Dog Park Etiquette

I am not a fan of dog parks. I have seen more out of control dogs and clueless owners at dog parks then I care to remember. I did not always feel this way. Years ago I took advantage of them, often bringing the labs to a few local parks to engage in some intense and strenuous tennis ball retrieving. They loved it and so did I.

I often recommended dog parks to my clients with high-energy dogs. I believed dog parks were a great place for dogs and older pups to go for canine socialization, especially on Long Island, where most dogs live in isolation, confined to their backyards. Many of those dogs grew up to be fearful of new environments and new experiences. I thought dog parks, while not ideal, at least provided for some of their needs.

Then things began to change. I saw owners standing around coffee klotching while their dogs were bullied. I saw owners interpreting aggression as play. I saw a golden mauled by the pack shortly after entering the park. (I ran over to help the owner break it up, the owners of the other dogs…they never noticed). The final straw for me was when a dog that had just entered the park attacked my sweet Belle, who was lying next to me. I had to punch that dog to get him to release her. The owner said he always attacked when he entered, but calmed down after a while. He offered to pay for vetting. Others told me this happened regularly with this dog and that some of his victims required stitches. And yet the owner continued to bring his dog to the park.

I was lucky that I had alternative places to go with my dogs. If you decide to use a dog park, (I am sure not all are bad), the “Tips for enjoying the dog park”, provided by WOOF – Worthington Organized Off-leash friends, offers some good, practical advise for pro-active dog owners. While these tips were written for the dog park that WOOF was instrumental in developing in Worthington, OH, they are applicable for all dog park users everywhere, and for wherever unleashed dogs congregate.

Tips for enjoying the dog park

1.          Recognize that your dog may not get along with ALL other dogs, and that some combinations simply don't work.

2.               Educate yourself on dog body language and canine communication so you can recognize the difference between safe play and aggressive play. 

3.           Safe play is a “give and take” between dogs - not one dog continually pushing, jumping on or mouthing the other dog If your dog is doing this to another dog, go get him, or call him to you and get him under control.

4.            Make sure your own dog is actually playing with another dog, and not just responding in a defensive, deflective way. Call your dog to you, and when you release him to go back to "play," see if he indeed does return to engage with the same dog(s).

5.            Be willing to leave a dog park if you feel that your dog is either being a bully or being bullied, the play is getting too rough or your dog is just not having fun.

6.          Break up loose packs.  Packs of dogs will gang up on weaker dogs and may even physically attack them.

7.         Be sure to take your dog’s temperament into consideration and don’t assume your dog is having a good time – watch your dog’s demeanor and make an informed judgment about how happy s/he is to be there.  Some dogs will have no desire to play, yet will love to sniff all the bushes and trees; other dogs will be thrilled to race from one end of the park to the other.  Both can benefit from the dog park – they just enjoy it in different ways.

8.         Call your dog to you frequently, not just when it's time to leave. By calling him over to you frequently, praising him and then releasing him back to play, you can avoid the difficulty many dog park users experience: the dog who can't be caught when it's time to leave.

9.       Turn your cell phone off, or don’t take calls or text, unless it's an emergency. This is a good time for you and your dog to be together, and doesn't your dog deserve your undivided attention?

10.      Keep Moving!  Don’t allow yourself to be part of stationary group of people, which could result in too many dogs gathering in one place. Move around so your dog knows it will need to keep an eye on you.  It’s a big park, why not explore it with your dog!

11.       Small dogs (under 25 lbs.) should use the small dog area and should absolutely not be in the large dog area. Even if you’re small dog is used to playing with larger dogs, not every large dog is used to playing with small dogs. It’s so easy for a little guy to get overwhelmed or bowled over by larger dogs. The large dogs may not mean to hurt the smaller dogs, but play may be too rough, or they may see the small dog as a prey animal, pick it up and shake it, which can be fatal.

12.   Check out the entrance before entering to make sure dogs aren’t congregating there. If they are, try the other entrance. 

13.      Leave if you start to feel concerned about anything going on. Help to resolve the situation if you can, but your first responsibility is to keep both you and your dog safe.

Priceless!

