It's The Environment Stupid

We rented a small house close-by last week's dog show. Honestly, how interesting can a 3½ hour drive and a dog show be for a dog? So the idea was to give Kenzo and Viva a little bit of extra quality time.

The show was in "Skærbæk". See the right of the map below. And we found a nice place on a small Danish island nearby, "Rømø". A 15 minute drive. We never visited Rømø before, and we did a lot of planning on how to make this work for Viva.


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Traveling with Viva is not easy. Her fear of new places and dogs in particular demands some additional planning. Like to make sure the view of the place we stay doesn't have a whole lot of people and dogs go by. Or to find places for walks that are equally undisturbed.

All our worries turned out to be in vain. The island was beautiful and you could walk and see in all directions without meeting people or dogs. And it quickly showed from the first minute we spent outside, how much Viva just loved this place.

The first thing we noticed her do, was her interest to spider the horizon. You could see miles away and it must have comfort her she could scout the country-side ahead and make sure we were as good as all alone.


When we were on the move, she was ahead of us all the time and made her own decisions as to what direction we should go. Yes, this is the same Viva that is always on my side. Or rear. As manipulative humans, we of course took advantage of the situation and let her walk up and down the sand dunes. A great work-out for Viva to strengthen her muscles in the fight against spondylosis.



Even when we had been hiking for more than 2 hours, she kept on going. Independent. And ahead of us at all times. And sometimes she hit the jackpot. A fresh pile of fox poo to role around in! Sorry there is no video of that, although I am glad I could retrace the spot where I dropped the camera every time she did that.


I have never seen Viva take to a new place like this before. As a matter of fact, she even liked it better than the places we usually have our walks. She told me loud and clear: "It's the environment, stupid!".

Father and son

Finally the big day arrived. Kenzo participated in his first dog show ever and delivered a "good". But we will remember this day for something completely different.

4 years ago, when we got Kenzo from the breeder, we also received a stack of papers. Inside all the papers was a photo of his dad "Odin". A personal message to Kenzo was written on the back. Kenzo's mother was a black and brown Hovawart. But Odin was a blonde, just like Kenzo. We always kept that photo and wondered if Kenzo would grow up to look like - and act like - his dad Odin.

The breeder unfortunately retired, and contact with the litter and both parents was lost before it could start. But we were glad we had the photo. I researched Odin, officialy named "Chaccomo vom Bohrertal", and found out he even made it to Danish Champion 2009. And when Kenzo reached maturity, he did become the spitting image of his dad on the photo.

When we drove up the parking lot to the show area, people were walking their Hovawarts and made show preparations. I couldn't believe my eyes when we drove by one particular couple. The resemblance with Kenzo was striking, and then it flashed through my mind: could it be Odin?.

What must have looked like an emergency stop, I hit the brakes and opened the car window, asking: "Is that Odin?!". The man, surprised by the sudden commotion, gave a hesitated "Yes?". And I answered: "I have his son in the back" and got Kenzo out of the car so we all could meet.

It felt like a family reunion. Kenzo and Odin couldn't care less, but for us humans it was a little emotional roller-coaster. For us it was awesome to finally meet Odin in real life. And for Odin's parents it was awesome to meet the lost son.

Kenzo (left) and his dad Odin (right)

As we were all nervous for the show, this wasn't what we needed to calm down, but we got through the day before entering some state of nervous break down. Kenzo, aka "Sveablik's Igor", got his "good" and we were all proud.

Due to my ill preparations and non-existing knowledge of ring-etiquette, Kenzo pulled this one through all by himself. Odin's dad gave a lot of good tips from his vast show experience and told were we - read: me - should improve. Odin himself scored an "excellent".

After we came out of the ring, people came to see Kenzo up close, arguing how it could be he didn't score higher. A Swedish breeder fell in love with him and asked me a thousand questions about Kenzo, scribbling everything down on a piece of paper.

