CC Cartier

Our dog Anouk will eliminate on cue within 5 seconds with 99% reliability, just about anywhere (appropriate), anytime, in any weather. Sometimes, I ask Anouk for a “Go potty, go pee!” just a few minutes after she has eliminated to reinforce that elimination is a rewardable behavior. She will crouch and attempt to urinate or expel just a drop or two, then its party time! Dancing, affection and tasty food rewards. We reward our dogs immediately, every time they eliminate appropriately.

This incredible time and sanity saving behavior was systematically trained, as we have done with so many of our client’s dogs. Sometimes, we are in competition for potty compliance with distractions and the environment, as we expect may be the case with some of you next week as a potentially wild storm approaches.

Fear not, Maverick Pet Partners has lived and learned through many thousands of potty times (and a few accidents) in every imaginable circumstance, and we have some tips to help you through the storm with the silk rugs in your dining room intact.

• If you have not already assigned cues (formerly known as commands) to elimination, now is a great time to start! “Do your business”, “Go pee.” Make sunshine,”… Assign a 3’ x 3’ to 5’ x 5’ square of earth for elimination and stick to it. Ask for elimination and reward immediately and consistently for compliance. It is potty time, not walk time, so stay in your dog’s designated potty spot.
• If your dog does not urinate and defecate within 5 minutes outside, bring him inside and place him in his crate or gated area for 10-15 minutes, then try again. Continue this routine until he is successful and then praise and reward him immediately with tasty food for elimination in the appropriate spot.
• Take your dog out on a leash to his bathroom spot so he learns to relieve himself under your control.
• Confine the dog to rooms with tile or other washable flooring so mistakes don’t ruin carpets.
• Stick to your dog’s usual elimination schedule and take the dog outside to the appropriate relief spot immediately after eating.
• Dogs do not soil the house out of spite or stupidity; they soil the house because they have not been taught to do otherwise and the markers granting them permission (uric acid and protein from urine and feces) are present inside the home OR they have a medical condition that impacts elimination. If the dog does urinate or defecate inside, he should immediately and silently be taken outside to the assigned elimination spot. Keep a leash near each door to the house for easy access, just in case.
• Failures in housetraining are human mistakes or symptoms of a medical condition, not dog mistakes. The dog does not understand that carpets are for walking, not bowel relief.  Make it highly rewarding for your dog to eliminate outside on cue.
• Never punish for mistakes. Once you’re fairly confident that the dog understands where to relieve himself, do not scold him for mistakes, even if you catch him in the act. Interrupt instead; “Oops, outside”. Never spank, scream, or push his nose in the mess. The spot MUST be cleaned up with an enzymatic cleaner. We highly recommend “Pee B Gone”.

In case of heavy rain, snow, tornadoes, hurricanes, tropical storms, or other conditions that may make potty time frightening, dangerous or physically challenging, the following methods  have served us well are storm tested over many years:

If you have access to a garage or other roomy shed, create a temporary potty spot. Lay 3 to 4 pieces of sod (available seasonally) on top of a tarp or other plastic ground covering before the expected wildly inclement weather arrives. You may wish to secure the tarp to the garage floor with duct tape. Under your dog’s usual potty circumstances, sneak a paper towel onto the ground so that your dog eliminates on it. Transfer the paper towel onto the sod and invite your dog to investigate. Coax and comfort; “Good job.” “It’s okay.” Ask for elimination. Keep the paper towel on the temporary potty spot until your dog has eliminated there at least twice. Also keep the potty spot free of feces. When the storm passes, roll everything up and dispose of it appropriately. You can clean up the garage floor with “Pee B Gone” if urine soaked through your sod.

If no sod is available you can use leaves and some non-cocoa mulch on top of the tarp. The finer the mulch, the better. Do not use bark mulch nuggets. The urine saturated paper towel as marker is still essential to the success of your temporary potty spot. You can forgo the tarp if you have a safe space outside under a porch available, but don’t forget the urine saturated paper towel as marker in the novel spot.

Happy elimination!

By Kennen Barber-Ensz and CC Cartier

Your Best Friend: Lost
According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), approximately 5 to 7 million companion animals enter shelters nationwide each year.  Less than 2 percent of cats and 15 percent of dogs are returned to their guardians, says the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy (NCPPSP).  Despite these frightening numbers, Progressive Pet Parents can be equipped with the knowledge and tools to keep their pets safe and ensure their return if they are lost.

Collar, Tag and ‘Chip
There are three important considerations when providing identification for your pet. Along with The Whole Dog Journal, Maverick Pet Partners urges pet parents to 1. collar, 2. tag, and 3. microchip their dogs.