If you lose your pet

Reprinted from the LA Times

L.A. at Home

DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE, GARDENS, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LIVING

Lost-pet poster: Six tips for a more effective sign

June7,2012| 8:43am

I returned home Saturday to two discoveries: Both of my dogs were gone from the yard. And worse:

One dog’s collar had slipped off and was lying by the fence.

Wally returned home on his own, but with Daisy still missing -- and lacking any identification -- I had only two likely ways of seeing her again. Someone would have to catch her, drive her to an animal shelter and have her scanned for a microchip containing my contact information. Or someone would have to see her on a lost-dog poster.

It’s good I didn’t know the odds. According to the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy, a nonprofit organization whose members include the Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the American Veterinary Medical Assn., less than 2% of lost cats and less than 20% of lost dogs are returned to their owners — and that’s if the animal has a tag, a microchip or both.

I poured my energy into the posters, but making an effective lost-pet flier proved to be art unto itself, a fact that I learned the hard way. Only after I had posted dozens of fliers around my neighborhood did I realize all of the mistakes I had made in the one pictured above. Here are six things I would have done differently:

1. Photo selection. I thought I was smart by making a photo of Daisy so prominent -- taking up half of the 8.5-by-11-inch paper. But as I taped up the flier alongside other lost-dog posters on a lamppost, I realized someone else's sign was more effective: It also used a large photo, but one that showed only the dog’s distinctive face -- not the whole body. As I drove from intersection to intersection, Daisy's photo was hard to make out, but that close-up shot of another's dog face grabbed my attention and prompted passersby to stop and read the signs. Even though my signs were color, the black-and-white fliers with the face in detail were better: graphic, easy to see from afar and emotionally compelling. If Daisy had distinctive body markings or a memorable shape, the full-body photo would have been wise. But she didn't. I should have emphasized her face in the photo, then let words convey her size.

2. Text selection. The words on my posters were brief, as they should have been. But I made two key errors: I used a serif font (Times Roman), when a sans- serif font (such as Arial or Helvetica) would have allowed for bolder letters that were easier to read from a passing car. I also made the largest words on my flier “LOST DOG.” Everyone could tell that these fliers were for a lost pet, even if the text had been in a foreign language. A more effective strategy would have been to put key visual descriptions in the biggest type: “BLACK LAB,” or “TERRIER PUPPY” or “3-LEGGED CAT” or whatever the case may be. These key words might resonate immediately with passersby and stick in their heads as they travel through the neighborhood.

3. Sign locations. As I madly taped fliers to streetlights and utility poles, I worried that they would be pulled off within a day or two -- perhaps by city workers just doing their job. Had I to do it over again, I would have made some larger signs -- poster board, not paper -- and asked homeowners on key streets if they would have allowed me to stake those signs in their yards, perhaps near a sidewalk or intersection. Others who had lost pets later recommended using fluorescent poster board, either as the sign itself or simply as an eye-grabbing backdrop. Just glue an 8.5-by-11 flier to a larger piece of colorful poster board.

4. Number of copies. I underestimated the number of fliers to make at the copy center. How? I guessed how many I might put on street lights, but I didn't consider how many I might hand out to people. As I searched for Daisy by foot, I encountered neighbors and dog walkers who were sympathetic and vowed to keep an eye out. I gave a flier to them all, and they essentially expanded my search team. I initially printed 75 copies, but I probably should have made 150, maybe 200.

5. Preparedness. As soon as I found that collar in the yard, time felt unbelievably crucial. With every passing minute, I imagined Daisy wandering farther from home -- and farther from where I would be posting fliers. Superstitious pet owners may think I’m crazy, but I’m convinced I now should approach a missing dog like an earthquake: Get the kit ready in advance. Create a flier now, include the best photo and update it every year. Put the design in multiple places, including a flash drive stored with a big roll of sturdy tape and a staple gun. I wasted two hours calling my partner (who had the laptop where all of our photos are stored) in vain, then madly searching for a decent print of Daisy, then writing a flier, then running to the copy center and then buying tape at CVS because the copy center was sold out. Those were two agonizing hours that I just wanted to be searching for my dog.

