Help for Dogs that are Fussy Eaters

I see many dogs with behavioural problems whose owners say that there dog is a fussy eater. They’ve changed their dog’s food over so many times they can’t remember and finally found that if they mix up some chicken in the food that their dog will eat it all up. Sometimes… Sometimes they pick out the tasty bits and leave the rest. Sound familiar?

Of course the old school advice would be to just let the dog starve – when they’re hungry they’ll eat. Well that works too.  Sometimes… But I have known situations where owners have tried this approach, worrying every day that their wee pooch wasn’t eating, but sticking to this advice, only to end up with the dog eating grass instead of the food.

Whilst these two options may work and be ok, neither of these solutions is best. Adding tasty bits imbalances the diet, which may cause all sorts of problems and starving a dog may cause other obvious problems too. So, what’s the solution? Well, as per my article in May about car travel, a holistic and broader approach can help to resolve the issue.

Here’s some food for thought…..

Health:

Is your dog fit and well? It can be worthwhile getting a quick vet check. We may think that our wee pals are ok as they are eating some food, but there may be something stopping them eating less tasty food.  Issues such as toothache or an abscess could stop a dog eating, as could some other digestive upset from a mild infection to swallowing something they shouldn’t have.

Calories:

Is something else filling your dog up? Many dogs are very capable of managing their own calorie intake. Is your dog skinny, fat or just right? If the latter, then it’s highly likely that they are getting enough food without actually eating out of their bowl. Perhaps they are a tea and biscuit dog? Perhaps they get lots of doggy biscuits? Perhaps their bones and chews are filling them up. Perhaps you are using lots of treats for training? All these factors can just take the edge of hunger.
Keeping an accurate diary, with all the family being honest, will provide you with some answers.

Stress:

Many dogs, even with mild behaviour problems can be suffering from some level of stress. This may simply put them off their food a little or can have major health implications. Stress impacts on the efficiency of the digestive system and may inhibit the desire to eat. Perhaps your dog doesn’t like eating when you’re not in the room? Or perhaps they are concerned that another family dog may pester them. Or there may be some other seemingly unrelated behavioural concern.
Writing down a few situations where your dog seems unhappy may highlight a growing problem. Staying beside your dog whilst they eat may help, in the short term at least. 

The act of eating:

Many times, fussy eating is actually more about eating than about the food. For instance, dogs with very short noses or undershot jaws may find it difficult to eat from a bowl, as may dogs with long ears.  The environment may also cause difficulties: a dog who doesn’t like the noise of a washing machine won’t like to eat near it; or the clanking of their name tag on the bowl might be unpleasant.

The food:

Finally, there are of course problems where dogs are actually picky about what they eat. Sometimes this is caused by preference to their puppy-time diet, or perhaps they’ve been ill whilst eating something. Most dogs will overcome any of the above ideas if the food is tasty enough; hence leading us to the fussy eater conclusion.

So, do please have a wider think about this. The important consideration when feeding is that they are getting a balanced diet. Doing some critical analysis on the ingredients in the food, rather than just randomly trying various options, may also provide you with answers.

For more information about dog food and behaviour, please look at www.TheGoodDogDiet.com and for behaviour help, please look at www.PawsAbility.co.uk.

Author Anna Patfield, Pawsability
First published in the Northern Times, Nov 2015

Considering HATE

Many pet owners and many who work with dogs use words such as Dominance, Stubborn and Hate when explaining dog behaviour.  Most trainers who consider themselves to be following what’s termed ‘modern methods’, become intensely frustrated with the persistence of such terms. Why is there such exasperation?

Well, along with some colleagues, I’ve been working on a new free e-book. The debate has been interesting and essentially, the problem appears to be terminology. Traditional beliefs consider dogs to be dominant when they pull on the lead or lie on the couch.  Science proves this untrue. Some arguments provide examples of such stealing toys to prove that dominance does exist. The book addresses the conundrum and provides practical training and behaviour advice.

Here’s a little insight into the book with regard to Hate.

We use the term Hate to describe our feelings for a plethora of scenarios. We may hate potholes. We may hate doughnuts. We may hate spiders. We may hate a person. But what do we actually mean? We feel frustrated that the potholes may damage our car. We don’t like the taste of doughnuts. We may well suffer from arachnophobia. We may feel very angry with a person. All quiet different. But, do we feel helpless to resolve these situations? Is it that frustration that we are trying to convey? And, do we then consider that we can’t help our dogs when they Hate something?

Well, the good news is, that for most scenarios, hate isn’t what’s happening in our dog’s world. They don’t (so far as we know) ruminate over what they may do in a given hateful situation. They don’t plan out ideas in their minds; they don’t think and play out options, which, for us, tends to intensify our feelings.

And that’s good because it means we can usually fairly easily help our dogs to feel calmer, more relaxed and behave more appropriately.

Let’s then consider some situations.

