Mar
4
2010

Stupid Dog Don’ts That People Do

This post is intended to be read by peo­ple with a sense of humor, because it points out and pokes fun at how we “more intel­li­gent higher species” can be so dumb.

I think I have seen and heard my, your, and your brother’s fair share of stu­pid dog don’ts that peo­ple do. Even to this day there are still times I shake my head and think, “What?!?!!?”  Here are my favorite top five:

Boxer Dog

1.  Bite your dog on the ear.  -  This has got to be my absolute favorite.  Why in heaven’s sake would you delib­er­ately put your face near the pointy end of a reac­tive dog?  Even bet­ter, who actu­ally thinks they are fast enough to not get bit?  Why would caus­ing pain be a good idea in the first place and what is it sup­posed to teach?

2.  Reach your hand out to strange dogs so they can sniff you. — This  one is good for a chuckle.  Like the dog can’t smell you unless you reach out your hand.  Like we live in an invis­i­ble force-field immune to a dog’s snif­fer.  Besides that “duh” fac­tor, how smart is it to reach right for the face of a strange dog?  Believe it or not, that’s quite rude to do to a dog.

3.  Train my dog not to bite my kid even while he’s: pulling his tail, smoosh­ing his face, hug­ging him, using him to learn how to stand and grab­bing onto his fur with a vice grip, smack­ing him, pulling his whiskers, yelling in his ear, etc, etc, etc.    No, sorry I can’t.  Because every liv­ing crea­ture has their break­ing point and con­stantly push­ing your dog past his by bad par­ent­ing and lack of super­vi­sion can’t be fixed with­out real­iz­ing your kid can’t treat the dog like crap.  Sorry.  Get a stuffed ani­mal for your kid to play with.  I always want to drop the pro­fes­sional polit­i­cally cor­rect nature of myself and ask peo­ple, “Can I poke your eye, yell into your ear, steal your lunch right out of your hand, grab your husband’s ass, and any­thing else I can think of that is just com­pletely cross­ing every bound­ary of respect and per­sonal space and see how you like me?”

4.  That dog must be friendly because his tail is wag­ging. — Yet another pop­u­lar thought many peo­ple believe (and usu­ally fol­lowed by stu­pid human faux pas #2.)  Under­stand­ing basic canine body lan­guage is not too dif­fi­cult and the big fat rule numero uno is look at the whole dog! Even if you don’t take into con­sid­er­a­tion the envi­ron­ment or any trig­gers, and zone into just the tail there are an array of tail move­ments and car­riages.  Is it low, high, stiff, only wag­ging at the top, fast, slow, hair stand­ing up on it, method­i­cally back and forth.…

5.  Say­ing a cue over and over until phys­i­cally mak­ing the dog do it. — An exam­ple of this would be, “Sit. Sit. Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit! SIT!”  and then just push­ing the dog’s bum.  I never got that.  Why waste your breath?  Clearly the dog doesn’t under­stand “sit” in the envi­ron­ment he’s in or there is zero moti­va­tion to do so.  Either way, it’s silly to nag your dog.  Next time, just bring a block of cheese with you or train for gen­er­al­iza­tion around dis­trac­tions if you expect results.  Just because a dog can sit in the kitchen doesn’t mean he will at the vet’s.  That’s the same as assum­ing a new dri­ver can drive on the inter­state just because they drove around the block a few times.  Sorry, you can’t have my car keys.

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Mar
3
2010

The Vegetarian and the Two Blood-Thirsty Savages

This is a guest blog from  Casey Lomonaco, KPA CTP, APDT owner of Reward­ing Behav­iors Dog Train­ing (www.rewardingbehaviors.com)  I asked her if she would write some­thing about the BARF (Bones and Raw Food) diet because she is an avid raw feeder.  I dab­bled with raw a lit­tle bit when my dogs were young with fan­tas­tic results.  How­ever, I am no where near the expert she is.  A great blog to check out for more infor­ma­tion is http://irawfeed.blogspot.com

If you were to visit my home and voy­age into the base­ment, you would be greeted with a sight unex­pected in any veg­e­tar­ian house­hold – two full-sized freez­ers (one chest freezer, one upright) chock full of buf­falo, rab­bit, smelt, veni­son, pork, chicken, beef, turkey, whit­ing, duck, an assort­ment of organ meats, and a fair bit of raw green tripe.

