THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

Those are the words of Dogen Zenji, a Zen master, quoted in one of my favorite books, Zen Miracles by Brenda Shoshanna. I repeat them here, because I think they have the power to ease life’s journey for all of us. The message is simple, but profound. Of course you, and everyone around you are going to make mistakes. It is inevitable, because, as the saying reminds us, “Life IS one continuous mistake.” Once we accept that, it is much easier to be loving and compassionate, both to ourselves and to others.

When I first became interested in dog training, in the mid-80’s, I was shocked at how hard people were on their dogs. “Disobedience” by dogs was considered to be a direct challenge to a dog’s owner. Any time a dog responded inappropriately it was attributed to the dog being stubborn, or challenging the owner’s dominance, or worse, “having a mind of his own”. (I admit to being unable to repress a smile when I write that last one. Whose mind was the dog supposed to have?) Dogs who didn’t sit fast enough were at best given a quick, mild collar correction, and at worst yelled at or picked up and shaken. Dogs were not allowed to make “mistakes” and if they did, they were punished for it.

Thanks to the efforts of many wonderful people, from Ian Dunbar to Karen Pryor to William Campbell, much of dog training has become less like boot camp for marines, and more like a good elementary school for kids. And yet, as we became kinder to dogs, it seems to me that some of the anger, frustration and negative attributions have been re-directed toward our own species. I read about “they” all the time, the people who don’t treat dogs as they should, who dump them at shelters, who use abusive training methods or who make bad decisions that cause harm to some individual of some species, sometime, somewhere. So many mistakes. Bad people, bad people.

Part of why I wrote The Other End of the Leash is because I like people, and I wanted to help others understand more of “why we do what we do around dogs.” (That’s the subtitle, fyi.). My hope was that increasing our understanding of the behavioral predispositions of both species would make life better for us all, humans and dogs.

And so I bring this around to the topic of the hour on this blog, the issue of re-homing dogs in general, and of placing Hope in another home specifically. Every day I make a mental list of what I am thankful for, and one thing I am thankful for is the thoughtful conversation that this chapter in my life has stimulated. I am thankful for the compassionate words of support, and I am thankful for the criticism, because it forces us to carefully consider our beliefs and our decisions. I knew when I made the decision to place Hope that it would disappoint some people and anger others. I am especially thankful, and impressed, by some of the most insightful comments: that perhaps placing a dog in another home brings up deep-seated, personal issues of belonging and a fear of rejection and of failure—no wonder this is a hot button topic, yes?

I understand that it would have been more satisfying to many if I had kept Hope and worked through all of his and Willie’s issues. It would have been to me as well. I understand that some readers believe that I made mistakes along the way. One interesting aspect of “Life as a Continuous Mistake” is that for any given situation, each person evaluates a stream of decisions differently. A mistake to one person is not to another.

Look at all the choice points involved in my decisions related to Hope:

- Deciding to get a puppy 4 years ago when I had 3 very old dogs because a litter related to my soul mate dog, Luke, became available

- Choosing Willie from the litter

- Keeping Willie after it became clear that he had a myriad of serious problems

- Deciding to get another dog after Lassie died because Willie loves to play with other dogs and I’d like more than one myself.

- Deciding to buy a puppy from a breeder rather than getting a dog from rescue

- Choosing the puppy Mick out of the litter

- Deciding to take Mick back to the breeder after some red flags appeared

- Returning home with the puppy Hope because Willie seemed to adore him

- Deciding to work with Hope after it became clear he was not the puppy that both Willie and I thought he was

- Deciding to let Hope go to another home

- Choosing to write about it in public

I wrote out that list to point out that everyone has their own opinion about what decision or choice might have been a mistake. Some of my colleagues, years ago, counseled me to get rid of Willie, and with benevolence and care for my well being, told me I’d be sorry for a very long time if I didn’t. Many of them think I am raving mad for writing about my own dogs in public. Others think getting a puppy was a mistake, or not getting a dog from rescue, or choosing the pup I did, or taking him back, or not taking him back sooner, or, or …

Here’s the reason that I bring this up. If I could live this summer over again, I might have made some different decisions. I might not have, it’s too soon to say. The one decision in particular that I would revisit was when I had returned Mick to the breeder and was agonizing over whether to choose another from the litter, or drive home without a puppy at all . While I was struggling with the decision, admittedly both physically and emotionally exhausted, Willie met Hope and instantly adored him. Willie took one sniff, and circle-wagged, and then play bowed and the two of them frolicked on the grass like Willie and Lassie used to do. As I stood watching them, it was windy and wet, and brutally cold, and I had to decide right away what to do or lose the chance to take a pup. Willie’s reaction to Hope (very different from his reaction to all the other puppies) had a profound effect on me. I picked up Hope, and he flattened his ears and kissed my face and Willie circle-wagged again and that was that.

