Simple Mistakes We Make When Exercising a Dog

By Linda Cole

We know its important to keep our dogs active to help prevent obesity and keep them healthy in body and spirit. Most dogs are willing partners when you want to go hiking, biking, jogging or walking, or participate in a fun sport like dock diving, Disc Dog, agility or flyball. The last thing any responsible pet owner wants to do is put their dog at risk for injury, but without realizing it we can be guilty of doing just that.

Too much exercise with no conditioning 

Most dogs have an athletic side. They love to run, play, jump and race around as fast as they can. Because they want to be with us, preferably everywhere we go, we can easily forget that a dog may not be ready for a five mile run or an afternoon of hiking. Like us, dogs need conditioning and time to build up muscles and stamina. They are as susceptible to soft tissue injuries as we are, and can pull a tendon or get a sprain. Many dogs do enjoy sports, but just like any human athlete-in-training, its important to start slow and take the time needed to gradually get into shape for any physical activity.

Make sure your dog can keep up with you, and you can keep up with him. A Chihuahua isnt a good running partner, and a Greyhound may leave you in his dust. If your dog isnt on equal terms with you as far as his fitness goes, a walk around the block may be enough exercise for him. If your dog has more energy than you do, play with him in the backyard, then take him for a walk or run.

Forgetting how weather can affect a dog 

The pads of a dogs feet act like shock absorbers to cushion the feet and protect them when walking on hot and cold surfaces. But the pads can be burned by walking on a hot surface like asphalt, concrete or metal. Check your pets paw pads for cuts, puncture wounds, burrs or small rocks, and keep their pads healthy by making sure they are free of injuries.

Know the signs of heat stroke, hyperthermia and hypothermia, and pay attention to how well your dog tolerates different weather conditions. Hydration is important for both of you – always have fresh water available for you and your dog when exercising. Dont force your pet to continue exercising if hes showing signs of fatigue. You may be ready to go another mile, but your dog may not be.

Not paying attention - multitasking

Plugging in the earphones and listening to your favorite tunes while walking, hiking or jogging with your dog may seem like a perfectly normal thing to do, but you need to have your full attention on whats going on around you and your pet. Multitasking isnt always a good idea. If you are texting, talking on the phone or listening to music, you dont have your eyes and ears open for potential problems such as unexpected meetings with wild animals, other dogs and kids, or other surprises that can quickly develop. Besides, the time should be devoted to your dog. Exercising together is a good way to bond with your dog and enjoy the world around you. It’s a chance to unwind and appreciate nature. Thats one lesson you can learn from a dog. Slow down and observe how in-tune he is to intriguing sights, sounds and smells.

How you walk a dog matters

My first dog, Jack, was a perfect gentleman on walks. He always walked on a loose leash on my left side, always sat at a corner to wait while I checked traffic, and never barked at dogs or cats we met along the way. He was getting exercise, but I didnt realize that he also needed to find and investigate scents that interested him. We have five million scent receptors in our nose. Depending on the breed, our canine friends have 125 to 300 million! Your dog should know how to walk calmly beside you when you need to keep him under control, but he also needs time to search for stimulating scents that give his brain a workout along with exercise for his body.

Walking is a good time to reinforce basic commands. Grab a handful of CANIDAE Pure Heaven treats to reward a good sit or stay, or practice having your dog focus on you so hes ready for the times you need his full attention.

Top photo by Paul L. Dineen
Bottom photo by Steven Lilley

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Heroes and why do we feed our dogs to death

Paul and Tinker

Hey Julie,

I’m glad you’re a fan of Paul McGreevy’s too! 

I admire so much of the work he’s done (and facilitated or helped others to do). He’s not afraid to raise sensitive topics and tricky questions through his science and I appreciate that enormously.

Your last post got me thinking about who my canine science (or general doggy-people) heroes are – I’m still pondering on this, but there are plenty of them!

(source)

I think I’ll get back to you with my conclusions and explanations another day, after I’ve had some more time to ruminate on it a bit more.

Meanwhile, I wanted to get back to you to talk fat dogs.

Sampson, June 2011 (source)

One of my local animal shelters was attracting global attention recently when 8 year old Sampson was surrendered to the shelter for rehoming and weighed in at a whopping 84kg (that’s 185lbs). 