I’ve been a veg­e­tar­ian for nearly 18 years now, and for the past three of those years have been feed­ing my dogs a home-prepared raw diet.  I was thrilled when my friend Jules invited me on board at her fan­tas­tic Sit, Stay, and Play blog to dis­cuss what I feel is one of the best deci­sions I’ve ever made on behalf of my dogs.  Through­out my his­tory as a dog owner, I’ve run the gamut on feed­ing choices.  Grow­ing up, we fed our dogs Dad’s or what­ever was on sale at the gro­cery store.  When I got my own dogs, I fed what I under­stood to be “pre­mium” diets, Sci­ence Diet and Iam’s.  After a bit of research, I real­ized that there were far bet­ter dog foods on the mar­ket and expanded to offer­ing my dogs Innova brand foods, even­tu­ally tran­si­tion­ing to a vari­ety of grain-free kib­bles and canned products.

I did approx­i­mately 6 months worth of research before tran­si­tion­ing my dogs onto a raw diet.  It was scary for me, as a very ded­i­cated pet owner, to take respon­si­bil­ity for my dogs’ nutri­tion.  Most dog own­ers have been taught for as long as we can remem­ber that we are not capa­ble of cre­at­ing a “nutri­tion­ally com­plete” and “bal­anced” diet for dogs and that “peo­ple food is a no-no.”  There was def­i­nitely a learn­ing curve to feed­ing this new diet once I made the leap.  I was con­fronted with many cul­tur­ally rein­forced myths and errant beliefs about raw diets.  “Raw diets are a fad.”  “Your dog will become a blood thirsty sav­age.”  “Your dog will die.”  “Your entire fam­ily is in dan­ger from blood-thirsty sav­age dogs and immi­nent bac­te­r­ial destruc­tion.”  While the first myth always seemed silly to me (what the heck did dogs eat before the kib­ble indus­try arose in the twen­ti­eth cen­tury?), the lat­ter myths were down­right scary.  Mir­a­cle of mir­a­cles, my dogs are not blood-thirsty sav­ages, are both health­ier than they’ve ever been, and Jim and I are rel­a­tively healthy human beings and happy to report that we have noted no human casu­al­ties despite host­ing many vis­i­tors in the past three years.

Here is a fan­tas­tic web­site ded­i­cated to dis­pelling many of the com­mon myths and mis­con­cep­tions about raw food diets for dogs:  http://www.rawfed.com/myths/

IS A RAW DIET RIGHT FOR YOUR DOG?

In my per­sonal opin­ion (and please remem­ber I am not a vet­eri­nar­ian or nutri­tion­ist), the dog that can­not thrive on a raw diet is a rare excep­tion.  If you look at your dog’s teeth, you will see that they are designed to eat meat.   That said, raw diets are not for every­one, as feed­ing raw, par­tic­u­larly for a DIY-er like myself, is a lot more involved than just mea­sur­ing out a given amount of kib­ble and plop­ping it in a bowl at feed­ing times.  If you decide you would like to feed raw, you can choose to pur­chase pre-made raw foods or you can make your own.  Pre-made raw blends are gen­er­ally more expen­sive (some­times sig­nif­i­cantly more costly) to feed than the DIY ver­sion, but are much more con­ve­nient and less messy.  DIY raw can save you quite a bit on your food bud­get, but is more involved and requires a cou­ple hours’ a month prepa­ra­tion time on your part.

