Be a behaviorist
When trying to convince people that force-free training actually works far more effectively than positive methods such as lure-reward and operant conditioning, Dunbar says it’s helpful to get them to look at the two different approaches objectively.

“To say I don’t like force-based training, or that dogs don’t like it, is a purely subjective opinion,” he explains. “But you can ask them to use the method that behavioral scientists use to determine effectiveness – to observe and quantify the dog’s behavior.”

Dunbar uses an example of a dog that jumps up. You could, he suggests, deal with the behavior by turning your back and completely ignoring his jumping, while keeping track of how many times he tried to jump. “If you have someone actually keep a log, it not only keeps the person ‘on task,’ but also shows them that, in fact, the method is working. There is no disputing a trend seen in the log.”

Close observation of the dog’s behavior is critical to dog training, says Dunbar. When he is working with a dog, he wants it to feel comfortable and confident, and to enjoy working with him.

“I know I’ve messed up if I see the dog suddenly lower his head and back up, or refuse to join me in the training game,” explains Dunbar. “That’s why I start off by offering the dog a food treat, and observing what he does. Did the dog come? How quickly? His response gives me a good look inside his head. If he takes it, I can be reasonably assured he is comfortable with me, and he can probably be persuaded to enjoy training. If he doesn’t take the food, I give it to the owner and have her offer it to the dog. If he takes it from the owner right away, I know that the dog is uncomfortable with me – and therefore vulnerable to being scared by me.”

As much as he believes that dog training can almost always be accomplished without pain, fear, or force, Dunbar says he doesn’t “attack” force-based trainers or owners who use force. “I don’t look down on anyone for their force-based training methods,” he says. “But I put this question to them: ‘Would you like to do that (use force) less? Because I think I can give you one tip, so you can get the desired result much more effectively and easily.’ If I can show them that I can get the dog to do the same thing quicker, easier, and more enjoyably, they are likely to give the positive stuff a try.”

The trainer does admit to sometimes using covert methods to demonstrate the benefits of non-force methods to a handler who has become angry or frustrated with a dog.

“If someone is in my class and she is ‘losing it’ with her dog, I might put my coffee cup in her hands and say brightly, ‘Could you hold my coffee for a second? Thanks!’ Then I take a handful of treats and get the dog to do what he’s supposed to be doing, and praise both of them lavishly, ‘Goooood dog, goooood job, you two!!’ That conditions both of them to enjoy training!”

