The Art of Natural Dressage

I know this has nothing to do with training, but I was wondering if anyone had any words of wisdom concerning our 2year old Jack Russell bitch.

She is so totaly neurotic, she runs around always looking for somewhere to hide, but never knows where is best. She attacks the boys for even glaring at her, and guards food like bags of shopping when I come home from food shopping, if the boys come anywhere near any food, even the fridge sometimes, she attacks them!!

She has shredded her bed, wets every night, and regularly nurses teddy bears. Oh the list is endless, she is so sweet, but drives me nuts.

I have always had boys, this whole girl thing is all new to me. Would it be best to spay her? I know my girls would love her to have puppies, but I am against that, I feel there are far too many unwanted dogs around already, and the thought of giving puppies to homes you don't know will treat them well is too much for me. If we don't want puppies is it best to spay?

I have read with interest the diet with just meaty bones. This sounds great, but where do I get such a big supply of meaty bones for three dogs?

Any advice would be very, very much appreciated from more knowledgable doggy people.

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We never stop learning

When it comes to spaying there are very different opinions to be found. There is the risk, that she won't be able to hold water well, after the little surgery. Then she would have to eat some pill every day to help in that. I do not know the percentage, but it seems to be a common side-effect.
Anyway, I do not believe it would help with those problems.

Could you describe a bit more about a "typical day" in you dogs life?
Did you train her, if so how. Was she at some point dry over night, or did she never get really "house broken" completely.
When you write "boys", does that mean the other two dogs?

Oh, and a picture would be great

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Andrea
http://www.youtube.com/user/FinhorsesAndPinscher
http://basichorsemanship.blogspot.com/

Andrea, thanks for your reply. We have had her from a very tiny puppy, and yes, we did get her totaly clean. All this started when she started having heats. I've put off taking her to the vets because they will probably want to put her on hormone jabs, or spay her, and I am trying to research what is best for her.

She can go a long time being quite normal, then suddenly her mood changes dramaticaly. We are lucky enough to live in the middle of nowhere, so she has a huge hill next to our house that my husband and I walk her out on three times a day, she has also had a small amount of training which she does wonderfuly at, sit, lie down, roll over, my husband also taught her to jump up into his arms when he taps his chest, she always comes when called, except when she's chasing rabbits or down a rabbit hole

We are going through another bad spell, peeing every night, emptying the whole bin out, jumping up onto work tops in the kitchen and stealing butter from the butter dish, which then gives her an upset tummy. When my husband tries to take her out for her early morning run she is hiding, when he carries her out she soon runs home again. She has spent everyday running around looking for somewhere to settle, but can't fing the right place. Yes the boys are our border collie and our Irish terrier, the Irish terrier is very fiesty, but when Holly is like this he is scared stiff of her, and she's tiny. She attacks them all the time.

I realy think she's getting broody or something. Last night, apart from emptying the bin and peeing everwhere and totaly shredding her bed, she also got my bag, emptied it, and was in amongst her shredded bed with my purse!!! I moved my purse onto a bench in the hall, to find her moments later, sat on the bench next to my purse again, and growling and snarling at the boys if they so much as walked by her.

This happens on and off all the time, any ideas, would she be better if we let her have a litter of puppies, is she a frustrated moma?

Heres a couple of pics of our desperatly sweet demon!!

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We never stop learning

Sorry, my pictures always come out so big!!!!!

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We never stop learning

thinking....maybe you can give some homeopathic drops from this or that...you have to ask someone who is better in that than me. But i know that there are some good results with homeopatic or bach remedies.

My grandmother has a spayed Westie bitch, and it wasn't totally indifferent for her. First, now her nose is very dry on one spot, the vet told us that it's because of not enough hormones. This vet knows another spayed bitch, which has to take hormones because of this, because her nose was completely dry, with cracks on it.
Secondly, she's less energetic and calmer (although still has her character, she would play with the other dogs, bark at the TV and so on ), but this means that she doesn't want to move (really, taking her out for a walk is a disaster - I always make at most half of the distance which I make with my own dog, because she just doesn't want to move!) and of course she's getting fat.
My grandmother also says, that after spaying she's less intelligent... but I don't know if it's true, or maybe the reason is that spaying changed her "lifestyle". But she seems to be less obedient, less attentive. I guess that it's similar to geldings. They are not so "busy" with everything, comparing to mares or stallions.

