Do Not Sniff Interesting Smells: Do not Watch Dora The Explorer: Retrieve Directly To Hand:

Alternate Titles: When a Dead Ball Retrieve is the Same as a Dumbell Retrieve, You Can Be Sure It’s a Trained Retrieve

Or: Flyball Lessons from the Retriever Trainer Man  

Preamble: If you don’t kow what flyball is check out this link before you read this blog or it won’t make much sense: http://www.flyball.org/aboutflyball.html

I spent my whole Valentine’s day weekend working the flyball score table. Mostly this meant watching flyball, recording flyball scores, shuffling papers and pressing the button to restart the flyball clock (Ok yes I forgot to do this part alot. Thank goodness I'm the tournament director's wife and they couldn't fire me on Valentine's Day). I also spent much of the time being irritated at Ivan Z Terrierable my beloved Parson Russell Terrier. Ivan, to my embarrassment, has not managed to play a lick of flyball even though he’s 2 ½ and can do the flyball sequence perfectly, but only when he is the sole canine present.  Around other dogs Ivan loses his mind. The problem is so bad people won’t let their dogs play with Ivan, and we won’t even risk our own dogs to see if he’s making progress with his issues. Ivan's issues forced me, wife of one of the gurus of flyball (at least on the East Coast), to pursue professional help far a field from the flyball ring. Specifically since August we’ve been taking private dog training lessons from Mr Pat Nolan of Ponderosa Kennels at www.dogtrainingmaryland.com

"Mr Pat", as he is known to Ivan, trains practically everything including waterfowl retrievers for field trials and hunt tests, scent discrimination dogs, family pets, and just downright ornery dogs.  He used to be into falconry and trained a deer for a commercial many years ago. Rumor has it he’s secretly training cats to do detection work commercially for really small countries that can’t afford dog food (but one ought never believe everything one reads on the internet).

As I was feeling grumpy with Ivan, one of Mr. Nolan’s ads crept into my mind, one that starts, “Do you love your dog but have trouble liking him?” It seemed fairly apropos for being sidelined on Valentines day. To be fair I don't know why I expect this to be so easy. I am not a guru by any means.  Prior to Pat Nolan (I am now dividing my dog training understanding into two epochs Before Pat and After Pat or BP and AP) my dog training experience consisted of watching jerk and pop classes with Clancy our first Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier when I was seven year old (he failed 3 courses and then my father stopped taking him), followed by no training of any other dog (despite having dogs in our family for the past 30 years) followed by acquiring a lovely smattering of cavalier king charles spaniels that I clicker trained to do most things EXCEPT retrieve, followed by an insane amount of clicker training of Ivan and his sister Veruca resulting in dogs that know alot of tricks but only do them when they feel like it. 

Now in life AP, I’ve learned that all dog trainers and all dog training methods are not alike. I’ve also recently learned that there’s things retriever trainers pay attention to like steadiness, visual cues, disobedience, and understanding the point of an exercise that might make it possible for some dogs who have been trained using exclusively food and play reinforcement fancied by clicker trainers to participate in flyball and other canine sports despite their emotional reactivity and lack of interest in food and play in the presence of other dogs.

Lets start with today’s lesson. But first I must digress to say what we've done so far. In six months Ivan has had some basic remote collar conditioning, probably on average 1-3x a week including about twice monthly trips to train in private lessons with Pat or his proteges. The Dogtra remote collar we use for training has contact points that send variable stimulation to Ivan’s neck and the level of the stimulation is controlled by a transmitter that I hold so I can use the minimum amount that he notices in any given situation. When he is angry or anxious at the presence of another male dog a higher level of stimulation is usually required but Ivan tends to notice stimulation at a very low level (around 8-9 on a 120 point scale).  In early lessons Ivan learned he could turn the stimulation off when he walked toward me. Then he learned he could turn it off when I said “here” and he walked toward me and the faster he did this the faster he turned off the stimulation At times when he complied speedily the stimulation did not even turn on. Next he learned he could jump onto a platform and turn off the stimulation. Now he knows he can run from me to this target many feet away when I say “On” or “Kennel” to turn off the stimulation. He also knows “sit”, “down” “stay” and “heel” and performs those behaviors relatively quickly and/or reliably (I’ve never seen a quick “stay”) in order to turn off stimulation or keep it from coming on in the first place. He learned all of these things without stimulation as a puppy for food treats, but he never learned he had to do them when he wasn’t interested in the food treats. Now he knows he must comply with these basic commands which is fortunate because since puberty hit Ivan has not shown much interest in anything when other dogs are around other than the other dogs. 