-by Nancy Kerns

Courses in Alternative Medicines

By
Randy Kidd
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In the following article, holistic veterinarian Randy Kidd writes about the role of the healer’s intention, or purposeful thoughts, as he or she works to improve an animal’s health. Dr. Kidd was chiefly concerned with healing, but his words can be applied to anything that you do with a dog, including feeding, petting, and (especially) training. Most trainers would agree that it helps immeasurably to be very clear about what you are asking for when you work with a dog – even to the point of visualizing in your mind the behavior or movement you are seeking from your dog. Unquestionably, your focus will help you communicate your wishes to your dog, making it easier for him to interpret and understand your cues. Life is demanding and stressful for many people these days. We rarely have enough time to be as reflective as we’d like. But as you work with and care for others, including your dogs, take a moment to focus purposeful thought on your tasks. I’m certain that WDJ’s contributors – experts in training, behavior, health, and nutrition – would concur: Food is better when prepared with loving, healthful intent; massage is more beneficial when directed with focused energy, and behavioral problems disappear when communication between teacher and canine pupil is positive and clear. –Editor ———- The first time I heard the term “intention,” as applied to a healing method, was after I’d been a practicing veterinarian for about 30 years. I was taking an animal chiropractic course when a chiropractor-instructor commented, “Chiropractic is all about intention. Think about exactly where you want that spinal vertebrae to be and then let that intention help you with how you want to move it back into alignment. Your focused intention is your best ally when you’re doing chiropractic.” At the time I thought it was interesting that I’d never heard the term “intention” applied to medicine before. But I took my chiropractic teacher’s admonitions to heart, and now, before each adjustment, I spend a moment to focus my intention before I do any mechanical manipulations. In the ensuing years I’ve learned a few things about applying chiropractic to animals, and I’ve added these applications to my focused intentions. For example, early on I learned that animals will bite when your chiropractic technique is too heavy-handed! So, now my intention is to adjust an animal without causing pain. It’s a subtle thing, but once I changed my intention from simply “proper adjustment” to “proper adjustment without pain” I noticed I worked with a lighter touch, and it was obvious the animals were responding in kind. One of the first things I noticed when I began taking courses in alternative medicines was how different their goals were from western or allopathic medicine. While allopathic medicine’s intention is to “cure” the physical component of the disease, the intention of alternative medicines is to balance the patient’s collective body/mind/spirit. The word allopathic comes from the Greek allos, other or opposition, and pathic, from the Greek pathos, or disease. Thus, allopathic means a treatment “other than, or in opposition to the disease.” Western medicine’s intention is to find the “bug” (or other etiology) that caused the disease, and then specifically attack the perceived problem. With this as its intention, western medicine uses a lot of war-term analogies: we are “fighting disease;” for this case we may need to bring out the “bigger guns” (more potent antibiotics); we need to “eradicate” this bug; etc. In contrast, almost all alternative medicines are aimed at enhancing the patient’s inner ability to respond to the (almost always multiple) causes of the disease. You can witness this in homeopathy’s intention to enhance the patient’s “vital force,” acupuncture’s intention to enhance the patient’s chi, and chiropractic’s intention to enhance the patient’s “innate intelligence.” So, when you’re using alternative medicines, your thinking needs to change to an intention that is almost the opposite of western medicine’s intention. Or as some of us like to put it: “Western medicine and alternative medicines are looking at the same ‘mountain’ of a patient; we’re just looking at that ‘mountain’ from completely opposite sides.” Intention is integral to holistic medicine The more time I spend with my practice of alternative medicines, the more I see that holistic medicine is much more than a simple application of a medicine, whatever magical medicine the practitioner currently uses. As I stated in my practice model (“Building the Foundation of Health,” March 2001) I feel medicine – whatever the medicine – is merely the “nudger” or “tweaker” that may help move the patient to better health. The true intention of holistic medicine, in my mind, is to empower the patient to a healthy reunion with nature, to recreate balance, to return the patient’s inner powers for health and healing, to re-establish more natural relationships, and to help create healthy life-style choices. I teach at a university that is (among other things) scientifically validating non-local and intuitive approaches to diagnosis and healing. Non-local diagnosis and non-local healing (sometimes referred to as intuitive diagnosis and healing) occur when a practitioner is able to effect a diagnosis or a cure from a distance, without seeing the patient. Now there’s a subject that at one time I thought was much too woo-woo, even for me! The problem is, I’ve seen non-local diagnoses that were accurate and non-local healings that were completely successful. I’ve seen both of these far too often to dismiss them. And, as a matter of fact, there’s a lot of scientific evidence to support the curative value of non-local prayer, and intuitive diagnosis has been scientifically shown to work. Through my work at this university, I’ve recently become involved with two different groups of healers: Native American healers, and what I call “natural healers” – healers who seem to be gifted with natural healing powers and often don’t use any specific medicine other than their own ability to heal. Interestingly, when asked what is the most important aspect of their healing abilities, both these groups of healers almost always answer, “Intention.” It seems to be a common thread that unites them all. In fact, in the Native American way of healing, intention is the one crucial ingredient for all medicines. Healings are given from Spirit through the medicine man or medicine woman who is able to access Spirit via his/her good intentions. In their way of thinking (and I happen to agree with this), even the herbs they may use must be collected and utilized with proper intention or their powers to heal are greatly diminished. I have questioned dozens of healers who use unconventional methods, and they all say that it’s their intention that gives them the ability to diagnose or heal. They all claim to have a tremendous ability to focus their intention to the point that both the information they receive (often claimed to be from Spirit, or the Universe, or Jung’s Collective Unconscious, or their personal concept of God, or whatever they see as a Higher Power) is accurate, and their healing abilities (again, most often from Spirit) can be focused and directed in a helpful manner. My intention through me A further key to intention I am learning from the “natural healers” I’m working with is that the most efficient and effective way to utilize the healing powers of Spirit is to let those powers flow through. Here’s where it becomes crucial, at least in the minds of the most successful of the “natural healers,” to not let any of your personal stuff interfere with the healing intent of the Universe. This, of necessity, means that the healer needs to walk her/his talk, so to speak. True healers must practice the methods of personal empowerment that they recommend for their patients. In addition, many of the natural healers also have a way, often involving some form of ritual, of purifying their intention. They often also have some way that involves an intensifying of their focus, a method to always bring their focus back to their intention. For me, purifying my intention is now related to removing my ego from the healing process. I have learned that trying to prove one or the other of the alternative medicines I use is better than another (or better than western medicine) is a matter of egoistic pride; that always expecting miraculous results is a matter of a bloated ego; and that believing I am the one who is performing the “healing” (rather than Spirit) is a matter of an overinflated and misdirected ego. The most difficult deflation of personal ego that the natural healers have finally been able to make me to understand is that they (and especially I) must learn to accept the intention of the Universe. Intention of the Universe When I expect positive results to occur with every treatment, that’s a matter of my ego getting in the way of the ultimate designs of the universe. What the natural healers have taught me is that, no matter how good you are as a healer, you are always subject to the natural laws of the universe. “Thy will be done” is another way of putting this. In other words, it is the realm of divine intention that will ultimately determine the outcome of all our treatments. Now, I’m not a particularly religious guy, but embracing the simple concept of “Thy will be done” has helped me with my healing efforts more than anything else I’ve ever learned. It has allowed me to purify my intention, and it has let me focus on what I can do within my own abilities. And, most interestingly, it has let me get on with the work I am capable of doing without my ego continually crying about my lack of successes, my inabilities, and my personal fallibilities. What I’ve presented here is pretty much a chronological account of how I’ve learned to purify, to focus, and to utilize my intention and the intention of Spirit to help me with my holistic healing efforts. Sheesh, looking back on the process – from the first hint I had that intention was involved with any healing method, to my current realization that intention is perhaps the single most important component of any healing – has taken me more than a dozen years to complete. Hopefully, you’ll be a faster learner than I was. -by Dr. Randy Kidd Dr. Randy Kidd has a DVM degree from Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in Pathology/Clinical Pathology from Kansas State University. He is a past president of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association, and author of Dr. Kidd’s Guide to Herbal Dog Care and Dr. Kidd’s Guide to Herbal Cat Care.

