For the health and safety of your dung beetles...

Always pick up the poop after worming your dogs, or especially giving them their heartworm pill if you give ivermectin based products. M's looking at me like I'd lost my mind rushing out after the dogs to scoop poop early one morning, but nodded when I explained that we had a very good active dung beetle population out front and that I'd like to keep it that way.

I remember early after we moved here, I walk into the living room one morning to find a dung beetle, after finding herself trapped in the house, decided to just take what she could get, pulling poop off my work boots and assembling a ball and trying to head towards the door with it. I helped her out by placing her back out, with her special find.

You might be in the country if you have dung beetles in the house.

2nd Thanksgiving

We provided 2 turkeys, a hen and a tom, for our 2nd Thanksgiving at a friend's house. We also took Brick, and Kathy M. took Joy. We stopped by Humbug Farm to work their sheep, then on to the party. I love that a group of 5 dogs, from 3 different households, did just fine, and in fact, atleast 3 did a long down stay while 10 people, several of them strangers, ate and talked for hours.
The turkeys were excellent, the comment being that they were more "turkey" flavored than turkeys they'd had before.

Treadmill

Finally, got a $25 treadmill at the PTA thrift store. I've been wanting a mill or treadmill for a while for the dogs. So this morning, with 20 min of work and the total of one hotdog, everyone but Frost knows how to get on it, deal with it starting, and walk along straight. Nobody was scared of it at all, although some found the slow speed annoyingly slow and hard to adjust to. They'll figure out how to adjust pace and Brick especially wanted it up quite high before he'd actually trot.

I love how my dogs are trained. Took me 20 minutes to train 9 dogs to walk on the treadmill happily. If you train your dogs to like novelty? Things like this are a complete no brainer. Now, keeping them from targeting to it every time I walk by it now might be a challenge!

Worming time with Kess and Jack

Used Kestrel and Jack to bring the sheep into the little canopy I made for Albert and worm them. Jack was too wired up to be tied while I checked eyelids and barked his head off, so I had him and Kestrel wait outside the open gate, which worked fine. After a test shove of a sacrificial sheep in their direction, which prompted them to stand up and prep to grip, followed by a down command, they were solid and calm being there preventing escapes. The sheep and goats decided that although I was armed with wormer, I was the lesser of the two evils.

PBCA trial wrap up

Clients:
Robbie the cardigan got an HT leg
Ozzy the samoyed got a PT leg
Tera and Zac the BC's got PT titles
Lyric got her PT title
Duncan had fun getting an insurance leg in PT
Marla and Firn did another go around in Started A sheep, not sure if they Q'd, brain is Sooooo fuzzy by now - but there were some really good moments in there.

Charlie and Jack both q'd in started A sheep, with Jack taking a 3rd place and Charlie a 1st.
Kestrel got first in Advanced A ducks, but probably not a champ point

The mud and muck was impressive, but very few handlers down although I'm sure all of us will have much improved leg muscles. I almost lost my boot during Jack and during Charlie's runs.

So Jack is now caught up with all his siblings and has trial level legs on him! Out of 7 pups, 6 have trial level titles or legs. Yay! I think for starting a herding line of shelties, that's not too bad...if only I could track down that one pet pup from the first litter.....

Yay Charlene!

Charlene got to go to the Winston Salem conformation shows, and got Best Puppy today and 4 pts!

She's one of the Charlie x Joy pups.

Trial Results

Wet, nasty, standing water and tons of mud.

Marla and Firn got 1st in Started A sheep
Jack and I got 2nd in Started A sheep
Charlie also Q'd in Started A sheep

Lyric and I passed PT
Janine and Duncan finished their PT
Meredith and Zak AND Terra both passed PT

Kestrel and I weren't clicking as well - so it goes.
Blue didn't want to play in the mud
Joy didn't want to run, although she was happy happy.
Robbie was busy and the Sammy Ozzy was really reeved, so both handlers had trouble.

If only I could buy these at the feed store

That's Brick. In a feed bag. I guess eating the two little tiny pieces of turkey kibble in there.

Vets, what is wrong with you!!???

I've had atleast 3 times now, where a client dog under regular care, seen just the week or two previous, had something large brewing that was blatently obvious to me, and the vet didn't catch it.
Very frustrating. While it is my job as a trainer to encourage people to know their dogs and know what is normal, I shouldn't have to be doing the diagnostics that the damn vet should be doing. This is going to be a rant, cause I'm very sad for my clients and pissed off. So it goes.

I don't think some of these vets actually LOOK at a dog anymore. They don't just watch the dog, observe it. They certainly don't listen to the owners descriptions of behavior or symptoms.

Here's some examples:
Puppy with new teeth coming in, one is coming in sideways. I tell them to have their vet look at it the next week when they go in. They do, tell me that the vet says it is fine.

Bullshit.

Several weeks later, they say the pup is chewing up everything, everything, mouthing and crazy, quite unlike how he'd been previously. I open the mouth, and find that the tooth is now making a sore in the cheek, is nearly completely in now, and is totally sideways. Yeah, the pup is in PAIN!! That is why the sudden behavior change. I show the owners, tell them that their vet was very wrong, and that they need to go back, pronto. So now, poor pup has to get it pulled, when it might have been able to be moved if the vet had caught it earlier.