But I don't think that you need to breed her, to change her behaviour. My own dog (a Golden Retriever) is now 9 years old, and she never had puppies. She's still in very good condition and many people can't believe, that she's so old (I've read about Golden Retrievers, that they live no longer than 11 - 13 years). Once she had a beginning of "phantom pregnancy", and the vet told us that we should give her some more exercise and more interesting things to do. I started taking her for long walks daily, and also training her, and this stopped. Now she doesn't need long walks every day
But I know that Jack Russel Terriers are very energetic dogs, and they need a LOT of movement... for this reason they are very popular among horse people, because they are a good company for trail riding. Some time ago I met people who had a dog of this breed, and they were very proud of his "pseudo ribs" - muscles around his ribcage developed so much, that they looked like if his ribs were visible under his skin. He was really full of muscles and he could run with horses all day!
So for now you can take away her toys which she treats like her babies, and start taking her for long walks - maybe not very long to start with, because if she has phantom pregnancy, she wouldn't be in very good condition. But she should improve soon, and then you can make the distance longer. Maybe try some dog sport with her? Agility? Flyball?
When she's back to normal, you can give her toys back. But to my dog, one of her "babies" reminded her a puppy again, so I had to throw away this toy forever. I gave her new toys and she was fine.

If she has some fear issues (of course her aggression may be because of fear; maybe she's afraid of the males, if they are larger), you can make her bed in a place, where she can hide. Maybe a dog cage, which you can cover on the top, and on the walls, with a small entrance so the big dogs will not get there. It helped for our yorkie. We bought him a small tent, which was originally designed for a cat, I think
When he's playing with the Westie and it's getting too rough, he runs there to hide. Also when he did something wrong, or has a chew toy and doesn't want the other dogs to take it away from him. Sometimes he would also sleep in that tent. It makes him much calmer and more confident. It's important not to stress a dog in such place, even if you are angry or want to take her somewhere, she must know that everyone will leave her alone if she wants to go there.

I would also recommend you a book, "Click & Play Agility" by Angelica Steinker. It has tons of ideas for games, exercises, toys, etc. Great to read, and helps also with horses, even in such things like "how to motivate them", or "how to make them focus on you" and there are some nice training plan ideas at the end of the book, which help you to organize everything.
Good luck

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"Never just follow the crowd." Margaret Thatcher

Hey Annie!

Does she have false pregnancies after her heats??

Also, does she use her teeth when she aggresses at your boys, or just make a lot of noise??

Yes, like Andrea, I too would like to hear more about her life!

She is beautiful, but I am partial to terriers, as I have a Staffy Bull Terrier! Terriers tend to be reactive, often tending to resource guard or 'scrap' with others, and are VERY noisy about it!! But that doesn't mean you can't counter condition, or at least manage some of these behaviors.

Well I spay all my girls, always have, and yes, there is the possibility of leaking urine, cuz they need the estrogen? to activate the sphincter in their bladder. But I only have one BC that leaks, started when she was 10, but only a few times a year??? so I am not really sure if spaying is the cause???

Anyway, when I was competing in agility, many people claimed that their bitches after spaying became much more stable, less stressy, more 'happy' drive, etc. while competing. Before that they were up and down in their performances, most described it as they just looked like they didn't feel good!

Sounds like she needs 'something', eh?

Brenda

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http://www.youtube.com/user/Jack04574

First of all I really suggest a fresh and raw diet as soon as possible for I suspect her health is not in order. She looks to skinny, not enough muscle (sorry...).

Second, Gina had the same problems and worse. She was then still on dry 'dog food'.
She got worse right before Christmas and our vet Jean made a echography of her uturus and ovaries.
She had an infection in her uturus and a lumb on her ovaries. He suggested antibiotics and see how it would go but my gut told me she needed to have her uturus and ovaries surgically removed. And so Jean operated on her the day before Christmas.
That night she was very ill and I stayed up with her all night untill the morning when she felt slightly better.
We spend christmas at her sickbed. She to ill to unpack her presents...

With new years eve we had a new dog, ever so happy and totally transformated.
She must have had stomach pains all her life! As we now realised...