Teaching Your Dog “Off”

By
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA
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When they fill out their evaluation forms at the end of a six-week course, my clients frequently name the “Off” exercise as one of the most useful behaviors they have taught their dogs in class.

“Off” means “Whatever you are paying attention to right now, I want you to leave it alone.” It can be applied to the roast on the counter, the snacks on the coffee table, the dead skunk beside the trail, the neighbor’s cat darting across the yard, or frail 93-year-old Aunt Martha. It’s one of my favorite exercises for watching a dog’s brain at work as she grasps the concept of “leave it alone.” Best of all, it’s fun and easy. You can do the exercises all in one session if your dog is an “Off” whiz, or it may take several.

ONE: Hold up a highly desirable “forbidden treat object” such as a cube of freeze-dried liver so your dog can see it. When she shows interest, say “Off!” in a cheerful tone of voice and place the object on the floor. Be sure to use a pleasant tone, not an intimidating one. You are giving her information, not scaring her away from the treat.

TWO: Quickly, before she can grab it, cover the treat with your foot. Let her dig, claw, bite, and lick to her heart’s content. Wear sturdy old shoes – do not do this with bare feet or sandals, or your shiny Sunday best. Do not repeat the “Off” cue. Just wait.

THREE: Sooner or later she will lose interest in the forbidden object, or be distracted. The instant she looks away from your foot, Click! the clicker (or say “Yes!”) and reward her with a treat of equal value from your hand. Do not feed her the treat under your foot.

FOUR: If she eats the reward and immediately goes back to digging at your foot, wait until she looks away again, then Click! and reward. Keep doing this until she is no longer paying any attention to the treat under your foot. Use a high rate of reinforcement (lots of Clicks! and treats) until she realizes that it is more profitable to “not look” at the treat under your foot.

FIVE: If she eats the reward and does not immediately go back to your foot, Click! and reward her so she quickly figures out she does not have to repeatedly try to get the object and then stop, in order to make the Click! happen. Your goal is to get her to leave it alone completely, not keep going back to it.

SIX: After several repetitions, pick up the forbidden object, show it to her again, say “Off” and place it on the floor, again covering it with your foot. Each time you start the exercise fresh by picking up the object and placing it on the floor, say “Off” one time, and only one time. Do not keep repeating the “Off” cue if she keeps trying to get it from under your foot. You want her to understand that once you say “Off!” it means forever.

SEVEN: When she seems to understand that she should leave your foot alone, uncover the treat slightly. Be prepared to cover it again quickly with your foot if she dives for it! Keep clicking and rewarding her for looking away from it, until she will leave it alone even when it is uncovered. You will be amazed by how quickly she learns this.

