Faith was left to die by her mother at two weeks old since she was born with a significant deformity of having no front legs.  But a family rescued her and decided to train her to use her existing back legs to walk.  Now, Faith is the only known dog in the world that walks on two legs full time.

This is such an amazing example of courage.  Faith has been on numerous TV shows including Oprah and Montel.  She inspires everyone wherever she goes as she proves that just because one may not be ‘complete’ physically, it doesn’t mean that one can’t continue to do awesome things in life.

I also salute the family who took the time to give Faith a chance in life and the determination to care as well as train her so that this dog can lead a full life.

Here is a video clip of Faith when she appeared on Oprah.

As usual, if you have any comments about this story, feel free to leave them below at the comments section of this blog post or right at my Dog Facebook page.  And if you feel that others will be inspired by Faith, please share this post using the Facebook, Twitter or other social media buttons here.

I hope that this story about Faith the two legged dog was as inspirational to you as it was for me this week.

My two lhasa apso dogs Chester and Roxie, have been on a brand called Sentinel from puppyhood and we’ve stuck to this brand all along.  Overall, we’ve done well on Sentinel without any problems.  We even source our annual supply from online pet pharmacies now – see my article on my experience with them.

The only thing which I would say that I’m not keen on with Sentinel, is that the company claims that the dogs love the flavoured tablets so they will be easy to take.  I would have to disagree on this.

Whenever I tried to give Sentinel tablets to my two dogs, they would lick the tablets until the brown coating is off exposing the white tablet underneath.  They would refuse to take the white tablets which is where the effective medicine is contained.  I found it impossible for me to to rely on my dogs chewing the entire Sentinel tablet on its own for some strange reason.  And I figure that the tablets without the brown coating are somewhat bitter.

So what I have to do in order to make sure that my dogs finish their entire heartworm prevention medication is to forget about giving them the whole tablet at once.  Instead, I will cut each tablet into little, tiny pieces and mix it with their dog food.  Sometimes tiny pieces of Sentinel are reduced to white powder.

Even if I leave little chunks of the tablets too big, my dogs have been known to leave them in their dog dishes – smart things!  So I really have to make sure the pieces of Sentinel are small enough that they will be mixed in well with the rest of their dog food.  That’s the only way I can get both my dogs to take their heartworm prevention medication successfully.

So a good tip for anybody else who has a picky dog who refuses to take their Sentinel or any other brand of heartworm prevention medication, try cutting up the tablets into small pieces that will be mixed in with the rest of their dog food.  It works for us nicely this way.

I ended up at the Petco store that I’ve been to a few times before on Niagara Falls Blvd off the I-290 near Tonawanda.  Almost got confused with another Niagara Falls Blvd further north of I-190 closer around Niagara Falls.  But anyway, I went to the dog litter section at Petco and looks like they don’t carry Purina Second Nature anymore.  During the last trip I went there in April, they had already replaced the Second Nature litterbox with their own Petco brand litterbox, which I bought.

This time around, they had their own Petco dog litter on the shelf which replaced the Purina Second Nature brand.  They had a 12 pound bag as well as a 20 pound bag.  The smaller bag was see through and I can see that the Petco pellets look very much like the Second Nature ones in shape and size.  Petco is obviously going after the same market as Second Nature.  The larger bag was not see through but I assumed it was the same pellets.  I ended up buying two 20 pound bags at $13.99 each.

I probably should have bought more bags to stock up but I still have a full large bag of Purina Second Nature at home.  I figure that the three large bags along with some of the smaller pellets from Yesterday’s News mixed in will last me several months.

This morning, I compared the pellets of Second Nature and the Petco brand.  They look identical except the Petco brand is a lighter gray in colour and doesn’t have the shiny coating that Second Nature has.  I hope the Petco brand will be just as absorbent as the Second Nature pellets.  The Petco brand does have a lower price than the Purina brand does.

Next time I go down to New York state, I’ll probably stop in at a Petsmart as well to see if they adjust the prices of Purina Second Nature dog litter to compete with the Petco brand.

photo credit: Ed Yourdon

So I’m going to keep them indoors during the daytime until late in the day or even early evening when the sunshine won’t be as strong and perhaps when the temperatures will be a bit lower.  My two dogs in particular get hot really easily during these types of days and they let me know with their heavy panting.

This will be the same for many other dogs out there as well so do be careful during the heat.  Definitely do not leave your dogs inside your car parked outside during these days.  Better to just leave them at home with the air conditioner turned on if necessary.

There have been cases where dogs left inside hot cars where police and animal control officers were called in by worried passerbys.  Owners later got fined or even arrested for their negligence.

So do the right thing over the next couple of days.  Enjoy the last part of summer but also have some common sense when it comes to your dogs outside in the heat.

For me, I’m going to spend much of the daytime working inside on my next book which will be on potty training dogs with a litterbox.  My two dogs will probably be either watching the world go by from a window while they are nice and cool inside or taking their naps.

By the way, summer time and fall are great times to do some dog training outdoors with your dog.   I still put my dogs through some fun drills outside during our walks usually late in the afternoon or early evenings.  If you haven’t seen my basic dog training video yet, you can do so for free.  Just look at the info on this at the blog sidebar on the top left or at the Dog Training tab at my Life With Dogs Facebook page.

photo credit: Morgan for Mizzou

The website states that audience should not be bringing their dogs to the show as this is a show to train the dog owners rather than the dogs directly.  From what I can see, ticket prices range from about $38 to $89 depending on the seat level of the arenas.

I’m thinking of attending one of these shows but not the Toronto date since it is one the evening just before I leave for a trip overseas.  I may try to catch the Hamilton show instead on the weekend.

