I have opinions about a lot of things related to dogs, and though I’m a little bit more educated than most, I certainly don’t know everything.

Remember I just said that because I’ll never admit it again.

Brandy’s trainer keeps opening my eyes and making me see that training methods that I swore I would never use are not cruel or abusive and is showing me that training tools that I thought were good are really not.

REMOTE COLLARS

No, they are not shock collars, and no, they are not cruel if they are used correctly. Should J.Q. Public purchase a remote collar and attempt to use it without the supervision of a professional? NO. Is there a potential to mistreat an animal with one? YES.

The remote collar is a valuable tool because it separates stimulation from the handler. The dog doesn’t know who is pushing the button on the remote to make it vibrate, what the dog knows is that the vibration will continue in short bursts (1/100 of a second) until he does what the handler is asking him to do. Once the command is preformed the vibration stops. The vibration doesn’t hurt, it feels like a cellphone with the ringer turned off. It’s effective because even though a vibration is no big deal to people…a dog has no idea what’s going on, why his neck feels funny, why he can’t shake it off or scratch it away. Before you know it the dog will preform the command the first time you ask in his attempt to beat the vibration!

PRONG (PINCH) COLLARS

These things look evil. Brandy’s trainer says “it makes her look like a gladiator!” And yes, it must be fitted properly in order to work without causing discomfort to the dog.

What the prong collar does is apply even pressure around the throat of the dog. It does not poke holes in the neck, it does not strangle. To properly fit the collar measure the dog’s neck, then add one inch to the measurement. Add or remove enough links (every prong on these collars is removable. I did not know this!) so that the collar is as long as the measurement of the dog’s neck plus the one inch. Open the collar, put the collar around the dog’s neck, and then fasten it back together. The collar should ride high on the dog’s neck. DO NOT SLIDE THE COLLAR OVER THE DOG’S HEAD! You could poke an eye out or tear an ear! When the dog is walking it takes a minimum amount of pressure to correct a dog’s position next to you into a proper heel.

If a “sit” command is given a slight pop (just enough to make the noise of metal on metal, not to overly tighten the collar around the neck) of the collar can tell your dog that you mean business if he’s pushing his limits and trying to see how long he can ignore you and get away with it. Brandy does this consistantly.

The prong collar is useful because it gives the handler more control than the flat collar. It’s almost self correcting because of it’s even pressure. There is a safety feature (a large “O” ring) that keeps the collar from constricting too much so that the skin is not pierced and the dog cannot be strangled.

METAL CHOKE COLLARS

They look harmless enough. Lots of people prefer them. They’re easy to use, easy to put on, and your dog can’t slip his head out of it and take off down the road leaving you in the dust.

These collars are dangerous. Dogs can strangle on them if they wear one when it’s not being used. There is no safety “O” on them to keep them from closing too tightly around the dog’s neck. The collar puts so much pressure on the trachea of the dog that it’s entirely possible to crush it and kill him! Choke collars do not make it easier for a handler to control their dog, many stubborn dogs will strain against it even if they can’t breathe. If a dog’s handler gets frustrated with them and doesn’t know his own strength, the dog can be corrected so hard that it causes severe damage to the neck and/or throat.

I personally have a whole drawer full of these collars. Now I’ll never use one again.

HEAD COLLARS

I have lots and lots of head collars. I personally prefer the Halti brand, and I have one for Chuck that I got from the Pet Expo, but most people that I’ve encountered prefere the Gentle Leader brand.

I thought these things were THE BEST dog walking invention EVER! Sure, my dogs hate them and try to scrape them off of their faces the entire time they’re wearing them, and Jezzy managed to BREAK on (don’t ask, I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to), but I was able to control (read: keep them from dragging me behind them through the air like a kite) TWO large dogs while out for a walk, even if they wanted to eat another dog as we were passing by.

The reality is that these collars are frequently relied on to walk dogs with no leash manners and are not used as the training tools they were intended to be. As a matter of fact, when I had Jezzy in her Petsmart Training Class the teacher forced me to use a Gentle Leader on her and provided one for me to borrow since I refused to purchase one of my own. The problem with these head collars is that many, many dogs are winding up with neck and back injuries from being yanked or from attempting to yank their handler. They also form deep indentions on the faces of dogs who manage to pull harder than they should when being walked.

