THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

Part of the fun of preparing for the seminar I did in Orlando was working on the canine olfaction section. The overall topic of the day was Canine Communication (often compared to primates like us), and most discussions in this vein emphasize visual communication. That’s all well and good, I’m a visual signal groupie from way back, but I loved beginning the day talking about scent, and imagining what it would be like to be able to use one’s nose like a dog. We all know, intellectually anyway, how important smell is to dogs, but because we tend to be so oblivious to it, it is hard for us to imagine (Example of our obliviousness: What’s the common word used to described people who can’t smell?  Yup, there isn’t one.)

Hard to imagine what it’s like to be a dog (okay, impossible), but here are helpful hints, many of which I learned from Susannah Charleson, author of Scent of the Missing: Dogs can sort out individual scents just as you can visually distinguish different pieces that make up a stew. There are the carrots, the onions, the beef…. And if you are trained, you can taste the gravy and notice the hint of rosemary and thyme. Just as we can sort out visual stimuli, dogs can separate out all the components that make up one particular smell. What we don’t know (we know shockingly little about the world of scent to a dog) is what scents they perceive and notice in the environment, especially as it relates to other dogs. Does a good whiff in the grass relate to “Hmmm, a little female poodle, a large neutered boxer…”, or something more along the lines of “Female, slightly nervous, ate fish last night, having kidney trouble apparently…”

When working with tracking or trailing dogs, you also learn that scents are like objects in that they have a shape and a physical presence–imagine them as an oddly shaped balloon, whose shape depends on the soil moisture, wind currents etc. When dogs are searching for a scent (or just blunder into one), you can tell when they first discover the “edge of the envelope.” Of course, all dogs are different, but most dogs pause for a microsecond, and their posture changes: their tail might go up, or perhaps their head. It is usually quite clear when a dog first discovers the ‘edge’ of a scent. I saw Susannah illustrate this in human terms last November in Austin, and she graciously has allowed me to pass it on. I love doing so, because it is yet another way of trying to bridge the gap between canine and primate, my favorite game in life.

Here’s the demo: Have one member of the group volunteer to leave the room. Turn on a long playing piece of music (yup, music, bear with me) on a small device like an iPod or iPad. Turn it down so low that it can barely be heard, but is still clearly discernible if you are close enough, and hide the music somewhere in the room. When the volunteer returns, ask them to locate the music. People search for sound just the same as dogs search for scent, moving around until they …Ah! …think they might have heard something, and then gradually work their way closer and closer until it gets louder and louder, just as scent gets stronger and stronger. Of course, the music won’t be as affected by wind currents (I love how you can follow wind currents by watching a dog search for an object), but it is fascinating to watch a person try to localize sound, and clearly indicate, just as dogs do when they first discover a scent, that they have found it’s ‘edge.’

We did this demonstration in Orlando at the Communication Seminar (DVD coming in a few months if you missed it!) and it was truly great fun. You can do this with any group of people, it could even be fun in a basic dog training class if there was time. By the way, I learned so much about scent work, and loved Susannah’s writing so much, that we are selling her book, Scent of the Missing, on the website.  You might want to check it out. And stay tuned, I mentioned earlier that a TV show is in the works right now, based on Puzzle and Susannah and a cast of other S & R team members. (And yes, there’s a really hunky guy in it. Of course!)

What about you? Do you have any ‘scent games’ you play with dog owners to help them understand the umwelt of a dog? I’d love to hear about them. This sense of dogs is so important, and yet we so easily ignore it. I see it relevant in so many aggression cases (Ex: Willie once attacked a dog for ‘no reason’.. until I remembered that the dog’s house mate had attacked Willie once, so the scent of trouble was there all along.) I’d love to hear your perspective.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm. Willie is just back from PT, and Courtney is thrilled with his progress. We did have a set back early this week–running in semi-deep snow made him lame that night, but he recovered 95% in 2 days and that’s good. I am still working on accepting that this is just what it is, that just like my body, sometimes Willie’s is going to bother him. We’ll just make a note of it and avoid that activity if we can, and if not, then just let him rest up whenever he needs it. He’s just simply never going to be sound, but then, neither am I (neck, back, knee, spine, I could go on…..) but who cares! We just learn what works and what doesn’t and manage around it.

We have the go ahead to VERY VERY cautiously begin working sheep again.  Be still my heart. Of course, only a minute amount at first. A short little drive here. Then rest. Then maybe a very short, simple outrun and fetch on very quiet sheep there. There won’t be much sheep work now though, because it’s icy in some spots (the absolute worst for Willie; he even has to heel beside me all the way to the barn now, the driveway is a skating rink) and I don’t want to work in him snow deeper than two inches or so. He’ll wear his hobbles and I’ll set it up as carefully as I can, hold onto to my heart and go from there. I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s a photo that is, uh, a little out of the ordinary for this blog. It’s me mum as a little girl,  (yes, she was English), illustrating her love for animals at an early age. Mom has been gone a long time, but she adored animals, dogs especially, and somehow it just seemed right that she had a place here. I loved animals too even when I was tiny. I had 52 stuffed animals at one count, and refused dolls (because they weren’t soft and cuddly.) Anyone else crazed for stuffed animals when they were little?

As many of you know I recently presented a seminar on animal assisted therapy in Naples Florida. (Yes, it’ll be out as a DVD later this winter. Happy Dance!) One of the motivations for doing the seminar was the number of clients I had who wanted me to help them prepare their dog for therapy work. Sometimes it was like swimming downstream on a warm, cozy river. Their dog was a perfect fit and ended up doing wonderful work in the community. Other times… well,  it was reminiscent of trying to paddle up a cold, frothy waterfall. The fact is, therapy work can be hard work, and it takes a special kind of dog to be both good at it and to enjoy it. The directors of AAA and AAT (AAActivities and AATherapy) will tell you that one of their greatest challenges is working with people who want to volunteer but whose dogs just don’t qualify. Here’s a summary of the characteristics of a good therapy dog prospect, in hopes it will be helpful for those who are interested in doing this wonderful work:

Affiliative: This seems like a no-brainer, but the fact is that many dogs are presented for therapy work who really don’t like strangers all that much. They love their owners and good friends, but aren’t all that interested in other people. Good therapy dogs need to be the kind of dogs who ADORE people, all people, and want nothing more than to connect with them. It is, after all, the emotional connection that is often the therapeutic part of AAA and AAT.  It seems to me that dogs sort into 4 categories: 1) adore people, care little for other dogs, 2) adore dogs, care little for unfamiliar people, 3) adore members of both species and are thrilled to meet new ones and 4) adore neither dogs or people, except maybe their owner. Needless to say, only categories 1 and 3 are good therapy prospects.