At first I didn’t like the idea of “commanding” my dog to do anything but the fact is that Ivan is a dog and there are reasons for his own safety that he needs to comply with the rules of the people. For example if a strange aggressive dog is approaching, if his leash breaks in a parking lot or (this actually happened to his sister this past Fall and it was a very close call) or if the house is burning and I need to get him out pronto, he needs to take direction.   There are people in the world who think you can teach reliable behaviors solely using food or play motivation based methods and that even mild aversive training techniques should be avoided. I would wager that none of these people have ever trained multiple terriers. A food only approach is probably fine for a dog that is highly motivated to have human contact, a dog that feels its owners’ disappointment keenly like my other favorite breed the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.  But a dog that was bred to slaughter rats and scare foxes from their dens through the sheer force of its personality is more likely to be so fascinated with its own misbehavior that if he notices his owner at all screaming desperately for him to  return at all he probably thinks the owner’s just joining in the hunt along side him. Dealing with Ivan and his sister Veruca from puppyhood and observing my huband’s 12 year old Parson Bitter has shown me that if these dogs accept anyone else as their leader it won’t just be because the leader provides food and praise. In saying this I’m not saying that its ok to be abusive or to use the old Jerk and pop method of obedience. But I am saying that avoidance conditioning used in a thoughtful incremental manner teaches dogs who respond poorly to appetitive motivation to act reliably in ways that are essential to their longevity. Some easy going terriers might not need these methods but I know of enough terriers that have been put down for aggression that I think its likely that purely appetitive training will not work for all individuals within any of the terrier breeds and from what I observe of certain other breeds I would not be surprised if the majority of breeds contain some proportion of individuals who need to understand that bad things will happen if they fail to comply because it is simply not in their nature to comply just because they like their owner.  It would be nice if the Disney and Lassie stories all were true and dogs loved us unconditionally and did our bidding unconditionally but as fabulous as they are many dog breeds came to be because of their scrappy, independent natures. I have accepted this thing I cannot change and am doing my best to humanly motivate my pal Ivan so we can have a safe and hopefully fun life together.

 

After working on the basic e-collar conditioning for a few months Pat declared Ivan ready to start the “trained retrieve”. A “trained retrieve” is different from a play retrieve in which motivation for bringing back an object is to get to chase it again or an “exchange game” retrieve in which the dog is rewarded for retrieving an object with an even better treat or a chance to tug on a toy. The “trained retrieve” teaches the dog to voluntarily open his mouth when an object (a dowel or dumbbell) is placed in it, to open for on the cue “fetch”, to reach for the object when it is presented an inch away then a few inches, then to reach for it on the ground, and to hold it until the owner takes it. The end goal is a dog that retrieves the object to hand several feet away and only releases it when he’s told to release it and the handler takes it away. The trained retrieve involves avoidance because once the dog is taking the dumbbell he learns that remote collar stimulation is turned on when the object is presented and then ended by taking the dumbbell. Unlike an “exchange game” retrieve where the dog is rewarded each and every time for spitting the object out, the “trained retrieve” rewards the dog for opening his mouth and taking an object he would not normally pick up.  If you think about it there is no way other than petting (which is also used liberally as a signal during the trained retrieve that the dog is doing the right thing) to reward a dog while he has something in his mouth; you are always rewarding spitting something out if you offer food or something to play with because the dog can’t hold something in his mouth and eat something else or play at the same time.