A common complaint is that a dog hates the posty. They may bark and growl and rip up the post or worse. When this all starts, the dog was probably simply scared of some potential intruder. Perhaps as he continues to ‘bark the posty away ‘ he becomes more and more frustrated. Perhaps he ends up feeling completely enraged. Perhaps this is hate, but, he probably isn’t planning revenge.

A second commonly used phrase is that a dog hates cats. For most situations, it would be valid to think that actually dogs love cats. They love the thrill and fun of the chase and just may end up in a successful catch. (We hope not of course!)

And our final example here, is when a dog attacks a hoover, we tend to say he hates the hoover. In fact, he is most likely scared of it although this may well escalate to anger.

So what can be done? Essentially there are 2 simple steps. We need to firstly, break the continuance of the habit and secondly, teach the dog how to behave differently; supporting them with a effective learning environment.

Of course, this is an over simplification. There’s no space to add any detail here and indeed, there may be much more going on in the dog’s life. But, if the behaviour’s not too bad, we really don’t need to just live with it; the solution may well be quite simple. For more intense and complex problems, please do seek out help from a good behaviourist.

And for more help, hints and tips please visit - www.PawsAbility.co.uk. To sign up for the free ebook please visit  Dogz Thinkz Differentz

(First published in the Northern Times 27th Oct 2017)

And finally... here's a helpful page to help to consider those things that your dog hates .. or dislikes ... or is scared or... http://chasingdogtales.com/14-things-your-dog-hates/#

More on Fireworks and Noise Fears

Bang Bash Boom

Does your dog have issues with noise? Fireworks, loud traffic, ghost noises (you know – the noises that you don’t hear), crow scarers, thunder etc? Have you just got a puppy or rescue dog and don’t know the answer to these questions? Please read on.

Fireworks fear is probably the noise fear that’s talked about most. And sadly, as ‘that time of year’ comes around, many need to pop into their vets again for some pills. And indeed, that is a sensible thing to do. There are new drugs available now that can help.  So, please do go and chat with your vet now.

However, many folks consider this a permanent problem - something that they need to put up with every year. Perhaps we go on holiday for the week, or send our dogs to a quiet kennel. Again, all good management strategies. 

The thing is, though, that for most dogs fireworks phobias can be fixed. Many have been helped with a simple noise desensitisation programme coupled with the use of some calming aid such as Adaptil (exposing your dog to the same pheromones that they experienced when they were just born).

Perhaps you’ve already tried this and it’s not worked? 

The bad news is that indeed it doesn’t work for some. But, the good news is that it does work for many and also that there are many other calming options: herbal, food supplements, clinical medication and complementary therapies. (Read about calming aids for dogs here.) It’s all about finding the one that works for your pooch. Unfortunately, we don’t know which one will absolutely work – because we can’t stick a needle in our dog’s brains and find out what’s imbalanced. So, we may need to try a few. 

But there’s another problem that’s frequently overlooked. Noise fears and other fears and anxieties and other types of behavioural problem or training issues all serve to exacerbate the intensity of actual fireworks problem. So please think more broadly about what bothers your dog – it may well help with fireworks issues.

What to do now?  Whether you know your dog or puppy is going to have a problem or not - go look at www.pawsability.co.uk - or directly here (My dog is scared of fireworks and bangs - help! ) and click through the fireworks links for help on both fixing and preparing for this year’s fireworks. There you’ll find help and advice on the various calming options, preparing a safe den, safety indoors and out, and general behaviour help too.

Originally published in the Northern Times Sept 2017

Recommended further reading - Toni Shelbourne's book  - Help, my dog is scared of fireworks.

Dogs Anonymous!

Today what’s grabbing my heart strings are the number of people out there with difficult dogs who think they are on their own. I mean, if I had £1 for every time I’d said, “don’t worry, you’re not alone”, I’d be writing for the Majorcan Gazette! Ha-ha, only kidding… you all know how much I love living in Scotland, especially with this summer heat we’ve been having (Oh no.. wait.. that's snow..!!).

Anyway, back to the point. There are about 9 million dogs in the UK.  How many do you think have training difficulties or behaviour problems?

A survey back in 2000 studied the prevalence of dog behaviour issues for dogs rehomed from rescue shelters. They did have a good response rate of 37%, but sadly mostly all of those dogs were reported to have behaviour problems including fearfulness, aggression and excessive barking.

Another more recent North Korean study reported in the Journal of Veterinary Behaviour, indicated that 84% of owners reported their dogs to have behaviour problems. We would presume to think that the rate in the UK would be much less. However aggression problems, in particular, appear to be on the rise, with over 7000 hospital admissions for dog bites in England in 2013-14.

It seems difficult to obtain a recent specific percentage figure for the UK. (If you have access to such research, please do email me). However, even if we considered only 10% of dogs to have behaviour problems then that is still very large figure – with lazy arithmetic - about 1 million dog.

