Dog Blog

Feeding for health and longevity: Raw vs. kibble vs. calories

2012-01-11T15:16:00.008Z

In May last year I changed the dogs' teatime meal to a commercially prepared, 'ready-made' raw food diet. At the time and for a long time beforehand, I believed that raw was the best way to feed a dog, but six months down the line, the diet wasn't working out well for Tilly. I had to stop and re-evaluate my thoughts about raw feeding being the healthy option, and question what the domestic dog's 'species-appropriate' diet really should be.

Dogs are carnivores, there is no doubting this, but carnivores fall into different types. There are true or ‘obligate carnivores’ – animals that depend solely on the nutrients found in animal matter for their survival. While they may consume small amounts of plant matter, they lack the physiology required for the efficient digestion of plants. All felids including the domestic cat are obligate carnivores, requiring a diet consisting of primarily animal flesh, bones and organs.

Dogs and other canids are ‘facultative carnivores’. ‘Facultative’ means contingent, optional, or not required – in other words, while the primary diet of dogs is meat, dogs are actually capable of surviving without it. Studies of the wolves of Yellowstone National Park in the USA reveal that even when prey animals are in plentiful supply, on average, the wolves only eat fresh prey every 2-3 days. This can drop to only a few times per month during the winter, with the rest of the diet being made up of carrion (sometimes only frozen hide and bones) and whatever pickable, edible vegetation happens to be available. In the wild, wolves don’t eat much, not even much of their primary food – fresh, raw prey – and they will go for days without eating anything at all.

Dogs are also scavenger carnivores, meaning that although the meat that they would naturally consume may well be raw, it may not necessarily be fresh. The decomposing flesh of carrion is in essence partly digested, with bacteria having already done some of the ‘eating’.

Being a carnivore, the dog’s dentition is geared towards a diet of flesh and bone. Each side of an adult dog's upper jaw has 3 incisor teeth, 1 large canine tooth, 4 premolars and 2 molar teeth, and the lower jaw has 3 incisors, 1 canine tooth, 4 premolar and 3 molar teeth.

The number and types of teeth reflect those of a ‘mesocarnivore’. The earliest Carnivora family of Miacidae, of which Miacis, the earliest known ancestor of the domestic dog was a member, were mesocarnivores. Modern day mesocarnivores include wolves, coyotes, foxes, civets and skunks, as well as dogs.

Beyond the teeth, the dog’s gastro-intestinal system is that of a carnivore, being much shorter in proportion and in comparison with the GI tracts of herbivores. The overall length of the canine GI tract (from mouth to anus) is about 5 times the dog’s total body length, whereas the length of the herbivorous equine GI tract is about 15 times the horse’s total body length. The human GI tract is 10 times longer than the length of the body.

The natural diet of a mesocarnivore would ideally consist of 50-70% animal and 30-50% plant matter. In comparison, the diet of ‘hypercarnivores’ (e.g. cats, eagles, sharks, salmon) consists of more than 70% animal, and that of ‘hyopcarnivores’ (e.g. Black bear, raccoon) less than 30% animal. While virtually all animals display omnivorous feeding behaviour according to conditions such as food supply, etc, animals generally prefer one class of food or another, for which their digestive processes are optimised accordingly. The classification ‘omnivore’ refers to the adaptations and main food source of a species in general. The main food source of an omnivore is variety in itself – pigs for example are true omnivores – but a plant-eating carnivore or a meat-eating herbivore is neither individually nor as a whole species omnivorous. It may surprise you to learn that humans are not omnivores either, and neither are we carnivores or herbivores. Like all of our primate ‘cousins’ we actually belong to a class of plant-eaters called ‘frugivores’, or fruit-eaters. Just as carnivores can and do eat plant matter, frugivores (also herbivores, nectarivores, florivores and granivores) can and do eat meat. The dog is a facultative carnivore, a scavenger carnivore and a mesocarnivore, NOT an omnivore.

Being a mesocarnivore, the dog’s diet would ideally consist of 30-50% plant matter, but unlike herbivores, dogs lack the bacteria in their gut that produce the enzyme ‘cellulase’ and therefore the ability to break down cellulose – the major component in the rigid cell walls in plants. Certainly, when some cellulose-rich foods are fed, they are still intact and recognisable within the dog’s faeces, for example, sweetcorn kernels, and grass (as anyone who has had the displeasure of removing grass-dangley-poops from their dog’s bottom will know). For herbivores, the result of the digestion of cellulose is glucose, which is how they obtain their energy.

Dogs also lack the salivary enzyme ‘amylase’ needed to digest starchy plant matter found in cereals, grains and fibrous vegetables. Coupled with the fact that dogs also lack grinding molars, the lack of salivary amylase is often used to uphold the theory that dogs are carnivores and therefore should not be fed plant matter at all, however, grinding molars and amylase are not needed for the digestion of ‘softer’ plant material composed mainly of water and simple sugars, such as fruit. What is also often omitted in the ‘Prey Model’ of feeding is that although dogs lack salivary amylase, amylase is produced in the pancreas, so the digestion of starch-rich plant matter is possible once this has passed into the dog’s small intestine.

Contrary to popular belief, wolves do not eat the stomach contents of large, herbivorous prey animals. Stomach acid is highly corrosive and would burn the mouth and oesophagus if eaten (and also corrode tooth enamel). Occasionally, wolves will eat the stomach wall of large herbivorous prey animals, but only after shaking out the stomach contents. The stomach contents of smaller prey animals such as rabbits, mice and birds is eaten, but only as a result of the entire animal being consumed – claws, fur, beak, feathers and all.

So … based on the domestic dog’s carnivore types (facultative, scavenger and mesocarnivore) and given its likely evolutionary route and self-domestication from the small Asiatic (Arabian) wolf, it could be concluded that the most ideal, most natural, most appropriate doggy diet ideally should consist of 50-70% small, raw, whole prey (flesh, bones, organs, fur, feathers, etc) including mammals, birds (and their eggs), reptiles and invertebrates such as worms and insects, and scavenged carrion (this could include fish and large animals), and a 30-50% mix of the stomach/intestinal contents of small herbivorous and omnivorous prey (e.g. rabbits, squirrels, mice, birds), ripe fruits and berries and various other ‘pickable’ plants and botanicals. However, the latest DNA evidence suggests that the dog began to branch away from the wolf between 100,000 and 135,000 years ago. We also know that around 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice-age, dogs became the domesticated canines that we know and love today. During this time, and particularly so during the past 3,000 years of intentional, selective breeding, numerous anatomical and behavioural changes have taken place as a direct result of the domestic dog’s strategy of life, to stay near humans for the best chance of survival (which includes eating our food).

The dog has not been a wolf for many thousands of years, and numerous features of the dog’s anatomy including skull, teeth, skeleton and GI tract differ significantly from those of wolves both of the past, and of the present. This means that according to the domestic dog’s strategy of life – to stay near humans for the best chance of survival – the 50-70% animal part of the ‘dog as mesocarnivore’ diet should also include table scraps such as cooked meat and dairy (milk, yoghurt, cheese, etc) and the non-animal part, raw, cooked and partially cooked vegetables, cereals and grains, as well as a smorgasbord of excreted poop from humans and the local domestic and wild animal populations. This gives a whole new perspective on ‘natural feeding’, and one that implies that popular raw diet formulae such as Prey Model, Natural Raw Diet, Raw Meaty Bones and BARF (Bones and Raw Food, Biologically Appropriate Raw Food) are all flawed in some way or another.

What to feed is a personal choice that we make for our dogs based on what we believe to be the best. There is no scientific research to support the claimed, nutritional benefits of raw feeding, only anecdotes and testimonials, however, there is scientific evidence to the contrary both in nutritional analysis studies of raw food diets for dogs and in veterinary case studies of cats and adult dogs and puppies fed various raw diet formulae. Certainly in six months of feeding a commercially prepared, 'ready made' raw food diet to my dogs, both of whom were in great, general health to begin with anyway, I have seen no obvious beneficial health changes but instead the opposite, when throughout October and November Tilly began to suffer worsening, nightly abdominal discomfort that upon switching her back to her breakfast kibble (Acana) for her teatime meal, ceased completely. Wanting to ensure that she was back to good health I had her blood tested, and although symptom-free at the time of these tests, she tested positive for pancreatitis. Two months on since stopping the raw food and her blood lipase level is still double the norm, but I'm hoping that this will continue to drop now that I have switched her onto a bland, low-fat wet food (Chappie). I am very thankful that my dogs sleep next to my bed, otherwise I would be none-the-wiser to her nightly discomfort and the seriousness of what was developing. I am also thankful that I am not so far up my own bottom not to be able to change my long-held belief that raw just has to best, or to delude myself that Tilly's symptoms of digestive upset after 6 months of raw feeding must either be normal, or due to something other than the food. However, I have seen the apparent health benefits of raw feeding in a client dog who had a multitude of infected tick bites on its head that despite several months of antibiotic treatment had failed to clear up. After only four days on a raw food diet, the tick bites were no longer infected, and a fortnight later there was no evidence that the bites had ever been there. I don’t think that this was coincidence and I do think that the healing was directly connected to nutrition. Protein is needed for cell development and repair. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Amino acids are critical to life and have many functions in metabolism. Some protein sources contain higher levels of certain amino acids than do others, and some protein sources contain a broader range of amino acids than do others. Cooking alters the molecular structure of protein, which may make assimilation difficult, and the cheaper commercial kibbles use lower quality protein sources in their formulae. Before switching to a raw food diet the dog was being fed what I consider to be a low quality kibble (high in cereal, low in meat, and a minimum level of vitamin D). I think that the raw food gave him a much needed protein and vitamin D super-boost, which finally enabled his body to repair the damage, and quickly too. Many of the raw feeding anecdotes are along similar lines – "dog with chronic illness gets well when fed a raw food diet". Maybe it would be more appropriate to use raw feeding as medicine for dogs, not as the primary diet, and like any course of medicine to stop giving it once the illness has been cured.

And perhaps there is nothing wrong with long-term raw feeding if the nutrition truly is balanced, complete, and doesn't contain excessive amounts of fat, however, laboratory analyses of five raw diets including two that are commercially produced have shown up nutritional shortfalls in a wide range of minerals including iron, zinc, potassium, manganese, calcium and phosphorous, as well as vitamin E, and nutritional excesses including vitamin D and magnesium. Similarly, whether homemade, canned or kibbled, there is nothing wrong with feeding a cooked diet that is nutritionally balanced and complete (according to AAFCO) and includes a small proportion of cereal or grain. But whatever the diet, quality of the ingredients is important, and by quality I mean ‘additive free’. Many raw-fed dogs are fed fatty, domestically raised animals that have been pumped full antibiotics, hormones and vaccines, and while raw animal flesh, bone and organs are worthy of inclusion into the dog’s diet, feeding fatty, ‘adulterated’ raw meat really is not the healthy option. Feeding a raw diet that does not consist of between 30-50% digestible plant matter is, in my opinion, not dog-appropriate, and the practise of supplementing a raw or home-cooked diet with probiotic bacteria, digestive enzymes and/or vitamin/mineral/amino-acid rich ‘super-foods’ when the nutritional content of the diet itself has not been thoroughly analysed, is questionable both in benefit and ‘appropriateness’.

Adding supplements also suggests that the dog can’t get enough nutrition from a raw-food diet. ‘Ah but …’ say many raw-feeders, ‘… in the wild, dogs and wolves would eat all of the carcass, so the nutrition would be balanced and complete.’ So disregarding the fact that dogs are not wolves and have not been living ‘in the wild’ for a very long time, let me get this right – the eating of the ‘non-meat’ parts of a raw carcass makes a meal balanced and complete, but commercially produced pet foods that may contain these ‘derivative’ parts (e.g. hair, hooves, feathers, beaks, sinews, tracheae, guts, eyes, snouts, bum-holes, etc) should be avoided like the plague because they are inferior, junk ingredients? The fact is that predators will selectively eat for nutritional value, for the best balance of protein, fat and other nutrients, but this has nothing to do with eating an entire carcass, it has to do with having a much, much wider menu from which to self-select. Self-selection as well as a huge variety of different foods is what today's feeding practices lack, regardless of whether or not the food given is raw or whole. The dog's choice of what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat it, is limited. We decide for them. The dog's natural feeding practice is 'buffet-style', but we take away this choice to feed naturally. We prohibit the dog's natural inclination to self-select for balanced nutrition.

I’m not suggesting that all kibbles are nutritionally 'complete'. They may be complete as per AAFCO standards and balanced in the nutritients that they actually contain as in there are no excesses or no deficiencies of those ingredients, but some may be lacking in certain vitamins, protein amino-acids and nutrients essential for optimum health simply because there is no legal requirement for pet food manufacturers to include them, or they are included at minimum levels that aren’t sufficient for some dogs to remain in gleaming health (e.g. those with digestion or assimilation problems or chronic illness). But at least the commercial kibbles aren’t pretending to be something that they are not, and supplementing a commercial kibble diet with a weekly portion of oily fish, the occasional whole, raw egg, a raw, lean, meaty lamb rib (as a meal replacement), a carrot, a broccoli stalk, a handful of blueberries or a few mg of ‘super-greens’ now and again is more likely to enhance overall nutrition than unbalance it. Incidentally, the past and present feeding practices of captive wolves show that they live longer and remain healthier when fed commercial dog food. No word of a lie. According to the leading specialists in wolf husbandry and medicine, feeding commercial dog food, not raw prey, is the recommended practice. To provide enrichment for the wolves and bait for husbandry purposes raw meat and bones are fed, but not as the main diet.

But whatever diet choice we make for our dogs, whether that be raw or cooked, commercially produced or home prepared, fresh on the bone, canned, pouched or kibbled, expensive or cheap, one thing is absolutely certain - overfeeding reduces lifespan. Overfeeding is perhaps the biggest error that pet owners make – even those who feed to manufacturers’ recommended guidelines and according to ‘ideal’ breed weight. More than 60 years of scientific research shows us that calorie restriction is the only nutritional intervention that consistently extends the lifespan of animals. For example, in a controlled study of 48 Labradors, feeding 25% less food than the calorie requirement for ideal body weight saw an average lifespan increase of around 2 years. In addition, compared to the control dogs who were fed to maintain ‘ideal’ body weight, the food restricted dogs weighed less, had lower body fat content, lower serum triglycerides, triiodothyronine, insulin and glucose concentrations, and the onset of the signs of chronic disease was delayed.

Calculating the ideal daily energy requirement for a dog is a little complicated, but not difficult. First, we need to know the dog’s ‘ideal’ weight. The standard guideline is to be able to easily feel the ribs beneath the coat, see a definite waist when viewed from above, and an abdominal tuck when viewed from the side. We also need to know the Metabolic Energy value (kcal/kg) of the food that we feed. This information is usually easy to find on the packet label of commercially produced, complete kibbles and some canned and pouched foods. The final piece of information that we need to calculate daily energy requirement is the dog’s age, sexual status and activity level. Tilly’s ‘ideal’ weight by eye and feel is around 14 kg. She is between 5 and 7 years old, spayed, and typically active.

According to the dog food calculator (picture left), this gives me two category choices – ‘typical’ and ‘senior, neutered, inactive’. She is neutered, but she is neither senior nor inactive, so ‘typical’ more accurately describes her.

I feed her Chappie original canned, which has a Metabolic Energy value of 850 kcal/kg. The resulting calculation is that she requires 796 calories per day and I should be feeding her 940 grams of Chappie per day, however, to follow the 25% food restriction diet to increase lifespan, a further calculation is needed.

To calculate 25% of 796, we need to divide 796 by 100 (7.96) and then multiply this by 25 (199). This gives a reduced daily calorie intake of 597 (796 – 199).

We know that 940 grams contains 796 calories, so to reduce this by 25% we divide 940 grams by 100, which gives 9.4 grams (1% of 940 grams), and then multiply 9.4 grams by 25 to give 235 grams. 940 grams minus 235 grams is 705 grams. So actually, Tilly requires 705 grams of Chappie per day.

Beau’s ‘ideal’ weight by eye and feel is 32 kg. He’s 3 years old, neutered, and very lazy, so even though he’s a young dog, I place him in the ‘senior, neutered, inactive’ category. I feed him Acana Grasslands kibble, which has a Metabolic Energy value of 3750 kcal/kg. According to the dog food calculator, this works out at 1211 calories and 320 grams of Acana Grasslands per day. To feed for increased lifespan, this is reduced to 908 calories and 240 grams of Acana Grasslands per day. If I went by Acana’s daily recommendation for an inactive, 32 kg dog, I would be feeding him 320 grams per day – 80 grams more than is needed. Beau’s ‘feeding for increased lifespan’ weight is around 31 kg. Feeding for increased lifespan drops the ‘ideal’ weight by 1 kilo – that’s a whole kilo of excess fat! Visually, the difference in my dogs between ‘ideal’ and ‘increased lifespan’ weights is that the ribcage is more defined, with the outline of the last three ribs visible beneath the coat (picture right).

It is much, much harder to calculate how much raw food to feed because meats, vegetables, plants, etc, differ greatly in their individual Metabolic Energy values. The general guide to feeding raw food is around 2% of the dog’s ideal body weight per day. For Tilly this works out at 300 grams per day in which to pack 796 calories (her ‘ideal’ weight calorie count). To feed for increased lifespan, we need to reduce the calories to 597, but to feed for variety, the quantity of food fed per day will fluctuate greatly in order to provide the correct calorie count per meal. For example, there are around 85 calories in 100 g of raw tripe, which means that an all tripe day for Tilly weighs in at 705 g, but if fed according to the 2% rule would provide her with a meagre 238 calories. Raw lamb ribs are around 284 kcal per 100g, so an all lamb rib day for Tilly weighs in at 210 g, but feeding lamb ribs according to the 2% rule would provide her with 796 calories (and a huge quantity of fat). Because the Metabolic Energy values of different foods is so inconsistent, realistically, the best way to feed a raw food or home-cooked diet is by calorie content, not by weight, whilst trying to keep the overall quantity of the meal at around 2% of the dog’s bodyweight. That way, meals that combine meat, bone, offal, fish, egg, dairy and veg, fruit, grain, cereal, herbs based on the mesocarnivore 50-70:30-50 animal:plant ratio of the human-food-eating domestic dog could be made without overloading or starving the body with such wildly fluctuating daily calorie intakes and meal weights, although the ratios per meal would need to differ from dog to dog to accommodate individual calorie needs.

