Q. my dog,Chihuahua,not well.whipping under her breathCan barley move her heart,stomach, something is having what seems like a spasm.tight ches…

ANSWER : A. POST FOUR:

After your dog is familiar with the behavior you lured from scratch, and taught to your dog, you can start to use the “no-reward marker” I talked about. What you do is ask the dog to perform the behavior, and if the dog does not perform the behavior, you simply say your no-reward marker (choose one: eh-eh, hey, uh-oh, oops) show them the treat, put it behind your back, and BRIEFLY ignore your dog. Just turn your back for a second or two, before turning back to your dog and saying, “let’s try that again.” When you’re ready to start over with your dog, make sure you move around. If you are repeating the same cue while in the same position, while your dog is in the same position, you are likely to receive the same results. The more you move around, and start fresh, the better your chances are of having your dog listen to your cue the second time around. BIG rewards when they dog it successfully! Lots of praise and treats.

My no-reward marker is “hey.” When my dog does something wrong I say, “hey” and she immediately understands that she needs to offer a different behavior. This is clear to her. I don’t have to say it in a mean way, I simply say, “hey” in a normal tone of voice and she understands what the word means.

Once you’ve built up that connection and communication with your new dog, you can work on all kinds of fun behaviors! I personally enjoy the more zen-like behaviors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruy9UMcuGh8

I like to teach my dog fun tricks that offer her a “job” to do of sorts like object retrieval: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4iertZSva8

(object retrieval training completed; what it looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx0Dml28FGY)

Scent-games are fun too! Very confidence building. Hide a REALLY smelly treat in a box, and place that box in a line of boxes. Let your dog go in the room while saying something like “search!” or “find it!” and watch them hunt for that smelly treat! Lots of rewards when they find it!

ANSWER : A. This could be a bacterial conjunctivitis. Dogs can pass these infections around, just like people can. The fact that it started in one eye and moved to the other suggests infection, but I can’t rule out something more serious like glaucoma. I feel like anytime a dog’s eye gets acutely red like this it’s cause for alarm, and needs to be checked out as soon as possible. Like I said above, it’s likely a simple eye infection, but get it checked out to be sure.

ANSWER : A. If your pet is having trouble breathing like you describe she needs immediate medical attention and a through exam by your vet, this can be anything from an obstruction in her airway, to primary lung disease, to a serious life threatening pulmonary clot. There is nothing you can do at home to help her and the best thing it to take her in to see a vet promptly so that potential intervention treatment can be implemented to help stabilize her until the cause of this is found. Your treatment options for her can then be gone discussed with the vet to see if there is feasible treatment for her condition.

ANSWER : A. From what you’re describing I think 2 things are likely. Either your dog has pain in her neck, which is causing her to not want to move her head, or she’s feeling generalized weakness.

Neck pain in small dogs is usually due to disk problems. They get a form of disk disease known as Hansen’s type II chronic disease, where the disk gradually moves upward and presses slowly on the spinal cord, causing pain and weakness.

Generalized weakness can be due to a number of conditions, starting with just not feeling well due to a GI problem (nausea, for example) to something like anemia (low red blood cell count) or heart disease. It sounds very much like your girl isn’t feeling well, and likely need some diagnostics in order to figure out what’s going on. You vet will start with a physical examination and rule out possible neck pain, and then will likely recommend blood work or other tests. If you want to talk to us further we can probably provide more information on a consult, where we can get more details about exactly what’s going on.

ANSWER : A. As I’m sure your vet has told you it’s pretty unusual for a dog to have had multiple UTI’s starting at 8 weeks of age. I think it’s likely that she has a congential problem, which means something didn’t develop correctly inside or outside her body and it’s making her prone to the UTI’s.

There are a few bladder abnormalities that can contribute to UTIs, including urachal diverticulum (a little pouch or out-cropping of the bladder) and ectopic ureters (the ureters do not enter the bladder at the appropriate spot). On the outside, she could have a redundant vulvar fold, which is predisposing her to trapping fecal matter at her vulva, and the bacteria is ascending up to her bladder and causing recurrent UTIs.

The other possibility of that she got a UTI initially and it was never treated appropriately, i.e. The appropriate antibiotic wasn’t used and it never really resolved, but it seems like it’s coming back. I think this is less likely, as it’s really uncommon to begin with to see UTI’s in dogs this young. I also once saw a 4 month old dog with bladder cancer, but that’s incredibly rare and I think highly unlikely in your dog.

