But can I leave well enough alone? Not when I found a guest article by one of my favorite dog writers… and I like his point that the biggest problem with this habit is how disgusting we human find it.

Yuck! My Dog Eats His Own Poo!

By Aidan Bindoff

Coprophagia – that’s what vets and animal behaviorists call it when dogs eat their own faeces. To us, it’s possibly the most disgusting thing a dog can do. Is Coprophagia harmful? What can we do to stop it? Will it make our dogs sick? Does it mean that something is missing from their diet?

Unfortunately we don’t really know what causes Coprophagia. There could be many reasons. Some dog owners report that their dog is more likely to eat their own stool after a change in diet – usually to a processed food with preservatives. Owners of dogs who eat their own stool can find that dietary changes may end the habit, particularly changes to a higher quality or more biologically appropriate diet.

Some dog owners have found that Coprophagia stops if they add Pineapple to their dog’s diet. It is not known whether the enzymes in the Pineapple address a dietary imbalance or whether it just doesn’t make poo taste very good to a dog!

Coprophagia has been linked to stress and also to boredom. Regular physical and mental activity may decrease Coprophagia by either reducing stress of relieving boredom.

Picking up dog poo regularly will decrease Coprophagia by prevention. If the dog’s living environment is particularly untidy then that may encourage bad habits.

Coprophagia is generally not harmful unless disease, bacteria or worms have colonised the stool and multiplied prior to ingestion. Dog poo does contain toxins which may become harmful in large repeated doses. There is a greater risk when dogs eat the stool of other dogs, and this should be managed carefully.

The biggest problem with Coprophagia is that humans find it disgusting, particularly the smell of doggy breath after ingesting faeces.

If your dog has a bad Coprophagia habit, please seek veterinary advice to ensure that your dog’s health, diet and lifestyle are in order.

For more information, join the Yahoo Dog Housebreaking group.

Aidan Bindoff is Editor of http://www.PositivePetzine.com, your helpful online resource for positive dog training and behavior information.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Aidan_Bindoff
http://EzineArticles.com/?Yuck!-My-Dog-Eats-His-Own-Poo!&id=275131

Yuck! My Dog Eats His Own Poo! is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

Lola was in her crate, with its usual pad in it, and many of her usual toys as well. The crate just fit in the back of the motorhome, in the area where a table would usually be. She wasn’t happy generally, though she did throw up only once, that first morning. LarryDog wore a travel harness which was tied securely to some metalwork, and he was close to Kelly but not so close that Larry could have bumped into Kelly in case of hitting the brakes fast.

The cats, each in a crate, were in the back seat of our car. I was up front, along with a friend who helped with the driving. He had been warned that our part-Siamese cat, Moonlight, had yowled plenty when we brought him down from Colorado. Misty, our Mexican cat, had made one trip of several hours with us.

It was a five-day trip. We knew that the dogs wouldn’t like being separated from me, so we stopped within a couple of hours of setting out, as much for the dogs to see me as anything else. They greeted me with a lot of emotion that time, but both soon caught on to the routines. We took them out and walked them a couple of times or more during each day’s drive, as well as longer walks before and after the journeying.

As for the cats, both of them did complain quite a bit, but really that bothered me less than the long hours when they both seemed, well, CATatonic. I had some Rescue Remedy with me but it was an old bottle and the top of the cap broke off the first night.

That night was in a Mexican motel. It isn’t always easy to find places to stay with pets in Mexico, but this worked out fine. Someone I had been emailing with happened to own a motel halfway from the Lake Chapala area to the Texas border, and so we routed ourselves that way and stayed at his place. There were a few loose dogs living there, and LarryDog can be a bit dog-aggressive, but there were no problems. In fact, Larry was well behaved the whole trip.

We had brought our dogs’ usual beds, and settled them in the room with us. We turned the cats loose in the bathroom, and that became the routine. One night we tried letting the cats have the run of the room but they both spent the night under the king-sized bed and were not that easy to get in the morning! So I spent part of each evening on bathroom floors, having love-times with the kitties.