MY VET SAYS I SHOULDN’T FEED RAW

If you choose to feed your dog a raw diet, be pre­pared for resis­tance from your vet­eri­nar­ian.  Most vet­eri­nar­i­ans have a very good rea­son for dis­suad­ing clients from switch­ing to a raw diet.  Why?  Because a poorly con­structed, slip­shod raw diet is dan­ger­ous.  It is not as easy as throw­ing a ham­burger on your floor each day at your dog’s meal­time.  It requires care­ful plan­ning and a bit of research to feed raw cor­rectly.  If you are unable to pro­vide an appro­pri­ate and well-balanced raw diet, it may be health­ier for your dog to eat a high-quality kib­ble or canned food, per­haps with occa­sional raw meals included.

To be hon­est, my vet­eri­nar­ian was ini­tially not thrilled that I decided to tran­si­tion my dogs to raw.  She is a trusted pro­fes­sional and some­one who I respect a great deal, and she knows that I am slightly mani­a­cal about doing all I can to ensure my dogs’ opti­mal health, phys­i­cally and behav­iorally.  I dis­cussed my research with her, show­ing her an Excel file I had cre­ated to be my feed­ing guide as I con­structed my dogs’ diets.  I offered to email my spread­sheet to her.  At sub­se­quent check ups, my vet­eri­nar­ian mar­vels at my dogs’ good health, beau­ti­ful coats, shiny teeth, bright eyes, lack of doggy breath, and mus­cu­lar con­di­tion.  I know that she has for­warded the spread­sheet to other clients inter­ested in feed­ing raw as an exam­ple of what is involved in “doing it right.”  Since I orig­i­nally cre­ated the spread­sheet, I was able to enlist the help of some of my raw feed­ing men­tors to improve it ten­fold.  I will share the spread­sheet at the end of this entry for all of you to use as a resource.

RAW FEEDING RESOURCES

I par­tic­i­pate in an online com­mu­nity where there is a fan­tas­tic raw feed­ing forum.  Many of the raw feed­ers on this forum, gen­er­ous though they are with infor­ma­tion, grew tired of answer­ing the same ques­tions over and over again each time a new raw feeder joined the forum, so a com­pi­la­tion of great inter­net raw feed­ing resources was cre­ated which could be sent as an infor­ma­tion library for those look­ing for more infor­ma­tion on raw feed­ing.  The thread is called “So You’re Inter­ested in Feed­ing Raw?” and can be found here:  http://www.dogster.com/forums/Raw_Food_Diet/thread/431875

When I first tran­si­tioned to raw, I needed to cre­ate a spread­sheet to help me plan my meals.  Raw fed dogs are gen­er­ally fed between 1.5 and 6% of body weight, depend­ing on age, breed, activ­ity level, and indi­vid­ual metab­o­lism.  My spread­sheet auto-calculated the amounts I’d need of var­i­ous types of foods in the diet for each of these activ­ity lev­els both daily and weekly.  Some won­der­ful raw feed­ing friends helped me make vast improve­ments on my orig­i­nal spread­sheet, includ­ing new infor­ma­tion based on NRC guide­lines, the abil­ity to auto-calculate crit­i­cal val­ues based on infor­ma­tion entered by the user, and mak­ing it all around more infor­ma­tive and func­tional.  Once you learn the “how’s and why’s” of a raw feed­ing diet from the “So You’re Inter­ested in Feed­ing Raw?” page, check out the spread­sheet for a detailed diet plan:  http://www.dogster.com/forums/Raw_Food_Diet/thread/491589 (again, do check this plan over with your vet and remem­ber that we are not vet­eri­nar­i­ans, just a bunch of well-intentioned nutri­tion nerds).

The Whole Dog Jour­nal is a fan­tas­tic resource with lots of won­der­ful arti­cles on raw feed­ing.  You may pur­chase back issue arti­cles from their web­site at www.whole-dog-journal.com after doing an arti­cle search for “raw feed­ing” to get more won­der­ful information.

If you are look­ing to learn more about raw feed­ing, check out books avail­able by Tom Lons­dale, Ian Billinghurst, Kymythy Schultze, Mon­ica Segal, and Dr. Karen Becker, among others.

I also highly sug­gest join­ing the raw feed­ing forum on dog­ster, for more help on answer­ing ques­tions you may have as a new raw feeder and to get sup­port on your new nutri­tion plan for your favorite dog!

