One lucky boy!

I received the best Christmas present this year.
It wasn't wrapped in a decorative package with bows.
It came in the form of a phone call from a dog owner on Christmas Eve.

This about a 6 year old Greyhound who lost his right front leg to cancer.
He is doing well from the surgery and has full mobility. He loves to run and play with his house mate but he lost more than his leg, he lost his confidence particularly on stairs.
He learned to adapt to everything else in life but his adaptive process, using his back legs to propel him up into the van, was not functional to use on stairs.
This boy is lucky however, he has owners who were dedicated to helping him live a full life once again.

The problem they were facing was the home they would be moving to has stairs and many of them.
Two levels of stairs to get into the house and a flight to the upper living level inside the home.
The current home had no stairs. The owners realizing a potential problem tried to use a neighbors front steps in an attempted to get him doing stairs using treats before the move but to no avail.

He was scarred and lacked in the self confidence to balance and support his body while moving his legs independently required to go up steps.

My goal was to help him re-learn balance and trust in his own abilities to adapt once more this time to stairs.

None of this would have worked had the owners not been dedicated to helping their dog past his fears.

We started slowly. The first was to get him walking and stepping on something different and foreign to him.
I placed a small, collapsible A-frame flat on the ground. Flat and low but had just a little bit of movement when stepped onto. At first I used treats to try and lure him forward, no go for the treats.
So we adapted and just had the owner walk him to the board and limit his options of being able to move around and away from it or to just jump over by completely avoiding the board.

We built one movement forward at a time. One foot, then another until finally standing and choosing to get on and off by his own design.

We built the degree of difficulty slowly by changing the level and angle for him to step onto and walk up. The goal was to build confidence, self control, balance and to use his legs independently while maintaining support.

Then we limited his options to keep him from seeking to jump over or away from and praised him wildly for making a move forward.
Each forward progress was met with lots of praise. After a repetition of behavior, he was rewarded with play time.

In between our session, his owner found stairs for him to climb. First big wide steps that would allow for stopping and balancing between steps. He starting with just a few step, increasing to as many as twelve steps up and down.

We ended our first hurdle by accomplishing an achievement past fear. The big fellow had made a self discovery by starting to trust himself and his owner to keep him safe.

We continued to increase the degree of difficulty by changing the angle, level and surfaces for him to step onto, up and over.

Once he accomplished the first stages of getting up and onto a surface, we repeated this a few times and at some point confidence set in he did it by himself.

Our last session we took him to a friends house who had eight steps up the front of her house but built in the typical size, narrow and steep.
He didn't like them at first and refused to try. We limited his options and the owner went up the stairs with him one at a time holding onto his vest handle and I handled the back end to keep him from rolling backwards.
He made it to the top and we cheered.
Down he went and after two more tries, he was heading up and down the stairs on is own as proud as could be!

We talked about the possibility of altering and adapting the outside stairs up to the new house by either making them wider or adding another landing or two. The builder was able to come up with some variations and we hit on something that would work well.

I got my best Christmas present when the owner called me Christmas Eve to tell me his boy is walking up and down not only the outside steps but the more difficult inside stairs on his own.
The owner said he was sitting and having a cup of coffee in the morning was greeted by his big fellow standing next to him in the kitchen on the second floor. He came up the stairs all by himself!

This is one lucky boy! His owners never gave up on hoping for his having the best life possible. Nor did they chose to get rid of him because he didn't fit their lifestyle needs.

Dog Food for Training

Dog owners are becoming more savvy!
Owners are seeking ways to connect with their dogs in training classes, group meet ups, social pack walks and taking their dogs to the dog park for some off leash fun!
Yet many are unaware that what they feed their dogs daily effects how well their dogs’ will train, behave, learn and develop self control.

The Brain is the engine that runs the body but what fuels the Brain?
Sugar!
The brain runs on glucose (sugar) but it is not able to store its own reserve of glucose, so the Brain must be fed to keep you awake and alert!

Think of the times you have grabbed for candy, caffeine or cookies to off set the sluggishness of late afternoon mental fatigue. Your brain is calling for energy and your body knows it needs glucose, so the body drives you towards sugar.
Simple sugar in cookies and candy offers the fastest source of glucose but it only gives you a short jump start for that necessary brain power.
Continual use of simple sugars has your Brain cycling through running highs and lows during the day.
A nutritional way to stem these cycles is to properly eat complex carbohydrates with your meals.

What does glucose really do?
Our bodies require glucose to maximize all the cellular energy our bodies need to keep functioning effectively. The catalyst for the control and metabolism of glucose is the pancreas which produces insulin. Insulin maintains blood sugar levels entering the muscles and brain cells. Poor pancreatic function lessens how glucose is used properly by the body.
Low sugar levels, Hypoglycemia, can cause lethargy, impaired mental function, and irritability, weakness and becoming easily stressed or confused.
Too much simple sugar intake throws the pancreases into over drive which over time limits its ability to properly control sugar intake as it should.
High sugar levels can lead to Diabetes.

What happens when extra sugar isn't needed for energy?
Glucose is there for energy but when not needed for immediate use, it is stored as glycogen until the body demands energy.
An over weight and obese dog is eating too much simple sugar which becomes stored fat. Fat is glucose which has been converted into glycogen.
The reserve of glycogen is kept until needed for energy. If sugar is continually put into the diet, the glycogen is never used and the body continues to store the additional glucose. Glycogen is not only stored under the skin but also stored around internal organs such as the liver.

Sugar comes in two forms, simple and complex.
Simple sugar is broken down, digested and used very quickly and requires more to sustain energy needs. It contains little to no nutritional value.
Simple sugars would come from sugar, fructose, wheat, corn, honey, to name a few.

Complex carbohydrates have nutrient value and breaks down by digesting more slowly. Digesting more slowly gives the body longer access to valuable glucose, giving the muscles and brain energy resources as needed to maintain focus and activity.
Sources of complex carbohydrates would be oats, barley, legumes, and whole wheat.

Our dogs can’t ask for a cup or coffee or tell you they are fatigued, or do they?

Are there certain times of day your dog seems to have high or low energy, mental focus and attention? How long before or after feeding do these behaviors start?

Are you having difficulty training your dog or they just don’t seem to get it no matter how many repetitions or varied ways you try and teach?
Does your dog mentally wander or no longer focuses on known commands?
Is your once stable dog becoming cranky?
Have a normally dog friendly dog not interested in or seem bothered by or snaps at dogs they normally enjoy playing with?

If you have a normally well balanced dog that seems to have highs and lows in behavior, attention and activity, they may be having blood sugar rise and drops through out the day. Do they train better in the morning or evening, before or after eating?

Food for thought, you may look into changing their food to change their behavior.
Visit www.dogfoodplus.com for information on behavior and food.




Jeanne Perciaccanto is a Dog trainer with over 25 years professional experience. She also holds Science and Health degrees.