A mistake? Could have been. I’m not sure yet.  Was it a mistake to place Hope into a better home than mine could ever be? Nope. Absolutely not. At least, not in my opinion. But perhaps in yours.  And that’s okay, because, after all, Life is One Continuous Mistake. I will always make them, whether we agree on what exactly the mistakes are or not. If someone needs perfection from me, they are benevolently advised to go elsewhere.  I cannot carry that burden for you, and I cannot try to carry it for myself.

And that brings us full circle to the most important point of all. Benevolence. Most people do the best they can. Yes people do things that disappoint us. Yes others will do things that we consider to be mistakes. Yes some people do horrible things to dogs, not to mention to other people. But the more we can feel compassion for other people, as much as we do for our dogs, the better off we will all be. Over the decades that I have been in the dog world, I have seen so much anger about the behavior of others, and so much guilt from wonderful people about decisions they have made with the best of intentions. If only we could gather up all that negative energy we could power the world on it. But in my humble opinion, it’s not what the world needs right now, and it’s not what each individual within it needs. Listen up here: It is not the behavior of others that is hardest to forgive, and if we focus on that we are fooling ourselves. It is our own imperfections that are hardest to forgive. What a challenge it is to feel love and compassion and forgiveness for ourselves, and for all of the mistakes we each make. And yet, we are the only judge of own behavior that really matters. Life is One Continuous Mistake. If we do our best, with the best of intentions, and try to learn from our inevitable mistakes, then all we can do beyond that is to sit back and enjoy the ride.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm. It is cool and gorgeous and the horrid, hot, humid weather is behind us, at least for now. The country is a canvas of yellows: bright yellow gold finches are everywhere, butter- colored sunflowers line the country roads, and streams of goldenrod wave in the fields.

Willie and I got two glorious lessons with the best herding dog handler in the country (Alisdair McRae) yesterday, and had as much fun as it is possible to have. For those of you in Wisconsin, there is a great herding dog trial going on right now,  Friday through Labor Day, outside of Portage Wisconsin. You can learn more about it by going to WWSDA.

I wanted to get some pictures of Willie and I working with Alisdair, but I got lost in training rapture, and forgot that I had the camera in my pocket. But here’s are some scenes on the way home… no wonder the colors of the state’s football team are green and gold.

I wish the world could have seen Ken’s seminar on Sunday in Worcester MA, it was fantastic. For those of you who don’t know his name, he is the Training Director and Senior Trainer at the Shedd Acquarim, has trained exotic animals for over 30 years, and could train just about anyone to do anything. I left inspired and crazed to train something, anything, and had to stop myself from trying to teach the flight attendant to scratch her head on cue.

When I got home, close to midnight, I sat down with Hope and taught him to flip his hips sideways while lying down to “Settle” before I even walked upstairs. Took five minutes. Scary easy, and extra fun because of being inspired by Ken.

However, in order to get home Sunday night, I had to miss the last hour of Ken’s videos. I heard they were great… anyone care to tell us what I missed?

Here’s what I didn’t miss: some excellent points about what are often called “Secondary Reinforcers.” [Note to training geeks: there are some details about terminology that Ken went into that I found fascinating, but it would take a couple of posts to explain them, and you're better off going to see Ken in person if you are interested in terminology.] But here is a summary of points that I think are  relevant to all of us:

First, many of you know that “Primary Reinforcers” are things that are inherently reinforcing (that automatically cause an animal to increase the frequency of a behavior). Strictly speaking, they are things that an animal needs to survive: food, water, etc. When you give your dog a treat for sitting on cue, you are using a primary reinforcer.

Secondary reinforcers are things that are learned by an animal to be associated with Primary Reinforcers, and thus eventually elicit a similar response through classical conditioning. For example, if you repeat “Good Dog” and follow up it with a treat enough times, eventually your dog will work to hear you say it. But here’s what I learned from Ken:

It is critical to continue to link a secondary with a primary  part of the time, no matter how long you’ve been using it. In his experience with his animals (who have to perform perfectly in shows and when being treated medically), even if the animal inherently enjoys the secondary reinforcement, it has to be maintained with a primary if you want a totally reliable behavior. That’s true even if the animal loves the secondary reinforcement. For example, at the Shedd, Beluga Whales love having their tongues rubbed, it clearly feels good to them and they seek it out. However, Ken considers it still a secondary reinforcement, and is very careful not to over use it.

He advises that you condition ALL secondary behaviors as if they were a behavior. In other words, rub tongue, give treat. Rub dog’s belly, give treat. Even if your dog likes it inherently, initially reinforce it with food if your dog likes food. That makes it much more powerful in the long run.