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Mar
2
2010

Socialization Skills

Pup­pies are not born know­ing how the world works and it’s not down­loaded from their mom dur­ing nurs­ing.  Nev­er­the­less, the world goes round.  So how’s a pup sup­posed to learn what’s good, bad, harm­ful, safe, pleas­ant, and pun­ish­ing?  By socializing.

Social­iza­tion is the act of expos­ing your puppy to new, pleas­ant expe­ri­ences — with the goal to cre­ate a con­fi­dent dog.  That’s right, I said con­fi­dent.  The polar oppo­site of con­fi­dent in the dog world is anx­ious.  And not social­iz­ing a puppy will cre­ate a dog who is fear­ful, hes­i­tant, ner­vous, anx­ious, or aggres­sive when intro­duced to a new envi­ron­ment or stim­u­lus.  You know, those dogs who are scared to live in their own skin.

Also notice social­iza­tion isn’t just expo­sure.  It’s expo­sure with pleas­ant con­se­quences. Just tak­ing your puppy around new peo­ple, places, ani­mals, and things DOES NOT social­ize.  It’s the inter­ac­tion with those things. Keep in mind that a neg­a­tive expe­ri­ence can come from uncer­tainty (fear of the unknown), or a bad expe­ri­ence,  and it can come from you or the envi­ron­ment.  I had a won­der­ful Sheltie breeder in Ohio call me about a puppy she placed in my area.  This puppy left her just like every other puppy with no prob­lems.  Within two months he was so fear­ful of peo­ple he wouldn’t even let the owner touch him.  After speak­ing with her and get­ting some back ground infor­ma­tion it was obvi­ous the prob­lem was due to improper social­iz­ing.  You see, this Sheltie puppy was placed with a trainer’s assis­tant who had all the best inten­tions.  She wanted to social­ize her new puppy and had access to hun­dreds of peo­ple and dogs.  Sadly, she didn’t real­ize pass­ing her puppy from per­son to per­son with a goal of “the puppy must be han­dled by 100 strangers” back fired.  Let’s pre­tend you’re the puppy, and I’m your owner.  Now let’s pre­tend you’re not sure what to make of strangers, a lit­tle uncom­fort­able, but noth­ing seri­ous.  Now let’s pre­tend I force 100 ran­dom strangers to hug you.  So that’s one hun­dred times some­thing you are uneasy about comes into your space and just starts touch­ing you (pet­ting). Which actu­ally had the side effect of “touch is bad.”

Sheltie Socialization

Social­iza­tion is teach­ing a puppy about the world around him.  It’s teach­ing the accep­tance of new places, things, sounds, etc.  A much bet­ter plan would have been to do some­thing that made the Sheltie puppy want to approach strangers.  Maybe let­ting the dog come to them and get­ting a good sniff.  Or how about giv­ing the dog a small tasty treat (we call that “strangers have the best candy” in the train­ing world.)  If you try and force “close” all they want to do is get far­ther away.  If you give them plenty of space to get close at their own pace, then they want to explore the option of being close.  Why?  Because it’s non-threatening.

So if you or some­one you know is social­iz­ing a puppy, tell them to use moti­va­tion.  Tell them: Social­iza­tion is expo­sure with pleas­ant con­se­quences to teach accep­tance of new experiences.

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Feb
23
2010

Dogstardaily post “The last days of pain training are upon us”

I hon­estly could not have said it bet­ter myself.  You NEED to see this post,

The last days of pain train­ing are upon us

Feb­ru­ary 22nd, 2010 by Dray­ton Michaels

http://www.dogstardaily.com/blogs/last-days-pain-training-are-upon-us

FOLLOW UP 3/5/10:  this has been taken down because CM’s legal team threat­ened Dog Star Daily.  The author has writ­ten a fol­low up post here: http://trainertails.blogspot.com/2010/03/im-not-afraid-of-corporate-thugs.html

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Feb
17
2010

Pet Store Puppies Illegal?