But calories are only a part of the story. Even if increased lifespan calorie counts for an individual dog can be achieved at around 2% of bodyweight per meal formula per day, the levels of protein, fat, vitamins and minerals will continue to remain inconsistent across each meal. This could have three possible outcomes:

over time the inconsistencies balance themselves out
over time the inconsistencies saturate the body’s organs and tissues with excess waste (toxaemia)
over time the inconsistencies leave the body deficient in some way (malnourishment)

It’s tricky enough even with all the right information to get the long-term balance right with a home-prepared diet, and while it may be safe to assume that the producers of commercial ‘complete’ raw food diets have taken care of this for us, the full nutritional content with nutrient levels, along with Metabolic Energy values, are unavailable. Some list the % values for moisture, protein, fat, ash and fibre. Some also list vitamin, mineral and amino-acid content, but none list the levels of these nutrients and so do not provide enough information to know for sure that according to the 2% rule (or thereabouts) the food contains a complete and balanced compliment of vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients. If feeding only one meal variety that contains just one meat source (e.g. chicken only) and the same vegetable/fruit/‘other’ combination and meat:plant ratio as other meal varieties, this WILL give rise to nutritional deficiency or excess over time, unless the formula has been adjusted accordingly for balance (which to my knowledge, none have). Even feeding a range of meal varieties is no guarantee of balance because they each tend to be made to the same meat:plant ratio and the same combination of 'plant', with the type of meat being the only element that changes.

My own journey into raw feeding has turned out to be nothing more than a detour, and even though I truly believed that raw was the best way to feed my dogs and to some extent still do, somewhat of a learning curve too. I’m neither for raw nor against it, but until the commercial, ready-made raw food diet producers can supply complete and balanced nutrition along with full analyses and Metabolic Energy values of their meals and they can achieve this with a fat content of 4% or lower, I will continue to feed Chappie (Tilly) and Acana (Beau) as the primary diet – with the occasional added extra (fish fillet, handful of blueberries, chunk of apple, etc) for variety and to boost basic nutrition.

I want my dogs to remain healthy and to live as long as possible, and the scientific evidence shows that reducing the daily calories of a commercially produced, complete and balanced kibble by 25% allows for an average increased lifespan of two years. Quality and appropriateness of ingredients is important. Complete and balanced nutrition is also important – but ultimately, it’s reducing the calories that counts in the longevity stakes.

Less really does mean more – more years, and better health for longer.

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Bibliography & Resources

Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation.
L. David Mech and Luigi Boitani.

Canine Behavior: A Guide for Veterinarians.
Bonnie V. Beaver.

The domestic dog: Its evolution, behaviour and interactions with people.
J Serpell.

Dog Food Calculator
Mike Sagman.

Dog Food Advisor: Saving Good Dogs from Bad Food.

Nutritional analysis of 5 types of “Raw Food Diets.”

L. Freeman, K. Michel.

Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 2001;218(5):705.

Raw food diets in companion animals: A critical review.

Daniel P. Schlesinger, Daniel J. Joffe.

Effects of diet restriction on life span and age-related changes in dogs.

Richard D. Kealy, PhD; Dennis F. Lawler, DVM; Joan M. Ballam, MS; Sandra L. Mantz; Darryl N. Biery, DVM, DACVR; Elizabeth H. Greeley, PhD; George Lust, PhD; Mariangela Segre, DSc; Gail K. Smith, DVM, PhD, DACVS; Howard D. Stowe, DVM, PhD.

Science-based medicine ~ “Raw Meat and Bone Diets for Dogs: It’s Enough to Make You BARF”.

Dr Brennan McKenzie, MA, VMD.

Predators Hunt for a Balanced Diet
Science Daily

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Tilly update, 10th February ~ Re-test for cPL has confirmed that finally, this has decreased to a normal level again. The bad news is that proximal inflammation/damage to her small intestine as a result of the pancreatitis has left her with a folate (vitamin B9) deficiency, so I am working to increase this via dietary supplementation. I will be re-testing cPL and folate levels again in a month's time to see whether we have continued, normal cPL, and an increase in folate.

Nail trimming can be fun!

2012-01-07T13:31:00.000Z

Nail trimming is an incredibly stressful experience for many dogs and their owners, but it doesn't have to be that way. It is completely possible to train a dog to accept having its nails trimmed or filed, and if done correctly it can take as little as 5 minutes to completely desensitise the dog to the experience, however, handler timing is of the utmost importance and in my experience, most people's timing is too poor to bring about an effective and lasting result.

Another way to keep on top of the task of nail trimming is to clip just one sliver from just one nail per day, which if carried out with confidence can be over and done with before the dog even realises its nail has been trimmed.

Lots of walking on concrete or tarmac helps to keep the nails short, but even though I do around 20 minutes of brisk walking/jogging on pavements with my dogs every day, this isn't quite enough to keep their nails at the perfect length, so they still need some extra attention every so often.

The method that I use is the most fun way to trim nails. It requires no clippers, no file, no treats, is completely 'hands-off' and 100% effective.

Are you dying to know what I do? Okay then, I'll tell you ...

We play 10 minutes of fetch along the concrete path in the garden. That's it.

Here's the result ...

... Tilly's nails, perfectly filed.

Throw the fetch-toy so that your dog has to turn to run and fetch it from alternate sides ~ this ensure that the hind nails wear evenly. If your dog is a really frantic fetcher, throw the ball and make her wait, before releasing her to fetch it ~ that way she'll be facing in the right direction and won't need to turn, so she won't wear the hind nails down quicker than the fore nails. Certainly with Tilly, her hind nails stay pretty short anyway, so it's the nails of her front paws that need a bit of an extra trim now and again. If you don't have a concrete path or similar area at home, use a concrete or tarmac footpath or cycle path instead (not right next to a road, obviously!)

For dogs with joint problems this method may not be suitable, but for fit and healthy dogs that need a pedicure just once in a while, it really is the most fun that a nail-trim can be. It gets a big 'paws up' from my two anyway!

Head-collars

2011-11-23T12:33:00.004Z

A standard 6-foot leash and flat collar is universally accepted as the norm for walking and training dogs, but for large or powerful dogs, such basic equipment offers the handler very little in the way of effective restraint or ease of control.

With pet stores stocking a huge range of leads, collars and other equipment that claim to resolve unruly on-leash behaviour, deciding what to choose for the best is a confusing and daunting prospect. As well being an effective tool for the facilitation of training of desirable behaviour, training equipment should not cause the dog physical or emotional distress when used as the design intends, and so with manufacturers using words like ‘gentle’, ‘natural’, ‘kind’, ‘comfort’ and ‘easy’ to describe their products, it’s reasonable to assume that these training aids are humane. Head-collars are a popular choice to control various on-leash behaviours, from plain old pulling to aggression, but in my experience of speaking with clients and watching dogs being walked, I have yet to meet a single dog that appears to enjoy wearing the type of head-collar known as a ‘muzzle-clamping head-collar’. Muzzle-clampers include the Halti, Gentle Leader, Cannycollar and GenCon. Dogs are just miserable wearing these, and many learn to fear the sight of them. This is because muzzle-clamping head-collars, as the name suggests, are designed to tighten around the dog’s muzzle and head in some way, which the manufacturers describe as producing ‘calming pressure’. However, because all of these popular head-collar brands when under tension fit so tightly around the dog’s head, the ‘calming pressure’ that the manufacturer told you about is actually felt as pain, which is why, for the dog whose only crime is to pull on the leash, these head-collars work to stop pulling behaviour ~ dog pulls, feels pain around its head, backs off, leash goes slack. The ‘learning theory’ terminology for this training sequence is ‘positive punishment’ (+P) followed by ‘negative reinforcement’ (-R), and when wearing the head-collar the dog learns that in order to avoid pain, it needs to not move too far away from its handler’s side. In addition to painful pressure, muzzle-clamping head-collars can make nervous dogs and those who experience frustration on-leash feel even more trapped than they do already, which can exacerbate fear, active-defence behaviour and aggression. I know this, because I have worked with and rehabilitated such dogs.

If we look at the dog’s natural reflexes, it is a fact of physiology that dogs move INTO physical pressure, not away from it. Moving INTO pressure is why dogs pull against a taught leash, pull away when we try and hug them close, and generally resist being pushed and pulled about. This is due to the ‘opposition reflex’ (thigmotaxis, stereotaxis) whereby physical force applied to a dog in one direction elicits thigmotaxic reflexes that cause the dog to increase its efforts in the opposite direction to the force applied. Dogs also move into pressure when they are stressed. They lean against walls and push themselves into corners. This provides feedback to the brain to calm the body down. This is why anxiety wraps and ‘thundershirts’ are effective at reducing fear ~ the consistent, gentle pressure all over the dog’s body continually feeds back to the brain and so regulates the stress response. Just as dogs naturally move into pressure, moving away from pain is also a reflexive behaviour, and this is why dogs are so uncomfortable wearing muzzle-clamping head-collars ~ leash tightens, dog feels pain around its head, dog moves away from pain. If it really was ‘calming pressure’, the dog would pull into the head-collar, not draw away from it.

The manufacturer of one of these muzzle-clamping head-collars claims that the reason why dogs do not pull when wearing their brand of head-collar is because the pressure from the strap behind the ears causes the dog to move back into it, so essentially, the dog continually ‘pulls backwards’ and so walks forwards on a loose leash. However, this manufacturer also says that to achieve this, the correct fit requires the noseband to be loose and the headband to sit snugly just behind the ears, which actually is impossible. The noseband HAS to be tight in order for the headband to fit snugly. It is impossible for the noseband to be loose and the headband be tight. It is impossible for the noseband to be loose and the headband remain in the correct position behind the dog’ ears. In fact in order to get the headband to fit snugly and remain in the correct position, the noseband has to be so tight that the dog’s mouth is completely clamped shut, and the noseband drawn back along the muzzle so far that it rides up into the dog’s eyes. The picture left shows a Boxer wearing one of these head-collars, incorrectly fitted, despite this being the manufacturers own picture! The noseband does indeed have some slack in it, but as you can see the headband is sitting half way down the dog’s neck, several inches from its ears. The first time that this dog swipes at the head-collar noseband with a paw, it will slide straight off its face.

Other common claims by manufacturers of muzzle-clamping head-collars is that the pressure of the noseband mimics the ‘calming’ action of the dominant, parent dog’s jaws around its subordinate, youngster’s muzzle, and that the pressure of the headband and noseband correspond with natural acupressure points on the dog’s head and face. It is true that a wild wolf mother uses the ‘muzzle-grasp’ as a way to elicit passive submission from her very young cubs, but even if all dog-puppies learnt and understood this piece of dominance language (which many do not), it would naturally be an ‘on-off’ grasp, not a sustained grasp, so the continual ‘grasp’ of a muzzle-clamping head-collar is in fact most unnatural (bearing in mind that the noseband of at least one of the popular brands has to be a tight fit in order for the head-collar to remain on the dog’s face). It is also true that acupressure points exist along the dog’s muzzle-flaps and around the ears that when massaged, do produce a calming effect, but what I see are dogs who are far from ‘calm’ when wearing muzzle-clamping head-collars. I see many who are very shut down, sometimes to the point of being unable to move at all, whilst others simply are avoiding the pain of pulling. And then there are those who face-scrape, and twist and thrash about. I have yet to see a dog looking relaxed because the head-collar is massaging its acupressure points.

To some extent, the sensation of a band around the muzzle can help to regulate emotional arousal by sending feedback via touch receptors to the limbic system, the emotional control centre of the brain (the mouth is directly connected to the limbic system), but the noseband has to be nonrestrictive and bring gentle awareness to the mouth area with a light touch (not painful pressure) such as that from the elasticated 'calming band'. This effect is lost though when a dog’s defence mechanisms kick-in and kick-back against the restraint and feeling of being trapped when the noseband is too tight, or when it applies enough force to close the dog’s mouth.

So although muzzle-clamping head-collars are marketed as ‘gentle’, ‘kind’ and ‘natural’, I consider them to be highly aversive as training tools go. This is why I neither use nor recommend their use under any circumstances. They clearly cause distress to the dog even when fitted and used correctly, never mind incorrectly, and for the dog who twists and flips and thrashes about whilst wearing one there is always the potential for it to do serious damage to its neck. However, not all head-collars are bad news. The reason why a head-collar can be a good choice for walking an unruly dog is the control over the dog’s head that a head-collar provides ~ control the head, and the body follows ~ but we can effectively control animals much larger and considerably more powerful than even the biggest dog with ‘non-muzzle-clamping’ or ‘fixed action’ type head-collars, i.e. those that do not clamp the animal’s mouth shut and tighten around head when the animal pulls. There simply is no need to use a head-collar that tightens around a dog’s head, causing pain and adding to the anxiety or frustration that a leash-reactive dog is already under.

What I recommend and use to train large and powerful dogs that display over-emotional behaviour on-leash is a non-muzzle-clamping, fixed-action head-collar, in combination with a neck collar and double-ended, 6’ leash. First, the head-collar. Dogmatic, and George Grayson’s Dogalter (also branded by Pets at Home as the ‘Control Head Collar’) are non-muzzle-clamping, fixed-action head-collars with the point of control beneath the dog’s chin:

Dogmatic head-collar

Dogalter/Control Head Collar

These brands of head-collars do not tighten around the dog’s face but instead provide a non-clamping, secure fit, and allow the handler to gently and effectively turn the dog’s head away from whatever is causing it to over-react without causing the dog to feel pain. Dogs who have previously been made to wear Haltis, Gentle Leaders and the like, seem to have no problem accepting and wearing a non-muzzle-clamping head-collar ~ no turning tail and hiding at the sight of it, no scraping faces along the ground, no thrashing and twisting. Even dogs who have never worn any type of head-collar before can be desensitised to wearing a fixed-action head-collar in a matter of minutes, with no backsliding after. Dogs seem to like wearing these head-collars, which suggests to me that their design and use does not cause physical or emotional distress.

Next, the collar. A flat, buckle collar is fine to use to walk the dog who rarely pulls on the leash, but for hardened pullers or those who lunge, all that forward motion is concentrated into a single pressure point, encouraging the dog to pull harder and potentially causing damage to the windpipe (picture right).

For hardened pullers and lungers, my neck collar of choice is the ‘limited-action slip-collar’ (also referred to as martingale-style collar). Unfortunately and incorrectly, this design has also picked up the names ‘half-check’ and ‘half-choke’. ‘Checking’ or ‘choking’ the dog was never the collar’s intended use, and it should never, ever be used in this way. When fitted correctly, the limited-action slip-collar remains loose around the dog’s neck when the leash is slack, and when the leash tightens, is designed to apply consistent, non-choking, even pressure all the way around the dog’s neck. The collar cannot continue to tighten because the action is limited to the correct fit of the collar, i.e. precisely the circumference of the dog’s neck, so when the sliding part of the collar is drawn up, that’s it, the collar fits snugly around the dog’s neck with no further tightening. This has three benefits ~ 1. The dog cannot back out of the collar, 2. The pressure is not concentrated into a single point so the power of the opposition reflex is diminished, and 3. Using the leash to apply ‘pulsating pressure’ by alternately closing and releasing the collar, stimulates receptors along the inner walls of the carotid sinuses (major blood vessels situated either side of the dog’s windpipe) that send a signal to the brain to lower heart-rate and blood-pressure, which naturally helps to de-arouse the dog and therefore help him to control his emotions:

The closing and releasing of the collar should be just that ~ absolutely NO yanking, snapping, popping or jerking. The collar should never be used to 'check' or 'correct' behaviour, but rather to apply light, pulsating on-off pressure when the dog is aroused and needs physical help to calm down. If when you close and release the collar you end up 'rocking' your dog back and forth, you are being too heavy handed. Your dog should not visibly move when you are working the collar. I do not recommend all-chain limited-action slip-collars under any circumstances. The main part of the collar should be made of webbing or soft leather of an appropriate width for the size of the dog. The sliding part can be chain, as this part of the collar is only ever in contact with the dog's neck when the collar is loose. When tightened, only the webbing/leather section is in contact with the dog's neck. Limited-action slip-collars also come as an all-webbing version, with the sliding part as well as the main part of the collar being made of webbing. Finally, the leash. The double-ended leash has a trigger hook at each end. When used in conjunction with a fixed-action head-collar and a limited-action slip-collar, the larger of the two trigger hooks is attached to the slip-collar sliding ring, and the smaller trigger hook to the head-collar control ring. This gives the handler two points of control, and allows for the slip-collar and head-collar to be used independently of one another. Most of the time the dog will trot along with barely any tension on either end of the leash because the design of both head-collar and slip-collar allows for the feeling of free movement, but when needed, the dog’s head can be turned towards the handler by applying finger-tip pressure to the head-collar end of the leash, and the stress-reducing action of the slip-collar can be activated by applying pulsing pressure with the collar end of the leash.

I am 5’3” tall and weigh a little under 60kgs. I work with dogs, often large and powerful ones, who display a range of potentially dangerous on-leash behaviour issues. I have used the fixed-action head-collar/limited-action slip-collar/leash combo for training Rottweilers, Mastiffs and Great Danes with complete control every time, and with no stress to the dog. What’s equally important is that my clients can see that their dogs are so much more relaxed in a non-muzzle-clamping head-collar, and feeling in control themselves with the head-collar/slip-collar/leash combo, perhaps for the first time in years, they are able at last to start enjoying walks with their dogs and finally get down to the business of safely and successfully resolving their dogs’ various on-leash issues.

As a dog learns to be less emotional and engage in alternative, acceptable on-leash behaviour, the leash can be attached to the collar alone, while the head-collar is still worn to provide backup control for potentially tricky, beyond-handler-control situations when the small trigger hook can be unclipped from the leash and attached to the head-collar ring in seconds, allowing the handler to remain in control and so deal effectively with the situation.

