5 ways to keep your dog happy this Fourth of July

My dog Bandit, getting ready for the Fourth of July. (c) Joanne Brokaw 2016

(Note: this article originally ran in 2016 on my Heavenly Creatures blog at Patheos.com. It has been slightly updated here.)

While humans are celebrating Independence Day with picnics and fireworks, many of our dogs are freaking out over the crowds and loud noises, sending many dogs under the bed – or over the fence and down the road, until they’re lost. Or worse.

With the Fourth of July just around the corner, here are a few tips to help keep your dog safe and stress-free.

1) Don’t feed Rover picnic food. While he might really enjoy a burger or a hot dog (or other things he can steal from your plate), changes to your dogs diet can cause stomach upset. And upset stomach = anxious dog. Not only that, some of the picnic fare is dangerous for dogs, like onions, alcohol, and artificial sweeteners found in candy and gum. If you insist on bringing him to the family gathering, make sure he has plenty of water and a cool, quiet place where he can retreat, and that you keep a watchful eye on well-meaning folks bent on giving the doggie a “treat”.

2) Leave the dog at home. While we like to think that our dogs want to be with us 24/7, the truth is that most dogs get anxious in large crowds. Don’t believe me? Just for fun, find a large crowd of people and then get down on all fours and crawl around for a while. It’s hot, it’s confusing, and it’s probably stressful, especially if there are going to be fireworks. He’d be much happier at home, with a nice Kong toy filled with a treat, the shades drawn, and the couch all to himself.

3) Prepare ahead for the fireworks. Some vets estimate that almost half of dogs are spooked by loud noises, like thunder or fireworks. It’s not something to blow off; dogs have much more sensitive hearing than humans and they’re also affected by the electrical changes in the air from thunder and stormy weather. Yelling at the dog, or closing him in a room by himself without actually addressing the problem, can make it worse.

If you need immediate help this weekend, try a Thundershirt, which helps “swaddle” your dog by applying even pressure on his body. You can also use calming aromatherapy scents and oils, like Canine Calm, that you can spray on a dog’s bed or apply to a collar. (Check with your vet before applying oils directly to your pets, as some can be irritating to the skin or in some cases toxic). You can also talk to your vet or trainer about pheromone collars.

Don’t hesitate to talk to your vet about medication; just make sure you give it to your pup well in advance of the fireworks so it has time to take effect. The one I’ve used in the past with Bailey takes about four hours to kick in, but once it does she’s sedated just enough that she really doesn’t care about the noises but not so drugged that she can’t function.

4) Prepare for the worst case scenario. No one wants to think about losing their dog, but a scared dog reacts without thinking, and can bolt in a crowd, run into traffic, jump a fence, chew through a screen door, or otherwise do whatever he can to get away from the scary noises. Make sure your dog is safely in the house this Fourth of July, is wearing a collar with tags, and is also microchipped. If he manages to get out, you want to make it as easy as possible for him to be identified and returned to you. The longer he’s away, the more traumatic the experience.

5) Get ready for next year, now. It’s never too early to think about the next thunderstorm or fireworks display. Help desensitize your dog to loud noises with programs like Victoria Stillwell’s Canine Noise Phobia Treatment or Through A Dog’s Ears [now iCalmpet.com], music “psychoacoustically designed to support you and your dog’s compromised immune or nervous system function”. I  used it often and find very helpful. In fact, I keep a CD in the car for rides, and music on my phone, just in case. You use these to slowly desensitize your dog to loud sounds or pair the music with the feeling of being calm, so it won’t work overnight. But it’s not too early to make a commitment now to give your dog some long-term relief.

And if you don’t already have a relationship with a positive-methods dog trainer, now’s the time to find one. Dog training isn’t just about going to puppy classes. If you have a trainer that knows you and your dog, when a problem arises throughout the dog’s life you can call on her to help address the issue quickly and positively. My dogs are older, but I don’t hesitate to call my trainer with questions, especially since I have a very squirrely Border Collie and a reactive Retriever/Pit mix. We’re always working to help the dogs be less anxious and to get along better with each other. I promise: a well educated, positive method trainer will change both you and your dogs’ lives.

Here’s hoping you and your pups have a healthy and safe holiday!

The dangers of leaving your dog in the car – it’s hotter than you think

My dogs Scout and Bandit, who loved to ride in the car. But it’s important not to leave your dogs in the car while you’re running errand – it’s hotter than you think! Photo (c ) 2010 Joanne Brokaw

This post was originally published at Patheos.com in May 2014. But I thought it was worth republishing again here.

Here in Western NY, the weather has finally warmed up and it looks like the s-n-o-w is gone until winter. That means it’s time for a reminder about leaving your dog in a hot car.

