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Walking With a Dog Harness Instead of a Collar Will Change My Dog’s Life

I’ve had and walked dogs since childhood. Until last autumn, I’d never given a second thought to how I walked them. I’d just always clipped a leash to the ring on the dog’s collar and got on with it. In October of 2015, I was conducting interviews for a Dogster magazine article on the health benefits of dog walking as exercise. As I noted in the piece, when dogs and their humans establish a regular walking routine, the benefits — emotional, mental, and physical— pass up and down the leash.

The article wasn’t published until February of 2016, but two of the interviews I conducted— with Tricia Montgomery, founder and CEO of K9 Fit Club, and Jt Clough, author, dog trainer, and inter-species life coach— made an immediate impact on both me and my dog, Baby. I was fascinated by how passionately each of them spoke about using a dog harness instead of the standard collar clip. The long-term risk to a dog’s neck over years of pulling and being pulled had simply never occurred to me, and I’m convinced that these interviews may have changed the course of my dog’s life.

Two weeks after I got Baby in 2014, with the leash clipped to her collar. (Photo by Melvin Peña)

Dog harness revelations

One of the questions I’d formulated for my interviews had to do with chest or waist leashes for dog owners versus the traditional method of holding the leash by hand. When I asked Montgomery and Clough about these rigs, I was taken aback when each of them turned their answers toward a dog harness, specifically.

Clough: I have become a proponent for dog harnesses. The love of my life is my 10-year-old Weimaraner; she got a neck injury… My realization was that I was pulling on her neck all the time. That’s how we’ve always been taught to control our dogs. The benefit of a harness for a dog is [that it’s] really helpful for [reducing] wear and tear on their bodies.

Me: The risk of repetitive stress injury never occurred to me.

Clough: It really became apparent looking at her X-rays. If you’re pulling on that all the time… They withstand it a lot differently than we do, but their ligaments, their bones, and the way they’re put together, the wear and tear is the same. You can only pull on something, or jerk on something, so many times before it has a life-long effect.

The dog harness made an immediate difference both to Baby and to me. (Photo by Melvin Peña)

When I asked Tricia Montgomery about harnesses, the echoes of what I’d heard from Clough startled me.

Montgomery: I’m a huge advocate of harnesses. I believe harnesses work for the dog. The harness controls dogs just a little bit better. Keep in mind that excessive pressure for the dog on its neck or cervical [vertebrae] can cause so many issues related to whiplash lameness.

A little thing like a dog harness makes a big difference

I’d adopted my dog, Baby, about 18 months earlier, and had only ever walked her the same way I’d walked every dog I’d had before, with the leash attached directly to her collar. It didn’t take long for me to learn that Baby, a Bluetick Coonhound mix, is a puller. She’s powerfully scent-motivated and physically very strong. With Clough and Montgomery’s words ringing in my ears, I thought about all the times I’d already tugged at Baby’s leash, and, by extension, her neck.

I also thought about all the times she tried lurched off at full speed after an intriguing smell, straining her own neck in the collar. I felt a compounded sense of guilt, not only for my baby puppy, but also for all the dogs I’d ever had. Having lost my previous dog, Tina, in the spring of 2014 to a debilitating idiopathic condition that robbed her of the use of her hind legs, I could only wonder what role, if any, a lifetime of tugging and pulling from both ends of the leash might have played.

Now we never walk without the dog harness. (Photo by Melvin Peña)

Dog harnesses work!

Within a day, I’d obtained a simple harness for Baby and haven’t looked back since. As with any dog accessory, there are a wide range of options, sizes, and price points. The harness I got was literally the simplest $12 to $13 dollar one at the pet store. We slide her front legs through two hoops, and clip it over her back, where I attach the leash.

It took a while for each of us to get used to it, but the difference in handling her was immediately noticeable. I feel more in control of her when we walk, and I am confident that Baby’s risk of unforeseen spinal trauma is greatly reduced in the process. Sincerest thanks to Jt Clough and Tricia Montgomery; Baby thanks you, and so do I!

Read more about dog walking on Dogster.com:

The post Walking With a Dog Harness Instead of a Collar Will Change My Dog’s Life appeared first on Dogster.

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Smell You Later

The information available in canine urine is astounding. From a proper sniff, dogs can learn about the sex, reproductive status, diet and stress level of dogs who have been there before. Urine is used to communicate about territories, to mask the smell of other dogs, to detect females who are likely to be reproductively receptive and to compete with other individuals. It’s no wonder that our canine friends find urine so compelling that they are irresistibly drawn to it. As anyone who has spent even a little time with dogs knows, urine sniffing is a favorite pastime.

