The Joy of Showing Your Own Dog, or How I Learned to Love the Show Ring

By Joyce Miller


Handling a show dog in the ring takes lots of practice, good teachers, lots more practice, and lots of experience. It requires a willingness to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes. Above all, it requires a willingness to lose and know that in the losing you have learned something. And it requires that when you lose, you smile and congratulate the winners, knowing that tomorrow is another show.

When I was a child, my mother bred and showed Boxers. She loved showing her dogs, and the handler she emulated was Jane Kemp. She took me to shows with her, and I don’t think I ever saw her happier. But my father, who had chosen the breed and purchased a bitch with the agreement to show her, to breed her, and to return a puppy, had little use for the show ring, or as he called it, the beauty ring. To him, it was nothing more than a beauty pageant: the dogs and owners only had to walk around the ring and stand at attention. I grew up believing there was nothing to showing dogs.

I didn’t learn how wrong he was until I was in my 50s and had to show my first show Airedale. I look back with embarrassment on my first attempts in the ring: stiff, stilted, no clue of what it took to show off a dog or how to train a dog to do this. Handlers told me there was nothing to it. People who called themselves mentors told me what to do: loose lead, keep the head up, make sure that the dog is moving correctly, hold the head up, the tail up, and keep the dog stacked. Every time I entered the ring, I felt like “Baby” learning to dance in the movie, Dirty Dancing.

Handling classes were of no help: every Tuesday evening, I took my first show Airedale to handling class. No one gave us any instruction. We just lined up, kept moving up to the front of the line, stacked our dog, took it down and back, and went around to the end. Every week, I looked desperately around the class: What was I supposed to do? Who could I emulate? Each week, I picked someone who seemed to know what they were doing and tried to copy them. Even though many of the people in the class were very experienced, I did not have a clue whether I was copying something that would work in the Airedale ring or not. In short, to quote Corally Burmaster, a good friend of mine, all I was doing each week in handling class was rearranging my ignorance. My first show dog and my second show dog were finished by professional handlers.

Years later, with 16 Tom and Kay Lams workshops and four George Alston workshops under my belt, with one owner handled champion to my credit, and even teaching a successful handling class, I still did not feel confident in the ring. I was showing Dilys, a granddaughter of that first show Airedale, and when she was finally in good coat and condition, she decided that judges could not go over her. Looking back on this, I now know that she was reacting to my stress as the judge approached: “ooh, mum’s clenching and the judge is coming towards us.” She did this at three shows under three wonderful judges who gave her every opportunity. Each judge counseled me to get her out more frequently during the week. But I was doing that, and I knew that was not the problem.

The problem was me. I was tense and insecure in the ring. I had to get over that, and I had to do it with that dog. By then I was teaching a handling class the way I wanted handling classes organized: a six-week course focused on two weeks of gaiting, two weeks of presentation, and two weeks of putting it all together. In my classes, I had both AKC and UKC exhibitors. The UKC exhibitors seemed to be much more relaxed about showing than the AKC exhibitors. So I decided to go to a UKC show with them.

I entered a UKC show in Giddings Texas. I had the only Airedale entered. The judges were excellent, and the people were very friendly. The first judge I showed to gave us best of breed and then a Group 2. But more importantly, I was so relaxed when I went into the ring that my girl stood rock solid for exam, with her ears alert and her tail up. At the second of the three shows that weekend, she was so solid that she took Group 1 and then went Reserve Best In Show. And I was having so much fun and getting so many good wishes from all the exhibitors that I did not think twice about being nervous.

Not only did I have fun in the ring, but I got to talk to other exhibitors, learn about their breeds and what they were doing, and I got to talk with the judges. On Saturday night, we all went out to dinner with the judges. And the judges talked freely at the show and at dinner about what they liked, what they were looking for, and, when they were talking with us individually, they talked about what they liked about our dogs and what we were doing right as handlers. The atmosphere removed the fear and the nerves that I had always experienced at shows, fear and nerves made worse by all the critics I had outside the ring who pounced on what I did wrong and never told me what I did right. Above all, these judges renewed my confidence in my dog.

After the fun I had at that UKC show, I decided to try another venue, the International Shows that were held in Hutto TX on New Year’s weekend. This would be four shows in two days under four AKC judges, two from the United States, two from Canada. Once again, we were the only Airedale entered. And once again, we had a great time. At both the UKC and the International shows, there is no focus on grooming. My Airedale was well groomed, but instead of spending hours getting her ready for the ring, I kept track of time, and about 10 minutes before we were to go into the ring, I put her on the table, brushed her out, and took her to the ring.

At the International Shows, as at the UKC shows, the atmosphere was friendly and relaxed. Judges talked to exhibitors throughout the day, during breaks, and not only gave you written critiques in the ring, but gave you more information about how they saw your dog in informal conversations during breaks. At these shows, the first level championship requires three certificates from judges who rate your dog as conforming well to your standard, and one of those judges has to come from another country. If there are more dogs of your breed, you still compete to win classes and the breed, but every dog in the ring, regardless of whether they finish first or fourth, can get the coveted certificate. All weekend, my girl went Best of Breed (no competition) and then went on to go Group 1 at two shows to show in the BIS ring. So we ended up with 8 ring experiences and an International championship.

But the most significant part of these experiences was that I changed. I became a more relaxed handler, and I started having fun in the ring. I actually looked forward to going into the ring, and regardless of the outcome, I had fun. Win or lose, I praised my dog and I could feel the difference in me. I am sure that my dog felt it too.

Our next show was an AKC show. Instead of going to the show early, I got there in time to set up, brush my dog, and go in the ring. Instead of being fearful and nervous, I was eager to show my dog to the judge. And it worked: she won a four-point major under a top terrier judge. We went to three more shows together before she finished. We did not always win, and one weekend, we didn’t even win our class. But she finished with four majors, and, win or lose, both of us showed well and we had fun in the ring.

These non-AKC shows provide an excellent venue for building confidence in yourself and your dog. They also provide good venues for introducing a new dog to the show ring and for introducing puppies to the show atmosphere. Both UKC and International shows have classes for three to six month puppies, and the judges are very good with the puppies. Other exhibitors make much of the puppies, and the casual, sometimes chaotic, atmosphere of these less organized shows give puppies great experiences.

And you come home with ribbons and medallions that your dogs recognize as significant. By the end of our first weekend at a UKC show, when the last judge handed me our huge best of breed rosette, Dilys grabbed the rosette and pranced out of the ring. This was her rosette, and it was meant to hang on her crate! She and I had become an equally invested team.

To learn more about The International All Breed Canine Association of America (IABCA) and its shows, go to http://www.internationaldogshow.com/ for show requirements, registration information, and a current show calendar.

To learn more about United Kennel Club shows, go to http://ukcdogs.com/. Click on Events and keep clicking until you get to the conformation show calendar to find shows in your location. UKC has different groups than AKC, but our group is the Terrier group so we have no confusion.

Dogs that are AKC registered can be cross registered in both of these registries with their AKC registration number or certificate. UKC allows day-of show entries, but you save money by entering in advance.

To learn about the experiences of others who show in both AKC and UKC, join a show list, such as the Let’s Discuss Judging list at www.groups.yahoo.com and check out the archives under UKC.

8 Tips for Preparing to Compete with Your Dog

By Joyce Miller

The first Week of the Airedale (WOTA) 2003 captured the imagination of Airedale lovers worldwide. We thrilled at Airedales tracking, trailing, flushing and retrieving. We enjoyed the dogs in the companion day events. We applauded the rescue Airedales as they paraded by us. We marveled at how uniquely Airedales do obedience and agility. We applauded the Airedale drill team. And we admired the dogs in the conformation ring.

What does it take to train a dog for a competitive event like this?

After WOTA, I interviewed Mary Barker, the winner of the most versatile handler award and the owner of the dogs that won most versatile and runner up most versatile Airedales. In that interview, she outlined eight tips for training dogs to compete in events like this.

1. Use soft words. Be patient. Always keep your voice pleasant. Never raise your voice. And use corrections that give your dog specific information on how to do a specific exercise. For example, Mary sometimes used a wooden spoon coated with peanut butter to show one of her Airedales exactly how to do something.

2. Keep it simple and picture the behavior you want your dog to do. “Form a mental picture in your mind of what you want your dog to do,” Mary said. “With that picture, you can give corrections in such a way that you help your dog understand what to do.” Not only does Mary visualize her dogs doing an exercise perfectly, she pictures them doing it with a happy attitude and with their tails and ears up.

3. Make training fun. Since Mary competes in obedience, agility and tracking, she keeps training fun by mixing exercises from different sports in each training session. This helps her dogs pay close attention to her and have fun in every session. So mix things up and don’t overdo one thing in any one session.

4. Don’t rush into competition. Like a good teacher, Mary takes her time and makes sure that her students (her dogs), are ready to do what she wants before she puts them to the test.

5. Plan in advance. Mary attributes her success with her dogs to her professional experiences as a teacher and an engineer. She focuses on the details and breaks each task down into many small details. When she is training a dog, she works on different parts of an exercise every week. When she and the dogs have learned all the details of a specific exercise, she pulls the whole exercise together. To train for WOTA 2003, she planned every detail, from which events she would compete in, how she and her dogs would prepare, what distractions she needed to prepare her dogs for, and more. She broke every exercise into goals and then identified the individual things that she needed to do with each dog and did them.

6. Work every day. No matter how short or long, work your dog in some aspect of what they will be doing in a competition every single day. Mary and her dogs worked six nights a week for six months to prepare for WOTA 2003. Every night, they did routines and Mary focused on one specific thing in one exercise: heeling, head up, sits, downs, weave poles, etc. until she was satisfied that she and the dog had that part of the exercise down pat.

7. Be ready for anything. Mary says, “It’s the trainer’s responsibility to expose their dog to all the things that they may encounter in the competition.” Because WOTA 2003 was an outdoor event and Mary and her dogs were accustomed to competing indoors, she moved all her training outdoors as soon as the snow was off the ground in Wisconsin. “That only gave me a month,” she said, “but it was enough.” Then when she arrived at Purina farms, she noticed that the grass was longer than AKC regulations permit and the longer grass really bothered one of her dogs. So she took the time to practice with that dog in the longer grass until he ignored it.

8. Find lots of ways to measure your progress. Use fun matches to determine where you and your dog need more work. Ask friends to run you through routines so you can check on how you are doing. Work with your dogs until what you do matches the picture in your mind of each routine.

Work and Fun with Dear Jubilee

Teaching Children How to Be Safe Around Dogs


As an AKC Canine Ambassador, Neisha and Kate, my Airedales, helps me teach children about dogs. We visit schools, summer camps, Libraries, and Junior Girl Scout, Brownie and Daisy troops to teach children about being safe around dogs, how to take good care of dogs, and how to help dogs in their communities.