Physically Calm: Many of the dogs who think all people hung the moon regrettably don’t fit into this category. Leaping, licking, pawing and body slamming just don’t work in senior centers and hospitals. This is why so many dogs don’t qualify when they are young, but could be great prospects when they are older. I wrote a chapter with Audrey Fine for his great book The Handbook of Animal Assisted Therapy, and we had a long discussion about how many dogs would be GREAT for therapy work when they are six. Or eight. Or ten, but their owners get them evaluated at the age of two, the dogs are not “passed” and their owners never try again.

Psychologically Sound and Non-reactive: It doesn’t matter how much training or conditioning you do, therapy dogs need a certain level of rock solid soundness to be good prospects. Of course, the context does matter: some dogs are great in senior centers but are uncomfortable around children and would be disasters in a children’s hospital. It’s important to remember that AAA and AAT include a vast range of experiences, so every dog must be evaluated based on what they are going to be doing.  But it’s still essential to keep in mind that although your job is in part to protect your dog, once you are inside a facility you will have limited control over what happens. And what can happen (someone grabbing your dog, weird noisy medical equipment coming on, a medical crisis that results in tremendous chaos) is sometimes enough to terrify a sensitive dog.

Included in this category, although albeit somewhat different conceptually, is the state of being “emotionally mature” or able to handle frustration and deal with the world with a calm, measured demeanor. Again, just as in people, sometimes this takes several years to master.

Ridiculously clean and healthy: Unless you work in health care facilities it is easy to forget how differently sanitation needs to be handled in facilities and hospitals than it does in your own home. Pet Pals here in Madison, which organizes visits to the Children’s Hospital through the UW Vet School, requires that all dogs in the program go through extensive veterinary evaluations twice a year. This includes an entire day of testing for a vast range of diseases, from salmonella to MRSA. In this case the dogs are visiting children who are often immune compromised, and so their requirements are more stringent than some, but any facility, from a senior center to a hospital, is a very, very different place than your home. Germs love the kind of places that therapy dogs go to visit, and they can move around like wild-fire within very vulnerable populations.

Aware of their Job? This is gravy, pure gravy, but the fact is that some dogs do more than happily sit with strangers or participate in structured therapy treatment plans, as beneficial as that can be to some people. These dogs seem to sense why they are there, and seek out people who are especially needy, and make an emotional connection with them that changes their life. These connections happen, and hearing about them is enough to make you all gooey-eyed. Special stuff indeed.

I’ll leave the training and evaluations required to be a registered therapy team for another blog, but I thought it’d be interesting to ask all of you to add to this list–specifically, what type of personality do you think a therapy dog needs to be successful? If you’ve either had a working AAA or AAT dog, or been the beneficiary of one, I’d love to hear what criteria you’d put on the list. FYI, I’ll write another time about what the handler at the other end of the leash needs (a list too often ignored!), and some good books for people interested in getting involved, but right now I’d like to think about the dogs themselves. Aside from training for specific cues and conditioning to things like medical equipment, what traits do you think good therapy dogs need?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: It was eight below (Fahrenheit) when I got up yesterday morning, three below today. I think the high is expected to be around eight or so, and we’re expecting 2 to 7 inches of snow tomorrow (2 to 7? that’s a big difference!).  I wish I didn’t have to drive to town to get ready to start teaching at the university (“The Biology and Philosophy of Human/Animal Relationships”), but still it’ll be sort of fun to get the snow. If it had been snowing all winter I’d be tired of it, but we’ve hardly had any winter at all til now, so it feels sort of good in some strange, possibly masochistic kind of way.

The great news is that Tootsie, who began her life here explaining to me that her paws did not participate in wet or cold, now trots happily outside in the worst of weather, does her business and then runs, ears flapping and tongue lolling, back into the garage. When we got her as a puppy mill dog she understandably had no concept of going outside and eliminating on cue right away, and then going right back in if the weather was inclement. She’d stand at the end of the garage and look plaintive and miserable, but refuse to go out. And even in great weather, once out she’d sniff and sniff and sniff and sniff… you get the idea.  What a great reminder of how handy it is to put peeing and pooping on cue.

And now you should see her! Out she runs, does her business and then runs back in… while Willie stays outside and looks at me like “WHAT? Go back inside now? Whatever for?” So Tootsie goes back inside and Willie and I play outside for awhile. I should tell you though that yesterday there was one time, during the coldest part of the morning, when she did refuse to go out. But she’d been outside to pee recently, and I took it as “Truly, I don’t have to go at all, and it’s really, really cold. Would it work for you if I stayed inside this time?” And indeed it did. Honor your dog, right? The next time I took her out her bladder was fuller, and out she went, did her business and ran to me for her treat. Now, I just have to work on her barking if she sees me and Willie outside through the window… One thing at a time!

Willie is good good good. His shoulder seems good (almost afraid to write that) and he’s loving everyone he meets lately. He still isn’t buddies with Tootsie. They STILL ignore each other, it’s a bit strange sometimes, but he is very tolerant of her and the only sign of problems I see is when I come home she has taken over our greeting rituals. Rather than being all over me, Willie runs to get a toy and lets her get the first attention. I’m not liking that, I think he is a bit frustrated, but doesn’t like competing with Tootsie for attention, and unwilling to get into any conflict about it… I’ll be working on that in the near future too. Never a dull moment with dogs, hey?

Why do I live in a place that can be colder in the winter than the inside of your freezer? Here’s the reason: Sunrise yesterday.  Eight below. And a sky simply too beautiful for words…

Well, they’re not dogs. Or cats. Or domestic animals of any kind. But I spent two years working with Cotton Top Tamarins and hearing my university BFF describe how she is continuing her work with them was one of the highlights of my trip to Florida.

Anne Savage, Senior Conservation Biologist at Disney World, has been studying Cotton Top Tamarins in the wild since graduate school at UW-Madison. She and I worked together with the squirrel-sized monkeys in the lab of Charles Snowdon, who did non-intrusive behavioral research on their vocalizations and reproductive behavior. The lab was committed to letting them live in family groups (rare at the time) in enriched environments (also rare at the time) and Anne and I spent many a night planning how to improve their environment, help young mothers raise their babies (adolescents aren’t always so good at it in many species) and working with the vets to deal with illnesses and rare injuries. We designed probably the first functional incubator for rejected baby Cotton Tops and worked hard to eliminate the need for them in the first place.

