This blog is a tribute to Belle, and all the dogs who have come before and after. They are my friends, my companions, my teachers and my students. They bring me both joy and heartache, laughter and tears. There is nothing as sweet as the smell of puppy breathe, and nothing as sad as the final goodbye.


Monday, December 23, 2013

Merry Christmas to all!!!!


Great article from Jim Burwell's PETIQUETTE Blog


How Dog Training Can Keep Your Dog Safe And Happy During Christmas

Now, many of you have dogs that are veterans of many Christmases past, but some of you have concerns about facing your first Christmas with a new puppyor adolescent dog. Then there are those of you who haven’t given safety for your dog a single thought. This post is for all of you!  Here are some tips to consider during the Christmas season to keep your dogs (and cats!) safe:
The Christmas Tree:
  • Keep the water stand covered.  Pine sap mixed with water makes a poisonous drink for your dog or cat.
  • Sweep up pine needles.  Eating pine needles can cause vomiting and gastric irritation.
  • Tie the tree to the wall or ceiling to keep your dog or cat from pulling it over.
  • Tinsel is very dangerous for dogs.  Eating tinsel can cause serious intestinal obstruction that may require surgery if ingested.  Use ribbon up high on the tree instead of tinsel and garland.
  • The smell of a live tree may cause your dog or cat to urine mark.  It may help to bring the tree into an isolated indoor room for a day or so, so it smells more like the home.
  • Your best bet is to use your dog’s obedience skills to redirect any attention he is paying to the tree. Here’s how. Star by having pet treats ready to distract your pet from paying attention to the tree. Then begin working on setting a boundary for your dog by doing “set ups” with your dog on leash as you take him to the tree.  When he sniffs the tree, give him a gentle tug and say “Off” then redirect to a stuffed Kong toy or chew bone and praise him for taking the appropriate item. Soon your dog will see that ignoring the tree earns him praise and toys.
Ornaments:
  • Pick up any ornament hooks that fall.  If your dog eats an ornament hook, it can damage the intestines.
  • Better yet, replace ornament hooks with loops of string tied in a knot.
  • Glass ornaments should be placed on the upper half of the tree where dogs and cats can’t reach them.
  • Only use wooden or non-breakable ornaments down low, or better yet, only decorate the top 2/3 of your tree.
Lighting:

  • Don’t hang indoor lighting low, this will keep your dog or cat from becoming entangled in them.
  • Remember to unplug the lights when you’re not home to supervise your dog.
  • Some dogs might also be tempted to chew electric cords or other electric ornaments. Again, it’s best to use training to let your dog know that this is unacceptable.
Presents:
  • Dogs are very inquisitive and the decorations on presents can be very tempting.  Take ribbons and string from packages.  Consider storing presents in a safe area until right before opening.
  • Don’t place edible presents under the tree—take it from someone who knows! Dogs can smell them a mile away and they will rip them open and eat the contents.  (Jalapeno beef jerky was the culprit and a fast call to the vet!)
  • Don’t forget to give your dog or cat a present.  A stuffed Kong will keep them occupied when guests are over.
  • Don’t EVER give a puppy as a surprise present.  A puppy who grows into a dog is a major, lifetime commitment and owners must be prepared to make the commitment of time and energy it takes to successfully integrate a puppy/dog into a home. However, if you are considering getting a puppy for the holidays, see my post on the right way to add a new puppy or dog to the family. Don’t forget my CD, Puppy Training Sins Every New Puppy Owner Needs To Avoid, it’s like having me in your home!
  • The perfect present to give the dog lover in your life is the gift of dog training. You can buy gift certificates for group or individual training session with me. You can contact me through my website, e-mail me at info@petiquettedog.com or call me at (713) 728-0610 to order today.
Dog Activity:
  • Repeat after me: A tired dog is a good dog.  Do not forget to take your dog for his daily walk, especially before company arrives.
  • Give your dog a safe place to go – another room, a crate removed from the activity, somewhere your dog is used to and feels safe so he can escape all the activity.
Have a safe, wonderful, blessed Christmas and hug those pups for me!

