In honor of National Heartworm Awareness Month, I wanted to shine some light on heartworm prevention. The average pet owner is unaware of just how perfect the conditions have to be for a dog to get heartworms. The process involves 5 separate stages of development between the mosquito and the dog. A strong immune system is the key for prevention of this disease. Dogs that die from heartworm are the dogs that have been vaccinated, fed low quality processed pet food, and are being treated with suppressive drugs for every little symptom that comes along.
Would you feed your family a meal made with condemned beef? Or spray the children’s tea with rancid fat collected from a deep-fat fryer? Or serve biscuits made with empty grain hulls swept from a factory floor?
http://eileenanddogs.com/2014/08/21/second-thing-teach-puppy/
First, we need to shake the notion that training is something we do to the dog. It is something we do with the dog. Then, it wouldn’t hurt to drop the “obedience” model from the back of our minds. With positive reinforcement-based training, we can get something better than obedience. We can build a joyful, trusting partnership between two species, and along the way we can ease our dog’s path into the weird human world.
