I know you’ve seen me write about my old girl Emma before. Emma is 13 1/2 years old now. She’s been in great health all of her life. Her nickname since she was a puppy has been “Tigger.” She used to race around the house play-growling and she’d skid to stop and practically stand on her head. She was still running and playing right up until last year, though she’s slowed down quite a bit. But she’s kept good weight and been in good health. Until, that is, about three weeks ago.

Emma has always been a slow eater but she made up for it by taking her time and eating every last bite of food. But about three weeks ago she started to have a hard time eating and she began losing weight. I started buying cans of dog food for her — anything I thought she might eat. That worked a little, but I had to feed her tiny amounts five or six times a day. It was a big event if she would eat half a can, and she was a 60 lb dog. Sometimes she won’t touch the food at all.

Her hearing and eyesight are still good. I brought in some french fries yesterday — she loves french fries — and she came trotting through the house to get them! I was so happy and excited. So, I think if I can find the right food maybe she will eat some more. I asked friends with dogs for some advice and they suggested some tasty foods to try, like chicken boiled in garlic, poached eggs, etc. I’m afraid any kind of beef might be too hard for her to chew. I even mash up her canned food to make it easier for her to eat now.

If any of you have tips for caring for senior dogs I hope you will share them. I’m sure I’m not the only one with a dog like Emma.

I was looking online last night for things that might help and I came across a great Web site for owners of senior dogs. It’s called the Senior Dogs Project. It’s full of information from A to Z for taking care of senior dogs. I liked a chart they had for figuring your dog’s actual age based on his size and years. According to the Web site, Emma is in her 80s.

If you have a senior dog here are some things to watch for:

Sudden loss of weight can be extremely serious. Take your dog to the vet as soon as possible.

Serious loss of appetite — to the point that your dog is eating almost nothing. See your vet right away.

Increase in appetite without increase in weight may mean diabetes. Get to the vet as soon as possible.

Diarrhea or vomiting, if it lasts more than a day can be a sign of many problems. Don’t wait to see the vet.

Increased thirst, without a change in activity level, and increased urination are other signs of diabetes. Your dog should be tested as soon as possible.

Tiring more quickly than when younger is normal as a dog ages, but may also be a sign of disease affecting the heart or lungs. Be alert to your dog’s becoming excessively out of breath after minimal exercise. Have your vet check for cardio-pulmonary problems as soon as possible, if you notice such symptoms. If the vet determines all is normal, you can continue an exercise program, but modify it in order not to overtax your dog.

Coughing and excessive panting may indicate heart disease. If these symptoms persist even after you’ve modified your dog’s exercise program, visit the vet.

Difficulty in getting up from a lying position, or other problems with moving may indicate arthritis. Your vet will be able to advise you on ways you can relieve your dog’s discomfort and lack of mobility.

Problems with vision and hearing are natural as a dog ages. Accommodate these changes as best you can — by not changing the location of furniture, for example, or clapping instead of calling your dog’s name when he no longer seems able to hear you.

Graying hair and drying skin are sure signs of aging. More attention to grooming and the introduction of massage will help the condition of the skin and coat.

Behavioral changes that you may see in your older dog include:

Separation anxiety….you may note that when you leave your older dog alone, she become destructive or barks or whines or loses control of elimination
Sensitivity to noise….thunderstorms that never bothered him before may now make your older dog tremble
Vocalizing….may be due to loss of hearing or to separation anxiety
Uncharacteristic aggression….may be due to painful joints, a drug reaction, or intolerance for new people and new circumstances; your older dog likes things to remain the same
Confusion, lack of attentiveness, disorientation….
Roaming in circles, barking at nothing, being withdrawn….
Elimination accidents….

If your dog is acting abnormally in any of the above ways, consult your vet right away.

These are great things to know and watch for in your senior dog.

Please think good thoughts for Emma.

From the Washington Post.

Yoga for Dogs — No Joke
Kids and Their Canines Stretch Out and Relax Together

Dixie gets pre-class attention from 10-year-old Nathan Jester, above, and 13-year-old Hallie Jester, below. (Katherine Shaver)

Tuesday, April 1, 2008; Page C12

When Ashley Storm wants to chill, she does yoga. And when she wants to help her Labrador mix relax, she has Loki join in.