From the jury report it showed that Kenzo scored highest on the shape of his head. It is so distinctive, and also what he has in common with Odin. The reason I could pick Odin out of 60 Hovawarts in a split second was his face. Other areas praised in the report were the width and depth of his chest, and his overall angles. And last but not least, probably the most important of all, he was judged a "Freundliches Wesen". German for a "Kind Spirit". Thats my boy.

We had to leave early and couldn't stay to see the finale, as we had to see to Viva back home. All those dogs would just have been too much for her. It was an amazing day, mostly thanks to Odin and his dad. A dog show can appear to be all talk about lines and characteristics. But when you know and love the dogs personally, it is so much more than that. I am so glad to have found this missing piece in Kenzo's tale. Boy, I am so proud of him, that sometimes it hurts.

Guarding Dog In Action: Hovawart Intruder Alert

1. "Who's that?". Here Viva and Kenzo notice a person at the end of the drive way and start to focus. Viva is on the left. Kenzo on the right.

2. "That's far enough". The person is approaching. Very clear body language of the lips in this one.

3. "Alert!". The person moved over the threshold. Kenzo sounds the alert.

The Hovawart is a guarding dog. They are wired to act suspicious towards anything new and unfamiliar that approaches their domain. If I would have opened the door and greet the person while telling them it is alright, Viva would cover the person in kisses right away. Kenzo would still be suspicious though. He will accept the situation, but will not loose the person out of his sight. First after a while or with a second meet, he will be able to relax more.

Anything the person would do during their first meeting to approach him, he would reject with a loud bark. How differently Kenzo behaves when we our out. Just yesterday in training class a person he didn't know came up to him, bend over (!), gave him a hug, and looked right into his eyes. Kenzo is maybe not thrilled when that happens, but he allows it.

I took these pictures when I caught Kenzo and Viva doing what a guarding dog does, and posted them on Facebook. They were so popular I thought you would like it if we shared them on our blog as well.

Kenzo in the Surf

We just returned from a 2-week trip to Holland. I had to work a lot, but spend all my time in the evenings with Kenzo and Viva. The place we usually pick for our stays in Holland is pet friendly and close to the beach.

Viva feels comfortable because she knows the place by now. And Kenzo loves it so much here because of the beach. There is only one thing on his mind as soon as we arrive. Where is the beach! When we go for a morning walk, he is determinately pulling me in the same direction: "it is over there, come on, hurry!"

The weather was bad during our stay, but Kenzo doesn't care about that. He loves to play fetch in the surf.

When there is a good surf, he loves to jump over and through the waves. Sometimes a wave catches him and he disappears for a short moment, until he surfaces again. With a huge smile on his face.

Kenzo working on his timing

Although wet, some of the evening walks were accompanied by spectacular sunsets and we enjoyed the view on an otherwise grey day.

The sun did come out one single day though. To Kenzo's disappointment, as there was no surf.

Where is the surf? I want the bad weather to return!

Hovawarts are no natural water dogs like Newfies, Labs and Retrievers. But they can enjoy it, just like any other dog. We got Viva swimming in a couple of weeks. And she was 6 years old and didn't like water when we tried first. Maybe one day she loves it as much as Kenzo does.

On one of our walks we met this fun Retriever, that preferred sand over water. Here he is together with Joska the Viszla - one of Kenzo's Dutch friends - in a fine display of team work. You dig, I get a sand rub!

You dig, I get a sand rub

Traveling Safe with Gates instead of Crates

Viva desensitizing her Gate

When you - like us - cannot travel with your dogs in crates because your dogs are too big or your car too small, you are going to love this product. A doggie gate. The gate has two separate doors. As if we didn’t re-model the car enough last time. But we felt this was really missing.

The separate doors allow us to get them safe in and out the car, one by one. No more risk of being floored by two stampeding Hovawarts wanting to leave as soon as the hatch opens - which actually did happen once, to the amusement of the travelers on the road stop place and some scratches and bruises for me and my wife.

Another advantage is when we park the car in the shadow in mildly warm weather we can still leave the dogs in the car with the hatch open. The doors can be locked with a key.