Once your dog is clearly thrilled with what you are doing, then begin to use it as reinforcement by asking for a simple behavior, then use your 2ndary R, and follow with the primary R. After that, for a long time, use the 2ndary by itself only twice in a session, and never in a row. Gradually increase the use of the 2ndary, but be very careful not to overuse it. (By the way, he is NOT talking about a click for those of you who are clicker trainers. He considers that a marker, not a reinforcer.) Clearly there is a lot to talk about here, but this is enough for now to get us all thinking about the issue.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm, I had a chance to think especially  hard about all this the day after the seminar. I loaded up the dogs, the plastic bags, the treats, the water, the camera and the leashes and drove over to a wonderful place to walk the dogs. Hope has been there off leash 5 times before, but I am very careful because in the beginning it is close to a road. In the past he’s gotten lots and lots of food treats for coming when called, and for checking in with me on his own.

When we arrived I looked for my bait bag and discovered I’d left it on the counter in the house. Whoops, no food. No primary reinforcer for a young pup who was going to be off leash for 45 minutes. I pondered keeping him on leash the entire time (I always start with him on leash) and thus him getting less exercise, but decided to forge ahead because 1) the path has a natural boundary of high grasses 2) Hope tends to follow Will, who always stays on the path 3) Hope has had 5 lessons there and had done very well and 4) I DID have a primary reinforcer: water. It was hot, and I knew the dogs would be thirsty after not very long. So I decided to risk it, but here’s what I did:

1. Unlike our other trips, during which I called him back to me often for training purposes, I decided to call him back only when absolutely necessary. I knew he wouldn’t always be thirsty, and wanted to have the water retain its power. I ended up calling him to come five times in 45 minutes. Every time he came he got water, but I didn’t let him drink his fill. The last time he drank one quick lap and moved away, so I immediately leashed him up. We were close to the end anyway, and at a place I have always put him back on leash, because it gets close to the road.

2. I used Willie to move Hope around in space, calling Willie (by name “Willie Willie!). This helped a lot and meant I only had to call Hope 5 times total. I also used clapping to get the dogs to come. Clapping is not trained as a recall, but is used to motivate the dogs to speed up, sometimes when they are playing with each other, sometimes when running to me. I could use it without polluting my “Hope, That’ll Do!” cue.

3. I managed to keep my hands to myself and never pet Hope when he came back, because he behaves as though he hates it when he is active. He only likes petting when he is sleepy and tired. Petting would have been punishment. Most relevant to Ken’s talk, I didn’t fool myself that “Good Dog” or any other 2ndary R was going to be effective, at least not for long. And I didn’t want to take away its power, so I said “Good Dog” only twice before he started to drink, and kept my mouth shut the rest of the time. Please send chocolate, this is not easy for me.

4. I was ready at any second to bail and put him on leash if I saw the slightest sign that he was going to get himself into trouble. Most of the walk was a long, long away from the road, and there were plenty of scents and sounds to keep him occupied. If he had put his head up and started air sniffing, or completely ignored any signals from me, I would have leashed him up in a microsecond.

Here he is, coming when called, Goooooooooooood Boy!

And here I am Saturday night in Masssachusetts, after a lovely dinner with our host Dana Crevling from Dogs of Course!, another trainer Carolyn whose last name I have rudely forgotten, Ken Ramirez and Karen Pryor (how great that she was there too for the entire weekend!). We ate at a restaurant with a giant crab balloon on its roof. Seriously. And I only had one Corona for dinner,  honest.

I’m working on a column for Bark magazine about positive reinforcement. It’s such a simple concept once you get it, but it’s a bit like riding a bicycle . . . it takes awhile to be able to do it comfortably and effectively. In the column, I want to stress that it is the receiver who defines what is “positive reinforcement,” not the giver. I find that to be one of the biggest mistakes that we humans make: doing things we think our dogs like, that they actually define as aversive (and therefore act as positive punishment, exactly the reverse of reinforcement!).

The most common example of this mis-communication is when people praise and pet their dogs either in ways the dog does not enjoy (especially patting on top of the head) or at a time that the dog doesn’t want to be petted  (while playing with other dogs for example).

One of my goals for the column is to broaden people’s definitions of “positive reinforcement,” and I’m going to provide some examples of things we humans might not think of off the top of our head. Here are my two favorite examples. One is from Karen London, Ph.D.. CAAB, (who writes a great blog for Bark by the way). She was out in the country with her newly acquired lab cross when they flushed a deer. She called Bugsy to come just before he sprang off in pursuit, and to her joy and amazement he turned and ran back to her. Alas, she had mistakenly left her treats in a different jacket and had no treats with which to reward him. She couldn’t even take off running to let him chase her because she was in cross country skis in cross country ski tracks, facing the wrong way. But, ever the quick thinker, Karen reached into her pocket and took out a used tissue and gave it to Bugsy when he arrived. Voila! Her dog was thrilled at this acquisition, and Karen’s creative thinking laid a foundation for a solid recall for years to come.