 

If the dog drops the object while learning the “hold” part of the exercise stimulation is resumed until the handler puts dumbbell back into the dog’s mouth. The dog builds up his ability to carry around the object during the hold training and his is taught to walk with the object in his mouth and to jump on and off surfaces while holding the object. Thus over time the dog learns that his job involves taking or picking up, holding onto and then relinquishing the object to the handler’s hand. I have a distinct memory that when I was six years old my mother sent me upstairs to get things her hairbrush so she could do my hair before school. That is essentially the level of skill a dog with a trained retrieve is exhibiting. He goes to get something, he returns straight away without dilly dallying or getting distracted by Dora the Explorer or some strange smell and he waits until you take it. He is responsible for showing up with the object only marred, if at all, by a bit of saliva. Presumably this method of training is good for straightening out strained dog human relationships. Certain family therapists use a similar principle in which parents are instructed to place themselves at the top of the hierarchy and to start treating the kids like children. When this happens, messed up families often improve because the children don’t have to feel responsible for running things which children tend not to do so well anyway. It is my hope that after acting like a retriever and seeing he benefits from being the dog who brings stuff to the human, Ivan and I will establish a similar understanding that he is the one who turns things over because he must and I am the one who watches out for him and helps him have fun in exchange for his compliance.

 

Flyball itself is all about fun. Training tends to rely on prey drive but it is hard to teach a dog in prey drive not to prey on others if he is so inclined. When training normal dogs for flyball (I know the speech by heart because my husband has given it so often) “we try to use our happy voice because the more they have fun the happier they will be and presumably the faster they will go. You almost can’t have too big of a party for a dog who brings his ball back.” In the strictest behavioral sense flyball is a behavioral chain. The reward for running down the lane over 4 jumps, ejecting a tennis ball catching and running back past other dogs doing the same thing and a dog on your team passing you at the start and finish line is the dog getting to run its owner down to get fun treats or fun prey objects in exchange for the ball. If you are a lazy adult human being with a few extra pounds around your middle this might not sound too rewarding but most fit dogs love to run and chase. Because the exercise is taught backwards each part becomes the reward for the next part. According to the rules of flyball, the ball can really be dropped any time after the finish line so people frequently don’t even bother scooping the ball up, they simply grab Fido any way they can catch him and sometimes the dog drops the ball for his treat or chase object or he holds onto it for a fierce tug of war.  Elementary school children are often employed as “ball shaggers” like ball boys at tennis matches to keep the stray balls from going back up the lanes. But it stands to reason that a dog that actually returns a ball to hand cannot munch on another dog. A dog that has learned to go to the flyball box and return immediately without watching Dora the Explorer or following a smell or visiting with the box loader, or chasing a dog in another lane, is actually a dog that “gets” that flyball is a retrieve.

 

So today, even though Ivan knows how run down a flyball lane, cross 4 jumps, hit the box and catch the ball and run in my general direction while I throw a party, because he has little interest in attending my party and tends to run amok, we started retraining Ivan to do flyball and this time we are aiming at getting him to view it as a retrieve exercise. There are some who might argue that if he doesn’t like doing flyball for flyball’s sake I shouldn’t bother him with it. I’ve decided that even though flyball is supposed to be fun, this training experience is akin to training a child to play piano. Until he learns how fun it is to play Greensleeves well, how can he really decide he doesn’t like it? Even if there’s some unpleasantness involved in the training, it is my hope that Ivan will dig flyball once he “gets” it.  Ivan digs retrieving toys in the bedroom. He digs retrieving balls in the yard at home. He actually is doing a right speedy dumbbell retrieve after very little work on the trained retrieve. Its possible this is only because he dislikes the remote collar stimulation and knows if he’s complaint he won’t experience the stimulation. But he doesn’t look upset when he retrieves. His tail is erect his ears are erect and he appears confident like a kid that’s learned to ride his bike without training wheels.