The species has to work hard at reproduction: Female Cotton Tops usually have twins–rare for a monkey–and become pregnant just days after giving birth. So the females have to produce milk for twins while they are also gestating a new set, which is why the males do most of the carrying of the young. Chuck’s lab learned that the species must be kept in family groups to thrive, because adolescents have to learn to transfer and carry the infants before they give birth themselves or assist a female in raising the young. Watching youngsters figure out how to transfer a baby from one back to another provided endless amusement for us.

Here’s an old photo from the lab of a male carrying 2 very young infants on his back. (Did I mention they are the cutest monkeys that ever lived?) Those two little white triangles on either side of the male’s head are the babies clinging to his back. You can see from the photo that the monkeys had real wood to walk on (that was a fight with the authorities!), but by the time we left the entire cage was full of ropes and plants and toys. It was gratifying work and I learned so much doing it.

I worked with the monkeys for two years between undergrad and graduate school (when I studied vocalizations from professional animal handlers to working domestic animals), and Anne went on to do field work in Columbia on CT’s as an endangered species. If you ever meet her, ask her how she talked machine gun-toting rebels who invaded her research station and threatened to kill or kidnap her into helping her with the research instead. Seriously. That’s Anne.  She’s continued the research ever since, working toward conserving the forest for the monkeys by not just trying to discourage forest destruction, but by organizing economic opportunities for the locals to enable them to make a good living and still conserve the forest around them. You can read more about it on Proyecto Titi (Titi is the local name for CTs). One of the most impressive projects is organizing businesses for women making “eco-mochillas,” or environmentally friendly bags crocheted from the endless amount of plastic that pollutes the villages in Columbia (and Kenya, and Rwanda, etc etc etc). (I bought 2 in Disney World, and you could too when you go, or buy them off their website. I’m just saying….) So it helps conserve the forest, protects the Cotton Top Tamarins, provides an income for the residents and decreases pollution. I’d call that a win/win/win/win. Here’s a much better photo of a Cotton Top:

It was also fun to hear about the plans for an Avatar experience at Animal Kingdom. Now that will be worth checking out (2014 I think?). And there’s lots of other great research going on in the Conservation Biology Dept; check out this work that uses elephant’s dislike of bees to keep elephants from destroying crop land of villagers. Very creative.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm. Willie and Tootsie are doing really well. Willie adored the male of the house sitting couple, and seems to be relaxed and back to himself. The sitter did say that he seemed obsessed with Sushi, but when I got back the issue went back to being easily managed. He’ll begin to stalk her but can be easily distracted and stays calm and relaxed once he is.  Willie’s leg and shoulder seem really good, although (of course), just when I was consciously thinking “Oh my, he really is almost sound again” this afternoon, he slid a bit on the snow and yelped, then held up his left paw. For a second I died a thousand deaths, but he went right back to using it normally again. I can’t find the slightest hitch in his gait, but of course, I’ll be extra careful tonight, and do lots of massage on it and hold off on his exercises until tomorrow.

Mostly, I just have to say that I truly enjoyed all the wonderful people I met in Florida and am grateful to so many people who made it a great experience AND I’m sooooo glad to be home!!!! I love my farm, I love my animals,  I love Wisconsin, and yes yes yes, right now, I love snow!

Home Sweet Home!! Florida was great is so many ways (thank you everyone!), but I have to admit I am sooo happy to be home. Willie and Tootsie are great, Sushi and the sheep too, the snow (finally!) didn’t delay our planes and it is heaven to be back in Wisconsin. I’m planning on 2 blogs next week on 1) the results of our survey in Orlando about the emotional state of the dog in Michelle Wan’s video and 2) what kind of dog is most qualified to do AAA and AAT work. And then there’s so much I want to talk about from Kathy  Sdao’s seminar on Sunday on Orlando… And then there’s talking about my BFF from graduate school, Disney World’s Sr Conservation Biologist Anne Savage, who is doing kick ass research/economic enrichment in Columbia as well as other places… so many topics, so little time!

But for now I need to get my paws back on the ground, play with the dogs, and get a bit of rest. I’m a tad tuckered from doing 2 new seminars and a fund raising speech in Naples (accompanied by music from the wedding reception beside us… talking about the human/animal bond with the song YMCA blasting in the background is an interesting experience).

Here, though, is one of my favorite parts of Disney World: The Tree of Life. It’s a constructed “tree” that is 14 stories high and 50 feet wide, with animals sculpted into the bark.  This is the whole tree:

And here’s a close up of just a part of it: how many animals can you find in the bark? (Okay, I know, it’s sort of goofy, but Jim and I had a ball trying to find them all.) And I’d love to hear from others about their favorite parts of the Animal Kingdom park at Disney World. I have a few… I’ll tell you about them next week, but I’d love to hear yours!

Earlier I wrote about Willie’s extreme and fearful reaction to a visiting man about a month ago, speculated about its causes and discussed how to respond. Here’s an update, and a few things I that might be helpful for anyone dealing with a behavior problem.

The good news (yeah good news) is that Willie is doing much, much better. He’s responded well to the last 5 unfamiliar men he’s met, running up to them immediately, getting close, asking for petting. There are no overt signs of fear anymore, (but keep reading), which makes me very happy. To quickly review, I’ve changed his diet back to avoid chicken and lamb, put his Hobbles back on when meeting strangers, gotten him acupuncture, and managed his interactions with unfamiliar men, such that he met them first outside or in the office (the house being the site of the extreme reaction). Early on I asked the men to stand back and let Willie approach them and they tossed food on the ground or handed him a toy (throwing would be ideal, but can’t do that now because of his shoulder).

Here are 3 things that this episode has highlighted that I think are universally important in all behavioral regressions:

1. Jump on it. Part of why I suspect that Willie is doing so well is that I immediately, that very day, sat down, thought out a treatment plan and began acting on it. I didn’t wait to see if it would happen again. I didn’t excuse it as being a ‘glitch’ that was meaningless. There’s not enough time in the world to list all the times I’ve heard (or experienced) seeing an agonistic pucker, or hearing a growl that seemed atypical for a dog, and then the next day, or the next week, observing the problem escalate. Example: My sweet-like-butter-to-people Border Collie Misty began to be aggressive to other dogs as she got older. I managed her carefully and things went well. I remember well a day when she flashed a hard eye at Lassie, and I thought: hummmm, I’d better get on that soon, something might be going on between them. But “soon” wasn’t that day, and the next morning Misty escalated and went after Lassie. I learned then and there that the first sign of trouble needs to be dealt with instantly. (And that worked for years with Misty: the  first sign of a hard eye got an instant response –”Misty, get back, lie down and stay there and calm down…”). If you see something that looks like it might be problematic, don’t panic, but don’t put off responding either.