My second favorite story, (continuing along the lines of “yucky things that dogs love”), was at my farm when I had an Advanced Outdoor Training Class. One of the students had a hunting dog who had no interest in anything but sniffing out wild birds and eating sheep poop. Now, if you’re not familiar with sheep, sheep poop comes in piles of small, dry pellets that producers call “berries.” And it’s just grass, after all, albeit a bit recycled. But that explains why I suggested my student just pick up a handful of sheep berries, put them in her pocket and use them as reinforcements. There were no parasites in them that could harm a dog, and although one wouldn’t want to give too much to a dog at one time, they were the perfect reinforcement for this dog at that particular time. Jokes  have been made that if times get tough I could package the stuff and sell it . . . but as effective as it was (it IS what the dog wanted, after all!), I don’t think I’ll find a market for it.

Here’s my question for you: Do you have an example of a creative reinforcement? Something your dog loved that is beyond the usual dog treat-exuberant praise-click & treat menu that we all know and love? I’ll bet many of you do, and I sure would love to hear it. If you send it in, I might use it in the column, so no secrets!

Meanwhile, back on the farm: Rain rain rain. Sure is green here, looks like Ireland. Life in general has been a tad challenging, what with a young puppy and Jim’s arm in a brace and my injured knee (but good news — no surgery.. yeah!  It’s supposed to be as good as new in two months, phew.). Hope and Will played much of the day  yesterday, so good to see. Will gets tired though, and so today he seemed like he needed a rest. I am quick to let him go upstairs when he looks like he needs a break. I sympathize!

Hope shows no signs of wanting to stalk Sushi, but boy does he want to play with her! What an irresistible play bow.

Unless, of course, you are a cat:

But here’s a highlight: we’ve been working on coming away from the cat when called, and bless his furry little heart, Hope came off right away when I said “That’ll do.” Good boy. Of course, we’re working on not bothering the cat in the first place, but hey, it’s only been 3 weeks. In the photo below I’ve just called him, he is just turning away and is starting to come toward me. Jackpot . . . that was worth 10 treats in a row from the treat bag. (and do you love the look on Sushi’s face?)

I promised a post on “how much training/attention” should we be giving our dogs, and it’ll come, I promise. However, I’m a tad under the weather today, and since I wrote this part up yesterday I’ll post it now, and pick up the training topic soon. Fact is, things are pretty crazy here right now. Besides speeches (thanks SAVMA for having me!), finishing grading 150 7-page exams, new lectures, and the usual daily work load, I agreed to be a grant reviewer for NIH (Nat’l Institute of Health). They are due this Friday, then I fly to DC for panel reviews (and an appearance on Diane’s Rehm’s radio show… I just love her, so that’s a great perk.) If I’d known how much work these reviews would be, well… not so sure I’d have said yes. But it’s interesting, very interesting. But more on the training schedule issue soon, because I think it’s something that’s important to many of us.

Meanwhile, back on the farm: Shearing went off without a hitch Saturday morning; what a treat to see the sheep’s bodies without their coats of wool or hair. Turns out they weren’t as chubby as I thought, and given that they are due as early as two weeks from now, they’ll be getting more food for breakfast and dinner. High time, I’m sure they’d say. They are on extremely nutritious hay, glorious stuff rich with lots of alfalfa leaves, but the more the better from their perspective I’m sure. The day of shearing was cloudy, windy and damp, so I kept them inside the barn. Today it’s breezy but sunny and toasty (50’s!), and I’d bet that they are thrilled to be outside, in the sun and gnawing on tiny new shoots of grass. (New shoots! Bulbs poking green leaves above ground! Be still my heart; I’m almost afraid to believe that spring is really coming… of course, there will be lots more cold days, probably lots more snow, but still, the progression is inevitable and oh so welcome.)

I couldn’t resist experimenting with an old farmer’s trick passed on through a comment on the blog (thanks!) about anointing the sheep with Mennen’s After Shave before turning them loose after shearing as way of decreasing aggression. Given that last year Truffles and Dorothy looked like they were auditioning for a segment on “When Animals Attack” (see photos March 16^th, 2009) , I thought I’d try it. I didn’t have any Mennen’s, but hey, I did have Evelyn & Crabtree Body Mist (Nantucket Briar, ummm, just love the smell), and I figured that any strong scent would do. So immediately after they were shorn I backed them into a corner and sprayed them all. At first they scattered from left to right, but after a few sprays they stood still and let me spray them all over their heads and necks. Did they like it? I swear I think they did. Sheep are very quick to run away from anything they don’t like, and either they were going into tonic immobility (which is highly doubtful), or they honestly liked the smell. And, amazingly, I saw almost no aggression between them. There was a brief moment of head-on-head pushing, but that was it.