Your question got cut off at the end but it sounded like you were about to say that she may have kidney problems. If that’s right clearly this is becoming a serious problem for her.

Your dog needs a competent vet to work up this problem. It’s likely that she’s going to need some advanced imaging, including possibly an x-ray procedure called a cystogram and possibly an ultrasound. You might consider taking her to a veterinary internal medicine specialist at this point, if one is available in your area.

ANSWER : A. Causes of not eating and vomiting can be many. Gastrointestinal infection, caused by bacteria (salmonella, for example) or viruses or parasites (although parasite infections tend to be more mild, but giardia can make them feel pretty bad) can be a cause. Eating something he shouldn’t have, like the trash or rotten food can cause it. Intestinal obstruction can cause vomiting as well. Other causes (non-GI) of vomiting include kidney failure (can be due to many things, such as toxins, kidney stones, cancer) or liver diseases or liver failure.

The vomiting is concerning, however the weakness and lack of energy implies that he’s either seriously dehydrated or there’s a lot more going on than just s simple case of vomiting. He needs to see a vet and have testing, likely to include x-rays and/or blood work, to see what’s going on, so that it can be treated.

ANSWER : A. First, avoid scolding him and acting aggressively towards him if you don’t want him to be acting aggressively towards you. There are other methods you can use to communicate to your dog that you don’t want him to continue doing what he is doing. I recommend you stop telling him “no”, scolding him, or raising your voice at him. Everything coming from you should be 100% positive and 100% calm.

Try to figure out ways to clearly communicate what you want to your dog. If you want your dog to leave something or someone alone, I strongly suggest teaching your dog commands like “leave it”. Here is a link to a video in which I explain how to do it:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1TS5nA7z5Q

Another thing I suggest you use is a no-reward marker. This clearly communicates when your dog has done something wrong. No-reward markers have to be introduced during your training sessions. You should be doing at least three training sessions per day, that are something like 3-10 minutes long (working on different things each training session). If you are teaching your dog something BRAND NEW, do not use the no-reward marker, as you do not want to discourage your dog from performing behaviors for you. Use the no-reward marker for known behaviors only. Here is another helpful video about this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdU5a6fXKlg

Lure each new behavior (as shown in the video) using high value treats. Let’s say you’re working on “down” which is a behavior your dog knows fairly well. Present the treat to your dog. Ask your dog to “down” (only ask once). If he does not go “down” immediately, say, “uh-oh” or “eh-eh” in a gentle tone, and then place the treat behind your back. This communicates to your dog that they did something to make the treat go away.

After you place the treat behind your back to show your pup “that was wrong” you need to communicate to your pup “let’s try again” by getting your pup to walk around for a second, and then start the behavior all over again. If your puppy is very young, chances are you haven’t taught him a solid “down” behavior yet. So, as I said, do not use this method until you have lured each new behavior as shown in the video.

This is the order in which you should teach behaviors: Lure using a high value treat as shown in the video. After a few successful food lures, lure with an empty hand. If the pup is successful with the empty hand lure, reward with lots of treats. If the pup is unsuccessful, then go back to food-luring a couple more times. After a few successful empty-hand lures, you can begin to add the cue. Say “sit”, then lure with an empty hand, and then reward. Once your pup understands the cue, begin to work on the no-reward marker.

ANSWER : A. For the most part, this sounds pretty normal to me. English Bulldogs can be like this. What you can do is teach him bite inhibition. He needs to know that biting gets him nothing. Each and every time he nips, even gently, you immediately yelp like a puppy would, stand up, cross your arms, and ignore your puppy. Once he is ignoring you, go back to calmly playing with him WITH A TOY. Remember to always use a toy when playing with/petting/interacting with puppies. They will be teething very soon, and they don’t understand that biting you is inappropriate, so using a toy to redirect their attention is important. He needs SOMETHING to bite, or else he will choose your hand. Give him more options.

Another thing you can do is have a toy that YOU OWN. This can be a soft braided rope toy or something of the like. Dot not allow your dog to have this toy whenever he wants. This toy disappears when you are done playing with him with it, and reappears when you want to play. Never allow him to “win” games with this toy. Eventually, the toy will hold so much meaning, when he sees it, he will be instantly interested in the toy instead of your hands.

It also helps to have two bags of toys. Bag#1 is full of chew toys/rope toys/soft toys/etc. It comes out for one week, and then disappears and out comes Bag#2. Bag#2 has the same types of toys in it. This will keep the toys feeling like “new” to your pup and make him less likely to chew on you during play!