2. It’s the little things (or, it’s not over til it’s over). I took Willie into PT yesterday and there was a male 4th year student in the room. Yeah Willie, he ran right up to Joe, body loose, happy faced. All’s well, right? I thought it was, until little things began to creep into my awareness. First off, Willie didn’t behave normally when we moved around the room to show Courtney how he was using his shoulder. Usually Willie responds instantly to Stand, Lie Down, etc. It’s a game with him and he loves it. He knows the room, the context and has done it perfectly a million times. But this time he didn’t lie down when I asked, (took 3 tries), and although he was focused on me he wasn’t himself. Most people would define his behavior as “disobedient.” He was, technically speaking, but I realized later it was because he was nervous with Joe in the room (or at least, that’s my best guess.) Willie also was more animated than usual, and would have been nipping at my legs if I hadn’t seen it about to happen as we walked around the room. Neither did he want to settle down for Courtney when she examined all. These subtle changes were great reminders that Willie is better, but he’s still not himself. It’d be easy to stop CCg him now and be less concerned with his internal physiology, because of his ‘happy’ reactions to strangers, but that would be a  mistake.

3. It takes a village: Most people don’t have the luxury that I do of having a blog with an amazing cast of thoughtful, intelligent readers, but everyone has someone else who is dog savvy that they can discuss their problems with. Don’t hesitate to find a good source with which to talk out a behavior problem. First, you might get some helpful perspectives you wouldn’t have thought of yourself, and at the least, it forces you to organize your thoughts about what is going on. I find writing things down incredibly helpful when I’m thinking through a problem, so try that before you talk to friends. Be aware that some feedback might be less than useful: perhaps some of your friends will respond that you “just need to be the alpha,” when you know that’s the last thing you need to be doing for your dog. Just thank them for the feedback and make mental note to talk about something less volatile, maybe religion and politics, next time with them.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: I‘m about to jump on a plane for Florida , leaving the farm in the hands of a wonderful couple. Gotta run or I’ll miss my plane! See you in Orlando and Naples (promise to come up and say hi!). Here’s Mr. Willie boy, so happy to be able to play with toys again.

So many books, so little time! Here are a few I’m enjoying:

Magnificent Mind at Any Age by Daniel Amen. This is a fascinating book by a psychiatrist who began doing SPECT scans of his patients brains and discovered how many psychological/behavioral problems related to brain function. It’s an inspiring book for anyone looking to improve their health and behavior, and besides being motivated to exercise more and stop drinking diet soda (I know, I know), I find myself thinking about dog behavior on every page. Daniel relates multiple cases of people with behavioral problems (fear, depression, anger, impulsivity) that are improved through diet, exercise, supplements and medications that specifically work on areas of the brain related to those problems. Anyone out there see any dogs who are fearful, impulsive, etc etc…?)

Your Dog’s Best Health by Nancy Kay: The subtitle of this compact, highly readable book is “A dozen reasonable things to expect from your vet.” This book is a great summary of how to have the relationship you’d like with your veterinarian, written by a vet herself. Just as the book above can be extended to our dog’s health, I’d say this book could also be expanded to our relationships with our physicians. This book is short, sweet and full of useful information.

There’s a Dog in the House by Nancy Chwiecko and Amy Fernandez. “A practical guide for creating today’s dog friendly home,” this has got to be the only book out there that looks at your home from your dog’s perspective, advises on dog-proof but attractive furniture, has a chapter on helping dogs with special needs and how to repair the wall that your dog with SA chewed through.

I also just finished Therapy Dogs Today, which I read as part of my preparation for the seminar I’m doing in Naples on January 12 on AAA and AAT. By Kris Butler, this is by far the best book I’ve read on the subject, far superior to anything else I’ve seen. What I like about is especially is her focus on the patient’s and the dog’s needs, (owner/handler–your job is to present your dog and get out of the way) and her understanding that real ‘therapy’ can only occur if a true relationship has been formed between the dog and the receiver. She also emphasizes the importance of observing your dog carefully for signs of stress or discomfort, a common problem I’m sorry to say that I’ve seen often in my experience. If you are interested in ever doing this work with your dog, this is a great book to get.

What are you reading? I always love to hear . . .

MEANWHILE, back on the farm:

Great news about Willie. I’ve put him back on a strict diet w/ no chicken or lamb, increased his greens, got him acupuncture, increased his mental exercise, carefully managed Sushi in a way relaxing to us all and put his hobbles back on when we are out or he is meeting unfamiliar men. I speculated that the hobbles acted almost like an anxiety wrap or thunder shirt, and that taking them off (as I have in the last few weeks) when he was free and off leash was at least one factor in his regression. Think of prisoner let out of jail with not enough time to adapt to freedom. It’s only been a week since I made all those changes, but he’s met several guys (all dog savvy and carefully coached), and Willie has showed no signs of fear or anxiety. He ran right up to all the guys like they were his best friends. Yeah!

The first guys Willie met were all off the farm, then the next ones met him outside the house first before coming inside. Tonight a dog savvy friend (yeah Justin!) is coming over. They met on Monday first outside, but this time I’m going to have him meet Willie inside the house (where Willie was first shocked by the presence of a guy several weeks ago.). It will also be at night, and most fearful dogs are more easily frightened at night than during the daytime. So I’ll go slowly and carefully. I’ll keep you posted. It’s very early in the process, so I’d never say that we are “done,” but I am encouraged at how things are going. I should add that, with dogs like Willie, one is never really ‘done.’ They slide out of balance so easily that one has to always be on the look out for regressions. If you want to read more about my speculations about what’s going on, go back to the earlier post and read my comments.

It continues to be warm and gloriously sunny, although snow is predicted for tonight. What a change that will be! Poor Tootsie is going to have to wear her coat when we go out again. Willie will love the cold weather; he doesn’t seem phased until it’s below 10 F, and it doesn’t look like we’ll get anywhere near that. We’ll have a lovely New Year’s dinner with friends at the farm, and then it’s all about getting ready for the seminars I’m doing in Orlando and Naples.