EIGHT: As she becomes more reliable about leaving it alone with your protector-foot nearby, gradually move farther away from the treat until you can stand three to four feet away and she still honors the “Off.” Err on the side of caution; if she grabs the forbidden object, she will have been rewarded for the exact opposite of your behavior goal. If this happens, you must back up in the program and repair the damage.

NINE: When she is reliably honoring “Off” with you standing four feet away, attach the leash to her collar, set up the “Off” with the forbidden object on the floor, and move three feet off to one side. Keep the leash just barely taut but not tight, so you can restrain her if she moves toward the treat.

Now call her to you. She should honor the “Off” cue and come to you rather than lunging forward to get the treat. When she does, Click! and Jackpot! (give a handful of treats, one by one, as an extra big reward). If she moves toward the treat, simply restrain her with the leash – don’t say “No!” or repeat “Off.” Just wait for her to give up and turn back to you. Then Click! and treat.

TEN: Now you can apply this to real life. With your dog on leash, walk past piles of treats you have laid out on the floor, or other natural enticements, such as a bowl of chips on the coffee table. As soon as she makes eye contact with the enticement say “Off” one time in a cheerful tone of voice and stand still, restraining her, with the leash short enough that she can’t reach the object. Wait until she gives up and turns back to look at you. Click! and reward.

Repeat until she understands that “Off” applies to real-life encounters. When she will reliably and routinely honor the “Off” cue without even tightening the leash, you are ready to try it off leash.

On your first off-leash attempt, use relatively boring enticements such as a pile of dry cookies, and be sure to have wonderful rewards to give her when she turns back toward you in response to your cue. Warm her up on leash, then take off the leash and give it a try. Be confident and visualize success, so you don’t pause and tense up near the item, and she’ll likely reward you with a perfect performance.

-by Pat Miller

Getting Your Children Involved in Training the Family Dog

By
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA
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[Updated February 27, 2018]

One of the things that parents almost always say when they decide to add a dog to the family is, “It will help teach the kids about responsibility.” That’s the hope, anyway.

Those of us who are committed to teaching non-force, positive dog training see another important opportunity for growth that may arrive with the dog. Many pet dog trainers today are using modern, dog-friendly methods that teach students – children and adults alike – that it is not appropriate nor necessary to use pain or physical force to make another creature to submit to their will. These trainers teach kids how much more powerful (and enjoyable) it is to use kindness, patience, and intellect to communicate and solve problems with their dogs.

kid and dog bonding

Some visionary trainers are even using positive training methods to help abused children rediscover their empathy for the pain and suffering of others. The value of such a program cannot be overstated. Now that the mental health profession has confirmed that children who abuse animals are very likely to grow up into people who abuse other people, the importance of encouraging empathy in children takes on a new significance.

What’s more, children have often been observed to have an innate empathy for animals and their suffering, but this empathy is easily deadened by exposure to animal cruelty. Adults may wrongly rationalize that abuse perpetuated in the name of producing a well-behaved dog is acceptable. But a seemingly good end does not justify violent means. It would be monstrous for the child to conclude that hurting the dog – for whatever reason – is okay.

Finally, many positive trainers have independently reached the conclusion that teaching methods and philosophies that promote nonviolence and a respect for all forms of life is more important now than ever.

Kids are not necessarily accustomed to being as competent as Mom and Dad. But dog training is one field where they can really shine, and even eclipse their parents’ abilities.

In fact, some of my best human students have been children! One mother called me for private training because the family’s four-month-old Labrador Retriever pup was jumping up on and terrorizing the three-year-old toddler. Within a week, the toddler had learned to lift her tiny hands up to her chest to elicit a polite sit from the puppy, and a potential relationship disaster was averted.

And a very young boy was one of the bright stars in a class I taught recently. As I passed out graduation certificates at the conclusion of the course, I thoroughly enjoyed the sight of 10-month-old Champ, a large and energetic Golden Retriever, happily doing sit-down, sit-down, puppy push-ups for his five-year-old human packmate.

Top 10 Reasons Why Your Child May Make a Better Trainer Than You

The following list includes a number of generalizations about normal, dog-loving kids and normal, kid-loving dogs. Little of what we present here is applicable to kids who don’t like dogs or are deeply fearful of dogs, or dogs who are deeply fearful of children. If your dog and kids have relationship problems – if there is any aggression being perpetrated upon each other – we would suggest that you consult a professional, positive trainer to help you with socializing them.

