Does anyone use a leash?

It’s a soapbox day. This time, my issue is with folks who believe the world belongs to their dog.
On beautiful Easter Sunday, my husband and I decided it would be a great celebration of the holiday to take a long hike through a nearby state recreation area.
Although the miles of trails are seemingly out in the middle of nowhere, they get heavy use from bicyclists, hikers, hunters, fishers and more.
We figured that we’d have the trails mostly to ourselves as everyone else gathered around tables to dig into a nice holiday ham.
As we made our way around the 4-mile loop, we came across a bicyclist right away. I always move Sensi out of the pathway for bicyclists — it’s only polite.
The three of us were genuinely enjoying our walk. Sensi’s sniffer was going a 100 miles an hour and Brent and I took in the sights and sounds of a gorgeous spring day in one of Michigan’s beautiful forests.
Let me point out here that even though we figured we’d run into probably no one else, we kept Sensi on a leash.
Brent and I were hunched over, practically to our knees, climbing up one of the trail’s steeper hills. We couldn’t see what was in front of us and so, when a large black lab came charging toward Sensi, it was a total surprise to all of us.
Being a fearful dog, Sensi does not react well to being charged by other dogs. Being a pit bull too, his reaction to fear is not flight, but fight.
The situation got even worse. The single black lab was soon joined by his pack, another black lab and a yellow lab.
I put Brent in charge of holding on to Sensi and began trying to keep the other dogs away from my dog. As I shooed one dog back, the other would come in closer.
Mind you that these weren’t scary dogs. They seemed all together friendly, but that doesn’t change things from my dog’s point of view and I know that. What Sensi saw was his pack being invaded and threatened by three larger dogs — their likely friendliness was not a factor.
The dogs’ owner finally rounded the top of the hill.
“Is he OK?” he asked me about Sensi while I led one of his dogs to him. I expected him to put the dog on a leash, but as I released the lab to him, he simply continued walking.
“No, he’s not OK,” I said back to the guy, flabbergasted. “He’s not friendly.”
I wanted to scream, “Get your dogs away from my dog! What the heck are you thinking?”
The guy just continued walking nonchalantly, as if my dog was the problem. He didn't even call his dogs to him.
Let’s be clear — my dog was on a leash. Had his dogs been on a leash, there would be no problem.
From the looks of it, though, this guy didn’t even have a leash with him.
Three dogs and not a single leash. To me, that’s absurd.
I’m glad that lots of you folks have perfectly balanced, happy go lucky and friendly dogs. That is fantastic for you.
That is not, however, the hand I was dealt. And your perfectly balanced, happy go lucky and friendly dogs like to approach my dog when they are not leashed, causing my fearful dog to quickly pee himself and then go into attack mode.
I do the best I can. I prevented my dog, once again, from biting these offending dogs — dogs that should have been leashed.
Please, when you’re on public property, when you’re supposed to have your dog leashed, please, please leash your dog.

A day late, but still funny

OK, so April Fool’s day was yesterday. That makes me a day late in sharing this story, but it’s funny all the same, so here it goes:
I’m not a very good prankster. This goes hand in hand with how I’m not a very good liar. Generally, when I try to prank someone, the look on my face gives me away and then I just start laughing.
My husband is a great prankster, though, and he’s always coming up with new ways to scare the living daylights out of me.
Well, one year, I had a good idea for April Fool’s day and I wasn’t about to screw it up.
It had been a miserable first few months to kick off the year. We had literally spent thousands of dollars fixing our dog after allergies and bad veterinarians got him all screwed up.
He was on a prescription diet and once a month, I had to stop by the specialist’s office to pick up a new bag.
A week before April 1, I made a special request.
“This is going to sound really strange, but is there any chance I can get a piece of your letterhead?” I asked sweetly. “I want to prank my husband for April Fool’s day. I swear, I won’t use it for anything else.”
Luckily, I must’ve been talking to someone with a good sense of humor. She laughed and handed a piece of their letterhead to me.
Cha-ching! I was so excited about my once-in-a-lifetime prank that I giggled the whole way back to my car.
I pulled out some of the bills we had from the office that numbered in the thousands of dollars and got to work, using words like “Histopathy” and “Biopsy” and then putting dollar figures next to them, coming up with a grand total of about $600. I set up the huge bill, added some late charges for good measure and made it look otherwise identical to previous bills we had from them.
We didn’t live together at the time, so one night while leaving his house, I dropped the bill in his mailbox — stamp and all — and had it mailed to my address.
When I picked up a day later in my own mailbox, it was postmarked and looked official. I was ready to go for April Fool’s day.
When the day arrived, it was up to me to sell the prank. I stormed into his place with the bill in hand.
“Can you believe this?” I yelled. “This place is trying to get more money out of us! This bill is huge — I don’t know how we’re going to pay for this!”
I threw the bill down in front of him and did my best to appear steaming mad while he opened it up and began examining the charges.
Once he began huffing and puffing and muttering, “What the hell?” I knew I had pulled it off.
And so, I let myself begin laughing and the proverbial cat was out of the bag.
It might’ve been short-lived, but it was my prank and years later, I’m still proud of it!

Rescue dogs find jobs, good homes

What a better world this would be if we had more stories like this to tell.
A couple days ago, I was contacted by a local woman who follows this blog and had also seen our article on Saturday story Bed bugs infest apartment complexes.
“I have a dog that finds bed bugs,” she told me.
I’ve seen this before. In fact, in talking with her, I realized we must’ve watched the same show. I think it was that Eaten Alive show on the National Geographic Channel (I am a huge natgeo fan, both the channel and the magazine. Side note here, but did anyone else pick up the March magazine and give Wolf Wars a read? Fantastic information in that).
Anyhow, the show profiled a woman who was being “eaten alive” every night. She’d wake up with bites all over her, but a close inspection of her home never showed any sign of bugs.
Why? It was bed bugs, and they do quite a good job of staying hidden — until you’re fast asleep, of course.
It wasn’t until this woman brought in a dog trained to sniff out bed bugs that she realized exactly what her problem was. The dog immediately went toward some luggage the woman had on the floor from a recent trip and then continued to point and paw in a variety of places all over the home. It was bed bugs, without a doubt.
The woman then contacted a proper bed bug exterminator and voila! Problem solved.
Back to the dog aspect in all of this, though.
We have two dogs, right here in Oakland County, who have specialized training to sniff out bed bugs (read the story I wrote for today's paper). Both dogs came from rescue groups.
Maureen Abbott, the Milford woman who called me about this, uses Addie, a beagle mix. Copper, a retriever and beagle mix, is employed by BioGreen Solutions, a Bloomfield Hills-based company that exterminates the bed bugs.
I can see where beagles would be especially good at this. While all dogs have a nose that’s powerful beyond what we humans can imagine, beagles come from that hound line which has exacerbated the smelling abilities.
Both dogs were selected for training by a Florida institute that specializes in training dogs for such jobs. I think it’s wonderful that there’s a business out there doing this.
There are no similar training institutes in Michigan. Wouldn’t it be great if there were, though?

watch video of Maureen Abbott with Addie, her bed bug sniffing beagle mix, below

Yes to the Urine Finder, no thanks on Urine Off

I suppose this blog must be picking up some steam (thank you, readers!), because I’ve been getting inundated with requests to review products.
Among the first products I agreed to review was a new cleaner called Urine Off.
I agreed to review it for one reason: It is super-important to be using an enzyme cleaner when cleaning up dog and cat messes. If you don’t, the dog or cat will continue to smell its scent in those areas and return to use them again. So, I wanted to find out if Urine Off was indeed an enzyme cleaner, and if it wasn’t, I wanted to make that clear to the public.
I’d have done more research into that topic if the product had actually worked in the first place.
But it didn’t.
My dog doesn’t have potty accidents inside the house anymore, so I couldn’t exactly test this product out myself. However, a coworker of mine was having some issues with her aging cat and suspected the cat had begun urinating in her closet.
When the Urine Off product arrived, it came with a special black light that “is essential to finding all the deposits.” Called the Urine Off Urine Finder, this product is available for $10 on my favorite dog-product Web site, www.jbpet.com.
The finder worked. It found urine stains in my coworker’s closet, in her bedroom and in other parts of the house. She was mortified when she came into work the next day.
“I just feel gross,” she said to me. “I can’t believe this was happening and, except for in the closet, I had no idea.”
She tried to follow the instructions to clean up the mess, but they were a bit complicated. The directions say: “Apply liberally to the deposit ... to wet the carpet, padding and subfloor. Cover with plastic overnight. Using a spot cleaning/extraction machine, rinse and extract the nap.”
My friend was a little flabbergasted at the elaborate instructions. What the heck is a nap, anyhow? She poured on the Urine Off, used a plastic bag to cover the spot and some heavy shoes to try and pin the plastic to the carpet as best she could.
“But, what do they mean by using a spot cleaning/extraction machine?” my friend asked me the next day. “I’m assuming they mean a steam cleaner, but I don’t have one and I can’t rent one every time I need to clean up like this.”
I told her I’d check into it and I did. However, the company never got back with me to clarify the instructions.
Most disappointing, though, was that after several attempts of using the product, putting the plastic on it and letting it soak overnight, the stains never went away. Every time she turned on that black light, the stains were there in their original form.
On the jbpet.com site, the Urine Off products themselves start at $8.99 for the smaller bottles.
My determination on this one? Buy the urine finder for $10 if you really want to know what secrets your carpet holds, but skip on the actual Urine Off cleaning solution.
One last note, it appears the company sells different lines of products — one for dogs, one for cats, etc. I was worried that perhaps I was using a dog product on a cat problem, so before I published this, I checked the bottle to see what I had received and it said “Multi-Pet” and bore the images of both a dog and a cat on its label.
So, my determination will remain the same.