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Poinsettias are not Dangerous -From Just Labs Magazine


December 2013
Poinsettias are not Dangerous
by Jill LaCross

The dashing plant so commonly found in homes this time of year is not, as was published in our email blast earlier this week, "one of the most dangerous plants found around the holidays."
The mistake was caught by one of our subscribers, who raises Labs and is a horticulturist expert who grows these plants in her greenhouse. I've commonly heard about poinsettias being particularly poisionous for our pets, but there has been plenty of research showing that this is not the case. I thought I'd share what I found with you as it was quite an education for me.
The Pet Poison Helpline categorizes poinsettias as a "minimal" threat and explains: "While poinsettias are commonly 'hyped' as poisonous plants, they rarely are, and the poisoning is greatly exaggerated." Penn State Extension agrees, as noted in a newsletter for master gardeners, "While they are not meant to be eaten by humans, pets or livestock, ingesting poinsettias would probably cause some stomach upset, as would eating most any houseplant. However, poinsettias have undergone extensive testing and there is no evidence that they are toxic or unsafe to have in the house."
That's not to say that poinsettias are the friendliest plant. After all, they are not meant to be eaten. If a Lab were to ingest the leaves and bracts, it could possibly lead to a stomach ache, drooling, or vomiting, but nothing life threatening. The potential harm would occur only if the bracts or other parts were consumed in very large amounts - a quantity that greatly exceeds what would be available at home during the holidays. A study by Ohio State University in 1971 showed how rats did not suffer any adverse effects after consuming high doses of the plant, as noted in this fact sheet fromColorado State University.
We apologize for perpetuating the myth that these beautiful plants are extremely dangerous for our Labs. We can also say, what a relief it is to know that they aren't! And a special thanks to our subsciber who brought it to our attention.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Sergeant Stubby



Sergeant Stubby (1916 or 1917 – April 4, 1926), was the most decorated war dog of World War I

and the only dog to be promoted to sergeant through combat. America's first war dog,
Stubby served for 18 months and Sergeant Stubby participated in seventeen battles on the Western Front.

He was just another stray dog before he found his way into an area near Yale University
where the 102nd infantry, Yankee Division was training for World War I. Private J. Robert Conroy found the puppy there in 1917 and named him. He was smart and boosted morale.
He learned the bugle calls, the drills and even a modified salute where he put his right paw on his right eyebrow.

Stubby became a lifetime member of the American Legion and later became Georgetown University's mascot.

Much thanks to Nitro Foundation HB 70 Law in Ohio for this posting


Veterans Day November 11, 2013


Sunday, November 10, 2013

Cleo’s Pumpkin Dog Biscuits

I found this recipe for pumpkin dog biscuts on facebook. It looks delicious and easy to make. I am going to give it a try and thought I'd share it with you -


Stop giving your dogs crap from China that is killing our dogs!! Here is a Pumpkin Recipe that is healthy for them, Cleo’s Pumpkin Dog Biscuits:
2 eggs
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
2 tablespoons dry milk
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 1/2 cups brown rice flour *
1 teaspoon dried parsley      
                                                 (optional)

Preheat oven to 350.

In large bowl, whisk together eggs and pumpkin to smooth. Stir in dry milk, sea salt, and dried parsley (if using, optional). Add brown rice flour gradually, combining with spatula or hands to form a stiff, dry dough. Turn out onto lightly floured surface (can use the brown rice flour) and if dough is still rough, briefly knead and press to combine.

Roll dough between 1/4 – 1/2 – depending on your dog’s chew preferences, – and use biscuit or other shape cutter to punch shapes, gathering and re-rolling scraps as you go. Place shapes on cookie sheet, no greasing or paper necessary. If desired, press fork pattern on biscuits before baking, a quick up-and-down movement with fork, lightly pressing down halfway through dough. Bake 20 minutes. Remove from oven and carefully turn biscuits over, then bake additional 20 minutes. Allow to cool completely on rack before feeding to dog.

* Brown rice flour gives the biscuits crunch and promotes better dog digestion. Many dogs have touchy stomachs or allergies, and do not, like many people I know, tolerate wheat.

Makes up to 75 small (1) biscuits or 50 medium biscuits
join here for more Juanita's Skinny Answer!!