This is horrible! I had no idea! I’ve probably got $150 worth of these things in my house. (Yes, I have lots of training tools that I’ve tried so I can walk my rambunctious pets.) Now I know that I shouldn’t use them and I’ll feel really guilty if I do just because I spent the money on them.

This just goes to show that I’m guilty of doing what I hate. I believed they hype and the look of tools and methods without being educated.

Shame on me. But I’m glad I’ve learned.

Well, having a trained dog doesn’t suck, that’s awesome. It’s the process one must go through to wind up with a trained dog that sucks.

I have been practicing with Brandy every day. For 20-30 minutes per day, and once it was even close to an hour. She is stubborn as hell! Some days it takes us a good 10-15 minutes just to get her to a point where she’s decided it’s easier to do what I want than it is to fight it. Other days she doesn’t feel like fighting at all and obeys every command from the get-go. I like the latter types of days. Unfortunately today wasn’t one of them.

I took her out earlier this afternoon and worked on ‘fuss’ (heel), ’sitz’ (sit), and ‘place’ (parking her butt on a designated flat object and not moving until I tell her she can). We haven’t done much with ‘place’ because she’s still being stubborn with ‘fuss’ and ’sitz’. I figure those two commands are more important than ‘place’. However, this afternoon she was rockin with fuss and sitz. I thought it as finally sinking in that she. must. obey. That was not the case.

We just got back from a walk that lasted an hour. It should have only taken 30 minutes but I had to keep correcting her fuss. She kept getting distracted because we were outside of her familiar area. She wanted to meet people, she wanted to chase the girls, she wanted to catch birds, she wanted to have a squirrel snack, and she wanted to fight two dogs. I did wear her down to the point where she walked in a perfect heel for about a half mile but when we got close to home a neighbor came outside with her two dogs to go for their nightly walk and it was all over. At that point I was so tired that I managed to force her not to drag me up to the door but I gave up on her walking in the perfect position (with her head paralell to the seam of my jeans).

Yes, I was being nit-picky. When teaching “heel” it’s extremely important to require the dog’s position to be perfect, otherwise you can very easily wind up with a dog walking slightly ahead of you, then a body length ahead of you, and before you know it you’re right back where you started from.

We have another lesson tomorrow. I already told Lisa that Brandy’s being a pain in the butt. She told me that I may be frustrated with her but I have to think back two weeks and remember that I started with a dog who had no clue that she wasn’t the boss. She was not even slightly obedient and now she’s already much less sure of herself. Yes, she still tries to push her limits but she is showing a respect for me that she hasn’t shown before.

Lisa is right. It used to be that Brandy outright ignored me and did whatever the hell she wanted, then she’d wiggle her butt and be cute and I’d pet her and my aggrivation would fade. Now if she barks and I say “Nein!” she will look at me and stop barking. She’ll whine…but won’t bark. From there I say “Here!” and she will immediately abandon the window and come to my side. At that time I don’t even have to tell her to sit, she automatically does it and bows her head in a submissive way. So yes, she’s learning. It’s slow going but she is getting it.

Unfortunately the discipline isn’t denting her aggression towards Jezzy at all. Things are working out by keeping them separated but I was really hoping that she’d stop displaying the aggressiveness towards Jezzy.

Still, I stand by my original statement…Dog training sucks. Especially when you wait until your dogs have bad habits and then you attempt to correct them.

I’m good at loving my dogs. I’m not good at training them. That’s a huge problem for them and for me.

Today was my first day volunteering with the ferret rescue…AND I LOVED IT!! I got to be really hands on with the animals and they director is very friendly and gracious. I also learned a lot about what kinds of toys I can give Roscoe and Lucy to keep them busy and from getting bored.

We did Roscoe and Lucy’s ADV test while I was there. I’ll have the results by Friday. I’m not expecting a positive result but you never know. They did come from a shelter.

I found out that Roscoe is s girl…and that she needs her teeth cleaned. She’s got a mild case of gingivitis…and she’s about 6 months older than Lucy. She’s a “silver mitt” ferret and is actually considered geriatric because she’s a little more than four years old. :0(

Lucy…is a “silver blaze” ferret. Blazes have a tendancy to be deaf so Robin (the director) did a test to see if she is…and guess what? Lucy IS deaf. That would explain why I always thought she was ignoring me when I would call to her. Poor girl, but she doesn’t know any better and she’s normal other than that. She’s about three and a half years old and doesn’t have any teeth or gum problems.

