somerville dog: a weblog

Saturday will be the one-year anniversary of the day that I brought Strummer home.

So I now know what winter is like with a dog. For the most part it's pretty excellent. Snow seems to bring out the puppy (or the child) in all of us.

Unfortunately, while the child in many of us is full of unbridled glee, some of our inner children can be pretty irresponsible. That must explain why there is so much more dog poop that is left un-picked-up in the winter. Dog owners in Boston and Brookline have observed this past winter that responsibility has been lax among their peers. Now it's spring and, in Somerville, we're finally getting the memo: even people who don't have dogs are venturing out into our streets, sidewalks and other public places, and who can blame them for not appreciating what winter has left behind?

Dog poop is bad enough for dog owners. Our dogs can contract really gnarly parasites from poop. Even if your dog doesn't eat poop, some poop-borne parasites can enter your dog's blood-stream through the skin of his pads. I shit you not. And if he fetches a tennis ball that rolled in poop, its as good as if he ate it (the parasite-ridden poop, not the tennis-ball).

On the eve of the first-ever community meeting to discuss options for off-leash recreation in Someville, I beg you please to set a good example and pick-up after your dog. Pick up after other people's dogs while your at it. And for dogs' sake, carry an extra baggie for the bagless.

Posted by Michèle at 8:12 PM
Categories: Shooting the S--t
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I was talking to another dog owner yesterday about the article in this week's Journal about the hypodermic needles that Alderman Provost has been finding in her neighborhood and around the city ("Alderman finds dirty needles"). The dog owner remarked that when she is out with her dog, she occasionally finds needles, too. She said that she carefully picks up the syringe using a plastic bag (which, as a dog owner, she always has on hand), smooshes the needle against a tree, and takes the needle home to dispose of it in a coffee can.

The Journal article underscores the risk that my friend is taking by handling these biohazards:

Police Lt. Paul Upton said there is a danger of being infected by disease when handling dirty hypodermic needles.

Upton said residents should call police to handle the needles, but if forced to pick up a needle to protect children, residents should use "some type of barrier between the syringe and their skin—like a glove—and they should never touch the sharp end."

Needless to say (no pun intended), a plastic bag hardly offers protection against the risk to responsible dog owners of being pricked by a dirty needle. Maybe we need to start carrying surgical gloves with us, too.

A question for the authorities: if a dog owner calls the police to report that she found a needle in a city park, will she get a ticket for having her dog in the park?

Posted by Michèle at 7:45 AM
Categories: Somerville
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I'm not a proponent of the let-the-dogs-work-it out theory of canine intra-species social relations. Sure, the dogs will work it out, but what they work out may be the ostracizing of one of the dogs from the pack or, worst-case scenario, the injury of death of one of the dogs. Our pets do not live in a fictional survival-of-the-fittest world. They live in our homes and in our neighborhoods.

Maybe the reason that otherwise responsible dog owners allow their dogs to gang up on other dogs is because they do not know what bullying looks like. I've seen it here and here. Yes, my little forty-pound standard poodle can bully with the best of them. I don't tolerate it, and I certainly don't encourage it.

Think about it. How many responsible parents do you know that subscribe to a theory of child-rearing that says "let the kids work it out." Bullying is anti-social (if not a-social). We don't tolerate bullying in our our playgrounds; we should not tolerate it in our dog parks.

Too often, what happens on the playground is that the parent of the child that is being bullied is forced to leave the park with her child. This does nothing to teach the lesson to our children that bullying is wrong. Likewise, any self-respecting owner of a dog that is being bullied will leave the dog park. This is a profoundly negative experience for the bullied dog: "Other dogs are mean, and other dogs mean I don't get to have any fun." What should happen, both on the playground and in the dog park, is that the adult who is responsible for the bully should put a stop to the undesirable behavior. A parent may be able to achieve the desired affect by telling Billy "Play nice or we're going home." A dog owner must say the same thing, but in that special language by which humans and canines communicate: training.

An effective training tool for dealing with bullies is "negative punishment." Don't be misled by the name: In this case, two negatives do make a positive. Negative punishment is a part of the positive training technique known as "operant conditioning." Most dog owners are familiar with operant conditioning in the popular training method known as "clicker training." Negative punishment is the humane way to train your dog to abandon undesirable behaviors, just as positive reinforcement—"click and treat"—is the humane way to train your dog to adopt desirable behaviors (Sit!).

Bullying is a natural behavior, but it is not a desirable behavior. Dog owners who advocate off-leash recreation as necessary for proper socialization of our dogs and then allow their dogs to bully other dogs are paying lip service to a politically correct buzz-word: They are not practicing responsible dog ownership.

Posted by Michèle at 9:22 AM
Categories: Canine Good Citizenship
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Happy Equinox!