Some areas have serious problems with loose dogs, and I often find that many of the children that I talk to are afraid of dogs. Some have been chased by these dogs and knocked down. I talk to them about how to be safe around dogs, about never approaching a loose dog, about telling an adult about a loose dog so the adult could call for help for the dog, what to do if a loose dog is running towards them, and what to look for before approaching a dog.

Using advice from another AKC Canine Ambassador, I tell the children to be sure they can see a collar attached to a leash held by a person, or more briefly Collar - Leash - Person and I get the children to chant those three words so that they will remember to look for the collar, the leash and the person.

I tell the children that when they see a loose dog coming towards them, they need to stand still and “be a tree,” either crossing their arms on their chest or putting their hands in their pockets. And I tell them not to stare at the dog, but to look to the side or down at the ground. I tell them about a time when I was a child and two St. Bernards loved to chase me when I rode my bicycle by their house. I tell them how I learned to stop, be very still and firmly tell the dogs to go home. Amazingly to me as a child, the dogs stopped running towards me, turned and ran towards their house. They never chased me again. I tell the children how that worked for me and helped me get over my fear of dogs that were not part of my family.

I demonstrate how to ask permission to pet a dog (as long as it has a collar, leash and person) first with an Airedale stuffed toy and then with Neisha or kate. I show them how to determine even if they get permission whether the dog seems happy to be petted by the child, how to let the dog sniff their closed fist, and how to pet the dog under its chin or on its chest, and not on top of its head.

Then I let them approach me and my dog one by one. They are always so cute, and at this last visit, a child who had been knocked down by a loose dog was one of the first children to approach us. Neisha and Kate stand quietly, and lets each child approach them, sniff the children’s fists, and let the children pet them. When a child forgets to pet under the dog’s chin and reaches over to pet her head, both Neisha and Kate do just what I had demonstrated with the stuffed Airedale: the dogs follow the child’s hand with their nose making it impossible for the children to pet their head because they are so busy sniffing their hand.

When every child has had an opportunity to pet the dog, we relax with her, usually by sitting on the floor around her with one child at a time stroking her, giving her a treat, or just talking to her. Both dogs love this part of the visit, and often initiate it by lying down in the midst of the children.

All too soon, our visits are over. I give each child one or two AKC coloring books, one about safety around dogs and the other about responsible dog ownership, and a bookmark with reminders about caring for a dog. Then we pack up and head home..

All together, a great outing and a great experience. Neisha and Kate seem to enjoy doing this as much as I do.

"There Is No Greater Therapy than the Love of a Dog"

by Joyce Miller

A dog that likes meeting people is gentle, adaptable to new environments, totally non-aggressive. Does this description sound like your Airedale? Maybe, but it also describes the temperament of a therapy dog, a dog that visits hospitals, nursing homes, detention facilities, and rehabilitation facilities with its owner.

Like many other activities that people can do with their dogs, therapy dog work is gaining in popularity, and thanks to published research about the benefits of dogs as therapy, more and more facilities are opening their doors to dogs. Twenty years ago, most nursing homes forbade visits by animals. Today, more than half have their own pet therapy programs. Published research has shown that pets are beneficial in therapy, that people who have pets have lower risks of heart disease, and that pets can build rapport with hard to reach patients and help patients improve self-esteem and reduce depression and anxiety. The dogs give patients something to think and talk about other than themselves and their physical problems. They provide emotional support, giving patients physical contact with other living creatures. And the dogs’ unconditional love and acceptance provide a deep sense of comfort. According to Kathy Davis, author of Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others, the dogs help other people without their owners knowing exactly how and why. They can also trigger people to do physical activities that they otherwise wouldn't do. For
example, people who will not raise their hand to brush their own hair will reach out to pet a dog.

Many Airedales Work as Therapy Dogs. Airedales around the world are taking part in this work with their owners. And their owners -- breeders like Liz Mattison (Bristol Aires), Joan Clarke (Penaire), Anita Pisarcik (Stryking), and Nancy Foster (Willo-Aires) as well as ATCA members David Hofeling, Tom Smith, and Airedalers in other countries like Pip Smith (Canada) and Monica Dixon (UK) -- are finding the
work rewarding and the benefits far reaching. Shelley DeMerchant (Appyairs) of Ontario Canada has been working with Airedales as therapy dogs for 15 years. Today, she has three therapy dogs and visits five facilities a month. She is affiliated with the St. John Ambulance Therapy Dog Program, a nationwide program in Canada. Shelley fondly recalls how her dogs have helped patients emotionally: the man who
recounted his experiences with the Airedale he had as a child. Petting and caressing Shelley’s Airedale, he smiled and said, “That Airedale was my best friend.” On another occasion, they visited a lady who they had visited several times. She always petted the Airedale, but she never said a word. On this visit, she petted the
dog and said, “Nice dog.” Those were the first words the woman had uttered in six months. The dog broke through her barrier of loneliness and despair. Denise Masterson of Houston Texas is affiliated with Paws for Caring (PAWS), a local therapy dog program. She recalls visiting a man who could not talk because of
a ventilator and tracheotomy. Her dog, Kirby, put his head up against the rails of the man’s bed to be petted. When she left, the man smiled and mouthed ‘thank you.’ As an obedience teacher, Mary Lukaszewski worked with a group that often held winter classes at a nursing home in Stamford Connecticut. Patients loved to crowd into the room to watch the dogs train. Mary’s Airedale, Big Jack, used to circulate around the room so patients could pet him or brush his coat while the others were being trained. One night while they were in class, the fire alarm went off: Jack entertained the patients on the back lawn until they could return to the facility. And Anna Marie Fornelli’s Airedale, McGwin, became so important to an elderly friend that the man’s family asked the Airedale to serve as an honorary pallbearer at his
funeral.

Protect your dog.
When working with your dog in a therapy visit, it is absolutely critical to pay attention to your dogs and never betray their trust. Donna Noland of Remlap, Alabama, has worked with her Airedale, Dosi, through The Delta Society, a national therapy dog organization. Donna emphasizes the importance of knowing your dog and, if necessary, changing assignments to ensure a comfortable experience for your dog.

When she first started doing therapy work, Donna and Dosi visited a domestic
violence shelter. Not only were many of the small children afraid of the dog because of her size, but the dog was not happy in the confined space of the shelter. On one occasion, a child started petting Dosi and started hugging Dosi, soon squeezing her and refusing to let go. Donna moved in to loosen the child’s grip. Dosi stood absolutely still, but Donna could tell that she wanted help. As Donna says, “She knew I was going to rescue her, and I did. That’s one rule you have to remember when you are visiting: Protect your dog.” Donna realized that her Airedale needed to be able to walk around and visit people without “plunking herself down to sit a spell.”

Dosi then started visiting a Cancer Center and later a geriatric psychiatric clinic. In both of these places, Dosi could move from patient to patient, get a few pets and be on her way. Shelley DeMerchant also stresses the importance of knowing your dog. You must be familiar with his or her signs of stress: tail tucked, ears back, leaving sweaty paw prints on the floor, excessive panting, clinginess or that look of anxiety in their eye. The dog is telling you that he or she is not happy in the
situation. Also, she cautions, you must be careful of things in the environment. Be aware, if your dog likes to check out wastebaskets, that people may dispose of their medication in these receptacles. Also be careful of people offering your dog food: they may offer them a cooking, but they may also offer them a pill thinking it is candy, or a bone, or a chocolate bar. Take along something like a bland vanilla wafer so you can give the patients something to feed your dog. Shelley recommends human food because the patients may eat it themselves!

Train and condition your dog.

In addition to working her own dogs, Shelley tests and certifies dogs for
the St. John program across Canada. Although therapy dogs need training and conditioning, they do not need to be trained for competitive obedience work. They do need to know the basics, such as reliable sits, stays, leave it, settle and other commands. Most organizations suggest that owners start out by having their
dog tested for the American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizenship (CGC) title, a 10-part test, that includes accepting a friendly stranger, sitting politely for petting, welcoming grooming and examination, walking on a loose lead, walking through a crowd without over-exuberance or excessive shyness, sitting and staying in
place, coming when called, behaving politely around other dogs, behaving confidently in distracting situations, and maintaining good manners when left with another person.

Rubyanna Skrede, who works at the Quansa Training Center in Illinois, uses five Airedales as therapy dogs. She says that when she and the other trainers at Quansa decided to do canine therapy work, they wanted to do it very well. They formed a group called Pet Ambassadors to the Community (PAC) that is known for calm and trustworthy dogs. Although their dogs are tested and certified by Therapy Dogs International (TDI), they are trained to pass a much more rigorous test than the TDI test. They also train each dog to do one simple trick because people love to see the dogs do tricks. And they train the dogs to wear costumes for holidays!

Rubyanna Skrede also recommends conditioning the dog, especially Airedales, to some situations that they may encounter during their visits. For Airedales, people may grab their face hair and do not let go. So she says, condition the dog for this, for grabbing his ears, for grabbing the collar, for thumping on their heads enthusiastically. Also condition them for odd smells, such as things that smell like tiger balm. For machines that make funny noises and move erratically. For being backed into a corner by someone walking with a cane and reaching down for their face.

Hard work.

Therapy work can be hard for both the owners and the dogs. Many people volunteer with the best of intentions, but in their early exuberance, they over commit themselves and their dogs, setting themselves up for burn out. Rubyanna Skrede recommends that you pace yourself and your dog. She says that any dog, but Airedales in particular, can get tired of all the petting. If you do too many visits, or the
visits are too long, the dogs are apt to regard the work as boring and turn off. The same goes for the handler who must stay up and excited and happy for the people who are so happy to see the dog. Rubyanna says that you don’t have to stay for a long visit, and Shelley DeMerchant stresses the importance of the commitment that you must make: “Many people that you visit eagerly anticipate the arrival of the dog. Can
you imagine their disappointment if the dog does not show up?”
Your Dog Can Earn Therapy Titles. Susan Morawski, of Russell, Massachusetts, and her dog, Pepper (Wyndridge Starship Shaandra)work with Therapy Dogs International. Pepper, who will soon be nine, has been a therapy dog for four years and still enjoys her visits. According to Susan, “She always knows when it is Tuesday, and as soon as we turn the corner to the Nursing Home, she’s up and wagging, ready to go.”

At the nursing home, Pepper performs tricks for treats and gets lots of hugs and kisses. Pepper earned Therapy Dogs Internationals, Inc. working certificate/title “Therapy Dogs International Active Volunteer (TDIA).” This working certificate/title was developed by TDI, Inc. in 1999 to recognize "active volunteers who share their dogs for the benefit of others, and the dogs' tireless determination to work in the field of therapy." In order to qualify for TDIA, Associate Members and their dog(s) are required to provide documentation of 50 therapy visits since the start of the program--May 15,1999. Now, Pepper and Susan are working on the next level of TDI titles: TDI Outstanding Volunteer, but, says Susan, “we need another 100 visits for that!”

