Dog Obedience Classes with Spalding Parks and Rec

01/06/2025

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01/05/2025

Someone was asking me about this the other day.

https://www.animalbiome.com/

12/30/2024

🤣🤣

12/12/2024

Learn what aggression is. You can NOT fix, manage or control what you do not acknowledge.

12/12/2024

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Please read this important warning for dog owners to keep your pup safe this holiday season!

Gingerbread House Dangers For Dogs, by Margit Maxwell

Look at the photo. Funny stuff, right? Nope. Why is this situation not funny? - Because gingerbread dough often contains cloves, nutmeg, and allspice.

If your dog eats your lovely decorated gingerbread house, the clove, nutmeg, and allspice content of the dough could make your dog very sick or in some cases, it could even be fatal.

Most gingerbread dough recipes can include these common spices: ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, coriander, and nutmeg.

Clove, nutmeg and allspice all contain the compound eugenol which can cause irritation of the GI tract, and when ingested in larger quantities, could cause liver damage. Nutmeg also contains a toxic
compound called myristicin, found in the oil of the nutmeg seed. A problem dose of nutmeg = 1 tsp of ground nutmeg. A toxic dose of powdered nutmeg is thought to be 5 grams.

The oil myristicin can cause severe disorientation, agitation, high blood pressure, and possible seizures.
A toxic dose of ground clove would need to be quite large - half a gram of powdered clove per kg of body weight to be fatal.

Allspice contains less of the eugenol compound than the other two mentioned spices so it tends to be less lethal but it can still make your dog very sick. An allspice lethal dose would need to be quite large, 2.5 grams per 10 kilos of dog weight.

Symptoms of clove, nutmeg, or allspice ingestion (other than a missing or partially eaten gingerbread house):
-vomiting
-diarrhea,
-excessive drooling,
-loss of appetite,
-disorientation and in serious cases,
- seizures are possible.

The seriousness of the ingestion of the gingerbread problem will depend on:
1. The size of the dog. - the smaller the dog mass, the more serious the toxicity levels.
2. How much of the gingerbread house was eaten? One bite? One wall? The whole building? The more gingerbread that was eaten, the more serious the problem.
3. Gingerbread dough that contains all three of the mentioned spices is delivering a triple dose of eugenol in the case of nutmeg, myristicin. Know the ingredients that are in your gingerbread dough.

Courtesy of: The Labrador Club

12/11/2024

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Spalding County Parks, Public Grounds and Public Works Administrative Office 1515 Williamson Road Griffin, GA 30224 Office Hours Monday – Friday 8:00am to 5:00pm Phone: 770-467-4774

11/29/2024

See how dogs don’t tolerate other dogs jumping or laying on them?

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11/09/2024

Service Dog Breeding and Fearfulness
Martha Hoffman 2024

It’s difficult to produce Service Dog temperament and family pet dog temperament for many reasons.

One important barrier is fearful temperament.

Even the slightest level of fearfulness in a parent dog can be inherited by a whole litter. And socialization may make a slight dent in it, but chances are the fearfulness will recur later in life, after the trainer or owner has invested thousands of dollars and thousands of hours in training.

Fearfulness is the number one cause of failure in SD and Guide Dog programs, as found by Steve Grunow in his PhD thesis. Even the most rigorous expert programs can produce occasional fearful pups.

Fear is an essential survival instinct that is hard to w**d out. Domestication has reduced fearfulness in dogs compared to wolves, but it still persists. In breeding for SDs, we are seeking to produce an unnatural dog that can be happy and enjoy all aspects of Service Dog lifestyle.

If two parents with a slight or higher level of fearfulness are bred together, they can produce puppies with permanent unchangeable global fearfulness of everything in the world, and perhaps being even more fearful than any wild wolf.

Fearfulness has been proven by several studies to be dominantly inherited.

If a dog went through some sensitive periods (“fear periods” is the former term) as a pup, became very fearful, and then recovered its previous confidence with help from the trainer, congratulations! Great work. But that pup is still not suitable for breeding.

How about a pup with a great temperament that had fearful siblings? Good pup, but not suitable for breeding. It may carry genetics for fearfulness.

Normal pups are confident and fearless up to about 12 to 16 weeks. Their brains are set to learn about trust and bonding with dam and owners. If you see any fearfulness before 12 weeks old, do not adopt that pup for SD training or family pet. That pup is showing that it is very fearful.