Sampson’s not alone. Up to 40% of Australia’s pet dog population are overweight and this is comparable to other developed nations. 

The weird thing is – why? 

Vanessa Rohlf

As pet owners, we humans are in control of their food, we understand that amount of food + amount of exercise = pet weight. We even have pet food companies who have developed weight control formulas so we can feed more but give less - so why can’t some people control the balance to keep our pets healthy?

(source)

Vanessa Rohlf is a fellow PhD candidate of mine in the Anthrozoology Research Group and she has done some excellent work looking into this area of pet owner/caregiver psychology.

Click to enlarge figure (source)

Her research has shown that our behaviours (actions) as pet caregivers can be based on a complex range of beliefs and intentions. We may give more importance to the opinions of a close friend in regards to our pets care than what our veterinarian tells us. You can read the outline of a talk she presented that offers a good summary about why some owners dont comply with pet ownership practices here. 

For more detailed information about Vanessas research, check out the journal articles below. 
It’s really, really interesting stuff!

Sampson, June 2012 (source)

Oh – and Sampson? He’s doing really well – 12 months on, he’s half the dog he once was, has inspired a whole fundraising campaign and is a bit of a local celebrity.

Further reading:

Rohlf, V.I., Toukhsati, S., Coleman, G.J. & Bennett, P.C. (2010). Dog Obesity: Can Dog Caregivers (Owners) Feeding and Exercise Intentions and Behaviors Be Predicted From Attitudes?, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 13 (3) 236. DOI: 10.1080/10888705.2010.483871 

Rohlf, V.I., Bennett, P.C., Toukhsati, S. & Coleman, G. (2010). Why Do Even Committed Dog Owners Fail to Comply with Some Responsible Ownership Practices?, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 23 (2) 155. DOI: 10.2752/175303710X12682332909972

© Mia Cobb 2012

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We did not need a tracking dog to find Johns doe

We finally have some venison to feed this human and canine family! Yesterday afternoon John shot a nice mature doe on our property, and it was a perfect shot. She ran 50 yards from the hit site and expired right away. We brought Kunox and did the short track with him. He really liked the doe but showed no sign of possessiveness towards us. Good boy Kunox! 

Then we brought two pups, Volt and Luna, and let them find the doe too. Volt was much more aggressive towards the deer than Luna was, and even though he was fine with us he really did not like Luna to be too close to "his" deer. 

Mielikki got to inspect the doe too.

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Dog Loses Ear at Dog Park and There Was Nothing We Could Do About It

#SPARCS2014 Day 1

Hi Mia!

Looking forward to the upcoming SPARCS conference in June! We’ll be in Newport, Rhode Island from June 20-22, 2014 with the live audience doing the play-by-play (my dad is going to have to give me baseball reporting tips beforehand), but ANYONE on planet Earth can watch the conference live for free!

Each day of the conference is dedicated to one general topic, and thats not something you often see at conferences. Usually, one person gives a keynote, maybe there’s time for Q&A, and that’s the end! This time, multiple experts will weigh in on the same topic. 

#SPARCS2014 Day 1: June 20, 2014 covers "Aggression and Conflict." Expert speakers (bios here) join the day of talks with takeaways like:

• Patricia McConnell: To be able to recognize the visual signs of conflict and agonistic behavior  
• Ray Coppinger: To understand motor patterns when interpreting aggression  
• James Serpell: To draw attention to what we do and don’t know about aggression in dogs 
• Simon Gadbois: To learn the richness of the concept of behavioral and social “rules” 
• Kathryn Lord: To understand how the broader scientific field of animal behavior and comparison to other animals can inform us about dog behavior

Reading about what will be covered, I couldn’t help but think about people who are personally dealing with companion dog aggression or conflict issues -- not the most warm and fuzzy thing to have to deal with. And then I remembered that while many dogs may be dealing with aggression and conflict issues, many people are not necessarily aware that there’s even an issue in their midst!

Let me back up and explain:

Just this month I learned about a paper, Situated activities in a dog park: Identity and conflict in human-animal space, at The Science Dog (Blog / Facebook), a blog maintained by Linda Case, M.S., (author of numerous books on dog behavior, nutrition and training). Case recently reviewed the paper, and you can read her review here.  

