Erny

Hi Star Good to see you here. I have always considered Play drive, Prey drive and Food drive to each be part of the whole. In terms of writing/talking about it, I think it is sometimes more clear (although has the potential for confusion as things become more and more dissected!!) to speak about it in this way (ie separately). I see "play" as the founder of teaching pups/dogs in preparation for the more intense response of "prey". I watch dogs in "play" drive and see how easily the adrenaline hype kicks it through to "prey" drive. I think there is a very strong connection between the two, but "play" tends to lack the intensity of "prey". Which is why I would suggest we use the "prey drive" in training - it is less open to distraction away from it, as "play" is, and therefore achieves a more dedicated response from the dog. Not sure if that has approached your question, or whether I'm off the mark to what you intended. Like you, when my dog is in "play", I don't use food/tug as reward (unless I decide to capture something in particular that I want him to repeat) - he enjoys the mere 'mucking around' interaction that we share.

Oh - I beg your pardon .... I did misunderstand. Then I don't know - but perhaps it could be that Kei's system just wasn't running as well as it could or should have been and potentially may have wound down to the point of a tummy upset. And maybe the probiotics have helped right what was wrong, with Kei running on all pistons now ?? Either way, coincidental or not, I'm really glad that Kei is over the tummy bug and things are looking good

Thank you. Not sure that I will be able to make it ..... some heavy going financial outlay at the moment, so I may not be able to make the decision as to whether I can commit by the 'early bird special' date, but I would like to be able to one day take a course in something like this.

Hey Tim What costs are involved for the workshop?

I don't know of any Plane Trees that are around. Unless they were huge/mature, I don't think I'd recognise them (and only now understand what they are from a picture). So to my knowledge, no. But I'll bear that in mind. Thank you. None of his hives or related skin issues have been through a food or contact allergy.

IMO the 'goop' in the eyes was because Kei's system was 'down' - obviously fighting off the effects of the tummy bug. When she came good (which was potentially aided by the probiotics) her system returned to a better state of wellness, and hence no goop. That's how I figure it, anyway.

I've spoken with the Shoo Tag people - their product is not going to work in every and all circumstances. Generally speaking, if infestation is high, the tags might be insufficient. They report they have had people who even in high infestation areas, have informed them their dogs didn't seem to be attracting (eg) fleas. But they've had the reverse as well. When I spoke with them, they seemed honest and upfront about the fact that whilst they do get many successes, they admit to some situations not being as effective or successful at all. If I had a flea issue, I would probably like to try the Shoo Tag - if it worked, then it is something that means I do not need to apply or administer any drugs to control them. If it didn't, then at least I would know. I have PM'd the OP, as I am trialling the Shoo Tag to determine usefulness. It will only be a small trial, because I only have a couple, but I have offered the OP to send the tag to her to trial - the only conditions being that she adheres strictly to the directions for use of the tag and promises me to provide me with regular reports regarding progress/outcome. In areas where paralysis tick is a liklihood, I would not be prepared to 'try it out' on my dog to see if it works though.

Are you talking about the bump/blisters on his bottom, or the lump/boils between his toes ? LOL .... naturally I wouldn't feed curries (heavens knows what THEY would do to his already obviously sensitive stomach, not to mention the farts ..... I can imagine them now as much worse than they at times already are ) but honestly, the highlight of my day is when he will eat ANYTHING with enthusiasm. His favourite (read : most likely to eat) meal over the last couple of days has been beef mince. He's gone off ANYTHING chicken now (chicken frame mince; chicken breast strips; chicken wings; chicken mince as what we humans buy). Not into chewing bones (regardless of type) at all at the moment, although hovers over them and returns to them as though he wishes he was or could be. Won't touch lamb. Gone off turkey to a big degree. Pork is a no-no for him. Only occasionally will eat a small portion of BARF Rabbit. Won't even so much as lick Roo Mince or his old time favourite "VAN Allerblend". I'm certain he would enjoy the meats more if they were cooked, but that would work his digestive system harder (not to mention deplete the nutrition) and potentially he'd go off that after a while due to stomach pains. This is all somewhat frustrating, although we're continuing to work through it. Hopefully there will be a light at the end of the tunnel soonish. This last bout of haphazard eating has been going on since last October. I can't believe I've been working hard on this side of things for 5 months almost consistently. But the silver lining that I'm holding on to at the moment is that his skin and coat has improved so much, and that he is holding his weight a bit better. That's got to be telling of something and I'm hoping that it is a sign of other things getting better to the point of being resolved.

