Why Do Dogs Dig?

Why Do Dogs Dig?

I wondered about this question, each time Joey would dig another hole in our yard. And I ruminated on the answer to this question many times.

Our chocolate Lab would move whole boulders in his industrial digging.

His persistent digging certainly gave me something to do in the mornings and afternoons, filling in holes, that is. Rolling out and laying down chicken wire to secure a certain area, like it was a crime scene.

The hole that Joey dug to escape from our back yard also got filled in with stones and planks. So when he started digging holes everywhere but there, in places that were away from the property line and fence, I was pretty content. "Pick your battles", I learned.

This summer it hit 100 degrees F. on a regular day. On a cool day it was in the 90's. Joey's holes were getting deeper. And larger. And deeper. The roots of our trees were getting pretty exposed.  "Pick your battles", I answered my frustration.

Suddenly one day, I understood.


There he lay, in the cool of his paw-made cabana, under the shade of a tree his chocolate-brown body camouflaged in the speckled browns and whites of the play of dirt, shade, and sunlight, almost like a speckled fawn would be .

And that's why dogs dig!

How to Know When Your Dog Requires Dental Surgery

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The weather was hot here, and Joey started going back to his old habit of eating just one bowl of food a day.  Doubtless he and his appetite were overtaken by the heat of the summer.

His morning runs were inconsistent: If the weather hit 100 degrees at 5 a.m., as it did a few mornings, Dad just wasn't taking Joey running. The dog hit his 11th birthday - and the boy just couldn't handle it. As Dad says, Joey started out his old self but by the end, they were more walking than running.

One day Dad noticed Joey had bad breath.  It's hard to miss a dog's bad breath but sometimes dog owners just get complacent.

Bad dog breath was definitely a sign that it was time for a teeth cleaning.  Within one day, we had Joey at the veterinarians for his pre-cleaning blood work.  When the old boy sat on the scale, I was sure there was a mistake. 70 lbs. it read. This is too low.   Joey stepped off the scale, and got back on again - with the same reading.  70 lbs. This dog is too thin!  I was under doctor's orders to increase his food intake.

The next week was Joey's dental cleaning. While he was under anesthesia, the veterinarian noticed that he had a severely cracked tooth that needed to be extracted. Suddenly we saw Joey's weight loss through a different lens. We saw his not eating through a different lens. His tooth hurt and he just didn't want to eat more than a minimal amount every day.

So how can you tell if your dog requires dental surgery?

• Watch his weight. If he's losing weight rapidly, there may be a health problem. Don't rule anything out: Get him to the doctor's to do a physical.
  
• Check his breath.  Bad breath is not just unpleasant but may signal a health issue.  Get your dog to the doctor's for an exam and a cleaning.

It's been around 3 days since Joey's dental surgery and tooth extraction, a long after-effect of his being hit by the car 15 months ago: Joey is back to running, he is back to opening his mouth again!  And he is back to eating.  A lot!  A little incentive (like chicken gravy) never hurts, but he deserves it.

These Are a Few of My Dog's Favorite Foods

You know the routine; you are all alone in your kitchen. You walk on over to the refrigerator or open a container of food.  And - suddenly your dog is there! And he's bearing down on your heals, with his tail wagging. "Where did he come from?" you say to yourself. Or better yet, "Where did you come from?" you ask the dog directly.

I'd read in novels that horses could smell water that was hundreds of miles away. Sure, I thought to myself. Smell water?  But here in my own home is the canine equivalent. Take out a simple baked potato from the oven while the dog is in his bed on the living room - and hello Joey.

Over the years, we've come to pride ourselves on a pretty varied list of foods from which our chocolate Labrador Retriever derives gustatory delight.  These are a few of Joey's favorite foods:

• oranges

• grapefruit sections and

• cherries (not sure if they agree with him and besides they're kind of expensive)

• blueberries  (really good if you want to be the pitcher and doggie plays the catcher)

• beets  (Do you hear me? Beets!)

• potatoes, baked and grilled

• potato chips

• can't forget popcorn

• challah - yes challah. It's in his DNA.

• grilled salmon

• nuts - cashews in particular but any will do

• chicken of course (cooked any way)
  
  
• treats!

How exactly did the Labrador Retriever, out of his Canadian and English ancestry and breeding, develop a taste for corn?  Or citrus?  

Now there are legal limits to how much of these foods we will allow him to eat.  We don't want him to be a beggar, and we want to maintain his slim weight.

And there are also foods that are illegal for him. Prohibido under any circumstances. And these foods are:

• Anything that contains chocolate is in this category. (This is harmful to dogs).
  
  
• Or onions.
  
  
• Or garlic. (No thanks, onions and garlic dog farts!)
  
  
• Or salsa. (goes right through him)
  
  
• Or carrots.  (dog diarrhea, no thanks)
  
  
• bones and ribs - the kind that are nicely packaged just for dogs, or the kind that your nice neighbors and friends save for your dog from their rib steak dinner. Joey loves 'em! When you are handing him that bone, you feel you are handing him happiness on a stick.  He covets it and protects it, like a child. But two days  later - we have a problem!!  And who's the one walking him tonight???

What are YOUR dog's favorite foods?

Our Dog's Harness

It took a while before we even considered the idea.

There was something harsh about that word. Harness.

Like we were turning our dog into our beast of burden.

But the case was clearly in favor of the harness: Because Joey was so excited when we took him outside, and in particular to a wooded area, he would pull so hard he would choke himself. AHHHH. CHoKKKKe. AHHAHHH. CHuPPPPa. Along with a few "Joey, take it easy. Easy. Slow down." Choking and coughing wouldn't deter this dog. He would just pull and pull. Smart dog!

The harness changed all that.