Inside look, how it was before

The seatbelt system inside their area did not work very well and they would either get entangled or felt restrained. Not restraining them would give the risk they could walk out in traffic in case of an accident. The gate solves this. Without the seat belts they now move as freely as possible.

The doors are universal and fit in most cars. You can easy assemble it yourself – which I did. We got the "Variogate", manufactured by the Swedish company "mim". As I wanted to see the product before I bought it we made a trip to Sweden to have a look although you can buy it on the web.

When we landed in Sweden our first address left us empty handed – despite calling them upfront and asking "do you really have it on stock? So we can SEE the product?". Luckily the salesmen at the third store helped us and called around to other competing (!) stores until he found one that did actually had one on stock. Swedish people are so nice and helpful !

Hatch open! Cooling down on the ferry

We had a great trip to Holland with our new gate. Especially Viva loved it. When we made stops she could quickly make a pit-stop and went back into her "crate". From there she safely observed the rest of us, while I was exploring the place more with Kenzo. Which made him happy as well.

With warm weather it is difficult to keep them cool on the ferry from Denmark to Germany. We are not allowed to walk on the car deck, but I can also not take two huge dogs into the public area as it is overcrowded with people. This time I just left the hatch open and returned to two very cool dogs, see the picture above.

My 7 Best Posts

Many thanks to Roxanne Hawn from Champion of My Heart for passing on the “my 7 best posts” to us. Here are the links to our 7 best blog posts:

1. Most Beautiful Post: The Small Fearful Dog Therapist

What is more beautiful than a dog acting out of kindness? Inspired by Kenzo’s special relationship with small fearful dogs we ask the question if dogs are capable of empathy, and if that behavior is nurture or nature.






2. Most Popular Post: Danish Breed Ban Rests on Historically Thin Basis

We can’t take credit for the most popular post as we didn’t write it ourselves, only translated it from Danish with the consent from the original author. It tells the scandalous conditions under which the breed ban in Denmark came about. And how politicians above all want to appear decisive and disregard the facts.





3. Most Controversial Post: Welcome to the Wall of Shame Irene Jarnved

Not many controversial things happened on this blog. Although some opinions we voiced did cost us some “virtual” friendships. Closest we can come to writing something controversial, is the “Wall of Shame Breed Ban” series. They moved around on Danish forums and FB groups, once more sparking the debate, and making Danes aware of the bad publicity their breed ban is receiving abroad.






4. Most Helpful Post: Are You Prepared For a Dog Fight

When my dad was severely bitten trying to break up a dog fight we wrote this post on how to prevent a dog fight and what you can do when you are in the middle of one. We still use the post when we are attending a dog fight discussion in social media, and hopefully made a contribution to dog bite prevention. Having a plan never hurts.




5. Post Whose Success Surprised Me: Embarrassment Is Not an Option

Meant to be a simple rant on why embarrassment is a useless human emotion that poisons the relationship we have with our dogs, it surprised me to find so many kindred spirits.






6. Post That Didn’t Get the Attention it Deserved: Meet Shiloh, Hovawart in Need of Help

More than one year ago I first wrote about Shiloh the Hovawart and it leaves me with mixed feelings. Enough money was raised to get Shiloh through her needed hip operations. But Shiloh never found her forever home and is still at the rescue. She is still awaiting adoption.





7. Post I’m Most Proud Of: Open Letter to Merete Eldrup

After seeing the appalling video with the collapsing vet euthanizing 19 puppies, this post was the first of a series in protest of the Danish breed ban. Among others it led to an international petition in protest of the Danish breed ban – you did sign the petition right? -  and other bloggers decided to speak out against BSL in Denmark as well.



Passing it on

We are passing the “my 7 best posts” on to these bloggers, looking forward to see what they will pick:

Julie Danbolt -Moody Mudi

Julie Nutter – Dogs and Tails

Jana Rade – DawgBusiness

Karen Friesecke – DoggyStylish

Jen – My Brown Newfies

Sniffing for Footprints: why Tracking is not always Tracking

The tracking posts on this blog raised some questions I would like to answer. Some asked if they could start with tracking for search-and-rescue. And some questioned if treats laid down on the track itself is proper tracking training. Before I can answer these questions, we first need to clear something up.

