Dog Health Network

Anyone who has been to a CPR class is familiar with the basics of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. First you’ll check to be sure the patient has a clear airway, then check to see if the patient is breathing, check whether the patient has a heartbeat and, if the patient awakens during the process, be careful that you don’t get bitten by the patient.

The American Red Cross has been instructing people in CPR for pets for quite some time now and has classes that include all manner of first aid, including mouth-to-snout resuscitation. You read that correctly; mouth-to-snout.

The procedure is similar to traditional mouth-to-mouth resuscitation between humans, the chief difference being that the person performing the procedure will close the dog’s mouth and instead provide breaths into the dog’s nose. The process sounds humorous in theory, but it works and knowing how to perform mouth-to-snout resuscitation on your pet could literally save its life.

According to a March 2002 story from The Scoop, a website that reports on dogs in the news (you know the theory – “DOG BITES MAN” is not news while “MAN BITES DOG” is), a dog in Walla Walla, Washington that was accidentally choked nearly to death was saved by a quick-acting Good Samaritan who was trained in mouth-to-snout.

After being revived, the dog was treated at the Walla Walla Associated Veterinary Clinic and released.

In addition to the mouth-to-snout procedure, dogs can have chest compressions performed in an emergency where the heart stops. Learning and knowing these techniques can save the life of a dog in distress and let him live to chase rabbits or play fetch another day.

The concept of pet CPR is gaining much notoriety and is starting to be taught by organizations all over the country that formerly provided traditional CPR training and certification. If you’re interested in taking these classes yourself, contact your local Red Cross. The life you save may be your dog’s.

 
Becoming the first major improvement in dog training since choke chains and spiked collars, click and treat has quickly revolutionized itself in becoming a big hit on the training circuit. Currently, there are over 10,000 trainers who are using this method regularly.

Used in the beginning to train marine mammals, click and treat breaks down the process into two separate steps, information and motivation. While other trainers still emphasize on these two steps, they try to teach them all at once, which can confuse the animal and prolong results.

Most trainers will verbally praise a dog for good behavior, while at the same time motivating the dog to repeat his actions. This can be a good method, however it takes longer for the dog to understand which behaviors and actions caused the praise from the trainer. With the click and treat method, the processes are easily taught. In normal training, a person would say “good boy” when a welcomed action occurs and proceed with giving a treat. The clicker becomes a substitute for verbal praise and can actually catch the “good boy” behavior quicker than saying it, letting the dog know exactly which behavior he is being rewarded for.

First things first, in order to try click and treat, the trainer must invest in a clicker, which can be found at most pet supply stores. The training itself is quick and rather easy for the dog and his trainer.

Another way to look at click and treat training is viewing it as a secondary reinforcement, while food, water, physical affection and play (things the dog wants) become primary reinforcement. When you take a dog for a walk, the leash works as a secondary reinforcement. It is obvious to the dog that the leash is not taking him for a walk; the owner is, however, it triggers a reaction in the dog, telling him that the leash will let him know where he will go and where he will not. And if he reacts to the leash with good behavior, his reward will be a nice leisurely walk. Click and treat works the same way. When a dog hears the clicker, he will know that he performed a good behavior and as long as he keeps hearing a click, there are rewards coming to him. So, the clicker works as a secondary reinforcement, teaching him boundaries and appropriate behavior.

A couple advantages of the click and treat method include, 1) faster response than verbal praise. The clicker can identify the exact behavior at the time it happens, 2) it takes the place of treats. While motivating the dog to hear clicks, it will also teach him to work without the expectations of having treats given to him each time he does something good, and 3) if the trainer is working at a distance from the dog, the clicker will still work, without having to be right next him.

A good method to use when getting started with click and treat is to stand in front of the animal. Click the clicker and give a treat. Continue doing this for 20-30 minutes, or until the dog becomes startled by the sound of the click. This will familiarize him to the clicking sound, while teaching him that every time he hears it, he has done something good. After he gets the hang of it, begin by adding commands, such as “sit” and “stay.”

Click and treat has proven to be a simple, yet consistent training method with quick results. So for the trainers out there who are looking for a new and innovative way to motivate and praise their animals, get out there, buy a clicker and…..click!

The canine distemper virus (CDV) causes a highly contagious disease in dogs known as distemper.  Dogs who contract distemper suffer damage to their gastrointestinal, central nervous and respiratory systems.  Distemper is incurable and often fatal.

Puppies between the ages of three and six months are most susceptible to the disease, although older dogs and other carnivorous mammals can also contract distemper.  At one time, distemper was the leading cause of death among puppies that had not been vaccinated.  Since the distemper vaccine was created in the early 60s, incidents of distemper and distemper related deaths have dropped considerably.

CDV is transmitted via airborne viral particles that dogs inhale.  Infected dogs also shed the virus through bodily secretions and excretions.  In this manner it is easy for an infected dog to cause the infection of another dog.