Of course it’s not the head-collar/slip-collar/leash combo itself that resolves on-leash behaviour issues. Good on-leash behaviour comes through providing a dog with the right training, and that’s where the guidance of an experienced dog professional comes in. What the head-collar/slip-collar/leash combo does provide is a truly gentle and effective way of handling a powerful dog, and puts the dog’s owner back in control, both physically and emotionally. It’s not so much a case of ‘control the head and the body will follow’ but rather ‘relax the brain and the body will relax also’ ~ handler’s and dog’s!

Behaviour problem trends

2011-11-11T16:56:00.001Z

I was wondering the other day whether dog-dog aggression cases are on the rise as it seems that I have been dealing with this problem a lot more of late. It has also felt like I've seen more rescue dogs lately too, so I took a look back over my case-load from the past three years. The results do indeed confirm my thoughts, with my rescue dog cases having increased from 33% in 2009 through to 42% in 2011, and % dog-dog aggression problems with rescue dogs having also steadily risen. The other noticable trend is an increase in general training being requested for non-rescue dogs (i.e. those owned by the same owner from puppyhood).

I have broken down my case-load into five types of problem: SDS (separation distress syndrome), dog-dog aggression, dog-human aggression, fears & phobias, and general training. General training includes basic obedience training (e.g. stay, recall, leash-training), general de-stressing, overcoming hyper-arousal, compulsive behaviour and handling problems, teaching acceptable greeting behaviour (e.g. for dogs who jump up, mouth, etc), house-training, etc. Although the other four problem types may have included behaviours such as barking, destructive behaviour, house-soiling, etc, these are symptoms of each problem type, not the problem itself.

Here's some pretty pie charts to demonstrate:

Well ... it's interesting to me anyway. What's also interesting ~ or rather, concerning ~ is that bar two, all non-rescue dogs and puppies that came under the 'general training' category had already attended local, general obedience type training classes prior to their owners seeking my help!

Pleeeeease don't leave me!

2011-10-21T19:56:00.010+01:00

It's normal for our dogs to want to be close to us and know where we are. They depend on us for everything, not just food, water and shelter, but company too. Domestication has seen the dog's natural social partner change from canine to human, and so it's no wonder that most dogs experience some degree of agitation and confusion when we leave them home alone.

For some dogs, separation is truly unbearable and highly distressing. The underlying emotion responsible for separation-induced behaviour is panic. Panic is one of the emotions involved in the dog’s social drive.

Most separation-induced behaviours occur within the first 10 minutes of the owner leaving the house, with general agitation and stress having already been building for some time beforehand.

It is incorrect to call it ‘separation anxiety’. Anxiety is a fear-based emotion and has its root in defence drive, not social drive. The correct term for separation-induced behaviour is ‘separation distress syndrome’ (SDS) and is defined by the presence of two or more of the following behaviours:

Excessive attachment (clingy behaviour).
Pre-departure restlessness – pacing, over-activity.
Aggression towards owner leaving.
Vocalisations – agitated barking, howling, whining.
Destructive behaviours – barrier frustration (escape behaviour) evident by aggressive scratching and biting directed at doors, windows, etc, also chewing (often items belonging to owner, furniture, anything other than own chew toys), shredding, digging, and self-injurious/self-mutilation behaviour rooted in excessive grooming (biting, chewing paws, etc).
Physiological behaviours – hyper-salivation, panting, trembling.
House-soiling – peeing and pooping only when owner leaves.
Separation-induced anorexia.
Psychogenic vomiting.
Searching out items of owner’s clothing or belongings.
Excessive greeting behaviour.

There are a number of reasons why some dogs develop SDS. Sensitisation to social isolation or never having any experience of being left are two possible factors. Shelter dogs may have had a similar problem before their previous owners gave them up, or maybe the actual experience of abandonment predisposes some dogs to quickly form dependent attachments to their new owners. Certainly, statistics show that dogs with SDS are 3 times more likely to have come from an animal shelter than are dogs with other behaviour problems. They are also more likely to be female, of mixed breed, and have been a stray.

Genetic predisposition and temperament type may also be involved with some dogs.

C-type dogs may display sustained distress as a result of loss and frustration, tending towards barking persistently and scratching aggressively at doors. S-type dogs rarely show any distress upon separation, but if agitation is evident, these dogs can be easily distracted and quickly comforted with a food-filled toy. M-type dogs are often highly distressed at separation. P-types tend to be more restrained in their distress response but may become progressively distressed by longer separation. S- and C-types tend to bark more than whine, whereas P- and M-types whine more than they bark. S- and C-types appear to respond better to food, whereas P- and M-types appear to derive more comfort from owner-scented clothing.

Some dogs have a greater dependency on people and therefore have a tendency to limit their own success by relying only on the presence of people in order to feel secure. In this respect, failure by these dogs to remain with the people on whom they rely for their survival may play a big part in the development of SDS, so prone or predisposed dogs need to be able to rely on other, predictable events in order to feel secure and confident. Such dogs really need routine and structure in order to feel secure, and confidence-building leadership goes a long way towards allowing a naturally dependent dog to feel successful and therefore able to rely on itself when the owner is absent.

SDS has nothing to do with a dog thinking or feeling that it needs to keep the pack together because its owner is a ‘weak leader’ and obviously not up to the job, or because it thinks its owner is a ‘puppy’ that needs to be kept close. Prone, pre-disposed or dependent dogs simply cannot cope with being abandoned because their entire coping strategy is built around remaining close to the people who provide for them. Certainly these dogs need leadership – not the sort of pseudo-leadership that involves the owner pretending to be some kind of uninterested and aloof, two-legged, person-shaped ‘pack leader’ – but leadership that allows a sense of independence and security to develop, with which comes a more confident and relaxed attitude towards separation and being alone.

It’s important to identify whether behaviours are separation-induced or opportunistic. Videoing the dog is an essential first step, to see the extent and intensity of the behaviours and when they occur. As dogs with SDS will show a combination of behaviours, if the main behaviour is barking, establish whether it is prolonged or sporadic. If prolonged, is it accompanied by pacing, whining, staring at the front door, is it rhythmic (compulsive) – if so, it’s SDS. If it’s sporadic with no other noticeable behaviours and on the whole the dog seems able to settle, the barking is much more likely to be in response to noises, either from neighbours or from outside activity, so not separation-related.

If behaviours are opportunistic in nature as opposed to being separation-induced, so if dog seems relaxed when the owner leaves and once gone, chooses to have some destructive fun ripping up a sofa cushion or going on a fridge or bin raid, or if the behaviours happen well after the owner has left the house or only happen if the dog is left for a second time in the same day, increasing the dog’s daily exercise (physical and psychological), modifying the home environment to reduce the likelihood of opportunistic and destructive behaviours from happening, providing activity toys, using taste aversion if necessary and teaching ‘leave’, should work to dramatically decrease or even cease these behaviours.

If a dog is suffering with SDS, I use the following plan on which to base its behaviour therapy:

“ALONE TIME”

Alternative activities. These should provide acceptable outlets for behaviour as well as forming a positive association with the owner’s departure – food dispenser toys such as Kongs and Dog Pyramids, chew toys, etc. Association must first be made in a ‘safe place’, e.g. dog’s bed, while the owner is present, to create a rewarding and successful association with the activity. Many dogs with SDS won’t eat while the owner is absent, so for these dogs to engage with food when alone, the activity has to hold some previously conditioned, positive association. Giving a dog a frozen stuffed Kong without first doing the groundwork will not work.
Leadership. NILIF (Nothing In Life Is Free), reward-based training, ‘can do’ behaviours, bringing all attention, affection and interaction under owner influence (not control) so that the dog learns to make successful, predictable choices that have a positive, reliable outcome. Leadership builds self-confidence and therefore independence.
Owner odour. Once-worn item of clothing (e.g. t-shirt), slept on blanket/towel, as a ‘security blanket’. Dogs with P- and M-type temperaments respond particularly well to this.
Nutrition. Casein, oleic acid, serotonin, chewing, omega 3. See my Mood Food article for further information.
Exercise. Daily aerobic exercise to release energy, daily moderate exercise to enhance brain chemistry. Proving exercise before leaving a dog home alone also provides opportunity for the dog to toilet.

Training. Graduated departures, new leaving routine/ritual that creates a positive association with the owner’s departure, ‘stay’ training (very important, dog learns that ‘stay’ means ‘if I stay here my owner will return’).
Identify triggers. Keys, clothes, bags, shoes, rituals, sounds, etc, can all be triggers for separation-induced behaviour and must be identified and changed and/or desensitised/counter-conditioned.
Mask outside noises. Leave a radio/CD on moderate volume to mask outside noises that may trigger nervous barking. This will also provide some background noise in an otherwise silent environment – homes are never really silent when we are in them and some dogs may well associate some level of noise with us being present.
Environmental modification. Remove valuables, clear worktops, bolt cupboards, use taste aversion on furniture, doors, etc (this has to be previously primed), provide comfort, limit space (e.g. stair gates, crate), turn phone ringer off, draw curtains/blinds, etc. As with using food, if using a crate to confine a dog, a positive association with confinement and remaining in the crate has to made before the dog is left alone. If the groundwork is not put into confinement training, an even bigger problem can be created with the SDS, barrier-frustration-suffering dog trying to break out the crate (as it would doors or windows). This carries a huge risk of the dog injuring itself in the process.

Even dogs who don’t show full-blown SDS can benefit from some of the elements of the ‘ALONE TIME’ plan. Many dogs only tolerate being alone at best, and it’s these dogs for whom a sudden change in owner working hours can trigger separation-type behaviour. It should never be assumed that just because a dog doesn’t bark excessively or rip up the house, it is happy to be left alone, and helping any dog to relax and enjoy being alone is therefore always desirable. It is quality of life that matters.

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Please note that ‘ALONE TIME’ is only an OUTLINE plan for SDS. If you think that your dog is suffering from SDS, particularly if the behaviours are excessive and injurious, my advice to you is to enlist the help of a reputable dog professional who fully understands the psychology behind separation-induced behaviour and who is equipped with the training knowledge necessary for behaviour therapy to be effective – not someone who thinks that your dog is trying to control your movements by assuming the role of ‘pack leader’ because you haven’t. Dogs with SDS don’t need us to be 'assertive', ‘pack leaders’ or ‘alphas’, but they do need us to provide leadership and a predictable, reward-based departure routine in order to remove the helplessness from their natural dependency upon us and so rebalance, enhance and strengthen the human-dog bond.

What's in a wag?

2011-10-13T20:33:00.011+01:00

Why do dogs wag their tails has to be one of the most frequently asked behaviour questions. The short answer is that tail wagging is a form of communication. I’m sure that most of us think that we are able to recognise and differentiate between a ‘happy wag’ and a ‘nervous wag’, but there’s more to wagging than immediately meets the eye.

WAG MECHANICS

A continuation of the dog’s spine that extends beyond the body, the tail is comprised of a highly mobile string of between 6 and 23 bones (caudal vertebrae).

What makes the tail move are the caudal muscles, which lie over the bones of the lower back (lumbar vertebrae and sacrum) and insert into the tail bones exclusively. These muscles are attached to the tail bones by tendons, and along with musculature associated with the rectum, anus and pelvic diaphragm, are served by 4 to 7 pairs of nerves. All this makes the tail capable of finely graded movements in all directions and along the entire length of the tail, with the caudal muscles being responsible for making the tail wag.

The caudal muscles are composed of ‘sarcomeres’ (contractile segments into which a fibril of striated muscle is divided). When the dog’s brain stimulates the spinal nerves, signals from those nerves cause the release and absorption of sodium and potassium in the caudal muscles. This causes the sarcomeres to slide together, and the vibrations from these sliding contractions travel along the tail, which begins to wag.

WAG THIS WAY

Just as our facial expressions indicate how we are feeling, the dog’s response to emotive stimuli is conveyed in the wag of its tail through something called ‘tail bias’, or the degree to which the tail is wagged to the right or to the left. This asymmetry of tail wagging was highlighted in a study by Giorgio Vallortigara, a neuroscientist at the University of Trieste in Italy, and two veterinarians, Angelo Quaranta and Marcello Siniscalchi, at the University of Bari, also in Italy. The study, published in the March 2007 edition of ‘Current Biology’, looked at the tail wags of 30 pet dogs in response to four different sets of social stimuli – the dog’s owner, a stranger, a cat, and an aggressive, unfamiliar dog. What they observed was that the dogs’ tails wagged to a greater degree to the right of their rumps on seeing their owners, the stranger and the cat, and a greater degree to the left when they saw the aggressive dog. The result was not so much a surprise, but a conformation that like us and many other animals including birds, fish, frogs and insects, dogs have ‘brain asymmetry’ when it comes to emotions, with the muscles in the right side of the tail reflecting a positive emotional state and the muscles in the left side reflecting a negative emotional state.

The brain is comprised of two hemispheres. The left hemisphere specializes in behaviours involving what the scientists refer to as ‘approach and energy enrichment’. This means that in humans, the left hemisphere is associated with positive feelings like love, attachment, safety and calm. The left hemisphere is also associated with certain physiological markers such a slow heart and breathing rate, eating and relaxing. The left brain hemisphere controls the right side of the body. Birds generally seek food with their right eye, honeybees learn better when using their right antenna, frogs generally flick their tongues to the right to catch insects, and the muscles of the right side of the human face reflect happiness. With the tail wag experiment dogs, when shown something that they were attracted to, including a benign, approachable cat, their tails wagged more to the right.

The right hemisphere deals with behaviours involving ‘withdrawal and energy expenditure’, such as fleeing. These behaviours are associated with negative feelings like hate, loneliness, danger, and anxiety. Physiological markers of the right hemisphere include a rapid heart and breathing rate, shutdown of the digestive system and vigilance. The right brain controls the left side of the body. Birds generally keep a look out for predators with their left eye, frogs are more likely to jump away if approached on the left, male chameleons display more aggression when looking at another chameleon with their left eye, and the muscles of the left side of the human face reflect sadness. When shown something that elicited a withdrawal response, the dogs wagged their tails to the left.

Although the dog’s tail is at the body’s midline, the nerves and muscles that control the wag of the tail are not central – the tail has musculature on either side, meaning that the ‘left wag’ muscles are controlled by the dog’s right brain hemisphere, and the ‘right wag’ muscles are controlled by the left brain hemisphere. The muscles on either side of the tail therefore reflect the registering of emotions like fear and happiness – when a dog feels a positive response towards something or someone, his tail wags more to the right side of his body, and when he feels a negative response, his tail wagging is biased to the left.

This tail wagging asymmetry may also extend to postural asymmetry in the form of lateral flexion of the spine, but because of the way that the tail wagging experiment was carried out, no obvious body asymmetry could be observed, however, Tilly and Beau’s greeting behaviour towards me certainly suggests this, as both flex their bodies to the right in an extension of a right tail wag bias.

It’s likely that brain asymmetry is also reflected in other areas of canine body language such as scratching, which is a displacement behaviour often engaged in when a dog is under pressure or feels agitated. Again, my own observations when working with clients’ dogs suggests that pretty much every time a dog engages in this behaviour, it’s the left hind leg that does the scratching, indicating that the dog is experiencing uncomfortable, negative emotions.

Perhaps I need to design my own experiment to explore these other brain asymmetric behaviours!

So this brings me back to what makes a wag happy or nervous – is it tail position? How much of the tail is wagging? Wag speed? While these aspects play a part in determining confidence levels and the intensity of the dog’s energy, primarily it has to do with tail bias – if the dog is happy, its tail will wag more towards the right of its rump, if it is nervous, towards the left. A low wagging tail, if the bias is towards the right, indicates a submissive but positive state of mind, not nervousness. And beware the higher wagging tail if the bias is towards the left, because this indicates a less inhibited but negative state of mind, not happiness!

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Read about Vallortigara, Quaranta and Siniscalchi's study on 'Asymmetric tail wagging responses by dogs to different emotive stimuli' here.

Spirulina

2011-10-08T12:49:00.002+01:00

Spirulina is pretty amazing stuff. One of the first life-forms on the planet, this microscopic, blue-green algae has been around for over 3.6 billion years. During its lifetime, it has survived various climate changes and catastrophic events that have wracked Earth including meteorite bombardments, thousands of years of hurricane force winds, ultra-violet radiation, global glaciation and ice-ages, and major extinction events. The first photosynthetic life-form, Spirulina turned sunlight into energy and filled the Earth’s atmosphere with the oxygen needed in order for higher life forms to start evolving. As well as producing life-giving oxygen, the cellular makeup of spirulina contained everything that life needed to grow and evolve. In a very real sense, we owe our lives to spirulina.

Humans have been eating Spirulina since prehistory, and today, this tiny aquatic plant is widely regarded as the worlds greatest 'super food' – its long, thin, spiraling threads consisting of up to 70% protein (dry weight), the elements of which consist of 18 types of amino acids, vitamins A, C, E, K, B (1, 2, 3, 6, 12), various minerals, enzymes, anti-oxidants, and phytonutrients including essential fatty acids, polysaccharides, and sulfo-lipids, and chlorophyll and carotenoids, which give Spirulina its dark green colour. It has green credentials too, producing more protein per acre than any other food source on the planet. The blue colour in Spirulina comes from phytonutrient called ‘phycocyanin’, which in one study was shown to inhibit cancer-colony formation. Other studies suggest that Spirulina enhances enzyme activity at cell nucleus level, and helps to repair the copying errors that can occur during DNA synthesis. It has anti-inflammatory properties and supports the immune system, raising the levels of three cytokines, generating new blood cells, enhancing bone marrow, stem cell and macrophage activity, inhibiting viral replication, stimulating T-helper cell activity, and producing ‘T-memory cells’ that last longer in the bloodstream than T-helper cells and so provide long-term defence against infection.

So what’s all this got to do with dogs I hear you ask? After all, this is a dog blog, not an algae blog!

Well, it’s because of Tilly. Earlier this year, she began to nibble her left fore-claw and eventually, x-rays confirmed that she had osteomyelitis (infection of the bone) in that toe. Osteomyelitis is a notoriously difficult condition to treat and by all (human) accounts, very painful. During May, my vet put her on a 4-week course of the antibiotic ‘Antirobe’ (specifically prescribed for osteomyelitis as well as deep-wound and dental infections). This reduced the nibbling considerably, but once the course was finished, the nibbling increased again to pre-treatment levels.

