AKC Dog Breeds News and Information

In a season when so much attention is given to the all-consuming, pre-dawn shopping rush to find discount deals on everything from TVs to toasters, the patient folks at Hinsdale Humane Society have spent the last couple of months diligently shopping for the ideal home for a little stray dog known as Rusty.

They found it.

Rusty soon will be moving to Dogtown, an exclusive gated community of 427 dogs living in small group homes on the 3,800-acre Best Friends Animal Society sanctuary surrounded by national parks and nestled in what might be the most stunningly scenic canyon in Utah.

“I want to live there,” quips Rusty-supporter Harry Peters, president of the Forest Glen Homeowners Association, one of the Oak Brook communities Rusty frequented during his reign as the suburbs’ most elusive stray.

While homeowners and village businesses left out gourmet food for Rusty, tried to coax him in from the cold, and saw the 4-year-old Chow-Sheltie mix frolic with their dogs, Rusty eluded traps, police officers and animal control experts for three years. In September, Rusty walked through an open gate in a backyard and allowed himself to be captured. He was suffering from heartworms, a parasite that would have killed him without treatment.

The Hinsdale Humane Society welcomed Rusty, and with the help of a trust fund fed by neighbors who had grown to love the unlikely rascal, is treating his heartworms. But finding Rusty a home has proved difficult.

“We have worked to ‘socialize’ him to humans, but this has proved problematic as he is not oriented toward humans in any way and is not motivated by dog treats or other tasty food,” reads the latest Rusty update from Lori Halligan, executive director of the Hinsdale Humane Society, and longtime operations manager Jennifer Vlazny.

Rusty is never vicious; he just prefers the company of other dogs, Vlazny says. So she says she “poured my heart out” in a letter to the Best Friends Animal Society, which runs the not-for-profit no-kill animal sanctuary near Kanab, Utah, and accepts less than 1 percent of the roughly 2,000 applications received each month.

When the sanctuary, which treats and houses animals from around the globe, accepted Rusty, Vlazny admits to getting a little teary-eyed.

“He’s got so many followers and so many people caring for him. He’s a very lucky little dog,” Vlazny says.

“Rusty couldn’t have had better friends,” says Barbara Williams, media relations manager for the sanctuary, which houses a total of 1,700 dogs, cats, horses, potbellied pigs, parrots, rabbits and a few wild animals.

“It’s a beautiful, beautiful place. The scenery is amazing,” says Tamara Dormer, 52, one of five full-time dog trainers among the nearly 450 staff members at the sanctuary.

Will Rusty understand how good he will have it?

“It’s not like he’s going to come and go, ‘Woo-hoo! This is awesome!’ But he should pick up from the other dogs that he is in a safe place,” Dormer says. “Occasionally, I see dogs sitting on a hillside looking, and I think, ‘Oh, wow, look at them enjoy those flowers,’ but I have no idea if that’s true. I don’t know if they appreciate the scenery, but they do appreciate that we have a lot of rabbits.”

The shy Rusty will be matched with more outgoing dogs in a heated octagon that houses up to five dogs and includes private dog runs, specialized training and full medical care. Rusty could spend the rest of his life here, but “our goal is to get him a home,” says Dormer, explaining how Rusty could eventually be placed in a home anywhere, maybe even back in Oak Brook. “I saw his video on Facebook. Once his shyness improves, he’s going to fly out of here.”

Sometime in the next few weeks, Vlazny and Rusty will drive to Utah.

“I want to be the one that hands over the leash and sends him on the next journey of his life,” Vlazny says.

Peters (who set up the trust fund with his wife, RonnDa) says he hopes to visit Rusty in Dogtown, a four-hour drive from Las Vegas. He says they’ll continue to support animals through hinsdalehumanesociety.org, but also will make contributions to bestfriends.org because of Rusty.

“We’re happy about it for him, but we’re a little sad that he’ll be so far away,” Peters says. “But like your children, you always want what’s best for them.”

