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Michael Ellis working with his dog, Pi, at Leerburg's seminar in 2009.

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How Your Dog Changed Your Life
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How Anika Changed My Life
By: Lesley

One of the best quotes I’ve ever read starts by saying “Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there, to serve some useful purpose, teach you a lesson, or to help you figure out who you are or who you want to become.” I would like to amend that to say “Sometimes a Dog comes into your life…” because my story is about the dog that has changed my life around and taught me two of the hardest lessons I’ve ever had to learn!

I have always known two things: I will show dogs, and I will own a German Shepherd. But I always had to “wait” – wait to move out after graduating high school, wait to live in the dorms just one year because that’s what all freshman do, wait to live in the dorms two more years because we couldn’t afford rent elsewhere, wait until I moved to a house that allowed dogs… so after 22 years of waiting, I got my two wishes in one in June 2008 – a German Shepherd show line puppy named Anika. I knew right away she was going to win every show, because even though I knew next to nothing about showing dogs, I “knew,” with all the optimism and certainty of blind naivety, that she would look just like her champion VA father, because any puppy I bought with such a pedigree and for such a price could only turn out to be the next champion! Of course, as luck would have it, she grew to be the spitting image of her never-going-to-win-a-show mother, but what did I know? I was training her, I joined the South West Diamondback Schaferhunde Club in Tucson (where I discovered she was one of the best dogs there, certainly the best show line), and I had bonded to that dog like I hadn’t bonded to anyone in years. I talked to her, I took her everywhere, I spent at least 5 times as much money on her “essentials” than I did on myself, like a new toy (or three) every week, training equipment for the future (I’m talking years in the future) and a grand total of 17 leashes (no joke). She was MY dog, she was my best friend, she was there for me with a tail wag and lick no matter what, and we were inseparable. I now had a reason to get up every day, I now knew that it didn’t matter that I was jobless and in a school program that I despised, because I had my rock – she would be with me no matter what.

Time passed and she reached 9 months old: We were going to attend and win her first show! I had not experienced this much hope or optimism since I was 14 years old, so having these renewed feelings in my life was like a breath of fresh air, or waking up from a deep sleep. There I was at the show, 22 years old, hyped up and hopeful beyond belief for the first time since Freshman year of high school – and Anika got last place. The look of shock on my face probably could have won a prize. I immediately burst into tears and then proceeded to cry for hours, right there in the middle of the show, surrounded by friends, family, and strangers who did not understand why I was crying, because they all told me I could sell her and try again with a more promising puppy. As if.

Needless to say, I did NOT try again with a new puppy. Just after her disappointing show, I got offered twice the price I paid for her, and I almost slapped the man in the face. This was my DOG, not an item to buy and sell and trade! I remember hugging Anika, ruffling the fur on the nape of her neck, burying my face in her soft coat, and telling her, sure that she could understand, “Don’t listen to what that man said. You’re MY dog, baby girl, and we’ll always have each other.”

Fast forward to September 1, 2009. Anika is now 16 months old, I had showed her again because of my determination (and she got second to last place… this time I held my own and did not cry until I was safely back in the car). My baby had not been eating well for months, and I had bought every kind of food, canned, hard, raw, cooked, human, dog, etc that money can buy, and I would sit on the ground twice a day every day and try to feed her. She would spit out cooked or raw chicken or beef  and walk away from fresh canned food or chicken broth with rice, and she’d only eat one meal every 3-5 days. It broke my heart. But we were still in training, I took her to club every single Wednesday, and often to the distant training practices on Saturdays, and tracking on Sundays. She was excelling beyond belief, and had more energy than I knew what to do with. But she wouldn’t eat. At this point, Anika could be compared to my child (since I do not have children), I would have done anything for her. The vets said “This happens in Shepherds, there’s probably nothing wrong, sometimes they don’t eat.” So I believed them. Until September 1, 2009. All of a sudden, something changed; she couldn’t walk long distances, she couldn’t play fetch for more than four or five throws, and she had lost 5 pounds and her fur was falling out. Now, here went the alarm bells. I took her back to the same vet, who again said “There’s nothing wrong with your dog.” This time I made her do blood work, and then the results came back. My 17 month old puppy, the love of my life, the one who had turned me around from a downcast and hopeless outlook to optimism and a love for life, was in kidney failure.

To make a long story short, I don’t know how long Anika has left to live. The vets told me she could be fine one day, then take a turn for the worse at any time. Anika, who has been teaching me lessons since day one, is now teaching me two of the hardest lessons I’ve never had to learn before: It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, and live each moment to its fullest, because you never know when it may be your last. Every day, I hug her and look in the deep, trusting brown eyes and tell her I love her and I’ll do anything for her, because it’s the least I can do for the dog who saved my life. As I finish this, tears are spilling on the keyboard, and Anika just came over with her ball and dropped it in my lap, wondering what’s wrong with me because she has no idea she’s fatally sick. Today is one of her good days. Regardless of the future or the diagnosis, I will never stop living for the moment and enjoying what I have RIGHT NOW! Thank you Anika, you’re the best friend a girl can have!!

A "Before" pic from days before her unexpected diagnosis, when she was emaciated with no energy.	An "After" picture of her doing much better now!

Michael Ellis Explains the French Ring Sport

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This Week's Featured
Question & Answers
Our newsletter will always contain several featured customer Q&As from that week.

Have a question for Ed & Cindy? Try the Leerburg Search Engine. This search engine was written specifically for Leerburg by our in house IT manager. Our search engine is specific to Leerburg and only searches leerburg.com and the Leerburg web forum.

If you can't find the answer to your question by using our search engine,
you can email Cindy here at Leerburg at cindyr@leerburg.com
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Question: My 7 month old Doberman is really smart but she can’t focus for any length of time.  She gets plenty of exercise, so I don’t think that is the problem.  Do you have any suggestions?

I have a 7 month old, female, Doberman puppy. We purchased her at 5 months from a breeder, so she has been in our home for approx. 2 months. She is smart and seems to train fairly easily as far as basic commands. My problem is getting her to focus for any length of time because she is extremely active and has a very high prey drive. Maybe I'm expecting too much too soon...?

I've just recently (in the last few days) begun to keep her leashed and at my side at all times when she is indoors. She is crated when we are not home and for meals twice a day, and I was crating her when she became too rambunctious in the house, but this only seemed to aggravate the problem. Plus, she would scream at the top of her lungs for hours, she knows when we are still in the house and won't quiet down. When we leave the house, she is quiet in the crate. She is given "play time" twice a day for at least 30 minutes, with a toy, tennis ball, frisbee, that we throw for her. Also, she gets to go out at least once a day to play with our other Doberman who is 2 yrs old, male, neutered,... and they run, play and chase each other all over our yard. So I don't think it's a lack of exercise.

Should I continue with the leash indoors and out, or crate more often? Or some other suggestion?... Thanks so much!

Meredith

Answer:

Along with controlling the dog with a leash (which I totally agree with) I’d also begin teaching her how to “learn”.  This is a skill that most people don’t even realize the dog needs to know. Once dogs learn how to learn, they become more focused as a by product of that new skill. 

I’d recommend marker training.

The Power of Training Dogs with Markers

The Power of Training Dogs with Food

The Power of Playing Tug with Your Dog  (not yet released)

Realize that the activities you are doing with her now are actually teaching her to NOT focus on you.  Playing with other dogs and chasing toys that are thrown away from the handler reinforce NOT focusing on you.  She’s learning through her activities to focus on other things besides YOU.

I’d make sure the screaming in the crate isn’t being reinforced in some way (i.e. you yelling at the dog or going near the crate) You may need to go to an aversive like a bark collar to teach her to be quiet and settle in the crate. 

You may want to take some time to check out our streaming video section, we have a lot of marker training footage with dogs of various breeds and ages.

I hope this helps.

For more questions on this topic, see our Q&A on Puppy Training.

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Question: I want to purchase an electric collar for my 12 pound dog.  I need to quickly control his barking.  What do you recommend?

Cindy,

I talked w/ Donna today and she requested that I write you for advice on which e-collar to purchase for my dog.  Charley is a 15 month old miniature poodle, about 12 pounds.  Charley is a an extremely active, athletic dog. We do a 3 or 4 mile run most days. He’s not aggressive, very social, a poodle, but a “soft” dog, mild and loving most of the time.  He’s probably the best dog I’ve ever had. I am working w/ Charley steadily on obedience training, aiming for trials for CD title in a few months.

We recently moved into new offices, and Charley comes to work w/ me. I had him in a sit-stay,  in a restricted hall, for training purposes, while I went to the men’s room. Normally he will sit silently for several minutes, but another dog on the floor below started barking, and Charley responded, which led to a complaint. I won’t leave him in that hall again, but will keep him in our office suite.  Nevertheless, I need to be able to quickly control any barking.

He also barks when he sees other dogs outside, from his window perch at home, and I want to control that too. However I don’t want to go to an automatic bark collar, because he barks infrequently, and my wife likes a certain amount of the barking when a visitor appears at our house. I have resisted an e-collar before because I’m heading for competition obedience, and don’t want Charley dependent on it, but now I need to do something.

Donna said that both the Dogtra 280 and 1900 would be too large for Charley. She asked me to have you suggest a “lap dog” e-collar.  I hardly think of Charley as a lap dog, but I suppose size is the determining factor. What do you recommend?