Oh - SK, something that I had temporarily forgotten about but thought of last night ..... when Mandela contracted a dose of Canine Cough as a puppy, I remember noticing more 'goop' in the corner of his eyes back then too. In fact, the colour of the goop changed over the days from the pale creamy/white colour and threatened a greenish hue (which to me suggested infection/conjunctivitis). I treated that with a bit of salted boiled water and it never progressed further and resolved fairly quickly. Since then I read that you have to be careful with using salted water as you can burn the cornea, so I'm not sure if it is something I'd do again - I tend to use saline instead, but use it early to stave off infection rather than trying to cure it with that.

I'm noticing my boy is tiring somewhat quicker as well. More than I would have thought. And that's taking weather into account too. Hope your boy bounces back to full health and stays that way for a long time to come .

Yes, SK, they'd be related/impacted upon. At least by my experience, I very much believe so. When the immune system has been compromised/running low, the body in other areas is open to infections and such like. I notice with my own boy (you'd know I've been having health issues with him for a while). When he's not feeling great and hence not eating, I notice gunk in his eyes more so than normal as well and find myself cleaning them numerous times throughout the day. Not conjunctivitis either, although I am watchful for that as his system is obviously under some sort of load and the 'goop' could be the initial symptoms of irritation. With myself, if I get run down, I am susceptible to conjunctivitis.

Thanks PF. Yes - I hesitated to spray the purple stuff on it for that very reason - hard to see exactly how 'angry' the skin is, colouration of the lump. Will go source some Ottoderm. It will help save staining elsewhere as well. Cheers Judi

Thanks PF. I'm thinking it is not it and I do believe I'm being a realist about it. His bottom looks fine now with no evidence that I can detect of the lumps and blisters. I'm now focussed on the lumps that seem to be persisting around his toes and pads at the moment. Just sprayed them with purple spray - that seems to help to a degree. Waiting for naturopath to return so I can show them to her. One of the lumps that's under the pad/inbetween the toes is looking a bit weepy but I think the spray is helping with that. Anyway - that's a different story to his bum blisters . His coat is looking very good at the moment, although I still do have issues with his irratic eating patterns. I named him "Mandela" after "Nelson Mandela", who came through and lived long even in the face of life difficulties. Seems he is living up to his name-sake after all. Although I didn't mean it to attract all these issues. Never mind ..... we WILL get there .

I think that way too, Showdog, although I think I have a different mental image of the OP's situation than you or others or maybe I'm imagining a hypothetical of my own ie where the child seeks out the dog to stare at it.

All is good . There are times I would agree and I think it really is a 'judgement call'. But if moving away was something the child found reinforcingly empowering, that would only serve to strengthen the behaviour. That would depend (again - I think a 'judgement call'). A passive but unwavering stare in return can serve to remove the 'power' a child might be feeling at the time. I'm not talking about 'innocent staring' (there is to my mind a difference and I hope that my descriptive words are sufficient enough to understand what I'm trying to relate), but I am talking about fierce/glaring/threatening stares.

Agree with Miranda - get to see a good canine chiropractor first - it wouldn't be the first time I had heard that such a visit was all it took to avoid invasive surgery. I know that Barry Haywood has a good following and recommended by many, but personally I found him to be too rough with my girl (Kal - bless her cotton socks). I found Kevin Kelly (works from the Devon Meadows Dog Swimming Pool on Wednesday afternoons) to be far more gentle and effective for her and he has a good reputation and is sought after by many (from near and far) as well. He is not a Vet though. I know that there are other chiro's in the area that DOLers have seen and been pleased with. I think George Schofield (??) is another. Other DOLers will be in soon, I'm sure, to give more info on their recommendations/experiences.

What you've written, OzPit, is true and can well be appreciated. But (fortunately) not all children's behaviour is due to conditions such as those you speak of and are just because they have either learnt to be rude or display unsociable behaviour or not taught not to. For this child's sake, the parents could have kept an eye out and noticed what was occurring in the environment. Some behaviours are for the lack of guidance/teaching by parents. I don't think that I could go around accepting a child's rude/threatening behaviour (on behalf of myself or my dog) just because the child might have a disorder. I'm not sure that's what you were suggesting either. And I think children not only learn through their parents, but also learn through the social responses of individuals within society itself. And, if we were to take my suggestion of "staring back" as an example (only), it is an action that, if making the child feel uncomfortable (and therefore decisting his own) could stand the child in good stead either for that instance and/or for future instances.