What to use instead
Funnel your funds toward a local company that makes a similar product which has earned the stamp of approval of my favorite dog trainers, Nicole and Brian Herr of Herr Pet Training.
It’s called, Naturally It’s Clean and has a local business branch in Bloomfield Hills. Not only this is a natural product, but it’s also an effective enzyme cleaner.
Nicole said she recommends the carpet cleaner from the product line up because it has the highest concentration of enzymes.

Be wary of citrus smelling cleaners
While I chatted with Nicole Herr, she asked if the Urine Off had a strong citrus smell. It does. Apparently, this smell tends to drive dogs and cats away, so cleaners with a strong citrus smell can give the appearance that the product is working because the animals won’t return to the spot.
However, they’ll probably just move a foot or two away from the citrus scented spot and go potty there. Even worse, if you use a citrus product to clean your cat’s litter box, you run the risk of driving your cat away from its litter box all together, she said.
One last thing I don’t like about Urine Off? There’s no ingredients on the label. Being that I have a very allergic dog, I read the ingredients on all products I bring into my house. For me, no ingredients equals no purchase.

I found it odd that ...
... on the multi-pet Urine Off solution, pictured between the dog and cat were also the images of an iguana and a turtle. Really?
I imagine it could be a problem for some reptile lovers.
Of course, it’s also a problem for some parents potty training their toddlers. And I’m sure it’s a problem at college frat houses where too much beer consumption is the norm.
Perhaps they should’ve stuck a human on there too!

Oh, our canine wildlife!

I just love to hear about and see photos of the local wildlife — especially those who are the “canine cousins” of our beloved house pets, the dog.
After the story and photo ran last week about the fox who decided to curl up on the comfy chair in the yard of an Independence Township couple, I received another e-mail with more great photos of a fox.
Check out these great shots of a little fox hanging out in Waterford Township. I like that I can include all four of these photos in the space.
The first picture, taken through the window of what looks to be a second floor room, really sets the scene. Can you believe the fox got so close to their deck?
In the other pictures, the relaxed fellow certainly appears to be enjoying some early spring sunshine.
Waterford Township resident Karen Pollack, who said she lives off Clintonville Road near Adams Elementary, captured these photos on March 16.
“He/she was very calm and stayed for about a half hour. A neighborhood cat walked by and the fox never bothered it,” wrote Pollock in an email.
Incredible!

Fox in a chair

Yes, it’s a fox in a chair.
A wild fox using a piece of human-made furniture.
He looks comfortable, doesn’t he?
This is, by the way, a local shot sent in to us by a man living in Independence Township. (Thank you Sam!)
I think this goes back to my earlier blog, Our three brains (apparently, science has proved that our brain is actually made up of three smaller brains, one referred to as the reptile brain, the other as the animal brain and the last and largest of them, the human brain).
These photos prove, I believe, that the animal brain must be the one that regulates comfort.
Obviously, it’s a trait we share not just with our dogs, but with wild animals too.
Heck, maybe the comfort monitoring is even done by the reptile brain — those lizards always look comfortable when they’re out tanning themselves in the sun.
Revisit that "Our three brains" blog by clicking here.
Or, read about what Sam Antonazzo — the homeowner who snapped this shot — had to say about the day the fox came to sit in his chair. Click here to read the story.

Local filmmaker focuses on no-kill shelters

A Royal Oak based producer named Thomas Young worked for about a year to produce the documentary “No Pet Left Behind.”
“In November 2008, my family and I adopted a new family member from the Animal Welfare Society and I truly learned about the lack of awareness of the no-kill shelters,” writes Young.
He was motivated to spread awareness, and hence, the idea for the film was born.
“Along with helping to build awareness, a large part of the profitable proceeds from this program will go to help the Animal Welfare Society and, if we can get a good distribution, some of the other shelters involved in the production,” Young wrote.
It’s a good cause and so, of course I agreed to watch the film and blog about it.
I only saw a shortened version of it, but from what I saw, it was definitely an informative piece of work.
My husband and I used to volunteer at the no-kill shelter K-9 Stray Rescue League in Oxford years ago. One visit there makes it clear how badly funding is needed.
Some dogs live out their rest of their lives in these shelters, grateful for two meals a day but starved of the attention that comes from being someone’s pet. The shelters are always full and always seeking fosters so they can take on even more pets.
It’s truly a heart wrenching experience to be there, surrounded by so many souls in need.
At K-9, the dogs who were sick or recently out of surgery stayed inside in cages. The rest of the dogs lived in pens outside. They got food and water checks twice a day, the pens would be cleaned and the dogs usually got some run time in the yard. A volunteer trainer also stopped by on a semi-regular basis to work with some of the dogs who it needed it the most.
It doesn’t sound so bad, and it’s not — remember, these are dogs who would otherwise be dead. K-9, like many no-kill shelters, takes animals only from the kill lists at other shelters, sometimes rescuing them moments before they were scheduled to die.
Even knowing that, the experience still tugs at your heart. No dog should have to live its life in a pen or cage.
So, do your part. Be a foster. Adopt a dog. Better yet, adopt an older dog or a special needs dog — these are the ones who usually do live their lives out at no-kill shelters. Or you could volunteer to clean cages, walk dogs or even just do some laundry.
As for the documentary, Young hopes to get it on television, possibly enter it in some film festivals and in the long run, raise money for no-kill shelters through the sale of DVDs. I hope his hopes pan out, because it is certainly a good cause.

What a turkey!

My dog’s reaction to his first sighting of a male turkey provides valuable insight into how a dog’s brain works.
Every morning between 8 and 10 a.m., a flock of about 15 wild turkey hens travel through my backyard. In the deep snow, they traveled strictly in a single file line across a path worn down the resident deer, who take the same journey through our yard twice a day.
With the snow gone, they spread out quite a bit more — some come up close to the house to peck at the gravel, others wade through moist swampy area also pecking at the ground, but I haven’t the slightest clue as to whether they’re drinking or eating.
I like watching the turkeys. I hadn’t seen them in the wild since I was a child up north at my grandparents’ cabin. Now, I get a great view of their large, awkward selves — the heads bobbing forward with each step and that giant body of theirs teetering on top of tiny little legs and feet.
All throughout the winter, it was the hens and hens alone who traveled the route. At one point, several flocks seemed to merge together and their single file line seemed to go on forever as more than 50 birds would walk through my yard.
Needless to say, Sensi is quite accustomed by now to seeing these birds. He seems to understand they are no threat to him and quite the opposite, he watches them with what I’d call a predatory gaze.
All this time, we had not seen a single Tom (a male turkey).
While driving home one day last week, a Tom crossed the road in front of me. I laughed at the red thing that hangs under its beak, called a Wattle (I think) because it was swinging violently from side to side as the turkey ran its heart out to race across the road.
It was my first sighting of a Tom.
On Monday, I watched the flock of hens cross in my yard and to my surprise, spotted a small Tom in their midst. And then, bringing up the rear of the flock were three other Toms, but these were the big guys. I was shocked at how much larger they were than the hens, their wattles looking nearly as long as my arm.
Sensi and I watched the birds intently, as we always do, and when they reached the top of the hill, one of the Toms spread out its feathers in that historic fashion we all know turkeys for.
Sensi’s eyes went wide, his hackles raised and immediately, he began barking with all the ferocity he could muster.
This, of course, was a reaction caused by the intense fear he experienced when he watched a bird transform from something he was used to seeing to a much larger, alien life form.
He didn’t know what to think.
He had no prior experiences to tell him this is simply something male turkeys do and as a dog, does not have the analytical capacity to assume, "It was a turkey a few seconds ago. Even though it looks completely different now, it must still be a turkey."
What can we gather from this about dogs? A lesson in generalization.
A dog will not know that a turkey can suddenly appear to double in size unless it is exposed to Toms who exhibit this behavior.
Why? Dogs don’t generalize.
What is new and novel is oftentimes alarming until the dog understands it is no threat.
The situation with the turkey can be similar to a variety of situations with humans.
A human dressed in jeans and t-shirt who walks into a room is one thing; the dog has seen this before, knows this person and is not alarmed.
If the same human walks into the room dressed up in a bulky snowsuit with a funky hat and a mask that covers 90 percent of their face, it is not a human at all to the dog who sees him for the first time — nope, it’s an alien life form, new and novel and the dog will tend to be fearful until it becomes clear that this strange, bulky life-form is non-threatening. Even though the human underneath it all is the same, the scent is the same and the voice is the same, the visual is not.
And this is generalization.
It takes a lot for us humans to really grasp what it means to not generalize, because it is something we do so naturally.
Lucky for all my readers, I’ll just keep pounding it into your heads.
Thanks for reading!!