 

So today we tried to apply Ivan’s new found knowledge of retrieving to flyball. The first exercises Pat had us do were kenneling and recall exercises so Ivan knew to go to his folding box and then return to me. Then we put the dumbbell on the box and had him retrieve it from there. Next we threw the dumbbell towards the box and had him retrieve it near the box. The few times when he got confused I brought him up to the dumbbell and also started placing the dumbbell rather than throwing it. When placing it I took him up to the dumbell to be sure so he would know where to go. This is also different from how flyball is taught. The dog usually doesn’t see the ball get placed in the flyball box. The dog hears the box loader screaming “get your ball” and in the beginning the loader might point to or tap the top of the box to indicate where the ball is but that’s really different than taking the dog up so he sees where the ball is in the box and SMELLS THE BALL and then dragging the dog back to the start but letting him take his eye off the ball the whole time so he understands the box (which looks much smaller from far away) contains an actual smelly round fun object AKA his ball.

 

I think the reason why Pat suggested this technique is that retriever training (and all I know of it I’ve gleaned from observation these past 6 months) relies heavily on teaching the dog to make the most of visual information. It is much more efficient for a dog to mark visually where a bird falls than to have to give a dog complicated instructions to get to an area and then hunt with his nose for the fallen duck. Dogs do learn to be handled so they can be instructed to find ducks they didn’t observe fall, for example if the hunters hit several birds at a time and one falls in a spot the dog can’t see. But it works best if the dog is learning from the early stages to watch the sky so for most retrieves he is working off visual landmarks or better yet if he sees the actual fallen bird.  The dog that is jumping around in the blind like a march hare can’t really see a bird fall so retrievers are taught to be “steady on the line”. This means they wait at heel position in a sit staring in the direction the handler faces until they are released. A barn could be burning down and housecats could be raining from the sky but the dogs are expected to stay at attention so they can be ready to see guns and the ducks fall. When dogs start to learn directional signals (casting) visual landmarks such as piles of bumpers are often used to make it easier for to learn the signals to move to the right or left (in teaching casting sometimes the handler throws a bumper towards a pile of bumpers to the right or left and in such a manner the dog learns the exaggerated reach toward the right or left means he should travel towards the handler’s left or right). Also when teaching retrieving, taking a dog who is struggling right up to a bumper or a dumbbell he can’t see or is not sure if he sees at least in training is potentially more helpful than calling or pointing to the area. Later a dog might be assisted by having a bumper thrown in the general direction of a downed bird. Regardless of the exercise, the emphasis most of the time is on learning from visual information because presumably dogs don’t need to be taught to use their noses and if they are not taught early on to use visual cues they will rely too much on their noses which can really slow things down.

 

After a few successful dumbbell retrieves we switched over to retrieving the ball. Ivan did a wonderful job of going up to the box and fetching his ball off the box and returning it to hand. Instead of having a “boxloader” put the ball on the box, Pat had me walk Ivan up as I placed the ball and then asked me to pull him back with me to our “start” line. This served a dual purpose of getting him jacked up to get the ball but also ensuring he knew the target and the speediest route (a straight line). When I let him go he was pulling to get the ball just like dogs do in flyball.  However,  the fact that he kept the ball in his mouth all the way until he got to my hand told me he “got” that the exercise was a retrieve and the same rules of going out quickly and coming back and delivering to hand applied even though the object had changed. Practicing “dead ball” retrieves (AKA retrieves of a motionless ball) off of his “kennel” box made the ball as the target for the retrieve completely obvious. At no time in this process did I need to use collar stimulation. He seemed just to get that a ball retrieve and a dumbbell retriever were the same request (we did change the command from “fetch” to “get it” just so it would be clear that get it referred to the ball whereas fetch referred to the dumbbell).  I am still surprised he changed from one object to the other so quickly Dogs tend to have a hard time generalizing from one context to another. But here, the context stayed completely the same and only the object changed; plus it was an object he has always been comfortable pursuing. I consider it one of the great ironies of Ivan’s life that as a 6 week old puppy he retrieved a tennis ball which is how he weaseled his way into my husband’s affections in the first place and yet now at this age flyball is a struggle.