Distemper causes a multitude of symptoms that include various respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms to central nervous system disorders.  In fact, dogs that die as a result of distemper actually die from central nervous complications caused by the disease or from secondary bacterial infections.

Diagnosing distemper is difficult for a veterinarian to diagnose as blood tests are not helpful in detecting the presence of CDV.  Successful diagnosis often relies on the ruling out of comparative disorders whose symptoms can often suggest the presence of CDV.  

Because there is no cure for distemper, treatment for the disease is supportive and a vet will attempt to treat the symptoms as best as possible.  A clean, warm, and draft free environment should be created and maintained to ensure the dog is as comfortable as possible.  The eyes and nose should be kept free of discharge, and medication to treat diarrhea should be administered.  Dogs suffering from distemper must be given plenty of fluids to help reduce fever and prevent dehydration.  Other symptoms are treated as they appear if possible.

Like any viral disease, prevention is a much better and more successful option than treatment and the best option is vaccination during the early weeks of life.  The distemper vaccination creates a long lasting immunity to the virus, but it is not permanent.  Annual inoculations are recommended to maintain the dog’s immunity to distemper.  Most puppies are given vaccinations that include distemper vaccine along with vaccines for several other diseases. 

Many people don’t realize that their dogs, just like human beings, can suffer from allergies.  In fact, about twenty percent of the dogs in the United States alone suffer from one allergy or another, with flea allergy dermatitis being the most common form of allergies in dogs.  Other types include atopic dermatitis, food allergies, and inhalant allergies.

Signs and symptoms of dog allergies may vary but are often marked by persistent itching and discoloration of the skin (most common in skin allergies), coughing, sneezing, wheezing, and mucus discharge (most common in inhalant allergies), and nausea, lethargy, vomiting, and diarrhea (common to food allergies and other ailments.)

Over-the-counter preparations and treatments for common dog allergies exist and may be purchased at any good pet supply store, but care should be taken when choosing such treatments.  Consultation with a vet is the best first course of action for several reasons.  First of all, what you think is an allergic reaction may actually be signs of a more serious ailment and a vet should be the one to determine whether that is the case.  Secondly, if the allergy is severe enough, over-the-counter treatments may not be sufficient to treat the symptoms and a prescription strength treatment may be required.  There is also the chance that the dog does not have an allergy at all.  The last thing you want to do is medicate your pet unnecessarily.

If you do think your dog has some type of allergy, consult your vet.  The doctor will be able to perform tests to determine whether an allergic condition exists, how severe it is, and what the proper treatment will be.  If the dog has an allergy to certain foods, it will be imperative to restrict the animal’s diet to eliminate those items that cause a reaction.  The vet’s testing methods can help to determine whether this type of allergy exists as well.  If the dog has flea allergy dermatitis (an allergic reaction to the saliva of fleas, rather than to the insects themselves), an extreme flea prevention regimen will be recommended. 

Just like humans, dogs that suffer from various allergies can live comfortably with them if they are detected and treated properly.  It is important to keep in mind that this is not a time to “play doctor” by attempting to diagnose and treat a possible allergic condition yourself.  Only your veterinarian is qualified to determine whether your dog is suffering from allergies and what course of action to take.

There are lots of ways that people choose a new family dog.  Some may search the newspaper for advertisements from breeders who are selling new puppies; others find breeders via listings on the internet, while still more may simply purchase a puppy from a local pet store.  Perhaps the best method, however, in terms of being helpful to society in general is to adopt a dog from a local animal shelter.

Adopting a dog brings a new friend into your life.  It also helps to reduce the number of unwanted and homeless dogs in your area.  Unless the shelter is a “no kill” facility (and these are sadly few and far between), it will also save a dog’s life.  Animal lovers everywhere champion the adoption of dogs from shelters as opposed to any other method of bringing home a new pet for this reason alone, but there are other reasons to choose the adoption option.

• Adopted pets have had their shots
• Shelters often have information about a dog’s temperament
• Adopting a pet frees space in the shelter for more dogs

When you adopt a dog you can be sure that the staff at the shelter has had the dog examined by a vet for diseases and parasites and that the dog has had its shots.  This is not always true of dogs acquired by other means such as kids giving away “free puppies” from a box in front of the local grocery store or PetsMart.

The dogs at a shelter are not just strays and often are turned in to the shelter by former owners for various reasons.  When this happens, the shelter collects as much information about the dog as possible, including whether its good with children, how much it barks, how playful or obedient it is, whether its housebroken, and other important details.  While it’s true that this information is only as good as the honesty of the former owner, most of the time it is fairly accurate.

Animal shelters provide a valuable service to the community that they serve by keeping the streets as free of stray animals as possible.  Because many of them do this with little or no public funding or governmental support, they are very limited in the number of dogs they can have in the shelter at any given time.  The only way that they can bring in more stray animals is if they remove the ones they currently have.  This is done through adoption or euthanasia.  Obviously they would prefer to have the dogs adopted rather than killed.  Adopting a dog could very well save its life and allows the shelter to bring in another dog in its place.