Enjoy the Therapy Your Dog Provides. Joan Clarke fpr,er;u of Fort Worth, Texas, began working with Paws Across Texas (PAT), a state-wide therapy dog program, in 1986. Her dogs -- first Sadie and then Sadie’s daughter, Annie – both passed PAT’s rigid screening tests with flying colors. Sadie visited patients in nursing homes, and Annie specialized in visiting psychiatric rehabilitation facilities where she formed lasting relationships with patients who had low self esteem. Joan saw first hand how much the patients improved their self-esteem, as they cleaned Annie’s teeth, brushed her coat, and commanded her to sit and down stay. Both Annie and Sadie took part in numerous Special Events. Joan said, “Our favorite was the
Fort Worth Christmas Parade of Lights. Both Sadie and Annie wore their Reindeer Antlers and illuminated collar and lead, and both of them enjoyed the cheers and the smiles on all the children who came out to see Santa.”


Is your Airedale a therapy dog?

If you have a friendly, well mannered Airedale, if you’re willing to
commit to regular visits, and if you would like to share the love that your Airedale gives you with others, you might want to consider therapy dog work. If you do, you should look to one of the major organizations of therapy dogs to certify you and your dog as a team. In the United States, there are three national organizations and countless local groups. The national organizations are Therapy Dogs, Inc., Therapy Dogs International, and The Delta Society. Certification will make it easier for you to visit various facilities with your dog, and it will provide you with liability insurance. For more information on certification and how to prepare and evaluate yourself and your Airedale, see the following:

Organizations and sites on the Web

Delta Society Pet Partners Programs (206-226-7357): http://petsforum.com/deltasociety
Therapy Dogs Inc. http://www.therapydogs.com
http://www.therapyanimals.org/links.php?linkSectionID=3

http://www.dog-play.com/join.html This site has a list of local organizations listed by state

http://www.dogsaver.org/dreamworkers

Organizations

Therapy Dogs International
Tails of Joy/NW CT Dog Club (a division of Therapy Dogs International) Phone: 860-379-8879
Pet Assisted Therapy Facilitation Certificate Program, State University of New York Phone: 401-463-5809
Pet Assisted Therapy Services, San Jose, CA. Phone: 408-280-6171
St. John Ambulance Therapy Dog Program, 1199 Deyell 3rd Line, Milbrook, Ontario L0A 1G0
Pets As Therapy, a therapy dog organization in the United Kingdom that currently has approximately 4,500 dogs (and a few cats) doing therapy work with their owners.

Books:
Kathy Davis, Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others, Howell Book House
Liz Palika, Love on a Leash: Giving Joy to Others through Pet Therapy, Alpine Blue Ribbon Books, 1-800-777-7257
J. Root, K-9 Therapy Groups: Organization and Management, Alpine Books, 1-800-777-7257

Articles
R. Voelker, Puppy Love Can Be Therapeutic, Too in The Journal of the American Medical Association
(1995) 274 (24), 1897 1900.

Do You Know Where Your Airedale Is?

Should you microchip your dog and register him or her in a national registry? Many dog lovers believe you should.

In the year 2000 Montgomery catalog (the dog show catalog of the Airedale
National Specialty in Pennsylvania), among the ads for all the beautiful show dogs,
there was a startling ad titled “Do You Know Where Your Puppies Are? We Thought We Did.”

Below the headline, instead of a picture of a beautiful groomed Airedale, there was a picture of mangy, dirty looking Airedale with two lines of copy: “There’s no such thing as too careful” and If you breed, please help with rescue.” The ad was placed by Debbie Hempstead of Tekoah Airedales.

Debb had found a dog of her breeding in a shelter in terrible condition. The story had a very happy ending: she took the dog home, took care of its problems, and placed it in a wonderful forever home. And from then on, Debb started microchipping every puppy before it goes to its new home and keeping the microchip registration in her name. This ensures that any dog from her breedings will be returned to her if it is lost and found. This also encourages the owners of a puppy to keep a breeder informed of future moves, if for no other reason than to make sure that if their dog is lost, found and returned to the breeder, the breeder can find them.

I never forgot that ad or the story behind that ad. We were already microchipping our own dogs and recommending that puppy people do the same. In Texas, the Airedale Rescue team microchips every Airedale that they rescue and place in a new home.

Why should you microchip your dog? Shelters, rescue organizations, and good samaritans receive hundreds, probably thousands, of lost dogs, cats and other animals every month. If the animal has a microchip, they can instantly track down the owner through a pet registry (as long as that chip was registered by the owner) and reunite them quickly.

How big is a microchip? The microchip is about the size and shape of a grain of rice. It is injected with a 12-gauge needle under the skin of the dog, usually in the neck area. Once in place, neither you nor your pet will be able to feel or notice it.

How does a chip work? The chip works like an antenna, and when scanned with a scanner made for the purpose, the scanner detects a radio wave that shows up on the scanner as the dog’s unique registration number. Those numbers are registered with a registry. Since it doesn't have an internal battery or power source, most of the time the chip is inactive. When the microchip reader is passed over it, it gets enough power from the reader to transmit the pet's ID number. Since there's no battery and no moving parts, there's nothing to wear out or replace. The microchip should last throughout your pet's lifetime.

Is microchipping expensive? While the price can vary from one veterinarian to another, it often falls between $25 and $40. A lot of veterinarians will charge even less if they perform the implantation at the same time as another procedure, like spaying, neutering, or dental work. It's a one-time fee; the chip never needs maintenance or replacement. There may be a fee, generally under $20, to enter your pet's ID number in a database, and there may be a small fee for changing your address, phone number, or other contact information in the database. Still, microchip identification is cheaper than making flyers, calling around town, and taking time off work to find a lost pet.

Will it hurt my dog? The procedure is simple, routine, and painless, and it doesn't require any anesthesia. Your pet simply gets an injection just under the loose skin between the shoulder blades; it's a lot like getting vaccinated. Veterinarians have been implanting microchips in animals for years, and the process has been proven to be very safe. The chip is made out of an inert, biocompatible substance, which means it won't cause an allergic reaction in your furry friend, and it won't degenerate over time.

Tips for microchipping: Make sure the chip is scanned before it is implanted in your Airedale. Make sure the dog is scanned immediately after implantation to make sure it is working. When you visit your veterinarian, ASK that the chip be scanned to make sure it is working and has not migrated. If you have your Airedale at a dog show or event that features microchipping, ask to have your dog scanned to provide
yet another check of the chip.

Today, more than a million pets are registered with either the American Kennel Club’s Companion Animal Recovery system (which uses the HomeAgain system) or American Veterinary Identification Devices. And more than 150,000 lost pets have been reunited with their owners through these systems.

The microchip has the advantage of permanence; collar and tags can be lost or removed. In a perfect world, leashes, fences, and doors would be enough to keep your pet safe at home. In the real world, accidents happen, and your pet depends on you to protect her against the things that could go wrong. With a little effort now, you can take a big step toward ensuring that your furry friend will be with you in the future.

Microchipping Worked For Us: One rainy night in December, 2002, I learned first hand how valuable the microchip and our decision to hold the registration is. It was dark, cold, and the rain was pelting down. The phone rang, and a very pleasant woman identified herself as calling from Companion Animal Recovery(CAR) and told me that my dog was safe. This was a dog who lives in another home. I didn't know she was
missing. The woman gave me the name and telephone number of the person who had found her, and I called him. He had seen her yellow tag with the CAR 800 number and her unique ID number on it, and he had called the CAR. They told him her name so that he could call her by name. I asked his address and called her owners. They were out looking for her, so I caught up with them on one of their cell phones. Within an hour of her disappearance, they had her back, safe and sound.

Clicker Training: What’s the Big Deal?

By Joyce Miller

° "Thank you, thank you--clicker training is a miracle! "
° “It was just stunning ‘eureka, I get it’ moment of a dog making a connection.”
° “My dog who used to lunge and bark frantically is now a different dog: he enjoys playing with other dogs. "
° “My six- year-old dog never came when called. After ONE afternoon with the clicker, he comes when called!!!!”
° “I have a young rescue dog who was incorrigible...With the clicker, she was soon
behaving nicely both on and off leash and having fun with tricks like jumping through hoops!”
° “Using a clicker, it took me five minutes to teach my dog to stop pulling on the leash
after three years of her taking me for walks. This is a great tool for working with older dogs.”
° “This is the first dog I have trained with a clicker: she can do more things and learns faster than any other dog I've ever had.”
° “Clicker training is the most compelling kind of dog training that I have ever seen…no dog should be without this information.”
° “This training really works and anybody can do it!!”
° “I went to a clicker seminar before we brought our new puppy home: it made all the
difference in how we trained.”

These comments were all made by people who discovered the miracle of clicker training
and how it could help overcome problems people have every day with regular approaches to training.

Why does training not work? If you live with dogs, you have probably marveled over how dogs know what the doorbell means, what the can opener means, what is going to happen when you put on your coat or pack your suitcase, even how they know when someone is coming home. No doubt about it; dogs are smart.

In fact, dogs learn more from us than what we teach them. They watch us endlessly: they study us, learn our personalities, seem to intuitively know what we want or what we are going to do—not that they always do it. In fact, I think they have a special antenna that tells them when they do not have to worry about paying attention to what we are trying to tell them.

With all the attention they pay us, why then, do we have so much difficulty training them not to jump on strangers, to come when they are called, to sit or down quietly while we eat, to respect our space? Could it be that we are not making use of their intelligence in the training process?

Positive Reinforcement. There are several approaches to training with positive reinforcement that make use of your dog’s intelligence and require your dog to use his or her mind to figure things out. And there is no doubt about it, just as with the doorbell, the suitcase, and other things they learn on their own, when your dog uses his mind to learn something, he does not forget what he learns.

Clicker Training. One of these positive approaches to dog training is called clicker training. Clicker training is, according to Peggy Tillman author of Clicking With Your Dog, a simple proven way to communicate with your dog using positive reinforcement.

Using a small plastic clicker that makes a unique sound, you can tell your dog, “Yes, that is what I want you to do,” and your dog remembers that you liked what he offered you.

Although the use of the clicker is based on a scientific concept, operant conditioning, you do not have to understand scientific theory to use the clicker. The method is so effective that young children can use it very effectively, and many working, service and entertainment dogs are routinely trained with this method.

Scientifically, clicker training is training that is founded in the established principles of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is the way any animal (including the human kind) interacts with and learns from its environment. Simply put, an animal tends to repeat an action that has a positive consequence and tends not to repeat one that has a negative consequence. Trainers can take advantage of that natural tendency by providing positive reinforcement following an action that they want the animal to repeat. In order for the animal to connect the positive reinforcement to the behavior that he is doing, the reinforcement must happen AS the behavior is occurring, not afterwards.