In July 2011, I wrote a post for my blog in which I explained how heat affects your dog, and then did some experiments measuring the temperature in the car compared with the temperature outside the car. It’s worth reposting here, since it’s such an important issue – and because I think we have a moral responsibility to put our pets’ needs before our own desires. Sure, it’s fun to take the dog with you while you run errands. But it’s not always what’s best for Fido.

As you watch the temperatures rise inside the Jeep in the following photos, remember that the heat affects your dogs the same way whether they’re inside a car or outside in the heat. So keep that in mind when you’re thinking about taking the dog for a walk in the heat, or with you when you jog, or even for just a round of catch in the park. And it doesn’t have to be summer; it’s the temperature that’s important, and it can reach dangerous levels even in the spring, fall or winter.

First, let’s look at how a dog stays cool.

Dogs can’t sweat to cool themselves down, the way humans can. The only way they can cool off is to sweat through their paws or to pant. As the website Weather.com explains:

“Air moves through the nasal passages, which picks up excess heat from the body. As it is expelled through the mouth, the extra heat leaves along with it. Although this is a very efficient way to control body heat, it is severely limited in areas of high humidity or when the animal is in close quarters.”

In close quarters like a car (or even a kennel), a dog can overheat very, very quickly and in minutes can suffer brain damage or death.

But panting means taking in air as well as breathing it out. So for a dog like a pug – or other breed with a genetically shortened snout – the inability to breathe seriously hampers their ability to cool themselves down. (That wheezing sound a pug makes is actually the dog desperately trying to breathe. It’s not cute; it’s dangerous.)

In their book, “Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior and Evolution“, Lorna and Raymond Coppinger talk at great length about the science of how dogs regulate their body temperature. They draw a couple of conclusions worth mentioning:

1) Dogs are great at storing heat but not so great at getting rid of it. The balance point between storing and getting rid of heat for a dog is 60 degrees Fahrenheit for a smooth-coated sled dog. (That balance is 70 degrees for a human, who also has the ability to sweat to cool, something dogs can’t do.) Coppinger, who races sled dogs, says, “I wouldn’t train if the ambient temperature was over 60 degrees because the dogs would be at risk.”

2) As their weight rises to over forty-five pounds, dogs have increasing problems getting rid of heat. And that’s when the dog is at rest.

3) “Since dogs don’t have sweaty, bare skins to radiate heat [the way humans do when they sweat], evaporative cooling is not an option for them. Panting hard cools the lungs and brain, but the only place a dog sweats is through the pads of its feet. The pads just don’t have enough surface area to make them effective radiators.” Add to that the fact that their bodies are covered in fur, and you’ll understand why heat effects dogs much differently than humans.

And you can see why it’s not easy for a human to determine how hot a dog really is.

So here’s the experiment.

Life lessons from a Border Collie

This post was originally published at Patheos.com in June 2011.

Scout after an afternoon playing in the sprinkler and rolling in the dirt. (photo © 2011 Joanne Brokaw)

I was sitting on the floor in the lobby of the veterinarian’s office, blowing soap bubbles for my five-year-old Border Collie, Scout, while we waited for our medications after our consultation with a holistic veterinarian.

A woman sitting near us was watching as Scout happily pounced on the bubbles and then stared intently into my eyes as he waited for the next wave of the bubble wand. Chasing soap bubbles is one of Scout’s favorite things to do in life. (In fact, I just typed the word and he must have read it, because he popped up from his nap and he’s staring at me, waiting to see if we’re headed outside.)

My dog eats a live bird (musings on animals doing what animals do)

(This originally appeared on my blog at Patheos.com in May 2016.)

Photo by Pixabay

My dog Bailey was just outside, just hanging out in the grass, enjoying the evening air. She’d been outside maybe ten minutes when I went out to bring her in and saw that she had something pinned to the ground…it was a bird. I called to her, she moved towards me, and the bird jumped away. Bailey went after the bird, pinned it, and let it go. It hopped, she pinned it again. When it flew up about a foot, Bailey leaped up and caught it midair.

And the race was on. I told her to drop the bird, trying not to freak out. The bird was alive, squeaking and flapping its wings. I threw Bailey’s favorite ball in the hope I could distract her long enough to throw the leash on her and get her away, but all she did was run around with the bird, periodically dropping it to yank out feathers and then grabbing it again and taking off, bird bones crunching audibly as she chewed on the run.

My god, the poor bird! I tried to chase Bailey (bad idea). She’d drop the bird, I’d call cheerily and throw the ball again, and she’d start running. I used every attention-getting trick she’d trained with, to no avail, the bird getting smaller and smaller and me getting more and more panicked as the seconds ticked by. Could the bird even be saved now? There was no blood, just feathers flying. Maybe there was still a chance.

