Dog’s birthdays are lots of fun. You can make a huge fuss if you want to or you can skip it entirely. It’s all for you and it’s all up to you. Not that the dogs don’t love a party. They do. Especially the food part. And the toys but mostly the food.

I confess that many years ago I used to make fun of people who talked about things their dogs liked. Not typical dog things like riding in cars. Everyone can tell if a dog likes to ride in a car (and most do) but about other things. I really didn’t believe people could know that their dog liked being in dog shows or going certain places or even wearing clothes but dogs do have a lot of preferences and they are pretty good at making them known. With Panama there are levels of liking.

He would rather go anywhere I go than have to stay home without me so he was happy to be at Coastline Pet Supply (wonderful store) trying on sweaters for his birthday and seeing if he would fit into the various travel bags. He didn’t not like it because he was doing it with me but when we got to the aisle with the bulk treats (in bins, not wrapped) he moved up to the next level of liking.  He licked his chops in that “this is what I’m talking about” way that said he could hardly contain himself and didn’t know what treat to pick.

In the end we really made it a pretty low key birthday. Although I had bought party hats and streamers and treats and a couple of new toys I blew off making the (healthy) cake.  A lot of what I wanted to do was for the sake of pictures. Panama was ecstatic to find that we had hot dogs for his birthday. (These are a very special treat that we get very rarely because we try for more healthy treats.) He wasn’t real happy that he had to wear a birthday hat to get the treat. I put the hat on him a couple of times and then his big brown eyes caught my heart.  I decided that from that point on we’d celebrate for him, not for me and I didn’t make him wear the hat. He got hot dog bits for doing nothing more than sitting. (You all HAVE to sit to get your treats) He, and the rest of the paque, had a good time and there were no pictures until this one I got of him later.  This is my beloved friend at 11 years old. Happy Birthday Panama Red!!

Imagine going for a ride and when you get home your house is no longer there. A completely different house has taken it’s place but people are acting like it’s your house. Your stuff is not there. (Stuff being familiar smells mostly – I think smells substitute for what we think of as memory a lot of times in dogs.) The stuff that is there keeps moving around, your toys, bowls, etc. Inside and outside are in different places, you aren’t sure how to get outside and you’re not even sure that outside really is outside – it sure seems different. Strange people and critters have been here who have no business in your normal environment and all traces of you and your people have been removed from it.

You can’t even find the bathroom! There are no maps. Your person is completely preoccupied and doing completely different things than you are used to which is making you certain that she’s as lost as you are. This is very scary! You need comfort and being a dog rather than a person you can’t get to the Ben & Jerry’s so you go for a familiar smelling shoe that happens to be accessible and climb on the bed with it. Having your person’s smell close by and having something to chew on are just making you feel better when your person (also already stressed out) comes in and freaks out on you for the shoe thing. All is lost! You pee on the bed in panic without even thinking about it and things spiral downhill from there.

I really think this is what moving is like for dogs (although peeing on the bed is just one example of how they might react) and moving causes so much stress for humans that we tend to overlook the stress it will put on the dogs. It’s not unusual for dogs to begin some new bad habits when you move (barking and chewing being the ones I hear about most). I think though that with a little planning this is also the perfect time to get rid of some bad habits. Dogs are so ritualistic and breaking patterns is really hard but when the patterns are broken by something external you have the perfect opening.

Doors are a very big thing in dog life. My dogs have terrible behavior at my back door that has crept up on me over the years. They all push against the door yapping and fussing. I can make them be quiet before I open the door but when I do open it they slam through it (noisy again) and every one of them has a bruise from the corner of the door because they would rather slam into it in a poodle pile than wait and walk nicely. My back door is in my laundry room which is off the kitchen and until recently had no door. When we put a door on the laundry room there was an instant change in the dogs because they had no habits related to this door. With the laundry room door closed they all stood in the kitchen looking perplexed and asking “What do we do?” which is exactly where I want them! This is a perfect training opportunity.

A lot of dog behavior is centered around doors: Jumping on people when they enter, how they react to people knocking at the door or walking past it, how they behave when you come in or go out, how they behave when they go out or come in. (Do they get their feet wiped before continuing on? Would you like to start that habit? Now is the time!)

Here are some things I would do to make moving easier on the dog and to use it to change habits (and not create any bad new ones)

Assuming that the dog is crate trained I would make a point of having the dog spend some time daily in the crate before moving. This way when you get to the new place the dog will have one very familiar area (and keep the bedding from the old place in it for a few days, even if it’s not spotless).

Do some (at least) daily training sessions with the dog before moving. Practice sitting, staying, being quiet…all the basics. Call him to you a few times a day and give him a good treat for coming. When you move, continue this. It will be very comforting to the dog because it is a familiar ritual and it a place where you are clearly being the leader. A moved dog needs a good leader.

Try to plan to put the dog’s stuff (food bowls, toys, etc.) in their permanent place as soon as you get to the new house rather than moving them a bunch of times. If the dog uses a litter box you HAVE to decide ahead of time where it will go and it will have to stay in that place.

Make a list of your dogs “standard” behaviors both those that are routine (and good) and those you’d like to change. One standard behavior would be whatever it is the dog does to let you know he has to go out. Let’s say he sits by the back door and waits and this is what you want him to continue to do. So when you get to the new house, bring him to the back door, have him sit, then take him out and when he pees give him a super treat – just as if you were training a new pup. Try to run him through his standard behaviors in the new house and make a plan for re-training the behaviors you don’t like. I know this can be hard when you are so busy moving but it’s not often you get an opportunity like this and the stuff packed in those boxes can wait a few days!