A recent study called “Length of time domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) spend smelling urine of gonadectomised and intact conspecifics” was conducted to investigate whether gonadectomy (being spayed or neutered) affects urine-sniffing behavior. Since gonadectomy has significant impacts on body chemistry, it has long been suggested that it disrupts the flow of information available through urine that dogs have evolved to detect over many generations.

Researchers tested the affects of gonadectomy in urine sniffing by recording how long dogs sniffed urine from intact versus gonadectomized individuals. They found that dogs spent more time sniffing urine from spayed or neutered dogs than from intact ones. One possibility is that the dogs are spending a longer time sniffing such urine because they are trying to figure out the information it contains. Because it may have a combination of chemicals that is different than the range of compounds that the dogs have evolved to understand, it may be harder for them to make sense out of it.

Interestingly, this study contradicts the findings of Lisberg and Snowdon, whose 2009 paper also analyzed the investigation patterns of unfamiliar urine and found that dogs spent more time sniffing urine from intact dogs than from gonadectomized ones. One possible explanation for the difference may be that for the current paper, the dogs were tested indoors, but for the 2009 paper, the study took place outside. (Fewer distractions inside may also explain an average sniff length of nearly 13 seconds in this paper compared with just over 5 seconds in the older study.) Another difference between the results of the two studies is that the recent research found no difference in sniffing time related to what kind of dog was doing the sniffing (male or female, intact or gonadectomized) but Lisberg and Snowdon found that neutered males and intact females both spent more time sniffing urine from intact males than from neutered males.

More research is definitely needed if we want to understand the complicated behavior of urine sniffing, which may involve many interactions between environment and individual traits of the dogs—both those who are the sources of urine and those who sniff if. Research is time intensive and can be costly, which is why I’m so impressed by this particular study. It was conducted in a single home in which the 12 dogs recruited to be sniffers all live, there was no funding source for the study and all of the urine in the study came from out of state to insure that the urine came from unfamiliar dogs. Kudos to the authors for taking the initiative to conduct a cool and clever experiment!

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Accepting Dogs on Their Own Terms

It sounds trivial to say it, but dogs and cats are very different animals. The experience of living with individuals of these two species is not the same in many ways. I know I am generalizing here and ignoring the many exceptions, but the typical cat is more independent that the typical dog, and usually more aloof. (Again, I know there are dogs who lean towards the standoff-ish, and cats who are clingy and constantly affectionate, but that’s not the most common way for members of those species to be. Think of it this way—it remains true that men are generally taller than women even though there are certainly individual women who are taller than individual men.)

My point here, and I’m sure you’re glad I’m getting to it, is that if someone has experience with cats, they may acquire perspectives and skills that are different from those acquired by people who spend all of their time with dogs. (It should go without saying that I have no problem with anyone spending all of their time with dogs!) Those skills and perspectives can be very useful with certain dogs, though I’m not necessarily referring to dogs who are more cat-lie in any way.

The dogs who benefit most from the knowledge of cat-savvy people are those who are shy, fearful or nervous. People who know cats well are completely on board with the fact that you can’t push or force a cat to be social with you. (It’s unwise to push or force a dog, either, by the way, but many dogs are easier to convince to engage with us than cats are.)

With cats, it is always wise to take it slow, let them come to you and ignore them until they show an interest in you. That is also true of fearful dogs, but many people who come into contact with a dog who is afraid try to cajole the dog into approaching, or try to lure the dog with toys or treats. People with cat experience are far less likely to try to take shortcuts like this, to the benefit of the dog in question. Cat-savvy people are used to the idea that you have to accept the animal on his own terms and to be patient. To be fair, many dog lovers also know this really well, but I find that it is almost universal among people who have spent a significant amount of time with their feline friends.

I was recently reminded of the wonderful way that many cat lovers have with shy, nervous or fearful dogs when my friend Betsy came over while I was watching a dog of that description. I told her that the dog was very sweet, though easily scared by new people, and that the best thing to do was to toss her some treats and then ignore her. Betsy did exactly that, and within minutes, I took this picture of a very happy dog (the lean one on the left with a tail wagging fast enough to look blurry) enjoying her new human friend. Throughout their initial interaction, Betsy always let the dog control the pace of their progress. She never pushed too hard to pet the dog or encouraged the dog to approach. She just waited and let the dog do what felt comfortable.

Do you have cat experience that has helped you in your interactions with dogs?