Confident kids who love their dogs may be in the best position to accomplish training miracles with the family dog, thanks to:

10. Food! Most dogs recognize quickly that kids dispense treats at a very high rate of reinforcement. Kids are always eating, and they often drag their food around with them – in the car, on the sofa, in the yard, and so on. And they love to share! Even the tiniest toddlers quickly learn that dogs pay more attention to them when they are eating – and sharing. Trainers want their canine pupils to watch them, and to regard them as the source of delicious treats . . . so kids have that going for them without even thinking about it.

9. Kids are closer in size to dogs than adults, therefore less intimidating. Their faces are within licking range and their hands are closer, more likely to dole out petting. Dogs who are threatened by even a quiet, gentle adult towering over them will often regard even a pushy youngster as a trusted playmate.

8. Most kids have higher-pitched voices than adults, and they tend to speak with more animation. This elicits an excitement response in many dogs. In fact, adult trainers sometimes have to cultivate a high-pitched tone of voice to keep dogs playing the training game. Kids already have it!

7. Kids are more physically exciting to dogs. They are human kinetic wonders, moving unpredictably, wiggling and squirming, and they are just as likely to jump up and down as throw themselves on the floor. As a predatory species, dogs find movement irresistible; they automatically train their attention on things that move. (And face it: compared to kids, adults are boooo-ring!)

6. Kids are more likely to try to cajole or “trick” the dog into doing something than to physically force him (unless they have been exposed to people who use compulsive training). While their methods may be unorthodox – luring a reluctant dog into the car by waving their Beanie Baby at him, for example – they often have more success with the dog than Mom or Dad do. Many family dogs regard the adult as the “enforcer,” the person who grabs the dog, puts the leash on, picks him up, or otherwise makes him do what he doesn’t want to do. As a result, dogs tend to regard the kids as being “safer” to be around.

5. Kids have more time! We know that some kids are very busy, what with school, homework, soccer, etc. But training is best accomplished in numerous, short sessions. Kids can ask the dog to perform a behavior, such as “sit,” 20 or 30 times a day while they pour their cereal, brush their teeth, and tie their shoes. If they are packing their lunches or eating a snack, they can ask the dog to do a “down” or two in exchange for a few treats. Two-minute television commercial breaks are perfect opportunities to train the dog.

4. Kids can really relate to a dog’s philosophy of life: “What’s in it for me?” Explain it to them this way: “You know how much more fun it is to get a treat or a prize after you’ve done something good? That’s how dogs are! And you know how bad you feel when you’ve done something really good and no one notices at all? Dogs feel like that, too!” Explained simply, most children will immediately appreciate the importance of praise and rewards for the dog.

3. Kids tend to be more observant of the dog’s subtle body language than adults. Perhaps as a result of spending more “bonding” time with the dog (or maybe it’s from watching thousands of hours of cartoon animals who are fully equipped with human attributes and powers of communication), it’s often the kids who first notice that the dog is feeling sick. That he “smiles” when he’s really happy. That he walks a certain way when he needs to go to the bathroom. Praise your child when she accurately assesses the dog’s “message,” and help her interpret the finer points of behavior. For example, a dog who is feeling confused may turn his head away or lick his nose; a dog who really “gets” what you want him to do may bump you with his nose or paw to invite you to keep playing the game, etc.

2. Kids may handle the dog’s “failures” better. Think about it: Most kids are accustomed to feeling less effective than adults. Frequently, when adults can’t get their dogs to do what they want, they get frustrated and sometimes even punitive. Kids are more accustomed to not being able to get others to do what they want; they tend to take it less seriously when the dog ignores their “orders.” Teach your children to ignore the dog’s “wrong” responses, and to focus chiefly on rewarding the dog for everything he does right. It will keep the dog’s training on the fun, fast track. And speaking of fun . . .

1. Both kids and dogs just want to have fun. A love of play is something they share. Kids can capitalize on the fact that they are desirable playmates for the dog, and reward him for good behavior with a good romp. Conversely, when training turns into a long, boring chore, kids and dogs will bail. Remind your kids to keep their training sessions short and fun, and kids and dogs alike will continue to come running when you call, “Training time!”

While dedicated dog-loving kids can train their dogs to do just about anything dogs can do, they should start with the basics. The following are some easy exercises that will cultivate your child’s ability and desire to build a positive relationship with the family dog.