 

The next time we train with Mr. Nolan we are going to take an actual flyball box and work the dumbbell retrieve from the flyball box so he understands the retrieve applies around the flyball box. We are going to work on distractions around the box so that if he gets corrected, at least initially he is being corrected for dropping his dumbbell rather than his ball. It is our hope we will be able to transition to the actual flyball exercise rather seamless as soon as Ivan “gets” that he needs to retrieve to hand without detours from the flyball box.  It is my sincerest hope that next Valentine’s day I will spend the day both loving and liking my dog and hopefully running him in an actual flyball tournament rather than sitting behind the score table forgetting to push that reset button. 

When You'd Like to See Less Of You-A Tool For You

Have you ever noticed that many people in the world of dogs are overweight? I find this ironic considering how active most puppies and young dogs tend to be. We have a 12 year old Jack Russell who has been kept svelte through careful portion control and sprinting at flyball. He is almost as active as a puppy which just goes to show you than neither adult humans or adult dogs have to become fat as part of adulthood. So what gives? Why are there so many overweight people in the world of dogs?

Quite possibly this is just a by-product of so many people in the WORLD being overweight. Quite possibly its simply that  most people showing dogs in conformation, agility and performance events are women and women tend to struggle with their weight more than men simply because estrogen gives women extra fat, less muscle proportionally and thus lower metabolisms, (thanks X chromosomes-how we appreciate you!). I suspect a few folks have good enough relationships with their dogs that romantic relationships with adult humans don’t feel necessary. I’m not suggesting anyone has ever consciously thought I’ll neglect my husband because my dog is so cute. However, scientists have recently found that when dogs look at their owners their owners release Oxytocin the same hormone responsible for pair bonding, trust, and parent-child bonds. Petting a pet can also release endorphins. Possibly we don’t actively seek out our human partners or care as much about what they think about us when our tactile and support needs are met to an extent by our pets. Additionally I’ve observed and its well documented that marriages are often stressed by having children. Its not from a lack of caring or trying but because children demand so much attention from parents that there’s not much left to contribute to one’s spouse or partner by the end of the day. As one who has been raising canine children in the form of Jack Russells for the past 3 years I can attest nothing kills the romance like puppies with diarrhea at 3 am.  So maybe caring for the needs of dogs like caring for the needs of children forces us to put ourselves and our adult relationships lower on the priority list. Some people may realize they’ve let themselves go and just simply don’t know how to get back to being their attractive vibrant pre-baby, pre-puppy selves.

Regardless of the reasons for weight gain amongst people in the dog community, I feel compelled to address weight loss on this blog which heretofore has been maniacally dog oriented. I’m taking up this special segment of the population, dog women with weight problems, chiefly because I have so many friends in dogs with significant weight problems and many of them are prohibited from meeting their goals because they experience problems either getting around the show ring or competing in performance venues. It might not always be they can't handle the tasks physically but perhaps they don't look as good as their competition or they feel miserable the next day. If you are not a dog friend, just a friend-friend with a weight problem hopefully some of this will be informative and beneficial. Most of what I have to say is based on my own research and successful weight loss but I have a special place in my heart for my fellow dog gals and would like them all to enjoy their dogs to the fullest.   

I maintain that the vast majority of people who have weight problems would really rather not have them. Society likes to portray overweight people as lazy and immoral but its always been my experience that overweight people, women especially are completely motivated 98% of the time regarding their weight. Sure they may be demoralized when they fail to lose weight and its times like those when they head for the dog show donuts figuring one more in the grand scheme of things isn’t going to do much damage. However, generally they get back on that horse and try again and again and again. Generally, they are acutely aware of how socially and physically their weight has a negative impact and I can see and know first hand from a time when I weighed 226.5 lbs (I’m 5’4”) that I would have done anything to lose weight if I knew it would actually work.  Unfortunately, like the chimp with two sticks in the cage who doesn’t realize he could reach the donut outside the cage if only the put the two sticks together and made one big long stick, people with weight problems tend to give up in frustration when diets either don’t work or drive them mad with hunger. Most people with substantial weight problems don’t know how to lose weight.

Perhaps you’re feeling skeptical now. You think, "what dumb fat idiot doesn’t know how to lose weight? All you need to do is burn more calories than you consume and if people would just shut their mouths and get off their butts they would lose weight."  Well, actually, if you’ve been paying attention you would know I already mentioned that something else shapes our bodies beside calories. Its not just what we eat but what our HORMONES do to us that give women fat on their thighs and rears and breasts. Just starting from the basic premise that women have different fat deposits and proportions than men because of hormonal differences you can understand that its not entirely CALORIES that control our shapes.  