I think Cesar Millan will be doing his show in two parts with a presentation during a first half and then a second half to answer as many questions forwarded to him as much as possible.

Although I’ve been a dog owner for many years, I am sure that I can still use more education in dog training especially from a noted expert like Cesar Millan.  I’ve watch his TV show Dog Whisperer on occasion and love it.

I like his style of dog training as I’m sure many others do as well.  I like the idea of a show to train us dog owners since that’s where it all begins.  It’s training the dog owners before training the dogs themselves.

Many dog owners go through years without adequately training themselves as well as their dogs and it is quite obvious when we see them with their dogs out there.

I’ve done my share of the very basics of dog training by shooting a free video that everyone can access at the left sidebar of this blog or at the Training tab of my Life With Dogs and Puppies Facebook page.

photo credit: ktylerconk

I still had eye ointment left over from the last time.  I gave him a dosage that very morning.  By lunchtime, the Cherry eye was still there so I applied another application after lunch.  After some work at home, we took a nap in the afternoon and when we woke up about 4 pm, Chester’s Cherry eye had regressed fully.

So the eye ointment once again was quite effective which suggests that maybe my dog’s Cherry eye was a result of some allergic reaction to who knows what?  The eye ointment has an anti-inflammatory agent that probably shrunk the Cherry eye enough for it to regress back under the eye lid.

I will probably expect these Cherry eye incidents to occur again with Chester so I should probably get a supply of that eye ointment on hand at home.

The vet is puzzled by Chester’s case because he doesn’t know what is setting off the Cherry eye on my dog.  He said that Cherry eye usually occurs more in younger dogs (my Chester is five years old).  And he adds that in most cases, Cherry eye does not regress as it tends to stay out which in turn requires surgery to correct it.

Well, as long as we have an effective treatment in the form of the eye ointment, than we can at least avert eye surgery indefinitely for Chester’s weird bouts of Cherry eye.

“Humanist, where dogs were highly valued and considered close companions, like pseudo people; protectionists might be vegetarians and they greatly valued animals in general, not just as pets; dominionists saw animals as separate and less important than people, often using the dogs for hunting and pest control and requiring them to live outdoors”

The study results were announced in a special university press release.  Dog owners in rural areas see dogs as animals although I’m sure that there are some country folks who also see their dogs as kids too.  But we just see more of this in the cities.

I would tend to agree with this study as having lived in major cities all my life while being a dog owner and observing other city dog owners as well, many of us certainly do consider our dogs as pseudo-children.

But one thing I really do have to state based on my observations over the years, is that my two dogs as well as the two before them, certainly listen a lot better than most human children do!  Maybe that’s why I have always chosen to be a dog owner rather than a father of human kids.

What do you think of the study results?

photo credit: jeffreyw

The opposite is actually true.  Dogs actually like training.  It is much better than leaving them bored all day.  Dogs enjoy the mental stimulation that training sessions provide and the interaction with you as the owner.

Since there is so much emphasis on positive reinforcement during dog training, dogs will just love the interaction with their owners during training sessions and classes.  Even though my two lhasa apsos know their basic commands quite well, they still go through drills every single day for their treats.  They don’t get freebies.  But that’s okay with them because they enjoy the interactions with me.

Dogs like to please their owners and when they do a good job during training whether learning new commands, tricks or just drilling ones they already know, they love the positive praise they get.  I can see it in my two dogs’ eyes when they do their drills well.

During a typical day, we would go through some of the basic commands like ‘sit’, ‘come’, ‘down’, ‘stand’ and sometimes even ‘shake’ (a paw) or ‘up’.  These are put through a quick drill during noon hour and they get healthy fruit treats.

During a walk outside, they would usually go through a one minute ‘stay’ drill at a distance about halfway into our walk.  Then I would give the ‘come’ command where they would come with much enthusiasm.

They never get bored of training drills because they never get bored of mental stimulation where they have to observe what my next command is as well as the positive praise I give them for a job well done.

So if you have avoided training your dog because you felt that it would be too much work and no fun for your dog, think again.  Dogs like training and so should you.

To see my free video demonstrating basic dog training with my two lhasa apso dogs, go to my dog training website.

photo credit: CRYROLFE

I probably won’t go to such lengths to train my two lhasa apsos Chester and Roxie to do such tricks as just having them as obedient good dogs will be good enough for me.

But I certainly appreciate seeing the results of the efforts that some dog owners have taken with their dogs in terms of tricks.  So here it is — enjoy!

Last night, I was walking my two dogs in the park and one of my neighbours came by with her two dogs.  One of her dogs, still a puppy, is notorious for being a real barker with pretty well all other dogs.  Of course, this is a result of hardly any dog socialization.  The amazing thing is that as this puppy was going crazy at my dogs, the dog owner did not take any authority at all.  She just sort of shrugged and let her puppy continue barking.

If the puppy was her kid, I’m sure that she would not have allowed this to continue and would have immediately disciplined her child.  But with her puppy, it’s just weird that she wouldn’t do the same.

The longer her non-action approach goes on, the more this puppy will think it’s acceptable to keep on barking like crazy.  Of course, this is totally counter-productive as this puppy will continue to slide into bad behaviour.

It really isn’t the puppy’s fault since it’s the negligence of the dog owners to take control of the situation and have the puppy trained properly.  Why these dog owners do not train their dogs is really beyond my guess.

If these dog owners loved their dogs so much, why wouldn’t they give their dogs the best professional training they could afford?  It would be an education for these owners as well as it is obvious that they are not well versed in dog training either.

The fact is that if dogs are not trained properly, they will not see their owners in an authority position and this can cause all sorts of bad behaviour and problems in the future.

photo credit: Benoit Dupont