I spent my day talking to potential adoptors, watching a family with a million kids manhandle all of the animals (the kids in the family raised $100 for the rescue so they were touring the shelter and playing with the animals), I watched a Goth couple come in with their two ferrets, meet four potential adoptees…and take all six of them home…and I saw an in-tact male come in.

The poor in-tact ferret was found wandering on the side of the road in King George County. A nice lady picked him up after he almost got hit by a car and drove him 4 hours to the shelter. Let me tell you…whole ferrets STINK! But he was huge (he looked like a small cat!) and very handsome and I personally wouldn’t mind having one like that one day. Of course I would get him neutered because…ew.

I cleaned play areas and toys, scooped poop out of litter boxes, changed food and food bowls, and spent hours playing with ferrets (and found a favorite already, his name is Mr. Whiskers. He’s bonded with Brandy.)

Mr. Whiskers

Brandy

One of the things I saw today was a dig box. I had heard that ferrets like to dig but it never occured to me to make my own box rather than buy a commercial one. After dinner this evening I ran to target and got a cheapo storage bin, then went to the grocery store and got a huge bag of rice. Pete made a hole in the lid of the box for me, I filled it up about 1/3 of the way with rice, threw some toy balls in there, and put them in the pen. They LOVED it! Lucy was burying her head in the rice like ostriches do in the sand, Roscoe dug his little heart out! That was the best $6 I’ve spent on them! Later this week I’m going to shred a bunch of super old documents at work so that when it’s time to change the rice I can switch up and give them paper. The ferrets today seemed to enjoy the shredded paper way more than the rice…but the rice was easier for me to set up on short notice.

I cannot WAIT to volunteer again. It won’t be next week because the girls will be home but I’ll be there the saturday after that!

Yippee!!!

Yesterday I was listening to Fox Across America on XM and Spencer Hughes was talking about email. He was saying that many politcal figures and famous people recieve vile emails from people who don’t agree with their stances on certain issues. I sent him an email saying that it’s not just famous people who have this problem, it’s everyone. People who write blogs, post on message boards, post on listservers like Craigslist, all wind up being bombarded by anonymous “hate mail”.

He read it on the air!

Since I now know that he reads his email I’ve sent him one about something that’s been bothering me. I’ve only been listening to his show for a short time and so far I really enjoy it. This is amazing to me because I’m not even remotely interested in current events, politics, blah blah blah. But, he catches my attention every afternoon.

Like I said, there’s one thing about his show that bothers me…so I wrote him another email. I really hope he reads it.

Hello again! I didn’t expect to send you any emails today and now I’ve sent you two!

I’m a relatively new listener and although I’m not a very political person and I don’t watch the news I do enjoy your show. I’ve been tuning in every day for about a week and a half now and at this time I’m probably more informed than I’ve ever been in my life. I want to thank you for choosing topics that catch my interest.

In the short time I’ve been listening I’ve noticed that there is one analogy that you use frequently. You used it today during the HIV topic. The analogy I’m referring to is the one about Pit Bulls biting more than any other breed. What I would like to do is provide some information to you that will show you that not only is your perception of the “breed” inaccurate, it’s contributing to the crisis that they’re experiencing today.

First, “Pit Bull” is not a breed. It’s a group of three specific breeds that are similar in type. They are Staffordshire Terriers, Bull Terriers, and American Pit Bull Terriers. The fact that these three breeds are lumped together is a disadvantage to them in the “statistics” that make Pit Bulls seem more vicious than they are. When the media sites the supposed statistics they don’t mention that the ratio of reported bites is 3:1 to the Pit Bull’s disadvantage because of this.

Secondly, the majority of dog bites are not reported, skewing the statistics even more. Think of how many ‘purse dogs’ bite the hands of people who attempt to pet them. Think of how many of them are ankle biters. Are these bites reported? No, because the dogs are small and aren’t seen as being dangerous. I’ve seen many small dogs bite people without provocation. I’ve seen them bite anywhere from a finger to the face. In reality this type of behavior is no different than if a Rottweiler or Doberman were to approach someone and bite them in the face. Unfortunately it’s accepted and continuously overlooked because the dogs are small and cute and don’t cause much damage.