The second day found us crossing the border into the US in the early evening, at Eagle Pass, Texas. We had to take our animals out of the vehicles. Kelly took the dogs on leash, one at a time, to crates supplied by the border officials, some distance away from the RV. One of my favorite visual memories of the trip occurred as we pulled the car into place for examination. I looked straight ahead and there was LarryDog, alone in jail, standing and gently wagging his tail! I followed his gaze and saw where Lola was in another crate. Kelly was beside her, chatting with some people who were admiring her. LarryDog seemed to enjoy the whole border process. It would have been less boring than most of his day, I guess.

Meanwhile, we were told to take the cats out of the car and to put their crates on a table next to it. Both cats looked pretty dazed.

“Is Doc still here?” one of the officials asked another one. My heart sank.

Our dogs had had their requisite rabies shots more than 30 days before, and we had papers to prove it. We also had veterinary certificates attesting to their good health, which are not legally required but can smooth the way. (No papers were asked for.) No papers or shots were required for cats, but we knew that any cat that appeared ill could be refused admission to the US pending a veterinary exam.

Luckily, “Doc” was still around and turned out to be just another one of the border officials. He glanced at the cats and asked me how they got along with the Rottweiler. I told him that the smaller one liked to settle down in the middle of Lola’s bed with a “make my day” look, and that Lola would whine but yield! He wished me a good evening, the car was all checked, and we were done.

By now it was dark and we were in a strange town, in need of a place to stay with the pets. We found a la Quinta Inn, and much to our delight the other two nights we easily found national chains that were pet-friendly (Motel 6 and Travelodge). None of the desk clerks even asked how many pets, or what kinds, we had.

The next three days were much the same. When we arrived at our new house in Colorado, I think the animals all thought it was just another motel, but after a few days they got the idea. We are all settling in nicely now.

Long Road Trip from Mexico with our Dogs and Cats is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

Before You Leave
There are several things you can do to prepare for a holiday with your dog that will make the journey more pleasant and relaxing for both of you.

When you have found the perfect place for a vacation, make sure you make a note of the address and contact details for the nearest veterinary clinic. Find out their opening hours, and also ask how they handle after hours emergencies. They may have a vet available on call, or they may refer you to a nearby emergency hospital. It’s harder to find this information when you’re in a strange place and in a panic.

Although you’re not likely to need them, ask for details of a reputable boarding kennel in the area. Again, unexpected things happen, and it may be that you will need to board your dog for a day or two.

Speak to your own vet about whether or not your dog will need any particular medication while on holiday. For example, in some areas, your dog may be exposed to heartworm disease, and in other areas, ticks may spread Lyme disease. You may need to treat your dog while you’re away to avoid him picking up a disease that isn’t a risk to him at home.

Check his vaccination status – there are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, if you’re traveling across country borders, you may need proof of vaccination, particularly with regard to rabies vaccination. Secondly, if for any reason you do need to put him in a boarding kennel for a day or two, he will need to be up to date with his routine vaccinations.

If your dog isn’t micro chipped, visit your vet and one implanted. ID tags can come loose, but microchips don’t fall out – your dog will have permanent identification should he lose his collar or tag. Speaking of tags, make sure it has your current cell phone number on it, and if it’s damaged or hard to read, replace it.

Some dogs have a sensitive stomach and can get diarrhea if they’re fed an unfamiliar food. Check online, and if your holiday destination doesn’t have shops where you can buy your regular dog food, then you may need to take it with you. Be sure to take enough for the duration of your stay.

Traveling By Car
Some dogs become nervous or anxious when travelling in a car, and you may need to spend some time getting him used to it. This can take a while, so start several weeks before your vacation. You start by walking your dog around the car, and rewarding him with a treat if he sniffs or shows interest in the car. The next step is to sit inside the car and coax him in with you, giving him a treat if he’s relaxed, then allow him to leave. If he shows anxiety, don’t cuddle or mollycoddle him, as this can make things worse. Repeat this step and don’t move on until he’s quite happy and relaxed sitting in the car.

Next, encourage him into the car with you, have all the windows down, and close the doors. Again, treat if he’s relaxed, ignore any anxiety, and after a few minutes, out you both get. When he’s able to sit in the car calmly (which can take a few weeks in some cases), your next step is to start the engine. Don’t move the car – just sit in the driveway with the engine running. Reward him if he’s calm, only stay a minute or two then turn the engine off.

