human behavior from a dog's point of view

Penny has learned to participate in a home where there are few routines. Her walk might happen any time from early in the morning to just before midnight. Her meals generally come twice a day, but can vary up to six or seven hours as to when. Household members disappear for days on end without warning.

When we first got her, we read a piece of advice that I think is sensible. If you have a household where schedules tend to get unpredictable at times, then don't create an artificial air of predictability for the puppy - teach her to adapt to the usual 'chaos' of the household.

Sometimes when she's waiting calmly to see what weird thing we'll do next, I'd like to read her mind. I can't do that, but I did enjoy reading an article written by ‘dog scientists’ to explain to puppies what they'll be in for if they live with humans The introduction says:

This study was developed to help puppies prepare for entering the mysterious and frightful world of the Human. By better understanding these vile creatures and the motivations behind their bizarre and unpredictable behaviors, puppies will hopefully learn to accept their fate and enjoy long and relatively happy lives in peaceful coexistence with their oppressive “masters”.

The whole article is an enlightening introduction to the world of the dog scientist, and well worth a read, but here are a couple of my favorite bits:

While accompanying Humans on “walks” outside the immediate area of the Den, the Dog frequently experiences the need to mark or eliminate. Random marking is usually tolerated by the Human, except for the marking of certain Human made objects. Some humans seem to place a great deal of value in the Dog’s eliminations, which are sometimes gathered in small, translucent containers and deposited in circular treat receptacles. It is not clear what becomes of these deposits, but Dog scientists theorize that they are re-processed to manufacture some type of food or treats for other Humans...

Dog scientists specializing in Human behavior suggest that Dogs seek out the older females with white fur on their heads for the most promising Human food sharing opportunities. Mastering eye contact from a “sit” position, with a slightly bowed head and uplifted eyes seems to be the most effective strategy to pursue. Dogs should not, however, expect Humans to offer pre-chewed food or to regurgitate partially digested food for the Dog. This perfectly normal behavior is for some reason discouraged by Alpha Humans during Human feeding rituals

.

A good fun read, with lots of underlying truths about the role of dogs in human households.

dogs skateboarding

I've been searching eBay for a cheap skateboard because Penny is learning to skateboard at K9 Kompany in Lilydale. I'm goingto ask around my nephews and nieces to see if any of them have 'grown out of' their old skateboard.
So far Penny can only put her paws up on a skateboard and walk along as I gently push it. However, she doesn't know what's in store for her after I saw this video clip!

choice of raw meats to feed dogs

When I visited a vet recently to discuss why Penny is 'scooting' around on her behind, he checked her anal glands and her rear end. He said she seemed fine and to stop feeding beef so I can check whether she is allergic to this meat. She eats a lot of chicken already and seems to react badly to kangaroo, so I was wondering what to feed as an accompaniment to the chicken.

I remembered that I had the lovely (super expensive) frozen rabbit that I was intending to feed anyway, so I thawed it out, chopped it into manageable pieces and fed her a leg. She crunched it up and seemed to love it.

Half an hour later it came back up.

We did think of leaving it to see if she had another go at it but, in a fit of tidiness, cleared it away in to the rubbish bin. So, the dilemma was... Should I try her out on the rest of the rabbit?

At first I surfed the Net. One site I visited was Wilmington Animal Hospital. I was pleased to see a vet recommending raw diet, as many vets seems mistrustful of this way of feeding dogs. In part this discussion said:

It is easiest to feed chicken as the meat and bone source if you are preparing the meat fresh. Chicken backs and thighs are cheapest. As discussed in the "Concerns" section, you can chop up the chicken before feeding it to your dog. After purchasing the chicken, wrap each piece individually and freeze it. Defrost it overnight, and then chop it up in the morning. Defrosting the chicken for approximately 9 hours allows it to become slightly soft, but not rubbery, and therefore easiest to chop.
Varying the meat sources from time to time is a healthy, natural way to provide a variety of nutrients to your dog.

I still wasn't sure whether to keep on with the rabbit, so I went to a wonderfully helpful yahoo group, Rawfeeding for Dogs and Cats.