Our three brains

There is so much fantastic information out there about dog behavior and animal behavior in general that I am just continually amazed and dismayed by how well the majority of people avoid it.
A coworker recently lent me a book by Temple Grandin called “Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior.”
I’d love to write a whole book about the incredible Temple Grandin, who has contributed so much to both the worlds of autism and animals. She is an autistic pioneer. I could go on and on, but if you’re interested in learning more, Google her. Buy one of the books, order a copy of the documentary and learn more about this amazing woman.
I’m only a few chapters into this book, but every page I turn seems to be another “ah-ha!” moment for me.
Today, I’ll share my “ah-ha!” moment from this morning. It’s about our three brains.
Yep, I said three brains.
Did you know your brain is actually made up of three smaller brains? You have the frontal lobe, which is the human brain, and then you have an animal brain and also a reptile brain.
The reptile brain is thought to be the earliest form of the brain. It regulates the basic functions of life — breathing, sleeping, etc. The animal brain is second earliest form, which regulates simple emotions and behaviors. Grandin likens this brain to the wolf brain — it gave wolves the ability to form a pack and rear their young, she wrote.
Lastly, the human brain ties it all together and regulates language and more complex behaviors. I believe she wrote something along the lines of, “The reptile brain lets the wolf breath and sleep, the animal brain lets it form a pack and rear young and the human brain allows us to write about it all.”
Beautifully stated.
Why three brains? Because mother nature doesn’t throw away what works, Grandin wrote. Instead, it just builds upon what does.
The human brain, the frontal lobes, are only found to be large and developed in humans and primates.
What’s important to take from all of this?
First — there are MAJOR differences in the way humans and dogs operate due to the large frontal lobes in our human brains vs. the rather undeveloped frontal lobes in our dogs.
Second — Beyond those stark differences, at least two parts of our brains are pretty much the same. So, underneath it all, we share a lot in common.
Incredible, isn’t it?

Buy the book online via Amazon.com, click here.

Happy Birthday Sensi

Eight years ago today, my dog was the first born of his litter.
Twelve other puppies would follow. Yep — twelve. It was a big litter.
I sometimes wonder about the folks we got him from and his dog parents. Are they even still alive? I suppose it’s not likely. But, I know the family was keeping one of the puppies. I wonder what that dog looks like now.

A dog-rific celebration
Growing up, I had next door neighbors who had two golden retrievers. The couple didn’t have kids and treated their show quality goldens as if they were little people in dog suits. For birthdays, the dogs would get a big ol’ party just like a kid.
The woman of the house often talked about planning their birthday party with me, so I know that she’d even make a special trip up north, driving several hours to get some sort of dog-friendly ice cream.
I’ve never gone quite to those extremes. In fact, I must admit that there have been some years I’ve even forgot about his birthday all together. As he gets older though, I think more and more about the time he has left with us and I just really want to make these years “golden” for him.
Tonight, he’s getting two extra large stuffed teddy bears I picked up from the Salvation Army. I’ll wrap them up for him and let him have a go at ripping apart the box — he enjoys opening the gift about as much as he likes the toys inside.
We can’t give him wet food because of the allergy ordeal we’re still trekking our way through. Wet food is one thing he always gets for special occasions. And we can’t give him hard chew toys for the same reason.
So, our dog-rific celebration will be a hike. Brent and I plan to take him on a three mile loop this weekend through a state park. Seems like a great way to celebrate a dog’s birthday — and a cheap one too.

When is your dog’s birthday?
Most people celebrate their dog’s birthday on the day they brought the dog home with them.
I don’t. I might not have his birth date exactly right, but I basically counted back the weeks from when we got him.
Do you celebrate your dog’s birthday? And if so, which date did you choose celebrate — the date your dog came home with you or the date of the dog’s actual birth?

From dining to exercising

This is part V to my treadmill training exercising.
To recap from the last blog, we left off with Sensi “dining on the run.” OK, OK — maybe it’s more appropriate to say “dining on the walk, the very, very slow walk.”
But the goal, remember, is to have him running. In fact, the goal is to have him running on his own accord before breakfast every morning and again before dinner each night.
I want to make a little note here, too, that there is a reason I chose to have exercise time precede mealtime. In the wild, wolves expend a ton of energy just to get a meal — think about the stalking time and coordination of the pack, then the actual chase, which has got to be exhausting, before the whole deal is sealed with a wrestling match at the end.
So, having your dog exercise before mealtime is bound to feel natural for them. Of course, you don’t want to go from strenuous exercise straight to eating. Just like humans, dogs need a little time to cool down before filling their bellies. It is actually really important for them to cool down or else they risk getting bloat, which can be fatal and require emergency surgery.
All right, back to the main topic. How to move from dining to exercising.
First, let’s recall that the treadmill is moving so very slowly in these beginning stages that even the word “plodding” conjures an image that is too fast to accurately describe the speed he is traveling at.
The focus for him, right now, is still on the dining aspect. I need to move him away from that.
I’m going to do a week of just letting him eat at whatever pace he desires while walking ever so slowly on the treadmill.
The second week, I’m going to make some slight adjustments. I’ll start pulling the food bowl back from him, at first just for a second or two at a time. This way, he’ll have to continue walking while waiting for me to give the food bowl back.
It’s very important that this is done very, very gradually. If I were to pull the food bowl away from him for even five second intervals in the beginning, he might think that he should jump off the treadmill and try a different behavior to get his dinner back. So, this has to be done with the ultimate baby step mentality.
I will continue with this until eventually, he gets no food until after he walks on the treadmill. Once I reach that point, I will begin gradually extending the amount of time I expect him to walk on the treadmill — probably until we reach ten minutes or so.
Once we’ve reached that point, we’re most of the way to our goal and I can then start increasing the speed on the treadmill. Until then, however, the speed of the treadmill will remain painfully slow.
It probably will take me until December 31 to complete my goal of having him run on the treadmill while I shower each morning, and again before dinner each night.
But that’s OK. This is a big deal and when you’re training dogs “big deal” things, you need to make sure you have the patience and take the time to get it right the first time around.
If you don’t, it’ll be a lot harder trying to rehab the effects of a shoddy training job.

Deal for adoption

Hey all local folks, there’s a pretty good deal out there for those of you looking for a new furry companion.
Oakland County Pet Adoption will have a variety of their animals available for adoption from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 20, at the Cranbrook Professional Building, 60 W. Big Beaver Road in Bloomfield Hills.
Dr. Glenn S. Spencer, a dentist, came up with the idea to offer dental services to anyone who adopts a pet during the adoption event on Saturday. And, the services aren’t just being offered for Mom or for Dad, but for up to four immediate family members of the person adopting the dog.
Spencer is offering a cleaning, exam and necessary x-rays — it can amount of $900 in total free services.
There will also be coupons available that day for $10 off a visit to Canine Inn Doggie Day Care and Boarding to be applied toward a shampoo, bath and nail clipping. The grooming services are a $39 value and are available by appointment only.
I visited Oakland County’s Pet Adoption Center today — I’m working on a story about a rabid horse that was discovered in Lapeer County and one of the adoption center employees was kind enough to talk on video with me about rabies and the importance of vaccinating all your pets against the fatal virus.
I knew it would be difficult; going into shelters always is. I don’t get teary-eyed and heartbroken, like most people probably do. Nope, I just excited and want to take all the animals home.
I toyed with the idea of perusing those animals up for adoption, but decided that would not be good. Inevitably, I’d end up with the picture of at least one dog stuck in my head for weeks and sometimes, forever.
But I can’t bring another dog home right now.
If you can, please go to this event this weekend or to the pet adoption center whenever you can. And for you cat lovers, there’s even more cats in need than there are dogs.
Side note: I saw the most beautiful black lab in the hallway. He was getting his picture taken. He was very hyper and jumpy, but even in passing, I could tell he had great potential for learning. Picture perfect as far as breed standard goes; just a ton energy.
So, if you’re in the market for a high energy black lab, you might want to snap this guy up before someone else does!
Adoption fees are $136.50 for an adult dog, $114 for puppies and $57.50 for any cat or kitten, which are buy one, get one free.
Call the center for more information — (248) 391-4100.