Saturday, August 17, 2013

How to Safely Break Up a Dog Fight


How to Safely Break Up a Dog Fight


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It’s a skill everyone hopes they’ll                        
never need to use but should know,  especially dog owners: how to safely break up a dog fight. Like humans, not all dogs simply get along. Even the most gentle mannered dogs are
capable of a dangerous fight when provoked.

During a scuffle, a dog owner’s first instinct is to reach into the middle of the fight and try to grab their dog by the collar. This technique is not only ineffective, but also very dangerous. The odds of you being badly injured
or bitten while reaching for a fighting dog’s collar are very high. Two furious animals in the middle of a serious fight are normally in survival mode. If they spot you at all, they likely won’t recognize you as the loving owner they are cognizant of. The moment you charge in and reach for their collars, they may respond out of a fight reflex and then bite, or they might perceive you as another threat or attacker.

While there are always dangers associated with breaking up fighting dogs, there is a way to do it that minimizes your own risk of injury.

Breaking Up a Dog Fight with Another Person

1. Each of you shall grab the back legs of the fighting dogs, and then pick them up like wheelbarrow. With the dogs’ legs up, they are pulled apart and kept from each other.
2. Do this by circling behind one pooch, grabbing his back legs, and then raising them up into the air. Without the use of his back legs, the dog will be forced to stand on his front legs and will not be able to continue fighting.
3. Separate the dogs as you back away slowly. Just hold their feet or legs continually as you carefully move in a smooth backward arc. That way, your pet won’t be able to reach around and bite you. Because the dog will only be using his front legs, he’d be kept from maneuvering with any agility.
4. The moment you have reached a safe distance, at least about 20 feet away, try holding the dog securely until he calms down. Turn him away so he doesn’t see the other dog, and try to change his state of mind using distraction.

Splitting up a Dog Fight While Alone

1. It’s extremely dangerous to pull two aggressive dogs apart when you’re all by yourself. However, if the situation asks for it, move forward carefully with the plan below.
2. Get a leash if you don’t have one with you. The dogs will surely continue on fighting as you look for a restraint, but you have to take the necessary steps to guarantee your own safety.
3. Try approaching one of the dogs, especially the aggressor, if you can determine which dog this is, and the moment you’re close enough, loop the leash around the dog’s belly, just in front of his back legs. Try slipping the free end of the leash through its looped handle, and then pull it taut. Immediately back away, as you pull the dog, till you get to something you can fasten and secure the pooch to, perhaps a fence post or a telephone pole.
4. After this, move towards the second pooch from behind, grab him by the hind legs, and then pull him away using the same method above. Drag the dog using the wheelbarrow method at least 20 feet away from his opponent, and find a way to restrain him until help arrives.

Remember that breaking up a dog fight is very, very dangerous, and should only be done using the method above. Before reaching into a dog fight, always try other methodsfirst, like distracting the dogs or making a loud, sharp noise to get their attention. Do not panic or scream, as this could simply agitate the fighting dogs further.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

An Important Message to our Ohio Peeps


Ohio, please send a PERSONAL letter to your state representatives requesting animal cruelty reform here in the State of Ohio. TAKE THE TIME to put down on paper the need that you feel as a constituent to protect our companion animals from being taken from their families and killed, maimed, and tortured. TAKE THE TIME to do this to show the Ohio Legislature that protecting our companion animals is an absolute. TAKE THE TIME in this day and age of social media to put your personal feelings on paper and send it via the USPS instead of email to show that it meant enough to you to TAKE THE TIME
You can find your representatives at the link below
Please, TAKE THE TIME
http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Sunday, July 21, 2013

AKC Canine Myth Buster

From AKC canine myth busters.
Myth: I have to shave my dog’s coat because he looks so hot.