Eventually I ran into the house, reached into the fridge, grabbed a handful of mashed potatoes, and ran outside to throw them to the dog. She came running gleefully, but only because she’d already eaten the bird.

THE WHOLE BIRD. The head, the beak, the feet, and most of the feathers. I’d love to tell you what kind of bird it was, but the only thing she didn’t eat were a few feathers and the entrails, which oddly enough were left intact in the grass.

The entire scenario, from the moment I spotted her with the live bird until the time she finally came to me? Maybe two minutes, max. Probably considerably less, although it felt like an eternity.

I called the vet. We’ve just finished more than three weeks of dogs with stomach viruses and diarrhea and antibiotics, and I have no idea what’s going to happen to all of that bird that Bailey just ingested. The vet receptionist told me that dogs usually digest that kind of stuff really well, implying that this was a common thing, dogs eating entire birds. When I asked about the head, the beak, the feet, she simply said, “Yes.” When I pressed her – my dog ate a whole bird – she offered to have the vet call me to reassure me everything would be fine.

Will it be fine? To say that I’m traumatized is an understatement. I watched a bird go from hopping and flapping one minute to feathers and entrails the next, its life taken before my eyes by the animal that I cherish. There wasn’t even any blood; just feathers and that little string of bird guts. My dog did that.

I’m horrified that Bailey didn’t listen to me. She knows these commands cold and I tempted her with her favorite things. She should have listened to me. Then again, I had nothing to offer that could match a live bird. In her mouth.

Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised. A few summers ago, she and Bandit made quick work of the three tiny baby bunnies that had been living in the back yard, bunnies who made the bad choice of hopping around right under the dogs’ noses and flaunting their frailty. It took me weeks to get over the fact that my dogs killed bunnies.

Of course, I understand that this is real life, it’s nature, it’s animals doing what animals do. We have a hawk that often visits our yard; I’ve come outside to find more than one headless sparrow who couldn’t escape the clutches of a bigger, stronger predator.

But at this moment, a few pin feathers still fluttering across the grass, this is too much nature for me. When I came inside after inspecting the yard for any body parts (there were none), Bailey was guzzling down a bowl of water and panting, her tail wagging, she clearly joyful for the hunt and capture she’d just executed. I looked her in the eye and, my voice shaking, whispered, “I can’t believe you just did that.” She stopped wagging and lowered her head a bit, and as our eyes met we both realized that, despite our mutual love and deep emotional connection, she will always be a dog and I a human. She will always eat birds and I will always be traumatized by it.

I reached out to hug her. She nuzzled my neck. I stroked her head and cried.

Bailey is sound asleep at my feet as I write, but I can hear her stomach gurgling, the bird likely making it’s way through her intestines. I’m praying she doesn’t throw up, at least not before darling husband gets home. The last thing I need now is a dog barfing up a bird’s head.

Confessions of an office (and school) supply addict

photo courtesy of pixabay

(Note: This post is cross posted at Patheos.com)

I spent a half hour today sharpening pencils. I enjoy the act of standing at an old-fashioned sharpener and turning the crank, hearing the blade grind the wood and graphite to a fine point and watching the shavings build into a pile at my feet. It helps me clear my head when I’m stressed, on a column deadline, or stumped by the Sunday crossword.

I picked up the yellow No. 2 pencils while I was out running errands. I limited myself to just one box because the truth is that if I didn’t, I would have skipped the milk and bread and spent the grocery money on school supplies.

Never mind that I don’t have kids in school anymore or that I’m not in school myself. It’s “Back to School” time, which means supplies are on sale, and that’s a dangerous time of the year for me.

Because I’m an office supply addict.

Mrs. Robin’s babies

The first of Mrs. Robin’s eggs have hatched!

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the struggle Mrs. Robin had building her nest and the lesson she showed in perseverance, and over on my blog at Patheos, I’ve been blogging about Mrs. Robin and her eggs. (You can read the posts at Patheos (with photos) by clicking here.)

But since today was so exciting I wanted to share the news here, too: two of the eggs have hatched! I found an eggshell in the grass this afternoon, a shell that hadn’t been there earlier in the day. So I snuck up into the garage attic to peek out the window at the nest. Mrs. Robin flew away just long enough for me to snap a couple of photos. One looks as if it had just emerged from the egg.

I’m so glad we get to follow along with the miraculous birth of her babies! Stay tuned for more photos – Mrs. Morning Dove is also sitting on eggs!

I’m blogging at Patheos.com

If you’ve been wondering where I am lately, here’s some big news: I’m recently taken over the Heavenly Creatures blog at Patheos.com, where I’m blogging about animals, life and spirituality! It’s a fun new writing opportunity, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to write about something I love and (hopefully) make a little money at the same time. Check out the new blog at http://www.patheos.com/community/heavenlycreatures!