Dinner on the run

This is part IV to my treadmill training story.
In yesterday’s blog, I left off at the point where Sensi and I were walking down the hallway to the workout room. I had his food bowl and leash in hand — he was so excited that I was carrying around two of the best things in his life that he was practically bouncing down the hall, sure that something really excellent was about to happen for him.
Once in the room, I had him walk on to the treadmill while it was off and gobble up some treats like we had practiced a month before. He was happy.
I clipped his leash on — he bounced around in a merry little circle. “What’s next, Mom! What’s next!!” my dog would’ve said if he could talk.
Then, I turned the treadmill on to its very lowest setting. I encouraged him to walk on the treadmill, guiding him with one hand and holding treats over the treadmill’s surface with another hand.
He jumped right on the treadmill, grabbed the treats and jumped off.
We repeated this, only, the second time I put my hand with the treats in it farther up the treadmill. This time, he ate the treats but locked up his legs and allowed himself to, rather comically, slide off the back of the treadmill. When his rear feet fell off, he jumped off and away from the treadmill — shocked and a little scared, I’m sure.
But I kept pressing on, encouraging him to do it again. Again, he did the same thing — locking up his legs and allowing the treadmill to carry him backwards until his feet fell off it.
I realized the leash was doing absolutely nothing for me. I unclipped it and tossed it on the floor.
A few more times of trying treats-in-hand and I realized it was not working. The point was not just to get him on the treadmill — though it was a good start — but to actually get him walking on it.
Sensi was also becoming a little impatient about eating his dinner. His eyes remained focused on that bowl of food sitting off to the side of the treadmill.
Without really thinking about it, I grabbed his bowl and stood in front of the treadmill, leaning down to hold the bowl at his level.
Without really thinking about it, he jumped on the treadmill and began eating his food. That is when the magic happened. He just automatically began walking while he ate — not even thinking about it.
“What treadmill? Where?” he might’ve said. He had no idea what was going on. He was just glad to get his dinner. In the interim, he learned how to walk on a moving floor.
When you think about the lack of understanding a dog has about things such as treadmills, it really is an incredible feat.
After he finished his dinner, he jumped off the treadmill. I knelt down beside him and lavished him with praise, using my best high-pitched voice to tell him what a good boy he is. He knew he was golden.
I was so happy with him that we went outside and played for a while.

Check back for another blog on how I’ll use his new-found dinner routine to transition him to running on the treadmill without food.

One month later

This is part III to my treadmill training story.
To recap from yesterday’s blog, Sensi and I stopped working on the treadmill daily just before February arrived.
Throughout the month of February, I worked on stretching and strengthening my legs and also, I worked on trying to get Sensi back to health. He had surgery and even after he recovered from that, the allergy debacle continued.
Believe it or not, my dog was actually allergic to the first type of prescription allergen-free dog food we got from the veterinarian's office. As the bag got close to being empty, I called my veterinarian and discussed how I thought Sensi was allergic to the food, finally deciding to switch his food yet again and try a different prescription.
We’re were getting quite low on his remaining bag of food. Because of that, I had not done much training — due to his allergies, he can have nothing except his prescription kibble, no treats or tasty morsels from the fridge, absolutely nothing else.
Fortunately, he likes dog food and it’s a good enough reward to do some training with. But as the bag got low, I couldn’t risk wasting the precious kibble on training exercises. It had to be saved for meals.
On Monday, I got home and with the sunshine coming in through the windows, I was feeling quite energetic.
Time to get yourself back on the treadmill, I thought, and so I laced up my new tennis shoes.
This time, I had to start slowly — walking only. Push yourself too hard and you’ll end up with shin splints again, I reminded myself.
Unfortunately, I had walked barely a half mile before my shin started aching.
I reluctantly got off the treadmill, but I wasn’t ready to be done for the day. Maybe I’ll see if I can get Sensi on the treadmill, I thought.
But there was the low food problem. I know, I’ll just use the kibble that I’d normally feed him for dinner, I thought.
I filled his food bowl as I normally would and brought it back to the room with me. I also grabbed his leash, which I figured would be absolutely necessary.
Sensi was excited.
“My food bowl and the leash!” he must’ve thought. “Great things must be about to happen!”

check back next week to find out what happened on the treadmill.

I want to do it too!

This is part II to my treadmill training story.

When we left off yesterday, I was filling you in on how I began using the treadmill daily in January. I kept Sensi in the room with me to hang out and get used to the treadmill while I walked and jogged on it.
Sensi quickly caught on that it was very bad to try and bite the treadmill — thanks to me saying, “No! Bad dog” whenever he tried it.
He also knew, though, that the treadmill was a very good thing. When it was quiet and motionless, he got treats for walking onto its surface. And when he dared to put a paw on it in an attempt to join me while I was using it, he got a treat then too. In fact, he got a treat just for sitting nicely next to it.
“I get lots of treats when I’m around this strange, noisy thing,” Sensi learned. “This thing is good.”
That’s exactly what I was teaching him — being around the treadmill means good things happen for Sensi.
Most surprising to me were those moments when Sensi seemed to want to join me while I jogged.
A dog is aware of what goes on around him, especially when it involves energy. A treadmill is all about exercising and exercising ups the energy level. Sensi sensed my elevated energy level while I jogged and by golly, he wanted to do it too!
Perhaps he even realized that I was walking and connected that picture with the picture in his brain of us walking outside together. Taking walks is, of course, his favorite thing in the world. Maybe he just wanted to walk with me.
Either way, Sensi definitely wanted to be a part of whatever I was doing on that strange moving floor.
He’d put a paw on the treadmill’s surface, eager yet still wary. As the treadmill carried his paw backwards, he’d inevitably get a little scared and give up on his attempt to join me.
We carried on this way for exactly three and half weeks. Then, I got shin splints. At the same time, Sensi’s allergies were creating a lot of challenges for us — Sensi was lethargic, refusing eat and rapidly losing weight.
I decided we needed to take a break. I needed to get healthy and strengthen my legs, and Sensi needed to get healthy too.

Walking my dog on the treadmill

Every once in a while when training a dog, you have those breakthrough moments that just leave your jaw on the floor while you stare in amazement at your dog.
Last night, I had one of the those moments.
I got my dog to walk on the treadmill last night — I couldn’t have been more amazed.
Cesar Millan fans out there know what it looks like when he does it. The dog is held against his will on the treadmill, all four legs splayed out and trying with all his might to get off what must be the strangest moving floor the dog has ever seen.
Eventually, the dog gives up his struggle and learns that if he just walks, the strange moving floor isn’t so bad after all.
With my fearful but incredibly strong pit bull mix, I thought the treadmill was going to be one of the most daunting tasks I’d ever done. I figured, without a doubt, that both my husband and I would be getting one heck of a workout on the night we decided to teach Sensi about the treadmill. All things considered, I was not looking forward to it.
So, you can imagine my surprise when Sensi — encouraged by food — simply walked on the treadmill like it was no big deal.
If there was ever a case in point for positive reward training, this is it.
I’m going to explain how I did it over the course of a few blog entries.
In this blog, I’ll give some background and the basics.

Background
I set a goal for 2010 of having Sensi run on the treadmill while I shower in the morning and also run on the treadmill for 10 or 15 minutes before dinner each night. By the time this year draws to a close, I want to have accomplished that.

Basics
In January, I began exposing Sensi to the treadmill. I’d put pieces of kibble on the treadmill — while it was off, of course — and encourage him to eat the kibble from the surface of the treadmill. I gradually moved the kibble toward the front of the treadmill so that eventually, all four paws had to be on the treadmill in order for him to reach the kibble.
We did that daily.
Then, I began running on the treadmill. I kept Sensi in the room with me — that way, he got exposure and became desensitized to the sounds the treadmill makes. This also allowed for me to make some important rules about the treadmill. For instance, in the beginning, he thought it might be fun to try and bite at the treadmill’s surface while it turned — perhaps an attempt to stop its continuous loop. I scolded him for behaviors like that and, when he showed interest in joining me on the treadmill, I rewarded him. (I kept treats at my disposable in the treadmill’s cupholder, by the way). I also rewarded him for sitting nicely beside the treadmill, because I liked that behavior too.

Read more tomorrow.

