Furever Behavior

10/14/2025

Pic of the day, probably the best weim on the planet. Murphy, and no Diana, not your Murphy. 😘

08/27/2024

What a nice evening eh? Is summer over? Please...Gilly likes this temp.

12/10/2023

I never post my two dogs. Gilly has finally decided Gigi is worthy of staying.

04/10/2023

This!

We often refer to dogs as our pets. An animal that the kids can play with. A captive friend whose fur we can cry into on a bad day. We often hear them called ‘it’ and expect them to fit into a little set of rules to be a good family pet. And if they don’t meet our expectations or stay enthusiastic and trouble-free housemates, we have cultivated a belief that we must train them, and then they will behave better.

But what about what the dog wants?

Or how they feel?

And what about all the lessons we can learn from them? What if we stop trying to impose our will onto them? Imagine if your dog could do so much more than being a good family pet.

I urge you now to give pause on the idea that your dog might just need more training and instead step back and watch them better, learn their language, question their beliefs, and improve their agency.

Dog training has been the go-to response to the family dog simply showing us their needs for too long. It’s time to rethink the place of dog training.

It’s time to have a much better and more enriching relationship with our dogs, where creating different responses and behaviour through training is a small part of the bigger picture -and not the whole canvas.

03/22/2023

This!

I still feel confused at times as to why there is still such a pushback to using food to train your dog.
“When will I not have to use it anymore?”
“Will I always have to have food on me?”
“Won’t he then become obsessed with all food?”
“I want him to do it because he loves me, not because I have food”
“Using food is cheating”
“Using food means you’re bribing not training”
“Using food will make my dog fat”
“I never had to use food with my last dog.”

These are all just some of the insane things I’ve heard and still hear. And it makes me crazy because I can’t imagine saying these things to my employees.
“When will I not have to pay you anymore?”
“If I pay you are you going to just become obsessed with money?”
“I really want you to work for me because you love me, not because I pay you”

Food is a tool. It is a TOOL. And just like any tool it can be used well or used poorly, but it’s one of the only tools in dog training that I hear more myths about than any other. And that’s unfortunate because when used properly it does so many good things -

Food is a primary reinforcer and for most dogs it’s the most valuable thing they can get. This makes it enormously powerful when trying to teach them how to do something new and/or complicated. That doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate a pet on the head, but they’d rather have the food and there’s NOTHING wrong with that. Just like you’d rather be paid in dollars rather than chocolate bars.

Food is fast. It’s easy to deliver, portable, and also variable in value (kibble vs cheese) so it’s very flexible also depending on your level and stage of training.

Food can help create powerful positive associations for dogs as well as counter condition negative associations they already have because of its value to them. Using food in the presence of other dogs, people and environments helps your dog have a positive association with them and this in and of itself is incredibly powerful. That’s something I don’t think we consider nearly enough when training our dogs even when they’ve past the learning phase.

Food does not have to make your dog a beggar, fat, or totally dependent on it. The context in which you deliver it, the way you ration out the food - treats vs meals and healthy choices - and also the way you cue the dog when training all help alleviate these issues.

I pay my dogs regularly and have no shame in that. As they get better at skills I ask them to work harder or longer for the pay just like as adults we have to work a full week or two before we get our paychecks. I use higher value for harder things - just like you like to get paid time and a half when you work Christmas, and lower value for easy stuff. I watch to make sure my dogs hope for the reward but don’t expect it and don’t take it personally when they’d rather come back to me for cheese instead of a pet. I focus on the fact that they came back.

Getting paid at work is a big reinforcer for us but it’s also not the only reason we go is it? The relationships you have with your coworkers, the pride you have in your job etc are all intricate parts of your motivation, but that takes TIME to build, and at first it’s usually just for the pay. Same with training your dog. At first, yes, it’s for the food, but as you continue and do it right it becomes more about the teamwork, the fun and the relationship, not just the pay. And THAT’S what I wish more people understood. Over time your dog will work often without food for you because he truly enjoys it now, and he’s been reinforced by the relationship and countless reinforcements over time. But you have to put that time and patience in first to get there. And it’s worth it. I promise.
-Helen St. Pierre

03/09/2023

02/25/2023

All kibble is extruded and denatured. There are a few brands that are not. Honest kitchen, carna4, lotus. There might be a couple more that I'm not aware. If you can't feed raw, then find human grade dehydrated or freeze dried food. Even the commercial balanced raw retailers are selling now is questionable about where the meat is sourced. Organic human grade is important. The information is out there, vets get their information from the dog food companies and thats it unless they do their own independent education. Think about it. Kibble is extremely processed industrial waste. How can you trust someone that says processed food is better for your dog than whole foods. An imbalanced diet is a huge problem, but the information for balance is easily attainable. I'm tired of lying to a vet about what I feed my dog because vets insist, guilt, shame you into buying kibble. Ignorance and convenience are making our dogs sick. Please educate.

Below is from a friend/associate.
**** PLEASE READ ******
4 years ago our vet suggested Pro Plan Sensitive Skin and Stomach. Our German Shepherd started getting horrible ear infections and hair loss when we put him on it.

I reached out to Chelsea Kent who has worked closely with Rodney Habib’s philanthropic non-profit, Paws for Change, and in collaboration with HRI Labs. She also works with Drs Barbara Royal and Natasha Lilly with the Royal Animal Health University and the College of Integrative Veterinary Therapies. She has worked to implement laboratory analysis to determine nutritional adequacy and toxin load of popular commercially available pet foods; and to gain cohesive, structured, factual information about regulation, industry insights, company stories and more throughout the industry.