Amputation of the toe was an option and guaranteed to get rid of the infection, but my vet would do this only if the condition of the toe was seriously affecting Tilly’s quality of life.

Osteomyelitis does not just clear up of its own accord and so in the meantime, the only available conventional treatment option consisted of another long-term course of antibiotics, and pain relief from NSAIDs (Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs), but given that long-term (and often short-term) use of NSAIDs can cause serious organ damage, I really did not want go down this route.

We were stuck between a rock and a hard place and it was incredibly difficult to know what to do for the best. I would have given the go-ahead for amputation regardless of whether it was ‘seriously affecting her quality of life’ as this appeared to be the inevitable solution anyway, and getting it over with sooner rather than later would save her from suffering unnecessarily. But how to measure ‘seriously affecting quality of life’? It was clear that it bothered her a lot – she was chewing and nibbling at the toe at least 3 times an hour during the day and it was waking her (and me) up at night too. I was beginning to spend a ridiculous amount of time keeping my eye on her to try to prevent her from nibbling, and when my vigilance slipped, sounding like a broken record telling her to leave it alone. It was both distracting and distressing, for her and for me. She’s my special girlie who came from a heart-breaking background of abuse and neglect, and it saddened me greatly to know that she was uncomfortable.

During July and August, it was bothering her more so than ever before. Every few days I gave the area around the claw a good old clear out of the build up of bits of dead skin and ‘crystalline hard stuff’ (not sure what this was!). For topical treatment we tried neem oil, but as she loves the taste, it didn’t work as a ‘no-nibble’ and for all its anti-bacterial/fungal/inflammatory claims, it didn’t seem to deliver any improvement to the toe’s condition at all, although it mat well have kept any secondary, external infections at bay. Similarly, aloe vera gel squeezed directly from a freshly cut leaf gave no obvious improvement. So then I tried propolis, which is supposed to taste so bad that it is notoriously difficult to get dogs to eat it. Not Tilly, she loved the taste, but while it didn’t work directly to stop her from nibbling the toe, it did appear to bring a few hours of relative relief from the need to nibble once applied and soaked in. For it’s anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and bone ‘smoothing’ properties I was also giving her rosehip powder, but as with the topical treatments, this didn’t appear to bring any obvious or lasting improvement.

Anyway … back to the amazing stuff that is Spirulina. Earlier in the year and pre-osteomyelitis, we attended an Applied Zoopharmacognosy course where Tilly enthusiastically self-selected Spirulina.

There was no mention on the course about Spirulina being anything other than highly nutritious, a good immune system supporter, and a very popular selection choice for the majority of dogs regardless of state of health.

So on a hunch, I bought a huge tub of organic Spirulina powder and started by allowing Tilly to take as much as she wanted, which turned out to be just over 4 full teaspoons for the first week, and then gradually, day-by-day she began to take less.

She’s currently taking about ½ a teaspoon a day, and for the past 3 weeks, NO TOE NIBBLING AT ALL!

I have since come across this piece of information about Spirulina: “(Spirulina) alleviates any general fluids dyscrasia (abnormal or pathological condition) within the bone tissue or skeletal structure that leads to conditions involving osteomalacia (skeletal deformities), osteomyelitis (infectious pathogenic bone disorders), osteoporosis (brittle bone conditions) or spinal degeneration, and eliminates any form of cachexia (state of malnourishment and general debility) throughout the bone tissue or marrow and skeletal system.” Interestingly, the same source suggests bee pollen for bone conditions, so it would appear that we were on the right track with topically treating the area with propolis.

So having gone from constant nibbling to no nibbling at all within just a few weeks, it would appear that after 5 months, Tilly’s ‘naughty toe’ has finally healed and we have actually beaten osteomyelitis – not with antibiotics, NSAIDs or amputation, but with a 3.6 billion year old algae. Truly. Amazing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read more about Spirulina’s physiological action and therapeutic uses here: http://www.alternativescentral.com/phf12a-spirulina.htm

Learn more about Applied Zoopharmacognosy here: http://www.rose-therapy.co.uk/id38.html

Please note that osteomyelitis is an acute or chronic infection of the bone, and although Spirulina appears to have successfully treated the condition in Tilly’s toe, this article is not meant to be taken as a substitute for conventional veterinary advice and treatment. Please also note that Spirulina is not the same blue-green algae that occasionally blooms in ponds and lakes in the UK. This blue-green algae, called Cyanobacteria, is poisonous and should never be eaten. Spirulina on the other hand carries no known contraindications or toxicity.

Thundershirts are go!

2011-10-04T10:08:00.002+01:00

Remember remember the 5th of November ... it's only a month away, but if previous years are anything to go by, the fireworks will be starting any time now. If you have a firework-phobic dog, now is the time to ensure that you are prepared! See my last year's blogpost Fireworks ~ How to help your dog cope for lots of useful tips and advice to not only get the firework-phobic dog through the fireworks season, but to ensure that there are no knock-on effects over the course of the winter. Every year around January/February time I take calls from owners with dogs who have developed what is essentially agoraphobia due to extreme noise sensitivity triggered by the fireworks in November. This of course can be prevented by reducing the dog's fear levels during the fireworks season itself.

As well as following my own advice for Tilly, I have bought her a 'Thundershirt' for this year. As you can see, she looks suitably relaxed in it!

Cheesy Marmite stars

2011-09-19T17:35:00.005+01:00

My maiden name before I married was 'Baker', and so to live up to family tradition, I like to create a new recipe once in a while, usually a dessert of some kind, but today's offering is a doggy treat!

'Cheesy Marmite stars' are made with potato flour, making these tasty, crunchy biscuits a nutritious treat for gluten-intolerant dogs, and suitable for dogs whose owners choose to feed them a cereal/grain-free diet. You can buy potato flour from health food stores (e.g. Holland & Barrett).

Ingredients (makes about 120-140 biscuits):

250g potato flour

50mls cold water

2 generous teaspoons of Marmite

50g finely grated mature Cheddar cheese

1 large free range egg

Method:

Preheat over to175C and line a large baking tray with a sheet of baking parchment. Mix together flour and grated cheese in a large bowl. In a jug, beat together water, Marmite and egg. Add Marmite mixture to the cheese/flour and mix to a stiff dough. You may need to add a little more water. If you have never used potato flour before, if you add too much water the dough will resemble silly putty and be too runny to roll out, so add any extra water a tiny bit at a time. If you do end up with silly putty, add a little more flour. Once your dough is at handling consistency (it may be a bit sticky, but this is okay), place onto a floured board and roll out to around ¼ - ½ cm thick. Using a small (3 – 4 cm wide) star-shaped biscuit cutter, cut out one star at a time, placing each on the baking tray before cutting the next. The reason for this is that potato flour dough doesn’t hold its moisture very well, and if you cut and leave each biscuit in-situ with the intention to place them all on the tray once you’ve finished cutting, they will have stuck to the board (trust me, I’ve made this mistake!) Bake near the top of the oven for 30 minutes, then remove and cool on a wire rack. Once cooled, store in an airtight container.

And don’t just save them for the dogs – if you're a Marmite lover like me, they make a tasty savoury snack for humans too!

Jumping, fetching and running about.

2011-09-16T13:07:00.006+01:00

I filmed our training session on the paddock yesterday – just for fun and with no intention to blog about it, but also, as I have learned from filming training sessions in the past, it’s a great way to see why a dog won’t do this or that or appears confused by what is being asked. Being able to watch yourself train with your dog is a real eye-opener, and I can guarantee that 100% of training mistakes are due to handler error – this handler included. The point is, that once you’ve got over the embarrassment of seeing yourself on film (I still have a problem with this, I’ll never be a TV celebrity ‘dog expert’) you can start to learn from these errors, rectify where you are going wrong, and get it right. Believe me, this can truly be revolutionary, and if you’ve not had the benefit of a dog professional’s analytical eye upon you, learning to be your own critic is essential to your role and progress as an owner/handler.

These days I have learned to recognise immediately where I go wrong and I take that extra couple of seconds thinking time to avoid mistakes. I didn’t make any glaring training mistakes yesterday, but I did walk into a jump (ouch) and a while later, tripped over Beau who was minding his own business truffling for treats in the grass. To save myself unnecessary embarrassment I’ve left these ‘You’ve Been Framed’ moments on the cutting room floor, and the video is made up of the ‘best bits’ of our session – not the perfect bits, I’m a pet dog trainer, I don’t train to competition standard in any discipline, I simply want to see happy, responsive dogs enjoying what they are doing. So this 5-minute film is a mix of agility, obedience and retrieving, and when I watched it back this morning it struck me just how much my dogs have had to learn in order to achieve all this – and that’s the reason for this article, to let you know that there are no short-cuts, just lots of learning from mistakes, and that it takes time, patience, knowledge and effort to make things look easy. So I hope that you enjoy watching our little session, and that the explanations for each clip provide some insight into how we did it:

Beau agility (0.05 – 0.46). Commands used: ‘close’, ‘over’, ‘this way’, ‘tunnel’, ‘tyre’. I use ‘close’ as we start off, Beau is always a reluctant starter but gets into it once he’s moving. I use ‘over’ for the jumps, and as the tyre is his favourite and along that left side he has a tendency to carry on through the tyre unless I direct him with a ‘this way’ in order to send him over the central jump. Tilly likes to be involved too and will chase us about with her ball, hoping for a throw!

Tilly retrieving (0.47 – 1.09). Commands used: ‘sit’, ‘wait’, ‘go fetch’. Tilly loves to retrieve – I would go as far to say that she lives for it. But it took a while to get her so keen, and we did it in stages. So for Tilly to learn to retrieve a ball, I had to first get her interested in chasing a ball. We tried a variety of types of balls and toys, and eventually she showed interest in small, latex squeaky balls – chasing after them, grabbing them, and then lying down to kill them. I then had to teach her to ‘drop’ by going up to her and swapping the ball for a treat. She had already learnt ‘come’ but this proved to be a problem as once she was away with the ball, if I recalled her she left the ball and then came to me for treat, so I had to work out how to maintain her prey drive for long enough for her to keep the ball in her mouth for the return. We’d already done a bit of agility, so I set up a low jump in the garden, threw the ball just the other side of the jump and then sent her over. The first few times, she grabbed the ball and then lay down with the ball in her mouth on the other side of the jump, but then one time, with a bit of encouragement and with her focus on the jump, she jumped back over, ball still in mouth, I told her ‘drop’ and then immediately threw the ball back at her. And that’s when it clicked for her – if I bring the ball back, I get to chase it again! From then on, we made rapid progress. There is no requirement to tell her to ‘drop’ any more – in fact she practically throws the ball back at me – and there’s no need to swap the ball for treats as she retrieves for the ball alone now, every time. She’s not even interested in treats when retrieving – even if I present her with even the tastiest morsel, all she wants is the ball. Sitting and waiting for a retrieve is challenging for her, but she’s good at because the retrieve serves to reinforce the wait. In training, this is called the ‘Premack Principle’ or more commonly, ‘grandma’s law’ – if you do this totally unrewarding thing first, you get to do this amazing thing after, or in other words, if you finish your greens you get to eat pudding. Gradually, finishing your greens (or in Tilly’s case, sitting and waiting) not only becomes a means to an end, but as a behaviour, it grows in strength and will want to be repeated. Once Tilly has waited for a retrieve, I always follow this by throwing the ball again.

Tilly retrieving (1.10 – 1.27). Commands used: Tilly – ‘sit’, ‘wait’, ‘go', fetch’. Beau – ‘leave’. Although Beau seems oblivious to what’s going on around him when I’m training with Tilly, he’s actually paying attention. If I send Tilly to retrieve, he’ll often run in too. If I’ve hidden the ball or she’s not seen where it’s landed and she has to search for it, he’ll sometimes run in and find it straight away. In this clip, he runs in – at the point where he veers off to the left (1.19) I’m telling him to ‘leave’.

Beau retrieving (1.28 – 2.12). Commands used: ‘sit’, ‘stay’, ‘go fetch’, ‘come’. Beau is somewhat of an unenthusiastic retriever and it takes a lot to keep him interested. Tilly provides competition, which helps, but whereas Tilly will work fast and for the ball alone, what suits Beau is a retrieve to hand in exchange for a treat or two. Most of the time he comes straight back with the ball, albeit at his own sweet pace, but he can lose interest half way and so sometimes I need to recall him as he’s making his way back to me to keep him going. At this point, I know he’s had enough and so once he’s returned with the ball and we’ve done our ball-treat swap, I let him have the ball back so that he can take it off and lie down and have a little play on his own for a while. There’s no point in pushing him once he’s reached his limit and as it’s taken a while to get him this interested in retrieving, I’m not about to put unnecessary pressure on him and risk him shutting me out. In this clip, I use the ‘watch me’ command as I approach Beau after placing the ball near the fence, just to hold his attention while I move around to his right side and open a clear path for him to retrieve. This helps to keep him place as I’m cueing him up to ‘go fetch’. By applying gentle pressure to his chest with the back of my left forearm, I engage the ‘opposition reflex’ whereby he naturally pushes forwards into my arm, so that when I eventually release him, he’s already moving forward and so moves faster towards the ball. In this clip, Tilly cuts across his return and he veers off to the right. At this point he’s lost the drive to return to me with the ball so I have to recall him (‘come’) before he loses interest in returning to me with the ball.

Beau retrieving (2.13 – 2.59). Commands used: ‘sit’, ‘stay’, ‘watch me’, ‘go fetch’. In this clip, I throw the ball into the tunnel. While Beau is in a sit-stay, Tilly tracks down the paddock over the cavaletti poles to the tunnel. Beau decides to return to me via the tunnel and so flushes Tilly out, who decides to beat him on the return and get in a sneaky throw while he’s still on his way back to me!

Tilly retrieving (3.00 – 3.40). Commands used: Tilly – ‘sit’, ‘stay’, ‘watch me’, ‘go', 'fetch’. Beau – ‘leave’. I use the ‘watch me’ command sooner with Tilly because she is so keen to retrieve and I don’t want her to break her sit-stay until I send her away. Beau is watching from the sidelines all along and again, I need to tell him to ‘leave’ (3.29).

Beau retrieving (3.41 – 4.04). Commands used: ‘sit’, ‘wait’, ‘go fetch’. In this clip, I set Beau up so that he can’t see where the ball is going to land. He still hears it land, but I’m covering his eyes! Once he’s found the ball, he decides to return, unprompted, through the tyre, his favourite piece of agility equipment.

Tandem retrieve! (4.05 – 4.56). Commands used: ‘sit’, ‘stay’, ‘watch me’, ‘wait’, ‘go fetch’. I tell Tilly to ‘wait’ as I’m walking back from placing the balls near the fence and hold Beau’s attention with a ‘watch me’ – interestingly though, although my eye contact is with Beau, Tilly is also watching me as she waits for me to send her in for the retrieve. Beau almost breaks his stay as Tilly runs down the paddock because I take a step forward, which he takes as a signal to move forward, but I realise my mistake and a sharp ‘wait’ holds him. Tilly gets in a couple of quick-fire retrieves while Beau, making his way back up the paddock, drops the ball on route but then makes up for it by returning, unprompted, over the jump.

If you're wondering what the accompanying earworm-like track is by the way, it's the 12" remix of 'Stone Fox Chase' by Area Code 615 – the original theme music for The Old Grey Whistle Test (oops, showing my age ... ! )

Beau, making himself useful as an agility obstacle!

You may also be interested to read my agility and search & retrieve articles.

Take the Canine Mind Temperament Test

2011-09-09T12:59:00.008+01:00

Before I work with a dog, I spend a couple of hours on the phone talking to the dog’s owner and noting down its case history. I start by asking the owner for some very basic and standard information – contact details, vet details, dog’s medical history and the like – and then we spend some time discussing the main behaviour problem. I then ask the owner another series of questions, and as we start to go through them I often detect an air of ‘why is she asking me this?’ from the other end of the phone-line. At that point I explain that although the questions may not seem to bear any relevance to the problem itself, the answers will enable me to gain an insight into the dog’s general temperament.

Temperament is an important factor in working out how best to resolve a behaviour issue. Temperament determines how an individual dog responds to the world, and so provides me with a predictable foundation on which to base a dog’s behaviour therapy and training plan.

Take the Canine Mind Temperament Test! Which set of the following temperament traits best describes your dog?

Set 1:

Friendly and bold
Lively
Responsive
Focused
Takes an ‘approach and explore’ attitude to novelty
Enthusiastically plays fetch and tug
May be startled by sudden noise or movement but recovers and adapts
Will tolerate close contact and petting when eating and will allow food items to be removed without objection

Set 2:

Friendly but passive
Controlled
Calm
Quiet
Takes a considered approach to novelty
Willingness to fetch and tug but lacks enthusiasm
Not easily startled by sudden noise or movement
Will tolerate close contact and petting when eating and allows food items to be removed without objection

Set 3:

Anxious
Inhibited
Helpless
Shy
Lacks the ability to problem solve and avoids novelty
Ignores toys, half-heartedly chases a ball but then walks away, won’t take hold of a tug-toy
Takes flight or freezes when startled and shows lingering signs of fear, may become defensive if cornered
Moves away from food items when approached and allows their removal without objection

Set 4:

Excitable
Touch sensitive
Impulsive
Reactive
Irritable
Demanding
Does not habituate to change and novelty
Intolerant of restraint
Possessive of toys, all take and no give
Tendency to bark when startled and may lash out
When eating will stiffen up and/or threaten anyone who approaches or attempts to remove food items

If set 1 best describes your dog, he shows traits of stability and extroversion.

His temperament type is sanguine – ‘S-type’.

If set 2 best describes your dog, he shows traits of stability and introversion.

His temperament type is phlegmatic – ‘P-type’.

If set 3 best describes your dog, he shows traits of instability and introversion.

His temperament type is melancholic – ‘M-type’.

If set 4 best describes your dog, he shows traits of instability and extroversion.

His temperament type is choleric – ‘C-type’.