People products on pets

My sister and her family came out to my house over the weekend. When I pointed out my dog’s “medicine cabinet” to my sister, she looked at the many human products I had in there and said: “At this point in my dog’s life, I am beginning to realize that most things you use on your kids you can also use on your dog.”
What’s unfortunate is that it took nine years for her to begin realizing this, thanks mostly to a veterinarian who kept her in the dark because it was more lucrative for the vet.
I told her that and added: “Really, that’s why you should start going to my vet. He’s honest about that kind of stuff.”
For instance, rather than pay top-dollar for dog-specific glucosamine tablets — which come in such small dosages that I would’ve had to have given like 10 of them to my dog every day — my vet wrote me the dosage Sensi needed on a piece of paper and recommended I pick up a bottle of the for-human-consumption kind at Meijer. It was a huge savings.
I also keep Benadryl handy in case Sensi has a severe allergic reaction to something. I learned about this when he did have a severe allergic reaction to something and we had to take him to the emergency vet, where they gave him a shot of Benadryl and then directed us to pick up a box of the pills on our way home and give him one every three hours until the swelling subsided.
There are lots of products and medications out there that can be used on both people and dogs.
For instance, I’m putting Neosporin on the incision to Sensi’s ear to help it heal. I’ve long used hydrocortisone cream in different situations, and I’m using a little rubbing alcohol on a cottonball to help dry out his acne (an allergy-related thing).
In my opinion, a good veterinarian will suggest things like this to you because it helps you be equipped to respond to emergency situations and can help you better the overall health of your dog.
There is one BIG caveat to all this, though.
Don’t start playing doctor yourself and picking and choosing products to use on your dog without consulting with your veterinarian. There are lots of things in our households, like Tylenol, that can kill a dog. Before you use a human product on your dog, ask your vet.
If you’d like to keep Benadryl in stock for your dog, ask your veterinarian when you would use it and what dosage is appropriate for your dog. Same thing for glucosamine and any other products.
If your veterinarian is suggesting you start giving something to your dog daily, like glucosamine or another supplement, you may want to ask them if there’s a human alternative that could be lighter on the pocketbook.
Your veterinarian can also tell you the pros and cons of certain products. For instance, hydrocortisone is a form of a steriod and steriods can cause long term damage to a dog, so it’s something you want to use sparingly.
Moral of the story: Be wise to the fact that many human products can be used on our pets, but NEVER use something on your pet without first asking and getting some directions from your veterinarian.

Stop it with the stereotypes

If you hate all pit bulls, I ask you to read through the pages of this blog.
You may find that you have to remind yourself I’m blogging about a dog who is 75 percent pit.
And for all those people who stereotype my dog’s breed and the type of people who own pits, I hope these pages also serve as reminder as to why stereotyping is ignorant.
I am sick and tired of hearing people say that all pit bulls are inherently blood thirsty killers and that the only people who own pit bulls are low life thugs.
I am a proud pit bull owner. I am a responsible young woman. I have a college degree. I have a full time job. I am married to a good man who also works a full time job. We are homeowners. We are taxpayers. We are good people and by God, we are pit bull owners too.
Reading some of the comments to stories on our Web site, like the some of ones on the dangerous dog ordinance being considered in Rochester Hills, just make me sick.
I am not ignorant and I will not defend the pit bulls nor the owners who allowed this atrocity in Rochester Hills to occur. Without a doubt, it’s owners like that who are responsible for the reputation the breed has.
I feel terribly for the owners of the little dog who was killed. I wish them not just healing, but justice. I hope that justice involves someone taking a serious look at whether the owners of the pit bulls are fit to own more dogs in the future.
If I ran the world, you’d have to have a lick of common sense to be an animal owner. Of course, I feel the most important lick of common sense to have is the one that tells you to keep your pets in your yard.
Unfortunately, I think the majority of dog owners out there don’t subscribe to that, so to those of you who like to let your dogs run loose, be grateful I don’t run the world.
There is nothing good that comes from letting your dog run. Nothing at all. Your not-dog-friendly neighbors get angry because little Fluffy poops in their yard, your dog risks its own life and limb each time it darts out into the road, your dog can also get into roadkill and other dead animals and I have known at least one dog who died after eating from a rotting deer carcass, and the worst of all is the risk that your dog could hurt or kill another person or pet.
Even if you think your dog is super friendly, that is only how you know your dog to behave when you are around. By itself, having to make decisions for itself and take leadership for itself, your dog could behave entirely differently. A little fear can turn into a lot of aggression very quickly.
And for the sake of good sense, if a fence doesn’t hold your powerful breed dog, modify. Find something that works.
Working on training too, and that goes for everyone and all the breeds out there.
But please, stop it with the stereotypes. Me and my dog deserve better.

E-collar alternatives

The owner of Maddie, a 5-year-old Yorkie/Silky mix, e-mailed me after my last blog with this photo of her darling dog sporting an inflatable collar.
“This isn’t the answer for all issues, depending on where the injury is, but for my small dogs it works well,” writes Debbi Lowry, owner of Maddie.
As the recipient of a couple different pet product catalogs, I have seen a variety of alternatives to e-collars that are on the market.
In addition to this inflatable type, there are also “comfy cones” where the cones are made out of a soft material and other alternatives. Another e-collar alternative, called the Bite Not collar, isn’t a cone at all, but rather a wide, stiff collar that extends from the dog’s shoulders to head, limiting the movement of the head.
A quick google search for “e-collar alternatives” turns up a variety of options, articles about them, and links to where they can be purchased.
While I only spent a cursory amount of time searching the web, I did not find any alternatives that would work for my dog’s situation, though.
Here’s the deal: The collar Maddie is wearing in the picture to the left, as well as the other collars I mentioned, are perfect for after spay/neuter procedures or any other time that you need to prevent your dog from turning around and reaching areas like their stomach, legs, tail, etc., with their mouths.
When the situation is reversed, though, these collars don’t work as well.
For instance, I am not trying to stop my dog from using his mouth to lick a wound on his back leg, but rather am trying to stop him from using his back leg to itch his ear.
Just about any time you have a facial injury, my initial thought is that the plastic e-collar is going to be necessary.
Small dogs may be an exception to this, though it probably depends heavily on the individual dog and type of collar used.
For Debbi, however, I think the inflatable collar will probably work in just about any situation. She’d know better than I would, but it looks to me like Maddie’s little legs might not be able reach beyond that inflatable ring.
The moral of the story?
There are options other than the e-collar out there — many of which are far more comfortable for the dog, but not all the options may work for preventing a dog from scratching his head or facial area.
But the most important thing to remember is that no matter what collar you use, introduce it to your dog in advance of any surgical procedures so he or she can get used to it.
Debbie — thanks for the e-mail and great photo!

Sensi update
He got his bandage off on Saturday and has been doing very well. We left the e-collar off for the bulk of Sunday while we were home and he didn’t mess with his ear at all.
Of course, we’re not taking any chances — the e-collar still goes on for each potty run, during the night and during the day while we’re gone.
The ear appears to be healing really nicely, though it’s not the most appealing sight with all those stitches. The stitches will probably come out this Saturday and I’m sure I wouldn’t be wrong to say that Sensi can’t wait!

Introducing the e-collar

As I thought about putting the elizabethan collar on my dog the other night, it struck me that I really didn’t have enough time to properly introduce him to it.
For those who may be unfamiliar with it, the elizabethan collar — commonly called the e-collar — is that plastic cone-shaped thing usually used on pets after surgeries to prevent them from scratching or licking their wounds.
Almost all pets will have an e-collar strapped around their necks at some point in their life, be it for a spay or neuter procedure or for a plethora of other reasons, like emergency surgeries.
The first time we put an e-collar on Sensi was when he was neutered at nine months old. I remember that he came home from the veterinarian’s office with it on. We quickly took it off and, because the dog had 24-hour supervision back then and he never tried biting, licking or scratching at his stitches, we never put it back on him.
That is, until this January.
His allergies were acting up and he was scratching and licking at himself like crazy, creating open wounds on his legs and muzzle. While we were able to stop him when we were around, it was whenever we were gone or asleep that he’d really tear into himself.
I kept that e-collar all these years and, before leaving to visit some relatives for a belated Christmas function, I decided he should wear it.
Five hours later it, I returned home to find my sleeping dog positioned on the other side of the room from the badly mangled e-collar.
Sensi had managed to fold over the e-collar’s edges with his paws, grabbed hold of it with his teeth, pulled it over his head and ripped it up. I’m guessing, obviously, but I think it’s a pretty good guess.
About a month later, Sensi has had surgery on his ear and the ear is now wrapped up in a big bandage. If he were to scratch it, there could be some very serious damage. It is now imperative that he wear the e-collar.
My first concern was ensuring that the e-collar was a good fit and I urge everyone who will have to use an e-collar to talk with their veterinarians and make sure the collar you’re bringing home is the appropriate size.
If the collar is not put on at the veterinarian’s office, you should ask them to show you which setting you should use (like a regular collar, there are different options to make it tighter or looser around the neck) and to demonstrate how to put it all together.
Sensi’s new e-collar is shorter than the last one and the vet encouraged us to use a tighter fit than we would’ve chosen on our own. Fortunately, the snug fit has kept the collar on and prevented any further injuries to his ear.
Rather than just throwing it on your dog one day, though, I encourage people to be proactive about this one.
The fact is, your dog is probably going to have to wear one these collars at some point in his or her life. Why not introduce your dog to it slowly and properly?
This might mean you pick-up the e-collar from the vet’s office a week before your pet is scheduled for surgery. I’m sure your veterinarian would be glad to give it to you in advance (though, these collars are not free, so don’t expect that).
Use treats to introduce it to your dog. Make it a positive thing. Teach your dog that he can go for walks, chew on bones, play tug-of-war and do all his normal and fun activities with the collar on.
Then, when he’s hurting from surgery and feeling downright miserable, you won’t be adding something unfamiliar and scary on top of everything else.