She is also the founder of FoodRegulation Facts Alliance, a stakeholder organization that represents retailers in government and regulatory settings. Specializing in Pathogen and Industry Regulation, she works in tandem with NGPFMA (Next Generation Pet Food Manufacturers Association) and TruthAboutPetFood to change regulation, where needed, through government channels and educate retailers about regulation.

Here is what she sent me about the food I was feeding him at that time.

"To start, if you visit www.KnowYourPetFood.org you can view test results of a ProPlan product. You have to register to see results. There are also test results for a Royal Canin, Taste of the Wild, Natural Balance and VDog product. Here are some of the concerning results for ProPlan (and they are not too different from every other kibble brand):
(These were randomly selected packages from retail sales channels - just like what you would purchase from a store)

- ProPlan tested positive for Aflatoxins

- Their amino acid and B-vitamin profile showed slightly higher than other brands - we believe this is because they source several of their ingredients from the fermented trash of the Biodiesel industry. What's generally not mentioned regarding these by-products is that they are also soaked in several EPA regulated toxic chemicals - since the manufacturer did not add them themselves, they are not required to list them on the label. Your dog is still eating, though, thinks like Sulfur Dioxide, Liquid Urea, Antibiotics, etc. The grain ingredients themselves are actually classified by the EPA as chemicals, not food, when they enter pet food. See Canola Meal MSDS as an example.

- Their glyphosate tests showed 38.52ng/g of Glyphosate. So in Buck's 3 cups/day he would be consuming 13,289.4ng (ppmg) of Glyphosate (primary ingredient in Roundup W**d Killer). While this is far from the worst that was tested it still has extreme potential to damage the liver. Scientists note that Glyphosate consumption in excess of 0.1ppm caused fatty liver disease in rats. Of course, each batch would contain a different level of Glyphosate but the highest that we found exceeds 170,000ng/day for a 50lb dog... so it could be more or less in each batch of Bucks food. The State of California proposes that on the very, very high end an adult human (154lbs) should not consume more than 2ppm/kg/day (or 140ng/day).

- The DNA analysis of the ProPlan Chicken formula that was tested showed that it also contained Beef and Pork. So it's very likely that the Salmon food that you're feeding is cross-contaminated with other proteins.

- The heavy metal test results showed that the ProPlan product that was tested was high in Arsenic, which aligns with (a) the high level of white rice in the product, and (b) the numerous synthetic minerals. Click here to see the symptoms of Arsenic toxicity - this alone could account for many of Buck's issues (again, ProPlan is minimally different from every other brand so he could have had this same heavy metal consumption no matter what kibble he was eating)

- The test results on Minerals shows that the specific bag of ProPlan that was tested had extremely high levels of Zinc (recommended = 80mg/kg, contained 257mg/kg), Phosphorus (recommended = 0.4%, contained 0.8%), and Manganese (recommended = 5mg/kg, contained 150mg/kg) and Selenium was not even detected. Now, that package really doesn't matter that much because every package is different. The point, though, is that minerals in pet food are highly unregulated. There are minimum requirements but in most cases there are no maximum limits. It's not because there is no toxicity in pets, but rather that they don't know what it is so they just don't seek to regulate it. Even the manufacturers of the vitamin/mineral pre-mix rarely know exactly what's in the blends - but they are sold with a skull & crossbones on them. There are 21 synthetic ingredients in the ProPlan that you're feeding and only 14 "food" ingredients (several of which are registered as EPA chemicals or labeled with misleading titles such as "animal fat," or "sunflower oil" (see below)

- The ProPlan that was tested was also higher in several phthalates (endocrine inhibitors) than any other brand. We believe that this is not because of consistent exposure to more plastics than other brands. We actually believe that this is specific to each bag .... when kibble is extruded it is pumped through a machine at high-temperatures and puffed at the end. In this process there are machinery lubricants, dessication agents, flavor enhancers and a variety of other chemicals that are used to create a final product. It seems reasonable to assume that the first product through the extrusion machine will have the highest exposure to machinery lubricants... therefore, the beginning of a batch would likely consistently have higher phthalate levels than the end of a batch. So the beginning would have more phthalates while the end would have more acrylamides (carcinogens caused by high heat)

- Every kibble that was tested came back as containing about 5% Phytic Acid - an antinutrient that blocks absorption of nutrients. The tested foods included grain containing as well as grain -free products. They were all the same as far as contributing factors to heart disease are concerned (which I'm sure is why your vet recommended that food).

- Separate from KnowYourPetFood results, the "animal fat," "sunflower oil," and "fish oil" in ProPlan are likely Used Cooking Oil, aka Yellow Grease... this is collected from restaurant grease fryers. This is also treated with several other chemicals (ethoxyquin, TBHQ, silicone anti-foaming agents, etc). This, again, is likely the same in every other brand of kibble except Carna4. This is obviously inflammatory.

- According to the ProPlan Salmon label it contains 26% protein and 16% fat - so a total of 42% potential animal meat. Judging from the order and number of ingredients I'd assume that about 50% of the protein and fat is from animal products (you can call the company to verify if you want). This would mean that you are feeding 0.84oz of meat per cup of food, or 6.3lbs of meat per 30lb bag. Therefore, you're primarily feeding glyphosate dessicated, highly allergenic ingredients. "

Purina says two dogs who ate the recalled brands became ill and showed signs of vitamin D toxicity.

01/15/2023

https://www.barkandwhiskers.com/overweight-pet/?ui=b9c32448d147ef310a69c5c252a00bd41c0a6382fd6617f5ae8e24c4e869e245&sd=20130920&utm_source=petsnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1HL&utm_campaign=20230115Z1

One in 2 pets are, but many owners don't realize their pet has the disease. And, surprisingly, sometimes veterinarians don't even mention it if they know it. But being the greatest health threat, it kills millions prematurely, creates immense pain and suffering, and costs owners money.