(NB ~ I have used 'he' and 'his' only for descriptive purpose, replace with 'her' and 'she' if your dog is female!)

S-type ~ It is uncommon for owners of S-type dogs to call me with a problem unless the owner is not devoting enough time to exercise or providing the dog with social, environmental and breed-specific enrichment and basic training – in other words, the dog is bored and seeking stimulating and rewarding activity (what we see as destructive and hyperactive behaviour). Occasionally S-type dogs can be overly-sensitive to sudden noise or movement, but with the right training approach and their otherwise stable temperament, this threshold can be raised.

P-type ~ It is very rare for owners of P-type dogs to call me with a problem unless the owner’s circumstances have changed and the dog is experiencing longer periods of separation than it is previously used to.

M-type ~ Fear, anxiety, nervousness, separation and compulsive behaviour issues are common with M-types. Around a third of the dogs that I am called on to help with are M-types.

C-type ~ Without a doubt, the C-type dog presents more potential for problems than the other temperament types. C-types have low stress and emotional tolerance thresholds, making them extremely sensitive to social and environmental stress that involve loss, novelty, change, aversion, threat and punishment. Excitability, frustration, impulsivity and aggression issues are common with C-types. Around two-thirds of the dogs that I am called on to help with are C-types. I often refer to them as my ‘training school drop-outs’ because many have already passed through the doors of at least one training school where inappropriate handling and training methods have done nothing to resolve the ‘bad’ behaviour (or have made it worse), or the owner has been asked to leave the class because of the dog’s persistent barking.

There are of course degrees of temperament traits and expressions of behaviour, but ultimately it’s a dog’s temperament that determines how he reacts to the world around him, and in turn, how the world reacts towards him shapes his temperament. If introverted dogs are mismanaged they can become progressively unstable and move towards M-type traits, however, under the influence of stability-enhancing training activities, introverted dogs can learn to cope more effectively with social encounters and their environment and make the shift towards P-type traits. Systematic desensitisation and counter-conditioning techniques should be used to overcome fear and nervousness issues. When resolving M-type separation behaviour, it will initially be owner scent, not a food-stuffed activity-toy, that allows the dog to cope with being left alone. An M-type dog will never become extroverted, and there may be situations that the introverted dog who tends towards instability, will find stressful. Respecting an introverted dog’s social limits is therefore important if the development of M-type traits are to be discouraged.

If extroverted dogs are mismanaged – particularly if they are subjected to threats and punishment for intrusive, impulsive and excessive behaviours – they may become progressively unstable in the direction of C-type traits. C-types are prone to panic-evoked aggression. C-types react negatively to punishment – they do not learn from negative consequences and therefore require highly structured, reward-based training activities aimed at reducing social conflict and tension, alongside management strategies that minimise the provocation of reactive behaviour. This approach helps the C-type to learn to control impulses and delay gratification (waiting for the good stuff), which in time helps to make the gradual shift towards S-type traits. Rehabilitating and training a C-type dog is hard work. C-types need a lot of exercise and focused attention. Dietary changes may be necessary. Training is often an around-the-clock affair – it’s exhausting, and can at times be frustrating, but as handlers of C-types, we simply have to keep our cool and positively focus our training efforts. Many C-types end up in rescue or worse, are put to sleep, because they are misunderstood and mishandled.

Because the brain is malleable, because all dogs, whatever their temperament type, have the same underlying instincts and emotional command systems, under the right social, environmental and training conditions, desirable temperament traits can be encouraged and learned. With the right approach, the instabilities of M- and C-type temperaments can be overcome to varying degrees, with an observable move towards the stable traits of S- and P-type dogs. M-type dogs can grow in confidence and become more relaxed – they can even learn to retrieve with the enthusiasm of an S-type – and C-type dogs can learn tolerance and impulse-control through reward-based training methods.

Your dog’s behaviour is an expression of his temperament traits, and understanding his temperament type is key to how you can influence and shape his behaviour ... for the better.

Fighting talk

2011-08-27T00:24:00.022+01:00

Fighting between dogs who share the same household isn’t a behaviour problem that I help dog owners with on a daily basis, but it is an issue that I receive many calls about that do not result in bookings for 1-2-1 behaviour consultations. I suspect that this is because when I tell people how much effort may be involved in resolving the problem, they have second thoughts. More often than not, the response is "we’ll think about it" – and then I never hear from them again.

I’m not sure what people expect me to tell them when they call – maybe that I have a magic wand that I can wave about and make the problem go away, or that I can show them one simple technique to stop the aggression and prevent it from ever coming back. The truth is that resident dog-dog aggression is often a serious and complex behaviour issue, which requires a dedicated and concerted effort from owners in order to resolve the problem, often requiring changes to be made to the home environment, daily routines and personal habits. I think that the route to resolution is just too much work for some people to want to take on.

Aggression between dogs who share the same household frequently results in more serious injuries than does aggression between dogs who do not live together. Research shows that the on the whole, aggressive outbursts between resident dogs are usually the result of a progression of events and are initiated by the youngest and most recently obtained member of the group. This is particularly so when the dogs are of the same sex, and statistically, the incidence of fighting between resident females is higher than between resident males, with fighting between spayed females being more common and injurious than between entire females. This may be due to the effect that the removal of the female reproductive hormones has on the activity and production of other hormones such as arginine vasopressin (AVP), serotonin and thyroxin, whose levels in the brain can directly influence aggressive arousal in response to competition or threat. Fighting between entire females is commonly due to fluctuating hormone levels during the few weeks of the reproductively receptive time of a bitch’s season or ‘heat’, when resident bitches may compete for breeding rights. When the bitches are not in season, there is often no tension between them at all. With male dogs who share the same household, hormone activity may play a part too, with the production and activity of testosterone, AVP, serotonin and thyroxin being possible contributors to aggressive arousal under the influence of threat or competition for resources. Stress, and in particular circulating levels of the hormone, cortisol, also plays a big part in the regulation of emotional thresholds and tolerance towards social competition.

Hormonal influences aside, there are three basic forms of aggressive interaction between dogs who share the same living space:

Aggressive play. Includes many of the behavioural components observed in actual fighting, but without the intention to subdue or injure.
Actual dominance fighting. Intended to subordinate an opponent but without injury.
Overt and damaging fighting. Intended both to subdue and injure an opponent.

All three forms of fighting are involved in the establishment and maintenance of relative social dominance between dogs who share the same living space. Free-roaming feral and semi-feral dogs on the other hand do not form hierarchical relations with one another. The establishment of dominance hierarchies only occurs between captive dogs who are forced to share the same home territory with one another and when space and other resources are limited and controlled, but that said, most dogs who live together establish remarkably stable relationships, and the majority test and maintain the status quo through play.

The two dogs in the above-left picture look like they are about to kill one another, but when looked at again in context (below-right), you can see that there is much more going on than at first glance, and that this frightening display of ‘weaponry’ is actually a mix of play aggression and friendly competition for a ‘resource’ (i.e. the ball) …

The dogs’ body language and facial expressions say it all. The dog on the left is leaning his body backwards – if he were more serious about his intentions, he would be leaning forward. The dog on the right seems relaxed about his brother's ‘threat’ and remains lying down. Note that both dogs are avoiding direct eye contact too.

Although playful competition around resources may always exist between these two boys, because both naturally tend towards ‘bluffing’, it is highly unlikely that this kind of behaviour will escalate into a problem. It's important though to be able to recognise the difference between what is normal and harmless play behaviour, and aggressive behaviour that could develop into a problem.

The causes for frequent or injurious aggression between resident dogs are complicated and varied, and to a certain degree, speculative. Sometimes it is difficult to make a clear distinction between offensive fighting and other forms of aggression such as the dog who tends towards self-protective, defensive aggression when in a tight spot. Sometimes the fights are clearly one-sided, with one dog being the instigator and attacker, and the other, the unfortunate ‘victim’. Access points such as doorways and stairwells, and sudden changes in social dynamic such as the moment a person enters or leaves a room, are common triggers for fights because these relate directly to the control of movement, space and the enforcement of social dominance.

Fighting between resident dogs rarely occurs when the owner is absent, which suggests that the presence of the owner is a primary trigger for resident dog-dog aggression. Owner ‘interference’ in the form of favouring the ‘underdog’ appears to play a huge part in de-stabilising dominance relations. There are several theoretical reasons as to why this should happen but none make total sense to me, so in my opinion, allowing fights to occur but then breaking them up before they are allowed to run their natural course in combination with favouring either dog simply increases the competition between the dogs for owner attention and affection. Increasing competition narrows the relative social status between the dogs, which in turn drives the need to establish social dominance, causing aggression to escalate and hostilities to remain at the ready, with the potential for a fight breaking out at any time. With all this in mind, the resolution lies directly with the owner – not as a dominator, side-taker, referee, or a resource to be competed for, but as the driving force behind a fundamental shift in the relationship between the dogs, and each dog's relationship with the owner.

BREAKING UP FIGHTS ON HOME TERRITORY

Trying to break up a fight by grabbing dogs with your hands or getting between them is a dangerous activity and runs a very real risk of getting bitten by accident or by redirection. Your close proximity may even cause the dogs to increase their efforts to overthrow one another. Similarly, hitting, kicking or causing pain to the dogs in other ways will likely sustain or increase aggressive arousal, not diminish it.

Preventing fights is always preferable to breaking them up and with spot on management this is 100% doable, but in case a fight does break out and needs to be stopped, there are a number of ways to prepare for and go about it:

A water-filled soda siphon in every room. If a fight breaks out, a few rapid squirts INTO the attacker’s mouth can be enough to cause it to let go. Never use the siphon to ‘prevent’ a fight from occurring.
A bath towel or blanket in every room. If a fight breaks out, take the towel or blanket and throw it over the dogs’ heads before separating them.
Blasting an air-horn or safety whistle, or banging a saucepan or metal tea-tray close to the dogs’ heads can be enough to startle the dogs and cause them to let go of one another. Only use this method if both dogs do not normally show fear of loud or sudden noises – the idea is to invoke the startle reflex and to interrupt the dogs, not to terrify them.
Lifting the hind legs/rear end of the attacker until it lets go of the other dog, who will then usually crawl away.
Both dogs wear a trailing lead at all times. This is by far the easiest way to separate two dogs, particularly if you are on your own. If there are two people, each lead can be taken up by hand. If you are on your own, take up the end of one lead and move/pull the dogs until you can tie-off the lead to something secure and solid. Take up the end of the other lead and pull steadily – no jerking – until the dogs release their hold on one another.
If one dog is holding the other in a suffocation bite (around the throat) or by the back of the neck, slide a sturdy pole (e.g. a walking cane or broom handle) between the collar of the biting dog and the back of its neck and with the collar resting at the centre of the pole, use the pole as a two-ended handle to twist the collar until it tightens sufficiently to cause the dog to pass out and so release its jaws.

I recently read an article on how to solve resident dog-dog aggression that recommended the use of Gentle Leader headcollars to control the dogs. PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS! The Gentle Leader is a muzzle-clamping headcollar that when pulled (or when the dog pulls) clamps the dog’s jaws shut. If either dog is already biting the other, any attempt to pull the biting dog away will result in him being unable to release his hold on the other dog. If you absolutely have to use a headcollar to control either dog (i.e. if they are large, powerful dogs), you must ensure that it is a fixed-action, non-muzzle-clamping type, e.g. the noseband DOES NOT TIGHTEN around the dogs muzzle when the headcollar is used to turn the dog’s head towards you, and provides plenty of room for the dog to freely open its jaws. I do not recommend or advocate the use of muzzle-clamping headcollars such as Gentle Leader, Halti, Gencon, Canny Collar at any time or for any purpose. There simply is no need, when non-muzzle-clamping headcollars are readily available, e.g. Dogmatic, or the Pets at Home own brand (see below ...)

In the above picture, Beau is wearing the Pets at Home 'control headcollar'. As you can see, the noseband provides plenty of room for him to open his mouth, and there are no moving parts to the headcollar.

RESOLVING RESIDENT DOG-DOG AGGRESSION

The goal of behaviour therapy should be to take control and prevent fights, not to referee or direct the ongoing drama and tension between the dogs – the idea being to end conflict, not to explore dominance and pack theories! The focus therefore for resolving resident dog-dog aggression should not be about reinforcing relative dominant/subordinate status between the dogs or refereeing the dogs’ social interactions, but on conflict-prevention, reward-based impulse control and social tolerance training, and the dogs’ owner becoming a source of social control and order. The human influence over each dog's behaviour must be stronger than the dogs’ influence over one another's behaviour, and this can be achieved by way of instigating and reinforcing positive, non-competitive social interactions. By changing the relationship dynamic, strong leader-follower relationship pairs are encouraged between each dog and the owner, as opposed to the reactive dog-dog dynamic where the owner, access points, mealtimes, resting areas, visitors, etc, are primary sources for conflict and competitive arousal.

General stress reduction is also important. Correct diet and exercise, mental stimulation, massage, quality rest and sleep, and complimentary therapies such as flower essences, herbal remedies and acupuncture, are all areas that can bring overall benefit to the dogs' well-being and so help to lower tension in the home.

CONFLICT PREVENTION

All triggers must be identified and steps taken to ensure that the dogs are unable to make threatening or aggressive contact with one another in the presence of those triggers:

If you coming home is a trigger, ensure that the dogs are separated either in crates or different rooms before you leave them alone. Upon your return, greet each dog separately before bringing the dogs together (trailing leads for safety if necessary) for a few minutes of impulse control and social tolerance training to reinforce your position as the source of social order.
If the arrival of visitors is a trigger, change the dogs’ focus to something else, e.g. the expectation of a food tit-bit, in order to prevent them from becoming excited and emotional, and to create an alternative and positive/rewarding association with the change in social dynamic. Maintain social order and keep the dogs apart with basic obedience commands such as ‘back’ and ‘wait’.
If doorways are a trigger, allowing one dog access (on a first come, first serve basis, you do not decide who goes first) whilst requiring the other dog to ‘wait’ (in return for a food tit-bit if necessary) will help to prevent conflict and competitive arousal.
If mealtimes are a trigger, separate the dogs while their food is being prepared and when feeding them but do not exclude either or both of them – use child/stair gates, leash and tether the dogs away from one another, or put the dogs in crates to keep them apart.
If beds, sofas/chairs or other favoured resting places are a trigger, if one in particular, either remove it or block the dogs’ access to it. Ensure that both/all dogs have somewhere comfortable to rest and that there is plenty of space between resting areas. Do not place resting areas near other potential triggers for conflict/competition, e.g. next to water bowls, doorways/stairwells, kitchen food preparation area, ‘your’ chair, etc.
If other resources such as chews, bones and toys are a trigger, remove them and only give them to the dogs under close supervision – with both dogs leashed and tethered away from one another if necessary, but in the same room, and with you present. Alternatively, if you cannot supervise the dogs, separate them into different rooms if they are to have chews, bones or toys.

Creating physical barriers throughout the home territory to keep the dogs apart when owner attention and supervision cannot be fully engaged is an important aspect of fight prevention. Doors, gates and crates can all be utilised when needed.

Muzzle-training both dogs and having one or both muzzled when they are together is an often over-looked management tool – it won’t necessarily prevent a fight from breaking out, but if you cannot be certain of the dogs’ behaviour in any given trigger situation, it will at least prevent bite injuries. Muzzling the dogs is not a substitute for training, and training must take place alongside muzzling. Even though the dogs cannot bite one another whilst wearing muzzles, the emphasis should still remain on conflict prevention. The muzzle is merely a safeguard against injuries – and if your management is spot on, injuries shouldn’t have the potential to occur.

I prefer fabric muzzles as these are more comfortable for the dog to wear than are basket-type muzzles. The nylon Mikki muzzle (pictured right) is a good choice as it allows the dog just enough room to pant and drink (and to be fed treats during training) and comes in a range of sizes to fit long and short-nosed breeds.

If you are thinking about muzzling you dog for any reason, you must desensitise him to the muzzle before making him wear it in a potentially stressful situation. As all dogs have the potential to bite, training any dog to wear a muzzle is good practice.

IMPULSE CONTROL AND SOCIAL TOLERANCE TRAINING

Encouraging impulse control and social tolerance through reward-based training is a pivotal part of behaviour therapy when treating any aggression problem. Intensive ‘wait’ training and delaying of gratification builds a desire around waiting and taking turns to obtain attention, affection, and other rewards by way of following rules and owner direction. Working both dogs together (under restraint or restricted movement if necessary and for safety) focusing on simple reward-based obedience training, for example, instructing one dog to wait/sit/down at a distance while the other dog receives friendly interaction (fuss, praise, play with a toy), and so long as the waiting dog controls the impulse to move, tossing it food tit-bits (eating allows for the release of oxytocin, the ‘bonding’ hormone) before swapping positions (owner moves, dogs stay in place) and repeating the activity with the other dog. The focus of this area of training is to create impulse control (waiting and taking turns), social tolerance (of the other dog receiving owner attention), positive association with the other dog receiving owner attention (via food tit-bits), and to teach the dogs to yield to the owner’s control of space, movement and social interactions at all times. The impulse control aspect of training also enforces strong dominant-subordinate relationships between each dog and the owner, which diminishes the dogs’ need to enforce social dominance over one another.

RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES

Recreational activities are also important in the creation and maintenance of harmonious relations between resident dogs.

Outside of the home and away from sources of competition and conflict, many resident aggressors get along without so much as a sideways snarl at one another.

Non-competitive activities that both dogs can enjoy together in the presence of the owner should therefore be encouraged, for example, foraging for treats, walking or jogging with the owner, exploring a new piece of ground together, etc.

INDIVIDUAL ATTENTION AND TRAINING

Allowing each dog to individually engage in activities that utilise their particular strengths and interests can also be helpful in reducing resident dog-dog aggression on a number of levels.

Activities such as agility, working trials and canny-cross can provide valuable exercise, mental stimulation, beneficial neuro-hormone activity in the brain and purposeful focus, as well as relieving pent-up tension and energies, and utilising the leader-follower dimension of the human-canine bond. Activities that utilise the prey sequence of behaviours such as herding and retrieval and scent work fulfil the dog on a fundamental and instinctive level.