This was Christmas 2005. In 2006 we started the raw diet and she is nog 9 years and the healthyest alpha bitch one can imagine


You see the difference so much between a raw dog or cat and one on dry foo...

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Annie, sounds and looks like you got quite a bundle of energy there

First of all, one should always make sure that the dog is healthy. For example, that the bladder functions ok. I got a feeling, she is fine, but did not want to neglect saying this.

Jack Russells are bred for working and hunting dogs - as you have noticed, she is perfectly build to go down those rabbit holes They sure are good family dogs, but have lots of energy. You do go on walks, but I think that might not really challenge her.

She behaves like a illusorymore pregnant dog (hope that was the right translation for scheinschwanger). She tries to find a den and nurses teddybears. I have heard some do hide all teddybears and such toy animals when their bitches get into heat, but some do even nurse socks.
Presuming she is healthy, this can be a result of not enough challenge ->boredom.

Puppies are always cute when sleeping

Now the question is, how to get the little lady fulfilled. If she gets puppies, of course that might keep her occupied, but I'd suggest to try some other options instead

Most dogs like to use their nose:
I would let her search items in the house. You can do the search game easily 3 times in a row and maybe twice a day (or how often the two of you like), when you got few minutes time. I can describe to you how to do this game, if you like.

You can then let her find stuff also on the walks. Drop things while walking and then send her back to find them. Then you can let her search also people. That skill can possibly even be handy some day.

If she likes to dig, give her a sand box, dedicated place in the garden or place on that hill, where she can dig. You can even hide some toy in a hole and let her dig it out.

As she enjoys jumping, you can make a little dog parcour with jumps and tunnels for her (like in agility). That should not be done more then maybe 3 times a week and not too long sessions.

Teaching her more tricks will also entertain her.

As I got quite an energy bundle myself, I know how difficult it is to come up with new entertainment all the time
I could imagine, that adding those games to her day will already help a lot. Should they not help and something else is the reason, then we just have to think about other options.
I hope the two of you will enjoy some of the games as much as my puppy and me

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Andrea
http://www.youtube.com/user/FinhorsesAndPinscher
http://basichorsemanship.blogspot.com/

Wow, took me a long time to post this, as got interrupted so often and now already so many more good advices.

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Andrea
http://www.youtube.com/user/FinhorsesAndPinscher
http://basichorsemanship.blogspot.com/

Oh thankyou all so much for all the advice. I'm begining to think that maybe the answer is to get her spayed, I think we would see a huge difference in her.

Josepha, I too have always worried that she's so skinny, her weight goes up and down with her wierd moods. At the moment why she's going through her looking after a baby stage, she vomits on and off. Every Tuesday I collect lots of bones from the butchers that they put by for me, not enough to feed them on that entirely, so they also have dry food, the quality one with meat and rice, no cereals, I would love to feed only bones, but I just don't know where I could get them.

She does get alot of excercise, and runs like the wind, up and down that steep hill chasing rabbits, and walks around my local lake too every day. I have to say, I don't have the time to do too much training with her, I find it enough with my job, three children and trying to spend as much time as I can training the three horses, I would love more hours in a day, but what I do right now takes up all my time. She does however get loads of walks, and when she's not going through these wierd hormonal stages, she's fine, very content and happy, but, she changes dramaticaly when this happens.

Today she has chosen a toy, she delicatly picks it up and wanders around with it. If we take it off her and hide it she realy stresses and runs around looking for it. I put her bones in the garden, and she wasn't interested, she just scratched the door crying for her toy..she is not interested in any walks or anything, just the toy.

I think your right brenda, I think she definatly needs something, I'm sure we'd have a different dog, interesting what you said about your friends dogs when they were spayed, I'd love to see her happy and relaxed. She does snarl at the boys, but mostly realy squeaky noises, like creaky doors, it's all very odd...animals, what would we do without them aye!!

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We never stop learning

Hey Annie,

Sounds more and more like she is having false pregnancies, and unless there is some hormone therapy available?, spaying would probably be the best option.

One thing you can do with her is to train her on your walks, 'kill two birds with one stone'. You could simply focus on attention and name response/recall, bring along yummy treats, maybe a clicker? and/or a tug toy? sticks? But maybe you already do that?? This single training focus can really help a dog that needs work and an owner that doesn't!!!

Hope this helps!