Here’s Tootsie, showing off her hair extensions (We are developing a story about a poor 5 year old beauty contestant, whose mother bought her hair extensions and elaborate costumes, but was unable to cover up her Andy Rooney eyebrows. Thus, her career was doomed from the start — judges being unlikely to award blue ribbons to little girls who look pissed off all the time.) (She’s not. Tootsie, that is. She just needs a stylist who does eyebrows.)

Or, alternative title: Adventures in the Willie Wonka Fear Factory. If you’re cocking your head in confusion, this is about Willie’s recent (and relatively new) fear of men. To review briefly: As a puppy he was pathologically afraid of other dogs, exceptionally sound sensitive and, in some contexts, quick to anger. But he adored people, loved everyone. As an adolescent, like many dogs, he developed new fears, and became cautious around unfamiliar men, but it was easily handled by having guys throw balls for him. I always knew I’d need to manage it and that I could never completely close the book on his fears, but it was easily handled and he usually appeared to be thrilled to meet unfamiliar men after about 4-5 months of counter conditioning.

And then, three weeks or so ago, he barked in terror at a male visitor. He was so fearful he urinated on the spot (the spot being the living room rug–no worries there, it is ancient and god knows how many microscopic particles live within in it, but I mention it just to let you know he saw the visitor, barked in terror and peed his pants where he stood.) A week later he avoided another male visitor, a guy he’s met multiple times and always been friendly around. His fear was overwhelmingly obvious–no barking, but avoidance, tail tucked, head down, eyes round, commissure retracted, weight backward, etc etc.). We had our friend toss treats and that helped, but he never completely settled into what I’d call comfort.

Two questions arise when a behavioral problem you thought was handled pops up again like a moldy piece of toast: 1) What on earth caused the regression?, and most importantly, 2) Now what? I write this out in hopes it will help others follow along if/when their reactive dog slips backwards a few steps. Of course, all cases are different, but it often helps to follow a treatment plan as a way of storing potential tools in your tool box…

Skipping ahead to #2, “Now what?” has already started: Willie has so far had treats thrown by 3 unfamiliar men. So far, all sessions have gone well. All sessions have also been out of the house, and Willie appeared much more relaxed around the guys than he did inside the farm house. Here’s what’s good about that: First, it’s always good to start classical conditioning exercises (CC) at the lowest level of intensity. If and why Willie is worse at the house is an interesting question, but my first sessions of CC taught me that 1) new-guy-at-home is scarier than new-guy-not-at-home; potentially important information, and 2) outside is where we should start because it’s the lowest intensity trigger for him.

After Christmas I’ve arranged for several male friends to come by. We’ll start with Willie meeting them outside, first far away, then closer. Then I’ll have them come inside with food or toy in hand. If that goes well, I’ll ask the next guys to come inside the house before meeting Willie outside. They’ll be asked (okay, told) to avoid approaching Willie, but to toss treas or toys for him. One of my challenges is that Willie’s best CC’er is to chase after a thrown toy. I can’t let him do that yet with his shoulder, so I’m asking guys to toss the toy directly to Willie so that he can catch it in his mouth.

I’ve made other changes too, but to explain those I need to go back to the question of what the heck caused this in the first place. Whenever you have a problem like this, it’s smart to sit down and write out all the possible causes you can think of. You may never know the answer, but it can help create a comprehensive treatment plan. Here’s my list, along with some thoughts about the potential of each to have affected Willie:

1. Isolation after injury and surgery. Seems reasonable, but since the injury was in Feb and the surgery in May, you’d think it would have shown up a bit sooner. He saw almost no visitors for about 3 months after surgery, but after that we did start having people come to the house and he seemed fine. The first sign of trouble was actually at PT about 3 weeks ago, when he barked, for the first time, at seeing someone out the window in the treatment room door. Both Courtney and I were surprised, because he’d never done that before, and he’d been there twice a week since late June. I would have thought this would have shown up at least by fall if that was the primary issue BUT I’d still rate it high on the scale of probable causes.

Implications: Set up more CC sessions with guys I trust to not overwhelm Willie, following the protocol in The Cautious Canine. We have some CC scheduled for next week, with dog savvy guys who actually will pay attention to directions and CC rather than scare Willie. It’s a bit challenging, because the best CC for Willie is a thrown toy, and I can’t do that yet with his shoulder. We’ll use treats and I’ll use Watch and Tug, plus guys tossing treats and toys. I’ll keep you posted.

2. Effects of anesthetic. I’ve seen several dogs in my practice who did indeed change after surgery (also noted by a thoughtful comment from JH in the comment section) and have often wondered about the effects of anesthetic on certain physiologically sensitive dogs. This is possible, but again, it seem less likely because the problem showed up relatively recently. The dogs in my practice became hyper-reactive early on after surgery.

Implications: Doubtful it’s a cause, but never hurts to think about a dog’s internal physiology. He had another acupuncture session last night, this time for calming and soothing. We discussed potentially using laser acupuncture versus needles, given how sensitive and reactive Willie is.

3. Effects of surgery itself. Not sure what to say about this, but given what a huge assault a major surgery is on the body, it has to be considered. However, again, the regression seems so far after the fact that it seems unlikely.

Implications: Same as above.

4. Presence of Tootsie. Tootsie had been at the farm for about two months before the first signs of trouble appeared. As I’ve written, Willie was clearly not comfortable around her for the first few days, and they still (still!) work hard to ignore each other, but he seems to have adapted to her as the new normal. He still gets lots of attention from me, and has learned that she’ll never challenge him for anything, although she’ll try to squeeze in when he’s getting petted. I suspect he’s learned that although he’d rather not have to compete, life goes on even with a pushy, tiny little princess in the house. I don’t think just her presence is a factor; just guessing here, but I’m bet some serious money on it.

Implications: Tootsie is here to stay, so I’ll go back to CCg him with Tootsie’s name (I did that for about 3 weeks, “Where Tootsie?”).

5. Tootsie’s barking. This one has a higher probability in my mind of having an effect on Willie’s emotional circuits. Tootsie came as a barker–she barked in the morning to get let up on the bed, she barked for her dinner, etc etc etc.  We’ve made great progress, none of the above happens anymore BUT I still can’t leave her either in her crate or loose in the house if I leave it without her barking. I’ve done lots of management around this, but about a month ago I got lazy and would leave her and Willie in the house if I had to run outside and do something quickly in the yard or barn. She’d stand at the window and bark like some crazed, operatic mouse, and I think listening to it was hell on earth for sound sensitive Willie. It didn’t happen very often, but I am sure it wasn’t helping anything. I also had to ask myself if she barks in her crate when I’m gone. I’ve snuck around quite a few times, creeping back to the house and every time she appears to be sound asleep and quiet, so I doubt this is the problem. I’ll keep my eyes (and ears) on it though.