Basically both questions reveal the same misunderstanding. "Tracking" is a commonly used term for dogs following a scent. But sometimes tracking is not tracking. There are different styles involved. These styles are air scenting, trailing and - actual - tracking. Each style fits the task we want the dog to perform.

Air scenting

With air scenting the dog focuses on air born rafts. This is used when there is no specific track - like when you are searching for drugs, money etc. Or in rescue situations, like searching collapsed buildings for survivors. With air scenting the dogs usually scent for a specific category of scents, not necessarily individual scents.

When searching for a missing person, the point is to reach that person as soon as possible. Even when the track itself already has evaporated. Sometimes following the exact track or trail is not the fastest way to get to the person, as the picture on the left illustrates perfectly. Air scenting would still give success in those cases.








Trailing

With trailing the dog is focused on the rafts of a particular person that have fallen down along that person's route. They sniff for an individual scent belonging to an individual person.

Because of the wind they usually follow the track close, but not exactly. Dogs can trail quite fast and trailing is therefore ideal when the goal is to reach the person as soon as possible.

With trailing the handler usually has a scent article of the lost person they want the dog to find. We not only want to to find "a" person, like when air scenting, but also want to find the exact person we are looking for. They should be able to pick them out of a group if necessary.








Tracking

With tracking we want the dog to slowly and methodically follow the exact track of a person and indicate the objects they find along the track. They focus on the ground and use deposited rafts and disturbed surface to follow the track. This gives the characteristic nose down posture we know so well.

Because the scent of a disturbed surface sustains a lot longer than human scent, tracking dogs have the ability to follow the oldest of tracks, from which human scent already has disappeared.

In K9 police work tracking is used as they also set out to find any evidence a criminal might have "lost" along the way. Finding evidence is almost as important as finding the criminals themselves.










There is no "best" way. But depending on the task at hand, one of the specific styles will fit best. Dogs can master multiple styles.

Which brings me back to the first question. Can we teach our dogs tracking for search-and-rescue? The answer to that would be a no. When we are searching for a missing person, we want to find them fast, and a tracking style is too slow to be an option. When there is still a track available we can use trailing, or when too much time has past and the track has evaporated, we can use air scenting.

On the second question about using treats on the track during training sessions, the answer would depend if we are talking about trailing or tracking. With tracking, treats on the track are needed to learn the dog to slow down, and also to let the track itself become the reinforcer. When the reward would first come at the end of the track, all dogs would rush ahead to get their reward. Using treats on the track and no reward at the end creates trackers - no treats on the track and a reward at the end creates trailers.

Kenzo is getting quite savvy in both air scenting and tracking. And since last month's nosework camp, we have been training a lot with following the individual footsteps as required in tracking, and getting his focus back on the track. Before nosework camp, I trained Kenzo without treats and a reward at the end which explains the problems we encountered. It made him move towards a "trailing" style, not "tracking". Her is the last video from yesterday's session, and you can see the progress he made. He is very focused and moves his nose from one footprint to the next:

What do you think? Does it make sense to follow only trailing or air scenting style in search-and-rescue? And what is your opinion on using treats when training tracking?

***

All illustrations are from the excellent book about scent, "Scent and the scenting dog" by William G. Syrotuck. If you want to know more about the world of scent this is definitely the book to read. It is obligatory material on police K9 training schools. It is not so much a training manual, but more a thorough description of what scent is all about, and what your dog can do with it. After you have read this book, even a routine dog walk will never be the same. Welcome to the dog's world of scent!

I am The Poop Fairy

are you finished scooping?

Don't you hate it when people don't clean up after their dog? I do. And so does Amy Burket from GoPetFriendly.com. Last Friday Amy launched a great initiative, "I am The Poop Fairy", as her contribution to Blog The Change.

Amy is a firm believer that you shouldn’t complain about something unless you’re willing to take action to make it better.

