Did You Just Eat That?

10 things found in your home that can kill your dog. Dogs are very curious animals and as omnivores and natural scavengers, can get into and eat just about anything. However, there are many toxic substances found in your home that could potentially kill your dog. The following is a list of ten common household …

Puppy Mentality – A Trait for Life?

Mentally, puppies are like a sponge in that they soak up everything, and if they’ve been properly raised will approach almost anything without a preconceived attitude. As they mature, some of this predisposition to “I wonder what that is, it might be interesting” attitude wears off, and the “you can’t teach an old dog new …

Crate Training

The Crate is a Puppy’s Safe Haven When you bring your puppy home for the first time, pick out a location for the puppy’s bed that is safe and comfortable. One of the best house breaking and containment methods is to put your puppy in a crate. Some people think a crate is mean or …

Hearing in Working Dogs

Modified from an article by Arvle Marshall, DVM PhD In the Summer 1997 issue of Sports Medicine Program Newsletter. The hearing range and sensitivity of an animal can best be depicted with an audiogram, which is a graph indicating both sensitivity (vertical axis) and frequency (horizontal axis). Figure 1 shows a normal audiogram of a …

The Head of the German Shepherd Dog

The issue of what is a correct head comes up every once in a while. I believe the reason is because the percentage of newer people in the sport and breed increases and changes steadily, and they often come into the family without proper tutoring by knowledgeable elders or sufficient study of their own. The …

Islam, Dogs, and Personal Rights

In this day of foreign armed conflicts and domestic terrorism (or, at least, conflict), beliefs of extremist/radical followers of Allah and his successor imams are fairly well known by many people. The typical religious Muslim, regardless of sect, observes the ban on touching dogs or allowing them to contact much of what the people do. …

Muslim’s and Dogs

I come to this subject from personal memories of long ago, when the followers of Mohammed and the warriors and writers who succeeded and “interpreted” him were called “Mohammedans,” later “Moslems,” and more recently spelled “Muslims.” In latter decades, world travel has broadened my view and deepened my understanding. I have lectured and judged dogs …

Ebola, Aids, and Pets

My sister, a long-retired RN, wrote me, in order to ask her doggie-dedicated brother this question: “Because Ebola seems to be transmitted the same way HIV is, do you know of any case where an animal has contracted or otherwise been involved with the transmission of AIDS or HIV?” Keeping in mind that there are …

Rabbit and Snake

A story for intelligent, curious, well-schooled children. Mrs. Rabbit had just finished nursing her babies as the sky was getting light enough for her to skedaddle from that open area we call a garden. It would not do for her to be caught by some cruising coyote or noticed by some sharp-eyed gliding hawk. It …

Snakebite

Our two dogs were “assisting” me pick grapes by nudging and shining clusters with their moist noses, as if to show me where the ripe ones were. Suddenly Felicia bared her teeth and was off like a bolt of lightning, Justice in hot pursuit of whatever she was after—another dang rabbit, I presumed. But almost …

The Shiba’s Place in the Dog World

The author explores the roots of this ancient Japanese primitive-spitz type hunting breed In 1993, the American Kennel Club “recognized” the Shiba Inu. To the fanciers of this ancient breed, such an act parallels the “discovery” of America by Columbus as contemplated by the indigenous Native American Indians who were already here. Not everyone was …