The shearer wasn’t surprised; he is convinced that it’s not a visual difference that causes the problem, but that the sheep smell different after they are shorn. Once you take off their wool, which is full of lanolin and a unique slurry of individual scents, they smell very different than they did before. (Sort of like cats when they come back from the vet clinic?) Our experiment certainly supported that hypothesis. (And oh wow did the barn smell good.). Thanks for the tip!

Here’s Redford in “ready to shear” position. Sheep in this position look relaxed, but this probably IS case of tonic immobility… their cortisol readings are elevated when they are in this position, but they do get quiet and passive, which makes shearing much more pleasant for everyone. (The legs belong to Jerry Ace, who is the best shearer I’ve ever had; he is calm and gentle, even when the sheep are not, and there wasn’t one nick or scratch on my sheep. So lucky to have him.)

The next photo is of Dorothy, my oldest ewe, with her beautiful fleece almost off. The brown wool in the middle is the top of her fleece (which gets bleached by the sun), the darker wool on the sides is the inside, skin-side, of her fleece. She and Barbie have gorgeous wool, which will go to hand spinners for cleaning, spinning and knitting.

And here’s most of the flock after shearer was completed. That’s Brittany Spears looking at you (the white one with dark legs), who is indeed a bit of a pudge. She’s the one who crawls into the feeder to get more food–a woman after my own heart.

Well, Tender at the Bone is admittedly the title of a book about food (if you love food and good writing as much as I do, this is a fantastic book by food critic Ruth Reichl), but I borrowed the phrase to continue our discussion about dental health and chewing on bones. If you haven’t followed it yet, read the comments from my A Fully Functional Tooth? post, they add lots of meat to the conversation (sorry).

A few readers asked for more photos from Africa, so I thought I’d combine topics and send some more pictures of our time with the pack of African Wild Dogs.

Relevant to dental health, here’s a photo of the mouth of “Jones,” the 4 year old breeding male who was darted and radio collared when we were there watching. What I think is interesting is how good some teeth look (keeping in mind the comment made earlier reminding us that white, clean teeth are not necessarily healthy teeth) and how bad the 2 problem teeth are. The bright red area on the lower gum, by the way, was probably caused by either the act of predation that morning or from ingesting part of the kill, and was only temporary.

But, look at the lower canine and upper incisor. Ouch. I’ll have to ask Dr. McNutt how common it is to see a set of teeth like that, but I’d guess it’s not uncommon at all. There is a high rate of injury (and death) in African Wild Dogs, either from lions or from injuries received while taking down prey. What happened to these particular teeth? Who knows… could be from chewing on bones, or from strikes by horns of ungulates?

In case the photo above is a little bit more intimate than you want to get with a AWD, here’s a portrait showing off their huge, gorgeous, cartoon animal ears.

And here’s a photo of the pups just seconds after an adult had walked in and regurgitated for them. It all happened behind the bush, and was over, from start to finish, in about 4-5 seconds, but you can see one of the pups licking his lips, apparently having been one of the lucky ones and getting his share of the food.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: Will is back to chewing on his stuffed Kong in the morning, and I haven’t gone out to find just the right real bone to give to him and Lassie. Admittedly, although I have decided to let them eat carefully selected bones for a short time, I haven’t yet gone looking for them.

It was sweltering hot and humid last night (okay, all is relative: hot for here at this time of year). Mostly it was humid without a breath of fresh air. It’s a bit better today, and tomorrow it will be better still. Can’t wait for the nights to get cool again so I can snuggle under a blanket with Lassie on one side and Willie on the other!

Here’s support for those of us who feed veggies to our dogs from a study in JAVMA (Vol 227, No. 1, July 1, 2006). My great Chinese medicine DVM vet, Dr. Jody Bearman, looked it up for me after we talked about diet and health the last time she came out to treat Will and Lassie. In brief, the study looked at the prevalence of a certain type of cancer in, admittedly, just one breed of dog–Scottish Terriers, and found that the consumption of green leafy, and yellow-orange vegetables at least 3 times a week correlated with lower rates of urinary bladder carcinomas. Now… this is just a correlation, not proof of causation. Additionally, it’s one type of cancer, in one breed of dog. However, given the overwhelming evidence in human health and nutrition that colorful vegetables are rich in phytochemicals believed to have anticarcinogenic properties, it is an interesting study that deserves attention.

By the way, “green, leafy vegetables” included spinach, greens, and leaf lettuce but not the cruciferous veggies like broccoli and cauliflower. The latter did NOT show a significant correlation between high rates of consumption and low rates of cancer, but the authors pointed out that they were fed rarely and the sample size was extremely low. In humans, crucifers are believed to be chock full of bioactive compounds that promote health, so I’m not going to take them out of my dog’s diet (right now their veggies mix is broccoli, spinach and carrots, but that’s this week… who knows what I’ll cook up next week!)