Trainers needed to find a way of letting the animal know that he was doing the right thing, so they began using a conditioned reinforcer. A conditioned reinforcer is anything that wouldn't ordinarily be something the animal would work to get. A primary reinforcer, on the other hand, is something that the animal automatically finds reinforcing, such as food or water or going outside. When a conditioned reinforcer is paired with a primary reinforcer, they become of equal importance to the animal. Enter the clicker as a conditioned reinforcer, followed by a treat, the primary reinforcer.

Regardless of the science behind it, to your dog, clicker training is one big, fun game! The game is simple: you have something the dog wants (a treat or a toy), and she must do something for you in order to get it. To the dog, it boils down to one question:

“What do I have to do to get this nice person to do what I want?” So, as your dog figures out how to control you and get her prize, the dog gives you what you want the dog to do. What could be more rewarding for both of you: a true win-win situation.

Are you wedded to the clicker forever once you start? No. The clicker is a training tool: as soon as your dog learns the behavior, you will never need the clicker again to get that particular behavior. A friend’s dog entertained a group of Airedale lovers with her “Get a cool one” trick. The dog, on command went to a small beer cooler, opened it, and took out a bottle (a plastic bottle that looked like a beer). The trick was worthy of an ad for the Super Bowl! My own dog, Buster, learned how bow for the queen. Once these two dogs knew these tricks, they were always ready to show them off when their handler simply gave the command to get a cool one or who’s the queen. Likewise, a dog that is clicker trained to heel on a loose lead, to sit politely when a guest enters your home, that lies down quietly while you eat your dinner, and comes happily when you call will do all of those behaviors without a clicker.

The emphasis is on “happily.” Clicker training is fun. Both you and the dog will look forward to your sessions. Each session will begin when you pick up the clicker, and as you progress, that becomes the cue for your dog to offer you a stream of behaviors. “Do you want me to sit? . . . to down . . . to come . . . to touch the door . . .” he seems to ask, tail wagging, ears alert. And depending on what you are planning to train that day, you will click when the dog offers you a behavior that is also the start of what you want to train.

Who’s the Queen? For example, when we trained Buster to bow, we started with a down that he offered. Since it was a behavior he knew well, I only clicked it the first time he did it. Then I just stood there with him lying down and watching me. He got frustrated: obviously, the nice lady was not going to give him the treat for down. He got up; he pranced around. He offered me another behavior. No treat. Finally, he got very cute about it and teased me with a play bow. I clicked and gave him a treat. Then I stood there. He tried to do another down, then a sit, then the play bow. I clicked the play bow and gave him a treat. Then I stood straight.Immediately, he did the play bow. Yes! I clicked. We did that several times, and then we stopped for the day.

The next day, when I picked up the clicker, I immediately got a play bow. Yes! So this time, as he went into the play bow, I said “who’s the queen?”, clicked and treated the play bow. We did this for about 10 minutes. The next day, all I had to do was ask the question (give the cue): “Who’s the queen?” He immediately did the play bow, and I clicked it and treated it. From then on, I did not have to use the clicker or a treat. All I had to do was ask the question, “Who’s the Queen?” and Buster responded with a cute play bow! He loved doing it; we loved watching him do it; and he amused a lot of people with this simple trick.

But clicker training is not just for tricks. Often a dog is confused and really does not know what you want. Using a clicker, you can now communicate very clearly to your dog what you want. Or an older dog that has been adopted has some negative associations with training and does not seem to pay attention to you. The clicker can help the dog learn what you want, and it can certainly help focus the dog’s attention on you. For example, consider the dog that won’t look at you. Just stand there. It may seem like forever. Watch the dog. Don’t watch TV, look around you, or talk on the phone. You want the dog to pay attention so you pay attention to the dog. Then suddenly the dog takes one quick peek at you, and you click and treat. Then you both go back to what you were doing, but you keep your eye on the dog. There, another peek; another click and another treat. After a few repetitions, you can almost see the light bulb come on: “If I look at her, she will reward me.” And suddenly, the dog is looking at you all the time.
You have his attention. What could be simpler?

No dog is too young or too old to enjoy this happy way of training. We saw an older dog take a new lease on training with the clicker. The owner had brought the dog to one of our club’s clicker seminars because she had not been able to establish a bond with the dog; the dog would not look at her; and the dog ignored every attempt at training. The owner was thinking of surrendering the dog to rescue. Before the first morning had ended, the dog was glued to the owner, and once the attention was established, new behaviors tumbled out of the dog, much to the owner’s delight and relief.

Puppies love the clicker. They seem to think that it is their birthright to grow up communicating in this simple and effective way with their human companions. In fact,
Corally Burmaster, an Airedale breeder and clicker trainer, starts training her own puppies with the clicker when they are five weeks old.

So whether your dog is young or old, if you would like to do more training with your dog and develop a more rewarding bond with your dog, you might want to consider the clicker. You can train all the behaviors for the Canine Good Citizenship test with the clicker. You can teach an endless stream of tricks with the clicker. And through it all, you can have so much fun that you can forget about prong collars, the hard work that training used to be, and join the thousands of people who do their training in short fun-filled segments whenever they have a moment with their dog.

If you like the sound of this way of training your dog, here are some resources that you can explore to learn more about clicker training:

Websites:
www.clickandtreat.com
www.clickertrain.com
www.clickertraining.com

Books:
Morgan Spector, Clicker Training for Obedience : Shaping Top Performance – Positively
Karen Pryor, Don’t Shoot the Dog
Karen Pryor, Getting Started: Clicker Training for Dogs
Melissa Alexander, Click for Joy
Mandy Book & Cheryl Smith, Quick Clicks
Pat Miller, Power of Positive Dog Training
Deb Jones, Click and Sniff
Peggy Tillman, Clicking with Your Dog
Gail Fisher, Clicker Training Manual
Deb Jones, Clicker Fun
M. Shirley Chong, A Clicker Cookbook With Training Schedule
Videos:
Corally Burmaster, Puppy Kindergarten (video)
Deb Jones, Click and Go (video)
Gary Wilkes, Click and Treat Training

The Touch That Heals

by Joyce Miller

What is the Tellington TTouch and How Can It Help Me? The Tellington TTouch is a specialized tactile approach to the care and training of our animal companions. Developed by internationally recognized animal expert, Linda Tellington-Jones, this method, which is based on cooperation and respect, offers a positive approach to training that can improve performance and health as well as help you find solutions to common behavioral and physical problems. It also helps establish a deeper rapport between you and your dog.


TTouch® - the Tellington TTouch - is a method of circular movements of your fingers and hands all over the body of an animal. The intent of the TTouch is to awaken cellular intelligence - a little like "turning on the electric lights of the body." And the effect of the touch has been confirmed in laboratory tests. The TTouch is done over the entire body, and each circular TTouch is complete within itself. Therefore it is not necessary to understand anatomy to be successful in speeding up the healing of injuries or ailments, or changing undesirable habits or behavior.

Using a combination of specific touches, lifts, and movement exercises, TTouch helps release tension and increase body awareness. This allows the animal to be handled without provoking typical fear responses. The animal can then more easily learn new and more appropriate behaviors. By using the TTouch and a variety of other tools, you can assist the animal in experiencing self-confidence in previously frightening or uncomfortable situations. Even the most difficult problems are often eliminated. You can also learn how to apply the Tellington TTouch to assist with recovery from illness or injury, or just enhance the quality of your animal's life.

What can the TTouch help us do? This gentle method is currently being used by animal owners, trainers, breeders, veterinarians, zoo personnel and shelter workers worldwide to help with dogs in cases of:
• Excessive Barking & Chewing
• Difficulties with cutting toenails
• Leash Pulling
• Jumping Up
• Aggressive Behavior
• Extreme Fear and Shyness
• Resistance to Grooming
• Touchiness (skin jumps when you touch it unexpectedly)
• Excitability & Nervousness
• Car Sickness
• Problems Associated With Aging

Using Homeopathic Remedies

By Joyce Miller

A dog owner wrote to a list I am on about how she was treating her dog who had warts
with Thuja, a homeopathic remedy. She said that she was using the remedy once a week
and had noticed no change.

It is important to understand that whenever you use a homeopathic remedy, like Thuja, you should use it under the direction of a homeopathic vet. There is no homeopathic remedy that our homeopathic vet would direct us to use once a week. There is no correlation between traditional medicines and homeopathic remedies, and under the homeopathic vet, we have been directed to use one remedy one time, and then watch for a month to see if there is any change. We tell the homeopathic vet about any changes we observe after the month, and she then decides if or what to use next. Typically, it is not the same remedy because the body balance has changed and you go to what is called for under the new circumstances.

I learned the importance of not treating homeopathic remedies like traditional medications from experience. I inadvertently did what they call proving a remedy! I had a weekend grooming seminar to attend and I had a bad sinus infection. I know just enough about homeopathy to be dangerous to myself. I did what they call the rubricks, and of all the remedies that came up for each and every symptom, the common one was sulfpha. So I got some, and the directions on the bottle said to take several times a day (homeopathic remedies, unfortunately, are sometimes bottled and labeled like western medications). So I did as label said to do. For the entire weekend.

By Monday, I was one sick puppy. On Tuesday, I was no better and went to see a homeopath, who just laughed at me: I had proven the remedy, which means, I had taken enough to make all of the symptoms it is supposed to cure actually happen to me. The cure? Wait it out. If I remember correctly, it took more than a week. This experience – finding out that the remedies have that kind of power –
gave me a lot of respect for homeopathy.

I have been using a very talented homeopathist for almost a year for myself. I have seen marked improvements in the things I was trying to change. He gives me just one dose of one remedy about every four to six weeks; usually, I can see no change, but then, as with a troublesome spot of eczema that I had had for three or four years, the change happens(the eczema just disappeared). Homeopathy is slow; the remedies are not something that you can take one and go to work; but homeopathy seems to be pretty permanent if you use it under the guidance of a very good practitioner.

I suspect that homeopathy would work on the warts, but not overnight, not in a week, but over time. And it would work so that the system would be balanced and the warts would disappear. In my Repertory (a homeopathic guide), there are 18 entries for the term warts; each of these entries, lists anywhere from one to 50 remedies.

The way the homeopath chooses the correct remedy is by asking you a lot of questions: questions about physical characteristics, emotional characteristics, and much more. The initial consult can take anywhere from one to two hours, and then each time you talk with the homeopath, more questions are asked, more information is added to your record, new characteristics are noted, etc.

Selecting the correct remedy is a trial and error thing because the correct remedy works just for one body/one being.

Duffy, The Mountain Climbing Airedale

By Joyce Miller

In 2003, eight people qualified for the Appalachian Mountain Club’s White Mountains 4000 Footer Club, bringing the total members since 1957 to 7,360 members. Figures for 2004 are not yet available, but we know one man and one dog that made the list. That dog is an Airedale who will be inducted into this prestigious club next March at the club’s annual meeting and dinner.