In addition to picking up after her own dogs, every day this quarter Amy will pick up at least one doggy deposit that does not belong to her dogs.

I will join Amy in her "I am the Poop Fairy" initiative and hope you will too. Why? Because two years ago, poop that was not scooped almost became fatal for Kenzo.

He contracted the "French heartworm" - angiostrongylus vasorum. Little devils that use poop and slugs as intermediate hosts. Although a rare heartworm, they are present all over the globe, though mostly in Western Europe and Canada. They follow the poop. No kidding.

It is fatal for dogs. The worms reproduce inside the heart and travel from there through all the organs in your dogs body - see this animated video. They eat your dog from the inside out. As soon as you notice the hemorrhages around the eyes and gums, and blood in their poop, it is already too late. Internal organs have suffered fatal damage.

In Kenzo's case, it started when we got a letter from our vet informing us the French heartworm was on the loose in our local area. She had a case of a dog with the French heartworm in her pratice and adviced all of her clients to be tested for the heartworm. We had to leave for a trip to Holland - Kenzo included - at the end of that week, but I delivered the necessary poop samples of 3 consecutive days to our vet before we left.

If something was wrong she could call us. I was not the least worried and did not give it a lot more thought. One of the days I had problems with incoming calls from Denmark that were disconnected before I could answer them. The same day my wife called that Kenzo had started to cough up white slime. It looked and sounded a lot like the Kennel cough.

First thing I did was to call our vet in Denmark. As you probably already guessed, it was her that has been trying to reach us as Kenzo's test turned out positive. And she was really worried when she heard he was coughing up white slime. The white slime was filled with French heartworm larvae causing inflammation in his lungs.

The prevention and cure for the French heartworm is the same: Advocate / Advantage Multi. But I had to get it A.S.A.P. Like in yesterday. We could still have a chance to prevent damage to internal organs. Getting a Dutch vet deliver Advocate - a prescription drug in Holland - on such short notice was not easy, but my vet was a great help and send faxes to their office explaining what we needed it for.

Kenzo got his Advocate that same day. A necessary evil, as it kills the worms, but the body has it difficult to cope with all the dead foreign bodies at once. It doesn't always have a happy ending. The little guy now quickly felt very sick and it started to show. It took two days where he didn't do a whole lot more than laying down. But on the third day, he stood up again. Kenzo made it ! It was a close call.

So as you can understand I take scooping poop very serious. What I wanted to ask you is the following - in Amy's words:

In addition to picking up after your own dogs, will you pledge to pick up one pile of unclaimed poop? Could you do it every day for a week? Anyone brave enough to join Amy and me for a month? If you’ll commit to picking up with us every day for the quarter, you are Amy's hero. And Kenzo's as well. We may have to start a club – this could become a movement. Who’s with us?!?

Tracking Revisited: Nosework Camp part III

Kenzo after his last track of the day ... sooo tired :)

We learned so much about tracking on nosework camp, now almost 2 weeks ago. Where to start without boring you with all the technical tracking details?

I could write a thousand blogs about everything we learned from Vibeke Gyldenkærne, our tracking trainer on nosework camp.

Trying to stick with the headlines of the tracking part of our nosework camp what does all I learned from Vibeke boil down to? Well, ahum. I have been moving ahead too fast. I know, I think I wrote in almost all of my former blogs about tracking "don't move forward too fast". And despite preaching that, I stumbled, tripped and fall down myself.

So we start from scratch again - sort of. And the good news is Kenzo is picking up like never before. Meaning I will still bore you with those thousand blogs. At least. Just not all at once. Kenzo and me are tracking again and we are happy about it. Here is a short video we took after camp, rehearsing with Kenzo that tracking is all about following the footsteps.

As this is the last installment of the nosework camp series, I want you to know Kenzo didn't only work, he had a lot of fun as well - and also made a lot of new pals. Qipoe the BC, Kiwi the Toller and Sally the Lab are some of his new favs.