Clicker Training with Kids

Kids love clickers. I may have to do a hard sell to convince some of my adult students to train with a “gadget,” but kids are sold from the first Click! They can’t wait to get their hands on that little plastic box and start clicking the dog. The toughest part is making them understand that the clicker is not a toy – every time they click the clicker, they have to give the dog a treat!

With younger children (three to seven) or kids who need work on impulse control, you can team-click: You Click! the clicker, and they dole out the treats. If you have a canine youngster with needle-sharp puppy teeth, let your child do the clicking while you work on softening the puppy’s bite, and have him drop treats on the floor when it’s your turn to Click! If your dog already knows how to take treats gently, you can take turns, with one of you on the clicker while the other one feeds treats from the hand. Older children can usually handle both tasks themselves, with some supervision from you.

Your child’s first training exercise is “charging the clicker,” known more formally as “conditioning the dog to the reward marker.” This exercise simply teaches the dog that the sound of the clicker (or the word “Yes!” if you don’t have access to a clicker) means that a treat is coming. It’s the easiest exercise you will ever do, and a breeze for a kid.

One of you Clicks! the clicker. The other feeds the dog a treat. Click! Treat. Click! Treat. (Note: Occasionally a dog is afraid of the Click! sound. In this case, you can use a softer marker, such as the click of a ball point pen or your tongue. Kids are usually pretty good at tongue clicks!)

In this initial exercise, the dog doesn’t have to do anything at all. The only caution is that you don’t want to Click! when your dog is doing an unwanted behavior, such as jumping up. Most dogs get the concept pretty quickly. You’ll know when you see the dog’s eyes light up and start looking for the treat the instant she hears the Click! Let your child tell you when he thinks your dog has it figured out – it will teach him to start watching and understanding the dog’s body language, which is an important part of a successful canine-human relationship.

Teaching Kids to Teach the Dog

Your dog may start offering sits while the two of you are charging the clicker, especially if you remember to hold the treat up at your chest, because it is easier for her to sit and watch the treat than crane her neck back while standing. Encourage your budding trainer to hold the treat up at his chest, while you look for opportunities to Click! the dog when she happens to have her bottom on the ground. If you and your child consistently Click! when the dog is sitting, she will eventually conclude that sitting makes the Click! happen, and she will start sitting on purpose to make you Click! the clicker. The next exercise, sit, will be a breeze for her to learn, because she’s already doing it!

kid training dog

You will both need to remember not to ask your dog to “Sit” until she is already sitting. Novice trainers, including kids, forget that dogs aren’t born knowing English. Just because you tell the dog to sit doesn’t mean she will, and since you’re not going to force her to sit, there’s no point in wasting your breath. Instead, tell your child to wait for the dog to sit, or to help her sit by holding the treat to her nose and moving it back over her head, then Click! and treat when she does. When the dog is sitting easily for your child, then he can start saying “Sit” when the dog is already sitting.

After the dog has had the opportunity to hear the word “Sit” a number of times while sitting – a dozen to two dozen times, perhaps, depending on how fast she learns – your child can say “Sit!” just before the dog sits, when he can tell by watching the dog’s body language that she is about to plop her bottom on the ground to make the clicker go off. Click! and treat. At this point it may appear that the dog is sitting because your child asked her to, but in reality, she is sitting because she has been practicing this routine, and she knows if she sits when your child holds the treat up to his chest, it will make the clicker go off. Your dog probably doesn’t understand the word yet – you may need to give her a little more help. If your child says “Sit!” and the dog doesn’t do it, lure the dog into a sit by placing the treat in front of her nose and move it over her head. Remember that it doesn’t help to keep repeating the word – you don’t want to teach her that the cue for sit is “Sit! Sit! SIT!”

Helping Your Kid Generalize the Dog’s Behavior

When your dog can perform the “Sit” reliably for your child at home, take the pair of them to practice at other locations.

Dogs do not generalize well. That means that if you always work with your dog on “Sit” in the kitchen, three feet in front of the refrigerator, she may well conclude that “Sit!” means “Sit in the kitchen, three feet in front of the refrigerator.” The first time your child asks your dog to sit in the living room, she may not do it, because there’s no refrigerator there!

