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A tantalizing trailer for our upcoming movie: Snow Newfs

Does Your Dog Ever Pull on the Leash?

Katie and Louie are great dogs, but it's almost impossible to overcome any dog's natural canine instincts 100% of the time. Sometimes the compulsion to chase just takes over when they see a rabbit or a squirrel (not that Katie or Louie have ever caught one). When over 235 pounds of the world's strongest breed of dogs are attached to my wrists I think it's critical to find some way to save myself from being pulled down to the ground or in front of a car. I've struggled at times to find a way to control the Newfs in this type of unpredictable situation. After trying several different collars and harnesses I have finally found one that I love! It's called the Sense-ation No Pull Dog Harness and it really works. The things I like about it:

1) It's easy to get off and on - takes about 5 seconds to do

2) The harness can fit loosely on the dog and still be completely effective

3) Katie and Louie seem very happy when wearing it and actually play more attention to me than ever

4) Since it doesn't go around the dog's neck the dog can't choke itself.

The leash attaches to a ring that sits on a loose strap in the middle of the dog's chest.

When the dog starts to pull, the location of the leash makes them turn slightly to one side instead of going straight forward as they intended. Katie and Louie learned in about five minutes that the only way to keep going straight was to stop pulling on the leash.

Last week I didn't realize that an orange cat was running by our parking area right as I opened the back gate with Katie and Louie beside me. I could see that Katie and Louie's chase instinct kicked in immediately, but they didn't make any progress towards the cat and my arms did not get pulled out of their sockets. Hooray for these awesome harnesses!

In case you are interested, here's a link to the site where I found the best price with free shipping. I'm not affiliated in any way with this company. I just wanted to share this with you all because I thought others might benefit from this great tool as much as we have.

Beware of Bloat

Bloat is a very scary medical condition that can quickly become fatal for a dog. I'm posting about bloat on our blog because a couple of months ago a dog that attended our dog school died of this terrible disorder. If you are not familiar with bloat the simplest explanation that I can give is that the dog's stomach fills with trapped air. If the air build up continues the stomach can flip over which will cut off the blood supply to the stomach. If the bloat is not quickly treated the dog will very likely die.

The chart in the link below explains how to recognize bloat, how to treat it and what happens during each phase. We have this chart posted near Katie and Louie's dog food to remind ourselves and any of the dogs' caregivers what symptoms to watch for.

http://www.bmdinfo.org/Health/Reference_Guide_Bloat_GDV.pdf

Bloat is most common in deep chested dogs such as Great Danes, Rottweilers, Labs and Newfs, but it can happen to any dog. There is no magic bullet to prevent bloat, but a few things that are believed to be helpful are: feeding two smaller meals a day instead of one large meal, waiting two hours after the dog eats before exercising it and waiting one hour after the dog has exercised before feeding.