Now the process of integrating Bart & Sadie into their home started.  My parents aren’t really dog people—they have 4 cats.  They have inherited my grandmother’s Yorkie, CoCo, but she is nothing like these wild, semi-feral puppies.  So I had to get those rusty dog-training gears going again in my head and fast!

One of the most important things you need to do when you have a dog is manage their environment.  This is especially critical when you’re teaching your dog what they can and cannot do.  Dogs are explorers & opportunists and once they’re “rewarded” by some behavior, they’ll tend to keep doing that behavior as long as they get the “reward”.  In this case the word ‘reward’ means anything the dogs really like—chasing cats, eating garbage, stealing dirty clothes—not a treat that you give them.  So don’t lay out a banquet of temptations and expect your dog to resist.  Manage their environment and set them up to succeed.

For example, your kitchen trashcan holds awesome smells & tasty scraps, which your dog is likely to explore.  If, in that exploration, your dog tips over the trashcan and gains access to those smells & scraps, your dog is “rewarded” by that access.  The best way to keep your dog from learning they can get to the smells & scraps by tipping over the trashcan, is to prevent them from doing it in the first place by managing their environment.  The level of management depends on the dog.  Our dog, Saffron, gets spooked by things tipping over and loud noises, so our management strategy for the kitchen trash was a metal step-can with a close fitting lid—it’s heavy so less likely to tip over unless she’s really trying, the lid has to be lifted so she can’t just stick her snoot down in the can, & a close-fitting lid means enticing odors are less strong.  Other dogs may need to have the trash behind a closed door.  When it comes to managing a puppy’s environment, I think it’s best to assume the worst!  They’re likely to get into everything.

Here’s how we managed Bart & Sadie’s environment to get you thinking about strategies for your own dogs or if one shows up on your doorstep:

• We immediately began crating the puppies & kept them closed in the utility room.  Limited access to the house and being kept in a smaller space means they’re less likely to have accidents while house-training because of their instinctive aversion to eliminating in their “home”.  Otherwise they’d learn the “reward” of emptying their bladder or bowels whenever they want.
• We removed shoes, a trashcan, things with power cords, and fishing rods to keep them from learning the “reward” of chewing on these things.  We did underestimate them on a few things which met their demise—venetian blinds, a straw hat hanging 6ft off the ground, a yard stick  We provided Bart & Sadie with suitable things to chew on instead.
• We put the pet food bins on a top shelf out of reach, so they didn’t discover the “reward” of chewing them open and eating the food.
• The puppies kept escaping when we opened the utility room door and were “rewarded” by getting to run around the house, so there’s now a “airlock” created by an ex-pen that encloses the door on our side.  They may slip through the door, but they can’t get past the ex-pen.
• Bart & Sadie wouldn’t come when called yet and were being “rewarded” by getting to play, sniff, and find dead crabs at their leisure, so we started only taking them out on leashes.
• We didn’t want them to get the “reward” of chasing the cats, so we kept the puppies on leash when in the house.

No matter what your situation, you can take steps to manage your dog’s environment.  It takes some thinking, but managing like this makes teaching a dog so much easier.  My parents won’t have to unteach chasing the cats or chewing up shoes, because the puppies aren’t having these unwanted behaviors reinforced and “rewarded”.  I’m so happy to say Bart & Sadie are well on their way to becoming wonderful members of the family—they couldn’t have found a better home!

Have you heard The Tobolowsky Files.  I heard an episode this weekend about an unexpected love story with a pretty revolting dog.  Pooch is a pitiful dog who shows up in Stephen Tobolowsy’s life one day and causes him to consider what is it that makes a dog your dog?

That’s Not My Dog

This is so neat!  Five other stray dogs, Bear, Alph, Low Rider, Jackie and B, have been brought to the U.S. from Afghanistan. They are offspring of the 3 dogs—Rufus, Target, & Sasha–who attacked a suicide bomber at a U.S. base.