Duffy lives in Maine with Ed Boon. Ed has been climbing mountains since he was 13 or 14 years old. He has climbed mountains in the United States and in Europe, climbing mountains of 10,000 feet in the Alps. He has climbed with a half-cocker, a West Highland Terrier, and a miniature poodle. But he had always wanted an Airedale
When Ed and Karen moved to Maine, they contacted New England Airedale Rescue. Duffy was about four years old when Ed adopted him, and he had never been out of his back yard. On his first hike, he was bewildered by having to cross a stream. But, as Ed says, “He’s an Airedale: he figured it out.”

To qualify as a member of the White Mountains 4000 Footer Club, a hiker (human or dog) must climb 48 mountains on foot to the summit and down. Ed is a pastor in Maine, so he only had Saturdays to devote to climbing; therefore, it took Ed and Duffy two and a half years to climb all 48. The mountains ranged from Mt. Tecumseh (4,003 feet), to Mt. Washington (6,288 feet), one of the most dangerous mountains in North America.

Ed and Duffy have climbed Mt. Washington six times, using six different trails. Mt. Washington has some of the most unpredictable weather in the United States. Snow can fall in any month; precipitation averages between seven and ten inches a month, the average annual temperature at the summit is around 26 degrees F, and hurricane force winds occur about every third day. The world’s highest recorded wind speed, 231 MPH, was recorded on the summit of Mt. Washington. Because temperatures at the base and at the summit differ so drastically, hypothermia is a serious risk, and improperly prepared people can die within minutes, even in the summer.

In July, Ed and Duffy tackled Mt Washington’s Huntington Ravine Trail, which crosses the largest and most impressive feature on the east side of the mountain. With a 1500-foot head wall, it is the most difficult hiking trail in New Hampshire. Since 1931, 21 people have died climbing this trail, including one person in 2004.

Everyone said that no dog could climb the Huntington Ravine trail, but no one told Duffy. A guide from the Sierra Mountain Club, who happened to accompany Ed and Duffy up this trail, said, “That’s the gutsiest dog I’ve ever seen.” Duffy sailed over 60 degree rock slabs that are tough for people, and climbed up between huge boulders, pulling his way up with his back against one side and his feet on the other.

On Mt. Willey (4,300 feet), Duffy and Ed encountered one of the steepest climbs in the White Mountains, a climb that takes the hiker up about 1,600 feet in less than a mile. The trail is so steep in places that ladders have been built. Duffy had never climbed a ladder, but he gamely climbed ladders and diagonal steps across the face of the mountain.

This past summer, Ed and Duffy climbed 26 of the forty-eight 4,000-footer mountains. They started in early May while snow was on the ground and finished on July 17, when they climbed Mt. Isolation, a hike of 14.6 miles that includes a lot of difficult stream crossings, muddy trails that hikers slip and slide on, and no views until you get to the summit.

Duffy is such an accomplished mountain climber that he knows better than to follow Ed everywhere. For example, while climbing Mt. Lincoln, Ed slipped and fell down a waterfall, a 70 degree fall. Fortunately, Ed missed the boulders at the bottom and had a relatively soft landing. Duffy peered down at him. As Ed tells it, “I think he thought that I was playing a joke on him. He knew better than to follow me; he came down the trail and met me at the bottom.”

More Information: If you would like to know more about mountain climbing with your Airedale, you can do an Internet search on “mountain hiking clubs.”

If you do take your dog hiking on mountain trails, please remember: Mountain climbing is a serious sport, and many people would like to ban dogs completely from the trails so it is vital that those who hike with dogs be extra vigilant about trail etiquette. Please:

• Keep your dog properly hydrated. Always carry water and something to use as a water dish: Ed carries a soft Frisbee for Duffy to use as a water dish, and he carries Duffy’s water in a canteen. Duffy carries no equipment.

• Don’t let your dog drink from any water sources along the trail: many streams are infected with Giardia.

• Take breaks to rest and drink water to prevent your dog from overheating.

• Keep dogs that tend to roam out of sight on a leash on public trails, and keep all dogs on leash in the presence of other dogs.

• Clean up and remove any fecal matter made by your dog on the trail

Changing Places to Change a Behavior

By Joyce Miller


Part 2 of three articles on using spiritual practices to solve a training problem or performance problem with a dog

Handling a show dog, training an obedience dog, or running a dog in agility takes lots of practice, good teachers, and lots of experience. Performance sports require a willingness to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes. They also provide valuable lessons for all of us involved in training our dogs.

All training for these activities depends on how clearly the handler perceives what they want the dog to do. Sometimes, dogs and trainers seem to be going in different directions, and no matter what the trainer does, the dog does not respond. Sometimes, in order to resolve these problems, we need to change what we are doing and where we do it. We do not necessarily have to find the underlying belief that is interfering with the outcome we want, but we do have to find a way to strengthen the picture of what we want.


A Personal Experience

Last year, my show dog, Dilys, suddenly decided that no one, except me, was going to touch her in the show ring. This meant that the judges could not go over her. She did not act aggressively; she just could not be touched. Figuring out what was going on, since I mentally pictured her standing perfectly still and letting the judges examine her, required that I go back in my own life and find out what was sabotaging that picture in my mind. Then, armed with that knowledge, I discovered that changing venues helped me reinforce the picture of the outcome that I wanted.

When I pondered what was happening in the ring, I thought about my mother breeding and showing Boxers when I was a child. My memories of her work and going to shows with her were happy ones: She loved showing her dogs, and whatever happened at a show, win or lose, she came home exhilarated. I loved going to the shows with her, and I liked helping with the puppies. But my father, who had chosen the breed and purchased a bitch with the agreement to show her, to breed her, and to return a puppy, had little use for the show ring, or as he called it, “the beauty ring.” To him, it was nothing more than a beauty pageant: the dogs and owners only had to walk around the ring and stand at attention. “Give me an obedience dog any time,” he used to say. “They have brains.” I realized that his oft repeated statements about conformation had affected my own opinion of showing dogs, leaving me with the belief that it was just about walking a dog around a ring.

I didn’t learn how wrong he was until I was in my 50s and had my first show dog. I look back with embarrassment on my first attempts in the ring: stiff, stilted, no clue of what it took to show off a dog or how to train a dog to do this. Handlers told me there was nothing to it. Mentors told me what to do: keep a loose lead, pull the head up, make sure that the dog is moving correctly, hold the tail up, and keep the dog perfectly stacked. Every time I entered the ring, I felt like “Baby” learning to dance in the movie, Dirty Dancing.

Handling classes were of no help: every Tuesday evening, I took that dog to handling class. No one gave us any instruction. We just lined up, kept moving to the front of the line, stacked our dog, took it down and back, and went around to the end. Every week, I looked desperately around the class: What was I supposed to do? Each week, I picked someone who seemed to know what they were doing and tried to copy them. Even though many of the people in the class were very experienced, I did not have a clue whether I was copying something that would work in the Airedale ring or not. In short, to quote Corally Burmaster, all I was doing in class each week was rearranging my ignorance.

Even though this was supposed to be my hobby and it was supposed to be fun, I ended up sending my first and second show dogs to a professional handler so they could finish their championships.

Years later, with 20 handling workshops under my belt, one owner handled champion to my credit, and a successful handling class, I still did not truly understand what I was doing in the ring. When Dilys suddenly balked at judges going over her, she caught me by surprise. When I showed her again, I expected her to do this: I didn’t want her to do it, but the picture planted in my mind was of her balking and me wondering what I could do to stop her from doing that. She did not let me down: three more judges, wonderful judges who refused to excuse her from the ring, had trouble examining her. Each judge said that excusing her would ruin her, and each counseled me to get her out more frequently during the week. Dilys, however, was a very well socialized dog who loved going out, letting people touch her, and playing with other dogs. I knew that was not the problem.

I knew the problem had to be me. Even though I was teaching other people how to be successful handlers, I was still affected by my father’s words, and that early belief was undermining my visualization of showing successfully in the conformation ring. I had to get over that, and I had to do it with Dilys.


Change Up What You Are Doing

I decided to change up what I was doing. Several of my students had rare breeds and the only conformation venue for them was the United Kennel Club (UKC). They seemed to really enjoy showing their dogs, and they encouraged me to show in their shows. What did I have to lose? I registered Dilys with the UKC and entered her in a show.

For several months I had the only Airedale entered in UKC shows in Texas. At the first UKC show we entered, I discovered that the atmosphere was informal, friendly, and supportive. Other exhibitors and the judges were eager to help, and I felt no pressure to make points. In that atmosphere, I relaxed. When I went into the ring, Dilys stood for exam exactly the way I pictured her standing: rock solid with her ears alert and her tail up. She didn’t even flinch when the judge came up to examine her. At the second of the three shows that weekend, we did so well that we took Terrier Group 1 and then went Reserve Best In Show.

After the fun I had at that UKC show, I decided to try another show venue, the International shows that were scheduled a month after our first UKC show. There were four shows in two days under four different AKC judges, three from the United States, one from Canada. Once again, we were the only Airedale entered and the atmosphere was, if anything, even more relaxed. With no pressure to win, we had a great time, and Dilys came home an International Champion.

At both of these other competitive venues, the focus was on the dog and the breed standard. There was no fussing about grooming. My Airedale was well groomed and conditioned, but instead of spending hours at the show getting her ready for the ring, I kept track of time, and about 10 minutes before we were to go into the ring, I put her on the table and brushed her. Instead of fussing and worrying about whether she was groomed well enough, I spent my time relaxing, meeting people, playing with Dilys, and visualizing what we would do in the ring.

The most significant part of changing up what I had been doing was that I changed. I not only became a more relaxed and confident handler, I had learned that competing in the show ring is fun. I actually looked forward to going into the ring, and regardless of the outcome, Dilys and I both had fun. Win or lose, I praised my dog and I could feel the difference in me.

Our next show was an AKC show. Instead of going to the show early, I got there in time to set up my grooming table, brush my dog, and go in the ring. Instead of being fearful and nervous, I was eager to show my dog to the judge, a well-known terrier expert. My new approach and my new attitude worked: Dilys won the four-point major. We went to three more shows together before she finished her AKC championship. We did not always win, and one weekend, we didn’t even win our class. But from then on, we both had fun in the ring, and that enjoyment showed in our body language and our attitudes.


Success Breeds Success

Using a change of venue gave me the opportunity to work on my handling skills while simultaneously building confidence in myself and my dog. Since this experience, I have used these shows for introducing a new dog to the show ring, and, since both UKC and International shows have classes for three to six month puppies, for introducing puppies to the noise and bustle of show venues.

The UKC ribbons and the International show medallions are impressive, and the dogs seem to understand that they have done something very special when you are given one. When the last judge at that first UKC show handed me our huge best of breed rosette, Dilys grabbed the rosette and pranced out of the ring. This was her rosette, and it was meant to hang on her crate!

By changing places to work on a problem, I had not only banished an undermining belief and strengthened my visualization of our performance, Dilys and I had become an equally invested, competitive team.