Meanwhile, back on the farm, the Chipping Sparrows fledged this morning (finally! say Susi and I both), the Wrens appear to be feeding their babies in the shrubs under the vent and the poor Barn Swallows keep flying into the garage in the evening and being shut out during the day. In the evenings I’m painting the car port that Jim built on the side of the garage to protect the farm truck while listening to the throaty buzz of bumblebees, the semi’s of the bee world,  and the plaintive call of the Pewee PEEEE AH WEEE as I paint away.

Here’s Willie from last night, moving Martha, Lady Godiva and lambs off the feeder so I can pour in their grain. (Martha is doing beautifully by the way, but now her daughter in the other flock sounds sick.  Just call them my own economic stimulus package to the veterinary profession.) Notice the intent look on Will’s face as the lambs turn and stare.

The ewes above look like they were paying no attention to Will, but they have actually just turned their heads away from Will (and the food behind him) and in a moment did this:

So many of you have asked what I feed my dogs that I feel compelled to answer. I sympathize, truly, nutrition is such a complicated and sometimes contentious issue. I’ll honor your requests if you’ll honor mine: Read the following carefully before getting to the menu!

1. I am not an expert on canine nutrition,  not by a long shot. I know lots of people, professional and committed dog lovers, who know much more about the topic than I do.

2. I don’t believe that my dogs get the perfect diet. I do the best I can, and I know that my dogs do better than most, but there’s no question that the way I feed them isn’t perfect.

3.What I feed my dogs changes, depending on the dog, the week, how busy I am and what article I read the night before.

4. I think diet is important, but so are genetics. My first Border Collie, Drift, lived 15.5 yrs on plain old supermarket Purina. Dry kibble, no additions, no supplements.  Lassie is the same age, and you’ll see that things have changed. I like to credit her longevity in part to her diet and how I take care of her… but how do I know what effect it’s having?

That said, here’s what I believe (then I tell you what Lassie and Willie ate last night.):

Variety is good. Dogs are omnivores, and they are predisposed to eat a variety of foods. Coppinger’s hypothesis that dogs derived from bold wolves who found a new ecological niche in human settlements (garbage and poop) seems to be the best guess that we have of how this whole amazing relationship started. Wolves specialize in large ungulates, but they’ll also eat anything they can if they are hungry. Dogs, specialize in, well… food. “Picky about food” does not describe their behavior or their digestive systems. (I know, there are exceptions, but they prove the rule because it’s news when a dog won’t eat chicken, right?)

I was profoundly affected when someone (Billinghurst? Don’t remember) asked “What would you think of a parent who fed their child the same food, day after day, even if it was “nutritionally complete?” Yikes! How would you feel if a friend of yours fed her children the same kind of cereal for every meal, every day? How could that possibly support health? I was talking to my vet about diet and asked him the same question. He now feeds his dog half commercial dog food and half table scrapes!

I know that allergies are often caused by repeated exposure to the same thing, and wonder how many food allergies are the result of eating the same food every day, year after year. I also always wondered when we were/are advised to change a dog’s food very gradually. In general, that just makes no sense, if you think about it. How could a healthy dog not be able to tolerate eating chicken one night and beef the next? You can, why shouldn’t your dog? Well… if they’ve only eaten one food and only that food for years, then it makes sense, but that hardly sounds healthy. (Of course, we should go slowly if making a radical change or we have a dog with a sensitive stomach, but those are special cases.)

Non-processed is good. Fact? Heck if I know. I subscribe to the Micheal Pollan approach: . “Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants.” (see In Defense of Food, great book) The “mostly plants” is for humans, but the “eat food” means REAL food, not food that has been so processed and converted and changed that it is barely recognizable as such.

Fresh veggies are good for dogs. Again, is this a fact I can back up with research? Not directly. I can tell you that my DVM Chinese Medicine Vet read an article that dogs fed cooked, green veggies had lower rates of cancer. I haven’t taken the time to look it up yet myself, anyone out here seen it? I also know that the ‘new’ foods by some dog food companies that are supposed to extend the healthy life of a dog contain more of what I would call “real” food: vegetables, even fruits full of anti-oxidants.

Organic is good. Whether it is better for our dogs or not, I think it’s important to be benevolent to Mother Earth. We haven’t been doing so well on that score lately. Ideally I’d feed my dogs nothing but organic meat raised locally by producers who put the welfare of their animals over that of their own, but I can’t manage that much of the time, I just strive for it. When I can afford it and it’s available, I use organic, especially vegetables. I belong to a CSA, and they are very generous with seconds, so Will and Lassie get a lot of broccoli, green beans, squash etc that wasn’t pretty enough for the weekly shares. I collect it whenever I can and freeze it in my huge, chest-style freezer.