SENATE BILL 505 — Pet Stores Sale of Dogs Less than 9 Months of Age Prohibited

Senate Bill 505, Pet Stores – Sale of Dogs Less than 9 Months of Age Prohibited

A hear­ing for Sen­ate Bill 505 is sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary 18, 2010 at 1:00 p.m. before the Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tee. Find a list of com­mit­tee mem­bers and address for the hear­ing here. F ind con­tact infor­ma­tion by click­ing on their names here. And find out who is your rep here.

This bill is pro­posed to start Octo­ber 1, 2010.

A RETAIL PET STORE IN THE STATE MAY NOT DISPLAY, SELL, DELIVER, OFFER FOR SALE OR ADOPTION, BARTER, AUCTION, GIVE AWAY, OR OTHERWISE TRANSFER OR DISPOSE OF A DOG LESS THAN 9 MONTHS OF AGE.

Pet stores who vio­late this would be sub­ject to a $500 fine for a first offense, and $1000 fine for each sub­se­quent offense.

For more ani­mal legal infor­ma­tion visit this web site.

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Feb
15
2010

Westminster 2010 Winners

West­min­ster Ken­nel Club Winners

Westminster Group 2010 Winners

BEST IN SHOW
Ch Round­town Mer­cedes

Breed: Scot­tish Terrier

.

HOUND

1ST PLACE — Ch Starline’s Chanel
Breed: Whippet

2ND PLACE — Ch Grand­cru Clos Eras­mus
Breed: Greyhound

3RD PLACE -  Ch Fox­cliffe Hick­ory Wind
Breed: Scot­tish Deerhound

4TH PLACE -  Ch Rokeena Carte Blanche
Breed: Petits Bas­sets Grif­fons Vendeen

.

TOY

1ST PLACE — Ch Smash JP Moon Walk
Breed: Poo­dle (Toy)

2ND PLACE — Ch Linn-Lee’s For The Good Times
Breed: Pekingese

3RD PLACE — Ch Hall­mark Jolei Austin Pow­ers
Breed: Shih Tzu

4TH PLACE -  Ch Forevr Errol Flynn
Breed: Papillon

.

NON-SPORTING

1ST PLACE — Ch Robob­ull Fabel­haft Im On Fire
Breed: French Bulldog

2ND PLACE -  Ch Chaoyang Chick Mag­net At Asia
Breed: Chi­nese Shar-Pei

3RD PLACE — Ch Kepley’s Show­biz Raz­zle Daz­zle
Breed: Bulldog

4TH PLACE — Ch Splash Di Caprio
Breed: Poo­dle (Miniature)

.

HERDING

1ST PLACE — Ch Cord­maker Field Of Dreams
Breed: Puli

2ND PLACE — Ch Uri De Beau­voir
Breed: Bel­gian Sheepdog

3RD PLACE — Ch Tolkien Rain­tree Mis­ter Bag­gins
Breed: Bearded Collie

4TH PLACE — Ch Kridler’s Nut­meg V Sig­na­ture
Breed: Ger­man Shep­herd Dog

.

SPORTING

1ST PLACE — Ch Wil­low­ick Tall­tean
Breed: Brittany

2ND PLACE — Ch Poole’s Ide Got Water RN
Breed: Spaniel (Irish Water)

3RD PLACE — Ch Firethorn And Sand­piper Easy On The Eyes
Breed: Set­ter (Gordon)

4TH PLACE — Ch Beechcroft Study’s Top Secret
Breed: Retriever (Labrador)

.

WORKING

1ST PLACE — Ch Allure Blaz­ing Star Alisaton
Breed: Dober­man Pinscher

2ND PLACE — Ch Win­fall Brook­wood Styled Dream
Breed: Boxer

3RD PLACE — Ch Avi­a­tors Luck Be A Lady
Breed: Por­tuguese Water Dog

4TH PLACE — Ch Sno Klas­sic Play The Game
Breed: Alaskan Malamute

.