Implications: I never leave him anymore in a situation in which Tootsie will bark while he’s beside her, and I’m working hard on teaching Tootsie to not bark in a crate or if left alone in the house when I leave for a few minutes. I’ve learned I can toss a handful of kibble on the carpet, leave the house with Willie and return to find Tootsie sleeping in her bed in the living room. “Quiet in the crate” when I’m elsewhere in the house is going to take more time, but I’m working on it and carefully managing it at all other times.

6. Change in diet, addition of chicken and lamb. About a month ago I found myself with lots of chicken and lamb scraps. I’ve avoided feeding those protein sources to Willie because of Chinese Medicine’s suggestion that they are “hot” foods and not good for reactive dogs like Willie. But all was going so well, and it pains me to throw food away, so I started giving Willie some of each for a period of about a week. I have no idea whatsoever if this was causal, but it’s easy to change, so I did.

Implications: Easy — Willie is back on beef, beef liver, fish, duck and pork as protein sources. And he’s getting even more cooked greens than usual (mostly kale and collard greens, some parsley, some celery, spinach, broccoli).

7. Sushi: Sushi as a source of stress for Willie ebbs and flows. I’ve written about it before, about his obsessive desire to herd her and his inability to see her as anything except a small, hoofless livestock representative. We worked through it well years ago, but the combination of less exercise and Sushi being in the house more because of winter has caused the problem to increase. He tends to be on edge when he gets obsessive about Sushi, and I would put this high on the list as one potentially contributing factor.

Implications: This is a tough one, obsessive as it is, as we’ve all discussed in previous blogs. It’s complicated by the fact that my allergies to Sushi continue to worsen, and I feel badly that Sushi can’t cuddle with me like she used to. Right now we are managing things and I’m working hard on keeping Willie occupied with something non-Sushi related. All alternative behaviors (sit, lie down, go in your crate, get a toy) act as secondary reinforcers, so it’s not easily fixed.  I’ll write more on this later, but it’s a big topic and better saved for posts in the future. At the moment it’s being managed relatively well, but it’s on my list for things to make even better in the future.

8. Electro stimulation in physical therapy. Willie had 2 sessions of this right around the time he first reacted to seeing people out the window. Could this possibly have affected his nervous system in a negative way? I suspect it’s doubtful, but the health care professionals I asked say no (3) and yes (1), and I wouldn’t say it’s impossible.

Implications: I have no idea if this had any effect on Willie, but we stopped it just in case. Luckily, he didn’t really need it anymore anyway, his muscles in his shoulder began relaxing again so that he could do his stretching exercises.

9. Acupuncture session right around the time he began regressing. I’m doubtful that this was causal, given how often he’s  had acupuncture, but he had a new practitioner this time, and who knows? I had one acupuncture session in which I was miserable for a month afterward. Anything with the power to do good has the power to do harm.

Implications: His new acupuncturist, Carrie and I discussed this last night. I cautioned her that with Willie, “less is more,” and to use the fewest, thinnest needles she could. We also discussed laser acupuncture next time as I mentioned above. I’ll probably put him back on either Shen Calmer or some kind of homeopathic remedy for fear and anxiety, but I want to spend some more time thinking about what would be best for him.

I’ve written all this out in hopes the structure of 1) thinking about causes of a regression and 2) designing a treatment plan around it, is helpful to anyone else out there whose dog has gone backward a bit. I think it would be extremely helpful to other readers if you wanted to share your own program for if/when this has happened to you and one of your dogs. Needless to say, I could write about so many aspects of Willie’s behavior and treatment that this blog would turn into a book. I’ll stop here, and enjoy letting others add their own methods.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm:

Here’s Willie (or rather, his nose), in the middle of an acupuncture session with his new acupuncturist, Carrie Donahue, DVM. He’s not a fan of the needles, but Carrie is extremely gentle and patient, and Willie sits politely for her as best he can. You’re just seeing his nose because it was dark outside and I couldn’t get a good picture of him looking at the camera without eye flash, so the heck with it, I just focused on his nose. “Do what you can”… a good perspective any time, including with photographs, and treatment plans for that matter…

We woke up this morning to another surprise snow. It won’t last long, and it’s only a little over an inch, but still, it was gorgeous when Willie and I went up the hill (too wet and cold for a hill walk for Tootsie).

I thought the image below would be a lovely way for Willie and I, and all at Redstart Farm, to wish you and yours some peace, warmth and love this holiday season. It comes with my gratitude for the community that has grown up around this blog. Thank you all for joining me in an inquiry about our miraculous relationship with dogs. Body wags to you all.

CAN DOGS GET ANGRY? Yup, I’m here to say that they can. Do they get angry as often as humans? Nope, and thank heavens for that. If they did, I doubt we’d live with them, given that they have carpet knives in their mouths. Just like people, they vary tremendously in how often they experience or express anger. I’ve known some dogs who appeared not to have an angry moment their entire lives. More commonly, I’ve worked with dogs who, on occasion, are clearly frustrated at not getting what they wanted or expected. And rarely, I’ve worked with a small number of dogs who appeared to live in a state of ‘road rage’ for weeks, months or years on end. So even though I would never say that anger in dogs is an exact replica of anger in people, both in its frequency and how we experience it, it is a basic biological fact that dogs are capable of experiencing anger. Here’s why:

Anger is as primal an emotion as fear, and if an animal can experience fear, then one is wise to assume it is capable of experiencing anger. The two, it turns out, go hand in hand. Both are mediated primarily in the amygdala and both evolved to protect us. Fear is the emotion that signals the body that it is in danger, and motivates us to take some kind of action to protect ourselves. Anger is the emotion that backs up fear when being on defense is not enough. Roger Abrantes tells a compelling story of when he was about to be in hand-to-hand combat as a young soldier. As he stood in a trench, watching the enemy soldiers run toward him with bayonets drawn, he was initially terrified. But at the last minute, just as the soldiers were within a few feet of him, he was overwhelmed with a burst of rage. That’s the emotion that poured energy into his body and allowed him to move forward to fight for his life.