Here’s coverage of Low Rider’s story–who got her name from her laid back personality & her fondness of sleep.  I’m thinking her short stature might have something to do with it too.  What incredibly lucky dogs!

Target, Rufus, & Sasha, stray dogs in Afghanistan that hung around a U.S. base, sensed something wasn’t right about a man wearing an Afghan Border Police uniform. They started barking and then attacked what turned out to be a suicide bomber trying to enter the base The bomber was forced to detonate before he had gained entry. Sadly, Sasha was mortally wounded and had to be euthanized, but no soldiers were killed.

Now Rufus will be living in the U.S. with Sgt. Christopher Duke, one of the soldiers who was saved. And Target will be living with a medic from the base. Duke notes the irony that it wasn’t weaponry or equipment that stopped the bomber, it was just ubiquitous, stray dogs.

Happily, a humane response has been developed in the form of The (C)ave Canem Project. The project promotes and facilitates the adoption of dogs by Italians and foreign visitors.  Besides vaccinating and spaying, the organization also provide each dog with a European Passport making it easier for foreigners to adopt.  The Project also feed and care for the dogs within the ruins.

I’d much rather bring a dog home from a trip than some touristy tchotchke.  Wouldn’t it be cool if other countries developed similar programs for their stray animal problems?  (thanks Jennifer!)

Officials in Baghdad began poisoning & shooting stray dogs on a large scale in April when they finally received funding to do something about the estimated 1.25-1.5 million stray dogs in Baghdad.  In three months, the culling teams, made up of vets and police shooters, have killed about 58,000 dogs with plans to kill 1 million total.  Residents are warned not to pick up the poisoned meat they’re putting out to kill the dogs.  In addition to the danger of accidental human poisoning, there is the risk of poisoning “endangered species such as the Cinereous Vulture of which only 14-20,000 remain.”

Before you condemn Baghdad officials for this horrific slaughter, let me put this into terms to which you can better relate.  Depending on the figure you use for the area of Baghdad (78.8 – 283.4 sq. miles) and using the lower estimate of strays (1.25 million), that breaks down to 12-39 stray dogs per city block.  Can you even imagine what it would be like to live with anything close to that number of feral dogs—hungry, with parasites, and possibly diseased—running loose around your home?  This is a public health issue.

Consider also that there aren’t any animal shelters in Baghdad and even before the war, culling is how officials dealt with stray dogs.  Another complicating factor is that basic municipal services like garbage collection have not been restored since the war started in 2003 and trash in the streets is providing a ready food source for the stray dogs, which leads to more dogs surviving and to bigger litters.  Some Baghdad streets have actually been blocked off by giant garbage piles.

A lot has to change, because clearly culling alone won’t fix anything.  Besides restoring Baghdad to a functioning city, there have to be funds dedicated to animal welfare.  It’s also critical that there be a campaign to change Iraqi views on spaying & neutering.  From what I understand, it’s considered cruel and unnatural to spay & neuter dogs, even by veterinarians.

Like many/most countries, Chile isn’t an easy place to be a dog.   It’s estimated there are 220,000 stray dogs in the Santingo area alone.  Earlier this month, Chilean authorities raided the Benjamin Vinuña Mackenna Animal Protection Society where disease is rampant and animals are being killed in huge numbers instead of sheltered and adopted out.  This organization was established in 1915 and reportedly is representative of the conditions in most shleters in Chile.

Here’s an interesting gallery of dogs in Chile.

You can also see the video and read a translation of the news commentary.

These images seen from the surveillance cameras show a very common situation with our overpopulated highways. It is normal for us to see dogs run over. In the video, we can see this dog fighting for his life because he was run over by the vehicle.  What is very touching is to see the very heroic actions of this other dog who is trying to pull him to the side of the highway. We are going to keep seeing things like this until we find a solution to the dogs living on the streets.

There is an update on the dogs in Chile and you can see the video in this previous post.

There is an update on the dogs in Chile and you can read a translation of the news commentary in this post.