The Poodle (and Dog) Blog

Ah, the power of Photoshop and the Internet!!

The current Ikea catalogue will get more attention than any catalogue in recent memory because of the allegedly Photoshopped appendage on the family dog on page 2.

The Ikea dog, of course, looks oblivious to it all.

De-tails here

Dog drives car into big trouble in China

Sharing your life activities and bonding with your dog is a good thing, but a lady in China took it to a whole new level.

The woman, identified only as Ms. Li, said her dog was “fond of crouching on the steering wheel and often watched her drive.” So she decided to give the dog a driving lesson while she worked the accelerator and brake.

Probably not a good idea.

Not surprisingly they didn’t get far before they crashed into an oncoming car. There were no injuries.

Ms. Li paid for the repairs.

The story

Dog custody: Court bars divorced man from unannounced visits to dog

Sometimes we have to wonder what some judges are thinking when they hand down decisions. But here’s one judge in Spain who seems to be wrapped in the mantle of common sense.

When Elizabeth and Jose were divorced, she got to keep Yako, their Golden Retriever, but agreed that Jose could visit if he gave notice in advance. But when Jose kept showing up unannounced, she finally refused to let him in.

He sued and a lower court ruled in his favor, imposing on Elizabeth a schedule for visitation. She appealed and Judge Pascual Ortuno Munoz in a higher court in Barcelona overturned the decision. He wrote that though he understood that pets were important to people, they should not be treated as children in divorce cases.

He further stated that common sense and reason should dictate that people should not take such cases to court and the courts should not be setting up dog visitations.

Most of us would probably agree with Judge Munoz that the Court has more important business than to adjudicate visits between hostile ex-spouses over visits with a dog.

I know from experiences I would rather not have had that the police are often brought in to enforce court orders in child custody cases. The police undoubtedly have more important business than to settle disputes over where little Fluffy should be at any given time.

Dog custody story

Pupperware parties—the latest in dog pampering

It’s a combination of two of America’s favorite pastimes, the popular Tupperware home shopping parties and buying products for the pampered pooch.

This is a logical combination. Home parties generate $30 billion dollars in annual sales. People spent over $36 billion on pets in 2005. Pupperware parties can provide an excellent part time job for people with a passion for pets.

Shure Pets was founded in 2002 and now has more than 1200 consultants around the country to plan parties where dogs and their owners are invited into homes or businesses to try out the products before they order them.

Another company, Petlane, was founded in 2003 and now has 500 “advisors” across the country who peddle holistic food, books, toys, health and safety products at what the company calls Pet Pawties.

Besides being a fun and social event for pets and their owners, Pupperware parties allow the dog and owner to learn about new products before they buy.

The dog—our only ally on earth

We are alone, absolutely alone, on this chance planet, and amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us. --Maurice Maeterlinck

Long before written history, certain wild wolves were taken into the caves of our ancestors, bred and trained to serve, to obey, to do our work willingly in return for food, safety and companionship.

Other animals we have penned, caged, yoked, saddled and broken to serve us, but they have no alliance with us. The cat will insinuate itself into our lives and allow us to love, pet and feed it, but it’s mostly on terms laid down by the cat.

Only the dog, of all the forms of life on earth, has formed an alliance with humans.

Sniffer dog finds explosives in airport

When the Tri-State Airport was closed recently in West Virginia, it was Kimba the sniffer dog to the rescue.

She confirmed that an explosive scent was coming from carry-on luggage owned by Michigan woman of Pakistani origin.

Kimba is an 11 year old Belgian Malinois, handled by Corporal Ron Arthur, the Director of K-9 Operations for the West Virginia State Police.

According to Arthur, Kimba’s sense of smell is so refined that she could find a “teaspoon of pure adrenaline in a building the size of Philadelphia.” Within a few minutes she can find a single bullet in a million blades of grass.

Kimba is not trained to find bombs, but to find at least 21 different scents related to the odor of explosives. With her incredible sense of smell, she can smell not just vegetable soup the way humans do, but she can detect all the ingredients, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, onions, etc.

In West Virginia fifteen State Police handlers spend up to 400 hours a month training the nineteen dogs used by the state.

We can thank the Kimbas of the world for making the skies—and the earth—a lot safer.

The story

Dogs delighting in digging up the dead

Dogs seem to love anything smelly and disgusting. They love to bury things and they love to dig them up.