Once people become overweight they battle another interesting problem, HUNGER. Our physiology is such that we feel hunger when our blood sugar drops and when we feel hunger eventually we are compelled to eat lest we starve. Simple sugar can raise your blood sugar levels as we see in the famous beauty parlor scene in Steel Magnolias where type I diabetic Shelby gets frantic because she has too much insulin on board and her mother gives her juice to rapidly boost her sugar and give the insulin something to do. Most people with normal insulin control could eat nothing but sugar all day and feel ok as long as they had enough to keep their blood sugar normal and replaced their loss fluids and electrolytes. Sucking down sugar (in the form of Gatorade and glucose supplements) is essentially how ironman triatheletes get through a marathon, 3 mile swim and 50 mile bike ride (I'm guessing here about distances and don't have time to look that up so please don't spam me-really its way farther than I ever care to go and its impressive). Sugar released into the blood stream is used or stored. Insulin is the hormone that stores sugar when there’s too much sugar around. Overweight people generally have insulin resistance which means their receptors respond less well to insulin prompting their bodies to make more insulin than normal in response to eating carbohydrate laden meals. This produces a vicious cycle where people feel hungry more and eat more and are less well able to regulate blood sugar. 

There is a way to correct insulin resistance. Fat and protein have negligible effects on insulin. And our bodies can make the glucose our brains need from protein. A low carbohydrate way of eating such as the Atkins Diet or Protein Power diet can dramatically reduce the bodies need for insulin and the body’s production of insulin. When calories are reduced to below what the body needs for maintaining weight, a low carbohydrate diet which severely restricts insulin production will literally open the fat cells so people can burn fat to live off of. Burning fat for energy is how animals live through the winter where food is in short supply.

The amazing thing about fat is it curbs appetite. If you think about it, many people have starved during times of famine and war but starving people don’t typically resort to cannibalism. You might think this is just because of a social taboo but even other starving carnivorous or omnivorous mammals don’t just start killing and eating each other when times get tough (I’m pretty sure they have no such taboo). My hunch is they don’t do this because we all have a built in mechanism so that during starvation we aren’t driven out of our minds by hunger. Even if we are starving we aren’t actually all that hungry if we have muscle mass to cannibalize and our own fat to provide us with energy. Obviously starvation is a problem. Protein that makes important parts like muscle cannot be replaced without food sources of protein and during starvation we are basically eating our own muscles. But animals can and do hang in there during times of famine or shortage provided they had enough muscle and fat to start with and the situation doesn’t go on indefinitely.

What does this have to do with weight loss? Recently research suggests that low carbohydrate diets spare muscle by providing extra protein and at the same time allow people to live in a relatively hunger free state that is similar to what is experienced by people in starvation by stabilizing insulin and blood sugar and letting hunger be taken care of by fat in food as well as fat burning from our own energy stores.  Low calorie diets can do this as well but most people with insulin resistance find these diets more difficult because carbohydrate continues to raise insulin levels and keep people on a blood sugar roller coaster. Also it can be hard to maintain low calorie levels with adequate protein and fat necessary to keep muscle intact and keep hunger at bay.

It is counter intuitive to “diet” and not restrict portions but in the early days of a low carbohydrate diet the aim is to keep hunger at bay via frequent meals of adequate protein and fat and sharply curtailing carbohydrates. I know. I did this for 23 months and lost a total of 101.5 pounds. It was not easy but I can assure you if I had been driving nuts by hunger it would never have happened.

I have found many people find this story inspiring but few people believe it enough to give it a try. People are generally convinced they will “die” if they give up bread, pasta, sweets, potatoes, breakfast cereal, corn, soda, whole grains or ice cream. Unfortunately starches break down into sugars and most of these folks consume far too fat and protein to feel sated. High blood sugar is actually toxic and so many folks are exposing their nerves and vessels to a bath of toxins such that they will literally die or at least die much sooner if they keep eating bread.