Flickr Creative Commons, Justin Beckley

Patrick Jackson, the author of Situated activities in a dog park, is a sociologist at Sonoma State University. At a general level, his paper explores “how people and their dogs do things (activities) together (situated) in the dog park environment.” A ‘situated activity’ is one that bring people together not because they are best best best friends, but because they share a common interest, and in this case, that interest is dogs.

At the dog park, people spend a great deal of time talking about, well, dogs. Jackson describes dog park conversations that we are all familiar with: “Which one is yours?” and “What’s his/her name?”, with follow-up questions about age and habits.

We know that people readily talk to and through their dogs. Over at The Dodo, Alexandra Horowitz recently covered the different types of things we say to dogs (my favorite: “We dont need you to fix everyones problems.”) I’ve discussed our one-sided conversations with animals over at Scientific American: Did You Have A Good Pee, Mr. Rhino? (I swear the post is about dogs).

But back to Jacksons paper: My ears perked up in the section “Control management.” Jackson comments that the dog park can be a hodgepodge of many dogs doing many different things. Meanwhile, dog owners don’t always know whether something ‘should be done’ and if so, what that ‘something’ should look like. Per Jackson, “it is also ambiguous how caretakers are supposed to manage their own and others’ dogs in the dog park. If a dog is about to enter the park and is snarling at yours, should you intercede?”

And because dog parks don’t come equipped with species-specific referees (think on-site social workers, psychologists and animal behaviorists), dog parks can be chaotic, even unsafe. ?
 
Dogs are confusing. People are confusing. Put them together in a public space, and it’s like all the circuses came to town on the same day.?

To add insult to injury, dogs also come with teeth. Again, Jackson:
 
“It is difficult to know, for example, when untoward behavior like aggressiveness is imminent (King & Long, 2004). In the dynamic dog park environment, knowledge about aggression may only be gained through experience.”

Hmm
 
Hmmm
 
Hmmmmmm
 
WHAT?!? 
 
The first sentence I get. 

“It is difficult to know, for example, when untoward behavior like aggressiveness is imminent.”
 
Thats true. People are not innately able to recognize fear and stress behaviors in dogs, even a dog that they live with. And with dogs coming in all shapes, sizes and ‘ways of displaying canid behaviors,’ detecting fear and stress is even more challenging. Many distance-increasing signals can easily go unnoticed. So far, so good, Mr. Jackson.
 
But the second part:
 
“In the dynamic dog park environment, knowledge about aggression may only be gained through experience.”

Makes zero sense. Scratch that. It makes less than zero sense.
 
The field of animal behavior is all about studying what animals do. Some researchers study play in goats, while others might study aggressive displays in chimps, ants, stickleback fish, or even cranes (such as what aggression and its precursors look like in each of these species). As Mugatu from Zoolander might say, “Dogs are so hot right now.” Many are investigating why dogs do what they do, and veterinarians, veterinary behaviorists, trainers, ethologists, comparative psychologists, behavior analysts, and anthrozoologists are hot on the trail.

Aggression and conflict is an area that many animal behavior researchers investigate. Which is to say, people who live with dogs are lucky: science-based resources on dog aggression and conflict exist and are only growing.

For dog owners, "aggression” doesn’t have to be this strange, unknown, out-of-the-blue thing. You don’t have to wait until your hand is bitten to learn about aggression. Heck, we could even argue that we learn less about aggression and conflict through actual experience. Ever hear anybody say: “OOOOoh! Now I get it! I now clearly see all the things that led up to that dog biting that other dog’s ear off. I will certainly not miss it next time”? To an untrained eye, witnessing conflict is usually very upsetting and scary, not something where you walk away with a deeper understanding of what actually went down or how it could have been avoided.

SPARCS website

Here are some free, science-based ways to learn about dog aggression & conflict: 
 
1) #SPARCS2014 Day 1: June 20, 2014 Aggression and Conflict
Anybody in the world can tune in live for this day of research into conflict and aggression. Join Patricia McConnell, Ray Coppinger, James Serpell, Simon Gadbois and Kathryn Lord as they examine this topic from different angles.
 
2) Free Dog Behavior Webinars (watch live or watch the recordings)
For the last few years, The Center for Shelter Dogs (Twitter / Facebook) and ASPCA Professional (Twitter / Facebook) have been holding free Webinars on companion animal behavior, care and sheltering. Many of the Webinars focus on dog behavior, and they are led by trainers, practitioners, veterinarians and researchers who work with dogs from hoarding and fighting cases, as well as companion, street and shelter dogs. These hour-long Webinars are free, archived and available online now!
 
