The Elka Almanac

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Wordless Wednesday January 15 2014

(how the K9 Veteran's Day photo shoot actually went down)

January 19 is Illinois Doberman Rescue's Adopt-a-Thon

This sounds like a great event! You get to meet a bunch of dogs at once, which would otherwise be difficult, since IDR has no central "shelter" facility but rather relies on fosters. To check out Illinois Doberman Rescue's adoption policies, you can go here. You can sign up to adopt at the event if you are not already an approved adopter, and if you'd like, you can sign up to volunteer with IDR+!

Monday, January 13, 2014

Conversations with Dogs

Every time we have a "new" person, they must acclimate to Elka. I don't mean in the "we let her do what she wants and so they have to deal with it" way. I mean in the "this dog is as intelligent as a toddler and that can be kind of mind blowing at times" way.

Elka tries very clearly to communicate with us. I sort of get the impression that a lot of Dobermans, and other intelligent breeds, do as well. They want to get their point across. And because we've always talked so much to Elka, her comprehensive vocabulary is pretty good. I've never tried to count how many words I think she knows. I don't mean cues or commands specifically, I mean words in general.

The Cropping and Docking topic rears its head again

Dogster.com had an article this week, written by Annie Phenix of "Ask the Trainer" columnship, on her stance of cropping and docking. She seems to be of the opinion that it causes behavioral, emotional, and social problems for dogs, which is an interesting topic, to be sure, though not one any actual scientific research has been done on (that I know of; the body of research I have at my fingertips could be considered limited. I'd love to read it if such studies have been done and published!)

However, she also opens the article with the obviously-meant-to-be-facetious comparison that she wanted her (grown) German Shepherd to "look more tough", so decided to dock and crop the (adult) dog. This is simply not done. A tail dock at an adult age is a full on amputation, and that dog will miss his or her tail. A tail dock done to a puppy is minimal, done at 3ish days before the bones have ossified, and with appropriate pain management and anesthetic. Ears must be cropped prior to 12 weeks, or you'll end up with a crop and flop, so might as well have gone natural anyway. I also found the article to be rather anthropomorphic, but as I attribute thoughts and feelings to Elka all the time, I don't really want to be a hypocrite. Just thought I'd mention.