There was even another Hovawart in the group. And we are going to meet him again on the international Hovawart show coming in September. Reminding me we have one more project this year, Kenzo is going to participate in his first dog show!

Last but not least, I can recommend everybody to spent a couple of days with their dog in some sort of camp this summer. Nosework, herding, agility, treibball, take your pick. It is an awesome experience to spent some holiday time together with your pet.

Playtime with Sally the Lab

Waiting in the shadow for our turn to track

Scent Discrimination: Nosework Camp part II

Kenzo sniffing apples

One of the topics of last week's Nosework camp was scent discrimination.

We could chose an item we would like Kenzo to search for by scent. Either an apple, a tea-blend, coffee, or something like money. Searching for money could quickly become expensive. You need bills with different amounts. New bills, old bills, etc. And as we already can search for marihuana, adding money to our curriculum could also give some the wrong impression. So we went for the apple.

To train scent discrimination you need a couple of tall glasses or cans. One of the glasses contains the apple, the others contain something that looks like an apple - sort of - like plums or oranges.

You might wonder why the tall glass? Simply because we don't want them to think it is an exercise "how to get the apple out of there and eat it".

What we want to achieve is to present the glasses in a row to our dog and have them indicate to us which one contains the apple. You can train this with a clicker - not necessarily though - but I will use the clicker in the examples.

Step 1. Put nose in glass

Introduce the apple in a glass. When your dog puts the tip of his nose in the glass, you click. Some dogs already got this in the first session. Others had some difficulty finding out what was expected. As an example, I took a video of the first session I did with Viva when we got home again. You can see she has no clue what I expect of her. When she shows stress by scratching herself I stop the session.

We only click when they put their nose down in the glass. If we would click on licking or tipping the glass over, we might create the wrong behavior.

Step 2. Chose the apple

After step 1, your dog probably thinks this is the "put nose down in glass excercise", so we have to introduce scent into the equation. Now you use two glasses, one with the apple and one with a plum or an orange. They will put their nose down in both of them. You click when they are down in the glass with the apple. This will teach them it is all about the apple. Here a video with Kenzo I took on return from camp. He is still with this step. Can you see where my clicker timing is wrong? I was not a big help in this session for Kenzo.

The last choices Kenzo made were very good!

Step 3. Indicate the apple

To rule out they chose by exclusion we delay the click. We now first click if we can see they stay with the apple, and they are telling us deliberately "it is this one!". First then we are sure they understood it is about the apple, not the glass or anything else they might think of. In the next video you can see Kiwi, she reached far and made it to this step already during the sessions on the nosework camp.

There are three more steps to go through: 4. distractions, 5. mark and 6. cue - and we tell more and show video's with Kenzo and Viva when we get that far!

It was very interesting to see all the dogs evolve through the steps. Kiwi made it to a first session into step 4. And one dog was able to demonstrate step 4 in its fullest. All dogs were able to leave the camp in step 2. That in itself is a very good result when you think the camp only took 3 days. It was awesome to see the differences in style between the dogs. Like Kenzo, who was carefully choosing his moves what to do, was in sharp contrast with Kiwi's high speed learning style.

It is important not to go forward too fast. First when they got it right 8 out of 10 times they are ready for the next step. It is also best to start each session with a short repetition of the steps you already master. Like a short rehearsal. If they show any confusion, it is probably best to move a step back or start from the beginning again.

Nosework tires. A session should preferably only take a couple of minutes, and they need a short break between each session. It depends on the indivudual dog, but with Kenzo and Viva I train this never longer than 15 minutes in all per day.

As you know, Kenzo can already search for marihuana. We trained this in a different way, but as our trainer pointed out the method we used didn't address searching by exclusion. And there was a risk Kenzo used exclusion instead of scent. Terminally worried I used the first available break to hide some pieces of cloth in the stone wall at the entrance of the camp. Some with and some without marihuana scent. I was relieved when Kenzo quickly found the marihuana and ignored the other pieces. Now when I think of it, I left the pieces in the stone wall ... oh my. Searching for apples has its advantages.