Hold me, Mom!

There’s nothing quite like anesthetic to make your dog behave like a wounded child.
When we brought Sensi home after his surgery yesterday, all he wanted was hugs.
For as long as I can remember, Sensi has periodically sought out “hugs” from us. A hug from Sensi means that, once we’re seated, he lowers his head so his muzzle is pointed at the ground and then walks right into us, burying his head in our chest. He fully expects us to then wrap our arms around him.
While Sensi was feeling good to be home last night, he was still very discombobulated from the anesthesia. He’d forget what he was doing and would wind up just standing in one place, staring at nothing until his legs began giving out on him. We had to remind him to sit and lay down.
Because I believe in spoiling my dog at least where comfort is concerned, I brought out his big dog bed from the bedroom and put it in front of the wood stove where he likes to lay and soak up the heat from the fire.
I invited him over, tried to get him to step on the bed but instead, he just scooted up next me and leaned in for a hug. He stayed put until he was falling into me, his eyes closed and breathing relaxed while he fell asleep.
It was about as endearing as endearing gets.
He did the same thing to both my husband and I as often as he could last night and again this morning.
If you think you feel bad leaving your dog at home every day, imagine trying to pull yourself away from a dog who just wants to fall asleep in your arms.
Here’s a photo from last night — note the cone-shaped bandage on his left ear.
I took the photo while getting dinner ready. Sensi always wants to be near me when I’m in the kitchen but doesn’t like to sit or lay on the hard surface of our wood floors. He meandered out there to watch me cook dinner, but when I turned around and saw his legs leaning precariously to one side, I figured I had better grab his bed before he fell over and broke a leg!

Another allergy side effect

The term cauliflower ear isn’t all that rare — you’ve probably heard it used at some point in your life.
It’s most general use is in describing a human ear and usually, that human is a wrestler who has sustained some sort of trauma to the cartilage in his ear.
So, what is cauliflower ear and how does it apply to dogs?
Cauliflower ear appears as a sac of fluid in the dog’s outer ear. It can begin looking like a puffy spider bite but can get larger and larger, until you’re feeling quite sure that this requires the attention of a veterinarian.
This injury is the result of a trauma to the cartilage in the ear — hence why it’s most closely associated with wrestlers whose ears are at the risk of a lot different ways to be injured during a match.
The way it was explained to me is that the blood vessels, once broken, can put a lot of pressure on the blood vessels around the affected area, causing those blood vessels to rupture as well, which then causes the pocket to fill with more fluid and expand in size.
Left untreated, the ear can eventually become completely disfigured — as is the case with many wrestlers.
The disfigurement, of course, is where the term “cauliflower ear” comes from in the first place. Apparently, the disfigured ear can look a bit like cauliflower on a person. I personally have seen this on at least one person in my life and I have to admit, the term “cauliflower” is quite appropriate.
The medical term, at least for dogs, is “hematoma.”
Anyhow, wonder how a dog can get this type of injury? Think it’s probably something extreme? Think again.
My dog gave himself cauliflower ear by scratching.
Of course, it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill scratch. No, it was the type of persistent scratching that is caused by allergies.
As my regular readers already know, I’ve been dealing with a particularly bad bout of food allergies since the beginning of the new year. Allergies in dogs most often result in compulsive licking and scratching, which is exactly what Sensi went through, tearing up his skin and ripping out his hair in the process.
At first, it appeared this pocket of fluid in his ear was going to go away. After filling to be a little larger than a quarter on the inside of the ear, the fluid levels seemed to decrease and later seemed to almost disappear completely.
But then it filled up again. Who knows why — maybe he scratched the ear again or shook his head just hard enough to rupture those blood vessels again.
Either way, our luck wasn’t so good this time. The pocket continued to grow every day until it was clear that we’d have to get our veterinarian to operate.
Sensi went in for the operation today at Oxford Veterinary Hospital, where he’s been going for years now. I have to say, if anyone is having a hard time finding a good veterinarian, you might want to try this place. There are two doctors at the hospital; we see Dr. Stephen Steep. There are lots of things that make him a great veterinarian — the fact that he’s quite knowledgeable of animal behavior happens to be my favorite.
And no, just because someone is a veterinarian does not automatically mean they know animal behavior. I’ve come across lots of veterinarians who are very good at what they do but appear rather clueless when it comes to the behavior side of things.
Anyhow, they let me to stay to watch the procedure. There are different procedures to correct the problem, but the one Sensi had began with a incision straight down the center of the fluid pocket.
After the mostly-blood fluid mix drained, Dr. Steep began stitching the skin back to the cartilage. This, I’m sure, required some finesse. The incision was left open so the wound can continue to drain.
After it was done, the ear was wrapped up like a cone.
Sensi is still recuperating at the vet’s office and I’ll be heading in later today to pick him up. It sounds like there is a substantial amount of aftercare to ensure he heals well — the hardest of which might be getting him to leave his ear alone.
That may just be the topic of my next blog — is it possible to train a dog not to shake his head?

Too many firsts for an old dog

Like having a child, a dog gives you so many of those heartwarming “firsts.”
I remember my dog’s first bark, the first time we walked around the block, the first time he successfully completed a “roll over.” I remember his first swim, his first birthday and first Christmas and so many other “firsts” too.
Not all firsts are quite so endearing.
For instance, I remember the first time he learned that leashes can be pulled on — after all, who can forget being pulled through a snowbank and smacking into an icy, wire fence?
I also remember the first time he broke out of his cage and left a path of destruction in his wake.
Or, how about the first time he thought he’d try out a gel pen as a chew toy and left ink stains in the form of paw prints on every piece of new carpeting we’d just purchased?
After a certain point in your dog’s life, though, firsts become rare. It happens so slowly you don’t realize it’s happened, but it has.
Your dog becomes incredibly predictable. A tail wag before breakfast, licks when you get home, barks by the front door to signal that it’s time to go potty. And of course, that way he always curls up by your feet and lets out a big sigh once he’s comfortable and settled in.
Through this whole allergy ordeal, I caught myself saying “for the first time ever” far too often. It felt strange and weird coming out of my mouth. It’d been such a long time.
And reflecting on all that’s transpired, none of it was good.
For the first time ever, he refused to eat his food.
For the first time ever, it took me longer to prepare his breakfast than it did to prepare mine.
For the first time ever, he refused to open his mouth so I could shove more pills down his throat (OK, to be honest, I can’t believe that one took as long as it did to happen).
For the first time ever, my dog tried to eat dirt and swallow wood chips.
For the first time ever, he didn’t spit out wood chips in his mouth when we said “drop it!”
For the first time ever, I was awoken at 4 a.m. by my dog, who whined and whined until I finally opened my eyes.

I’m ready to go back to the way things used to be. I want my healthy, predictable old dog back.