Next step is to actually move the car in the driveway. When this is successful, and your dog isn’t stressed by the car moving, go for a short drive to somewhere really fun, such as the beach or a park. That way, he will associate car trips with going somewhere fun.

This process may take several weeks, with each step taking a few days to complete. Things must be taken slowly, and if at any time your dog shows distress, go back to the previous step.

You may find that your dog still feels nervous in the car; ginger can be helpful in reducing nausea in the car. You can feed your dog some ginger nut cookies, or give some chopped raw ginger. Ginger capsules from the health food shop also work, but can be costly depending on the size of your dog. One 500mg capsule is enough for a medium sized dog. A drop of food grade peppermint oil on the tongue can also help.

For a more sedative effect, the herb valerian may be given.  In people, valerian can cause excitement rather than sedation. This isn’t thought to happen in the dog, but it would be a good idea to try valerian at home before you went on a trip. [I have been told that older valerian is more likely to have this effect on people. -- Rosana]

Keeping your dog secure in the car is very important for both his and your safety. If you have a wagon, you may be able to fit a crate in the back. Alternatively you can put your dog in the back with a cargo barrier to stop him jumping into the back seat.

Whether your dog is in the back of a wagon or in the back seat of a sedan, always use a harness and attach him to the car – there have been horror stories of a driver who was involved in an accident and someone opened the back of his car to check on the dog. The dog leapt out of the car and was loose on a busy highway.

If your dog travels on the back of a SUV, again having him in a crate is the safest way for him to travel. Avoid your dog sticking his head out into the breeze; dust and wind can cause conjunctivitis, and the vehicle in front may throw up gravel which can scratch the eye.

Travelling By Plane
Each individual airline has their own rules about transporting dogs in planes, so it’s a good idea to phone them directly and check their individual requirements. However, there are a few guidelines that all airlines will comply with.

Most airlines won’t transport animals in extremes of temperature, so if it’s very hot or very cold, you may need backup arrangements in place. You will need to confine your dog in an airline approved carrier, with your name and a contact phone number firmly attached to the carrier.

It’s a good idea to put a familiar smelling blanket or a favorite toy in the carrier with your dog, as this may relax him during the journey. Some dogs are quite stressed by air travel; in this case you may want to chat to your vet, as he may suggest a mild sedative. Alternatively, you could try valerian as mentioned above.
If you want to give your dog water in the carrier, many people suggest using ice cubes which will melt and hopefully avoid spillage, but your dog’s bedding may still become damp if the ice cubes fall out of the container.

It’s not a lot of fun for your dog to be stuck on the tarmac waiting to be put on the plane so to avoid delays, avoid travelling in peak periods where it may be more likely that your plane is delayed. Try and book a non stop trip so your dog reaches your destination as quickly as possible.

It’s also a good idea if possible to actually watch your dog being put on your plane. Dogs are usually transported as “baggage”, and there are plenty of stories of baggage going missing or being put on the wrong flight.

Checklist For Packing For Your Dog
There are a few things that are very useful to take with you when you travel with your dog. It’s a good idea to keep these items in a box so when it’s time to go, they’re easy to find.
* Spare lead and collar with ID tag.
* Bags to pick up feces – sandwich bags are ideal, but personal experience suggests that you don’t choose the cheapest on the supermarket shelf. They can be quite flimsy and may develop holes in them!
* Baby wipes are handy to wipe muddy feet before jumping into your car or coming indoors.
* A photograph of your dog is essential just in case he gets lost.
* Vaccination records.
* Any prescription medication, enough to last the duration of your stay.
* If your dog has a chronic illness such as diabetes, it is a good idea to pack the results of his most recent tests in case you need to seek veterinary advice when you’re away.
* First aid kit.

Contents Of A Dog’s First Aid Kit
o Gauze sponges and first aid adhesive tape.
o Stretch gauze bandage.
o Vetrap bandage
o Triple antibiotic ointment.
o saline eye wash.
o Betadine or iodine wash for cleaning wounds.
o Benadryl for allergic reactions
o Pepto Bismol tablets for gastrointestinal upsets.
o A muzzle – even the most loving dog can behave unpredictably when hurt.
o Tweezers
o Scissors
o 1% Hydrocortisone cream
o Disposable rubber gloves.
o Blanket
There is a free downloadable guide to first aid for your pet available here: http://free-ebooks.50webs.com/.