Third, many, many breeds are mistaken for Pit Bulls. Plott Hounds, American Bulldogs, Mastiffs, Presa Canarios, Dogo Argentinios, and even dogs who are obviously Dalmatians or Boxers have been mislabeled because they bit someone. No one wants to believe that other breeds are capable of causing damage, everyone wants to blame the Pit Bull. The fact that so many dogs are mis-categorized is detrimental enough but when you add to that fact that the breeds most commonly mistaken for Pit Bulls are guardian breeds…well, the numbers are guaranteed to go up because that’s what they’re bred for. Their job in this world is to protect their family and their property and the only weapon they have to carry out this duty is their teeth. If you visit this website you’ll see that I’m not wrong. http://www.pitbullsontheweb.com/petbull/findpit.html

The media does not take into consideration the fact that Pit Bulls are the status dogs of this decade. Many thug-type people are attempting to turn them into a guardian breed, which they are not. Because of their popularity among the less desirable social circles their numbers are greater than most any other breed. We’ve got people who have no idea what they’re doing breeding dogs without any consideration for physical conformity or temperament. They’re breeding for stupid characteristics like color and size. They’re being inbred, they’re breeding dogs with unstable temperaments, and they’re not being at all selective about who winds up with the offspring. They’re giving them to anyone who has money. Some people are just giving them away for free. You can see this on Craigslist and in the newspapers all the time.

In reality Pit Bulls are people friendly dogs. They have to be because their “job”, the whole reason they exist, is to fight each other for our amusement. In order for them to be trained and refereed in the pit their handlers have to know without a shadow of a doubt that they can reach into a writhing tangle of dogs and separate the winner from the wounded or dead loser without being bitten themselves. In the early days any Pit Bull who would bite a human was automatically destroyed. Most were not humanely euthanized, they were shot or used as bait to train the temperamentally sound dogs. For the most part modern day Pit Bulls are very family oriented. They crave attention from their people, they’re extremely eager to please, they’re one of the most intelligent breeds out there. They also have a high pain tolerance which makes them suitable for families with young children. A Pit Bull will allow a small child to climb on them, pull their tail and/or ears, and poke them in the eye without reacting negatively. Dogs of other breeds might be this tolerant but it’s doubtful.

The problem is not the dogs. It’s the people. The thugs who train them to be fighters, the ignorant people who chain their dogs outside or lock them in the basement with no socialization, the people who don’t alter their animals and allow a male to guard his female in heat, the owners who don’t alter their females and wind up with an “oops” litter and leave mom chained to a dog house with no way to protect her puppies. It’s the people who set the stage for the tragedies to happen.

Do Pit Bulls cause more damage than most other breeds when they bite? Of course they do. They’re stocky and muscular. Does this mean that they’re more likely to bite or maul than any other breed? No, it doesn’t. The fact that there are so many more of them than most other breeds makes it seem that way. This is no different than a few years ago when the “dangerous dog of the day” was the Rottweiler, or the German Shepherds before that, or the Dobermans before that.

I’ve rambled long enough but before I close I’m going to leave you with some web addresses that support what I’ve written here. My hope is that you will choose another analogy to use on your show.

http://gprime.net/flash.php/thepitbullproblem**

http://understand-a-bull.com/PitbullInformation/PitBullIndex.htm

http://www.pbrc.net/breedinfo.html

http://www.badrap.org/rescue/myths.cfm

Thank you for your time.

Kristie Wood
Friendly Pit Bull Owner
Sterling, VA

Grrrr. I have GOT to stay away from Craigslist. It’s evil.

I peruse the ads on Craigslist multiple times a day. Sometimes people post questions about dog behavior and I send them an email answer. I’ve answered one today and two yesterday. It was when I was checking in for the third time today that I saw an ad.

MALE BLUE NOSE PIT BULLS NEED GOOD HOMES

——————————————————————————–
Reply to: IdiotBreeder@GMAIL.COM
Date: 2006-05-09, 10:15AM EDT

SMALL ADOPTION FEE REQUIRED. PLEASE CONTACT ME FOR DETAILS AT xxx-xxx-xxxx. THEY WERE BORN ON FEBRUARY 2, 2006 AND NEED GOOD HOMES.

What an ass. First, there is no selling of animals allowed on Craigslist. Second the adoption fee is not listed, which means that it’s high, which means “selling” not “adopting”.