-Mark

Answer:

I’m not a fan of using an electric collar to correct nuisance barking.  The timing of the handler is almost never good enough or consistent enough to correct barking.   I have found that using the bark collar is best because you don’t have to hover and wait for the dog to bark.  The collar does it’s job much better than I could.  If you want to allow the dog to bark at specific times, you simply don’t put the collar on.  They figure it out quickly.  This is how I handle my own dogs.

I only use the electric collar for training, not for punishing behaviors like barking.

If you need a collar for training, then I’d go with the Innotek Lap Dog trainer.

For more questions on this topic, see our Q&A on Bottle Feeding.

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Question: I just started feeding my dog a raw diet again, and his stools are really foul smelling and full of undigested meat.  I’m feeding him a pound of venison at night, is that too much?

Cindy -

I first started feeding a raw diet to my black lab based on what I read from your website.

I recently started feeding a raw diet again, and have a question based on what i've seen so far.

I just started and am on the 5th day.  What I have been doing is feeding the remaining dry dog food in the morning, and then cut up deer meat in the afternoon. 

The dogs stools are REALLY foul smelling and come out in a big blob of gelatinous looking material.  Today, I looked closer, and there is some undigested pieces of deer meat in the stools. (i had cut the meat up to stew meat size, and some pieces looked like you could wash them off and you'd never know the difference) Just a few pieces, but surprising nonetheless. 

 Maybe I am feeding too much deer meat and it isn't all getting digested?  I have been feeding a pound at a time, I might back that off by half?

I don't remember the stools being so foul when i did this previously.  maybe it will take the dog a little time to adjust?

Thanks

Dave

Answer:

This really isn’t the way I would go about feeding a raw diet, feeding a pound of boneless meat and then kibble at the next meal are likely too much for his system. 

Here is a Q & A section on raw feeding.

I would recommend having these 2 books in your library, you’ll use them a lot at first.  Raw Dog Food and Natural Nutrition for Dogs & Cats.  We give both of these books to our puppy customers and we almost never get questions on raw feeding.

An incorrect raw diet can actually be dangerous to the dog’s health, so I’d make sure you have all your reference materials on hand before starting again.

Your dog may also need digestive enzymes during the switch to help his system properly digest the raw food.

There is a ton of info on our discussion forum also.

In the meantime, I’d put this dog on a bland diet of some boiled chicken and rice for a few days to let his gut settle down.

Learn to use the search function (located in the left hand corner of every page on our website). Simply type in your search terms or key words and you will be directed to articles, question & answers, free streaming videos and posts on our forum.

Cindy

For more questions on this topic, see our Q&A on Feeding a Raw Diet.

 

*If you have a training question – write Cindy here at Leerburg at cindyr@leerburg.com

*If you have your spam filter on, make sure you set it to receive our replies!!!

*Our newsletter is a big success and we would like to send out a huge THANKS to our wonderful customers! Since beginning this newsletter our volume of email has greatly increased and you may have a longer than usual wait for a reply to your question.  We will answer; it just may take us a bit longer than you are accustomed to. In order to speed up this process, please condense your questions to a paragraph or two. This will make it MUCH easier for us to answer in a timely fashion. Your questions are important to us and we always appreciate receiving them. If you have a medical issue or emergency, please consult with a health care professional right away. We can’t diagnose or treat sick dogs via email. Also, try using the search function on our site - it now searches the site AND the web board. Thank you. Ed & Cindy

Testimonials

Cindy,

I have written you several times about my GSD and the distraction problems I have with him away from home. I have trained AKC for a good while and have talked to many people about the problem, but no one had the answer. I would like to thank you for your advice because you were right!!!! It seems very simple but everyone missed it, including me but I am totally green. Thanks again (you said the pay back did not have a high enough value) and were you right. We went to a parking lot this morning with a fire truck starting up right next door but he ran out got his dumbbell and returned!!!  I cant believe it!

Thanks a lot,
Roz

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Upcoming Michael Ellis Seminar
Check out the pictures from the recent Michael Ellis Seminar
and the upcoming seminar dates!

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ANNOUNCING
The Michael Ellis School for Dog Training

More details on courses, course content and dates available on the website.

http://michaelellisschool.com

OBEDIENCE  INTENSIVE:
An introduction to Michael’s training system in theory and practice.

This course is a great stepping off point for anyone interested in our school, and is a prerequisite for many of our other courses.  It details all the fundamentals of our approach to obedience and the dog/handler relationship. This course thoroughly covers our reward based teaching systems, the use of verbal markers for communication, building behavior through luring and free shaping, the thoughtful introduction of aversives, and creating motivation in your dog through productive play.  There will be both a lecture/theory portion, covering the science of the training, and a practical portion, that puts the theory into play.  There are no prerequisites for this class. Students must bring a dog for the practical phase. 

Cost $1600 | November 9th-20th, 2009

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