Dreams of dog sledding

As a fifth grade student, I remember learning about the Iditarod.
My teacher was definitely a smart lady. The Iditarod is intrinsically interesting to kids — think: the many kid friendly dog-sled movies out there, especially the 1995 cartoon movie Balto depicting the heroic beginnings of the Iditarod race.
Balto is the famed dog credited with saving the Alaskan town of Nome in 1925 after its residents were stricken with Diphtheria and there was no way to get the life-saving medicine to the town except for dog sled teams.
Dog sled teams covered the 1,150 miles between Anchorage and Nome to deliver the supplies. The event is now memorialized every year by the Iditarod race (this year’s race starts March 6), where dog sled teams from all over the world come to compete.
A dog lover even without a dog at home to love, my fifth grade self was mesmerized by dreams of traversing the cold tundra on only a sled led by a team of dogs.
These are dreams I have not quite given up.
No, I have no plans to ever become seriously involved in dog sledding nor do I wish to ever partake in such an arduous journey like the Iditarod. I don’t really like cold weather and as such, I don’t think it’d be a good event for me.
Also, I don’t really want a whole team of Huskies. Maybe a Malamute or two, perhaps one Husky, but definitely not a whole team of them.
I do tend to think that one day, though, if I can just make my dreams of living on a large piece of property in Northern Michigan come true (isn’t that everyone’s dream around here?), I can teach my own eclectic group of dogs to pull me on a sled.
Perhaps it would be better to say my one or two Malamutes and Husky can teach the rest of my dogs to pull me on a sled.
Anyway, I just think it’d be fun to ride around on a sled being pulled by my dogs and at the same time, it’d probably be great exercise and a great outlet for the dogs.
But you’ve got to start somewhere and I haven’t ever even seen a real dog sled in person before.
That’s why you might just find me this weekend in downtown Rochester at E. Third and Water Streets, checking the dog sled demonstrations and maybe even taking a ride on a dog sled.
The demonstration is part of this weekend’s Fire & Ice Winter Festival. The festival is taking place Friday and Saturday but the dog sled teams will be out only from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday.
A coworker told me he took a ride on one of the dog sleds one year and it was pretty cool. I can only imagine and I hope to find out!
Read a story all about the Fire & Ice Festival by clicking here. To visit the county's Web site for more information about the festival, click here.

Tuna breath and still starving

That’s it. I’ve reached my breaking point. I’m at my wit’s end. Any suggestions, send ‘em my way.
My dog is starving himself.
Last week, I wrote that I was pretty darn sure my dog was manipulating me — starving himself with the ultimate goal of having something new added to his daily food dish.
This week, I am less sure of what is going on.
He’s eaten about a quarter cup of food a day now. That’s like two and half cups less than his 85-pound physique needs.
He loved oatmeal, then hated it. Loved pinto beans, then hated it. Loved tuna and now — as of this morning — hates that too.
Without a doubt, the tough love path is in use. If he refuses what’s in his food bowl, he gets no food.
And day after day after day now, he’s refused his food bowl and skipped on one meal after another.
He’ll refuse a fresh dish of tuna and oatmeal, but yet he tries to eat dirt outside.
On Saturday night, he ate a bunch of wood that was stacked indoors for our wood stove. How do I know this? It was regurgitated on the floor by the time we awoke on Sunday.
What really stinks about all of this is his breath.
He’s been predominately eating tuna for the past week or so. His breath smells about as strong as a freshly opened can of tuna does — it really adds an element of disgusting to those dog kisses.
By the way, if anyone’s looking for a good deal on tuna, try Kroger. I bought 5-ounce cans of tuna for 65 cents on Friday.
I bought 20 cans of the stuff — 20 cans of tuna which I now have no use for, like the 4 pound bag of pinto beans I also have no use for and 5 pounds of cooked pinto beans taking up valuable real estate in my fridge.
I have a feeling the local food pantry will benefit the most from this whole allergy ordeal.

Take it or leave it

I think my dog is trying to manipulate me.
This goes back to his whole allergy thing we’re going through and my last blog about oatmeal.
We’ve now switched entirely to a home diet and sparing the daily play-by-play of our food-related drama, I’ll just say he’s learned that if he refuses to eat, something new might get added to that food bowl before it hits the floor.
First, he loved oatmeal. A week later, he hated it.
Same with the pinto beans. In the beginning, he couldn’t get enough of them. Now, he eats around them if he’ll even touch a bowl of food with pinto beans in it.
We’re on to tuna now. He loves it and readily eats it plain as treats. At first, he had no problems eating a bowl of tuna mixed with oatmeal. A few days later, though, he’s refusing that too.
I’m beyond bewildered. Add in the fact that Sensi is still vomiting here and there without much of a logical pattern and figuring out what he’s actually allergic to is even more mind boggling.
I am, however, becoming quite sure that he is trying to manipulate me.
In the past three weeks, there’s been changes to his diet every three to four days, probably. At this point, I believe he has caught on to the fact that if he refuses to eat what is given to him, something new will be given to him instead.
After a lifetime of eating dry and boring dog kibble and subsisting only on that and a few vegetarian dog treats, who can blame him for trying? I won’t, but I also won’t tolerate this behavior.
First off, my pocketbook cannot support the eating habits that Sensi is so desperately trying to develop with his hunger strikes.
Secondly, this well-fed dog of mine will not guilt me into cooking better for him than I do for myself.
If a meal of hot oatmeal, fresh pinto beans and tuna isn’t good enough for him, nothing will ever be again.
And so, the dog will starve until he decides this meal is indeed good enough.
I took this attitude last night after I spent a half-hour trying to get him to eat — coaxing him with all sorts of stupid stuff and looking a million times more silly than a mother playing airplane with her baby.
Finally, I set the food bowl down by his water dish and walked away. It was getting late and my husband and I still hadn’t eaten dinner ourselves.
What do you know? While I went to work cooking a human dinner and ignored my dog, Sensi snuck over to his food bowl and licked up everything that was there.
He pulled the same crap this morning. I’m hoping that when I get home, the food bowl is empty.
And if it’s not, I’ll just toss out the old, put in some new and set it down on the floor.
It’s take it or leave it from here on out.

Oatmeal and your dog

Looking to spice up your dog’s dinner every now and again? Perhaps add an extra carbohydrate here and there?
Look no further than your favorite (or not-so-favorite) breakfast food — oatmeal.
Oatmeal is, admittedly, not my favorite choice for breakfast. In fact, I’m not much of a breakfast person. Coffee does me just fine until lunch.
Lucky for my dog, though, I happened to have a large package of oatmeal in the cupboard left over from when I made no-bake cookies for my husband’s birthday late last year.
Here’s what happened:
Last week, I blogged about my sick dog in this space. He has food allergies and things were getting pretty bad for him. We switched his food, suspecting that to be the culprit, and put him on a new food.
On the first day of eating the new food, he began vomiting after eating. A few days of that and he just decided he’d quit eating all together.
Mind you, I’m shoving nine pills down my dog’s throat every day. I think we all know how miserable medications on an empty stomach can make you feel.
So, on Saturday after Sensi had been on his food strike for more than 24 hours, I pulled out the papers my veterinarian gave me about food allergies with the list of home diets that can be fed to a dog temporarily until food trials are completed. One side of the list includes proteins, the other includes carbohydrates. You’re instructed to pick one of each.
Under the carbohydrate heading, I saw the word “Oats” and thought of that box of oatmeal in my cupboard.
“Honey, I’m giving the dog his pills in oatmeal tonight,” I told my husband.
He laughed. “Oatmeal? Good luck with that.”
“What, you don’t think he’ll like oatmeal?” I asked him.
“No. Why would he? Oatmeal is so bland and gross. Like I said, good luck,” he said.
“Well, I guess we’ll find out tonight,” I said, and we did.
The dog loves oatmeal. In fact, I’m pretty sure he thinks it is the best thing he has ever eaten. He likes it hot, he likes it cold, he likes it baked and he even likes it when it’s covering up all those pills he has to take.
I’ve been videotaping him before meals the past few days because I’m just astonished at his behavior. His whole body quivers and shakes with excitement as he sits nicely, waiting for his food bowl to set down for him. The other day, he was shaking so violently that his teeth even began chattering. I’ve never seen my dog like this before.
Sensi is so fixated on his meals now that I’m not sure he thinks about anything else. I’m beginning to worry that this could become an obsessive fixation. And I’m definitely worried that he’ll never eat regular kibble again.
Whatever struggles lie ahead of us, I’m confident we can conquer them. For the time being, though, I’m enjoying how much my dog is enjoying his oatmeal.

Update on Sensi’s health
I did take photos of how great my dog is looking over the weekend, but I keep forgetting to put them on a memory stick so I can upload them to this blog.
Truly, though, Sensi looks and feels fantastic. Even the hardest to heal parts — those nooks and crannies between the toes and underneath the paws — are dry with white skin (which means the yeast infection has subsided).
He was bathed last Saturday with a medicated shampoo and medicated leave-in conditioner. His coat is shiny and soft in a way I haven’t felt since he had puppy hair!
This doesn’t at all mean the struggle is over — Sensi will be on medications for a couple months yet and a special homemade diet for probably the bulk of this year. He is still a little pink here and there and scratching every now and again, but even so, the improvement is dramatic.
The bad news: all the hair he scratched off his face has grown back in white. He’s gone from looking like a prematurely aging 7-year-old dog to very senior canine citizen.