DIET

Diet is also an important area to consider when treating any aggression issue. Feeding a natural, species-appropriate raw diet is always preferable over feeding a processed diet, but if you choose to feed a processed diet, pick a non-cereal/grain based formula. Avoid foods that contain artificial additives, in particular artificial colours (Bakers Complete and Pedigree Large Breed kibbles to name but two). Including omega 3 every day, and if not feeding a lamb or turkey based raw food diet, the inclusion of a tryptophan supplement such as Canovel/Catovel Calmdown will boost serotonin levels in the brain, which makes for a calmer, less impulsive, more relaxed and tolerant dog. For more information on how diet can be used to affect behaviour, see my Mood Food article.

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My advice, if you have an existing resident dog-dog aggression issue, is to employ the help of a reputable dog behaviour psychologist. He or she will likely refer you back to your vet in order for the dog to have an external physical examination to check for pain (eyes, ears, teeth, joints, etc) and to carry out a complete blood count, chemistry panels and urinalysis to check for possible medical causes and hormone/chemical imbalances for your dog’s aggressive behaviour. Your dog behaviour psychologist should then visit you in your home to assess the dogs in their normal environment, and to discuss with you the problem in depth before advising you on the best way to control your dogs’ movement around the home and how to manage trigger situations, and demonstrating with your dogs the basics of reward-based impulse control and social tolerance training. He or she should then provide you with a behaviour modification and training plan that is uniquely tailored to your individual situation and your dogs, and backed by ongoing support.

Be prepared for the expense that may be involved if veterinary treatment is required, if repeat visits from your dog behaviour psychologist are needed and equipment needs to be bought, and if dietary changes are necessary. Be prepared for the time that you will need to find for training. Be prepared to make some simple modifications to your home by way of dog gates, crates and tie-out points. Be prepared to change how you interact with your dogs – no taking sides, no favouritism when both are together. Be prepared to put in whatever effort is needed to reach a resolution. There is no magic wand. No simple technique. But there is a very important key – you.

Barking mad

2011-08-24T11:15:00.020+01:00

I was pondering the other day how when I take a call from a potential client about a problem they are having with their dog, they often describe the dog’s behaviour in a particular way.

They tell me about the problem, and then go on to say, “but she’s SUCH a good girl the rest of the time … and she NEVER barks.”

So if a dog never barks, this is considered to be ‘good behaviour’, but replace ‘dog’ with ‘child’ and ‘barks’ with ‘speaks’, and suddenly we have a major communication problem on our hands. Time to call in the doctors, medical experts, psychology specialists and do tests to find out why there is no speaking. We celebrate our children’s first vocal utterings, melt the first time that they say ‘mummy’, smile when we listen to them playing and shouting and laughing with their friends, but when a dog barks, we get annoyed and want them to shut up or better still, never bark at all – except of course when we want them to warn us that someone is trying to burgle the house.

It’s a sad fact of our modern-day age that a barking dog is considered to be a noise nuisance and socially unacceptable, particularly in the light of the opinion of some scientists who say that our faithful friends have spent the past 10,000 years or so developing a repertoire of different barks solely for our benefit.

Bless their paws.

The real fact is that barking is a human problem, not a canine one. Dogs bark. They are supposed to bark – that’s what dogs do. Barking is normal. Barking is good. Barking is COMMUNICATION. But barking can become excessive, and it can be anti-social when it happens at 2 o’clock in the morning, however, we shouldn’t view it as ‘bad behaviour’, as something that needs to be punished. Instead we need to understand the reasons why our dogs bark and know what to do to influence their behaviour in order to bring excessive or anti-social barking under control.

Dogs bark in exactly the same way as we shout. Air is rapidly expelled from the lungs via contraction of the diaphragm, passes through the trachea and larynx, causing the vocal cords to vibrate and the rush of air to be emitted as an audible sound from the dog’s mouth.

Just as we can control the volume and pitch of our voices by widening or narrowing the space between our vocal cords, in the same way a dog can control the force and pitch of its bark, and make other sounds such as whining, howling, baying, growling, screeching and yodelling.

There are six main reasons why dogs bark, and for each of those reasons, the bark is different. Here’s my attempt at ‘translation’:

1) The Alarm-Alert Bark. Used to alert others to a particular situation or when taken by surprise. Pitch is normally fairly high, the tone urgent, and barks are short and largely singular with definite pauses, e.g. “Hey! What! Who! Hey!” Sometimes an alarm bark may change into an excited greeting, e.g. “Hey! It’s-Jim! It’s-Jim! Everyone … IT’S-JIIIIM!”. Tilly’s alarm-alert bark is very distinctive, and she only uses it when someone familiar arrives on or near the property – friends, our immediate neighbours, and even the postman.

2) The Warning Bark. Used to increase social distance. Pitch is normally low, the tone threatening, and barks are successive and more rapid than the alarm bark and may be interspersed with growls, e.g. “I saaaaiiid … Back-off! Back-OFF! BACK-OFF! BACK-OFF-PAL! BACK-OFF-PAL! BACK-OFF-PAL-I-MEAN-IT!”.

3) The Play Bark. Used during play. Normally a mix of pitches with tones of excitement and goading and may include growls – “Hey! Wanna PLAY? I wanna play! C’mon … LET'S PLAY!”

4) The Command Bark. Used to command another’s attention. The pitch varies from dog to dog but normally remains fairly consistent with a demanding tone, e.g. “OI … YOU … YES … YOU!”

5) The Need Bark. Used to decrease social distance. Pitch is normally high with a desperate tone, may include whining, yipping and howling, e.g. “Come-back … please-come-back … please-oh-pleeeeeeeeeease … come back … come-back-please … please-come-back”.

6) The Displacement-Compulsive Bark. Displacement behaviours are performed to ‘displace’ an un-resolvable emotional state, e.g. frustration, anxiety, excitement, social conflict or boredom. Compulsive behaviours are both signs of stress and stress-relieving in nature. Both types of behaviour function as a way of releasing what would otherwise be pent-up energy. With the displacement-compulsive bark, the pitch and tone varies from dog to dog but it is always rhythmic and repetitive in nature, for example, a 'one bark per second' or a “BARK, BARK, BARK (pause) BARK, BARK, BARK (pause) BARK, BARK, BARK (pause) ...” style pattern.

The barks that tend to become problematic are the alarm-alert bark, and the command and need barks, both of which can turn displacement-compulsive if the underlying stressor is not removed. Excessive barking in the car when travelling is usually an extension of the alarm-alert bark – adrenalised and triggered by lots of fast moving stuff whizzing past the windows. This goes for dogs that bark in response to sights and sounds when at home – police sirens, car alarms, kids playing, people passing by on the street. The need bark can continue for hours without a break – a common symptom of a dog suffering from separation distress syndrome (SDS). I read a very sad story recently of a Bulldog, who during his stay in boarding kennels while his owners were on holiday, barked himself to death, eventually suffocating because his larynx was so inflamed from barking almost continually for an entire week.

So what can be done to prevent barking from becoming excessive, or to resolve it when it has reached problem levels?

In my professional experience, so-called ‘anti-bark’ collars are, on the whole, ineffective at stopping barking. I have never used one nor advocate their use, but I know that largely they are ineffective because by the time many of my clients call me with a barking problem, they have already tried an anti-bark collar, and in many instances, made their dog’s barking worse through its use. Because barking often occurs due to a panic or fear-inducing stressor of some kind, when an out-of-the-blue spray of citronella under the chin or worse still, an electric shock, is added to this, all that happens is that the dog becomes more stressed. I saw one case last year of a dog whose owner had used an anti-bark collar to try and stop her dog’s barking and while it did work to stop the noise, it also sent the dog into a downward spiral of stress and by the time I saw her, the problem wasn’t barking, it was that the dog was literally tearing the hair from its paws and flanks every time she was left on her own.

The best way to resolve a barking problem is not to focus on the barking itself, but to look at the broader picture – to resolve the underlying cause for the barking.

Q. If your dog is barking when left alone, is it because he can see and hear things beyond the house (alarm-alert bark)?

A. Remove his view of the street by drawing blinds or curtains. Restrict his movement within the house by confining him to an area away from ‘busy’ windows or doors. Leave a radio or CD playing on normal volume to help mask sounds coming from outside or neighbouring properties.

Q. If your dog is barking when left alone, is it because she is under-stimulated and needs more exercise, mental challenge or company (command bark, displacement-compulsive bark)?

A. Always exercise your dog for at least 30 minutes before leaving her on her own. Leave her with activity toys (e.g. a filled Kong) and chews. If you have to leave her for more than 4 hours a day, employ the services of a pet sitter, dog walker or doggy day-care.

Q. If your dog is barking when left alone, is it because he is suffering from SDS (need bark)?

A. SDS is a complex behaviour issue and the solution often requires a many-pronged approach, and is dependent on the underlying cause of the separation behaviours (e.g. it could be that the human-canine bond is out of balance, or that the dog’s temperament or background predisposes it to separation distress). If your dog is suffering from SDS it will likely be displaying at least one other SDS-related behaviour. Enlisting the help of a reputable dog behaviour psychologist is strongly advisable in order to reach a lasting resolution that does not further damage the dog’s mental health.

Q. If your dog is barking in the car, is it in response to what she can see whizzing past the windows (alarm-alert bark)?

A. Place the dog in a travel crate and cover the sides with a blanket or fit black-out blinds to the car windows and between the front and back seats. If you choose the latter option, with the curtain between the front and back seats open, when your dog barks, pull the blind/curtain to obscure the dog’s view. When it is quiet, open the curtain a little. So long as the dog doesn’t bark, the curtain can remain open. If it barks, close it. This is a two-person training job – do not operate the curtain if you are driving! Eventually, you may be able to remove the blinds altogether. If you use this technique, it is also advisable to teach the dog the ‘QUIET’ command too.

Q. If your dog is barking in the car, it is in response to people or dogs that walk near the car when parked (warning bark)?

A. Great! It’s unlikely that anyone will jack or steal your car, however, as territorial behaviour it can become out of control and if the dog does escape from the car while it is barking, it may well follow through with a bite to the passer-by. I do not advocate leaving dogs in the car on their own under any circumstances, but if you do this, secure the dog in a covered travel crate instead of allowing it to climb all over the seats and get defensive and stressed every time anyone strays near. NEVER EVER LEAVE A DOG IN A VEHICLE DURING WARM OR HOT WEATHER! If you are also in the car when parked when the dog barks at passers-by, you could use some classical conditioning (Pavlov’s dog style) and present the dog with a food tit-bit every time it spots a person or other dog. This way, a positive association is made with passing people and dogs, and the dog no longer feels the need to warn them away.

Q. If your dog is barking in the garden, is it because of noise from neighbouring properties or in response to other dogs barking (alarm-alert barking)?

A. Working on your dog’s recall is important, also the ‘QUIET’ command. To teach the ‘QUIET’ command, first you must allow the dog to bark. When there is a natural pause in the barking, with the dog facing you, say it’s name to get it to look at you and then say ‘QUIET’ whilst giving some kind of hand signal – either a finger against your lips or crossing and un-crossing your hands in front of you (like you were doing a chest-expansion type exercise). For the dog to understand what ‘QUIET’ means, it has to be making no noise. Eventually, you will be able to use the ‘QUIET’ command when your dog is barking, as a cut-off cue. It’s a good idea to spend time outside in the garden with your dog, playing and training with him. This will help to integrate many of the every day sounds that cause the dog to alarm-alert bark into his normal garden environment, making him more relaxed outside and less likely to bark.

Q. If your dog is barking in the garden, is it in response to people and dogs passing by the fence or gate (warning barking)?

A. If the barking only occurs at certain times of the day, e.g. if your garden is next to a school route, restrict the dog’s access to the garden during those times. If your fence or gate is open-style (e.g. picket-style or chain-link) consider adding a screen (e.g. willow, bamboo) to obscure the dog’s view. Work on your dog’s recall. Use classical conditioning with food tit-bits to change the dog’s association with dogs and people who pass by. If the problem is extreme (bearing in mind that the barking is reflective of territorial activity) please enlist the help of a reputable dog behaviour psychologist who can provide you with a suitable desensitisation/counter-conditioning plan.

Q. If your dog is barking at you when you are trying to sit and watch the TV of an evening, is it because you are not providing her with enough attention, comfort or stimulation (command bark)?

A. Set your programme to record and take 15 minutes to do some training with her or have a game with her. Let her up on the sofa for a snuggle, or if you are a ‘no dogs on furniture’ type, make sure that she has a comfy bed that you can place on the floor next to your sofa. Provide her with an activity or chew-type toy.

Q. If your dog is barking at you, is it because he needs you help (command bark) – perhaps he needs you to open the door so he can go pee, it’s past his teatime or his water bowl is empty, or his toy is stuck under the sofa?

A. Ensure that all his basic needs are taken care of. Don’t be late with his supper, make sure that his water bowl is always full, make sure that he gets out to pee once in a while, look under furniture for lost toys!

Q. Is your dog barking when someone rings the doorbell (alarm-alert bark)?

A. Some alarm-alert barking when the doorbell rings is normal. If the dog continues on and reaches an excessive level, teach the dog the ‘QUIET’ command.

Q. Is your dog barking when unfamiliar people or dogs get too close when out on a walk (warning bark)?

A. The close proximity of strangers and dogs are causing your dog to become defensive. There are many potential causes for defensive barking – it may have its route in your dog being possessive of you, a lack of socialisation, a past experience that frightened the dog, or simply that the dog is unconfident about having its personal space invaded by strangers. If your dog only barks at strangers and other dogs when it is on-lead, the fact that it cannot move away (because its movement is restricted by the lead) will amplify its defensive reaction (just as warning barking is a defensive tactic, so is running away). Defensive behaviour on-lead is a stress reaction, and probably the problem that I deal with most, often after various techniques and methods to resolve the behaviour have been tried by the dog’s owner and proved to be unsuccessful. If your dog is showing defensive behaviour towards unfamiliar people and dogs when out on a walk, please enlist the help of a reputable dog behaviour psychologist who can provide you with a suitable desensitisation and counter-conditioning plan.

Q. Is your dog’s barking a displacement behaviour for frustration, excitement or boredom, e.g. if you stop and chat to someone for too long out on a walk (command/displacement-compulsive bark)?

A. If the trigger for the stress can be removed, remove it (problem solved). If the trigger cannot be removed, changing the association with the trigger to a positive one is one approach. Providing the dog with an alternative behaviour is another approach, as is instructing the dog to do something else, e.g. ‘SIT’, ‘DOWN’, ‘WATCH ME’. Teaching the dog the ‘QUIET’ command. Teaching the dog tolerance and impulse control can also be helpful. I came across a case of a Beagle some years ago now that became excited and then cataleptic when presented with its food, and used the displacement-compulsive bark to prevent itself from collapsing while it ate. Sometimes this type of barking is a solution in itself and in this particular case, necessary for the dog to survive (if it didn’t bark, it didn’t eat). For displacement-compulsive barking problems, I recommend enlisting the help of a reputable dog behaviour psychologist.

Q. Is your dog’s barking a displacement behaviour for anxiety, e.g. if you tether and leave him outside a shop (need/displacement-compulsive)? (Not that you should be leaving your dog outside of a shop in any case, many dogs get stolen from outside of shops.)

A. As with the command/displacement-compulsive bark, if the trigger for the stress can be removed, remove it (problem solved). If the trigger cannot be removed, changing the association with the trigger to a positive one is one approach. Providing the dog with an alternative behaviour is another approach, as is instructing the dog to do something else, e.g. ‘SIT’, ‘DOWN’, ‘WATCH ME’, ‘STAY’. Teaching the dog the ‘QUIET’ command. Brushing up on your leadership skills to increase the dog’s confidence (therefore reducing anxiety). Several years ago I assisted a colleague with a seemingly odd and inconsistent case of a Golden retriever who barked compulsively when left outside a particular shop, but not every time. I eventually worked out that the cause for the dog’s barking was a rotary sign further along the pavement that spun in windy weather. When it wasn’t windy and the sign wasn’t spinning, the dog didn’t bark. The solution was simple – on windy days, she left the dog at home. For displacement-compulsive barking problems, I recommend enlisting the help of a reputable dog behaviour psychologist.

Q. Is your dog barking at the vacuum cleaner (warning bark)?

A. This is a common reason for barking. From the dog’s point of view, the vacuum cleaner is an animate and noisy creature that you appear to wrestle with every time you unleash it from its cupboard. Dogs who tend towards noise sensitivity often display fearful or defensive behaviour towards the sound of an electric motor. Changing the dog’s association with the vacuum cleaner is the best way forward. In the short term, ensuring that the dog is not in the same room as you are vacuuming and can engage in a rewarding distraction (e.g. a food-filled Kong) will usually stop him barking. For some dogs, this is enough for them to make a positive association with the vacuum cleaner and no further action is needed. For others, a suitable step-by-step desensitisation and counter-conditioning plan is required.

If you have tried and failed to remedy vacuum cleaner barking, please enlist the help of a reputable dog behaviour psychologist because it is an issue that is resolvable with the right approach and training.

Q. Is your dog barking during the night?

A. If he needs to pee or poop, he is probably command barking, although there may be a desperation about his tone. You must get up and let him outside to relieve himself. If this becomes a regular occurrence, it may be that he has a UTI or GI infection, that he is drinking a lot of water late in the evening, that he is being fed too much, or that his food is creating a lot of waste (some grain and cereal based foods produce a monumental amount of poop). Getting him checked by the vet, adjusting or changing his food and/or mealtimes, ensuring that he drinking sufficiently during the day and restricting his water intake after 9pm, giving him ample opportunity to pee and poop last thing before bedtime (e.g. give him the opportunity to pee/poop at about 6pm, but don’t keep letting him outside during the evening. Let him outside again at 11pm), are all possible solutions to the need to pee or poop during the night.