TERRIER

1ST PLACE — Ch Round­town Mer­cedes Of Maryscot
Breed: Scot­tish Terrier

2ND PLACE — Ch J’Cobe Kemosabe Vig­i­lante Jus­tice
Breed: Fox Ter­rier (Smooth)

3RD PLACE — Ch Skyscot’s Poker Chip
Breed: Nor­wich Terrier

4TH PLACE — Ch Stir­ling Cool Hand Luke
Breed: Airedale Terrier

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Feb
15
2010

What a cute plastic noise maker…

Clicker train­ing?  What is that?  How can a cute plas­tic noise maker train my dog?”  I hear this clicker crap all the time.  Dis­be­liev­ers due to lack of under­stand­ing the power of com­mu­ni­ca­tion the sound has.  Don’t hate the tool.  Learn how to use it.  Ever get a new cell phone where every­thing is dif­fer­ent?  Don’t hate the phone, learn how it works.  Thank­fully there is only one but­ton on a clicker.

So how does clicker train­ing work?  Unfor­tu­nately, just because it has a but­ton doesn’t mean it’s a “good dog” remote con­trol.  (And FYI, hold­ing it out point­ing it at your dog is rude.)  The sound the clicker makes is the impor­tant part.  The sound of the click is a pre­cise, clear, pin point com­mu­ni­ca­tion that trans­lates in the dog’s brain “reward!”  When a dog hears the click, the dog lit­er­ally hears, “That’s It!  You just did the thing I want and now I am going to reward you!”  So chances are the dog will want to repeat what he just did.  A lit­tle hand eye coor­di­na­tion is all it takes to click exactly what you want and train just about anything.

Take a moment and play this cap­ture the sheep game.  Go ahead, I’ll wait…

So how did you do?  Bob­bing bob­cat?  Slug­gish snail?  Turbo-charged chee­tah?  It’s a great way to mea­sure your reac­tion time.  And trust me, if you can play this game, at any level, you can time a clicker with no worries.

First thing to do is to load the clicker.  Then decide on some­thing you want to teach your dog.  Here is an exam­ple of using the clicker to train a dog with a jump­ing problem.

See “Don’t Jump, It Won’t Work” directly on YouTube HERE

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Feb
13
2010

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Biscuits

After talk­ing about what not to give your dog and why choco­late is a “no no bad food” for pets, I thought it would be fun to have home­made recipes that are good for dogs.
I would like to thank Joanne C. of Col­lege Park, MD for sup­ply­ing this fan­tas­tic recipe and pho­tos for Oat­meal Peanut But­ter Bis­cuits.  I’d love to hear what you & your dog think about them.  And if you have any recipes you think might make the cut to get posted on our blog, send them to us at recipes@sitstayandplay.com along with at least one pic­ture.  Enjoy!

Oat­meal Peanut But­ter Biscuits

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Biscuit Dog Treat

  • 1/2 cup oats
  • 1/2 cup cornmeal
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup veg oil
  • 1/2 cup water (i usu­ally use chicken or beef bouil­lon to add flavor)
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp of vanilla
  • 3 big spoon­fuls of Peanut But­ter (about 3–4 tbsp)
Mix dry ingre­di­ents (oats/cornmeal/flour). Mix wet ingre­di­ents (oil/water/eggs/vanilla). Com­bine both mixes and add peanut but­ter. Mix well (I usu­ally just use my hands for this) roll out to about 1/4 inch or so thick and cut into shapes using addi­tional flour to help keep it from stick­ing to the roller. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 min­utes and then turn off oven and let cool.
Oatmeal Peanut Butter Biscuit Dog Treat Oatmeal Peanut Butter Biscuit Dog Treat Oatmeal Peanut Butter Biscuit Dog Treat Oatmeal Peanut Butter Biscuit Dog Treat
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Feb
9
2010

Anti-Chocolate Your Pet

This Valentine’s Day remem­ber to cher­ish your pet by putting away the presents.  Teddy bears will become chok­ing chew toy haz­ards and choco­late will become a trip to the emer­gency vet.  Happy Valentine’s Day to you.  Tell your pet his dreams of going to Candy Moun­tain to swim in the choco­late water­fall with sugar plum fairies just ain’t happening.