What do food allergies look like?

Determining whether your dog has food allergies is not an easy task.
The same physical symptoms you see are not specific to food allergies — plenty of things can cause a dog to scratch or lick excessively. Plenty of things can be responsible for rashes and ear infections. And certainly, what the skin looks like can, in some cases, look an awful lot like other issues, especially mange.
In fact, when Sensi began having skin problems years ago, our first guess was that he had either some form of the mange or some sort of mite problem.
So, it’s not as easy as catching your dog licking himself and saying: “Yep, he’s got food allergies all right.”
In fact, once you’ve begun wondering what is causing your dog’s skin problems, it can get even more difficult to determine that.
Allergy tests on dogs are not reliable. A good and thorough veterinarian, in my experience, will recommend food trials. After several months of food trials, you will have a good record of what your dog is allergic to.
We’ll be starting food trials again with Sensi as soon as he is healthy, and I’m sure I’ll blog in greater detail about what goes into conducting a proper food trial.
This blog, though, is supposed to be about what food allergies can look like in a dog. And lucky you, I just happen to have pictures.
The photos below were taken on Wednesday, the day after Sensi went to the vet and his second day on medications. Believe it or not, these pictures show a dramatic improvement compared to what Sensi looked like the day before they were taken.
Sensi continues to improve on a daily basis. His face is almost completely back to normal, with the exception of some scabbing, which I consider to be Mother Nature’s path to healing. The backside of his foreleg and a faint and fading rash on his underside are all that remains of this allergy episode now.
After a good bath this weekend, I’ll take some more photos to post on a blog update next week.

For now, though, here’s what food allergies can look like:Sensi's swollen & scratched eye, closed because of the camera's flash.Backside of forelegs are very red, but this photo shows scabbing developing. This is a great improvement over the open wounds that were there the day before.Here is a good example of why we need to focus on body language and eye contact to communicate with our dogs. Does Sensi's facial expression and eyes not clearly say, "I am sick, Mom. Why are you taking pictures of me?"

One sick pup

My dog peered up at me through his swollen eyes this morning as if to say, “Are you really leaving me? Can’t you see how sick I am?”
And he is.
I came home from the vet’s office yesterday feeling good about being on the right track to get him healthy again, but there was no denying I had one sick pup to take care of.
He’s got four prescriptions — an antihistamine, a steriod and two other pills to help his body combat the secondary infections he created through his persistent itching and licking. Plus, I picked up an anti-itch leave-in conditioner. Sensi needs to be bathed twice a week until his skin is healthy again and this time of the year, that’d dry him out for sure. With the conditioner to use, it will make sure his baths are the most beneficial they can be for him.

Well, let’s try to learn a thing or two from Sensi’s state. Here’s what you need to know about a dog who is licking excessively.

Stop that!
All dogs scratch and lick themselves periodically, just as we humans often scratch an itch. When the scratching and licking is not excessive, don’t worry about it.
However, an excessive licker or scratcher needs to be examined by a veterinarian.
Dogs who lick their paws for hours on end, day in and day out, can easily contract yeast infections. On the front of the paws, dogs have spaces in between each of their toes. On the back of the paw, there is another space between the large pad and the individual toe pads.
These spaces are havens for yeast infections. They are semi-closed environments lined with skin and fur that keep the spaces warm.
Add in the moisture from excessive licking and these spots become the perfect storm for nasty yeast infections. How can you tell if a yeast infection has developed? If the skin in these spaces is abnormally red and moist, there’s a good chance you have a problem. Dogs have a more difficult time licking their rear paws, so comparing the spaces in the front paws to the same spaces on the rear paws can often be a good indicator of what healthy vs. nonhealthy looks like.
If you find the rear paws to have white, dry skin but the front paws have moist, blaring red skin, you have a problem. If both sets of paws have blaring red skin, definitely make a vet appointment or at least call your vet to get some professional advice.
Most dog owners have combated yeast infections in a dog’s ear, but the paws are a whole different beast. Once yeast infections have taken root in the paws, a vicious cycle is created where the inflammation from the yeast infection intensifies the dog’s desire to lick.
Yeast infections can also spread easily and, worst of all, with the dog’s immune system working hard to stave off the yeast infection, the immune system becomes strained and leaves the dog open to contracting even worse infections.
There are medicated shampoos that can help a chronic paw licker, but these need to be ordered through your veterinarian.
It is important to have your veterinarian examine your paw licker because the licking is often just a symptom of an underlying problem, like food allergies, and oftentimes, prescription pills are needed to get rid of the yeast infection.
One last note: If you examine your dog’s paws this time of the year, remember to wait until he’s been inside for several hours. A dog coming in from the cold, wet snow will have red paws until they warm up and dry out!

Merry Christmas and a crappy New Year

How quickly things go from wonderful to terrible ...
I was really looking forward to blogging about our happy, wagging-tailed dog opening his gifts merrily on Christmas morning — which he did. It was really cute and he was really happy and blah blah blah.
But now, there’s just bigger fish to fry.
Brent and I awoke on New Year's Day to find our dog red and swollen. The tell-tale signs that he'd spent all night scratching himself raw were all over his body.
From time to time on this blog, I’ve mentioned that Sensi has food allergies. He was about two years old when we found out, and we found out the hard way. More than $2,000 in vet bills later, we thought we had it all figured out.
My husband and I spent the bulk of one year doing food trials — this means the dog spends one week on a special anti-allergy food formula followed by one week where you mix in other foods, like beef or corn, to see if the dog has a reaction.
One food source after another Sensi reacted to. It’s just easier to say that Sensi is not allergic to a few items, including lamb, chicken, potatoes and green beans, than to list the multitude of things he is allergic to.
For years, Sensi has been on a very strict diet and because of this, we’ve been able to enjoy a very healthy dog. Selecting a dog food brand was a challenge at first.
The key, for us, was to find a food that had no “animal by-products” listed as an ingredient. Generally, this means the “by-products” of any animals could be part of the food. It’s a safe guess that anything that says “animal by-products” contains beef. Beef is Sensi’s biggest allergy.
We settled on Pro Plan Lamb & Rice after the allergy debacle. For years, it’s kept his coat and skin healthy, given him a reason to be excited at feeding time and kept him allergic-reaction free. I’ve recommended this brand of food to countless people over the years.
If any of you who I have recommended this brand to are reading this now, take heed that I am pulling my endorsement of this dog food.
As I was trying to figure out what could possibly be causing Sensi’s allergic reaction, I thought of how careful I am to always check the ingredient list on treats before I purchase them, even if it’s a brand I’ve bought before. Right then, I realized that I hadn’t checked the ingredients on Sensi’s dog food in years. I also remembered that last year, the formula for his food changed — softer, tasty morsels were added and Sensi was just thrilled about it.
Well, perhaps that’s when Pro Plan changed its ingredients too. On Saturday night, my frantic and worried self discovered “Animal Fat Preservatives (mixed with tocopherals)” and something which I think was called simply “Animal Digestive” added to the mix.
I left right away for the pet store to scour the shelves for a Sensi-safe food. Much to my chagrin, I found that Purina, Iams — even the Science Diet formula — and Pro Plan as well as some bags of Natural Choice contain some form of either animal by-products, animal fat preservatives or animal digestive.
I did find a few safe brands and chose Dick Van Patten’s Limited Ingredient Diet, the Duck and Potato kind, to try out.
It’s day two of the new diet and so far, the improvement has been so slight that I’m not favor of calling it an improvement at all. We’ve also taken away all of his toys and are keeping him on Benadryl.
It's definitely too early to tell what was causing the problem for Sensi, but my money's on the dog food.

What do food allergies look like in a dog?
Scratching and licking.
A dog who is allergic to something he eats regularly may react slowly or quickly. In Sensi’s case, I believe it took a lot of time for his symptoms to rear their ugly head.
Dogs will react to their allergies by itching and licking themselves, often profusely. Think this isn’t a big deal? Listen to what Sensi’s done to himself in the space of the last four or five days:
• Possibly broke the cartilage in his ear
• Given himself a fat lip
• Made rim of eye swell and bleed
• Scratched his armpit so profusely he gave himself raw, open and heavily swollen wounds
• Yeast infections in his front paws and most likely on his forearms too

Don’t blow off your dog’s allergies — it’s not at all like a human who sneezes during ragweed season. By the time we could visibly see the affects of allergies on our dog the first time around, he had been suffering for almost two years. His immune system was worn down and his body opened up to a multitude of infections, a couple which were very hard to shake.
Sensi is going to the vet tomorrow. I just hope we’re on the right path with the food.
And so, it was a very Merry Christmas at my house — and then, as we awoke on New Year’s Day to a scratched raw and swollen dog, a rather crappy New Year.