Do a lot of treating and reassuring. Pay more attention to the dog than you have time to.

Here are a few additional tips:

If you’re dog’s ID’s on their collars don’t have a cell number that’s going with you, make sure you get new ones before you leave.

In the chaos of moving you’ll want to make sure the dogs are crated when things are being moved and the door is opened 1500 times. (I would not rely on baby gates for this or closed doors to rooms they are in.)

It would be a good idea to check out licensing laws and get dog licenses before you get there. If a dog managed to escape while the move is happening you want to make sure you’re already legal.

If the dogs are microchipped be sure to change your contact info with the database (Pet-Trac or whatever one it is.)

Finally…Be SURE you have some Petastic or Nature’s Miracle when you first enter the house wtih the dogs. It’s not at all uncommon for a well housebroken to have an accident in a new house. If that happens you’ll want the smell out right now before it becomes an invitation.

We hate fleas.  Some of you are lucky enough to live in an area where fleas don’t become a real problem. We have a problem with them.  For years I’ve used Advantage to get rid of them.  A few people have asked me lately about Advantage Multi which also protects against heartworm.  Although all of my dogs are on heartworm protection and I consider it vital I will not use Advantage Multi for a couple of reasons.

The heartworm preventive in AM is moxidectin. This is the same preventive that was used in Proheart6 from Fort Dodge that was pulled off the market a few years ago when it killed a number of dogs.  I may be too cautious but I know that ivermectin has been used for many years and there have been no issues except for ivermectin sensitive breeds (mostly collies and herding breeds). Heartgard and most of the other popular heartworm preventives are based on ivermectin.

We have sometimes used Advantage more often than once a month. One summer we used it almost weekly.  I would not want to subject my dogs to moxidectin (or any other drug) in higher doses than they need and would not want it to build up.  I give each dog a dose of heartworm preventive monthly. I don’t want it mixed with anything I might not have to give monthly or more often than monthly.

When using Advantage I spend only a fraction of what you’d spend if you buy the size labeled for your 10 pound or less dog and we don’t use more than necessary. These are serious chemicals after all.  Here’s an excerpt from a page on my site about Advantage:

A four month supply of Advantage for a dog up to 10 pounds contains a total of 1.6 ml. and costs $38.99. A four month supply of the same compound for a dog over 55 pounds contains a total of 16 ml and costs $42.99.  (This is the cost at petco.com in Nov. ‘04). This breaks down as follows:

1.6 ml (approx. 32 drops -8 drops per monthly dose) @ 38.99 = 24.36 per ml
16 ml (approx. 320 drops – 80 drops per monthly dose) @ 42.99 = 2.68 per ml.

If you don’t like math think of it this way:

Ten times the amount for only $4.00 more!

For an 8 pound dog, this would save you around $70. a year – that’s a lot of Kongs!

A widely circulated old wives tale says that one year for a dog is equal to seven human years.  There are many references to this in our culture in movies, book titles, comedy routines and in off-handed comments.  These days we have people researching a lot about dogs because dogs have become big business and people like you and me  are willing to spend a lot of money to keep our dogs healthy (and on other silly stuff but that’s a different topic).

Recently it is being shown that the seven year equivalent is off by quite a bit but recent researchers have not come up with a nice neat replacement for the number 7.  In general it is believed that the first two years of a dog’s life are the equivalent of much more than seven years each. After all, dogs can reproduce at a year old. It’s thought now that a one year old dog is approximately the age of a 15 year old male, two years is equal to 24 years and then each year equals from 4 (for small breed dogs who live longer) to 7 years (for large breeds).  Therefore a 10 year old lap dog would be roughly 56 whereas a 10 year old St. Bernard would be more similar to a 78 year old person.

Life span expectancy varies among breeds even of the same size. An example is a Doberman which is a bigger dog but has a life expectancy of about 15 as opposed to a boxer who might be smaller but has a span of only 9 or 10 years.

Last year Panama Red and I were roughly the same age.  He was 10 and I was 57.  This year he’ll be 60 but I’ll only be 58. Looking at it this way I know these figures are way off and I really don’t want us to think of our dogs in these terms. Why? Is it because I’m in denial? Well yes but that’s only part of it.  It might be useful when considering health issue to figure a dog’s age this way but our culture makes it almost non comparable. Panama is a lot younger than I am and one reason is that he doesn’t know about age.  I don’t think he knows that he doesn’t want to chase a ball for as long as he used to because he still wants to chase it as often.  He doesn’t catch it quite as fast as he used to and doesn’t always see where it went as quickly as he used to but if he knows these things he doesn’t mind them. This is how fast Panama catches a ball. Because this is the time that Panama lives in. Now.

Fortunately Panama is a very healthy boy. Deva (who is now 13 1/2) is having a little harder time. She is very stiff but she too is very happy. I was sad for her when she stopped going to work with Ken. She no longer wants to get into the truck which used to be one of her favorite things to do. (The first word we had to spell in front of her was r-i-d-e the second was s-t-o-r-e.) She is not sad about it and as the dogs always have, they are teaching me a new way to look at things. Deva isn’t deprived of going in the truck. She has grown into another kind of life now that doesn’t include trucks and she does not “miss” it.

Dog owners often wonder what dogs are thinking but we don’t have to wonder if they are happy or not, we don’t have to wonder about what they like or don’t. They make these things very clear.  All of my dogs are happy with today just the way it is and they all live in the now.  I’ve had to work at that and I’m working at it still but they always help.

They don’t have any idea that it’s 2010 (or 14070) or that one year follows another.  I do so in my paradoxical human way I hope that this will be the year that you learn to live in the now and appreciate each day as your dog does.

Happy New Year!