Also I’ve found so many people have bad associations with low calorie “balanced” diets because on those diets they were literally starving. If you say diet they just can’t believe something as simple as holding carbohydrates low will keep hunger at bay and so they don’t even want to start. Its one of those things like getting a puppy or I suppose having a child that you can’t really imagine until you cross over into that state and are actually experiencing it. During fat burning a chemical called a ketone is product of weight loss actually boosts heart metabolism by 25% and provides much more efficient brain functioning. Many people report that being in this state, known as ketosis gives them a state of heightened mental acuity and energy. I personally never felt better than the weekend I lived a 4 day National Specialty Weekend on nothing but Ruth’ Chris Steakhouse Porterhouse steaks (what can I say they were good and fast and I could use the leftovers to bait my dogs in the ring). I’m convinced there’s no way I would have made it through the sleep deprivation of all those 8 am ring times without being in ketosis.  Ketogenic diets are even being tried for childhood epilepsy because it is believed they prevent seizure activity.

The final benefit of this diet that I think should really appeal to female dog owners is that after the first couple days in which the body uses up its glycogen stores fluid retention drops dramatically. For me this meant being able to walk again. For many months before I hit my all time high I literally couldn’t make it 1 block without grabbing for the pain killers due to pain in my shins. I stopped taking my dogs for walks and I was embarrassed about how I looked in the show ring. There’s no way I could have done flyball or any performance activity with my dogs but after 1 week steadily adhering to Atkins I walked a mile pain free. From there it was only a few months before I was running. Many other people have experienced similar improvements in their ability to walk and run because insulin and glycogen produce fluid retention and low carbohydrate diets drop water weight quickly.

I am not a medical doctor and I don’t play one on TV. This blog does not constitute medical advice just my perspective on my personal story and a boiled down plain language version of what I believe I've read on how calorie storage and weight loss on low carbohydrate diets work. For more information about low carbohydrate diets consult www.protienpower.com or http://nihlibrary.gov and do a PubMed search for clinical trials on low carbohydrate diets. Medical science is finding that blood chemistry and weight and fat and metabolism change for the better with these ways of eating. If you seriously decide to pursue this way of eating BUY A BOOK. Seriously Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution, Protein Power by Michael Eades are two excellent places to start.

Finally, as a dog trainer I know that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. When I finally started my low carbohydrate approach I vowed to maintain it until I reached my goal weight no matter how long it took. Dog people often commit to getting titles on their dogs no matter how long it takes. Should you treat your body any differently than you would a promising young pup? You already  know that reinforcing a behavior leads to more of that behavior. It was the same for me with the diet. I thought losing a pound a week for two years would just be too slow. On average that is what I ended up doing. But so much weight came off at the beginning I really did not want to backslide. And buying and having new clothes as I lost weight and having people compliment me meant the process was not nearly as bad as I had feared. Every day I was more and more used to eating the way I was eating and every time I refused something while ketosis kept me from not being controlled by my hunger I got proof that I could bypass sweets and potatoes and live to tell about it making it easier the next time. Seven years after I started my weight loss journey I still have times, sometimes months at a stretch where I’m not as on top of my eating as I would like to be but on the whole I believe I have a tool that can get me and other people to a place that is healthy and happier.

We in dogs are famous for our tools be they, clickers, slickers, bait, e-collars, whistles, guns, white shirts, showleads, professional handlers, range rovers, blinds, or cute suits and practical footwear. Our tools help us meet our dog goals whether its turning out a best in show performance, a high in trial or just bringing back a duck for dinner.  I once showed a toy dog to a sporting dog judge and his words to me were “he’s lovely but I’d just like to see less of him.” I know so many of you who are so lovely and if you’d like to see less of you, I hope you consider my tale, find it inspiring and take it on faith that if the low carbohydrate diet "tool"  worked for me it can also work for you. If you don’t owe it to yourself to take the first steps, just think of your puppy dog’s eyes. You know your dog will thank you if he can be with you as long as possible even if that means seeing less of you.