Inverview with Cathy Menard, Urban Dog

Last week, I had the wonderful opportunity to have another conversation with Cathy Menard of Urban Dog, who kindly allowed me to chat with her for part of the Pet Connections show on AM950 before I trotted off to a consult.

Here's the link.

Enjoy!

Wouldn't it be nice if our pets would do this?

A few months ago, I received an email with the previous subject line and opened it to find a video link to Jesse, an energetic Jack Russell who clearly loves to "work!" And he is, truly, an impressive dog.

But notice that Jesse doesn't seem to view it as work, and I'm betting his person doesn't, either. Everything about their relationship seems based on mutual respect and fun.

If you take some time and review older videos of Jesse, you'll see that, after he completes tasks, Jesse looks up to his person for a treat, an indication that he has been trained using positive reinforcement. When he does something desirable, he looks to his human for a "reward." Chances are, that reward is probably a treat. From what I've read, Jesse was clicker trained, which is a great method for those of you who are prepared to train consistently and reward positive behavior immediately.

So, don't despair. Jesse is not better than your dog; he's just had more training. You'll find that your dog can do amazing things, too, when you work with positive rewards. Rather than correcting your dog when she does something wrong, try praising her lavishly when she does something right, instead.

And you'll quickly find that you can teach your old dog new tricks.

Don't forget: Have fun! And happy training!

Spring has sprung, and with it, gastrointestinal distress . . .

Each spring, I feed my dogs a tasty mixture on top of their meals based on foods that my vet recommends to keep parasites at bay. While it won't work for ticks (to the best of my knowledge--although doTerra does offer some great oils on that front), it does seem to keep my dogs' stomachs relatively calm:

1 quart yogurt (Dannon) or kefir
1/2 lemon squeezed
1/2 c. carrot juice or 2 grated carrots
1/4 c. sunflower or pumpkin seeds, roughly chopped (try a mortar and pestle)
1/2 c. C & H Brown or organic cane sugar

Optional:
1/2 c. blueberries/blueberry juice

Now, I've had complaints that this is a lot. True! But with the number of dogs I have coming and going, it is the perfect quantity for my house.  I simply scoop a tablespoon or two on top of their dog food and watch them enjoy. By the way, I eat it, too, but I do so sans dog food.

And, a confession, I don't measure, so all quantities are estimates!

Why adopt a geriatric dog?

Last night I found myself filling out the paperwork for a dog I’ve been fostering for a year and a half. It was time. Bear’s been in and out of my life for nearly 10 years now, and I realized why it’s taken me so long to find him the perfect forever home: I wasn’t ready to send him off into the unknown again, not this late in his life.

I was reminded, as I filled out the adoption paperwork, of another geriatric dog I adopted nearly a decade ago. Muffin was my first, an 11-year-old red Pom-schipperke cross that had been brought to a veterinarian to be euthanized after her person died. The vet, whose name I never learned, decided to place her in rescue and found Second Chance a month after she was confined to a cage at the clinic. Her eyes, when she first arrived at my house, were flat; her mottled coat suggested that she probably didn’t have much time left, either, but she bounced back quickly. I little bit of love and freedom, and the light returned to her eyes, followed by a feisty personality. After a month or two, I adopted her into a home that seemed to be a good fit for her, until the family called me to tell me that Muffin was biting the family members.

I was disappointed, but not surprised—although I hadn’t seen that behavior in my home. Eventually, a second home surfaced and then returned her after Muffin began nipping family members for confining her to a bathroom. I began to dawn on me that Muffin wanted to retire to my house. And, although I had no plans to adopt a dog at that point in my life, I did. I allowed my heart to open up to this little dog that wasn’t going to win any more beauty pageants.

Three weeks after I adopted her, I noticed a change in Muffin’s breathing. Visits to the vet. X-rays. Trips to the University of Minnesota. More tests. Ultrasounds. Ultimately, I learned the source of her stress. Muffin was suffering from collapsed trachea and bronchi, congestive heart failure, and chronic pneumonia. Tracheal flushes. Medication every day. Vet bills amounting to hundreds of dollars each month. I wondered what I was doing. And vet visit after vet visit, I asked the same question: “Is it time?” Regardless of the vet, the answer was consistently, “No.”

Muffin, you see, was a spitfire. She was happy in her retirement home; we were a great team, and she made me laugh and smile every day, despite vet visits and medications and the fact that her fur was beginning to resemble a muppet’s. She lived for more than a year longer, until one day the man I was dating gently pointed out that the medications were no longer controlling her breathing, that she was struggling to get air. It was time.

Muffin left this world with the same pluck she lived in it. She did not go gently into that good night, but that was part of our journey together, too. In our final moments together, I realized I couldn’t imagine my life without her even though I had only known her for two years. Muffin enriched my life daily, and I know I’m a better person for having known her.

Now I look at Bear, who has suffered a different set of experiences than Muffin, but no less challenging. I’ve known him since he was 4-years-old, when I first placed him in a “forever,” but for some reason I’ll never understand, that wasn’t our final meeting. And he’s not the same dog that he was in 2004. He doesn’t have the same energy, and his smells are a little stronger than they used to be. His body is more tired, too. Overall, he’s got less curb appeal than he did then, at least to the untrained eye.

But to me? I see wisdom in him and a quiet acceptance of his life. He can curl up in my arms for hours, or anyone’s for that matter. He’s content to rest his bones sleeping in a patch of sun on the floor, and he’s happy just to get a meal and a few strokes. He gladly accepts the affection I give him, but unlike the younger dogs in my house, doesn’t ask for it. Because Bear asks for so little, I become more aware of him, notice him following me from room to room or waiting at the bottom of the stairs when I run up them. I try to give him everything he could want. Often, I carry him up and down the stairs with me, place soft bedding on the floor for him to lie one, bring him on visits to people who will allow him to rest in their arms, and indulge his insistent barking as I prepare his meals, his only obsession.

It’s a quiet, gentle relationship, one based on acceptance and trust, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. To know a geriatric rescue dog is to love him, as I love Bear. And whether we have 6 months together, or a year, it doesn’t matter.

The only thing that really matters is that he’s home—at last.

Pet Connections Podcast

I'm so incredibly lucky have such great friends and supporters, and a special thanks to Cathy Menard, owner of Urban Dog, who invited me to join her on her radio show this morning: Pet Connections. If you didn't have a chance to check it out, here's a recording.

And if you need an extraordinary local business to help you with your dog walking and boarding needs, please check out Urban Dog.

Thanks to everyone who listened!

About Giffy, pt. 3: Why holistic?

Kunda, 11 years old
courtesy of Barbara O'Brien

As I was learning about soft training methods, I was also dealing with dogs that had allergies and emotional challenges. By a stroke of luck, I was exposed to Contact Reflex Analysis (which uses muscle testing to find the health of the body’s underlying systems) and Emotional Freedom Technique (tapping) after my dog Kunda developed severe allergies, so severe that she was literally tearing off her nipples. I took her to veterinarians, explored options, put her on ridiculous doses of Benadryl (12 per day, actually), and she was still miserable. It took 6 weeks for her spay incision to heal. Her white blood cell count was low, and her clotting time was slow. My vet told me that she’d need blood transfusions for any major work. Because she was suffering so mercilessly, I began to consider euthanizing her. Don’t mistake me, I loved Kunda desperately, but watching her suffer every day made me question her quality of life. Before making such a drastic choice, I decided instead to try an alternative approach. That’s when I was exposed to CRA and EFT. It changed my life. And hers.  

After 3 visits to the new vet, Kunda was assigned a combination of supplements in 3 rounds, things like acidophilus, milk thistle, olive leaf extract, and Echinacea C. We weaned Kunda off all Benadryl, and after the third treatment, she was no longer symptomatic. I ran new blood work at a vet who did not support alternative modalities, and her numbers were normal.