You will have to back up a step in training, and use the treat-lure to show the dog that “Sit!” means “Sit wherever you are, not just in the kitchen.” You can also teach her that “Sit” means “Sit by my side, sit when my back is toward you, sit when I am sitting on a chair, sit when I am lying on the floor.” She also needs to learn that “Sit!” means “Sit when there are visitors in the house, sit when you see another dog, and sit even if a cat runs by.” Then you will know that your dog really understands the word “Sit!”

Four-Step Dog Training Formula for Kids

You and your children just followed a four-step formula for teaching your dog “Sit.” Guess what? Your budding trainers can follow the same steps for teaching your dog everything else they want to teach her:

1. Get the dog to do the behavior, using the treat to show her what you want, if necessary. Click! and treat when she does it.

2. Repeat Step 1 until she does the behavior easily. Then add the word you want to use to cue the behavior the instant she does it. Click! and treat.

3. When she has had time to hear the word in relation to the behavior, say the word just before she does the behavior, and then help her with the treat, if necessary.

4. As soon as she seems to have made the connection between the word and the behavior, help her generalize the behavior to other locations. Take the training crew to practice at parks, on walks around the block, in parking lots, and in stores that allow dogs. A good positive training class is another great place for your child to practice working with your dog around distractions.

Teaching “Down”

Let’s apply the training formula to another behavior – teaching your dog to lie down on cue. This one is often a little more challenging than the sit; you will probably have to help your child get this one right.

Step 1 – Get the behavior: While your dog is sitting, one of you holds a treat in front of her nose and starts slowly moving it straight down, using it to show her that you want her to move toward the floor. The other Clicks! the clicker as the dog lowers her head to follow the treat.

kids training dog

Each time the Click! happens, give the dog a small nibble of treat. Do not wait to Click! until she is all the way down! Because this is a more difficult behavior, you need to Click! and reward her just for heading in the right direction, or she may give up. The two of you trainers will gradually “shape” the dog into a down – which means clicking and rewarding small bits of the desired behavior until you finally get the whole thing.

If your child is unsuccessful shaping the dog into a down, he can lure her under your knee, a low stool, or a coffee table, so she has to lie down and crawl to follow the treat. Click! and reward. Repeat this until the dog seems to be getting the idea, then try shaping the down again.

Step 2 – Add the word: When the dog lies down easily, have your child add the word “Down” when the dog is in the down position, to give her a chance to associate the word with the behavior.

Step 3 – Put the word first: After a couple of dozen repetitions, have your young trainer stand in front of the dog with his treat hand at his side or behind his back (so he isn’t giving the dog the “Sit!” cue by holding it at his chest) and tell him to say “Down.” Give the dog a second or two to process the word, and if she doesn’t lie down (she probably won’t), have your child put the treat in front of the dog’s nose and lure her into a down. Click! and treat.

Keep repeating this exercise until the dog lies down on just the verbal cue, then Click! and Jackpot! – which means feeding the dog a handful of treats, one at a time, as a special reward for doing this challenging exercise. Then take your child out for ice cream – he deserves a jackpot, too!

Step 4 – Generalize: Now it’s time to take the show on the road. Have your team start practicing the “Down” exercise when you take them for walks around the block, trips to the park or the pet food store, or visits to your veterinarian.

Teaching “Come”

Let’s apply the formula to one more exercise, and then you, your dog, and your junior dog trainer are on your own!

“Come” is a very important behavior for dogs to learn, and while it takes time and practice for dogs to learn to come despite the allure of other dogs and fleeing squirrels, it’s a much easier behavior to begin teaching than “Down.” You and your child each need a handful of treats and a clicker.

Step 1 – Get the behavior: Both of you stand close to the dog. Have your child show the dog a treat and take a couple of steps backward. When the dog follows the kid, Click! and treat.

Step 2 – Add the word: You can add the word pretty quickly, since your dog will probably come toward the trainer the first time he tries this. The second time, as he steps back and the dog starts to move toward him, have the kid say “Sally, come!” (Obviously, you use your dog’s own name!) Click and treat. You and your child should take several turns each doing this exercise with the dog.

Step 3 – Say the word first: Again, you can shortcut to this one, since your dog will probably catch on to this fun game pretty fast. One of you says “Sally, come!” and then takes several steps back. The caller should Click! the clicker as soon as the dog starts running toward him, since it is the behavior of coming toward the caller that you want to reinforce – you don’t have to wait until she gets all the way to you.

Gradually put more and more distance between you and your child, so your dog has to run farther and farther to get to the caller. As you stand farther apart, clicking the clicker as soon the dog starts toward you will encourage her to come faster, since the Click! tells her there’s a treat waiting for her.