Chocolate is toxic for pet dogs and cats

Choco­late was in the TOP 10 Pet Poi­sons for 2009.  And con­tin­ues to be a main cul­prit in pet poi­son­ing.  Dogs seem to be listed more than cats.  Not because choco­late is any less bad for cats, but because cats just don’t eat it as much.  Thank­fully, cats just don’t have the sweet tooth dogs have.  So the good news about cats is they gen­er­ally don’t want choco­late, the bad news is when they do it’s big trou­ble.  Their small mass is far more sus­cep­ti­ble to toxic lev­els com­pared to your aver­age size dog.

The entire rea­son choco­late is bad for pets is because of the toxic com­pounds called methylx­an­thines, specif­i­cally theo­bromine and caf­feine.  Dogs (and cats) don’t have the same enzymes or metab­o­lism we do, so choco­late is extremely dif­fi­cult for them to digest.  The half life (once ingested) in dogs is esti­mated at 17.5 hours.  The lethal dose of theo­bromine for dogs is between 100mg to 200mg per kg of body­weight.  How­ever, accord­ing to the ASPCA’s Poi­son Con­trol Cen­ter, symp­toms appeared at 20 mg/kg, with severe symp­toms at 40–50 mg/kg, and seizures at 60 mg/kg.  The amount ingested, type of choco­late, and your dog’s body weight will deter­mine your par­tic­u­lar dog’s fate.  See this Choco­late Chart for a bet­ter idea between the dif­fer­ence of: white, milk, dark, semi-sweet, bak­ers, & cocoa, and how it com­pares to your dog’s weight.

Esti­mated Theo­bromine Per Ounce of Chocolate

  • White choco­late = 1 mg/oz
  • Milk choco­late = 44–64 mg/oz
  • Dark choco­late is = 150–160 mg/oz
  • Semi­sweet choco­late is = 150–160 mg/oz
  • Baker’s choco­late = 450 mg/oz
  • Cocoa pow­der = 800 mg/oz

Symp­toms can be seen after four hours but can some­times take as long as 24 hours and range from vom­it­ing, diar­rhea, fre­quent uri­na­tion, hard (to the touch) stom­ach area, sen­si­tiv­ity in the stom­ach area, hyper­ac­tiv­ity, car­diac arrhyth­mia, seizures, and death.  Eat­ing choco­late is very seri­ous and you should call your vet or the ASPCA’s Poi­son Hot­line (888–426-4435, fee applies) imme­di­ately.  Since there are so many vari­ables, there is no spe­cific treat­ment for choco­late poi­son­ing.  Usu­ally your med­ical pro­fes­sional will advise you to induce vom­it­ing by hydro­gen per­ox­ide (one tea­spoon per ten pounds of body weight) or syrup of ipecac, if it has been under two hours since ini­tial inges­tion.  I’m no vet but I do know hydro­gen per­ox­ide should be used spar­ingly in extreme emer­gen­cies because this can cause esophageal ulcers.  I would call death by choco­late a rea­son to use it myself, it’s the greater evil.  Acti­vated char­coal is said to also help absorb tox­ins.  Your dog may have to go in and be put on flu­ids, treated for seizures, and/or mon­i­tored for heart failure.

If your dog gets a hold of one M&M don’t panic.  Chances are he’ll live.  Me?  I’d rather have my dog (or cat) eat zero parts per mil­lion of a known, deadly toxin.


For more infor­ma­tion on theo­bromine and why choco­late is harm­ful to pets see:

“Choco­late intox­i­ca­tion” by Sharon Gwaltney-Brant, DVM, PhD

Merck Vet­eri­nary Man­ual — chocolate

“How Choco­late Can Poi­son Your Dogs,” Vet Info

“Leave The Choco­late Out of Rover’s Cel­e­bra­tions,” FDA

Hershey’s Nutri­tion Page — Theobromine

IARC Mono­graphs VOL 51

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Feb
8
2010

Cold Weather Care Tips

Since we just got about three feet of snow, I fig­ured it might be a good idea to post some cold weather dos and don’ts.