That’s what anger does: it floods the body with energy, increases the heart rate, pumps blood into our muscles in preparation for action. Anger demands action; that’s why it can be so problematic. Have you ever done something you wish you hadn’t when you were angry?  If not, please consider either offering life coaching sessions for the rest of us, or ask your parents if you actually are an alien. Anger, at varying intensities, compels us to do SOMETHING, anything, and thus… we sometimes do something we shouldn’t and get ourselves in hot water until we learn to take a breath and let our emotions settle. The same thing can happen to dogs. If you’re interested in following this thread, I write more about the biology of emotion in For the Love of a Dog.

Dogs have all the same wiring (and external expressions) related to anger as people. They just, as I said, don’t seem to experience it as often as we easily-angered primates do. (Ever seen chimps lose their tempers? It’s common, and it’s not pretty.) Of course, like all emotions, dogs exhibit a vast range of intensities of experiencing anger, from being slightly irritated, to being truly frustrated, to downright mad to being in an out-of-control rage. All of those are manifestations of anger, just at different levels, and all are within a dog’s capability.  Of course, dogs don’t have the same complexity of cognitive overlays as we do; their experience of anger has got to be different in many ways than ours. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t share the basic, fundamental emotion of anger. As I’ve said before, glass half empty or glass half full, both are equally accurate.

Here’s a photo of a dog illustrating what I claim is an angry emotion. Note the furrowed brow, the offensive pucker and the hard stare. Any one of those things by themselves would not be enough to suggest an internal emotion of anger, but without the fur and black nose, this is exactly the face of an angry person.

ANGER MANAGEMENT? Here’s something else we share: a need to learn how to handle being frustrated or angry. Many of the behavioral problems I’ve seen in my practice relate to either dogs who have never learned how to handle being frustrated and lose their tempers when they don’t get what they want, or owners who, uh, have the same problem.

Dogs need to be taught to be patient and polite (the basis of the Feeling Outnumbered program), and we need to learn to take a breath, or two or twenty, before expressing anger or frustration at our dogs. I needed this advice just recently: until recently Willie had stopped harassing Sushi with his obsessive indoor herding, but after his long, long period of inactivity and Sushi now being inside more because of the weather, the problem cropped up again. I found myself starting to get truly frustrated about it, until I put on my behaviorist/trainer hat, took a breath and put Willie in his crate when I found myself unable to do anything constructive. (Things are improving again, whew.)

I’d love to hear your thoughts: How do you interpret the dog above? What are your best coping strategies for dealing with your own frustrations, and helping your dog through his or hers? Never happens at your house? Ever? Really? Wow. Can I come over?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm. Well, two steps forward physically, and four back behaviorally. Willie’s shoulder is doing well, really well.  As I said earlier, I’ve adjusted to a new normal, and have accepted that his shoulder will never be sound, but given that, he’s doing really well. He can play with his current favorite toy (Flappy) without any sign of regression, so that’s just heaven for both of us. However, last week he literally peed his pants (okay, he didn’t have any on, but you get the idea), barking in terror at a man he didn’t expect, standing in the kitchen. Granted the guy is tall, has hair like Einstein and was standing stock, staring, but still… Willie has never, ever reacted to a person like that. He became somewhat nervous around unfamiliar men when he was an adolescent, but it was easily countered by having guys throw ball for him every time we could arrange it. Willie has always adored people, guys especially, but as you may know, has had a lot of fears over the years, but primarily toward other dogs. A few days later another man came over. I asked him to sit down before I let Willie out. Willie didn’t bark as he did before, but he was clearly frightened of the man (who he’s seen at least 15 times over the years and always been fine with.)

I’ll write next time about the factors that could be contributing to his behavior (our hermit-like existence after his injury clearly being one of them, but I doubt that it’s the only one). There are at least 4, maybe 5 I can think of… I’ll discuss them, and our treatment program, in the next post.

Here are the noses of Barbie (on the left) and Butterscotch, one of the ewe lambs we’ve kept from this year’s breeding. It looks as though she did get bred by King Charles, so stay tuned to see if we have a teen0-aged pregnancy (that’s a good thing in sheep). The sheep must be loving the cool but not cold weather; who knows though, maybe they are yearning for snow?

No, seriously. And so do you. No kidding. I’m so interested this, a relatively new discovery about what’s called the Enteric Nervous System, that I wanted to write about it today. I’ll get back to emotions in dogs soon, but I’m in the Oh Wow phase of this information, and wanted to share it. (Granted, this is not new information to the researchers who have been studying what’s called the ENS for decades, but the information does seem to be leaking out slowly. No pun on ‘leaky gut syndrome’ intended…)

Here’s the deal, and here’s how it relates to our dogs and their behavior. It turns out that there is a vast network of neurons–that’s right–neurons–in your intestines. 100 million of them. Of course, your brain has 100 BILLION, but still, that’s impressive.  Neurons were supposed to be nerve cells that only existed in the Central Nervous System (CNS), the brain and the spinal cord. But it turns out that there is a network of neurons in the gut designed to integrate the outside world with the inside of a mammal. As you remember from Biology 101, every mammal is designed like a doughnut, with surfaces both external and internal that are in contact with the “outside” world. Your skin and respiratory passages interact with the external world on the outside of your body, and the inside tissues of your stomach and intestines interact with things from the external world on the inside of your body.

It appears that the ENS is actually the origin of coordinated nervous activity. It links directly to the emotional aspects of your CNS, and is believed to actually be the precursor of it. Thus, your gut and your emotions are indeed linked directly together, as a way of helping the body make decisions about its behavior. All this relates to our lives and the lives of our dogs in two ways. First, “comfort food” really is comforting. Your ENS communicates directly with the emotional centers in your brain, and certain types of food really do make people feel less stressed and more calm. Studies show that high fat, energy rich foods reduce stress in lab mice, and that people feel soothed by mac and cheese even if they don’t know what they are eating and it is placed into their stomach via stomach tube. Bottom line: What mammals eat directly effects their emotions. Thus, perhaps some of us are not so crazy to feed our problem dogs selectively?

Here’s the big question related to this that I have for blog readers, which relates to the large number of dogs I’ve worked with who had both gut and emotional problems. How many of you have seen dogs who have digestion problems who also have behavior problems related to emotional control (especially fear). Willie is the perfect example: He came as a young pup with projectile diarrhea, a pathological fear of other dogs and a dysfunctionally high level of  sound sensitivity. I can’t tell you how many dogs I’ve seen as clients who had both problems, and whose treatment ended up effecting both systems.