I haven't read every post in this thread, so perhaps the point of my post is going to be a bit out-dated. But one of the things that struck me the most from that video and that I don't think has been made much of is the fact that the first example 'exercise' (the candle) was and is presented to people who haven't learnt to learn what the presenter wants from them. For example, once I saw the answer, I was fairly certain that given another similar exercise, I would reasonably quickly be able to work out what the solution was, because I had been shown a 'train of thought' that was required in those exercises. So for me, that part of it is about learning to learn. And that's what we already do with our dogs (well, many of us here on DOL, anyway) .... we teach by 'showing' or making things easy for our dogs to grasp and move upwards and onwards from there. The second point to this is the high value motivation. When a person doesn't know something - is left to 'guess' a little because he/she hasn't learnt/been shown the 'train of thought' required for the types of exercises discussed, waiving a $M cheque in front of them would have their mind retreat to 'hind brain' thinking - adrenaline getting in the way of systematic, calm thinking. Show them how to think for the purposes of the exercise/work that you want them to do and keep them calm with worthwhile rewards and you're likely to achieve results. THEN, with that learning in place, wave the $M cheque in front of them and offer them an exercise to solve and the liklihood of them achieving will be greater, because they have a 'library' of skill on which to base their responses. Again, we already do similar/same with our dogs. When in the initial learning phase (just beginning training) we don't excite them to the point of distraction first. We show them what we want, offer a value reward to promote the result. When the learning is more in place we up the reward value (to something like drive training/reward) and use the benefits that a combination of adrenalin (faster response) and history of knowledge (alread knows eg. "sit") produces. The conversation that has transpired throughout this thread and the different tangents offered is interesting - but coming back to the video itself, I don't think what was given produced anything new that we really didn't know before in the world of learning/training for dogs. Although it does highlight it and perhaps makes a clearer point of it for people to ponder on.

Sorry Mita. I didn't mean to offend. Some of the wording I used in that post was more for descriptive drama, so to speak. But, if a child is staring in the manner the OP describes then I still would stand in front of my dog and I still would stare back at the child. There is such a thing as instinctive body language that people do know even if they've not been taught it, and staring back can and often does stop the direct, rude and in this case potentially threatening (to the dog) stare the child was delivering. Of course, it would have been good if the parents were looking out for their child as well and if they were might have taken the opportunity to tell the child not to stare at dogs because dogs can find it threatening. But that didn't happen.

Pro-K9 asks for evidence of C3 vaccination. We also accept Titre results as an alternative.

I use this too and found it very good. Got to watch where your dog lays/walks etc. afterwards, as it will leave stains that are hard/impossible to lift afterwards. I have a nice pink mark on my washing machine that won't come off.

Hhhmm .... I think I would have stood in front of my dog and given my evil stare at the kid, refusing to break gaze with him. It usually stupefies them into submission or at least displacement behaviour (well, perhaps not sniffing the ground) .

gosh, I hope so. I was thinking about it also whilst we were out having a lark down the park .... A Vet has seen the pustulous rash that invaded his body, as well as the hives. As has a Naturopath. I've had bloods done, including a full panel Thyroid and Auto-immune. I've had hair sample analysed. I'm not going to bury my head in the sand, but all results via bloods have turned up trumps, with "excellent" levels reported for Thyroid and negative for Auto-immune disease. That, coupled with the fact that his body rashes/hives have always responded quite quickly to the Calendula AND that it has affected mainly body as opposed to lips/eyes/mouth area, is making me think what Mandela has/has gone through is not what you raised as a possible. So, I'm going to remain positive and keep working on detoxification, liver support, gut support and adrenal support. . But PF - I do appreciate your thought so please don't get me wrong. And I will print out some info on it so that yes, if symptoms reocurr (wherever they might be) I can put it in front of the Vet/Naturopath and ask - and if necessary, have a needle biopsy done to check, if there is any doubt. In the meantime I'll keep watching for the lumps/bumps as they appear. I was hoping that those that are throwing out are towards the end of the detox. Not sure if it works like that. BUT - his coat does look great for the most part, and the weight is holding a bit more steady (still on lean side), so I'm fingers crossed we are already on the right track and dealing with things correctly.

Oh yuck, PF. I am preferring to think Mandela does not have this condition - especially because any of the hives (erupted or not) he has had have always responded well and quickly to the Calendula Tea bathes I have applied. Saying that though, there are a number of similarities of his symptoms that prescribe to the symptoms of Pemphigus Disorder that scare me somewhat. I'm searching to see if I can find information as to whether the skin pustules disappear for periods at a time without major treatment. If they don't, then that doesn't fit Mandela's profile. But I need to take the lad out for a walk and run, so will keep researching when I return.

I promise you, there is no danger of my lips meeting his butt!!!! Although I'm sure if the neighbours saw me from the rear decking checking his butt hole out where there is better light, they would be wondering "what the ....??". <sigh> ..... for the past 13 months I have spent a good part of my life inspecting and worrying over what goes in the front end and then how it comes out the other. Add insult to injury, now I'm becoming an expert in the actual orifice it comes out of . If anyone has a life, could I borrow it for a while?