Can we take it as a sign of Spring that Fi-Dough is down to their final pair of dog boots?

Note to the editor: dogs are quadrupeds and, ordinarily, dog boots are sold in sets that include one boot for each foot. -Canis Major

Strummer has been ready for Spring since February. I am convinced that she was suffering from seasonal affective disorder. She was never thrilled about having to wear her Muttluks, despite their beautiful Bruins colors, but being the little stoic that she is, she grinned and beared it.

Until one day she'd had enough of wearing her boots. And who can blame her? Haven't we all had enough of our boots this winter? She was meeting a new dog at Norton's Woods one evening and and she curled her lips—the little grumple-puss—which is very rare for her. I took off her boots, and she cheered up a bit.

So the next snow-fall, we walked to Fi-Dough (the Somerville store, on Beacon Street) and I got some Musher's Secret™.

Musher's Secret also protects dog's pads against ice balls and salt-burn. It is non-toxic and "will not stain carpeting" (though there are a few suspicious paw-prints on the carpet in front of the door to my office).

Strummer doesn't try to lick the Musher's Secret off her paws, and she's her usual bouncy self when she's wearing it, though the boots are a lot better at controling the ice balls that form around her ankles.

Posted by Michèle at 11:03 AM
Categories: Gear, Strummer
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To celebrate the last day of this long winter, Strummer and I went to the beach yesterday. The beach we chose was Singing Beach, in Manchester-by-the-Sea. Dogs are allowed on Singing Beach from October through April.

Poodles, as you know, were bred to be water retrievers. Thus is it rather embarrassing to me when Strummer runs away from the waves as they roll up the beach. Don't get me wrong, Strummer had a fabulous time at the beach. She just didn't want to play with any of the dogs that were playing in the water, with whom I, of course, kept encouraging her to play.

Just as I was thinking that it was about time to start thinking about leaving the beach, Strummer got caught up in a game from which she just couldn't tear herself away. The game involved three other dogs: a border collie, who was fetching two balls with her people, a boxer, and a Parson Russell terrier, and consisted in a twisted version of keep-away: i.e. keep the border collie away from her tennis ball, and, if that fails, keep her away from her humans. This is one of Strummer's favorite games.

The border collie and her humans didn't seem to be enjoying the game so much, so I called Strummer away. She kept trying to give me the slip, and, finally, when the game reached a new level of excitement, she bolted.

The next thing I knew, all four dogs, my fastidious poodle not last among them, were diving head first into a wave!

I'm convinced that Strummer knew that, if she got wet, we'd have to stay longer to give her coat a chance to dry a little bit.

Good one, Strummer. But the joke's on you: I'll turn you into a water dog, yet!

Posted by Michèle at 10:13 AM
Categories: Destinations, Off-Leash Recreational Areas—i.e. "Dog Parks", Strummer
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A letter printed in the Globe today, in response to the latest electrocutions of dogs in Boston, points to the scope of the problems that endanger us and our pets in public spaces ("NStar is only part of problem"). Monica Ponce de Leon, Associate Professor of Architecture at Harvard University explains that there are no safety standards regulating construction work in public open spaces comparable to the safety standards to which workers are held accountable in the construction of buildings.

We have safety mechanisms that protect the public from faulty work in the construction of buildings; not so for the construction of our streets. When we build a home, a business, or even a public building, electricians must be certified and comply with drawings designed by engineers. Moreover, their work is reviewed by Inspectional Services before completion and the spaces can be occupied. Not so in our public spaces.

Ponce de Leon commends Boston City Councilor and mayoral candidate, Maura Hennigan, for introducing a bill that addresses these issues.

Here in Somerville, Aldermen Dennis Sullivan (At Large) and Robert Trane (Ward 7) recently submitted an order

that the Superintendent of Lights and Lines immediately survey all roadways for possible electrical shocks to pedestrians or animals, and work with the utility to immediately rectify any problems (Agenda for the Board of Aldermen Meeting, March 10, 2005).

With all due respect to Aldermen Sullivan and Trane (and I do respect them) for their initiative, if the claims made in the letter in today's Globe are true for Somerville, and there are no standards in place to insure that future work is completed with regard to public safety, the risk to residents and our pets may not be mitigated by surveying and rectifying existing problems.

If these claims are true, I'm going to think twice whenever I have to cross a bridge. -Canis Major

Posted by Michèle at 9:39 AM
Categories: Friends of somerville dog, Massachusetts, Somerville, Your Dog's Health
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Friends of dogs in Beverly, MA formed the Beverly Animal Resource Coalition (BARC) in 2002, around the time that their Parks and Recreation Department proposed an ordinance change that would ban dogs from Lynch Park (see "No dogs, no spirit," by Brian McGrory, Globe Columnist, 9/24/2002).