6. Hope. Don’t lose it. Because I was looking for a dog that had no identification, no penchant to come when called by name and no spectacular sense of direction or intelligence (love her, but let’s be honest), I was fairly certain that I would never see Daisy again. As night fell of the day of her disappearance, a dog walker in the neighborhood told me to keep my chin up. She lost her springer spaniel, and two months later it was found at a park miles away, she said. Indeed, SPCALA has an “Animal Finder” advice sheet that said: “A lost pet can wander the streets for weeks or months and people who find lost pets may keep them for several weeks before taking them to a shelter.” My local city and Humane Society shelters said the same thing, encouraging me to check their websites daily and to walk their kennels regularly, just in case.

I didn’t need to, I’m happy to report. A dog lover corralled Daisy and drove her to a city shelter, which scanned her microchip and called at night to say my girl was waiting to be bailed out. I don’t know anything about the good Samaritan other than she told a shelter employee that Daisy “seemed like a nice dog.” Daisy has been reunited with Wally, and my fence has been mended. And now I’ve got a lost dog flier on a flash drive ready to go, garden stakes in the garage and a roll of tape stashed in the den, just in case.

Posted on Dog File, had to share

Fido Fest, October 7th, 12-5pm

What a beauty

- Terrierman's Daily Dose - The Billion Dollar Heartworm Scam

THURSDAY, MAY 06, 2010

The Billion Dollar Heartworm Scam

This is a repost from this blog on this day in 2008.

PLEASE ACTUALLY READ THIS POST
BEFORE YOU START TO WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU *THINK* IT SAYS:

Almost everything you have been told and taught about heartwormis probably an exaggeration or an outright lie, and this misinformation is probably costing you more money than it needs to.

Here's the truth:

• Heartworm is not a canine pandemic.
• In fact, heartworm is pretty rare in much of the country, and in very cold areas of the country a veterinarian may go his or her entire career without seeing a single case. Look at the map, above, put out by a major vendor of heartworm tests (Idexx) who has every reason in the world to overstate (rather than to understate) the problem. You will notice how low the baseline state numbers are -- 500 cases is the top of the color scale -- and that this map covers seven years of data collecting. You will also note that this map does not show adult heartworminfestation in dogs, but simply the number of dogs that tested positive for heartworm. More on that important distinction in a minute.
  . . . . Data on heartworm incidence rates at the local level reinforces how rare heart worm really is. For example, on the map above, California is coded red-hot with 500 cases. And yet, when a total of 4,350 dogs in 103 Los Angeles County cities coming from 21 participating animal hospitals were tested, only 18 heartworm-positive tests turned up. And yet, veterinarians are training their staffs not to talk aboutheartworm tests and medications as an option, but as a need,and for this "needs to be given" message to be bombarded on the customer 3-5 times per office visit.
  .
• Heartworm infection is NOT rapid and will not kill your dog overnight.
• It takes about three months for microfilaria (baby worms) to grow inside your dog to a larval stage, and even longer for these larva to mature into adult heartworms. If your dog is dosed with a simple Ivermectin treatment at any time during this period before adult worms are present (a period that lasts about three months long), the larvae will never develop into adult worms, and will die. Read that statement again: a single dose of Ivermectin will stop heartworm dead up to 3 months after your dog is first infected.
  .
• In most of the country, only seasonal heatworm "prevention" is needed.
• The short story here is that heartworm is a kind of nematode (dirofilaria immitis) spread by mosquitoes (and only by mosquitoes). The lifecycle of the nematode involves six stages, and a dog can get infected with heartworm only if two of these stages are fully completed inside the body of the mosquito, and those stages can only be completed inside the body of the mosquito if the temperature stays above 57 degrees for at least 45 days straight, both day and night. If the temperature drops below 57 degrees even once during that 45-day period, thelifecycle of the nematode is broken, and heartworm cannot betransmitted to your dog. What this means, in simple terms, is that a year-round program of Heartgard (sometimes spelled 'Heartguard") or some other "preventative" medicine is NOT needed in most of the country outside of Florida, the RioGrande Valley of Texas.
  . . . . . Look carefully at the maps below (click to enlarge). These maps come from “Seasonal Timing of HeartwormChemoprophylaxis in the United States” by Dr. David Knight and James Lok of the American Heartworm Society. Find your area on the map, and begin heartworm treatment on the first day of the month noted in Map A, and end treatment on the first day of the month noted in Map B. In short, if you are living in Virginia, you would begin treating your dog June 1st (top map) and end treatment on December 1st (bottom map).
  . . . . . This is a very aggressive treatment schedule -- more active than is really needed. After all, if heartworm larvae gets into your dog on June 1st, they will have NO IMPACT on your dog for months and months. In fact, if you are in Virginia simply treating your dog with Ivermectin (Heartgard) on September 1st and again on December 1st will give 100 percentheartworm protection for your dog. Even in areas whereheartworm is a year-round vexation (Florida and the RioGrande Valley of Texas), a once-every-three-months dose ofIvermectin will give your dog 100% protection.
  