Another cause for a dog to bark during the night is because of a separation issue (need bark). For some dogs it doesn’t take much to trigger separation barking – a fright during the night, a stay in kennels whilst the owner is on holiday, a major change in the social set-up of the household (e.g. a spouse or grown-up child moving out), a change in owner working hours, or moving house. Many rescue dogs will separation bark until they are fully settled into their new home, as will puppies. It is really important to realise that just because a dog is need-barking, it does not mean that it is being ‘needy’ or ‘attention-seeking’ – if you were suddenly taken from all that was previously familiar and safe to you and put into a new place with strangers of a different species and then left to fend for yourself in an unfamiliar, dark room overnight, I expect that you would feel pretty lonely and bewildered too. What you would be needing right then is friendly company. I do not advocate ignoring a need-barking dog. Ignoring barking in any case is often ineffective as a resolution. What I suggest for the need-barking dog is to remove it from its nightly isolation, either by way of the owner ‘camping’ downstairs for a week or so until the dog feels safe and secure in its surroundings and then leaving the dog with a once-worn item of the owner’s clothing at night for a couple of weeks, or having the dog sleep in or near the bedroom. The vast majority of dogs and puppies adjust to their new home given time – quite quickly too when an owner is empathetic to their social needs – and having them sleep near you absolutely does not create a separation problem later down the line, so long as you work on your bond with the dog in other areas (leadership) to keep it balanced, and ensure that the dog can on the whole predict what is going to happen in its everyday life and when it is to be left alone for periods during the day (routine, rituals, consistency).

Whatever the reason for a dog’s barking to become excessive or out of control, the barking is merely an expression of the dog’s state of mind. Excessive barking is a symptom of an underlying problem, not the problem itself. Punishing a dog for barking does not have the dog’s psychological welfare at heart. The solution lies in the answer to why the dog is barking, and as any dog will tell you, it’s important to bark up the right tree.

Please note that training methods and techniques employed incorrectly may make a dog's behaviour worse. If your dog is not responding favourably to your training efforts, please seek advice and guidance from a reputable canine professional.

Birthday Beau

2011-08-12T19:34:00.004+01:00

Usually with rescue dogs it's complete guesswork as to how old they might be. 'Gotcha Days' replace birthdays to mark the dog's adoption date, and how long dog and owner have been together.

We rehomed Beau privately from a local family who had had him since a pup so his birthday and age was known, and although he does have a 'Gotcha Day' (29th September 2009), I choose to mark his birthday instead. And by chance, me and Tilly did meet him as a pup when co-hosting a puppy party at our local vets ~ not that I suppose he remembers this!

So Happy 3rd Birthday beautiful Beau ... enjoy your cake!

Castration ~ Effects on male dog health and behaviour

2011-08-04T17:57:00.025+01:00

Owners of entire or ‘intact’ male dogs that exhibit any number of behaviour problems are frequently told by dog-owning friends, dog trainers, breeders and vets to have their dogs castrated. Castration is the removal of the testicles (testes), rendering reproduction impossible. Neutering is also a term commonly used for the castration of male dogs.

Castration is considered to be a routine surgery, but the procedure is not without risk. As with other surgeries, there is the risk of reaction to anaesthesia, excessive bleeding, bruising and infection. Occasionally I hear the sad story of an unfortunate dog who, unbeknown to his owners and vet prior to castration surgery, had a blood-clotting disorder and died as a result of the procedure. On the whole though, for healthy dogs, the prognosis of castration surgery itself is very good, however, medically, castration has only a handful of plus-points. Removal of the testes eliminates the very small risk (<1%) of death from testicular cancer, and reduces the risk of perianal fissures and non-cancerous prostate disorders. That’s it – no other known health benefits.

On the medical, negative side, castration carries a number of heath risks. More and more vets and dog trainers are recommending that male dogs, regardless of whether a behaviour or health related problem actually exists, are castrated at around 6 months of age. This in itself carries a serious risk to long-term health because if removal of the testes is done before 1 year of age, this significantly increases the risk of osteosarcoma (bone cancer) – a common cancer in medium-large breed dogs with a poor prognosis. Regardless of the age at which castration is carried out, removal of the testes quadruples the small risk (<0.6%) of prostate cancer, triples the risk of hypothyroidism (under-active thyroid function) and obesity, doubles the small risk (<1%) of urinary tract cancers, increases the risk of cardiac haemangiosarcoma (cancer of the heart) by a factor of 1.6, and increases the risk of orthopaedic (bone) disorders, adverse reactions to vaccinations, and progressive geriatric cognitive impairment (senility).

So, with the number of health cons associated with castration (including the actual surgery risks) far outweighing and exceeding the health pros, castration as a preventative for future health problems is a highly questionable practice, particularly so for immature male dogs. Obviously if a dog actually has a testes-related medical problem, castration may be the best option, but it shouldn’t be viewed as some kind of preventative ‘cure all’ for otherwise healthy dogs, because it’s not.

The testes themselves are glands, and part of the endocrine system. The endocrine system is a collection of glands and organs situated throughout the body that produce and secrete various hormones. The secreted hormones are carried in the bloodstream to target organs and cells, where they exert an effect of some kind. Some hormones affect and regulate just a single organ, while others affect many cells throughout the body. Broadly speaking, hormones regulate cell metabolism, change or maintain enzyme activity in receptor cells, and control growth, development, metabolic rate, sexual rhythms and reproduction. So by using hormones as chemical messengers, the endocrine system regulates numerous bodily functions.

A dog’s testicles perform two major functions – the production of sperm, and the production of the hormone, testosterone. The role of sperm is clear to all who know how puppies are made, but the role of testosterone is less so, and often misunderstood too.

For a male dog, the story of testosterone starts in the womb when his brain is organised by a surge of testosterone just prior to and after birth. This neural organisation becomes most evident at puberty, when at between 6 and 8 months another surge of testosterone occurs. Under the influence of this surge, the dog starts to ‘fill-out’ as his muscles develop and define, and the emergence of ‘sexually dimorphic’ behaviours associated with maleness are seen. Sexually dimorphic behaviours are urine marking, roaming and inter-male aggression due to the scents/appearances of in-season bitches, and actual mating. The appearance and expression of the these behaviours is variable, with maternal stress appearing to influence foetal changes associated with androgenisation – how ‘male’ a male dog may turn out to be.

Testosterone and its metabolites interact with various neuropeptides. In terms of the expression of male characteristics, it’s testosterone’s interaction with another hormone, arginine vasopressin – AVP for short – that is most important. Like the male behaviours mentioned above, the production of AVP is also sexually dimorphic, with male animals producing more AVP than female animals. In the presence of testosterone, AVP is the driver for urine marking and inter-male aggression – behaviour that is aimed at repelling or removing sexual competition – whereas testosterone is the driver for roaming and for mating.

On the behaviour side, castration only affects sexually dimorphic behaviours, so to recap, that’s urine marking, roaming and inter-male aggression due to the scents/appearances of in-season bitches, and actual mating.

Castration does not directly affect mounting, humping or pelvic thrusting behaviour, which can continue excessively and at pre-castration levels indefinitely.

Mating aside, which can actually take up to 2.5 years to cease, castration is most effective in decreasing roaming behaviour, which rapidly declines in 44% of dogs and gradually declines in another 50%. Urine marking rapidly declines in 30% of dogs and gradually declines in another 20%.

Inter-male aggression rapidly declines in 38% of dogs and gradually declines in another 25%. So for 37% of dogs, castration has no beneficial effect on inter-male aggression at all, and in a (as yet undefined) percentage of those dogs, the incidences of inter-male and other types of aggression (e.g. territorial, defensive, possessive) can either increase, or in some dogs can appear out of the blue, where prior to castration the dog showed no aggression at all. This is because when the production of testosterone is interfered with, if this also coincides with or causes an individual dog's HPA circuit chemistry to change and emotional tolerance thresholds to become lowered for whatever reason – this could be due to naturally high levels of AVP, low levels of serotonin (there is a close interaction between AVP, testosterone and serotonin in the regulation of agonistic behaviour), stress, pre-frontal deficits, temperament type, reactive coping style (as opposed to adaptive coping style), etc – the regulating effect on the hypothalamus – the aggression 'centre' of the brain – is lost, and this can give rise to all manner of defensive and threat behaviour such as dog-dog aggression regardless of the sex or sexual status of other dogs, territorial aggression, extra-familial aggression and resource guarding.

For the 63% of dogs for whom castration does work to decrease inter-male aggression, perhaps either the removal of testosterone doesn’t adversely disrupt the rest of the dog’s individual brain chemistry, or naturally low AVP and/or high serotonin levels are present. For these dogs, the effect on AVP-driven inter-male aggression is very direct – any AVP in that part of the brain simply becomes ‘inactive’ in the absence of testosterone.

Will castration stop my dog from escaping from the garden or running off? If the reason for escaping or running off is the scent of an in-season bitch, there is a 94% overall chance that these behaviours will decrease as a result of castration. If your dog is escaping because he is bored, because he is seeking stimulation, because your property fencing has dog-sized holes in it, because he is running off after other dogs because he wants to play, because he is chasing wild-life, because you have not trained him well enough in recall, then no, castration is not the answer. The solution lies in increasing your dog’s exercise, enriching his environment, giving him more of your attention so that he has no requirement to seek stimulation elsewhere, mending or raising your fences, and training and proofing his recall. Although castration for roaming behaviour has a high success rate, the removal of testosterone may give rise to other behaviour issues (see Will castration stop my dog from being aggressive towards other dogs?).

Will castration stop my dog from peeing every 5 seconds when we’re out for a walk? If the reason for your dog’s peeing up every blade of grass is because he is trying to repel sexual competition, there is a 50% overall chance that this behaviour will decrease as a result of castration. If your dog is constantly marking because he is stressed, anxious, insecure, has a UTI or prostate infection, or because it’s a habit, then no, castration is not the answer. The solution lies in getting your dog less stressed on a walk, working to keep his attention on you, taking him to the vet to check for health problems, or walking him on the other side of you or further away from the urine marks of other dogs that are constantly coming into his path on lampposts, trees, walls and bushes.

Will castration stop my dog from peeing inside the house? Again, if the reason for your dog’s marking behaviour is because he is trying to repel sexual competition, there is a 50% overall chance that this behaviour will decrease as a result of castration. Contributing factors to repellent urine marking could include owning other male dogs, having other dogs regularly visit your home, or the presence of in-season bitches in your local area. If your dog is marking objects inside the house because he is stressed, anxious, insecure, has a UTI or prostate infection, because it’s a habit, because he is territory marking, because he is not fully house-trained, because you are not scrupulous in your cleaning, then no, castration is not the answer. The solution lies in getting your dog less stressed at home, increasing his trust in you, taking him to the vet to check for health problems, maybe limiting his access to certain objects and areas, going back to basics with house-training, and cleaning up properly. Even for a persistent, repellent urine-marking problem, proper cleaning in itself can solve this if every last trace of urine is removed, so scrupulous cleaning using an enzyme-based cleaner should always be the first approach (along with checking for health problems).

Will castration stop my dog humping? Although humping behaviour is liberated from the sexual system, it is not sexually dimorphic or driven by testosterone. Some owners do report a reduction in their dogs’ humping after castration, but this is probably because the removal of testosterone lowers the dog’s sensitivity and excitement to the sexy smells of bitches and so the associated energy and frustration that being unable to fulfil his urge to mate is also removed. Increasing a dog’s exercise, not allowing him access to humping ‘accessories’ such as cushions, and if his humping is compulsive or triggered by social change or stress, providing an alternative activity (e.g. a stuffed Kong), can all help to reduce and often eliminate humping behaviour.

Will castration stop my dog from being aggressive towards other dogs?
If the reason for your dog’s aggression is to remove sexual competition, there is a 63% overall chance that this behaviour will decrease as a result of castration. If your dog’s aggression towards other dogs is indiscriminate (includes neutered males and entire and spayed females), is towards people (familiar or unfamiliar), other animals, occurs when touched, disturbed, displaced or punished, or is defensive, unpredictable or possessive in nature (toys, food, you, etc) then no, castration is not the answer. Aggression problems of any kind are often complex and should always be evaluated properly by someone with a sound knowledge of aggressive behaviour before a decision as drastic as putting a dog under the surgical knife is made. Bearing in mind that it’s AVP along with other factors such as environment, genetics, and other neurohormone activity (e.g. MAOA) in different parts of the brain, not testosterone, that drives aggression, castrating any dog, regardless of whether or not it shows inter-male aggression, can give rise to or increase aggressive behaviour in other areas.

If your dog is displaying inter-male aggression, before you decide to get him castrated, consider giving serotonin therapy a try. Serotonin therapy is only really effective if a dog is entire, as the therapeutic benefits of serotonergic agents for the treatment of inter-male aggression and fighting appear to be facilitated by the presence of circulating testosterone. There is a close interaction between AVP, testosterone and serotonin in the regulation of agonistic behaviour. Providing moderate, daily exercise (e.g. 30-40 minutes of brisk lead walking per day) increases serotonergic activity in the brain, and increasing your dog’s dietary levels of serotonin’s protein amino-acid precursor, tryptophan, either via supplementation (e.g. Canovel Calmdown) or food, can help enormously (see my Mood Food article).

The effectiveness of increasing dietary tryptophan depends on whether the dog is able to process the tryptophan properly, and how many free serotonin receptors are normally available and their whereabouts within the brain, so if a change isn’t seen within a couple of months, consider the drug therapy option. In particular, the SSRI drug, fluoxitine, inhibits gender-related aggression by antagonising the action of AVP in the hypothalamus via serotonin receptors. With regards to serotonin drug therapy, your vet will need to be willing to give this a try and, because fluoxitine is not a veterinary 'first choice’ SSRI drug in the UK, before being prescribed fluoxitine your dog may have to take a course of another SSRI drug such as Clomicalm, which will probably make his behaviour worse, simply because it does not provide the same chemical action within the brain as fluoxitine.

Interestingly, a 2004 experiment into AVP in humans saw test subjects given a nasal dose of AVP and when shown pictures of neutral facial expressions, show a significant change in the activity of the corrugator muscle in the brow (which is involved in the expression of anger) suggesting that AVP mediates an aggressive bias in response to neutral and ambiguous facial expressions – no reason why this couldn't be the same for dogs with high AVP, particularly those who show impulsive-type aggression towards other dogs who are seemingly 'minding their own business'.

Basically, changing brain chemistry changes behaviour – it's just a question of hitting on the correct balance and delivery. If AVP can be suppressed, aggressive behaviour will dramatically decrease, and I'm sure that every year, there are many dogs with seemingly unsolvable aggression problems that are put to sleep unnecessarily because of a lack of this kind of knowledge.

So in conclusion, please think long and hard before getting your dog castrated. Consider the health risks. Consider the behavioural implications. If your dog is just generally a bit growly, hyper or distracted, ramp up your training efforts, increase or change his exercise, alter his diet, and make sure that you are channelling his energy constructively and appropriately.

Testosterone gets blamed for far too much ‘bad’ behaviour, when in fact its effects are extremely specific. Really, the only viable reason for castration is to cure an existing, testes-related medical condition, and for persistent, adult roamers – the ones who could escape from Fort Knox in the blink of an eye or who constantly seek out in-season bitches on walks – it may be the best option all round, taking into account the risks of a loose dog getting injured or killed, or causing an accident – of the traffic, and the making of puppies kind.

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Stats and figures sourced from:

Canine Behaviour: A Guide for Veterinarians by Bonnie V. Beaver, MS, DVM, Dipl ACVB
http://www.naiaonline.org/pdfs/LongTermHealthEffectsOfSpayNeuterInDogs.pdf

What lies beneath ~ DNA breed testing for mixed breed dogs

2011-08-03T21:14:00.008+01:00

If you own a ‘Heinz’ or a ‘Bitsa’ of unknown ancestry, I expect that like me you’ve spent many hours wondering what breeds your dog is made of. Tilly was described as a Labrador-cross by LRRSE who rescued her from Ireland. As she’s entirely black, this was an obvious assumption.

Tilly, a couple of months after I adopted her 3 years ago.

Certain aspects of her behaviour are good indicators that the ‘cross’ part of her make-up is largely terrier, but for some time now, the Labrador part I have had my doubts about.

I did a communication for a client dog earlier this year. He looks exactly like a black Labrador, however, the first thing that he said to me in a rather insistent tone was, “Everybody thinks that I’m a Labrador, but I’m not.” This is precisely the kind of information that requires me to put aside any preconceptions that I may hold about an animal, trust that what the animal is telling me is true, and faithfully relay the information to the animal’s owner no matter how inaccurate it may seem at face-value and regardless of how rubbish an Animal Communicator the owner might think I am. On learning that her dog had told me that he wasn’t a Labrador, she got him DNA breed tested. The result was that he has zero Labrador in his make-up. What a result for Animal Communication too!

For a couple of months, I considered whether or not to get Tilly DNA breed tested. The test from Wisdom Panel http://www.wisdompanel.co.uk/ isn’t cheap at £59.99, but eventually, curiosity got the better of me. I bought the cheek swab kit, and following the instructions to the letter collected the required cheek cell samples from a rather bemused Tilly before her breakfast one morning, and then sent the swabs off to the lab to be tested. That was three weeks ago, and today, I got the results!

Tilly is ½ Jack Russell Terrier, ¼ Collie, and ¼ - who knows - but definitely not Labrador. For the 'mix' part, Wisdom Panel identified the 5 next best breed matches that appeared in the analysis of Tilly's DNA, with one or more of these breeds being possible contributors to the genetic make-up of her mixed breed ancestors. Listed by the relative strength of each result those breeds are Border terrier, Lakeland terrier, Soft Coated Wheaten terrier, Dogue de Bordeaux and Dandy Dinmont terrier.

So for all those times that I shook my head and said that I wouldn’t choose to own the potential double-trouble-ness of a collie X terrier, I take it all back. I wouldn’t be without my little collie X terrier for the world ...

How do I stop my dog from ...

