Aidan3

Time to start a large, young dog rescue?

Yep I was really surprised to discover a huge (relatively) Airedale terrier manages to wiggle through my Westie size doggie door. It wouldn't surprise me to find a small human can get through as well. Is making me re-think things here too. I was told that if someone skilled, not overweight, and flexible can get their head through an opening, they can probably get the rest of them through too. I was told this after discovering that the bars on our windows at work were basically useless.

It sounds human to me. Someone on drugs, maybe? After that big bark, right before the noise, what could be the TV voices sound a bit louder but get drowned out by the freaky noise.

Clomicalm is an older style drug, a tri-cyclic anti-depressant, and is the drug of choice for separation anxiety. Prozac (fluoxetine) is more commonly prescribed for obsessive-compulsive behaviours (called "stereotypies" in animal behaviour). Tryptophan can be given as a supplement, usually with a Vit B complex and some carbohydrates. Evidence reported in the recent literature suggests that increasing the % of tryptophan to other aminos in protein is sufficient to get it across the blood-brain barrier, particular if insulin is raised a little to shuttle other large neutral aminos towards other parts of the body. It does need other nutrients to eventually be turned into serotonin in the brain, but the dietary deficiency is more likely to be tryptophan (corn based foods are a likely culprit) rather than any other nutritional deficiency. I would just give it a try in the interim, it might help. But I think prozac is your best bet, so it's great that you're going to see a veterinary behaviourist. They'll take a thorough history and prescribe the most appropriate drug if required.

I think you need to see a specialist veterinary behaviourist if you can.

Darker goldens tend to be from field lines. These guys have sent pups to NZ and Japan, but they were fairly moderate in colour (were selected for other attributes than colour). A darker coat can hide the mud a bit better, but more importantly, the coarser coat sheds mud and dries faster. My old boy was fairly dark, more of an old English style. He had a very low maintenance coat despite quite heavy feathering.

I think it's an interesting discussion, and it's good to see a bit of X vs Y debate. There is a lot of interesting research on the role of dopamine in rewarding experiences, and related neural processes that seem to be comparative - reward experience is measured against reward expectation. If experience meets or exceeds expectation - good, if not - I am disappoint. Events that are super-significant to an animal are more likely to be learned from, so there is a case for a "big" reward. Matching law tells us that big reward experiences are more powerful. It also tells us that high frequency rewards of lower value can trump big rewards, too. Some of the most reliable behaviours studied using an operant conditioning, food reward paradigm are those that have been learned through many, many trials. Is this because many, many trials of low value are better? Or because it is more practical to train this way (considering that behaviours often need to be shaped by successive approximation, so we're going to need lots of rewards to get what we want initially, and don't want to satiate the animal before we get where we're going)? If a dog knows how to do something (and dogs can often figure some things out very quickly, also other things are innate and just need a bit of guidance; tracking, herding for e.g) - are we better taking a skinner-box type approach, or an approach such as that described by Huski in her blog post? My approach tends towards a mix of both. Initial behaviours are trained using low-value food and lots of trials in quick succession. Once the initial behaviour is learned, we can switch to a more powerful, less frequent "reward experience" (to borrow from Huski). Think of teaching a young dog to retrieve, then taking him out when he is ready and letting him retrieve in the field. The teaching phase requires lots of repetitions to shape the behaviours that we want, then when they are ready they are going to get big reward experiences - regardless of what they do, so you'd better make sure they're going to get it right.

Just to be clear, you can, but you should do it under veterinary supervision. That way you know what to look for and the vet will be able to make informed decisions about dosage.

You should never give certain types of anti-depressant together, and St Johns Wort is included in that because it has at least one active ingredient which may potentially have an interaction effect. Tryptophan is not a drug, but you should definitely consult your vet. It is a precursor for serotonin, and a sudden flood of serotonin combined with drugs can have negative consequences. It is the sort of thing you try if drugs aren't effective, your vet won't prescribe, or it's a mild case. It is considered by some vets as an early intervention for some things, such as territorial aggression and some sleeping problems (serotonin is converted to melatonin). If Stella suffered stomach upsets from Behave then it was probably the tryptophan, in which case Good as Gold will be just as bad.

Difficult to ignore the fact that pitbulls are different and have high potential to do serious damage due to both conformation and temperament, statistically speaking. All the same, this does not refute the evidence that BSL does not work. What I really like to see, regardless of breed, are owners who are realistic about what safe, responsible dog ownership means. Along with that is recognition that all the socialisation, training, and behaviour modification in the world won't make some dogs fundamentally safe if not supervised or contained appropriately. Dog safety is a complex issue. However we do know that imposing breed restrictions does little to improve public safety outcomes and may harm public safety by fueling flawed representations of dogs based on breed alone, and tying up resources that could be used to genuinely improve public safety.