Fact: Many double-coated breeds have weatherproof coats that not only keep them warm in the winter, but also serve as insulators in the summer. A dog’s coat protects him from heat, sunburn, and even skin cancer. Shaving removes their protective layer, putting the dog’s skin at the mercy of the elements. Think of a heavy coat as your dog’s sun umbrella. Also, because dogs don’t sweat the way humans do, shaving the hair coat doesn’t actually help facilitate the thermoregulating process. Keeping a double coat in good condition with regular brushing is the best way to help a dog stay cool in summer.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

D.N.A. Backs Lore on Pre-Columbian Dogs

Peony, a Carolina dog. Some of the breed’s rare traits include a fishhook tail, a pointed, somewhat lupine face and the habit of digging snout pits.





The New York Times


July 15, 2013

D.N.A. Backs Lore on Pre-Columbian Dogs

BISHOPVILLE, S.C. — Inside a fenced acre on the swampy Lynches River flood plain in central South Carolina, seven of Don Anderson’s primitive dogs spring into high alert at approaching strangers. Medium-sized, they fan out amid his junkyard of improvised habitat: a few large barrels to dig under, an abandoned camper shell from a pickup, segments of black plastic water pipe and backhoed dirt mounds overgrown with waist-high ragweed.
These are Carolina dogs, and though they are friendly, one can instantly sense they are different from other dogs. Several rush to the gate, their whole bodies wagging eagerly. Others sprint off and take position — their jackal ears fully erect, their fishhook tails twitching like flags in a stiff wind. A black pup scrabbles away in crablike submission that eventually takes her into an underground den, dug deep enough that she is not seen again.
Walking into the pen is dangerous for only one reason: one of the dogs’ defining habits is digging snout pits, or gallon-size holes in the ground, perhaps to root for grubs or munch the soil for nutrients.
“It’s like a lunar landscape,” Mr. Anderson warns as we tread carefully into the underbrush.
Some Carolina dogs still live in the wild, and local people have long thought they were one of the few breeds that predated the European arrival in the Americas: “Our native dog,” as Michael Ruano, another enthusiast who often works with Mr. Anderson, put it. “America’s natural dog.”
Now, a new study of canine DNA backs up the folklore. A team led by Peter Savolainen at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden has reported that several dog breeds in the Americas — among them the Peruvian hairless, the Chihuahua and the Carolina dog — are without some genetic markers indicative of European origin, suggesting they arrived in an earlier migration from Asia.
The study also reawakens the long debate about where and how dogs were domesticated. Current theory speculates that they are descended from wolves that somehow became attached to humans perhaps 12,000 to 33,000 years ago — an early amity that has an extensive pedigree in human folklore. (Think Romulus and Remus.)
But where that may have happened is not entirely settled. Some say the earliest dogs emerged in the Middle East. Others point to an area south of the Yangtze River in China. Dr. Savolainen’s study provides more evidence for the China hypothesis and, as a result, lends support to the idea that the earliest domesticated dogs crossed the Ice Age land bridge known as Beringia some 12,000 years ago.
Carolina dogs, then, could be camp followers that wandered off from their Paleo-Indian masters and took up residence in swampy areas where they can easily hide out from their own natural predators.
Encounter With a Puppy
Mr. Anderson, 79, is a Virginian who moved to South Carolina in 1961. He’s a garrulous man dressed in comfortable blue stretch pants, a pair of Crocs on his feet, and a headband to hold back shoulder-length hair that stubbornly retains some glints of blond.
He remembers the day, back in the Nixon administration, when he had his first encounter with these wild dogs. Down by a nearby water hole on his land, he spied a mother and three pups, and they immediately bolted.
“Two of the puppies went east, and one puppy tried to get out west and he got stuck,” he explained. He took the pup home and named him Tadpole.
Not long afterward a stranger saw the dog and offered Mr. Anderson $300 for what his neighbors called a “Lynches River wild dog.” He refused the deal, thinking, he says now, “if he’s worth $300 to you, then he’s worth $300 to me.”
Mr. Anderson soon learned that others called them Carolina dogs, a name given to them by I. Lehr Brisbin, a biologist with the Savannah River nuclear power plant, near Aiken, and the man most responsible for the current interest in the breed. In the early 1970s, Dr. Brisbin was employed checking out the wildlife on the periphery of the plant and often came upon these wild dogs in the swampier parts of his domain. He took a few in and today maintains an 18-acre enclosure where he has his own pack.
Dr. Brisbin got the Carolina dog recognized by the United Kennel Club and was the first to describe some of the breed’s rare traits, including the fishhook tail, the pointed, somewhat lupine face and the habit of digging snout pits. The dogs cooperate as a pack when they hunt a field mouse or a rabbit, possibly using their white hindquarters as signals.
“That white fishhook can be hoisted like a white-tailed deer’s and can flash back and forth,” Dr. Brisbin explained. “I saw them do it, and I saw the rest of the pack honor it.”
Carolina dogs typically go into heat once a year, like wolves, instead of twice, like domesticated dogs. They cover up their scat by pushing dirt over it with their noses, not by using their hindquarters to scratch the ground.
Still, determining just what is and is not a Carolina dog requires a kind of gut instinct. To Mr. Anderson, it’s a matter of “I know it when I see it”; Dr. Brisbin is more blunt.
“The Carolina dog is a breed created by Brisbin,” he said, referring to himself in the third person, “by picking dogs he likes, the type that he thinks typify the ancient dog.”
This is not to say the Carolina dog is more mythic than real. But the problem is that some of the wilder dogs have mated with other breeds — local dogs and even coyotes. Determining just what is a Carolina dog means becoming more finely tuned to the sense that anyone feels stepping into Don Anderson’s enclosed acre. Experiential knowledge is crucial, being able to sense the entirety of the animal and in that way recognize which dog is almost purely Carolina and which is more of a mix.
Most Carolina dogs are ginger-colored, like Australian dingoes, but they can also be black and piebald. Most, but not all, are short-haired.
Some have tiny patches, right above their distinctive almond eyes, that look like a spare set of eyes, what Mr. Anderson calls “spirit eyes.” Some have an unusual white stripe at the shoulder. There are the noticeable ears and the tail, but also the athletic tucked-in stomach (like a Doberman). DNA studies may soon make it easier to assert the Carolina’s distinctions from other dogs.
Early Sightings
Awareness of this unusual dog has its own history. According to Mark Eden, another enthusiast working with Mr. Anderson, the journals of the 16th-century Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto include possible references to Carolina dogs.
In the essential narrative of early American natural history, William Bartram’s 1791 book “Bartram’s Travels,” the author runs across a Seminole Indian maintaining some horses and writes: “One occurrence, remarkable here, was a troop of horse under the control and care of a single black dog, which seemed to differ in no respect from the wolf of Florida, except his being able to bark as the common dog.”
In his journal for Feb. 16, 1806, Meriwether Lewis writes of an “Indian dog” that is “party coloured; black white brown and brindle” with “ears erect and pointed like those of the wolf” and used by American Indians to hunt elk.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the dog’s wildness and its ginger coat — and probably its use by the poor as a hunting dog — led to the name “yaller dog,” typically spelled that way except by the kind of manor-born people who say “chitterlings.”
And that may have given rise to the term “yellow dog Democrat” to describe the anti-Republican die-hard in the South, as in the 1920s slogan “I’d vote for a yellow dog if he ran on the Democratic ticket.”
The occasional revival of interest in the Carolina dog happens this time just as enthusiasts make the case for its inclusion among the ancient dogs the world over. Dr. Brisbin also suggests that the Carolina dog fits in the niche of “pariah dogs,” dingo-like and appearing to survive in difficult habitats, like Don Anderson’s swamps, typically on the outskirts of ancient human migration routes.
There are many of these older dogs: the Canaan dog of Israel, the Santal hound of India, the Jindo of Korea, the Telomian of Malaysia, the New Guinea singing dog, the Kintamani dog of Bali, the African basenji — and the images that pop up in a Web search are oddly similar to those of the Carolina dog.
Continents and millenniums aside, they possess many of the qualities Dr. Brisbin and Mr. Anderson describe. These primitive dogs started living near people tens of thousands of years ago, finding a place just out of sight of human encampments — where, if the current studies hold up, they steadfastly remain.

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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Jim Buck NYTimes Obit

Jim Buck, near Central Park in 1964, is considered the first professional dog walker in New York City. He ran a business in which he and two dozen assistants walked more than 150 dogs a day.


