Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

A Plea To Rescue Groups

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I’m not affiliated with one particular rescue organization, seriously, it doesn’t take a NASA engineer to figure out I’m partial to Labrador Retrievers, but Labs aren’t for everyone.

Instead I like to advocate for rescue.

On the rare occasion someone asks me about getting a dog, I like to educate them a bit on the joys of rescuing.   That’s not to say people shouldn’t get a dog from a responsible breeder, I just make sure they know where pet store puppies come from and how much work goes into training.

Rescues have some pretty strict guidelines when it comes to adopting a dog.  The rescues I’ve been associated with do a home visit.

Where will the dog sleep, how will the dog be exercised, where will the dog be when you are out of the house?

These are all important questions.

I get why they do this.   They are over-whelmed with dogs and understaffed with…well staff.

They see the horrors of the rescue world on a daily basis.  The dogs that have been neglected or worse yet, abused.

In many instances they have the unbelievable task of choosing which dogs will live and which ones will not.

Day in and day out they see the result of people not being responsible and spaying and neutering their dogs.

I get it.  I really do.

And yet, I wonder how many more dogs could be saved, if their guidelines were a bit less stringent.

Case(s) in point:

Stay at home dog mom.

When we made the decision to enlarge our pack I went immediately to Petfinder.  Honestly I spent hours and hours on that website searching for the right dog.

I submitted a fair amount of applications for puppies.  I was turned down on each and every one.

Why?

Because I wasn’t home during the day to let the puppy out for potty breaks.

I couldn’t understand that, we both worked full-time and had managed to successfully raise Sampson from a puppy.

Yes it was true someone wouldn’t be with the puppy 24/7, but my mom lived next door and could go over at three and four times a day to give the puppy a break.  By that time we had fenced in our yard so exercise wouldn’t have been a problem, plus there was already an older dog to provide companionship.

A Tale of Two Labs.

I mentioned in my Tick Tick Boom post there were two wildly crazy labs in the drop-in agility class.  The mom told me, they’re sisters and are inseparable.

I questioned Sara afterwards.

This well-dressed, established couple in their mid-fifties, with a beautiful home, a fenced in yard with a pool, applied to rescues and were turned down.

Why?

Their yard was too narrow.

The result was they went out and bought two dogs. The woman said, what else could I do?

Spaying and Neutering:

A young couple I know rescued a 16 week-old lab mix, the female dog was altered before being adopted.

The dog has urine leakage, which I’ve heard can happen if they are spayed too early.  A perfectly healthy dog now on medication, making an additional expense for the adopter, because the rescue spayed too young.

A friend whose rescue dog, came unaltered.  The rescue sent a van out to spay the dog, 15 minutes later the young woman gets her dog back, still groggy on anesthesia. 15 minutes!!

Newsflash, my mammogram takes longer than 15 minutes and they’re just squashing boobs!!

What’s the answer?

I’m not sure I know.

I do know having someone home 24 hours a day does not necessarily make them a great dog owner.

I do know having a narrow yard is not the end of the world and does not mean the dog won’t be exercised.

I do know the numbers of animals in shelters and rescues is astronomical, but I don’t believe creating health problems in healthy animals will resolve the issue.

The key to changing any behavior (as those of us in the dog world know) is education.

Educate yourself and educate others, it’s the only way to stop the bleeding.

Lick Granuloma

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Sandy is the wonderful woman who has mentored us with raw food, I’ve found her to be very knowledgeable with all things dog.

A few weeks back I noticed that Sampson had a spot on his paw, I shot Sandy an e-mail and said Sampson was licking at his paw and did she know hot to treat for hot spots.  She responded, wash it with apple cider vinegar and put some aloe on it.

When I went to pick up my order of dog food Sandy said, it’s not a hot spot it’s a lick granuloma, look it up.

I asked how do I treat it, and she said with Witch Hazel.

Here’s what it looked like on August 19th.

8-19-12

 

I meant to google it when I got home but then I couldn’t remember what it was, so I didn’t.  I tried different keywords, but unfortunately my dog’s licking his paw but it’s not a hot spot turned up nothing.

I finally remembered to shoot her an e-mail and asked her what it was.  Then I googled it.

My trusty ‘go to’ source Wickipedia’s explanation was terribly disturbing.

“Lick granuloma is a form of self-trauma in which animals, particularly dogs, continuously lick a small area of their body until it becomes raw and inflamed. The most common areas affected are the lower (distal) portions of the legs. The most common cause of lick granuloma appears to be psychological, related to stress, boredom or compulsiveness. It is often considered to be a form of canine obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

I was horrified, here’s what I took from that: My dog is exhibiting the canine equivalent of cutting himself.  🙁

Do they have psychologists for dogs?