Sabella didn't begin to sleep properly during the day until I began supplementing her diet with tryptophan. At night, she slept very well. Prior to tryptophan, she would settle and not make a fuss during the day, but she would not sleep. I attributed the change to an increase in melatonin. Aidan which tryptophan supplement did you use? The best value supplement is "Good as Gold" which is for horses. You can buy a small 50gm sachet for about $10 to try it. Dose for my 35kg GSD was a teaspoon of Good as Gold. Best given with some carbohydrate, I used to make up a small bowl of porridge and mix the supplement and some dry food in with it. Another option is Troy Behave, which has the added benefit of a super dose of Vit B. I regularly gave Sabella a B vit complex anyway. There are a number of nutrients which are important for serotonin synthesis, but most dogs would not be deficient. Vit B is the important one.

Sabella didn't begin to sleep properly during the day until I began supplementing her diet with tryptophan. At night, she slept very well. Prior to tryptophan, she would settle and not make a fuss during the day, but she would not sleep. I attributed the change to an increase in melatonin.

Probably wouldn't have put the guy in hospital either. Our old GSD rushed to our defence more than once, and not a single person was ever hurt.

That's a really good sign. Careful with the idea that you're trying to "distract" her with LAT, though. I think that's where a lot of what could be highly effective training falls down, we're not trying to distract - we're trying to reinforce calm behaviours. By definition, this means we should be seeing an increase in those behaviours. If it feels like we're distracting, then we're probably over threshold and going backwards.

Yes, an overt behaviour is a behaviour which can be seen (e.g barking, lunging, sitting, heeling). If we can change the way that a dog reacts to a stimulus, that can change the way they feel about the stimulus, too, because overt behaviours feed information back to the nervous system. For example, every time dog sees another dog he lunges and barks (reactive overt behaviour) and takes a long time to settle down after other dog has gone. Using another dog on a leash 10m away as a stimulus, we train reactive dog to walk nicely on a loose leash (calm overt behaviour) while other dog is there. We remove the stimulus dog, and reactive dog is still calm.

That's a tricky question. If you look at enough of the literature you can see that all sorts of things can have an effect on brain chemistry, but nothing more so than DNA. Exercise is one of those things (doesn't need to be much, but it needs to be regular), there is a very encouraging literature on the effects of exercise in humans and other animals. Diet is another, nothing will deplete brain serotonin faster than feeding a bunch of large neutral amino acids with the omission of tryptophan (feeding a diet of corn is the usual way to do this in rat models). Changing overt behaviours can change emotional state, and this is usually necessary regardless of whether a decision is made to medicate or not. At what point is something a brain chemistry imbalance? That can only really be confirmed post-mortem, but the preferable way to do it is to take an inventory of behaviour. If those behaviours are problematic and can't be resolved satisfactorily with behaviour modification alone, medication is tried. Further (objective) observations of behaviour confirm whether the medication has helped or not. It's important to remember that it's not an "either/or" situation. A dog isn't either abnormal or normal, there is a continuum of behaviours and contexts in which those behaviours occur. Certainly if we see a dog who appears to be suffering and there is a likelihood that medication will help, a competent vet should be able to weigh up the risks of side effects vs potential quality of life for that dog. The research tells us that effective early intervention improves long term outcomes.

Glad that helped :)

I would be confident to say the overwhelming majority of pitbulls would not have done this. Had the dog's owner acted more responsibly the tragedy would not have occurred. The argument that you're trying to make, and I do understand where you are coming from, is flawed. The data tells us that these tragedies still occur with BSL. Whether that is because people still illegally keep pitbulls, other breeds are involved in attacks, other breeds become corrupted to fill the gap, people remain negligent in safely keeping dogs, or whatever - the same number of tragedies still occur. You changing an example to suit your argument doesn't change that.

Great post, TSD

Simple reason, m-sass. Communities which have very strict, long-standing BSL do not have a reduction in dog-related injuries or fatalities. If the concern is public safety (as you are arguing) then the more effective solutions should be implemented. Whether we should give a little to get a little back is a fair consideration, and you and Pav Lova have made that argument quite reasonably. I tend to agree, even though I don't agree that BSL improves safety outcomes. If the current trend amongst irresponsible dog owners is bull breeds, then placing temperament based restrictions on those breeds is a compromise worth consideration. Not without it's problems, but better than the current situation in Vic.

Anyone who can walk and chew gum at the same time could see you were talking about certain DOLers and not the ANKC.

In my opinion, the sun orbits around the earth, which is flat, and all opinions are valid.

The formula 'gene x environment' is simple, but it gives rise to complex processes that we're really only beginning to understand. One thing is for sure, we need to be careful not to make too many assumptions or expectations about dogs.

The short answer would be gene x environment interactions. Some individuals just don't need as much as others, and some have learned that the best way to get attention/stimulation is to demand it. Some owners have lots of easy going dogs, then one comes along that makes them question their sanity :laugh:

Yeah, I was pretty sure you wouldn't get it :laugh: