I lost my ball…

… have you seen it?

As an update to foster dog’s health, the long term baytril regimen appears to be keeping the fast growing bacteria under wraps. He is wearing a cone due to his ability to scratch the skin and spread the bacteria.

He was last seen by the vet in April to be anesthetized for assessment, cleaning and grooming. At that time, it was found that he scored the ear leather and the bacteria had a stronghold. Being able to groom him while he’s asleep benefits all of us with a more peaceful procedure.

In the last two weeks, he’s become very playful and yesterday he demonstrated a side that I hadn’t witnessed before. He found a ball and engaged all of us to be part of the game.

This picture shows how happy he was in the moment.

You can find more information about Buddy by visiting past blogs:

Surgery or Post Grooming or Springer Boy

I love the honesty of dogs

When they itch, they scratch.

When they are thirsty, they will drink from any vessel including a toilet.

When they are hungry, they tell you… and rather than list their favourites, they may simply turn up their noses and walk away from something boring or not up to their standards.

They don’t lie to your face but will take a new relationship to a deeper level by smelling (ahem) crotches.

If they ate your slipper they don’t deny it. In fact they will likely cry “mea culpa” with enough heart that they are quickly forgiven.

If you take them to a training class, their honesty about the lack of effort put into training that week is obvious. But they cope and push forward with their usual flair for fun as if giving their handler a “bye” in the schedule.

And if they don’t like you, they simply walk away… without excuses, scathing remarks or name-calling. There’s no need for snapping, snarling or marking a higher target.

That’s class! and likely a lesson.

For the life of your puppy

We dearly love our puppies and it continues through the terrible hormonal times until the grey appears on our beloved dogs’ muzzles.

Having (and cuddling) our puppies gives us the opportunity to help them understand that hands are good! Hands deliver treats, balance food and water bowls, give a good scritch in itchy places and gently caress those adorable canine domes.

1. Gently massage each paw… the pads of the feet, in between toes and even the nails.
2. Gentle touch on the ears. Not so light that it’s irritating like a fly but with enough intention to kindly milk the ear leathers. Use the thumb and the index finger with a soft pulling (milking) motion. For those dogs with prick ears, you have the opportunity of watching for any accumulation of dirt. For those dogs with pendulous ears, you will need to gently flip up the ear leathers for inspection.
3. For teething puppies, you can gently massage the gums with your index finger. Once this is tolerated, you can wrap your finger with gauze to GENTLY rub the gums and teeth for cleaning.
4. Puppies and children? those tails can be a source of intolerance. Wrap your your hand around the base of the tail and gently move the hand to the tip… only in the direction of hair growth. Having the pup used to touch on the tail may avert reaction to an accidental tug.

Touch and massage the puppy in a non-teasing, non-testing way. Early practice will get your dog accustomed to having body parts touched and tolerance praised. You will be glad you did this at an early age… for vet appointments, grooming events and for dosing of medications.

Your dog may solicit “more” and who doesn’t want to bond with their dog?

The Easter dilemna

So many domestic bunnies released into public areas.
So many intact and breeding.
So many little ones dying…wildlife and humans.
So many problems caused by bunnies burrowing or grazing.

One local municipality decided to round up the released bunnies at City Hall. They had them altered and once recovered, they were released to public approved land… next to a protected bird sanctuary complete with many species of raptors. I’m confused how this solves the problem.

Municipalities that agree animals should not be sold in pet stores enact bylaws that cover canines and felines… Overlooking the small animal populations of bunnies, hedgehogs, white rats, guinea pigs, chinchillas, mice and gerbils which should be included in the sales ban. (I would also include to ban the sale of reptiles.)

Small animals have short life cycles but not short enough for those spur-of-the-moment purchases. Parents wishing to show children the cycle of life have not done research to learn that many rabbits live to 10+ years.  Shelters are overwhelmed and small animals rescues are chock-a-bloc full of a variety of small animals so people wishing to dump their animals are often disappointed to hear “No, we can’t help you.”