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Canine Vision Differs From Human Vision

The scientific interest in studying canine cognition has led to the development of a slew of test protocols—some uniquely designed for dogs and others modified from the field of comparative psychology. Many of them employ visual tasks to test dogs’ capabilities. In order to succeed with touch screens, at discriminating fine details in tests of their abilities to follow gazes or gestures, to understand object permanence, to identify faces or facial expressions, their visual perception is part of the equation. However, most of the studies are designed based on human, rather than canine, visual perception.

Canine vision differs from humans in a number of ways. Their ability to perceive a range of color hues is not as good as people’s ability, nor is their ability to distinguish levels of brightness or their visual acuity. Dogs are sensitive to higher flicker rates than people are, which can affect any studies that use moving items on computers or on televisions. There is evidence that dog vision is even more sensitive to movement than human vision.

Since visual perception abilities are not consistently accounted for in many studies with dogs, it is hard to know whether the test protocols are accurately assessing canine cognition. The results may be affected by visual capabilities instead. Researchers recently tested the hypothesis that visual perceptual differences between dogs and people could affect the performance in visually-based tasks using a free online tool (http://dog-vision.com) that converts images to settings that match what humans or dogs can see best. They report their results in the study “Do you see what I see? The difference between dog and human visual perception may affect the outcome of experiments”.

The test subjects in the study were humans, and they were asked to decide which side was indicated by a person in a series of photos. The photos showed a woman indicating a direction (right or left) by either pointing that way with her arm extended, by turning her head or by moving the gaze of her eyes in that direction without moving her head. People were tested with photos in their original form (set for human vision) and in a form altered for canine vision.

Participants in the study could correctly choose the direction of all three sorts of cues in the unaltered (human vision setting) photos. In the photos that were altered to the dog-vision setting, they could identify the cues in the pointing with extended arm and with the head turn quite well. However, their performance dropped considerably when asked the direction indicated by the gaze of the woman’s eyes in the dog-vision setting.

The results of this study suggest that differing visual capabilities may affect performance in visual tasks. The researchers acknowledge that this study only shows that human performance is influenced when visual tasks are designed for the other species, but it is likely that dogs are similarly affected. Though many experiments that do not account for vision differences between dogs and humans have still revealed intriguing canine capabilities, future research could benefit from doing so. It is likely that researchers could increase the number of unambiguous results and also eliminate the hassle of a large drop-out rate of subjects who do not meet preliminary criteria for inclusion in the study. Potentially challenging visual presentations are a problem in canine studies, and avoiding them will help scientists conduct better research.

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2017 American Humane Hero Dog Awards Gala

Every dog has its day, and 7 of the nation’s bravest dogs are hoping that day will come for them on September 16 at the American Humane Hero Dog Awards®, presented by the Lois Pope LIFE Foundation. These dogs are all competing for the honor of being named 2017’s American Hero Dog, the highest honor a dog can receive.

Dog lovers across the country visited http://ift.tt/QHTBD5 and voted once per day for their favorite dogs in each of seven categories. The 21 semifinalists (the top three in each category) were chosen through the first round of voting, which ended May 3. A second round, featuring a combination of public and celebrity voting, narrowed the field even further to the seven category finalists. The final round of public voting is now taking place until August 30, 2017 at http://ift.tt/QHTBD5.

The winning dog in each category will be flown to Los Angeles and celebrated at a red carpet, star-studded awards gala on September 16, when this year’s American Hero Dog will be revealed. The sixth annual Hero Dog Awards will be hosted by James Denton and Beth Stern and will air nationwide as a two-hour special on Hallmark Channel this fall.

The seven categories for 2017 are:

1. Law Enforcement/Arson Dogs, sponsored by the K-9 Courage Program™ from Zoetis

2. Military Dogs, sponsored by the K-9 Courage Program from Zoetis and the Lois Pope LIFE Foundation

3. Therapy Dogs, sponsored by Chicken Soup for the Soul Pet Food, the official pet food of the 2017 Hero Dog Awards

4. Service Dogs, sponsored by Modern Dog magazine

5. Emerging Hero Dogs, a category that pays tribute to ordinary dogs who do extraordinary things, sponsored by Merial, maker of NexGard® (afoxolaner) Chewables

6. Search and Rescue Dogs

7. Guide/Hearing Dogs.

Winners in each category will earn $2,500 for their designated charity partner and the overall winner’s charity partner will win an additional $5,000 prize. Each charity partner is dedicated to celebrating the role of working dogs in our lives, and like American Humane, celebrates the importance of the human-animal bond.

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