Different one: Puppy in puppy class, seems to not have good vision, or something is just off. Can't put my finger on it quite, but keep asking what their vet says. By the end of the first series of classes, pup has obvious hind end weakness, and is a breed that has an inherited neuromuscular disease issue. They go see the vet, vet says pup is fine. Pup clearly cannot walk properly! How can they not see this? How? Do they not know what a proper pup of that age moves like? Do they not think maybe, when the clients say that there seems to be a lack of coordination, etc, in a breed with issues, that maybe just maybe they need to see the dog gait up and down the hallway to see for themselves? WTH? A couple of weeks later, I check reflexes, a completely normal vet thing to do in this situation - and they are bad bad. I have to be the one to tell them to take the dog in again and make their vet check the reflexes and get their vet to do something, NOW! And amazingly enough, now the vet can see the situation. Huh. If they'd been looking they probably could have seen it fully 6 wks earlier. 6 wks. That's a long time, in a puppy. A long time for owners that would have done anything for the pup had they known what to do. A long time to bond to a great smart new pup who they had to likely make a very hard decision on. Not forgiveable. It just isn't.

Numerous cases of normal cases of dogs chewing butt hair because they have a flea, and the vets charging the owners amazing amounts of money to put the dog on allergy foods and allergy tests and drugs. Fleas people. Just fleas. They can't figure out what a normal case of flea dermatitis looks like?

Goes to show, just like doctors, you have to be an educated consumer. If you think there's something just not right, ask the vet. Make sure that you run through the simple explanations first. Make sure they watch the dog move, interact with the dog, and know what a normal dog looks like. Make sure they know your breed - I choose my first vet because I was getting a Brussels Griffon and wanted someone who knew the breed. Don't leave until your questions are answered. Shop around - there are plenty of good vets out there, and it is worth it to find them. I like my vet. I go to a different vet for repro stuff, but that's fine. And I know, watching him, he watches the dogs down the long hallway gaiting. Even if it isn't a lameness issue.

And I think that trainers also need to know anatomy, basic movement and what's normal in the breeds they deal with in order to support our clients. Illness affects behavior. What would have happened to that pup with the tooth if I'd just told them how to deal with the chewing and mouthing? Would he have been able to stop with just training? I don't think so. Would he have ended up with frustrated owners, frustrated pup and an abcess to boot?

More than likely.Sigh.

Giant Inflatable Wacky Flailing Arm Guy - or how to judge stress in your dog

Last night at Petco they had parked one of these type of things, the giant inflatable wacky flailing arm guys, right next door at the matress place. So of course we worked the puppies in class on it. Brick was interesting - he acknowledged it, wasn't sure what it was but was still willing to heel with it on his side about 8 ft away. We then got closer, me on the side as the giwfag, and at one point an arm came down and hit my back. Brick jumped, looking at me, seeing me not flinch, and instantly put it in the tarp category. My lack of reaction allowed him to see that 1) I wasn't concerned and anyway I was between him and it, 2) it actually followed rules that other things in his life followed, and he'd seen be under tarps and he'd been under tarps and tarps are part of the daily life here (hay, shade, rain covers, etc).

For the puppy that was hackling and barking at it and very worried, we walked away until we found a distance at which the puppy could answer to his name and then sit. This was about 40ft away from the giwfag. We then walked about 5-10 ft, stopped, got the puppy's attention and got a sit. Repeat. If we got barking, we backed up a step or two. So by checking in with the puppy each step, we ensured that he wasn't so maxed out that he had no brain, and that his stress level was low enough that he could obey a command, before we moved closer. Before we knew it, the tail was no longer flagging, he was quiet and he'd pretty much dismissed the scary thing only 8 ft away from him. Think of the name and obedience commands as a checklist - The dog can answer to its name, the dog can take a treat, the dog can do a command facing the scary thing, the dog can do a command facing away from the scary thing, the dog can play. Pay attention to that order - it is done in order of most stressed to least stressed. The faster the dog goes up that chain of events, the more the dog is learning how to deal with stress. Getting to the end goal of the dog playing is important, and I need to do more of that with my guys. You'll get a dog that can play faster and faster in stressful situations thus making them not stressful, just like practicing the down until they fall asleep can give you a dog that can calm themselves faster in arousing situations.

Always take note of stress indicators - dog not making eye contact, dog not making ear contact, dog yawning, dog hackling, wet feet, stiff expression, stiff and tight tail (especially at the base), dog not answering to name. This lets you know that you are eating into the dog's buffer and lowering their threshold, and that you need to change something if training, or just take note that you need to balance the stress out with some play or sleep later. Not noticing these things is what gets people into the "he bit me, totally out of the blue!" situations - the dog was running out of buffer for a week, nobody noticed, and the dog finally lost it. Happens all the time.

So when you are out with your dogs, take time to use training opportunities as they come, and you'll get a lot steadier dog out of it. Watch for stress, know how much stress your dog can take, and how to add to the buffer.