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Information from: Daily Herald, http://www.dailyherald.com

View the original article here

The most frequently seen type of worms in dogs in the UK is the roundworm. This is due to the lifecycle which is virtually impossible to break. Indeed, the lifecycle more or less guarantees that puppies will either be born with an infestation of pick one up very soon after birth. Treatment for this type of worms in dogs cannot be neglected because it is so prevalent and potentially harmful to humans.

Puppies either pick up roundworms in the womb or through their mother’s milk once they are born. Older dogs can also pick them up from contaminated faeces and soil. The larvae of this type of worms in dogs is capable of migrating around the body, through the internal organs, being coughed up and swallowed and making a home in the intestines where it goes on to mature. The adult worm will then feed on semi digested food from its host’s intestines before releasing eggs which the dog passes with his stools. Other larvae will form cysts in the dog’s tissue where they lie dormant. They become active again when the host is pregnant and infect puppies. In this state, worming treatment cannot eliminate them. This makes it almost impossible to prevent round worms in dogs.

Puppies rather than adult dogs suffer the most: vomiting, diarrhoea, lack of energy and delayed growth are common signs. A classic symptom in puppies is a swollen stomach. In sever infestations, puppies may die from intestinal blockage.

Unfortunately, there is no treatment which can kill worm larvae, so each puppy must be treated regularly in order to finally be free of infection. In the environment, worm eggs can remain viable for up to two years so even adult dogs could pick up this parasite at any time.

What is really concerning about this type of worms in dogs is its potential to harm human health as well. In humans, worm larvae can cause irreparable damage to internal organs and may even cause a loss of sight. Even more worryingly, children are most vulnerable because they are often likely to put dirty hands in their mouths after touching contaminated soil.

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Some people think that the idea behind using electronic dog collar on dogs is to use painful electric shocks to instill fear, which in turn will make the dog afraid to engage in a particular behavior. .Far from it – the idea is to simply interrupt a dog’s particular behavior, for instance the perennial problem – excessive barking. If a dog keeps on barking, then the more that behavior gets interrupted the more the dog may want to avoid that behavior – naturally, the interruption should cause some amount of discomfort for the dog to pay attention to it.

This says nothing at all about intense pain being necessary and therefore set at debilitating levels. Remember that the low volt shock is so low it’s only annoying at the most, so the dog doesn’t get hurt. Any training regiment using static correction collars only aims to instill a learned, conditioned response – a bark is followed by an unpleasant experience.

The two kinds of static or shock collars depending on how the static is activated. The first one is activated by both the sound made by a bark and the vibrations of the throat of the dog. This facilitates secure activation, meaning the collar will trigger only when your dog actually barks, and not through some loud sudden sound in the environment. The remote controlled collar activates when it receives signals from a transmitter roughly the size of a small cellular phone. This bark-triggered kind works well both in and outside your home; but it only works on incessant barking, which is just one particular annoying dog behavior.

Your dog may even engage in digging up the soil in your garden (or someone else’s), or clawing up and peeing on your prized furniture. The exact moment you’re dog is about to or just performed an unwanted behavior, you can activate the collar to send the static shock message – you don’t approve of that behavior. This shows just how useful remote dog collars can be, as they can be utilized in just about any obedience training routine. From pet containment and anti-barking to hunting routines and agility training, there are a lot of possibilities.

Dog collars aren’t limited to the static type, as others also use disruptive stimuli, but in other forms. Other dog collars that use non-shock stimuli include spray types (scented sprays) and sound types (high-pitched sound).

Over time your dog links the shock from its electronic collar with the unwanted behavior – it’s a learned response that develops only over time. The initial time spent with the electronic dog collar, expect your dog to act weird as it gets used to the sudden annoyance each time it engages in an unwanted behavior – over time it will figure out it’s not supposed to do those annoying little things.