What follows may be sending the animal into the park or public area believing that the animal will be saved by a stranger. More often than not, the beloved children’s pet is eaten by a coyote, killed by crows, run over by vehicles and attacked by dogs. Not a nice picture for a bedtime story.

So don’t be part of the problem… don’t purchase small animals without commitment and research firmly completed. Don’t teach your children that it’s okay to shrug responsibility when the shine has dulled.

Do consider applying to adopt from reputable small animal rescues. You will have the opportunity to meet the animal and ask questions regarding care and feeding. The animal will be altered. The rescue will introduce you to animals that match your list of wants.

Chocolate bunnies are for Easter!

To adopt, contact Small Animal Rescue Society

Donations gratefully accepted!

Teams demonstrate K9 Nose Work® at LMQHA Bazaar

Proudly presented at the LMQHA Bazaar my students demonstrated the sport.

All teams were efficient and quickly did their searches… and had fun doing so.

Take my dog or I’ll kill it.

Did I get your attention?

This is something that folks have stated for many years when they decide to get rid of their dog… for any reason. While I was active for 16 yrs. rehoming spaniels, I kept a list of the reasons people wanted to dump their dogs. I have two memorable excuses:

1. A woman called and with a gentle voice asked passionately for me to drop by and pick up her adult springer. It was a nice dog, a kind and clean dog but needed to go “immediately”. I pushed harder for the truth and what the woman told me still has me amazed today. She said:
   We’ve been in our home for many years and we’ve just finished top to bottom renovations and redecorating…    I waited   … and the dog doesn’t match our couch.
2. A man called asking if I would take his young female dog. He had simply “fallen out of love with her.” Hearing my refusal, he bellowed some vulgarities at me and slammed down the phone. (I’m sure the dog had fallen out of love with him too.)

Hundreds, if not thousands, of dogs are relinguished (the genteel word for dumping) every week due to having NO training. I’ve spoken to many owners who admit that they never signed up with a professional dog trainer for classes because they could train their puppy… but they didn’t and now their adult dog has overwhelmed their training abilities.

So thousands of dogs have never been taught survival skills. They’ve become “boredom barkers” or “sneaky pee’rs” or “stealthful thieves”. The owners quickly reach their tolerance level and the dog MUST GO NOW!!

Ergo the threat: Take my dog or I’ll kill it!
(The dog becomes an “it” as the owner distances themselves emotionally.)

So here’s a FREE fast, efficient, quick fix to all these unwanted dogs.

TRAIN THEM!

Literally, they are dying to learn.

Doing the scent game

The gods must be very amused as  we humans attempt to make sense of how dogs use their noses. The closer we get to understanding, the further we get from the truth. We can understand how the human/canine team works but a detailed roadmap of how a dog finds scent is more elusive.

There have been some dandy discussions lately on internet lists for sport enthusiasts. I suspect that like many things, the experienced handlers are hearing the same questions over and over again. My mentor, Ron Gaunt, is very good at letting a discussion go so the participants can hypothesize, speculate and share observations before he adds more thought-provoking information.

Today there was a question about one of the odors which we train our dogs on and how dogs can tell the trained odor from a product using a chemical cousin. The discussion was attempted from the chemical compound view and then returned to what we observe in our dogs.

If I can paraphrase, I liked the Gaunt wisdom that a dog’s survival is a test (pass or fail) but when we offer a controlled environment to do searches, the dogs have a chance to learn… something they do all the time.

So we continue to watch and trust our dogs.

Zara Heartwood 1950-2012

Zara in Barkerville BC

It is with profound sadness, I share the passing of friend, colleague, rescuer, sheltie expert, journalist, and spiritual being, Zara Heartwood.

It’s been a long and loving journey to know Zara. In the 80s, we met over a rehomed cocker and our friendship continued as we parted and joined paths many times. She with her cockers and golden retrievers and I with a list of spaniels…. and then the upstart shelties which she produced with a great deal of integrity and love.