Yes, a dog doing yoga. It’s called — what else? — doga. People help their dogs into yoga poses and then rub or nuzzle them while the dogs stretch or just hang out.

“They stretch naturally, like we do in our yoga poses,” says Storm, a yoga instructor and co-owner of Hot Yoga in Chevy Chase. “It just feels good to them. It feels good to us, too.”

Doga (pronounced DOE-guh) is popular in New York City and London, England. Washington-area kids are getting in on the act, too. Nathan Jester, 10, recently did doga with Dixie, a friend’s fox terrier mix, at Storm’s studio.

“It’s fun,” said Nathan, a fifth-grader at Chevy Chase Elementary School. “It’s really calming for both of us. She [Dixie] likes getting the attention because she’s getting played with at the same time.”

In doga poses, the dogs look a lot like they do when they loll about and appear to be happy. It’s no coincidence, Storm says, that a common yoga stretch for people is called “downward-facing dog.”

In the chair pose, dogs sit on their hind legs with their front paws in the air while a person holds them from behind. In the chaturanga pose, dogs lie on their abdomens while someone strokes their backs. In the savasana relaxation pose, they lie on their backs while someone rubs their belly. Aaaaahhhhh.

If dogs don’t want to do doga, it’s fun to have them hang out on a mat while you do yoga, Storm says.

The most important part of doga is spending quality time together. Doga helps dogs and people bond, Storm says, because they have to focus on each other. No TV or video games. No homework worries. Just you and your dog stretching and relaxing.

The result: Busy, highly scheduled kids have to slow down, and couch-potato kids get up and do something.

Leah Enelow, 13, recently tried doga with her dogs, Chance and Sadie, at Storm’s studio. She liked it. “I love doing anything with my dogs and spending time with them,” said Leah, a seventh-grader at Westland Middle School in Bethesda.

Storm started doing doga with Loki about four years ago, shortly after a friend gave her a book about it.

Loki, a rescue dog who had been abused, used to get so stressed out around strangers that she would shake. But after hanging around the yoga studio and doing doga, she seems far more relaxed and happy.

“Everyone says she’s a different dog,” Storm says.

– Katherine Shaver

From CBS 11 TV in Dallas/Fort Worth.

This story is an important reminder that we all need to keep our pets’ rabies vaccinations up-to-date, wherever we live. And we need to be in compliance with the local laws. There are indeed still rabid animals around us, so we need to make sure our pets have been vaccinated against rabies. And, even though a rabies vaccination may last much longer than a year or three years, as required by law in most places, we need to make sure that we have our pets vaccinated as often as required. Otherwise they can be facing lengthy quarantine times or worse.

Let’s hope that the Rabies Challenge Study can show that dogs only need to be vaccinated every seven years. Until that time, please make sure you vaccinate your pets as required by law.

Officials: 3 Dogs Bitten By 2 Rabid Skunks

FORT WORTH (CBS 11 News) ? Today, Fort Worth officials say there have been two confirmed cases of rabid skunks and three family pets have now been quarantined.

Officials with Fort Worth animal control say three dogs were bitten by two separate rabid skunks.

The skunks were found in two separate areas in Tarrant County. The first area, in the zip code 76117, is north of I-30 and east of I-35W. It’s nestled inside Loop 820. The second area, in the zip code 76248, is north of SH-121, to the east of I-35W.

The areas are not in rural Tarrant County, but are located in suburban neighborhoods.

Animal control officials say skunks are nocturnal, so if you encounter one during the day, there’s likely something wrong with it.

The best method of prevention, according to Fort Worth Animal Control officials, is to get your pet vaccinated for rabies at least every three years or once a year.

All three of the dogs are being isolated in their homes. Two of them will be in quarantine for 45 days. One of the dogs had not been vaccinated for rabies and will have to be quarantined for 90 days.

All three dogs received immediate vaccination boosters.

For more information or to report a suspicious animal, contact Fort Worth Animal Care and Control at 817-392-3737.

From the Royal Treatment Veterinary Spa, an alternative veterinary medicine and veterinary rehabilitation clinic in Chicago:

April 5th - A Rare Opportunity to Meet the Amazing Dr. Jean Dodds

Professionals and pet owners alike will benefit from meeting with this fascinating veterinarian and expert from California, Dr. Jean Dodds.