DARE TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT: Using a Spiritual Practice to Solve the Problem of a Ring-Wise Dog

By Joyce Miller
The Clicker Journal, 2006

The first article of this series, Picture the Behavior (May 2005), discussed how visualization can help you train your dog. The second, Learn to Enjoy Showing: Changing Places to Change Behavior (February 2006), looked at how changing places can help bring training and performance back where you want them when they have gotten off track. This article looks more closely at how spiritual practices can strengthen the bond between you and your performance dog and help solve problems that you may encounter in the ring when you are competing.

The ring-wise dog: we’ve all either had one or known one. He’s the dog that seems to think that he can go in the ring and do it all without you. This is the dog that goes out, picks up the dumbbell, and then. . . Or the agility dog that sets its intent on an obstacle regardless of your cue. . . Or the conformation dog that thinks that it can go in the ring, go around, do the down and back, and go to the end of the line without you; you feel as though you are in a race.
The ring-wise dog is a well trained, experienced competitor who can do everything correctly and do it in the allotted time. Chances are, she is the dog with whom you feel an incredible bond. Then, one day, in competition, something goes terribly wrong. If she’s in the obedience ring, she may pick up the dumbbell and jump the gate to the audience instead of the jump to return to you. Or maybe he is the agility dog who decides to do the tunnel when he has been directed to the A-frame, or he stops to scan the audience from the middle of the high dog walk. Or she is the conformation dog that races her handler around the ring and back to the judge, pulling sideways from you the entire time. Regardless of what your ring-wise dog decides to do, you lose.

All you can do is watch your dog’s performance fall apart. And once this has happened, it is really difficult not to worry about it happening again. But the more you worry, the more it happens, and the worse it gets.

There are many effective ways to bring a ring-wise dog back on track. I want to tell you about a technique that I discovered by accident. This technique helps the handler release the worrying and fretting that causes the behavior to continue.

Pause, Breathe, Let Go, and Walk
It is widely accepted that what we feel and what we think affects our dogs. When we hold on to negative patterns, anger, or other concerns, we find that our ability to work with our an ndogs suffers. So when we are fearful that our dog will repeat a behavior, chances are the dog will repeat the behavior.

Jamie Sans, in Animal Medicine, says that spiders weave webs that entangle those who get caught in them. Some have compared these webs to humans who cannot still the chatter of their daily work and lives and see the reality of the moment. It is true: all of us sometimes have difficulty quieting our minds long enough to work with our dogs. Doing exercises that help us learn to pay attention and to control our thoughts can help us work more closely and more effectively with our dogs.
Many people are finding that when they use spiritual practices for their own personal development, their work with their dogs improves. One woman wrote that she was going through some very difficult times, and her dogs developed health problems that she treated but they wouldn’t go away. Then, independent of what she was doing for her dogs, she started doing spiritual exercises to calm herself. As she became more proficient at these exercises, she noticed that her dogs’ illnesses were disappearing. She wrote, “I got it! I finally put it together.”

Our dogs are in the present. Their world is now. They have no understanding of our concerns about the past or our fears of the future. When our minds are focused on these things, our dogs get confused signals from us: they do not understand what we want them to do, and so the ring-wise dog wings it.

As I said in the first article in this series, meditation can help us live more fully, more effectively, and more peacefully in the present. And the meditation practice that I accidentally stumbled on that has helped me and many of my students with ring-wise dogs is the labyrinth, an ancient walking meditation.

Walking the labyrinth can be traced back more than 4,000 years in cultures as diverse as Peru, Arizona, Crete, Egypt, Iceland, India, and Sumatra. The labyrinth is a series of circles with a single path that reverses from time to time. It is a continuous path that does not trick you: once you are on it, if you follow it, you will find your way to the center. It is not like a maze in which you can get lost and come to dead ends. When you walk the labyrinth, you walk one pathway deep into the circle and then back out to the beginning.

One of the most famous historic labyrinths was built into the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France, and it symbolized the pilgrim’s journey to the holy land. Today, labyrinths have gained popularity as a metaphor for a personal spiritual journey, and they are found carved on rock, laid out with stones on a beach, or embedded in colored tiles on the floor of a church.

Since I have been involved in exploring a number of spiritual practices, the more I read about the labyrinth, the more I wanted to walk one. I looked for labyrinths near me, and I found about six, most at churches, one at a major hospital. But the problem for me was that I would have to get into my car and drive at least 30 minutes to get to one. And most were not open every day. Some required appointments. This would not do: if it were to be a meditation, I did not want to make arrangements in advance or drive a great distance to do it. But since my own home did not stand on a large enough lot to make it possible for me to have my own labyrinth, I had to come up with a reasonable alternative.

First, I purchased a finger labyrinth and worked with it. But it was not the same as a walking meditation. Then, it occurred to me that the cul-de-sack in front of my house would make a wonderful labyrinth.

We live on a short street and very few people use the cul-de-sac. I went out and walked it, and I realized I could visualize the lines of a simple labyrinth superimposed on our cul-de-sac. I walked that imaginary labyrinth and found it very relaxing, very soothing, and very helpful for staying in the moment. But. . . as I walked reverse circles in the cul-de-sac of my neighborhood, I attracted unwanted attention: neighbors wanted to help me find whatever I was looking for in the cul-de-sac!

To walk my labyrinth without being interrupted, I decided to take a dog with me. Everyone knows that I do a lot of training with my dogs so it was no surprise to see me walking in the circle with a dog, stopping from time to time, reversing directions, the dog sitting or standing when I stopped, the dog working with me on a lose lead. Since I did not want to be distracted by the dog, I decided not to give any commands to the dog other than “Be with me.”

Step by step, around the circle and back, seven times.
The first time I did this, the dog was excited, not sure what we were really doing, and easily distracted by the noises and movements of leaves and the wind in our cul-de-sac. But as I proceeded into the center of the cul-de-sac labyrinth, my mind quieted and focused on just the moment I was in, and the dog quieted with me.

In the labyrinth that I visualized in our cul-de-sac, there are seven circles. Each circle reverses, takes me back to the point where I started that circle, and puts me on the next circle, which is smaller and deeper into the labyrinth. As you walk the labyrinth, you should let yourself totally relax, move very softly, deliberately, and quietly, saying nothing to your dog. If your dog pulls you one way or another, just say very quietly, maybe even only in your mind, “Be with me” or as one of my students prefers, “With me.”

I started thinking about what I really want to accomplish with the dog I was walking. I visualized something we were currently working on, but I visualized it as the outcome I desired. For example, if you are working on refining your dog’s recall and finish, see that in your mind’s eye. See her doing a perfect recall and finish in many different places: where you train, different competitive venues, at home, in your yard, etc. See your dog doing exactly what you want your dog to do, and see yourself not only praising your dog for doing it so well but also rejoicing at how perfectly your dog is performing.

After walking my visualized labyrinth many times over the course of several weeks, my husband took pictures of me working with one of our dogs. What I had been feeling with that dog in the labyrinth, the tremendous sense of moving together and of being in the moment together, was borne out by the pictures. When we started into the labyrinth, the dog was distracted and out of step with me. As we proceeded deeper and deeper into the center, the dog came into alignment with me. It was an exciting development for me, and seeing it in the pictures validated the sense of connection that I was experiencing.

Not soon after this, one of my students told me about a problem she was having working with her dog. The dog was Sassy, a dog that I wrote about in the first article. After Myra started using prayer and picturing Sassy doing exactly what she wanted, the two of them had done very well in the conformation ring. Then, for no apparent reason, it all fell apart. Sassy had become ring wise.

When Myra was doing the go around or the down and back, Sassy raced Myra to the end or pulled away from Myra. As Myra told me about the problem, I looked at her face, and I could see the stress and tension that were really interfering with their performance as a team. I mentioned that she looked stressed, and the things that were bothering her flooded out. I said that we had to find a way for her to leave those daily concerns behind when she was working with Sassy. Because of her previous success using the techniques of meditation and visualization, I was sure that she could work through this new behavior from Sassy.

I asked her if she lived near a cul-de-sac, and when she said yes, I drew a labyrinth with my finger on the grooming table in our classroom. I explained how to simply go deeper and deeper by reversing directions and circling back and forth in ever smaller circles. I described the need for her to be very quiet and calm on the way into the center of the circle, and then to return to the beginning with a sense of joy.

A few days later, Myra called to say that Sassy was once again moving on a loose lead. At their next show two weeks later, one judge was so impressed with how well handler and dog move together in the ring that she asked the team to come back after the showing ended so she could see them moving again.

Myra and Sassy had walked the labyrinth and emerged on one path. I asked her if she thought the entire class could benefit from learning how to do this. She emphatically said “Yes!” I asked her if she would lead the class through the labyrinth and she said that she wasn’t perfect. I told her that no one is perfect and that I really would appreciate her leading the class. She did, and the entire class found the exercise well worth while.

Several students started coming to class early to do the labyrinth before the class formally starts. Other times, I started the class with a labyrinth exercise to quiet the dogs and handlers. Issues with gaiting seem to melt away. Dogs and owners link spirit to spirit, mind to mind, body to body.

Somehow, moving through the labyrinth helps us release external cares affecting our lives so we can spend these few moments totally connected to our dogs. Awareness comes: We can almost feel how humans and dogs have worked together for thousands of years. We are physical and spiritual beings having a human experience.

Dogs have always known how to do what we want them to do. They have always known how to follow, how to sit, and how to retrieve. They are so hard wired to retrieve that when we call them to us, they go deep within us and retrieve what they find in our thoughts and feelings. Then they give us what they have retrieved in their behavior.

If we are not clear about what we want, if we are bogged down in other problems and concerns, our dogs cannot understand the behavior that we want them to do. If we think only about the behavior that we do not want, we signal them that these behaviors are wanted. Otherwise, why would we be thinking about them? Why would we talk about them? But if we are in the moment, with no concerns about other things in our lives or previous results in the ring, if we are totally focused in the moment on exactly behaviors are wanted. Otherwise, why would we be thinking about them? Why would we talk about them? But if we are in the moment, with no concerns about other things in our lives or previous results in the ring, if we are totally focused in the moment on exactly what we want them to do, they will do it.

Walking the labyrinth with your dog is just one example of a spiritual practice that can move you into the moment with your dog. There are many others that can help you as much as walking this ancient path has helped me and my students work with ring wise dogs and forge a stronger bond with our dogs.

TIPS ON FEEDING YOUR DOG

NOTE: This article is adapted from an article by Kathy Partridge, a Golden Retriever breeder, with her permission. She had a lot to say that applies to Airedales and other breeds. I have added some things from Lew Olsen, a Rottweiler breeder with a doctorate in canine nutrition, about carnivore. I believe that there are many different ways to feed our dog,, and what Partridge says about choosing a kibble is excellent information for people who feed kibble..

