Your dog needs help to stay safe in the water
By Pet Connection Staff
June 9, 2009
It’s almost summer, and dogs are making a splash! Gina Spadafori and Dr. Marty Becker have canine water safety tips in this week’s Pet Connection newspaper feature:
No dog should be given unsupervised access to a backyard pool or a neighborhood swimming spot. Swimming pools are best fenced off for the safety of all and equipped with a monitor that sounds when a pet (or child) falls in and ramps (such as the Skamper Ramp (Skamper-ramp.com) to allow animals an escape route. Teach your dog where the pool stairs are so he can find them and get out when tired.
Obedience training is important when with your dog in natural bodies of water. Your dog should come when called, even when swimming, so you can call him back before he heads into deeper water or stronger currents. Always carry extra retrieving toys. A dog who’s heading out into a dangerous area after a ball or stick can often be lured back into shore with a second item thrown closer in. If your dog isn’t trained, stick to the shallows so you can walk to him if he needs help and swim him on a long line so he can’t get too far away.
More thoughts on safety here.
Tips for dealing with thunderstorm phobia in dogs from Dr. Becker:
Some breeds and types of dogs seem to be more high-strung and sensitive to noise, but the truth is that any dog can become terrified of storms. After all, a storm is more than just thunder: The atmospheric pressure changes, the sky lights up, static electricity builds and rain pounds on the roof. The smells in the air are so different that even we scent-challenged humans say, “Smells like rain.” Imagine what an incoming storm smells like to our dogs!
From Dr. Becker and Mikkel Becker Shannon:
Dogs can categorize complex pictures in the same manner as humans so, demonstrating that dogs can form abstract concepts. In a study at the University of Vienna in Austria, dogs were shown landscape and dog pictures on a computer screen, and were asked to make a choice between the two, with making the choice of the dog picture resulting in a treat. The study used four dogs who reliably picked the dog picture, despite changes in the picture and the background.
Plus: Feather picking; pet spending; animals learn better with rewards than punishment. All this and more, in our Pet Connection newspaper feature, which you can read right here.
You can also see it exactly the way we send it to our client newspapers here. (PDF)
