So many great points being raised in the comments to my last post! One thing I want to be sure I am clear about: I am NOT suggesting that we should advise people to cut out neighborhood walks or giving their dog enough exercise to 'wake' them up. I hope it didn't sound like that was implied in my comments. Rather, I think we need to make the general public aware that the exercise they do give their pets is often not enough to satisfy the dog’s exercise needs, and help the owners figure out what type and level of exercise the dog needs, as well as what they are able to provide. As I mentioned in the first post, my favorite solution for the owner who can't manage more than a thirty minute walk is to add in lots of mental exercise for the dog through trick training. The comments to the Read More
Archives for 2011
Just Enough Exercise to Wake Up Our Dogs?
This blog is inspired by Willie, and all dogs who are recovering from injury or surgery, who are on total exercise restriction programs. Willie spends about 20 to 22 hours a day in a crate, 1 to 1.5 hours doing passive physical therapy and the rest lying down beside me getting his belly rubbed. He goes outside to pee and poop, and otherwise I do everything I can to keep him immobile. We'll be doing that for about 5 more weeks, and then can begin, slowly and gradually, adding in movement like 5 minutes of leash walking, or very gentle exercises that target the right muscles. He's expected to be able to have some off-leash freedom about three and a half months from now. That's all background for those of you who haven't followed the story, and it's important because his behavior is Read More
The Mystery of the Overmarking Express
Well, we must be making progress. After reading every single one of your comments, recording them by sex, familiarity and social status (maybe, sort of, more on that later) and comparing it to Dr. Anneke Lisberg's research on urine marking, I now am completely flummoxed about what it all might mean. But you know how the learning curve often gets steeper once you're making some progress (same thing happens in dog training, right).... ? Maybe total confusion means we're getting somewhere? Here's what I came up with when summarizing your comments. First, an explanation: I recorded sex of over marker and over markee if known, or noted it as 'unknown" if necessary. I recorded if the urine first deposited was from a familiar or an unfamiliar dog. Finally, I recorded the writer's description Read More
Laughed ’til I Cried; Cried ’til I Laughed
I was going to write a follow up blog about over marking, but I want to gather a bit more information before I do. I have to say that I've found the comments about over marking absolutely fascinating. I'm going to summarize them next week and will give you a report of what I find. I suspect there won't be any patterns there, given how variable the sex, status and context of markings that have been described, but if that's true, it's interesting in itself. (Keep the comments coming to my last post on the 17th, I'll post my summary next Tuesday.) While I'm working on that and Willie's recovery, here's a laugh for you. This is another video that is just plain funny, and doesn't involve intimidating a dog. And we all know that laughter is the best medicine. Wish I could watch old comedies Read More
The Power of Pee
Last week I talked about John Bradshaw's new book, Dog Sense, which I am enjoying immensely. In it, he discusses why wolf behavior doesn't necessarily predict dog behavior as well as any book I've seen. If you're interested in this issue you definitely want to read this book. In response to last week's post, some thoughtful comments came in about "over marking" behavior, when one dog urinates directly on top of the urine of another. It's traditionally been assumed to be a status-related behavior in which one dog 'covers' the scent of another with his or her own. However, if you look at the behavior closely, it's not at all clear that the hypothesis holds up. Of course, as I've discussed in other posts, the whole concept of dominance has been mis-used and mis-understood by the public Read More
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