Kunda lived a healthy-happy life for another glorious 7 years; in fact, she died of degenerative myelopathy at the ripe old age of 11! 

Reggie, closeup of skin

The only way I could stop Reggie from scratching

Reggie after treatment

I tried dog after dog with the same types of results. Whether emotional or physical (frankly, the two usually go hand-in-hand), it worked. Time and again. Sarah, who was 25 pounds under weight and couldn’t keep down food. Reggie, who was tearing off his skin, and whom I could only protect by putting him in toddler’s pajamas—with socks and a cone around his head. He looked ridiculous, but it prevented him from scratching himself raw. There were many more, but these two, coupled with Kunda, convinced me. Dogs, after all, didn’t understand the placebo effect. I decided to learn the practices myself.

I’ve been studying muscle testing and tapping since 2008, formed a study group in 2009, attend seminars and workshops, and supplemented that with intuitive and energy healing training. Today, I practice tapping with dogs

And even now, I find myself amazed at how useful the practice can be—for anything from anxiety and fear, emotions associated to muscle pain. It’s an incredibly useful tool.

About Giffy, pt. 2: Learning to value soft training methods

I really didn’t have formal training at the outset. I simply watched the dogs when they came into my house. In the early days, someone told me about the “alpha dog” mentality that was popular at the time along with rolling those that had acted up, showing the dogs who was boss. For a time, that was a factor in my work, but I have since discovered a much softer and more effective approach. (For a brilliant refutation of “rolling dogs,” a practice that was widely used when I began working in rescue around 2000, see Suzanne Clothier’s article, “He Just Wants to Say ‘Hi!” It’s one of the most important influences on my training.)

I never believed in physical punishment, but in the early days, I did a lot of yelling/”barking,” as I was trying to establish myself as the dominant member of my pack. That stopped that the day my 140-pound mastiff began to cower when I raised my voice. From that day forward I decided to train from a place of calm and started exploring different approaches.

That softer approach was reinforced as I welcomed increasingly shy-fearful dogs into my home. To be frank, most of them couldn’t handle yelling. They’d become catatonic, shut down. I had to try other approaches, so I tried to see the world from their vantage point. If they cowered when they went outside, I explored ways to make the space seem smaller, safer. And during this period of my evolution, I became a little too indulgent, allowing dogs to hide behind their fear. Case in point, Becca was in my home 2-3 years before I really pushed her to be on a leash.  (See the Fall 2006 Second Chance Newsletter piece entitled “The Shed Dogs” for more of Becca’s back story.)

I only learned of the shortcomings in the indulgent approach when Sarah entered my home. Like Becca, she was seriously undersocialized when she arrived at my house, the result of years in a breeding facility. But, unlike Becca, I pushed Sarah, not hard, but I brought her out into the world more quickly. I’ll never forget the first class I took with Janey Shaddrick, from Rogues & Rascals. Sarah was terrified. In fact, for the entire 8-week class, she stood there.

Doing. Nothing.

I was mortified, as if her failure to engage somehow reflected poorly on me (an attitude I have encountered many, many times since I’ve begun working with people and dogs). I forced myself to check my ego at the door in order to encourage Sarah to blossom a bit. It worked. Although Sarah didn’t really learn many commands in that class, she did learn how to be in a group of other people and dogs. She learned that going out into the world didn’t have to be overwhelming.

I learned at least as much. From Janey, I was reinforced that training softly and patiently was a great way to inspire a dog to work for me. I didn’t have to be heavy-handed. I didn’t even need to use treats, but I did need to observe Sarah, see what she liked. I needed to think creatively in order to help Sarah along, and I needed to appreciate our small, innumerable successes rather than focus on the many challenges that still lay ahead. In that class, Sarah grew to like my touch; she walked by my side calmly, and a couple of times, she even sat on command!

It was progress, and I needed to recognize that.