ASPCA Pro Archived Webinars (search by topic, select few below)

• Identifying and Managing Food Guarding 

• Canine Body Language 

• Canine Behavior and Acoustics

• Human Body Language and Dog Behavior

• Defensive Dog Handling

• Canine Communications: Dog Introductions

The Center for Shelter Dogs Archived Webinars (search by date, select few listed below)

• Wondering About Food Aggression in Shelter Dogs?, February 2014

• Fear of People, May 2013

• Optimizing Canine Welfare, February 2013

3) CAAB Chats 
Online CAAB chats are new to the scene. These free monthly talks are hosted by Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists, people with a PhD (or ACAABs with a Masters) in an Animal Behavior field. Learn more about CAABs and ACAABs here. These monthly talks are free to watch live with a small fee for the recording. The initial two talks covered ‘Canine Communication’ and ‘Response Prevention.’ Next up, ‘Social Roles and Relationships in Dogs’ on March 27, 2014. Sign up for updates about future talk topics here.

~~~

You and I know this is not an exhaustive list (we could add books, blogs, websites and more webinars another day — for this I focused on resources that are available and mostly free). Aggression and conflict are not all that straightforward, and hearing about it from another person, especially in the form of a Webinar, can make the topic a lot more manageable.

When #SPARCS2014 Day 1: Aggression and Conflict comes around, I hope people show up open to the idea that there are many ways to learn about aggression and conflict, and that “knowledge about aggression may only be gained through experience” won’t serve anyone, dog or person.

Oh, and why is the post titled, Dog Loses Ear at Dog Park and There Was Nothing We Could Do About It? Check out The Science Dog post Dog Park People for more on those unfortunate details.
 
Hope all’s well! I think theres a meta-analysis on your horizon...
 
Julie


Reference
Jackson P. 2012. Situated activities in a dog park: Identity and conflict in human-animal space. Society and Animals 20, 254-272. DOI: 10.1163/15685306-12341237

Case, L. 2014. Dog Park People. The Science Dog Blog



Copyright Do You Believe in Dog? 2014

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The Dogs Are the Experts

"This book ... is great reading for all terriermen and women." -- Jack Russell Terrier Club of America.  Order yours here.

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A Dog Show We Need to See

Dog shows are all about the romance of dogs -- which is to say they are pretty far from the reality of canine genetics today.

One of the things you will NEVER hear at a dog show is the true history of any breed, or the list of genetic defects that have been exacerbated by closed registries.

And yet what a thing it would be to hear the truth!

What a breath of fresh air it would be to hear:

"The German Shepherd was never much of a herding dog and is never found herding today. A herding German Shepherd -- ha - what a notion! In fact this dog is a relatively new breed, created around 1900. Today the genetic stock of this dog is so racked by chronic hip dysplasia that many lines of German shepherds can barely walk. Anyone with an ounce of sense stays away from show lines today, and imports their dogs from working stock overseas."

The Bull Dog would be properly introduced as:

"A game dog once used to catch stock for altering or slaughter, the bull dog was reduced in stature and mutated by intentionally breeding in achondroplastic dwarfism, which is why the legs on these dogs are so bent they can barely walk. The pressed-in-face means the dogs have chronic breathing problems, while the digestive tract is so wrecked that these dogs pass more gas than a Mexican restaurant. You will learn to light matches with a bull dog!

The heads on these dogs are so enormous that almost all the dogs are born caesarian, and in fact this dog would be extinct within 10 years if it were not for veterinarians helping these little mutants into the world.

Notice that nice little pig tail? That is a source of chronic skin infection, and most of the dogs in the ring today will have their tails completely cut off after they are retired from performance -- a way of making it easier to keep this breed after a show ring career."

Someone really should write a new voice-over sound track for a dog show and see if the BBC or Animal Planet might run it -- it would certainly amaze the public to learn the truth about these dogs, from dachshunds to poodles, from Irish setters to Scottish terriers. And there is certainly no shortage of true dog tales to tell!

• Related:
  ** Rosettes to Ruin: Making & Breaking Dogs in the Show Ring.

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