Brenda

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http://www.youtube.com/user/Lucy04574

http://www.youtube.com/user/Jack04574

This all sounds a 100% like what Gina experiences.

Dry food, even if there is actualy meat in there just isn't the building material for healthy tissue.

Like humans who only eat fast food and candy, can't expect to look good and feel healthy.

You are what you eat, it is death simple, Plato told is like 1300 BC or so.

It's not just bones... your dog needs prey.
70% muscle tissue (which includs heart by the way), 15% bones and 15% organs.

With the dry food, not only does your dog not have any material he or she can build healthy cells on (And we all know what unhealthy cells are going to do after a while...), the dog (or cat) shall also dehydrate.
There is always 70% shortness of water! A carnivor can never drink enough with his tongue when he does not get prey every day which makes sure he only has 30% left to drink.

All these things I am a 100% sure (it is not rocket science) is the reason why bitches get these problems.
It takes so much energy and it needs so much right nutrition for a female to have her birth system up and ready...
Impossible on dry food, and then infections in the uturus and lumbs on the ovaries will occur.

I have two questions:
1. why not have a blood test and an echography of her uturus and ovaries?

2. Call all the slaughterhauses and butchers and find meat, bones and organs of cattle, deer, sheep, goat, chicken, duck... everything but pork.

It'll be cheeper then dry food, let a long the fact that you won't be needing the vet, de worming etc. anymore.

Do you have a (rather large) freezer?

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I've taken all that you said on board Josepha, I'll see what I can do. The only thing I can say is, when I was shepherding, the working dogs always ate sheep carcases, and it always made them vomit up intestines, I remember Jake running around the yard with reams of intestines coming out of his mouth as he'd chewed it all back whole, which is the way it came back up...yuk. The smell of there farts was awful after eating bodies too. Its the same with my dogs, they don't go short of prey, they are country dogs, and there diet is always supplemented naturaly by rabbits, they always catch young or sick rabbits, Holly the little bitch were speaking of actualy goes down rabbit holes and eats all the babies in the nest in the spring, her tummy is so fat afterwards, and she genraly comes in and promptly vomits all over the floor, pehaps it's because she's scoffed so much. My cat too eats lots of prey, thankfuly not many birds, I hate to see him take birds.

At all other times she is fine, a very sweet dog and lovely natured, but, these spates of wierd moods do seem to be getting more frequent as she gets older. Brenda, since she was a pup we realised that on walks she wouldn't come back when called, she was always busy looking for things to chase and holes to disappear down, so, we started to take a bag of treats on walks, and we call her regularly throughout the walk and she gets a treat for comeing back, the kids also do get her to do various tricks in the house and garden for treats, nothing too amazing, they love to shut her out the room, hide a treat, then when she comes back in they love to watch her run everywhere looking for the treat.....she always finds it!!

I think we'll be taking a trip to the vets, even if it is just hormones, do you think it could be a phantom pregnancy, she never gets a swollen udder, which I thought they did, but all the other signs point to her having one, it drives me nuts.

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We never stop learning

She doesn't have to have swallen udder right now, but she can have later. My dog had, but she recovered quickly. And yours seems to be over stressed too, as you describe, so it can be also a big reason for her behaviour. Together with phantom pregnancy.
If you want to feed them with natural food, you can also Google for BARF diet - Biologically Appropriate Raw Diet. There is a lot about this in Polish, because we have a strong community of clicker trainers online and many of them are BARF enthousiasts. I haven't searched it too deeply I only remember that it's not only meat, also some vegetables, even fruits, the whole thing can get quite complicated when you dig in but of course it's natural and must be healthy, although you must learn how to make a balanced diet.
However, all of these are on dry food since always:


Aila the Goldie, 9 y.o., Tunia the Westie (spayed), 7 y.o., Fiodor the Yorkie, 1 y.o.
So I won't say that it's all bad although one needs to select it carefully and we made some mistakes during their lifes.
Aila has special food for old large dogs, with some supplements for joints mobility (they are in the food, but I'm also giving her more). Tunia is on diet, although we should exercise her more... and Fiodor is our clickertraining hyperactive superstar they are all fine, although I know that BARF would be even better. Of course they eat all kinds of other food (Aila's favourites are apple cores and pickled cucumbers) but dry food is the basis.

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"Never just follow the crowd." Margaret Thatcher