I had two comments on yesterday’s post about the urban legend of the dog who dug up the dead rabbit that are too funny to bury in comments.

Gordon wrote:

This story could have happened. We managed to trap a gopher in our yard. We buried it thinking we had seen the last of it. But our neighbor’s dog dug it up and proudly took it home hoping for praise from its owner.

Mary Jo wrote:

I have a twist on this story that is true. My ex husband and I lived in a more country setting. When we met, he had a mix breed dog named Max that he pretty much let run around where ever he pleased. The next door neighbor was a hunter and one fall got a doe, bow hunting

He dressed it in his carport and left the head in the carport. Max snatched that thing and drug it all over the place! He would bury it, then dig it back up, you never knew where you were going to see that poor deer's head in the morning when you got up!

The neighbor wasn't mad (he hadn't planned on mounting it), Max just got his teeth in it before he could dispose of it. Somehow the guys got rid of it where Max could no longer find it. I didn't want to know, I was just glad it was finally gone!

I’m sure both dogs thought they had found grand prize trophies. And why don’t humans understand?

The dog and the dead rabbit—an urban legend that won’t die

This one has been around for many years but I keep getting emails and seeing it crop up in websites and blogs with many vivid details as if it really happened to the writer. It didn’t.

The basic story is that a family dog came trotting in into the yard carrying the neighbors’ dead rabbit in its mouth. The owners panic because they don’t want to have a bad relationship with the neighbors. They wash it, blow dry it and sneak over to the neighbor’s yard to put it back in the cage.

The neighbors are horrified when they discover the dead rabbit, not because it is dead, but because it died the day before and they had buried it.

A variation is that the dog owners bought a rabbit just like the dead one and put it into the cage. The neighbors are convinced that this is a rabbit god.

Expect to see this one around for a long time.

Sniffing dogs used for endangered species research

Dogs are working as Research Assistants in projects involving endangered species and plants.

Besides sniffing out illegal drugs, bombs, money, and bad guys, dogs are being trained to find most unusual scents: feces from bats, bears, cougars, lynx, turtles and whales.

Packleader Dog Training in Gig Harbor, Washington specializes in this training in order to locate endangered species and plant life. Owner Barbara Davenport rescues dogs from the Humane Society and trains them to aid researchers in a variety of wildlife research.

The dogs that are the best for training are high energy dogs, dogs that are difficult to place in homes because, she says, “…they are annoying to live with.” But these dogs make perfect sniffer and search dogs.

The cost may seem high. Dogs are leased for $1500 a month. The researcher must be trained to handle the dog and understand the signals. Their two week training costs $3000.

But for the researcher, it is a good investment. For humans, tracking endangered species is like finding a needle in a haystack. The dogs can sniff out the needle (feces) in short order and make a better use of the limited funds that the researchers are working with.

Chilko, a Belgian sheepdog, is helping researchers find a rare Western pond turtle. Chilko has become an expert at tracking these endangered turtles.

Researchers working in the Atlantic Ocean are using dogs to find the feces of a species of North Atlantic whale. They are hoping to discover why there are only 350 of them left on earth.

Although these scientists are contributing to a better world, they are basically people following dogs who are sniffing for poop.

Think about it.

More information here

Why does my dog scoot his butt across the floor?

The dog is trying to expel the contents of the anal glands which are located at the base of its tail. Sometimes they need help to get them emptied so they scoot across the ground. Groomers take care of expelling the glands as part of the service they provide.

I don’t know how to do it. I don’t want to learn how to do it. If you want to learn, you can ask the groomer or your veterinarian to show you.

Or you can tip the groomer at your regular appointments to become a favored customer; then if your dog seems to be having a problem, you can ask to bring it in for an emergency emptying.

If this doesn’t take care of the problem, the dog may have worms. You should alert your veterinarian who will probably want you to bring in a fresh stool sample in order to identify the exact parasite so that treatment can be immediately effective.

More email questions:

Why do dogs roll in dead fish and seals along the beach.
I think they are trying to gross us out, but that is just a theory

Does drinking water out of the toilet bowl harmful to a dog?
Probably not. And the dog doesn’t seem to mind people peeing in his water dish.

If a dog licks an open cut, does that help it heal?
No, it’s dog spit, not an antiseptic.