I took a deep breath and did a bit more research.  Web MD had a different explanation.

“At one time, lick sores were thought to be psychogenic in origin and related to boredom and inactivity. It now appears that many cases are preceded by an itchy skin disease (such as canine atopy) that starts the lick cycle. Other possible initiating causes include demodectic mange, a bacterial or fungal infection, prior trauma, and underlying joint disease. The precipitating event focuses the dog’s attention on the area. The licking then becomes a habit that may be perpetuated by psychological events, so behavior may still be a factor.”

I’m pretty sure I can rule out demodectic mange and if he had prior trauma I would probably know about it.

I realize that Sampson and Delilah’s exercise routine has become fairly boring.  With the heat of summer I’ve eliminated any chance of a mid-day walk.  Our walks are either early morning (on the weekends) or early evening during the week.  That can be boring.

Because of Delilah’s reactivity as well as finances their daycare days have been cut.  Again BORING.

In case you haven’t noticed, I am a bit neurotic with my dogs. 🙂

Even with all of that, I’m hesitant to believe that Sampson’s licking is psychological.  This is what jumped out at me from the Web MD explanation.

“Other possible initiating causes include ….underlying joint disease.”

Sampson just turned eight, even with the weight he’s lost, he’s a big dog.  I worry that he has some underlying joint issue.

He’s not scheduled for his annual exam until October and I think it’s too long to wait, so I intend on calling up our vet tomorrow (too bad I didn’t have her cell phone number…) 🙂

In the meantime, I’ve been treating it twice a day with the Witch Hazel and encouraging him to leave it, anytime I catch him licking it.

I think it’s helping.  Here’s a picture of what it looks like today.

8-26-12


Have you ever heard of a lick granuloma?

P.S. Dear Wikipedia, you are no longer my go to source for dog related information.  Please don’t take it personally.  Thank you.

Tick Tick BOOM

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Thursday night Delilah and I popped into the drop-in agility class at The Mellow Mutt.

We were a few minutes early so I started my treat shopping, with Delilah’s help of course.

I was checking out the grain-free treats while Delilah tried to steal checked out a pig’s ear.  Sara’s dog, Chuck came over, whether it was to say hello to me or to tell Delilah to back off the treats, I’m not sure.  But before I knew it, they were snapping at each other.

What the BEEP?

I mean it’s Chuck, our buddy, the guy we play with ALL the time.

Chuckers went to sulk in the other room, Delilah and I finished our shopping and then we walked into the agility room.  I looked around and only saw one dog I knew, Brisco a really high-energy little guy.

I walked to the farthest corner of the room.

Dude.  I won’t lie.  That altercation with Chuck really threw me.

So there we are in our corner, Brisco is in one corner, there is a German Shepherd mix in one corner, an Akita named Boots against the wall and this couple walks into the last remaining corner with two Labs, one yellow and one black.

I thought Brisco had a lot of energy, but these two labs had way more and their mom said they’d been swimming and running earlier.  I thanked God right then and there that neither one of my dogs are that energetic.

We were up first and I wish I’d had a video, it was a great run.   All our future runs were mediocre as Delilah was now on the hunt for the treats left behind by the Labs.  In fact, when Sara took the chute up, Delilah spent a bit of time in there cleaning it up.

You can see the little brown treat between her legs, she could smell it but had the hardest time finding it.

During her first attempt at a run the black lab decided to rush headlong into our corner.

That didn’t work well.  She got a face full of chocolate lab.

Thankfully I remembered to scream LOOK, at which point Delilah’s head whipped around and the mom moved her dog out of the line of fire.

After the fiasco with the black lab I tried to keep Delilah distracted with treats.

The A-Frame was set up so when the dogs came over in one direction they could in fact run straight into our corner.

Unfortunately the GSD did not get the memo telling him to avoid the chocolate lab eating treats in the corner.

Yup, he was the next dog that got a face full of chocolate.

By the time we got to our fourth run, Delilah was exhausted and had more interest in cleaning up the leftover treats than she had in running the course again, and I was totally on edge, so we declined a fifth go.

I didn’t get a video of our run, however I did manage to record Brisco’s with his dad.

Up until a few months ago his parent’s were working agility with treats, but he loves the squeaker ball,  so Sara suggested using that instead which works a little better for him.

He doesn’t have the best form but his enthusiasm and energy makes him a joy to watch.  (Mental note to self, don’t hit the stop button quite so soon.)

The Tick Tick BOOM has absolutely nothing to do with this post, it’s a saying I heard on a show and I thought it sounded cool. 😉

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