We are sponsoring a fundraising dinner to contribute to The Rabies Challenge Fund - Dr. Dodd’s project to prove that Rabies Vaccines last 7 years! It is a lot to take on, and you can imagine that there will be limited funding from most pharmaceutical companies. (We’ll have to ask her about that!)

Dr. Dodds is an amazing speaker who will be available to discuss her work after a fascinating and accessible talk on what’s at stake here. Her work has brought common sense back into the process of vaccination in our pets. She will address the serious effects (both useful and dangerous) of vaccination, that is accessible to owners and professionals alike. If you have a pet you won’t want to miss this event. After her last speaking event, most of the attendees stayed on for hours just to talk to her about immune system issues and further interesting questions. She was terrific.

In light of a new law in Kansas that would require annual vaccinations for Rabies, even though we know that they last 3 years, we must keep informed on these issues. They could start affecting us all!

Dinner, drinks, music, conversation and a stunningly beautiful location in an architect’s home.

Please come and make a difference for our pets!

$200/person, $100/significant other

April 5th, 6:30-9:30pm

1615 W. North Avenue

Chicago, IL

Call 773-267-9966 or Email Royalvet@aol.com by March 31st to make reservations!

World-Famous Scientists Donate Services to
The Rabies Challenge Fund Charitable Trust

Written by Nancy Freedman-Smith, Maine Today.com

Two world-renowned giants of veterinary vaccine research — Dr. W. Jean Dodds of Hemopet and Co-Trustee of The Rabies Challenge Fund and Dr. Ronald Schultz of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine — have volunteered their time to ensure that critical 5 and 7 year rabies challenge studies are conducted in the United States. The studies are to be financed by The Rabies Challenge Fund Charitable Trust, a tax-exemption organization founded by pet vaccine disclosure advocate Kris L. Christine of Maine in 2005, and will be performed by Dr. Schultz at the University of Wisconsin. The University has waived its usual 48% overhead fee for these studies.

The concurrent challenge studies will determine the duration of immunity conveyed by the canine rabies vaccine, with the goal of extending the state-mandated interval for boosters to 5, and then to 7 years. According to Dr. Dodds, “This is one of the most important projects in veterinary medicine. It will benefit all dogs by providing evidence that protection from rabies vaccination lasts at least 5 years, thereby avoiding unnecessary revaccination with its attendant risk of debilitating adverse reactions. ”

Scientific data indicate that vaccinating dogs against rabies every three years, as most states require, is unnecessary. Studies have shown the duration of protective immunity as measured by serum antibody titers against rabies virus to persist for seven years post-vaccination, and results of a 1992 French challenge study led by Michel Aubert demonstrated dogs were immune to rabies five years after vaccination. Researchers believe the rabies vaccine causes the most and worst adverse reactions in animals and concur that it should not be given more often than is necessary to maintain immunity. Adverse reactions to rabies vaccination can include autoimmune diseases affecting the thyroid, joints, blood, eyes, skin, kidney, liver, bowel and central nervous system; anaphylactic shock; aggression; seizures; epilepsy; and fibrosarcomas at injection sites.

Dr. Schultz states that “[s]howing that a vaccine for rabies can provide 5 or preferably 7 years of immunity would have great significance not only in controlling rabies but more importantly in reducing the adverse vaccine reactions that can occur in dogs and cats after vaccination.”

More information on The Rabies Challenge Fund and the concurrent 5 and 7 year challenge studies it will finance can be found at the fund’s newly established website designed by volunteer Andrea Brin at: www.rabieschallengefund.org.

From today’s New York Times.

I’m not really sure that it’s fair to include the dog’s death which was due to the snowmobile accident in these figures. It was certainly tragic but it was not because of the grueling nature of the race. A similar accident could have occurred anywhere. However, it has been included.

I think it’s a good question to ask why more dogs than average died during this year’s race, even if it was only a statistical anonomly. It’s true that there were more mushers and teams entered than ever before, but why did the average number of deaths increase? The average is now 1.77 dogs dying in the race (still too many, I know). So, why did three dogs (if you include the snowmobile accident) die this year?