One of the treatments for Willie was to put him on probiotics, and the article that got me thinking about this topic (Psychology Today Dec 2011) relates research that has found that probiotics reduce anxiety in some types of lab mice.  They do specify however, that it might be specific types of lactobacillus that were effective, so we don’t know yet that generic probiotics are always useful. I can say that I suspect they helped Willie, not just with his gut but with his fears, but that’s just speculation.

What about you? Have you seen a link between dogs with emotional problems and dogs with intestinal challenges? Do you have a dog that fits that description? If so, what have you done? For Willie, I used probiotics and switched him to what are considered to be cooling foods in Chinese Medicine. Of course, one obvious problem for some dogs are food allergies, which also have to be considered (but did not seem to be the case with Willie.) I’d love to hear your feedback on all this. I’d write more myself, but I have to go eat some mac and cheese.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Cold but sunny, such a joy! No snow, which is unusual but not rare. In 2008 we had 16+ inches by now, in another year just a few. But no white winter for us so far, and going to be cold cold cold Friday night (high of 6). I wish we had snow to protect the plants, but that’s just the way it goes. In the interim, I’m loving the sun.

Good news with Willie boy: After a set back last weekend (limping pretty badly after he got up), I decided to drop all his exercises as an experiment to see how he’d do. He’s doing great! I think I’ve figured out which exercises cause him pain and will talk about it today with Courtney at UW Phys Therapy. Even with no limp, he doesn’t use his left leg normally, he hikes up his shoulder too high, but that mechanical issue doesn’t seem to cause him any pain as best I can tell. So this morning he got to play free with his old, beat up plastic disc. I don’t throw anything for him, may never again, but still, he was sooooo happy. Me too!

Tootsie is doing great on her recalls. I’d say 90%, which I think is great for a Cav after less than 3 months. After a number of mouth-open, shiny-eyed recalls this morning, I ran back into the house for the camera to take a picture of her with her ears flying as she runs to me. I got the ears flapping, but such a serious look on her face!.

Well, it seems appropriate now to talk about disgust after a weekend of gluttony. (But what fun cooking paprika chicken and pot roast and roasted brussels sprouts and home made bread and pumpkin and cherry/raspberry/rhubarb pie. Not to mention eating all the turkey that others cooked and I ate up as if I was starving.)

It’s been interesting reading about whether dogs people believe that dogs can experience disgust. Recall that 66.2 % of seminar participants said yes, and 78.3% of blog readers who responded said yes (this may have changed as later responses came in, but not significantly). (The Morris research listed only 34% of people responding yes, but a blog reader commented wisely that the question wasn’t “Can your dog…” but “Have you observed your dog experiencing disgust.”)

But here’s the deal. Disgust is perhaps the most basic of all emotions. Disgust, or “an aversion to something offensive,” is seen in all mammals, most often in response to a smell or taste that is aversive for some reason. Our expressions of disgust are similar across species, as Darwin noted in The Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Here’s is a more current illustration of that from Youtube:

Disgust is registered primarily in the Anterior Insula of the brain, an area that is active both when one feels disgusted and when one views a disgusted expression on the face of another. Because of its close association with the sense of smell, disgust has been postulated to be the “first emotion,” designed to prevent the ingestion of dangerous substances. However, I was surprised to find very little about disgust in Panskepp’s classic book on emotions in animals, Affective Neuroscience. In spite of that, I know of no biologist who argues that other mammals don’t experience disgust on a basic level.

Of course, what is perceived as disgusting is both species specific (the stink of fox poop not being a human favorite) and culturally transmitted. Not surprisingly, this  is especially true of food: for example, some cultures find big, fat juicy insects and their larvae highly palatable and others, not so much. There’s an interesting article in Time Online about the research of Andrea Morales and Gavan Fitzsimons who found that just being next to something perceived as disgusting made an item less attractive (ie, don’t try to sell cookies next to Kitty Litter at the supermarket.)

That brings to mind a seminar I did in Canada in which the host hotel thought it would be a hoot to serve the chocolate pudding desert in the shape of dog feces. Seriously. It looked exactly like poop sitting on a white plate. They were actually surprised that no one ate it, but not as surprised as we were that they did it in the first place. We all laughed, and then looked at each other with somewhat stunned expressions on our faces, and pushed the plate away.

It also reminds me of John Rogerson’s technique of inhibiting dog-dog aggression by throwing a bag of dog feces into the face of the offending dog. I’ve never done it, but I’ll bet it would absolutely get a dog’s attention. Of course, some dogs eat feces, but I doubt they’d enjoy poop-in-the-face. Personally I’d rather not use it as a training technique (pretty negative for the person too), but I have thought it would be a great last ditch tool if you were walking down the street with a bag of poop in your hand and a dog charging at your reactive dog.

This all gets me thinking about the use of ‘disgust’ in behavior modification. You all know I’m a positive trainer, but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t suggest someone use something aversive to prevent some behavior problems if the solution is humane. I’m thinking about Bitter Apple for example: I just sprayed a plant with it to prevent Tootsie from chewing on the leaves.  But what about an aversive scent versus taste? Any use for that? I’ve seen commercial products that are supposed to keep dogs out of plants, etc, but frankly I’ve never seen them work very well. You?

Here’s another great example of the expression of disgust, by the way, sent in by a reader from Europe of her Pap at a show after being forced to be in cold, wet grass and then touched by a judge with cold, wet hands. Thank you Ute for sending these photos, they are great!

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Willie’s shoulder is as good as it’s been since the injury last February. He is allowed to run around outside for brief periods with no hobbles and longer ones with the hobbles. Great news is that my adrenals are now getting used to seeing him running around, so I don’t suffer from cortisol toxicity every time I see him run anymore! He is not a fan of the treadmill now, he came out of it yesterday and sniffed the floor of the room for a full three minutes before acknowledging me or Courtney. But it’s helping him, so I sympathized, gave him lots of cuddles when he did come over and then told him to suck it up.

Tootsie continues to make tremendous strides. I am so proud of her. Her recall is coming along beautifully, and I can now take her up into the pasture and keep her from hysterically and desperately eating as much sheep poop as it is possible to cram into her mouth. She gets lots of more appropriate treats and is actually spend time sniffing around the grass, apparently interested in something besides gobbling up sheep poop as if she was starving to death. And for one brief magical moment, Willie and Tootsie actually sniffed each other at the same time a few days ago. Will wonders never cease?