Her heart was large and even after others did the most hurtful things to her, she still found a path to forgiveness. Her courage through disease was scoffed because she looked healthy… she decided that the best revenge was living every minute.

I remember her phone calls and the laughter; her bucket list of Hawaii and photography; finding romance and giggling like a schoolgirl when she spoke of her “boyfriend”; her complete research and discovery to name a litter of pups; her criteria for friendship; her command of language and its best use; her voice which she used to decorate every conversation; her extensive knowledge; her joy of getting her Canadian citizenship on her Birthday (July 1) and telling me the whole of Canada came out to celebrate her! (July 1st is also Canada Day).

I will miss you my friend. I will protect your name. I will honour my promises.
Godspeed.

The death of something dear to me

In late 2004, I founded a breed specific rescue association in Canada for English Springer Spaniels. After working with a US group for 8 years, I saw a need to help the breed in Canada. I created relationships with the National Springer club members who were excited to have an association help the breed.

There were many exciting times!

• A trip to eastern Canada to take some dogs from a breeder. Days of baths, grooming and getting to know the dogs. Applications, interviews and adoptions. Safe dogs in the arms of happy families.
  
• A seizure of 69 dogs needing help in Eastern Canada. Days of hard teamwork. Finding money to pay the vet bills that were “topped up” as if we had deep pockets.
• Exciting fundraisers across the country. Relationships built with local shelters and respect growing for our work. Breed club members excited to help with information, donations and loving the fancy. Building the membership to 100+ fanciers. Website, email groups, communication.

Then the behind the scenes nastiness had a face… or two. Disagreements over petty issues that didn’t help the dogs. The plans of overthrow. Egos screaming for attention and finally deciding to step back after being told that they “could do things better.”

And so they did things better. They pillaged the files and seeing the work was more than they could manage, they started their “own” rescue. Not registered as a provincial non-profit and not a registered charity. But OH! the large bank account was a soft pillow to land.

Buddy

Directors on the board were being ignored and their questions went unanswered. They came to me for help a year ago. Could they revive the charity? They tried but the news was not received well and all doors were shut. Anonymous emails advising me that “they” were destroying another group… who cares? what about the dogs?

Registered mail came to me because contact information was not changed in 4 years. Financial statements filed with the CRA show expenses but no dogs were helped. Donations collected for tax receipts but no dogs were helped. No dogs were helped.

There has been discussion with ex-directors to see if we could revive all the work we did to create the charity but we will let this die. We don’t want our names included in the future audit by the government.

I look to my foster dog who needs extensive veterinary care and I’m glad that I still can do what’s honourable. I still receive calls to help springers and I still feel the responsibility to help. The death of this association allows for the rebirth of something with integrity and honour.

Yes, you certainly could do things better! But it wasn’t for the dogs.

Mock Trials in review

Mock Trials for K9 Nose Work® are wonderful things!

Based on all students having trained using K9NW guidelines, trials are set up to test the skills of the teams. Formal trials are sanctioned by the NACSW but Mock Trials can be run without sanction and are generally set up following trial situations, after all, they are “mock” trials.

Training or taking classes in K9 Nose Work® is usually done with set-ups that exceed some trial expectations and prepare the teams for the “odd” and “evil” searches… I say with a grin.

Mock Trials can alleviate trial nerves. They can point out where more work has to be done. They are fun and the camaraderie is extraordinary. The friendly cheering and competition survives with each trial. Judges are celebrated and appear to be awe-struck with the canine talents.

Weather is always the unknown and this weekend, it presented some delightful challenges. To ignore the wind would have been foolish. I told my dog “stop spinning cuz you’re making me dizzy!!” during the vehicle search. The judge laughed!

At one point, a trial coordinator entered the waiting area to announce that a deer was in the soccer field which bordered the vehicle search. Lawns were dotted with wild animal scat and bunnies the size of raccoons were resting in the exterior search area.

We had a great day! The judges’ tips were given with kindness and understanding. The wealth of fun and learned skills were celebrated by all those who participated.

Congratulations to Bob and Mikado! We loved your runs.