So, really, you are not alone.

But back to my main point. Where would you get some support? There are certainly many support groups on Facebook and the likes, and many of them adhere to the modern rewarding and fear free methods of behaviour and training. These can be a great place to start, but, and apologies to those excellent groups, they can sometimes lead to a bewildering range of ideas to choose from. Sadly too, there are support groups out there that share outdated punishment based and emotionally challenging solutions.

Now, there’s another million $ phrase that I hear all the time – “I’ve tried everything”.

Maybe I should start an AA equivalent – Dogs Anonymous! “Hello, my name is John and I have an aggressive dog.” You get the picture.

Well the first step in that direction has led me to set up a series of group workshops, starting with reactive dogs. These small supportive friendly groups start out with a day’s education and are followed up with private or group support for people and for their dogs. And hopefully you’ll make some new friends with whom to share your woes. (For those of you out-with the Highlands / Aberdeenshire, I'd recommend looking up a good behaviourist running similar workshops).

The workshop objectives are to essentially empower you; to help you to believe in the path that you’re taking; to help you to recognize the good advice from the bad that may come your way from on line sources, seemingly new books or popular but sadly out of date TV programs. And, ultimately, to devise your own behaviour modification or training programme.

If you would like the support of new friends, to know more about why not to pin or role your dog, why it doesn’t matter who eats first and whether it’s ok to cuddle them when you come home, then please do have a look at www.pawsability.co.uk/workshop or give me a call.

(Main article first published in the Northern Times, March 2017)

Thinking of Getting a Puppy?

Thinking of getting a puppy? Please think twice.

I’ve said it before, and I’ve said it again, but ‘just to be sure’, here it is again!!

Sadly, puppy farms exist. Sadly poor breeders exist. Sadly people still get puppies for Christmas (yes of course, many work out fine – I hope that’s you). Sadly, many times, instead of bringing happiness, the new wee bundle of fun can turn life upside down -financially and emotionally.

If you’ve just welcomed a new puppy into your home, congratulations! As you may know by now, there are lots of free puppy training help notes on the PawsAbility.co.uk web site, including help for the most common problem such as toilet training, socialisation and puppy biting. Happy reading.

However, if you are thinking of getting a puppy soon and haven’t actually got it yet, then please do read on to make sure that your puppy journey is as happy as possible.

Puppy gifts – please do consider whether this gift is really wanted. So many dogs and puppies are abandoned to rescue centres at this time of year. And according to DogMagazine.net at least one eight week old puppy has already, in the past weeks, been bought, not wanted and abandoned to the dog rescue.

Puppy source – please do your research. Poorly bred puppies from puppy farms and from poor breeders will cost you much more money than the ticket price. It sounds quite unbelievable, but a Kennel Club study found that:

• ·      One third of puppies are bought from disreputable sources including internet sites, newspaper ads and social media.
• ·      Nearly half of these puppies, who haven’t been seen before buying first, fall sick.
• ·      One in five of these puppies cost £500 - £1000 in vet bills in the first 6 months.
• ·      Over one third of people who ended up with a sick puppy bought this way, experienced financial and emotional problems.
• ·      Over one third of these puppies were spur of the moment decisions.
• ·      And these poorly bred puppies are far more likely to suffer from behavioural issues.

So, please plan carefully. It may seem that money is saved at the outset, but it is highly likely to cost you more in the long run.

Is the time right? – please think long and hard about whether this is the right time to get a puppy. Puppies should not be left home alone for more than two hours (this is after they are old enough and have been accustomed to being on their own).  They also need you to be able to spend 1-1 time with them for socialisation, training, and play. Many puppies can take up several hours in your day.

Family – a new puppy will affect the whole family so please do make sure that everyone in the household really, really – I’m gonna say it again – really, really wants a puppy. I know this sounds obvious. But I have worked with many families where it transpired that at least one adult family member was strongly opposed to the new addition.

Four paw families – also, please consider the other pets in your household. How will the addition of a puppy affect your cat? Will your older dog be able to cope with a jumpy, bitey, annoying little puppy? Are the other dogs in your house well enough trained? Do you really need another dog to join the pack?

I know, and I’m sorry that this all sounds so negative. Of course, we love our pets and we do think that we’ve weighed up the pros and cons and are making the right decision. But, sadly, many new puppy purchases just don’t work out. So, if you are about to take that step, it’s not too late to change your mind and do more research – even if you have paid a deposit!

Please think twice, then it’ll be alright (maybe).

I do hope this has helped with your contemplations. There are, of course, more resources on the PawAbility.co.uk web site to help you to choose where and when to get a puppy, or you can email your questions to anna@pawsability.co.uk.

For more information and help, including great web sites on puppy costings and questions to ask your breeder, please look here - Getting a Puppy.

Article originally published in the Northern Times, Dec 2016.