2011-07-23T11:27:00.005+01:00

Training a dog to stop an undesirable behaviour can be hard work and time-consuming, particularly so for behaviours that are enjoyable, are well-established habits, or are stress reactions. I uphold the view that a dog’s home, including the garden, yard and car, should be the ultimate haven – a safe environment that holds no nasty surprises or areas of tension between dog and owner – and as such, the use of aversive training tools and techniques to stop undesirable behaviours in the home is not something that I subscribe to. However, many unacceptable or potentially dangerous behaviours can be easily resolved via a bit of management on our part – not with training tools or techniques, but simply by preventing the dog from doing the behaviour in the first place. Preventing unacceptable, habitual behaviours also plays a vital part in the training of alternative behaviours, if indeed an alternative behaviour needs to be trained. But sometimes, there is no need to train an alternative behaviour. Sometimes, all that is required is to go with the obvious solution and leave it at that, provided of course that the dog is clearly having its needs met in other areas. The obvious solution is not a cop out, and more often than not comes with a 100% guarantee of immediate success!

The following are my top 10, genuine questions from clients that I get asked on a regular basis, along with my answers ...

Q. How do I stop my dog from drinking out of the toilet?

A. Close the toilet lid.

Q. How do I stop my dog from getting on my bed when I’m not at home?

A. Shut the bedroom door.

Q. How do I stop my dog from raiding the kitchen garbage bin when I’m not at home?

A. Move the bin into another room or a cupboard that the dog cannot get into, or outside.

Q. How do I stop my dog from chewing up my stuff?
A. Don't leave your stuff within reach of your dog's teeth.

Q. How do I stop my dog from barking at dogs/people/traffic when travelling in the car?

A. Restrict its view by using black-out blinds at the windows, or cover its crate with a blanket.

Q. How do I stop my dog from pilfering food from the kitchen counter?

A. Don’t leave food unattended there.

Q. How do I stop my dog from shredding the mail?

A. Fit a letterbox mail basket.

Q. How do I stop my dog from stealing my dirty underwear?

A. Don’t leave dirty underwear lying around – pick it up and put it in the laundry basket or washing machine.

Q. How do I stop my dog from attacking the vacuum cleaner?
A. Shut the dog out of the room that you are vacuuming.

Q. How do I stop my dog from jumping the fence?

A. Move or prevent access to anything near the fence on which the dog is gaining a leg-up. If the fence is low, raise the height. If the fence is already high (6ft) fit a roller bar to the top. The picture (above right) shows a US made fence-top roller bar, but for wooden fences, a simple roller bar could be made using straight lengths of plumbing pipe and wardrobe hanging-rail and wall fittings. However, if your dog is jumping over a 6ft fence you have a very determined escape artist on your hands, and in which case, another obvious solution is to not leave the dog unattended outside, or to use a suitable tether.

All of these solutions fall under the banner of ‘environmental modification’ – making alterations to the dog’s everyday environment in order to change behaviour. Some clients say to me “But how will he learn not to do it?” The answer is as obvious as the solution – he doesn’t need to learn not to do it if ‘it’ isn’t there to tempt him. Of course, the dog can still be taught the ‘LEAVE’ command for use around food or objects that aren’t his, or the ‘QUIET’ command to bring his barking under control, or be desensitised to the vacuum cleaner – or at least be provided with some degree of positive association with vacuuming, e.g. a stuffed Kong to chew on in another room – but there’s just no need to expend a ton of negatively charged energy trying to stop him from drinking out of the toilet bowl when there is such a simple and obvious solution. And leaving you with that thought, I close the lid on this post.

Mood Food

2011-07-12T22:26:00.012+01:00

The right nutrition can play an important role in helping to resolve certain behaviour issues. On the outside, even a dog fed on the lowest quality ‘complete’ dry food can look the picture of good physical heath, but a cold wet nose and glossy coat aren’t necessarily indicators of good mental health. Very often, problems such as fear, aggression, compulsive behaviour and separation distress can all be improved through changing or adding something to the diet.

Using food to influence mood can speed up and enhance the training process too – think about it, if the brain’s neuro-chemistry is out of whack, what chance does training alone stand to change behaviour for the better? Like the body, the brain needs the correct nutrition in order to function well.

PROTEINS

Tryptophan. Tryptophan is the dietary, protein amino-acid pre-cursor to the neurotransmitter serotonin, commonly known as the ‘mood-enhancing hormone’. Serotonin and another brain hormone, dopamine, work in balance in the brain, but are often out of balance in all of us to some extent. Whereas dopamine is the ‘excitatory’ neurotransmitter responsible for desire and addiction (and strangely, also aversion), serotonin is the mood enhancing, emotion balancing neurotransmitter.

Compulsive behaviour, anxiety and aggression are common symptoms of low serotonin. Excitability and impulsive behaviour are common symptoms of high dopamine. Increasing serotonin levels in the brain has a positive effect on mood, counters the effects of high dopamine, and stabilises emotional response. Serotonin is also important for the control of sleep cycles and in the neurochemistry of stress.

Dietary sources of tryptophan include lamb and turkey. Feeding a diet high in lamb or turkey will therefore provide a high level of dietary tryptophan.

Tryptophan is a valuable dietary addition for dogs with compulsive behaviour (including acral lick granuloma), anxiety, aggression, excitability or impulse control issues, and separation distress syndrome (see below).

Casein. The digestion of casein, a phosphoprotein found in milk products, produces peptides called casomorphins. Casomorphins release naturally occurring opioids that are absorbed into the bloodstream and have a relaxing, mildly sedative effect.

Milk powder and cottage cheese in particular contain high levels of casein. For baby mammals, mother’s milk is naturally high in casein with the percentage depending on species and time of lactation – mid-lactation, casein accounts for around 85% of the proteins in cows milk, 75% of the proteins in canine milk, and 50% of the proteins in human milk.

Casein is a useful dietary addition for dogs with fear and anxiety issues. Dogs with separation-distress-syndrome (SDS) often have a decreased availability of naturally occurring opioids and serotonin. Opioids help to reduce separation-distress behaviours associated with care-seeking, particularly distress vocalizations (e.g. barking, whining).

FATS

Essential Fatty Acids. Essential fatty acids or ‘EFAs’, commonly known as the omega oils, are necessary for healthy brain and nervous system function. The best source of the EFAs EPA and DHA (omega 3), and GLA (omega 6) and the non-essential fatty acid OA (omega 9) is oily fish.

Although commercial pet food manufacturers are not legally required to include EFAs in dog food, many are now doing so as the benefits of EFAs are becoming common knowledge, however, in pet food manufactured using high temperatures and extrusion, the inclusion of EFAs boils down to a superficial selling factor, because excessive heat and processing denatures or destroys EFAs.

Because the body cannot make EFAs from other fats, EFAs are an important dietary addition for all dogs.

Including into the diet a portion of oily fish such as sardine, mackerel, herring or pilchard a couple of times a week can help maintain a good level of EFAs.

If using a fish oil supplement, ensure that it is ‘EPA’ fish oil, not cod liver oil. EPA fish oil comes from the body of the fish and is not the same as cod liver oil, which, if given regularly or excessively, can cause a toxic excess of vitamins A, E and D.

Olive oil. Olive oil is a rich source of oleic acid (OA), the nutritional precursor of oleamide, a psychoactive lipid. Oleamide appears to play a significant role in sleep induction and the modulation of serotonergic neurotransmission.

Olive oil can be a useful dietary addition for dogs with fear and anxiety issues, including separation distress.

The olive oil must be ‘cold-pressed’, usually indicated on the bottle by the statement ‘manufactured by mechanical means’. As with excessive heat in pet food production, this is because processing olive oil with heat destroys much of its beneficial properties.

CARBOHYDRATES

The body converts carbohydrate into glucose. The digestion of glucose, as well as providing energy in the form of calories, invokes an insulin release, and when carbohydrates are fed alongside a high-quality protein source that is rich in naturally occurring tryptophan (lamb, turkey) this helps to give the tryptophan a ‘priority pass’ to the brain. The insulin does this by binding up some of the other protein amino-acids in the blood stream making more blood-brain transport molecules available on which the circulating tryptophan can hitch a ride.

Simple carbohydrate sources such as those found in sweet potato, butternut squash, berries, fruits (not red or white grapes, raisins or sultanas – these are all toxic to dogs) and raw honey are useful additions for dogs requiring a diet high in tryptophan.

As well as glucose for energy, vegetables, fruits and berries provide a valuable source of various vitamins, anti-oxidants, minerals and trace elements.

Complex carbohydrates (cereals and grains) on the other hand can contribute to excessive energy levels resulting in hyperactive and stimulation seeking behaviour. This could be due to the diet consisting of large quantities of complex carbohydrates (not biologically appropriate for dogs), a complex carbohydrate source that has a particularly high calorific value (e.g. oats), or a complex carbohydrate source that causes an allergy or intolerance (e.g. wheat, maize or soya). A diet high in complex carbohydrates can also lead to unhealthy weight-gain and diabetes.

VITAMINS

Vitamins are either fat-soluble or water-soluble. Water-soluble vitamins are not stored in the body and need to be replaced regularly. The vitamins that have the most influence on behaviour are the B-complex group of vitamins.

The B-complex group of vitamins are water-soluble and as well as playing an important role in cell metabolism, B vitamins are implicated in emotional and mental well-being. B vitamins are found in varying levels and quantities in meat, however, because B vitamins are heat sensitive, they are largely destroyed by food manufacturing processes that use high temperatures and extrusion.

Vitamin B1 (thiamine). Vitamin B1 helps to maintain the peripheral nervous system. Vitamins B1 deficiency can give rise to restlessness and irritability.

Vitamin B3 (niacin). Amongst other things, Vitamin B3 is needed in the manufacture of stress-hormones. Vitamin B3 deficiency can give rise to fear, depression and impaired cognitive function.

Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid). Vitamin B5 helps to support nervous system and brain functions. Vitamin B5 deficiency is implicated in depression,

Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine). Vitamin B6 is needed in the manufacture of serotonin, melatonin and dopamine. Vitamin B6 deficiency can give rise to all manner of psychological disturbances. Vitamin B6 is the most heat sensitive of the B vitamins and is destroyed at a temperature of 85 degrees Centigrade.

Vitamin B12 (cobalamine). Vitamin B12 is vital for nervous system health. Vitamin B12 deficiency can give rise to brain damage and neurological disorders, and can be a causal factor of aggressive behaviour. An insufficient level of B6 will disrupt the absorption of B12, as will the medical condition, pernicious anaemia.

Raw lamb meat provides an excellent source of all B vitamins and manganese (see below).

MINERALS

Minerals and trace elements are important to mental health and emotional stability. The three with the most influence over behaviour are calcium, magnesium and manganese.

Calcium. Depletion of calcium affects the central nervous system, and low levels of calcium cause nervousness and irritability. These days, calcium deficiency is very rare in dogs and for those fed on any ‘complete’ formula there is no need to supplement with extra calcium, however, owners who feed a home-cooked or raw diet that does not include bone need to ensure that calcium is being supplied at a sufficient level.

Magnesium. Magnesium deficiency can result in impaired cognitive function, anxiety, nervousness, and unpredictable behaviour (as well as a variety of physical problems). Stress contributes to magnesium depletion within the body, and an imbalance of gut flora directly affects magnesium absorption. Spinach is a good source of magnesium (and calcium).

Manganese. Manganese is needed for effective utilisation of the B-complex vitamins (see above) and vitamin C, and in the production of the hormone, thyroxin. A low level of thyroxin can cause lethargy and irritable aggression. As with magnesium, intestinal gut flora needs to be balanced for manganese to be absorbed effectively.

CHEWING

Although not food, hard chewing (e.g. of bones or nylon chew toys) invokes an insulin release.

As with the digestion of simple carbohydrates, this insulin release will provide any circulating tryptophan better access to the transport molecules that move protein amino-acids across the blood-brain barrier into the brain.

Feeding raw meaty bones such as lamb ribs as a meal is the ideal way to provide a dog with a healthy dose of chewing.

For dogs fed on kibble and soft diets, providing a nylon chew after meals can work well too, and many kibble-fed dogs have a natural desire to chew after they have eaten.

Ultimately, changing behaviour for the better is all about changing what is going on in the dog's brain - improving mood, emotional response and the ability to learn and retain training - and just as a cold wet nose and glossy coat provide a picture of good physical health, a well-behaved and emotionally balanced dog reflects good mental health. Feed for the brain, as well as for the body!

For better or worse?

2011-05-29T09:23:00.003+01:00

A conversation arose today concerning a man and his small, white terrier-type dog who were staying at a nearby campsite. One lady spoke of how she nearly got her nose bitten whilst stroking the dog, a man told how the dog had bitten the back of his leg as he passed by, and there were various other tales of bites, near bites and launched attacks.

Then someone said about the man, "But he's worked so hard with him, he's so much better now than he was."

Trying to imagine the most ferocious little white terrier I possibly could, I asked, "What on earth was he like before?"

The reply, "Oh really scared and nervous of people, he'd cower with his tail between his legs or run away."

"And so in what way is he better now?" I said.

They got my point.

The moral of the story? If in the process of trying to change a nervous dog's behaviour what you are doing is causing it to become aggressive, you are doing it wrong. Your dog is not getting better, it is getting worse. So stop kidding yourself. Re-evaluate what you are doing. Get professional help before your 'training' causes your dog to bite someone who makes a complaint that results in you having to have your dog PTS. Because it really doesn't have to end like that.

Beau's favourite word is ...

2011-05-24T10:13:00.001+01:00

Raw convenience

2011-05-10T18:19:00.040+01:00

If somone who already feeds a raw-food diet to their dog speaks to you, you’ll likely be bombarded with a whole bunch of benefits and reasons why it’s the ONLY way to feed a dog. You might even be made to feel like a failure for not feeding your dog a raw-food diet, that you’re poisoning him with pouches and toxic, tinned food, killing him with kibble, denying your dog his birthright – that you’re a BAD DOG OWNER who should be TAKEN AWAY AND SHOT or at least NEVER BE ALLOWED TO OWN A DOG EVER AGAIN!

Sound familiar?

Well you’re not alone. I’ve been in that firing line too. Maybe you saw me … I was the one wearing the t-shirt that says “I’m not ignorant, but I do have a meat-phobic vegetarian husband who shakes, pales and vomits at the mere thought of having ‘bits of rotting carcass’ in the house.”

Being confident that I’m providing my dogs with a balanced diet is a huge issue for me. One vital aspect of this balance is the calcium:phosphorus ratio, which for an adult dog needs to be around 1.2:1. This is important because if the ratio is out of balance, it gives rise to a whole host of chronic health problems. The calcium:phosphorus ratio is (allegedly) one of the reasons why commercially produced, ‘complete’ kibble foods came about – back in the day when vets were regularly seeing skeletal abnormalities and renal failure in pet dogs fed on home-made, meat-without-bone diets that were low in calcium and high in phosphorus. You can read about calcium and phosphorus and the importance of the correct calcium:phosphorus ratio here … http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2&aid=652 .

A year or so ago, I came across a company that was making and selling 'veterinary approved', ready-made, raw-food meals for dogs. This, I thought, could be the way to gently persuade (cajole, badger, nag, wear down) David into letting me give raw feeding a go. This food was conveniently minced and packaged, no identifiable bits of dead animal, and no chopping and portioning up, so I mentioned the food to David and then kept quiet about it for a while. Then I mentioned it again, and in time, again, until to my absolute astonishment, he agreed that if we bought a separate freezer for the dogs’ food, I could give it a go.
And so, my mission had suddenly changed from one of husband persuasion, to creating enough space in our miniscule kitchen for a freezer. After a major clearout of the under-stairs cupboard and some very careful and precise measuring up, without the small fridge, there was in fact enough space for a fridge-freezer for our food and a chest freezer for the dogs’ food. And here they are, all squeezed in, along with the vacuum cleaner, dogs’ kibble bin, and a rather large box of dog toys!

What I hadn’t considered up until this point was what an expensive risk I was taking. I’d bought an entire chest freezer just to store raw meat and bone meals for the dogs, not to mention having to buy at least 5kgs of the stuff to meet the minimum order requirement. What if the dogs turned their noses up at it? What if it didn’t agree with them? How would I dispose of 5kgs of frozen, raw dog food without causing a major health hazard? Would my freezer purchase turn out to be a very expensive, top-loading cupboard mistake?

I have heard tales of people deciding to give raw feeding a go and either dogs refusing to eat it, or having some pretty major digestive upsets. But my two had been used to a varied diet with different protein sources, and had had no digestive upsets to date. And I think that this alone probably helped immensely with the switch to raw. We didn’t do a gradual switch either. Our first raw food order arrived on a Friday, and with David away for the whole weekend, the dogs dined exclusively on raw until Monday morning. No upturned noses. No digestive upsets. I was slightly concerned that Beau’s eyes would pop right out of his head though. So all in all, our adventure into raw feeding so far has proven successful. The dogs still get Acana for breakfast to save David’s stomach and sanity in the morning, but they have a raw meal at teatime.

The hardest thing about raw feeding has been training myself to remember to take a tray out of the freezer first thing in the morning so that it’s defrosted in time for tea, although whenever I go to get anything from the under-stairs cupboard these days, the dogs are right behind me, so I get reminded, constantly.

For all the hard-core, raw-food fanatics out there who might be reading this and scoffing at me for taking the ‘ready made’ route, I KNOW that these ‘convenience’ raw meals don’t provide the tooth cleaning benefits of whole, raw meaty bones, but there are other ways of keeping a dog’s teeth clean. And as my dogs eat nothing that contains grain or cereal, their teeth appear to stay clean anyway. And they do get the occasional lamb rib bone as a post-teatime extra. My reason for wanting to feed raw is to provide a natural, whole food diet for my dogs, not to use chomping on bones to keep their teeth clean. And to be honest, even after a month of feeding raw for one meal a day, I haven’t noticed any outward health improvements, although this could be because except for the occasional injury, my dogs have always remained in tip-top health – no digestive upsets, allergies or skin problems, good energy levels, glossy coats, cold wet noses. I don’t use chemical tick, flea or worming products, and in place of vaccinating I use titer testing to check their immunity against the main diseases. I don’t use chemicals to clean my home, I don’t use chemical room scenters, I don’t use fertilisers or poisons in the garden – what I’m saying is that for me, feeding my dogs a raw-food diet is the final piece in the holistic puzzle of long-term health.

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Update, 11th January 2012:

Since writing this article, I have stopped feeding my dogs a raw food diet. Please see this article for further information: "Feeding for health and longevity ~ raw vs. kibble vs. calories"