My dog Wilson gets very upset when people swim. It would appear that he thinks they are being attacked by the lake. So he bites back.

The annual trip to the vet last month resulted in two things:  he’d gained a little weight and needed his teeth cleaned.

On the weight side, we’d changed his feeding routine a few months ago and we simply needed to cut back a little on his morning meal (from 2/3 to 1/2 cup of kibble).  He’s fed twice a day, gets tiny treats, and virtually no table scraps (except what he hoovers up off the kitchen floor), so the solution was easy.

On the teeth front, I was not surprised.  Terriers are known to have teeth that attract plaque.  He had teeth cleaning a year ago and the cost was outrageous:  hundreds of dollars, the majority of which was for blood work and anesthesia.  I love my dog, and want him to keep his teeth, but really.  It was outrageous.

I popped into my local Global Pet Foods where we get his food and supplies, and chatted with Rosemary, one of the owners.  I told her of my teeth angst and she proposed a solution (actually, one of two, but I’ll focus on the first.)   She suggested we give him raw bones to chew on once in a while. She explained that there is both a mechanical and biological benefit to this.  Gnawing on the bones provides a physical scaling of the teeth, particularly as they try to get the marrow out of the centre of the bone.  There are also enzymes in the bones that work to improve the flora of the mouth and prevent tartar from building up.  They sell frozen organic marrow bones and it’s important to get the right size for the dog.  I bought a bag of bones and have been giving him a couple per week to chew on.

A few days ago, I looked at his teeth and really didn’t see much improvement,  Yesterday, he spent hours chewing on a large bone, and was really scraping out the centre.  This morning when I looked at his teeth, there was NO brown buildup on his large incisors (canines?), and much less on his smaller teeth.  Unbelieveable!  And the extra bonus is that he enjoys the bones and they really occupy him for an extended period of time.  The only downside is that he needs to be supervised so that he doesn’t hide the bone somewhere in the house. He has already done this a couple of times and I had to follow him around for a while to figure out where he’d put it.  I really didn’t want a smelly raw bone to turn up under my pillow or behind the sofa!

I’ll be a regular bone customer!

Bark Busters!

Really. I can’t believe that after one three-hour training session, there have been huge changes in our dear Wilson and his level of anxiety (read, barking).

The trainer came over Tuesday afternoon for our first session. The teaching (of me) part was short because their philosophy and methods are very close to that of Cesar Millan aka The Dog Whisperer, and I have watched pretty much all his shows. So I get the pack thing, the dog psychology stuff, and the notion of teaching by voice and action, not treats or physical discipline.

We started by working on getting Wilson to understand that he needs to be submissive to me. Then we dealt with knocking at the door and the doorbell. We did some outside work on walking and dealing with other animals he meets outside (lotsa work left to do here….Jana the trainer will bring one of her dogs in the future to help here). Then we did “distance training” which is teaching him to stay by my side even when he is distracted by things.

She recommended that we get a crate for him to use as a den when he wants to relax, so we picked one up yesterday and are just starting to get him interested in using it. That will take a while, but we’re not needing to potty train or anything…it’s more for his comfort and relaxation.

I have some practice stuff to do at home, and we’ll do another training session with Jana in a few weeks. But it’s freakin’ unbelieveable how much of a difference this has made so far.