. . . and because we have fed raw successfully for nearly 14 years, I have included the following site for added information on raw feeding:

A GOOD SITE FOR INFORMATION ON FEEDING A RAW NATURAL DIET
http://www.rawfed.com/myths/feedraw.html

THE IMPORTANCE OF DIET TO YOUR AIREDALE’S OVERALL HEALTH

DIET AND ORTHOPEDIC PROBLEMS
It has been shown that diet is strongly linked to the development of orthopedic problems in dogs as well as other species. Overfeeding and rapid growth-rate predispose animals to all kinds of problems like osteochondrosis (OCD), hypertrophic osteodystrophy (HOD), panosteitis, and canine hip dysplasia (CHD). But I think there's more to it than that. I believe that feeding for optimum health and growth rate (and by that I mean the growth rate that Nature intended, not that promoted by the purveyors of puppy foods or breeders who want their puppies in the ring and winning by six months of age) are further protection. My feeling is that for bone and muscle to develop normally, the nutrients have to be there in a form that the puppy can assimilate. Again, that means animal proteins from varied sources, preferably in a raw form, as well as fresh vegetable matter, etc. We shouldn't overfeed (particularly in terms of calories), but denying puppies proper, fresh, natural nutrients could also be playing a role in the proliferation of many so-called "genetic" diseases.

At the same time, we cannot deny the fact that there may be, and probably are, genetic bases for many conditions. The smart approach, I think, is to breed as if genetics is everything. Then rear them in such a way as to optimize the genetic potential of the puppies we produce. In short, we must rear them as though husbandry is everything. That means a species-appropriate diet and, for puppies, only the amount of exercise that they want to do. Instead of long boring walks with their repetitive motion on hard surfaces, let your puppies be puppies, playing in the yard as rough as they wish and letting them stop and sleep whenever they wish. If we can manage their growth as well as we test for genetic predispositions, we will give our dogs the best chance for a long healthy life. Only then should we consider ourselves as true fanciers of a breed.

DIET AND IMMUNE PROBLEMS

We're constantly hearing these days about the number of immune problems that are affecting dogs.

Allergies, cancer, lupus, and thyroid problems, to list just a few, all have a common link - a malfunctioning immune system.

Basically, there are two kinds of immune malfunctions.

One is where the immune system gets trigger-happy. Everything it encounters, including the body itself, is perceived as a threat. So everything is attacked – including major organs. This is referred to as an "auto-immune" problem. The immune system has lost the ability to "recognize self" and conditions like arthritis, hypothyroidism, and lupus are a result.

On the other hand, the immune system could be depressed - not attacking much of anything, in which case the body can't protect itself against foreign invaders or faulty cells within the body. If a dog's immune system is not functioning well, it can't defend itself against cancer cells, or invaders like viruses and bacteria.
Much time and energy is spent on hand-wringing over the current number of health problems in many breeds.

Cancer is especially worrisome. Many people feel powerless to do anything about it, figuring our only choice is to wait for science to come up with the cure for all these "genetic" problems that beset our dogs.

I disagree. It is my belief that we can do a great deal to prevent or at least delay the onset of cancer and other immune-related problems in our dogs. We can feed for optimum health. A dog in optimum health has an immune system in optimum health. It's functioning at peak efficiency. It is neither trigger-happy, nor sluggish. It recognizes foreign invaders (and internally, faulty cells that are the early stages of cancer) and reacts quickly to attack them. At the same time, it stays "sane" and realizes that skin, thyroid, and other organs/systems are part of the body and not a threat.

A dog in optimum health does not have fleas, rashes, lick sores, infected ears, etc. These all relate to the skin, the largest and most easily observed organ in the body. Logically,

I think we can assume that if the right diet can do all this for the skin, it must also be benefiting the rest of the body—the internal parts we cannot see. Admittedly, this does involve a bit of faith, but in my opinion, it's a much better option than sitting around, waiting for a cure, and keeping our fingers crossed while our dogs die prematurely.

And there is some evidence, that even heartworm is not a problem to a truly healthy dog. See: http://www.thewholedog.org/heartworm.html


WHAT CAN YOU DO TO PROTECT YOUR AIREDALE’S HEALTH?

Even though there are hereditary problems that exist in any breed, I believe that many of the chronic problems have their true roots in the commercial diets we feed. Do I have scientific proof of this? No. But 12 years ago, we started feeding our Airedales like the carnivores they are. And we are seeing excellent results.

You might say that the biggest genetic problem that Airedales or any dogs have is that they are dogs: canis lupus familiaris, a relative of wolves. Here are some comments from Lew Olson, a Rottweiler breeder who has earned a doctorate in canine nutrition; she is very knowledgeable, on the differences between our digestive systems and canine digestive systems:
• One carnivore trait is that all teeth are sharp and pointed (like a dogs), and they are not made for chewing. They are made for tearing. It is the chewing of kibble that creates tartar buildup on dogs teeth. These teeth are not made to have food sit on them. Dogs naturally teeth hunks of food, and using their tongue as a ladle, push the food back whole into the throat. Their tongue is designed to do this. They have no enzymes in their mouth to predigest food, so all digesting is done in their stomach and intestines. In other words, chewing is not important. They tear the food to get it to a size that they can swallow, and then push it down their throats. If it gets stuck, they try to spit it up and start over, eating it again. Omnivores like us have grinding teeth (some or all flat) to grind and chew food for the amylase production in the mouth to begin to digest it.
• Carnivores, unlike omnivores, do not naturally have a consistent stool. Carnivore stools can range from white and chalky (if they have consumed bones) to yellow and runny (from eating grass, berries and rotten meat) without the ill effects this would have on a human. Commercial dog food is designed—replete with brown dye—to firm dog stools and make them brown, so owners can feel comfort that their dogs stools look like their own and therefore feel the dogs’ stools are normal.... While canine stools can be naturally brown, they can be in a variety of other colors and looseness and firmness and still be considered normal.
• Finally, dogs digest food much faster than omnivores, and they can digest a fresh food meal in four hours. Humans, or omnivores, take 12 to 16 hours. Dry dog food, because it contains no digestive enzymes or probiotics and has grain (which needs the digestive enzyme—analyse—to digest it. Dogs have very little analyse), often take up to 16 hours for dogs to digest. Many believe that keeping this waste inside encourages allergies (by creating an autoimmune response), and digestive upsets, and allows toxins to get into the animals system (this is why quick, efficient elimination is so important to a dogs health).

WHAT SHOULD DOGS EAT?
Many people want the definitive (and easy) answer to the question: "What's the best food to feed my Airedale?" There is no best food. And despite claims of balanced diets, every dog is an individual with different needs.

It is very important that you learn to think for yourself when it comes to feeding your dog. It is up to you to take responsibility for their nutrition and their health. So ask a lot of people what they think. Read everything you can. Keep everything in mind. Pay attention to the experts, but remember that the experts also have limited knowledge. And often, science and profits are working together. So keep in mind that in addition to scientists, experienced dog people can offer practical information, and most of them have nothing to gain from the advice they give you.
Then consider what makes sense to you, what makes you comfortable. Understanding canine nutrition is no more difficult than understanding your children’s needs. You can do it.

Dogs, like their fairly close cousins, the wolves, are carnivores. Domesticated dogs have been around for ten to fifteen thousand years, and we have only had commercial pet food for the past sixty years.

Their wild ancestors ate a diet that consisted almost entirely of high quality animal tissue. Muscle meat, organs, bones, and even skin and hooves. Strictly speaking canines aren't 'true' carnivores because they do consume the partially digested plant matter in the intestinal tracts of their herbivorous prey. But this is a relatively small percentage of their overall intake. However, stop and think for a minute what a moose or caribou or buffalo—the wolves' prey—eat. They roam and graze. They eat grasses, leaves and lichens. They do not, to my knowledge, eat a lot of grains in their mature form—the seed heads—nor do they eat rice or ears of mature corn. If they do so, it would only be seasonally, in the late summer or fall. In addition, no canine has ever been known to cook its food. Wild canines eat a lot of animal matter with a little plant matter.


KIBBLE GUIDELINES
No matter what you feed your Airedale, you will need to make compromises. If you decide to feed kibble, study the label: Be sure that:

1. The first ingredient on the list is a meat or poultry meal (not fresh meat which generally gets to be first on the list because of its 70% water weight).

2. There are at least two meat or poultry meals in the first four ingredients. For a 20 – 24 percent protein food, this will be 2 within the first 5 or 6 ingredients.

3. At least three different animal proteins in the food, not counting the eggs (for example lamb, chicken and fish).

4. There are no by-products

5. There should be no soy products of any kind in the food.

6. There should be minimal duplication of cereals (e.g., rice gluten, rice flour and brewer’s rice is a lot of duplication but many premium foods use this little deception to make it look like they are not using a lot of a particular grain. When you see it, you will know that you are dealing with a cereal-based food.)

7. No peanut hulls or cellulose (dogs cannot digest cellulose).

8. The food must include probiotics.

9. The food is preserved with vitamin C and vitamin E. This is an area that you may have to compromise in order to get other good ingredients because it is difficult to preserve a high-protein food with these vitamins. In other words, do not choose a grain-based food simply because it is preserved with vitamin C or E. Grain-based foods are a major culprit in dog allergies. By the way, allergies are not due to a lack of prednisone in the body, but vets like to give it to stop the itching. Be careful.

10. There must be no added ethoxyquin.

11. Vitamins and minerals are sequestered or chelated for better absorption

12. There should be a list of real food ingredients that is as long as possible. This is a sign that the company is formulating its products so that the bulk of nutrients come from real food, not just synthetic and/or crude vitamins and minerals.

13. There should be no sugar (e.g., sucrose, fructose, etc.).

Of course feeding any commercial food is an exercise in compromise. I don't think there are any that meet all 13 of the above requirements, so do the best you can.
Any kind of By-Product Meal is less desirable because it contains lots of feet, beaks, heads, etc. Not as good as the plain Meals listed above.

When in optimum health, dogs do not have allergies, hot spots, lick sores, gastro-intestinal problems, auto-immune diseases or problems, and they are virtually flea-proof.

No matter what you're feeding, if your dogs do not have allergies, hot spots, lick sores, gastro-intestinal problems or fleas, there is probably no reason to switch. But if your animals do suffer with any or all of the above, then you could be doing better.

LAMB & RICE FOODS - THE MYTH OF THE HYPOALLERGENIC DIET
Once upon a time, all readily available commercial dog foods were based on beef, chicken, corn and wheat. You couldn't buy a lamb and rice food "over the counter". Since it is constant and repeated exposure to foods or food ingredients that are the triggering mechanism of allergies, many dogs eventually became allergic to beef, chicken, corn and wheat.

The solution was to put the dog on a lamb and rice food, which at the time, was only available from your vet. The lamb and rice food helped manage these allergic dogs because they hadn't been exposed to it before. Wow! Lamb and rice soon became known as 'hypoallergenic'.