(click on maps to enlarge)

Maps created by DH Knight and JB Lok

• There is no "preventive" medicine for Heartworm.
• Despite what your veterinarian may have told you, there is NO "prevention" for heartworm infection; there is only heartwormtreatment. ALL heartworm medicines work the same way -- they kill heartworm microfilaria present in the body of the dog.
  .
• Heartworm "prevention" medicines are actually toxic poisons.
• The drugs used to kill heartworm microfilaria are Ivermectin(Heartgard, Heartgard Plus, Iverhart, Merial and Verbac) orMilbemycin (Interceptor, Safeheart, Sentinal and Norvartis). Both drugs are nematode poisons, and in both cases a single dose will kill all microfilarial infection that occurred up to 90 days earlier (i.e. all Stage 3, 4 and young Stage 5 heartworminfections).
  .
• Humans cannot get heartworm.
• Heartworm cannot be passed on to humans -- we are the wrong host animal. Very rarely a heartworm-positive mosquito will bite a human and a small benign cyst may develop in the lungof a human, but this is NOT heartworm, and can be best thought of as a tiny scar showing where a bit of microfilariaattached to the lung wall where it was killed off by the human body.
  .
• Some breeds are more sensitive to Ivermectin.
• Some lines of collies and collie-crosses have sometimes fatal reactions to ivermectin, the most common heartwormpreventative medicine. Though this is not common, and is even rarer today with low-dose Ivermectin such as Heartgard, and seems to only hold true for collies, serious thought needed to be given to dosing any collie, collie-cross, or herding dog with white feet. For these dogs, the safest heartworm medicine is Interceptor, though in fact the Heartgard box features a Border Collie on it face, and many working Border Collie folks dose their own dogs with a low dose of sheep drench 0.08% Ivermectin.
  .
• What about that wormy heart-in-a-jar at my vets office?
• Most veterinarians have a "fear bottle" in their office which shows a canine heart riddled with spaghetti-like heartworms. Nothing generates cash like a heartworm fear bottle -- a veterinarian will often place one prominently in his or her office as a kind of cash-generating machine since one look will sell a heartwormtest and year's worth of Heartgard, no questions asked. So where do these fear bottles come from? I've been told by a pharmaceutical sales representative that most of these wormy hearts in these jars come from stray animals killed in Mexico, and that the heart specimens themselves (often decades old) were given out by pharmaceutical company representatives when they first began selling Heartgard back in 1986. One thing for sure: today, you can got to Maine and find a wormy heart in a jar even though the local veterinarian has never evenseen a dog with this problem in the last 20 years.
  .
• Do I have to go a veterinarian to get Ivermectin?
• No. More on that in a second. Suffice it to say that it's not necessarily a bad thing to go to a vet for a prescription forHeartgard, especially if you are going to see your vet on another matter anyway. I would not buy Heartgard from the vet, however, without first checking prices online. Most vets price-gouge their customers by 100 percent or more for medicines sold in their offices, and in most states a veterinarian cannot charge you more for writing a prescription for a medically necessary medicine as part of an incidental visit.  In addition, be aware that former executives from Merial, the maker of Heartgard, are now making a generic version of this product, PetTrust, that is considerably cheaper.
  . . . . . Another cash-saving tip is to get a prescription forHeartgard for a dog twice the size of your dog, and then split the tablets in half. This trick results in considerable savings because the marginal cost between one Heartgard weightcategory and the next is often very slight despite the fact that one pill contains twice as much active ingredient as the next.
  . . . . . Finally, remember that you do not have to dose your dog all year long or even every month. In fact, if you have a 50-pound dog, and buy 12 doses of Heartgard for a 100-pound dog, you could be 100-percent covered for six years, even in a year-round heartworm area, provided you dosed your dog once every three months and cut the pills in half.
  . . .Of course, if you want to dose your dog every month and do so cheaply and without going to a veterinarian for a prescription, there's a trick here too. Here it is:  OrderIvermectin in a pre-mixed solution from J.R. Enterprises. The cost is $25 for a 65-cc bottle of .05% Ivermectin, which is enough to treat five 20-pound dogs for 26 months. J.R. Enterprises even throws in a measuring spoon! Since this Ivomecand polypropelene gylcol solution is not FDA-approved for dogs, they sell it for experimental purposes only. That said, it works fine, and this is exactly the kind of heartworm preventative medicine used on all dogs all across this country prior to the advent of Heartgard and "the billion-dollar heartworm scam" in 1986. .
  . . . . . .Finally, and if for no other reason that to explain how J.R. Enterprises does it, here's how you can treat a huge number of dogs with non-prescription Ivermectin for a dirt-cheap price. Whether this is cost-effective or not (and whether it is worth the trouble or not) really depends on how many dogs you have. In case you run a shelter, here's the scoop 1) Buy a 0.08 percent sheep drench online or at a feed store. Sheep drench is sold in various sized containers, but the smallest on Amazon is about $30 for 8 oz.  This will be high-gradeIvermectin made by Merial, an established veterinarypharmaceutical company. You will be giving only a very small dose of this sheep drench to your dog.  You dose by weight, and if you want to be very sure you have dosed enough, you can double the dose and the dog will be fine (but see the Collie warning at point #7).
  