Collar on 24/7
“A lost dog’s chances of finding his way back to his concerned owner are vastly improved if he’s wearing a collar,” according to Nancy Kerns of The Whole Dog Journal.  A collar lets animal control officers know that your pet is likely not abandoned if he or she does get lost. While some pet parents remove their dog’s collar inside the home, dogs may bolt out the door after a squirrel, or otherwise escape their home or yard without asking you to put their collar back on! Please, do leave collars on at all times.

How to Select a Tag
As a Progressive Pet Parent, your next move is to provide an identification tag that hangs on the pet’s collar. While there are many different styles, colors, and materials of tags, we recommend large, bright, readable, plastic tags from Boomerang Tags. Visibility is of utmost importance on a pet’s tag; a stranger may need to read the tag without getting too close to the pet, as some pets will not let a stranger touch or approach them. We often (about 20 times a year!) encounter dogs at large in roadways while traveling on Pet Partners business. As we consider ourselves co-guardians to ALL the pets in our community, we stop to help the dog to safety. Often, the dog is afraid or otherwise unapproachable. If we can’t read the tag from a distance, we are unable to call the dog’s guardian, so we call Animal Control. If Animal Control is off duty, your dog will remain at large and in potential danger. Plastic is a better choice for pet tags because the engraved information wears down and easily becomes unreadable on metal tags. We endorse the tags made by Boomerang Tags for several reasons. First, function and durability are their highest priority; they make tags that will stay on your pet and will be readable years after purchased. Second, they engrave on both sides of the pet tag (you can’t get that at the pet store!).  Third, they offer a complete refund or exchange if you aren’t completely satisfied with your pet tag.  Along with free shipping within 24 hours of your order, Boomerang Tags is an effective and cost-efficient way to go for pet ID.

I Have a Tag…What Should It Say?
The most important information on your pet’s tag should be at least one highly visible telephone number. Again, many a dog won’t let a stranger get too close, so have both sides of the tag engraved with a phone number or two. Other information is largely optional; some pet parents include information such as “IF I AM ALONE, I AM LOST, ” or “REWARD.” This lets people who may find your pet know that he or she is not abandoned and that his or her return is important to you.

Other Required Identification Tags
Under New Jersey animal law statutes, dog owners are required to secure registration or licensing locally and to display the license tag on the dog’s collar.   Depending on the type of licensing, this will need to be done annually or every three years.  The dog owner must also provide proof of rabies vaccination. Veterinarians provide pet owners with a metal tag as proof of vaccination; a “rabies tag.”  This is required before registration or licensing can be obtained.

Drastically Improve Your Odds. Microchip!
Sometimes a collar and tags just aren’t enough; an interesting passer-by, a squirrel, or frightening noise can cause your collarless pet to bolt from the safety of your home or yard. Fear or prey drive can also cause him or her to slip out of his or her collar and run while on leash. In a situation such as this, the odds are against you and your pet. Alone without a collar and identification, your pet could be whisked off to a shelter. There, the shelter will have no way to contact you or locate you as the pet’s rightful guardian. Progressive Pet Parents have an additional safety tool to consider to prevent this tragedy from happening to their pets – the magnificent microchip.

A microchip is a tiny transponder, often described as the size of a grain of rice (12mm).  It is implanted under a dog or cat‘s (or horse, parrot, etc.) skin above the shoulders, with a pre-loaded, sterile syringe and large-gauge needle.  No anesthetic is needed; pets generally react much the same way as when receiving a vaccination injection.  A microchip does not contain a battery or any sending/receiving technology; it draws power from and responds only to a scanner held near the pet’s body. The microchip will last for the lifetime of your pet.  Once your pet receives a microchip, it is your responsibility to register the chip with the chip’s manufacturer, including contact information, important phone numbers, and veterinarian information.  It is also your responsibility to ensure that information stays current—moving, changing phone numbers, or owner information must be updated in order for the microchip to be effective.  Today, shelters, veterinarians, and some animal control officers can scan an animal that is brought into their facility to retrieve contact information and make a call to the pet’s owner and arrange a happy reunion.

Microchipping is a relatively inexpensive procedure – many veterinarians in central New Jersey charge about $50 per chip, which may include registration with the manufacturer. Visit HomeAgain for more information regarding microchipping your pet.

The Good News
Despite the millions of pets who are displaced each year in our country, Progressive Pet Parents can make good choices for the protection and safety of their best friends. Taking the time to provide your pet with a secure collar that is kept on at all times, readable and up-to-date ID tags, and registered microchips with accurate information will dramatically increase the odds that your beloved pet will return home, safe and sound.  If you have any questions or would like further information, recommendations, or professional opinions, please contact us at Maverick Pet Partners – Your Partners in Pet Care! We look forward to working with you to make the best decisions regarding your pet’s safety.

By Jean Donaldson, Director of The San Francisco SPCA Academy for Dog Trainers

Dog training is a divided profession. We are not like plumbers, orthodontists or termite exterminators who, if you put six in a room, will pretty much agree on how to do their jobs. Dog training camps are more like Republicans and Democrats, all agreeing that the job needs to be done but wildly differing on how to do it.

The big watershed in dog training is whether or not to include pain and fear as means of motivation. In the last twenty years the pendulum swing has been toward methods that use minimal pain, fear or intimidation – or none at all.

The force-free movement has been partly driven by improved communication from the top. Applied behaviorists, those with advanced degrees in behavior, and veterinary behaviorists, veterinarians who have completed residencies specializing in behavior problems are in greater abundance than in previous decades, and there is much more collaboration between these fields and trainers on the front lines. These two professions are quite unified on the point that the use of physical confrontation and pain is unnecessary, often detrimental and, importantly, unsafe.

On a more grassroots level, trainers have found more benign and sophisticated tools by boning up on applied behavior science themselves. Seminal books like marine mammal trainer Karen Pryor’s Don’t Shoot the Dog made the case that training and behavior modification can be achieved without any force whatsoever.

But dog training is currently an unregulated profession: there are no laws governing practices. Prosecutions under general anti-cruelty statutes are occasionally successful but greatly hampered by the absence of legal standards pertaining specifically to training practices. Provided it’s in the name of training, someone with no formal education or certification can strangle your dog quite literally to death and conceivably get off scot-free.

It’s not a complete wilderness: three sets of dog training guidelines exist, one in the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT) Mission Statement, one published by the Delta Society and one by the American Humane Association (AHA). All state that less invasive (i.e. without pain or force) techniques must be competently tried and exhausted before more invasive techniques attempted. Such guidelines are not yet mandatory but they’re a start.

And so the current professional climate is one laden with some remaining fierce debate. There’s an ever-expanding group of trainers that train force-free (ad. literature will be some variation on the theme of “dog-friendly” or “pain-free”), trainers that still train primarily with force (ad literature: “no-nonsense” or “common sense”) and trainers that employ liberal use of both force and rewards (ad literature: “balanced” or “eclectic”). From a consumer’s standpoint, the choice in methods is wide.

You can hire a professional to train your dog pretty much any way that suits your fancy and it’s all legal.

The force-free movement gains momentum every year and a sure sign of this is that many trainers in the other camps resort to murkier and murkier euphemisms to disguise their more violent practices and retain their market share. Stressed dogs aren’t “shut down,” they’re “calm.” It’s not strangling, it’s “leading.” As a committed devotee of the “dog-friendly” camp, I am therefore, along with my colleagues here at The San Francisco SPCA, somewhat agog at the stunning success of “The Dog Whisperer”. This is pretty ferocious stuff by anybody’s standards. The National Geographic Channel even runs a disclaimer banner at the bottom of the screen admonishing people to “not try this at home,” a warning notably absent on home improvement shows or “Nanny 911″. Many have suggested that the cloaking of corporal punishments and hazing in mystical language, promise of instant results, high octane telegenicity of Cesar Milan and lucky connections with Los Angeles celebrity clients are sufficient explanation for the Dog Whisperer phenomenon. The one with the best buzz words wins. But I don’t know.

Janis Bradley, my colleague here at The SPCA, sagely points out that the positive reinforcement trend has become a big enough juggernaut to warrant a backlash and Milan represents exactly that. Like the frazzled Los Angelinos in the film “Crash” (which, notably, took Best Picture honors at The Academy Awards), people are fed up with having to be politically correct in a chronically frustrating and disconnected world. Couldn’t we just “get real” and stop being kind and tolerant all the time?

And here we positive-reinforcement oriented dog trainers are now telling everyone they have to be nice and politically correct to the dog? Well, yes.

Jean Donaldson’s article was first published in The Woofer Times, September 2006

Whether puppies or adults, dogs use their mouths and chewing as a way of alleviating boredom and anxiety and exploring the world around them. Unfortunately this often results in damage to furniture, rugs, shoes, remotes and mobile phones. In order to remedy potential destruction to personal items, pet parents may choose from an overwhelming assortment of dog chews and toys. One of the most popular chews that pet parents turn to are rawhide products. Startling new information has been uncovered about the dangers of these products. From Salmonella recalls to toxic ingredients, rawhides are now posing an increasing threat to the health of our beloved pets. Explore the truths behind the marketing ploys and choose healthy alternatives that will make both parents and pets jump for joy.

The past three years have witnessed a dramatic shift in Rawhide product awareness thanks to an increase in research and information regarding pet health. From 2008 to 2011 alone, there have been SIX major FDA recalls of rawhide products due to Salmonella poisoning of pets and people who have come into contact with rawhides. Salmonella in dogs can easily be spread and adapt into a multitude of other bacterial diseases such as gastroenteritis (which causes a dog to vomit or excrete blood) and septicemia (which results in blood poisoning, dangerously high fevers and low blood pressure). These diseases can often be difficult and expensive to treat properly and may lead to greater complications if not treated. This alarming amount of recalls and threat of bacterial exposure has already put rawhides on the black list of many pet nutritionists, trainers and pet parents.

Along with bacterial exposure, perhaps the greatest risk that rawhide products pose for dogs is that they are a very serious choking hazard. As a dog chews the rawhide down into smaller pieces, it becomes a choking hazard that may block a dog’s esophagus.  Justine Lee, DVM, DACVECC, a board certified veterinary trauma and critical care surgeon explains her fear and heartache when her beloved Pit Bull “JP” swallowed a piece of rawhide in her article “Why I Hate Rawhides”, Dr. Lee explains the dangers of rawhide foreign body ingestion, describing them as, “life-threatening if not treated immediately”. “I’ve seen dogs develop severe complications even with rescue endoscopy procedures (like tearing through the esophagus, aspiration pneumonia, sepsis, ect.) and I have seen dogs die from esophageal foreign bodies.” writes Lee. The Humane Society of the United States includes rawhide pet products on their list of the eight most dangerous indoor household hazards to pets, alongside pesticide products and human medications. Rawhides makes the list due to the fact that the easily spread salmonella to pets and people and are the number one choking hazard. The HSUS is not alone on their position on rawhides. The ASPCA suggests that pet parents should, “discourage consumption” because they ”cause choking or gastrointestinal  obstruction.” Pet parents are putting their pets at risk every time they use rawhide products.

If salmonella bacteria, choking, and gastrointestinal trauma have not forever dissuaded you from feeding rawhide products, it is time to look behind marketing gimmicks to investigate the ingredients that these nutritionally empty and calorie dense products include. Acclaimed author and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Ernie Ward reveals leading dog foods and treats true caloric values and compares them to human food equivalents in his book, “Chow Hound”. Dr. Ward deems the caloric intake of a Dingo Meat in the Middle small bone for a forty pound dog as the equivalent of a human eating two Taco Bell Taco Supremes AND 20 ounces of Coke. Ward further deciphers the pet food and product market in an effort to help fight pet obesity and educate pet parents in prevention methods to avoid diseases and increase pet longevity. Dr. Ward’s desire to educate stems from his experience treating the repercussions of pet obesity which include: heart and respiratory disease, high blood pressure, kidney disease, compromised immune function, numerous forms of cancer and ultimately decreased life expectancy. Rawhide, pig ears and Dingo ingredients directly contribute to pet obesity, which is why most companies that manufacture them do not include ingredients lists and caloric values on their packaging, and why natural pet food retailers refuse to carry them. Most companies who produce rawhides utilize toxic chemicals in their processing methods, such as: lye or lime solution, bleach, arsenic, lead, titanium oxide, formaldehyde, mercury, cadmium, bromine, and potentially carcinogenic artificial dyes. Oh my! Unfortunately, this is the reality of the pet food industry. As pet parents, education and prevention are our best defenses. Become well informed against the dangers of rawhide products and find healthy alternatives that your pet will enjoy, risk free.

Healthy alternative abound and are more accessible than ever! Pet parents no longer have to travel far to find them or make alternative products themselves. Due to new pet health awareness, great companies and specialty retailers are foregoing toxic chemicals and dangerous treats in lieu of safe, nutritious and delicious treats and chews. Never buy Chinese sourced dog products, which are only sometimes labeled “MADE IN CHINA”. Instead, seek out all natural American made products whenever possible.

Some alternative products and companies that we highly recommend are:

• Dr. Harvey’s Sweet Potate’r Chews (based in Keensburg, New Jersey)
• Sam’s Yams Veggie “Rawhide” Sweet Potato Dog Chewz
• Merrick Bully Stix
• Natural Deer Antler Chews
• Himalayan Dog Chews

Read the full article.