Pro-biotics. I started Willie on Pro-biotics when he was a pup. Three months of off-and-on projectile diarrhea will teach you a lot about a puppy’s gut. He still gets them every day, even though his digestive system has stabilized, but many of the people I respect in alternative medicine argue that Pro-biotics are important for any of us who don’t eat natural food most of the time. (I take them too now, for whatever that’s worth.)

Raw versus Cooked: I don’t feed much raw. I don’t have the time (or the energy?) to make it myself, and am not convinced enough in it’s importance to spend the money to buy it commercially. (Please, oh please, don’t write me and tell me that if I don’t feed my dogs raw food I am a bad person and a bad dog owner. I know lots of stories of dogs who truly have done beautifully on raw diets, including dogs who had serious health problems beforehand. I also know dogs who didn’t do well on them, and lots and lots more who thrive on other diets.)  I do give my dogs raw beef bones, usually the large joint bones or the long bones with lots of marrow inside. I am pretty conservative though, once they get eaten down a ways and start to look a little brittle I toss them out.

Kibble versus Non-Kibble: I don’t feed much kibble anymore. I add a bit to their dinners, but even high quality kibble is highly processed and lacks the moisture it seems dogs would need.

My favorite source for good information about dog food: Whole Dog Journal. Get it yet? If not, I highly  recommend it.

Here’s what Lassie and Willie ate last night:

Lassie:

A tiny handful of kibble (Natural Balance Duck and Potato, 20 pieces?) for crunch (she loves it); cooked, organic Steel-cut oats (her kidneys are challenged so she needs limited protein, cooked beef (stew meat on sale at the supermarket), 2 TB cooked green beans, kale and broccoli, an Omega 3 capsule + her meds and supplements.

I vary the protein between duck, fish, beef and eggs. (The duck, fish and sometimes beef is usually Natural Balance or Wellness canned.)  In Chinese medicine, duck and fish are ‘cooling’ foods, good for Lassie with her struggles with bladder infections and her kidney problems. Beef is ‘neutral,’ so I use a lot of that. Wouldn’t you know, lamb, which I have a freezer full of, is a “warming” food, and I am advised not to use it for Willie or Lassie either. Sigh. The dogs of my friends are very grateful.

I should add here that I have never seen any research about feeding dogs different types of protein based on their chinese medicine evaluation, but because I feed good,  high quality food and give them lots of variety,  I can’t imagine it would hurt them to follow that advice and it might help, so why not? (see Four Paws, Five Directions for more on this.)

I use Natural Balance canned food and Wellness most often for their primary protein if I don’t have something cooked up for them at home. I am always looking for specials at markets: last night I bought a somewhat obscene 10 pound roll of hamburger for $1.79 pound. I cut it up into one pound pieces and froze it.

Their veggies are usually some combination of broccoli, kale, spinach, green beans, celery, lettuce, potato, carrots and squash, all cooked.

Tonight I’ll give Lassie duck or fish, (canned), and since I’ve finished up her oats for now, she’ll get cooked Kashi for grains, (not the cereal, the grain) and cooked carrots and spinach for veggies. (I usually cook up batches of veggies for the dogs over the weekend. It helps to have TWO freezers at the farm!)

Willie:

Last night Willie ate about a 1/4 cup of Duck and Potato kibble, about 2/3 of a cup of cooked beef, (much more than Lassie), 3-4 TB of veggies, a whole sardine (canned in water, no salt) and a Pro-biotic tab. Tonight he’ll get canned duck or fish and the same veggies that Lassie gets.

Both dogs get LOTS of water added to their dinners, even though there is so little kibble in it I basically feed my dogs soup in the belief that they need lots of fresh water. That may be crazy, but it can’t hurt them. They also are fed twice a day, getting only slightly more in the evening than the morning. In addition, they eat kibble and canned meat stuffed into a frozen Kong first thing in the morning.

I hope that is useful information to those of you who asked. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on all this.(And if you pay as much attention to your own diet as you do to your dog’s!?)

Meanwhile, back at the farm: I had hoped to add a video of leaping lambs that I taped this morning, but I’ve spent too long writing, and have 4 more papers to grade and hours more work on my UW lecture for tomorrow…. so here are some beautiful harbingers of spring for you, leaping lambs to come soon!

Ahhh spring.  Finally the weather is mild enough to let the dogs lie outside and chew on bones. I just love watching my dogs chew on real, fresh bones. Of course, I would never give my dogs cooked bones (I know most of you know already that cooked bones are brittle and tend to splinter. Don’t ever give them to your dog.), but I love giving them the kind of fresh, raw bones that are safe–the large joint bones or large long bones from beef are my preference.