Sled Dogs’ Lives, and Deaths, Raise Questions

A team on the 1,100-mile Iditarod trail from Anchorage to Nome earlier this month. Al Grillo/Associated Press

By DOUGLAS ROBSON
Published: March 23, 2008

By recent mortality standards, the 36th running of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was not a banner year.

Three dogs died in Alaska during the taxing 1,100-mile journey from Anchorage to Nome that was won by Lance Mackey on March 12. One was a 3-year-old female named Lorne, who was struck by a snowmobile on the trail. Another probably died of aspiration pneumonia, race officials said; the cause of the third death could not be determined in a preliminary study.

By comparison, the Iditarod average was 1.77 deaths from 1994 to 2006, when veterinarians associated with the race began keeping meticulous records.

For that and other reasons, animal-rights groups continue to voice concerns about the appropriateness of the race. But unlike in the early days of the Iditarod, when few records were kept and dogs died more often, researchers are bringing a new level of transparency and scrutiny to the way the 40- to 45-pound huskies function — and sometimes fail.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Dr. Randall J. Basaraba, the lead author of a study published last month in The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. It provides the first detailed analysis of the 23 dogs that died during the Iditarod from 1994 to 2006.

Basaraba, an associate professor of pathology at Colorado State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, has made it a particular crusade to understand and root out avoidable Iditarod fatalities.

“Despite all our attempts, there are unexpected deaths,” said Basaraba, who has been studying dogs on the Iditarod since 1995. “The goal is to try to avoid that. We don’t know if that’s realistic or not, but this gives us the best chance.”

At least one dog has died every year since the first Iditarod, in 1973. Animal-rights groups denounce the race, which requires dogs to pull sleds weighing 250 pounds or more across mountain passes, frozen lakes and tundra in biting winds and temperatures that can dip below minus 50, a journey that can take 9 to 18 days.

“The death toll continues to mount,” Lisa Wathne, a spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said in a telephone interview. “This is a grueling event that is cruel and inappropriate to the dogs, who obviously don’t have a choice in the matter.”

Wayne Pacelle, the president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, said his organization used to send people to monitor the race but had not focused on it as much in recent years. Although he shares concerns about the strenuous nature of the Iditarod, he said by phone that “there is also the issue of culling and overbreeding.”

“The number of animals dying in the race is dwarfed, I’m sure, by the number of animals that may be shunted aside in one way or another,” Pacelle said, referring to practices that include selling them or disposing of them.

Basaraba and others counter that their research has improved mortality rates, especially considering the increasing number of entrants. This year, a record 96 teams of 16 dogs started the race.

“I’m very confident in the system that has been put in to place to assure the animals get the best care that is possible,” Basaraba said in a recent phone interview from his home in Fort Collins, Colo. “I have no reservations about the integrity of the race.”

Many mushers, past and present, agree. They say the fatality rate associated with the Iditarod is probably lower than for a similar group of 1,500 dogs in the general population anywhere in the world.

“You can be totally assured that the dogs are being better taken care of than anyone’s pets, even pampered ones,” said Bud Smyth, who competed in the first Iditarod and served as a race marshal in 1978. “They didn’t even know how many dogs died in the old days. It was a mess.”

“The truth is, the race has some intrinsic dangers that could cause the demise of dogs, like any sporting event,” he added recently by phone. “But there are things we haven’t solved about dogs working under this much stress.”

Basaraba and the team of veterinary pathologists have identified warning signs for common killers like myopathy, or muscle degeneration, and gastric ulceration, which can cause a dog to vomit and predispose it to pneumonia, a common killer.

Trail vets now encourage mushers with dogs showing signs of myopathy in the early part of the Iditarod to leave them behind. In the latter stages, when exercise becomes more prolonged, vets will pull a dog out of the race if it has symptoms of gastric ulceration.

This research has helped identify remedies. Mushers now often administer common over-the-counter ulcer medications to their teams (in weight-appropriate doses) as preventative measures.

“The whole point is to try to identify these conditions early and give treatment,” said Basaraba, adding that researchers could not identify the cause for 30 percent of the deaths in the study.

“We don’t completely understand how all of them occur,” he said. “That’s why we’re focusing on them.”