Third…BLUE NOSES ARE BRED PURELY FOR LOOKS! You know they were bred on purpose because there are four of them. It’s not easy to wind up with four dogs with blue noses (which also indicates that they’ve got blue in their coat as well)…wanna know why? BECAUSE THAT IS A BIRTH DEFECT! It’s a mutation! The AKC doesn’t recognize blue dogs, therefore they can’t be papered! Blue is a diluted black, and although it’s beautiful…most blue dogs have unstable temperaments. They’re inbred and mass produced by people who do not truely care for the breed. If you are looking for a Pit Bull and you run into a breeder who claims to be passionate about the breed, and they have puppies available? Ask them why they would be producing more dogs during a time where the overpopulation crisis is at it’s peak.

Any truely responsible breeder would not be breeding now.

It’s not that I’m against blue dogs. As a matter of fact, I LOVE the blue dogs. Bruno (RIP) was a blue brindle and he was stunning! But he also had some faulty wiring in his brain, which is common in the blues, and he had to be put to sleep. FYI, Bruno is Pit Bull in the design of this page.

Another thing that drives me insane is the “low and wide” advertisements. I don’t know what the fascination is with this but it’s not healthy. These poor dogs have knee, shoulder, and elbow problems. Not to mention that they’re UGLY. It’s not the dog’s fault, I know this, but they look like freaks and people BRAG about owning one! Razor’s Edge is a popular blood line. What’s so special about them? Nothing, other than they’re breeding a bunch of deformed dogs.

These are normal Pit Bulls:

Their chests are in proportion with their bodies, these are healthy looking dogs.

These are “low and wide” Pit Bulls:

Is that not gross? Why would anyone want a dog who looks distorted like that? Just looking at them makes my back hurt…I can’t imagine how they feel with all that weight resting on those shoulders. Yow.

These two are “low and wide” with “blue noses”! Gack!

Here’s a normal looking blue dog. This dog is handsome, there’s no denying that…

and here are a couple of red noses…

Now that you’ve seen what irresponsible breeding is doing to their bodies…is it any wonder that there are so many Pit Bulls with bad temperaments running around out there? If we can see this much damage on the outside…what kind of damage was done to their brains?

As if it isn’t tragic enough that Mazzy lost her battle with an intestinal blockage, Dawn and Elvee still have a battle of their own to fight.

Mazzy’s hospital bills are large. I personally know what it’s like to face huge vet bills. Knowing that the bills are looming over you greatly adds to the stress of going through something as traumatic as this. My dogs are blessed to have a “dad” who can easily afford to pay for emergency care. Pete is still shelling out money for Brandy. $5000 for her total hip replacement, $4000 for her TPLO, $900 for her abdominal ultrasound, and $420 per month on Baytril to see if we can’t beat this e. Coli bug that she keeps getting. So far he’s spent $840 just on antibiotics for the last two months. That doesn’t count the medications that she needed after each of her surgeries or the costs of antibiotics for the next four months. I know my dogs are blessed. If they had to rely on me alone they’d be so screwed.

Dawn and Elvee tried to save Mazzy. They didn’t hold back on anything that could possibly allow her to live out her life. Mazzy was only three years old, much too young to die. But, try as they might, Mazzy just couldn’t overcome the infection that ravaged her. She is gone but her vet bills still have to be paid.

If you can find it in your heart to help them please visit Dawn’s website. www.clumsycajun.com. I know that they will be grateful for anything that you can spare. (You can also view the vet bills, they’re posted on the sidebar of her website.)

Please help them hurt just a little less.

Today Brandy had her first training session. She suited up in her muzzle and went out to meet Lisa. She did really well! She was eager to please and learned fast! When Lisa was working with her it took a maximum of 3 taps on the collar (set on 2, it feels like a cell phone set on vibrate) to get her to do what she was supposed to do. It took Pete 2-3 taps. I didn’t have to tap at all. She gave me her full focus and responded to my body language without me even giving a verbal command.

It was going so smoothly that Lisa had us bring Jezzy out. She said she can’t teach us if the dog doesn’t do anything wrong…

And that’s when Lisa was able to see Brandy in prey mode. If Jezzy was within 30 feet of Brandy there was no getting her attention. No amount of pulsing with the collar could break her focus on Jezzy. She very obviously wanted to kill her.

We adjusted the pulsing level all the way up to a 7 (there are 8 settings) and multiple taps and verbal commands were needed to bring her attention away from Jezzy.

We started working with Jezzy being waaaaaaaaay across the parking lot. Brandy still kept looking at her but would would refocus with a little effort on our part.

Brandy did very well for her first time. She wasn’t bothered much by her muzzle and she showed how smart she is with how quickly she picked up the lesson.

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