Step 4 – Generalize: This is the one people tend to forget. They think that just because the dog comes when they call her in the back yard, she should immediately come when she is chasing a squirrel, playing with other dogs, or getting in the garbage. You and your child need to practice “Come” in lots of different places if you want your dog to come to you reliably wherever she is. In each new location, start close together, with the dog on leash, and gradually work up to longer distances, using a long line if there are lots of distractions to entice her away (see “Long Distance Information,” February 2001).

And there you have it. You and your child can use this formula to teach your dog anything you want her to learn. Be creative!

Pat Miller, WDJ’s Training Editor, is also a freelance author and Certified Pet Dog Trainer. She sits on the Board of Directors of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers. She is the author of many books on dog training; the first book she wrote is called The Power of Positive Dog Training.

First Time Letter Writers

By
Nancy Kerns
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0

I have never written a letter like this, but what happened to my dog is so amazing that I had to share it.

I have a Border Collie, Ransom, who is almost two years old. He has had a rather large number of physical and health problems in his short life, one of which is inflammatory bowel disease requiring him to be on a regular regimen of Prednisone and Flagyl. I was able to wean him down to a pretty low dose and only had to give it to him every three days, but he was always on the verge of diarrhea and I wasn’t happy having such a young dog on a long-term steroid. But, if I went more than 72 hours without giving him the medication, he would get severe diarrhea immediately.

After reading “Feed Your Dog Back to Health” (WDJ September 2001), I added carrot juice and raw organic liver to both my dogs’ diets. Almost miraculously, Ransom’s inflammatory bowel disease seemed to disappear. Since he seemed better, I started testing him by going a little longer than 72 hours, then four days, then a week. Well, he hasn’t had a bit of medication in over five weeks!

I suspect that it’s the carrot juice that’s doing the trick, because I had some difficulty getting the organic liver when I ran out the first time, so there was a week or two that he didn’t have the liver. However, he has had the carrot juice twice a day the whole time.

Thank you for that wonderful article!

-Lisa Basial
Mechanicsburg, PA

———-

I was reading the latest edition of WDJ and was excited to see the article entitled “Problematic Pace?” (November 2001).

I have two Australian Cattle Dogs, Tango (13 years) and Sydney (6 months). In the last couple of years, Tango has developed a strange gait. I now know that she has two discs in her spine that are fusing (discovered in a veterinary x-ray this spring) and has been in pain for some time. I have been supplementing her homemade diet with glucosamine/chondroitin for several years and she has been taking Rimadyl which seems to have reduced the pain. She still walks “funny,” though, and I just couldn’t pinpoint what was different about her gait until I read your article.

She paces! Now I know what and why! This enables me to engage in some intensive research into hands-on care for pacers with spinal trouble.

I do give Tango gentle massages, but I’m always afraid of hurting her. I’m sure that I could do much more given the proper techniques. The author’s success with her dog, Bogey, has really given me hope that I can help my Tango feel just a little bit better too!

Thank you so much for the informative and encouraging information that I find in every issue of WDJ!

Your friends in Big Lake, Alaska,

-Carla, Tango & Sydney Chesbro


Thanks for your letter. Once we became aware of the significance of the pacing gait, we started seeing it in dogs everywhere – and often, the dogs appear to have some sort of arthritic problem or discomfort when they moved or positioned themselves a certain way.

One of the sidebars (“Past WDJ Articles on Related Subjects”) referenced a number of articles that may be of immediate use to you and Tango. If you (or Tango!) think that massage would be too much for her, check out “Conscious Contact,” in the April 1998 issue. The author, Diana Thompson, is the same person who helped Bogey, and she explains in that article how to use the very light, non-invasive touching methods she employed with him. Good luck!

———-

What a lovely surprise to receive the Kong Biscuit Ball in the mail today. Thank you for thinking of your subscribers. The gift is very thoughtful and of course will be put to good use by our Westies.

We at Crownview Kennels are big supporters of your magazine, and we rely on your unbiased viewpoint. We appreciate the fact that it is not only unbiased but also thoroughly researched. The minute the publication arrives, it is read from cover to cover. Then the publications are referred to over and over again. The indexing on the cover is such a plus and the pre-punched idea is so convenient.

I adore having you online also; it aids with looking up prior issues expediently.

-Frances Nicholson,
Crownview Kennels
Olalla, WA

Download the Full December 2001 Issue

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