  * up to 14 pounds: 1 drop (0.05 cc)
  * 15 to 29 pounds: 0.1 cc
  * 30 to 58 pounds: 0.2 cc
  * 59 to 88 pounds: 0.3 cc
  * 89 to 117 pounds: 0.4 cc
  * 118 to 147 pounds: 0.5 cc.
• Do I need to have my dog tested for heartworm before starting Ivermectin?
• Generally, no. Unless your dog is an older dog loaded withyears of untreated heartworm (which you will know from the dog's long-term lethargy and chronic coughing), a dose ofIvermectin will not do your dog harm. A puppy, under six months of age, of course, will always test negative forheartworm because the microfilaria have not yet had a chance to develop and circulate. Testing a dog under age 6 months forheartworm is a common veterinary scam; do not fall for it!
  .
• Is curing heartworm expensive and difficult?
• No it is not. Any veterinarian who tells you otherwise is not keeping up with the literature. It turns out that even if your dog has adult heartworms, if the dog otherwise appears healthy (i.e. it is active, not lethargic, and does not have a chronic cough), a monthly dosing of Ivermectin at a dosage normally used to kill roundworms (a dosage that is 3 times higher than that used to simply prevent heartworm), plus a once-a-month 5-day dosing of Doxycycline (the same antibiotic used to treat Lyme disease) will kill all the adult heartworms if it is sustained for a period of 18 months. This treatment works better than previous Ivermectin-only treatments because theDoxycline wipes out the Wolbachia microbe that grow in the gut of the adult heartworm, essentially sterilizing all of the female heartworms. A round-worm strength dosing of monthlyIvermectin will not only prevent new heartworm microfilariafrom taking hold in your dog, it will also work to dramaticallyshorten the life of any existing adult worms in your dog. Bottom line: after 18 months of treatment, your dog will beheartworm-free at very little cost compared to other remedies.
  . . . . . A repeated caution, however: if you have border collies or herding dogs with white feet that also appear to have full-blown heartworm, consult a veterinarian, as some lines of collies are very susceptible to Ivermectin toxicity. This is very rare, and the cause is unknown, but it is an area of concern among collies and collie-crosses.

To view the original blog click the link.   - Terrierman's Daily Dose -