Pacific Rose Veterinary Nursing & Behaviour Counselling

19/12/2024

19/12/2024

18/12/2024

During the holidays, dogs are 4 times more likely to get into chocolate. Whether they’ve eaten a little or a lot. it’s important to call Pet Poison Helpline and your veterinarian (or Smart.Vet if your vet is closed) as soon as possible to determine the best course of action. The type of chocolate and your dog’s size has a major impact on what you’ll need to do, but ALWAYS call pet poison control to get professional advice.

Symptoms of theobromine poisoning (also called chocolate or cocoa poisoning) include: vomiting and diarrhea, excess thirst and urination, tremors and muscle spasms, restlessness, panting, and seizures. Dark and baking chocolate, which have the highest concentration of cocoa, are the most dangerous, followed by semi-sweet and milk chocolate.

The best thing you can do for your pets is keep chocolate and baked goods including chocolate well out of your pup’s reach… including wrapped gifts under the tree! 🎁

** This post does not constitute veterinary advice and you should always contact your pets veterinarian and pet poison control if they have eaten anything, in any quantity, out of the ordinary **

16/12/2024

16/12/2024

Today was a really enjoyable day! I dropped the kids to school, went on a trail run, voted in the local council elections, cleaned out the fish tank and the cat litter tray and got to work on my laptop. It may not sound that exciting, but there were two things that made this day particularly enjoyab...

13/12/2024

Thanks for Barking 2.0 Kiki Yablon October 10, 2021 Photo by Steve Baker (Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic) A number of years ago, I wrote a short blog post for clickertraining.com called How to Get Your Dog to Stop Barking—by Thanking Him for Barking. Over the years, this post ha...

05/12/2024

Join us for an exciting and thought provoking day with Professor Mills, rethinking our understanding of the term 'anxiety' in pet behaviour.

05/12/2024

The plight of small breed dogs 😢.

Have you ever wondered why you see so many videos of growling, snarling chihuahua's and other small dogs? Have you ever thought that these breeds are innately "bad" or " aggressive" ?

The truth is, small breed dogs are not naturally aggressive.

The problem is, small dogs are generally not treated like normal dogs.

Small breed dogs are often not socialised, many are not taken away from home while they are young and some barely ever at all. Many spend all of their critical socialisation period in isolation.

Small breed dogs are often overlooked in terms of exercise and mental stimulation requirements. Just because they are small, does not mean they don't need their needs met, and not doing so leads to stress related behavior problems.

Small breed dogs are often denied behaviorist care when problems begin to arise, because it's " just a small dog thing" these problems are left untreated to escalate, unlike they would be in larger breeds. Despite these problems signifying that the dog is living with chronic stress 😢.

Small breed dogs are manhandled their whole life, in a way no other dog is. They're routinely scooped up with no prior warning, manhandled because it's easy to do so. This creates fear in so many of these dogs, who learn to escalate to aggression. There is no cooperative care, no "choice" given. Because when you weigh less than a bag of sugar it's so easy to have your choices taken away from you.

Small breed dogs are rarely taken to dog training classes, they're seen as " easy" or " starter" dogs who don't need the help of a trainer while growing up.

Some small breed dogs do have a higher instance of resource guarding behaviors ( just like some larger breeds dogs do, like spaniels and border collies). But because of their size, this behavior is often not dealt with appropriately, and they are often antagonised or encouraged until the behavior escalates hugely. This would not happen in larger dogs.

When a small dog communicates they are stressed, people tend to find it funny. This communication is so often ignored. As with any other dog, when the dog feels continuously ignored in their communication attempts they escalate, to the point they are behaving in the ways you see in these videos. But if that was a bigger dog, they'd have never got to that point. Their owners would have listened to early signs of distress.

It is not that these dogs are inherently bad, far from it. These dogs are not treated like dogs, they're not respected, and they're continually scared on purpose because those around them find it amusing.

Please, for the sake of small dogs, scroll past those videos. And recognise them for what they are, an animal living in extreme distress!

Did you know Chihuahua's are highly intelligent dogs? They thrive in working homes and have been known to be incredible at obedience! Dachshunds love to sniff, and thrive at scentwork and mantrailing. Papillons are a type of spaniel, they are energetic and love to learn. They are not ornaments, they are not cats, they are not playthings...they are dogs!

03/12/2024

Humane Training of Dogs September 17, 2021 Position The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA) supports the use of training methods for dogs that are humane and based on current scientific knowledge of canine learning theory. Reward-based methods are highly recommended. Aversive methods are....

17/11/2024

Packed full of info you NEED! 🐶➡️ instinctdogtraining.com/puppy-parenting-guidebook/