POTTY MISTAKES

  • DO every­thing in your power to make potty habits out­side hap­pen.  I can not tell you how many peo­ple call after a bout of bad weather because their dog re-trained him­self to pee on the liv­ing room carpet.
  • DO shovel at least a 10x10 area, and keep this area clean.  Don’t let snow pile on top of poo.  Your dog will know it’s there and may not want to walk in the area.
  • DO reward your dog for going potty out­side just like you would train­ing a puppy.  Be happy and use treats, praise, and pet­ting.  Don’t sound like a teenage girl at a Bon Jovi concert.
  • DO super­vise at all times and man­age it so your dog doesn’t have the oppor­tu­nity to go inside.  Use a crate and if your dog doesn’t potty out­side, put him in the crate for a few min­utes and then back out­side.  Keep flip flop­ping him until he goes and then reward him.
  • DON’T pun­ish, yell, or rub his nose in it unless your goal is to make your dog want to potty in secret away from you.
  • DON’T walk your dog on roads that have been salted (if pos­si­ble).  The salt can be absorbed through foot pads and can cause stom­ach upset and dry cracked pads.
  • DO wipe off your dogs feet every time you have to walk him on salted sur­faces.  Use a sheet on the floor and walk your dog around sev­eral times if your dog won’t let you wipe his paws off.  Then call a trainer to help you so you can in the future.  Believe it or not, not all train­ing is obedience.

My dog in the snow.

FROSTBITE

  • DO dry your pet off.  Dogs and cats can get frost­bite.  Keep your pet as warm and dry as possible.
  • DO use warm (NEVER hot) water com­presses or soak feet for imme­di­ate treat­ment.  (You must have a con­stant sup­ply to warm up your pet.  If you can’t con­tin­u­ally warm your pet until tem­per­a­ture is nor­mal again, then DON’T start.)  The affected area will be extremely painful as it warms up.  Then very gen­tly and com­pletely dry the entire treated area.  DON’T rub or mas­sage it.
  • DON’T use a heat­ing pad or hair dryer.
  • DO go to your vet ASAP even if you think you have com­pletely treated your pet.  It can take sev­eral days to see the extent of the damage.
  • DON’T give your pet any pain med­ica­tion with­out your vet’s expressed permission

HYPOTHERMIA

  • DO dry your pet off.  Dogs and cats can get hypothermia.
  • DO use warm tow­els to wrap your pet.  (Putting dry tow­els in the dryer for a few min­utes usu­ally does the trick.)
  • DO use warm water bot­tles wrapped in tow­els.  DON’T con­tact your pet directly.
  • DO use a hair dryer, espe­cially if your pet is wet.  Just make sure you are not using it on any areas with frostbite.
  • DO go to your vet imme­di­ately.  Hypother­mia can be life threatening.

COMMON SENSE

  • DO pay atten­tion how long your pet is outside.
  • DO walk your dog on a leash, espe­cially near roads with cars who might have trou­ble stopping.
  • DO play with your dog, use inter­ac­tive toys, or train to phys­i­cally and men­tally stim­u­late your pet so they don’t drive you crazy and start bounc­ing off the walls because they’re stuck inside more.
  • DON’T bring your pet with you in the car.  If you get stuck or (heaven for­bid) in an acci­dent, you will have your pet to worry about too.
  • DON’T let your dog walk or run on ice.  They can slip and break them­selves just like we can.
  • DO make sure you have plenty of sup­plies.  Just add dog food and cat lit­ter to the list when you buy milk, bread, and toi­let paper.
  • DON’T get bend out of shape if your dog does some­thing “nor­mal” that he has always done, but it’s not cool when he’s cov­ered in wet snow: like jump­ing on the sofa.  (Sim­ple way to man­age that would be to have the behav­ior on cue, when he’s invited he can jump up on the sofa.)
  • And last but not least, if you see your dog lick­ing his paws, look to see if there is some­thing stuck in them, and dou­ble check for cuts.  Hard­ened snow and ice can be sharp on pads.
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