A Veterinarian’s Guide To Safe Travel With Your Dog is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

The long drive north will be in late April, and I’m already doing a bit of training review with the dogs, as I recommended in this article I did back in 2008: Train Your Dog Before Vacation Travel and I’m getting our kitties used to their carrying crates by feeding in one and having the other in a choice location on my desk, next to my computer.

It promises to be an interesting trip. LarryDog, the logo dog at the top of the page, is 12 now. He came down with us from Colorado in 2005,  in our little Toyota Dolphin motorhome, and despite his tendencies to be a bit dog-aggressive at home, he behaved very well when on the road. Our other dog, three-year-old Lola, was born here in Mexico, in a town near here. She has had a few car trips but it will be a new experience for her.

It’s a similar story with our two cats. One is a Colorado cat, one a Mexican one. Both have traveled with us in their crates in vehicles, and I can’t say that they liked it. The part-Siamese one was quite talkative on his way down here, so I imagine he will be again. We will be taking the motorhome north and also our car.

The border crossing will be easier for them than for us, most likely. The dogs need rabies vaccinations more than 30 days before we cross, and we need papers to show that, and the animals all need to appear in good health. That’s it. No passports!

There will be some interesting situations when we get to our new home too. We bought a house last year from a friend who lived in it for a number of years with several cats. Should smell interesting to our four.

Any comments about your own long trips with dogs and cats are most welcome.

So What About the Blog?

I’m not going to have much time for it, for several months, so I will be using some guest posts I have collected and pointing you towards some interesting dog training books. In fact, with my background as a librarian, and my easier access to books once we settle in the US, I think the blog will take a more bookish turn.

Dog and Cat Travel — And What I’m Doing with this Blog is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

It’s a program featuring children and teens (ages 5 to 13) and puppies (as young as 8 weeks to 5 months). The children are clicker training the puppies, and very quickly too. Some very young puppies learn to sit and do a variety of other things in just a few minutes! How much training each puppy has had is mentioned… several had had none beforehand.

Given the nature of the participants, the program is very spontaneous and appears more like a good quality home production than a slick professional program. This is much of the charm of the program for me.

To my mind, the best use of the program would be showing it to children as part of helping them get the basics of clicker training. I’m sure any dog-loving child would want to try it themselves!

Clicker training puppies is arguably the best way to train them, and this program should help with that. I think it would be a bit basic for adults… or is it just that the kids make it look so easy?

You can find out more about what is in the program at the page about it here:

http://www.doggonecrazy.ca/clicker%20puppy.htm — and you can download clips or you can buy it there if you are in Canada.

It’s also at Dogwise, clickertraining.com, and at Amazon.com, though Amazon said it would take them a couple of months to fill your order when I was there. They also had it described as featuring clicker trainer Karen Pryor, which it doesn’t do. She endorses it, though.

Now, as a detail person and as a former video producer myself, I did find small things to quibble about.

• Clicker training puppies  is compared with lure and reward, but the latter term isn’t defined.
• There is no list of topics for easy reference, nor are there any credits for who produced the program or who did the voice over. The children are mentioned by name in some cases but they don’t get credits.
• Where they show how to teach a puppy to jump, they show a rather large puppy (Kona) being taught to jump and they say you shouldn’t train a large puppy to jump but don’t explain why. Better to leave her out altogether, specially since the footage of a little puppy does the job.

The program comes with some bonuses. One is training tips. Another is essentially an ad for a DVD coming soon (they then say early 2005) on the tagteach method, which is using clickers to teach humans. I got a kick out the clicker critter section, with tame rabbits, hamsters, and ferrets being clicker trained by kids and adults.

The last section, Speak Dog, shows photos of dog facial expressions and tail positions and points out which dogs you should be wary of and which are demonstrating happy faces. Useful bit. I wasn’t surprised to see this last bit as producer Joan Orr, who sent me the DVD for review, also is a cofounder of Doggonesafe, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to dog bite prevention through education, most worthwhile goal.