More than two years later, Beverly is still having trouble identifying viable options for off-leash recreation. Bob Gates writes for the Beverly Citizen that there is at least as much concern about off-leash recreation at Bessie Baker Park as there is support.

Posted by Michèle at 9:23 PM
Categories: D.O.G.s (Dog Owner Groups), Massachusetts
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NPR's Weekend Edition yesterday ran a feature story about a new CD, Ask the Animals: Songs to Make Dogs Happy! The album's producer, Skip Haynes, recommends the album as an aide in dealing with separation anxiety:

Our CD comes with instructions, by the way. What we tell people is: 'You should play this once a day for about two to three weeks, and, when you play it, be in the room, or have the animal with you, because they will associate that music with you and quality time, and then when you play it after you leave, it tends to settle them down and help with separation anxiety, and works.'

One of the songs on the album is "You're a good dog." Haynes would like customers to believe that "dogs like being told, 'you're a good dog,' and they understand what you're saying." This is just misleading: Dogs who like being told "you're a good dog," have been told "you're a good dog" repeatedly in conjunction with Good Things for Dogs: attention, treats, toys, head scritches, belly rubs, walkies...

Animal behaviorists and trainers recommend systematic desensitization to reduce separation anxiety in dogs. As dog trainer, Jean Donaldson, explains in Culture Clash,

Systematic desensitization is the same technique used on people who are excessively afraid of spiders or flying in airplanes. The subject is first taught to relax and then introduced to the fearful stimulus at whatever level he or she can tolerate without anxiety while practising the relaxation exercise. Then the stimulus is gradually intensified at whatever rate the subject can handle, always building on success.

Donaldson recommends establishing a "safety cue," as one of the tools everyone who owns a dog with separation anxiety should have in her toolbox. In the course of a training regimen of systematic desensitization, the safety cue, like the radio,

becomes a signal to the dog that only short, non-anxiety producing absences are in store. It is important to understand that it is not the radio, per se, which relaxes the dog but its reliable pairing with tolerable levels of aloneness which establish it as relaxing. This effect can be quickly decimated by putting the radio on and leaving for longer than the dog can handle. Radios are frequently used without any desensitization procedure, usually to no avail. This is because when owners put the radio on to mimic the ambiance when people are present or to "keep the dog company" it immediately loses any power it had by coming to predict anxiety-producing lengths of absence.

A CD of "songs to make dogs happy" is really for people who think that problems can be solved by buying things. How well can a CD work to reduce your dog's separation anxiety if the songs make you want to leave the house?

Posted by Michèle at 8:25 AM
Categories: Training
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The [Newton] Board of Aldermen voted in favor of establishing a task force on Feb. 22 which would be charged with coming up with the guidelines for an off-leash pilot program. Members of the task force are expected to be named by the end of this month.

"Off-leash debate circles around West Newton park," by Bernie Smith, Newton TAB, March 2, 2005.

Posted by Michèle at 9:59 PM
Categories: Massachusetts
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Following two cases—one of them fatal—in which dogs were electrocuted in Boston this week, the City of Boston will form a task force to investigate the electrocution of dogs, according to a report by Christine Caswell on New England Cable News (NECN) yesterday evening.

Both stories below are from WCBV-TV The Boston Channel (Channel 5):

• "Dog Dies After Being Shocked On Sidewalk" (March 1, 2005)
• "Another Dog Shocked In Boston" (March 2, 2005)

Boston dog owners are organizing to be attentive, when they are out walking their dogs, for damaged, removed or newly installed electrical devices and to report any concerns to the City so that sites of concern can be cheked for their safety.

The following first aid and emergency care tips for electrocution are from VeterinaryPartner.com.

In order to avoid injury to yourself, it is imperative that you do not touch the pet until the electrical source has been turned off or moved.

What to Do

• Unplug the electrical cord or shut off the electricity.
• If this is not possible, use a dry wooden broom or other non-conductive object to move the pet away from the source of the electricity. 
• Check for breathing and pulse. Begin CPR if necessary. 
• If the pet is breathing, check its mouth for burns. Apply cool compresses to burns. 
• Cover the pet with a blanket to prevent heat loss. 
• Seek veterinary attention as soon as possible.

What NOT to Do

• Do not fail to get the pet examined even though she seems perfectly normal after being separated from the source of electricity. 
• Do not give any medications or liquids unless instructed to by a veterinarian.

Any animal that has suffered electrocution should be taken to a veterinarian, even if there are no apparent complications. Electrocution is a life-threatening emergency. It may cause abnormal electrical activity of the heart or a build-up of fluid in the lungs which could be fatal hours after the shock.

via Boston Dogs and Ringer Playground Dog Park Group

Posted by Michèle at 11:32 AM
Categories: Your Dog's Health
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