I posted my question and settled down to wait for a day or so - I'm used to the fact that Aussies have to wait till the rest of the world gets out of bed! - but, amazingly, three answers appeared within hours. All of the answers were great. In short, they said

• maybe Penny's stomach reacted to the novel food and threw it up;
• perhaps she swallowed it too quickly and if I had waited she might have come back to eat it;
• I could try holding the rabbit leg and slow down her eating so she crunched it up properly;
• I could feed her a little meat off the bone, mixed with her usual food and see how she got on.

I was encouraged by all these positive suggestions and gave it a go.

First I cut off a little meat and fed it with the soaked grain mix sold in Australia as Vet's All Natural. She ate it and was fine.
An hour lated I held a rabbit leg and invited her to eat it. Not very successful, because she politely licked it and waited for me to give it to her. So I gave it to her and waited while she crunched and smashed it up.

Two hours later I decided it was a success.

I think I've learned two things. The first is, don't give up on a new food too easily. The second, and definitely more memorable, is - 'slime and swallow'. This wonderful expression so exactly described how she ate it!! I did a search of this evocative phrase on the Yahoo Rawfeeding site and discovered it leads to lots of discussions of what to do with a dog who will gulp down meat instead of 'grab, reposition, crunch, mash, smash, slime with saliva, swallow'.

I will have to remember to visit the group more often. It's a bonanza of information and has a great sense of community. When I first started to raw feed Penny as a puppy I used to lurk around the group all the time. Now that I've de-lurked I'll visit regularly.

The Vet's All Natural site mentioned above also has lots of fascinating information. There is a members section and you can see some free articles before joining. Of course I zeroed in on the one called What Meat Should I Feed My Pets? (Wow, how appropriate is that?) There is a discussion of a range of meats and I was disappointed to see that rabbbit meat does not get a good report because rabbits are now a 'farmed' meat in Australia because of the calicivirus, which was deliberately introduced to the wild population to try to reduce the plague of rabbits. Dr Bruce Syme, the vet, doesn't believe in farmed meats for dogs because of ethical issues and because of the low quality of the meat.
However, my meat comes from a 'biodynamic' butcher, so I think it would be okay ethically and physically.

The Vet's All Natural summary of meats goes like this:

1. Kangaroo - very, very good – the perfect 10/10.

2. Tripe - also very, very good. Its difficulty in sourcing sees it score
9/10.
3. Offal - if obtained correctly, an important part of the diet – 8/10

4. Sheep - very good, the best of the farmed meats – 7/10

5. Beef - next best of the farmed meats – 6/10

6. Fish - only if purchased fresh, then it is good, owing to
inconvenience and price – 5/10

7. Rabbit - excellent if from wild rabbits, owing to extreme difficulty in
procuring – 5/10

8. Chicken - still better than canned and processed, as long as it is fed as part of the diet only and is purchased and stored frozen. It’s related health and ethics issues see it rate poorly against all the other good meats on offer. It is cheap though – 3/10

9. Pork - the least suitable and not recommended at all – 0/10

dogs and scent discrimination

Penny and I love playing tracking games around the house - especially on these hot summer days when we don't want to go out. I tell her to 'wait', after holding something for her to sniff. It's usually food, but sometimes my car keys. Then she follows my trail around the house - I've noticed she generally tracks where I went rather than just heading for the food itself. I assume what we are playing is somewhere in between tracking and scenting. I'd love to learn more about scenting.

Therefore, I was pleased to find a couple of great links on Johann's blog. One is to an article called How to Train Scent Discrimination for Obedience Competition. It's at Karen Pryor's clicker training site.

The point is that you are teaching the dog to choose amongst scents, not just to track. In part, it says:

There are a number of ways to introduce your dog to the concept of making a choice based on scent. Remember that this is something the dog tends to do anyway. You can start directly with your own scent, or you can use something more potent and obvious, such as cheese or vanilla extract. The purpose of the more potent starter is not to teach your dog to use its nose, but to give you the ability to perceive more accurately what your dog is doing, and to respond to it.

It reminds me of a science game I've played often with young children, where there are two sets of small jars with cotton-wool in them, impregnated with scents. The children briefly open the jar, sniff the contents, and match up the pairs. I remember that vanilla was one of the scents we used. I've never known a child who didn't love this game - which maybe goes to show that we're not so different from our dogs.

Johann also mentions the K9events site that has a heap of links about retrieving and scenting. It's a feast of information. Given the weather we've had lately, with the hot days starting even before spring had finished, I think we're in for a long summer, so I'm really looking forward to trying these activities. If it's shady outside I think we could play out there without Penny getting overheated.

dog cartoons

Penny was resting beside me when I visited a site called Slavenka and Obi where there was a cartoon I loved about doggy affirmation - I must remember that dogs, too, need affirmation - though I think Penny gets enough without resorting to technology!.

Slavenka has a cute little dog called Obi. There's another one called Niki, also.

I went to the site of the cartoonist, Mark Parisi, where there are lots of dog cartoons, which are good fun if you can ignore the annoying flashing popup at the top of the page.

the joy of a dog's companionship

Yesterday we walked with Penny along the Little Yarra River in the mountains east of Melbourne. If we'd been walking without her we would probably have enjoyed the vista of mountains and trees, but we would have missed the detail...

When she was playing in the water we looked at the coarse-grained sand on the tiny 'beach' and focused on the myriad canine footprints - obviously a favorite place for local dogs. I'm convinced that the stream bed was scattered with gold dust (all this area is gold country) but my friend Geraldine is adamant that it will only be 'fool's gold' (pyrites). Next time Penny stirs up the bottom I'm going to take my gold panning equipment!





When she nosed around a massive old log, we were fascinated by the sheer size of the fallen giant. It's sad to think how many hundreds of years it must have taken for this forest giant to grow - and then it was cut down and left to lie for decades. This area is home to eucalyptus regnans, the tallest flowering plant in the world. It is also called the mountain ash. It seems likely to me that this giant log is a mountain ash.






Snakes are a danger to dogs, especially small ones like Penny who don't have the body mass to survive for long after a bite, so we had to scan the low vegetation - the rule of thumb for humans is, 'Don't walk anywhere that you can't see your feet,' but Penny doesn't obey this rule. Consequently we took more notice of the lovely feathery grasses along the ege of the path and enjoyed the elegant lines of the eucalypt leaves scattered across the mown grass.

On a more prosaic note, we also came across a piece of litter that we photographed for one of my favorite flickr groups, Faces in Place


s.

dogs needed in order to save an island paradise

Penny isn't a hunting dog. Well, she seems to have killed a rat recently, which was a relief to me, as I knew rats were eating the skins off the lemons on our tree and I couldn't bring myself to set a trap. And she did grab a blackbird that had stunned itself by flying into a window. But, other than seeking out tennis balls, she doesn't generally hunt.

However, trained hunting dogs are needed in our neck of the woods.

Macquarie Island lies about 1500km south-south-east of Tasmania, about half-way between Tasmania and Antarctica. The main island is approximately 34km long and 5.5km wide at its broadest point.It was World Heritage listed in 1997 because of its exceptional natural beauty and unique geology that contains a record of life on earth.It is home to 80 breeding pairs of grey-headed albatross, the species' only breeding site in Australia. They are at risk of extinction because of nest-destruction by rabbits.

(This information came from an article in The Sunday Age and was sourced from the WWF and World Heritage.)

The article reports that:

Since rabbit numbers exploded on the World Heritage-listed Macquarie Island over the past couple of years, massive landslips - caused by overgrazing and tunnelling by the 100,000 bunnies - have sent entire hillsides falling into the Southern Ocean, killing king penguins and wiping out crucial albatross nests. At the same time, a living carpet of rats and mice have been feasting on the eggs in penguin and seabird colonies.

The plan is to poison the rats and mice, but the rabbits will have to be killed off another way, so hunting dogs are needed to kill the rabbits without harming the birds and other protected wildlife. Seeing it takes about two years to train a dog to work off the leash sniffing out rabbits and yet ignoring the other prey, it will be a while before it gets under way. It seems sad to have to poison animals but I guess this kind of plague can't be dealt with in any other way.

It's amazing the things dogs can be trained to do. I was also reading about two English springer spaniels who have learned to sniff out termites. They are keeping the wooden pillars of Korea's palaces safe. I read about this on the Active Canines blog. It had been posted by TheresaQ.