So here it is at Amazon; just click on the image to go there…

Clicker Puppy is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

1. To appreciate and cherish my dogs every single day.

2. To do more fun things with them, and to work training into that.

Now, people don’t always keep their resolutions, and of course I am no different than anyone! But I do have an advantage… I used to teach time management classes, and so I am not just making resolutions, I am also making plans.

Actually I already do #1, but I want to be sure to express my love fully to our dogs.  Recently our Rottweiler Lola has developed a habit that helps with this. When she hurt a front paw a few months ago, I got down on the floor with her each evening and gave her a  massage, specially focusing on both front legs — the one she wasn’t using much and the one that had extra work to do as a result.

Well, after about three days, she had stopped limping. As my husband and I sat watching television, I didn’t have dog massage on my mind. But Lola got up from her bed and came and sat directly in front of me. She stared intently into my eyes.

I got the point… and so began a regular habit of giving both dogs massages every evening. I plan to keep this up throughout the new year. Some evenings more, some less, no doubt.  I think I will pull out my excellent DVD on Bodywork for Dogs — that link goes to my description of it.

More Dog Training… in the Datebook!

My dogs are generally well enough trained that when I get busy, I don’t always keep up with training new things. But we all enjoy it so much when I do, that this year I am putting into my datebook for Saturdays:  SOMETHING with the DOGS! Since I use a computer program for keeping track of things, it just took me a moment to write it in all 52 times.

Actually, I sometimes recommend that if you get my weekly newsletter which comes out on Tuesday mornings, that you can use that as a reminder to do SOMETHING with your DOGS.

Whatever you do, happy new year!

And here’s a fun video from youtube that may inspire your training:

Two New Year’s Resolutions for Your Dogs and Mine is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

The Association of Pet Dog Trainers is an organization of dog training professionals who advocate and use positive, pain-free methods. I am a member, and you can see their logo and my blurb about the organization at the bottom of every page of this blog. The renowned Dr. Ian Dunbar started this organization some years ago

Well, the APDT has recently issued a position statement about dominance and dog training.  I just went looking for a sentence or two to quote here but really the whole thing is so good that I suggest you go read that wolf are not organized according to dominance, that dogs are not wolves anyway, and much more.

And here is another really interesting article, a blog post with quite a few comments from readers as well: How Dominance Can Make You Dumb.

Happy reading! I welcome comments here, and will approve ones that don’t agree with me only if they are well written and don’t use namecalling. I’ve gotten some of those before, when I blogged about CM. But since I didn’t use his name here, I should stay under the radar of his more rabid fans.  Do I disagree with him completely? No. But significantly. Oops, starting a rant… do read those articles!

Really, What is Dominance? is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

A Holiday Wish is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

Dogwise always has a great selection, and here is the link to their alphabetical list of 2010 Dog Breed Calendars. I went browsing around, and looked at some of the breeds that I have lived with, German Shepherds, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, Rottweilers, and Basenjis. (Clicking on either image below takes you to the calendar for that particular breed.)

I like it that you can see all 12 months of of the calendars. Actually, this one brought a tear to my eye, as several of the photos almost brought back to life our Rhodesian Ridgeback Cider, who has been gone for about 15 years!

2010 Dog Breed Calendars is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

Well, I just came across a very interesting blog post by Kelly Gorman Dunbar about Nothing in Life Is Free. It’s called Is NILIF Nasty? and it makes a good case that often people speak of this method, abbreviated NILIF, when in fact what they mean is that if you require a dog to do something, like sit at the door, before he gets the reward of going outside,  he will sooner or later make that connection and automatically sit at the door.

It turns out that NILIF uses this training principle (called the Premack Principle) to an extreme degree.

So now I have written my post on the topic, and I suggest that you read the article I linked to above, if you are interested in more. As for me, I will stick with the Premack Principle and not take the next step of NOTHING in life being free for LarryDog and Lola.

By the way, if you do click through on that link, you will be at one of the best — arguably THE best — dog training site online. Well worth browsing around!

Nothing in Life is Free: NILIF is a post from: Training Dogs Blog