July 12, 2013
New York Times

Jim Buck, Who Made Walking Dogs a Job, Dies at 81


There are eight million occupational stories in New York City, and none cries Gotham louder than that of the professional surrogate — the shrewd city dweller who spies a void that other New Yorkers are too hurried, harried or hard-pressed to fill and rushes enterprisingly in.
Over time, the city has spawned professional car-movers and professional line-standers, but its most visible — and audible — paid surrogates are indisputably its professional dog walkers.
By all accounts, Jim Buck was the first of them.
Mr. Buck, who died on July 4 at 81, is widely described as the first person to professionalize dog walking in New York City and, by extension, in the United States.
Starting in the early 1960s, Mr. Buck, the scion of a patrician Upper East Side family, rose each morning at dawn to walk passels of clients’ dogs, eventually presiding over a business in which he and two dozen assistants walked more than 150 dogs a day.
When he began that business, Jim Buck’s School for Dogs, it was the only one of its kind in New York. Today, the city has scores of professional dog walkers.
During the 40 years Mr. Buck ran his school, he was an eminently recognizable figure: an elegantly turned out, borzoi-thin man of 145 pounds, he commanded the leashes of a half-dozen or more dogs at a time — a good 500 pounds of dog in all — which fanned out before him like the spokes of a wheel.
He walked in sun; he walked in rain. In wintertime, his charges might be clad in small sweaters bearing the logos of the European resorts where their masters skied.
Jim Buck’s School for Dogs was equal parts exclusive preparatory academy, exercise class and reform school. In a 1964 profile of Mr. Buck in The New York Times, Gay Talese described him, plying his trade, as looking “like Charlton Heston in the chariot-racing scene in ‘Ben-Hur.’ ”
But with hindsight, it is more apt to liken Mr. Buck to Lee Marvin in the 1967 film “The Dirty Dozen.”
Mr. Buck’s clients were refined. Their dogs were less so.
The clients, mostly Upper East Siders, included some of the city’s most prominent names in the arts, government, finance and industry. (Continuing the tradition of walker-client confidentiality to which Mr. Buck long hewed, his family declined to name them. It did confirm Mr. Buck’s death, at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan, apparently of complications of emphysema and cancer.)
The dogs included the intractable, the obstinate and the profoundly pampered.
One, an otterhound known to Mr. Buck’s staff as Oliver the Awful, was used for some years to audition prospective employees.
“Oliver knows when he’s testing someone new, and he can be counted on to leap into the first phone booth along the way and slam the door and wedge himself against it,” Mr. Buck told The New Yorker in 1965. “Brute force is of no avail; the only way to get him out is to remain poised and quietly talk him out.”
James Augustine Farrell Buck was born in Manhattan on Nov. 28, 1931. His family, socially prominent, had prospered in steel and shipping. As a youth, Jim showed dogs; he also trained horses at the Connecticut country homes of his uncles.
Footloose, determined and eager to flout convention, Mr. Buck bypassed college.
But by the early ’60s he was leading the sort of gray-flannel life of which he despaired, chafing in New York as a salesman for an electronics concern.
Mr. Buck knew dogs — as a young man, he bred Great Danes. He also knew New Yorkers. Before long, a void was filled.
By 1964, The Times reported, he was making $500 a week, more than his electronics job paid.
His cobbler enjoyed a regular cut: Mr. Buck wore through the soles of his shoes every two weeks.
Mr. Buck’s marriage to Ann Sage ended in divorce. A resident of Manhattan, he is survived by three sons, Jonathan, Christopher and Graham; two sisters, Mother Debra Joseph, a Benedictine nun, and Connie Buck; and a brother, Richard.
Jim Buck’s School for Dogs is gone now, closed a decade ago when Mr. Buck retired. But its legacy endures: some of the city’s professional dog walkers are his former employees.
As the city changes, so too does their work. There are no more telephone booths for latter-day Olivers to barricade themselves in. Few cobblers remain.
And in years to come, in perhaps the keenest loss of all, there may well be no more newsprint. A 20th-century artifact increasingly deemed redundant in the electronic age, it remains, for New York’s dog walkers, a vital, and indispensable, means of upholding the law.