I often ask owners, “When was the pup’s “Confidence Period”? (my term!). They usually reply, “Oh, she was always a little shy, but now she is so much worse!” Therefore, there never was a time when the puppy was normal and curious and happy and confident.

Then around 3 or 4 months, their brains might switch to being geared to learning about danger. (Lindsay). That is termed a “sensitive period”.

Some pups never show any fearfulness. They are the great ones.
Some pups recover and become confident again. Good pups, but not suitable for breeding.
Some pups permanently stay fearful.
Some pups get more and more fearful as they mature.

Don’t risk breaking your heart by taking chances on a fearful puppy. All dogs are individuals, and plenty of people will tell you stories of how their pup overcame a fearful beginning. So what? They got lucky. For every story like that, how many other stories ended up with a miserable terrified dog with severe behavior issues?

Do you see fearfulness in a pup you're considering adopting, rescuing, or purchasing? Ask to see the pup in a different setting. A young pup that cannot recover from fear in presence of a novel stimulus in a calm setting will likely need a lifetime of behavioral accommodations and an abundance of patience and may struggle to meet the expectations of a stereotypical family-friendly pet.

Making any excuses for fearfulness is shooting ourselves in the foot. Breeding a fearful dog is shooting ourselves in the heart.

“Kennel blindness”, a common disability found in dog breeders, might be the number one cause of failure in breeding programs. Love is blind! Ego is fragile, and we set up defenses. Being objective is incredibly difficult. But successful breeders are objective.

Photos of sad scared pups. Looking for a Service Dog Prospect? Let someone else adopt these potentially wonderful pet pups and rehab them and love them. You don’t need to take a huge risk of losing finances and time having to start over if the pup doesn’t work out.

Join my private account for free to learn to read fearful behavior signals. See comments.

11/07/2024

Those NC mountain folk who’d been ignored and left stranded by the Biden/Harris administration went out en masse to vote.

Watch how CBS edited out the context of Speaker Johnson giving answer about Biden's hurricane relief.LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for new videos everyday: https://bit.ly...

11/05/2024

This is an X-ray of a dog’s bent front leg. See that tiny white spec? That’s a microchip! It has migrated down the leg....far from where it was inserted, between the dog’s shoulders. This is actually quite common.....

When lost pets are scanned, the entire body should be scanned to catch any that have migrated. But, as an owner, IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AT THEIR YEARLY VET EXAM, to ask for a quick scan to make sure that:

(1) the chip is still working,
(2) the location of the chip is good,
(3) that the chip info is correct,
(4) you've actually REGISTERED your chip (with the chip company) and it's current and active.

Remember microchips save lives and reunite families with their pet.... just have it checked regularly!

Credit and owner of this dog is Heather Archambeault

Thank you Heather for sharing your story to help educate people. ☮️🫂👍

10/13/2024

09/27/2024

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Putting a dog down and condemning them to death because you refuse to use any method that isn't "positive only" isn't very positive...

Sedating a dog into a zombie because you don't like other training tools isn't very positive...

Restricting a dog to a confined life without the chance to thrive isn't very positive...

Telling someone to put down their 8 month old working line dog for having lots of energy and acting like an 8-month-old working dog isn't very positive...

Guilting a young family that lives in an apartment into adopting a large dog with behavior issues isn't very positive...

Telling an older lady their dog would be better off dead then using a prong collar that helps her walk and control her dog isn't very positive....

Bashing other trainers because they don't train dogs using only one method isn't very positive...

Having an owner put a 5 month old puppy on 400mg of trazadone isn't very positive...

Harming dogs because of your own ego isn't very positive...

All of the things I just listed are REAL things that owners have dealt with by "certified positive only trainers and behaviorists."

Anyone can be certified online for $50. It means nothing.

Dogs and their humans deserve real trainers who care and emphasize for both ends of the leash. Trainers who will tailor training to each dog in front of them. Don't be fooled by the "positive" sounding approach. That's just fancy marketing from people who care more about their ego and lining their pockets rather than helping the dog community.

I've chosen to speak out on this because I care and hate seeing dogs harmed. The positive only cult is doing more harm than good to dogs. Dogs and owners that are already having a difficult time. Enough is enough.

09/13/2024

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09/13/2024

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