Well intentioned puppy owners decided the smart thing to do was to start their animals on this 'hypoallergenic' formula from the beginning, in the mistaken belief their dogs could never become allergic to it. Not true. Through constant, repeated exposure to lamb and rice, your dog can become just as allergic to these ingredients as any other. Because the lamb and rice foods have been so overused in this regard, the vets now have new, more exotic hypoallergenic formulas to dispense to dogs who are allergic to lamb and rice.

When you feed a dog a diet based on plant-protein, he has to struggle for the nutrition he needs. His system was designed to break-down animal protein. He does not have the complex digestive track that cows or horses have for breaking down plant material. Cooking destroys and alters nutrients, and, in the case of dog food, makes it even more difficult for a dog to do well. In addition, many pet food diets are too alkaline for many breeds and leave the dogs susceptible to bacterial infections, such as recurrent ear infections, staph and bladder infections, and more.


TRICKS OF THE TRADE OR THE REAL AMOUNT OF PROTEIN IN COMMERCIAL DIETS
There's no shortage of protein in commercial dog foods, the problem is, most of it is from cereal grains and that's what gives our dogs such grief. The labeling laws don't mandate that we be told what percent of protein is from plants, and how much is from animals. That information would help us a lot. But you can call the companies that make the food you are considering and talk to someone about what percentage of the protein comes from which sources.


"COOKING" FOR YOUR DOG: THE RAW HOME-MADE DIET
A diet that's growing in popularity is the raw diet. There are many books on this diet, including: Ian Billinghurst DVM, Give Your Dog A Bone, Ian Billinghurst DVM, The BARF Diet, Tom Lonsdale DVM, Raw Meaty Bones, Tom Lonsdale DVM, Work Wonders: Feed Your Dog Raw Meaty Bones; Kymythy Schultze, Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats; Carina Beth MacDonald, Raw Dog Food: Make It Easy for You and Your Dog, Sue Johnson, Switching to Raw, R.L. Wysong, Rationale for Animal Nutrition, and Wendy Volhard & Kerry Brown, DVM, The Holistic Guide For A Healthy Dog. A good book for a cooked home-made diet for your dog is: Donald R. Strombeck DVM, Home-Prepared Dog & Cat Diets: The Healthy Alternative. Two classic books on what is needed, such as supplements, for a healthy dog are: Juliette de Bairacli Levy, The Complete Herbal Handbook for the Dog and Cat, and Wendell O. Belfield DVM and Martin Zucker, How to Have a Healthier Dog. And an important classic for overall health is Richard H. Pitcairn DVM, Natural Health for Dogs & Cats.

Many home-made diets rely on raw meat—don’t be afraid of feeding it this way. Raw foods contain enzymes, bacteria (good ones) and other 'life forces' that are essential to good health. If you doubt that vegetables are alive, consider this—if you plant a raw potato, it will grow and reproduce. If you plant a cooked one, it will rot in the ground. Raw foods are alive in some way that cooked foods are not.

Because of the lengthy explanations involved, I'm not going to attempt to outline any of the exact recipes or diet plans. My best advice is to buy the books and read them cover to cover. Besides you shouldn't be doing this because someone said to—you need to understand for yourself what you're attempting to do.


FRESH (OR "PEOPLE") FOODS YOU SHOULDN'T FEED
Large amounts of egg whites: The feeding of large amounts of egg whites will cause a deficiency of biotin, a B-vitamin due to the presence of a destructive substance called avidin. However, this is of no concern if the yolks are also being fed, since the effect of the avidin is offset by the high biotin content of egg yolk. Whole eggs are among the best sources of protein available. I feed them, with the shell.

Chocolate: Contains theobromine which is toxic to dogs and cats. Unsweetened chocolate is the most dangerous, containing 16 mg. of theobromine per gram. Milk chocolate contains about 1.5 mg. per gram. The LD50 (the level at which 50% of test subjects die) for theobromine in dogs is between 240 and 500 mg/kg of body weight, but deaths have been reported after ingestion of as little as 114 mg/kg. Bottom line: No chocolate!

Onions and garlic: Consumption of a sufficient amount (equal to more than 0.5% of body weight, which isn't much) of onions results in hemolytic anemia, fever, darkened urine, and death. The toxic element is n-propyldisulphide, an alkaloid. I do not know the toxic dose for garlic.

Spinach, Swiss Chard, and Rhubarb: While these are not toxic, they are high in oxalic acid, a compound that interferes with calcium absorption, so don't feed these very often.


COMBINATION APPROACH
It is important to feed a diet that really emphasizes variety so that your dogs have whatever nutrients they need whenever they need them. They don't have to wait for you to wake up, notice a problem and switch foods. Our dogs have the capacity to keep themselves perfectly healthy if we provide them with the materials to do so.
Every dog is an individual—who are we to say that this dog should do well on chicken every day, that dog needs lamb? What if your dog really needs a little bit of the nutrition from fish? What if it's not in the food? What many people find is that if you give them a little bit of everything, but not too much of anything over time (say two or three weeks), their dogs are very good at using that as they see fit. Just make sure you pay attention to animal protein—that is critical. Without it, your dog has to struggle to stay healthy.

A combination approach tries to let you have it both ways: feeding kibble for convenience and raw meaty bones diet ingredients for your dog’s benefit. For some dog owners, the basis for a "combination approach" is a good animal-protein based kibble. Every year, The Whole Dog Journal, evaluates kibble foods and rates them for consumers.

Once you have a base kibble, you need to supplement with fresh foods. Please don't call them 'people foods'—whoever said they were put here for just us? You have a couple of ways to do this; if you have several dogs, you can use Dr. Pitcairn's higher-protein recipes. His meat, egg and cottage cheese 'kibble boosters' are especially good, but I would add more veggies.

Or you can share your food with your dog—but make sure it's the good stuff. No junk food or table scraps – if you wouldn't eat it, or you know it's not good for you, don't feed it to your dog. The Wysong booklet gives good advice on this. Use lots of variety—raw ground beef, turkey, chicken, eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt, finely chopped veggies (my dogs digest chopped frozen vegetables best, just thaw and run through the food processor), and occasionally, fruit.

Remember, dogs cannot digest cellulose, and cellulose is a part of raw veggies. In order to make it digestible, you must crush or break down the vegetables in a juicer, a meat grinder, or a food processor. In the good weather, dogs graze on grasses; in the winter, give them greens powder. There are several of these available in health food stores. If you let your dogs graze, make sure the area hasn't been chemically treated or fertilized.
Almost any vegetable is fair game—broccoli, carrots, kale, mustard greens, cauliflower, etc.

To 'acidify' your dog and help keep infections at bay, start adding one—to—two ounces of apple cider vinegar (ACV) to each gallon of your dog's drinking water or add a tablespoon to their meal. Some breeders report that they have cured the beginning stages of a bladder infection by doubling the amount of apple cider vinegar for a few days. Most dogs will drink it willingly. If possible, use raw, organic ACV. Apples are one of the most heavily sprayed fruits, plus the raw ACV has a much better flavor than the grocery store variety, which is cooked. If you use grocery store apple cider vinegar, be sure that it is ACV, and not ACV-flavored white distilled vinegar.

If your dog is currently having a lot of problems, add 1 or 2 amino acid complex tablets to his daily diet until he's recovered. You can add them any time the dog starts to have problems - stress does cause dogs' needs to change, and sometimes the diet needs an amino acid boost. Increasing the ACV also helps. Make sure you use a casein-based amino acid complex, most dogs accept them without problems. I am told the soy based tablets can cause an allergic reaction. DO NOT try to guess which amino acid your dog needs - it's impossible to do and since they work in concert with each other, you could be making things worse. Use a complex so that your dog will get them all. Let his body pick and choose what he needs.

I do use some other supplements, I like whole food supplements best. Kelp, honey, and seaweed are good. Also B-complex and vitamin E. For coat, you can add chelated zinc. I do not feed these every day, I rotate so that they get each one once or twice a week. I do feed vitamin C powder every day. I feed ascorbic acid with citrus bioflavonoids or ester C. Other people use the buffered forms of C - sodium ascorbate or calcium ascorbate.

Good sources for vitamins are www.b-naturals.com and http://www.naturalrearing.com/ .


THE OVERWEIGHT DOG

Too many dogs are overweight and their owners are constantly looking for a sure-fire formula for taking that weight off. Very often they're advised to feed one of the "Lite" formulas. Some people combine this with canned pumpkin or green beans, in an effort to fill the dog up, not out. They've all been on diets themselves (hasn't everybody at one time or another?) and they're upset by the fact that while eating such a regimen, their dog is probably hungry.

Before attempting to take weight off your dog by any method, you should first have a thyroid test done. Many dogs do have sluggish thyroids, and if this is the case with your dog, no weight loss program is going to work until you correct the condition. Hypothyroid dogs have very slow metabolisms, and can gain huge amounts of weight while eating next to nothing. Ask for the tests that are done by labs, like Michigan State and Dr. Jean Dodds Hemopet (http://www.itsfortheanimals.com/HEMOPET.HTM ). We use Dr. Dodds, and we have been very satisfied. To do that, you need to fill out her forms, take them and your dog to your vet, have the vet pull the blood and send it to the address on the forms. Dr. Dodds’ fee is very reasonable, she will discuss the results with you, and any profits go to a good cause.

If your dog's thyroid levels are low, you will have to supplement with thyroid hormone. Once you get the dosage adjusted (which will involve further periodic testing), you will probably find that your dog loses weight with no dietary changes on your part (assuming you were feeding adequate, but not excessive calories before).


HOW MANY CALORIES SHOULD I FEED?
Here's a good rule of thumb that you can use as a starting point for an average dog (geriatric dogs and puppies will be the exceptions to this). Feed 290 calories for every 15 lbs. you think your dog should weigh. So if you figure an ideal weight for your dog should be 50 lbs. you will want to feed him around 1,015 calories per day. To find out how many cups of kibble that is, divide 1,015 by the number of calories in a cup of your dog’s kibble food. If the caloric content of your kibble isn't listed on the bag, call the company and ask. They should have this information readily available.

Since it is difficult to determine the calories of raw food, the standard by weight of the food is to feed 2% to 3% of your dogs weight. Start at 2%; if your dog gains too much weight, go down a little. If your dog is too thin, increase a little. Our dogs eat between 2 and 2.5 percent of their weight.

If you find your dog isn't losing on the ideal amount, or is staying a bit over weight, adjust the quantity of food to less per day. Keep adjusting until you find the amount that keeps your dog at the desired weight. Of course, puppies need more calories than this, and geriatrics will probably need less. But the above formulas can be used as a starting point.

Keep in mind as you figure out quantities that every dog is an individual and that the ingredients also count: for example, too high a level of protein may give your dog lots of energy - to the point of making him hyper and hard to live with - and his food may keep him too thin. Too little protein - particularly from animal sources - and your dog may become obese and encounter real health problems. The trick is to find the right levels for you your dog.