The first time I watched dogs chew on real bones I was astounded. Okay, that sounds pretty strong, but I had not anticipated how much exercise and skill it takes to chew on a bone.  All of the parts of a dog’s mouth, including the jaw muscles and different types of teeth are engaged in tearing, pulling, grinding and chewing. It was an epiphany watching them work out over a bone… “Oh! That’s what all those different kinds of teeth are for!” Chewing on large bones not only provides exercise, it must be so wonderful for dogs to be able to do it. Talk about doing things that you are good at and that you enjoy! Bones satisfy both of those criteria for dogs, and it is a joy for me to watch them do it. I spent a couple of minutes yesterday watching Lassie go to it.. I suspect she was in the state of flow that Csikszentmihalyi talks about as a route to true happiness. (I was taught to pronounce it “chick sent me high”!.. and I’m missing some accent marks, don’t know how to add them in the blog!)

I realize that there are lots of strong feelings about feeding bones, not feeding bones, canine nutrition, etc. It’s interesting how much things have changed since I got my first Border Collie, who was fed Purina Dog chow from the supermarket and lived 15.5 years.  Now my dogs get lots of fresh real food, high quality canned food, organic vegetables. Sometimes I have to stop myself from feeling guilty that I’m not feeding them well enough, and these are dogs who get custom made dinners every night (along with meat and vegetables, Lassie gets Steel-cut organic oats, Willie gets a sardine added to every dinner, etc). How to feed a dog is certainly is a hot topic: sometimes discussions about food get as heated as ones about politics. I try to avoid arguments about food, and keep my perspective relatively simple: I feed varied, high quality food, giving each dog the protein source I think is best for them.  It’s not all raw and it’s not all cooked. I’ll write more about feeding dogs if you are all interested, but for now…

here’s Lassie flowing in bone bliss:

And here are some photos new lambs: I got to watch Rosebud give birth last night (I have photos but they are pretty graphic, not sure that squeamish viewers would want to see!).

Here she’s licking off her first lamb, about 2 minutes after its birth. She swallows the sac, which provides nutrition, helps to dry off the lamb and prevent hypothermia and stimulate the lamb to get up and look for milk.

This next photo shows her licking off her second lamb, born about 2 minutes before the photo was taken. The first lamb was born about 10 minutes before, and is making her first attempt to stand.  I’m happy to say that all are doing well, last I checked–full, fat bellies and warm, toasty mouths, all signs of happy, healthy lambs.

Oh, what a joy to be home in fall on the farm. It may have rained much of the weekend, but that’s okay, we needed the moisture. In spite of the rain I got to spend much of Sunday out in the country with Willie, Lassie and weekend visitor Brody (the Cavalier) out in the hills collecting wild apples.  Five huge buckets full. Yum yum. Yum for us… I made applesauce much of Sunday afternoon (thanks to friend Harriet who leant me her Foley  Food Mill; now that’s a handy item) while the dogs slept. Yum for the sheep: the ewe flock got to crunch away on juicy apples that I tossed into their feeders.  The lamb flock is separate (I don’t castrate the ram lambs, so the boys are now old enough to breed their mommas. Not a great idea!) and has access to lots of wild apples on their own, so everyone at lots of apples yesterday.

Sheep ADORE apples, they crunch into them as if eating candy. I love feeding them this food that comes free and wild every year in southern  Wisconsin. What a time of bounty. I’d include a photo I took of red ripe apples, but I don’t have it here at work. I’ll bring it in tomorrow.

But back to dogs… isn’t it wonderful when your dogs have had plenty of exercise and sleep soundly in the house while you putter at something in the kitchen? I remember a few years ago Jim and I were spoiled by our hosts when we went to Montana for me to do a seminar. (Our hosts were Nancy Tanner and the Galloping Dog Agility & Flyball Club in Bozeman. What wonderful folks… visit them at www.gallopingdog.com) The day before the seminar, we were taken on a 12 mile horseback ride into the mountains. What a joy. I used to ride a lot, so it was like going home for me. (Jim had never ridden, what an introduction! He was amazing, I have to say. And so was his wonderfully reliable horse.) I bring this trip up because two dogs accompanied us on the ride, running helter skelter, back and forth for the entire ride. They easily  must have run over twenty miles.  I swear, they were barely tired at the end of the trip.  Oh, if only our dogs could have exercise like that every day! Okay, maybe that wouldn’t be good for a pug, but think of all those retrievers and herding dogs bred to work who don’t have that much to do. What a wonderful feeling it is for those of us who own them to see our dogs sleeping soundly after a good, long session of healthy exercise. Ummmm. Part of why Karen London and I wrote Play Together, Stay Together is to help people find ways to exercise their dogs for their sake, as well as for their dogs. I have included a photo of Mr. Will enjoying one of his toys. It always lifts my heart to watch dogs playing.

Meanwhile,  Willie slept for a couple of hours, and then ran his tail off searching the high pasture for the lamb flock in the evening so that we could bring them down for their grain. He came home happy to gobble up his dinner and rest again, while we sat down to a dinner from fresh, local and ogranic sources. Yumm. I do love fall!

Applesauce, anyone?