Around the same time, I started to take Joey to the lake for hydrotherapy. The harness would definitely help there. Also, I saw some photos of a Retriever in the field, with his harness on and his owner at the other end of the lead, and the balance of power between dog and human seemed to be working well.

Truth be told, the harness gave Joey even greater freedom when he walked. When we were out walking on a trail, it reduced the tug on his neck. Less tugging - less choking! Less choking: a happier puppy. As Joey meandered from one side of the trail to the other and back to the first, the harness allowed him to move, in his meandering path, like the Charles River!

Friends of ours use a harness on their new puppy that makes him walk more slowly. The harness we have for our chocolate Lab is perfect for hunting dogs, dogs who love to roam and explore.

So now of course you've been convinced that you need a harness for your dog. There are two parts of getting your dog a harness that you have to master:

1) Getting one the right size, and

2) Figuring out how to - correctly - get the darned thing on your dog.

So you have to ask two questions:

How much patience does your dog have?
And how much patience do you have?

Face it. The dog knows that the harness means, "Yes, I am going to take you outside." So that means keeping him still, while he's as excited as a boy who is seeing snow for the first time.

In our next post, we'll discuss getting the right harness, and how to correctly get the harness on your dog.

Obtain Your Dog's Genealogical Chart

Where's Bolo?

Some people can trace their dog's ancestry further back than they can trace their own!

Read more »

Oh, My Dog's Arthritis Is Killing Him!

Maybe you're young too young to understand when your mom or grandmom, or dad or granddad, starts complaining, "Oh, my arthritis is killing me!"

If you can't understand your aging parents or grandparents reeling from the aches and pains of arthritis, you certainly aren't going to understand that your dog may be suffering from the same thing - and silently. And if you can, or if you yourself are an arthritis suffering, maybe you will be able to empathize with your dog.

Arthritis can be painful.  And it doesn't just establish itself in humans; it also establishes itself in dogs. And dogs have four legs, and need to take walks every day just to go to the bathroom, so arthritis is a real detriment to a dog, his health, and his happiness.

When Joey started getting up there in (dog) years, we started him on the glucosamine/chondroiten treats.

As always, be an educated consumer when shopping for your dog.

The serving size is based upon your dog's weight.

So let's talk brands.   We choose one popular brand of chewables whose product contains 80 chewables.  Let's do the math to get the correct dosage.  According to their directions, an 80 lb. dog, such as Joey, would need to take 4 tablets daily. That package of Product A would last, thus, about three weeks.

Glucosamine/chondroiten Product B provides 120 chewable wafers.  Sounds better.  Read the label:  The packaging tells you a serving size is "2 wafers" and then below the label it tells the consumer that the serving size is based on weight. Sorry, but couldn't it have said "see below" above, under "serving size"?  At any rate, they're recommending 2 wafers per 20 lbs. of the dog's weight. For Joey, that would mean 8 wafers per day. So our bag of 120 wafers is going to last us slightly more than two weeks.

And so it goes. And so it went, each bag emptying out before we could say "Rover".  So we gave Joey the treats, from time to time, but never with any serious regularity.

Until Joey was hit by the car and got the broken ankle and toes.

After Joey got hit by the car, after the questions "Will he ever run again?" and "Has he learned his lesson?" we heard "Arthritis may set in." 

Signs of aging. The white hairs around our dog's mouth are a sign of aging, but maybe he gets some respect out of those white hairs! But arthritis?

So here's what we did right away, as soon as Joey came home from the hospital- and we have continued this religiously:

We add liquid glucosamine and chondroiten EVERY MORNING to his food.

Let's talk about the liquid form. (These were created for horses, so I understand, with their larger body weight.)

First, you can get one with a pump or one without.  (In this latter case, you will fill up the lid and pour the lid over your dog's food).

Either liquid application, with the pump or without, costs a fraction of what chewables with glucosamine/chondroiten would cost.

So what would be the dosage?  Actually, it's pretty easy to figure out.  Here's the dosage of our current brand: A dog Joey's size should have two-thirds of an ounce) 2/3 oz. per day.  This is (two-thirds) 2/3 of a capful.  Easy.  There are 32 ounces to one quart, which means that our liquid is going to provide our Joey with the building blocks for his healthy bones, joints and connective tissues for more than one month.

Now that's my kind of supplement!

And with the dog running every morning, something has to be right!

Your Dog Is Also An Escape Artist? Rules of Thumb

TEST: What is Joey thinking right now?

So your dog is another "Mr. Escape Artist".  And you want to know "How do I keep my dog in?" or "How do I keep my dog from getting out?"

The rules of thumb are:

1. Never assume that your dog will stay within the boundaries of your yard.
   
   
2. Never say "It's just for a moment."
   
   
3. Never assume that you are only opening the front door "just a little bit".
   
   
4. Never think that your dog loves you so much that he will not stray in order to follow the scent of that other love of his life, the dog that just so happens to be walking on the other side of the block right then.
   
   

5. Never assume that just because your dog is tightly tucked right at that moment inside your garage, whose door is wide open, he is going to remain there.
   
   
6. Never assume that just because YOU cannot see another dog nearby, that your dog cannot SMELL another dog nearby.
   
   
7. Even though your dog weights 80 lbs., never assume that he can't get through a rabbit hole.
   

Do you notice the number of times that the word "never" appears?

Which brings us to our next comment:

Make sure that your dog's name and your address and telephone number are clearly etched onto the dog tag

... and check the tag from time to time to make sure that the phone number and names are clearly legible to somebody who does not know your dog.

So while we have all these rules of thumb squared away (right?), at our next in this 2-part series let's look at a few other things we can do to keep your dog IN the yard and OUT of the street: