Remember the story of the Little Red Hen? She grew grain, harvested it, ground it to flour, and used the flour to make bread. At each step she asked the other barnyard animals if they would help. No one would. When the bread came out of the oven wafting its wonderful aroma, everyone wanted some. The hen, refusing to share with a bunch of freeloaders, told them to cluck-off.

The original purpose of this old fable was to teach children that if they want a share of life's good things, they have a responsibility to contribute to the process of producing them. While it might not seem so on the surface, this lesson can be applied to dog breeders and canine genetic disease.

The popularity of this remarkable breed has led to the creation of many bloodlines and "types" in several countries. As well, there are several offshoot breeds, all claiming to be improvements on their progenitor. For someone wanting to buy a true German Shepherd Dog, the variety of similar dogs must be mind boggling. I have listed as many of these cousins as I could find, with comments on how they compare to the real thing, in both conformation and temperament. For those seeking the "best" type, it should be remembered that all lines can exhibit mental and physical shortcomings. For instance, all types are susceptible to hip dysplasia, grandiose advertising notwithstanding. Buyers need to be careful about purchasing a dog from an experienced breeder specializing in whichever type can best fulfill their requirements....

Whether you think the Millennium began in January 2000 or ends in December of this year, it’s a good time to take a look at the science of genetics and the breeding and exhibition of dogs to determine where they’ve been, where they are, where they’re going and how each relates to the other.

Fortunately, we don’t have to go back a thousand years to recap past history in any of these areas. Genetics didn’t even exist before Gregor Mendel grew his pea plants in the mid-19th century. By interesting coincidence, the breeding of dogs and exhibitions featuring dogs had some significant developments at about the same time.

You know your dog doesn't always understand your every word but he is very perceptive of your intonations and body language. Many dogs have an extensive vocabulary of words they seem to understand. Eye contact has been long known to be one of the ways dogs communicate with each other and with mankind. But did you know that one of the most important ways you communicate with your dogs is with your hands? Obedience people have known this for a long time. Often trainers start with vocal commands and later use only hand signals to evoke the same responses.

Many of the incidents to which you and your canine partner will be called to work will be stressful situations. The elements of danger, urgency, injuries, fatalities, unknowns are all stress producers, for the human and the canine member of the team. As humans, it is our obligation to our canine partner not to get so caught up in our own thoughts that we fail to consider and observe their reactions.

Before thinking about taking your pup for a paddle, there are a few things you can do before hand to help make your experience a more positive one. First, a lifejacket may seem obvious for you to wear (as it should be), but it is also an important piece of equipment for Fido as well. It provides a huge margin of safety and security in case of a tip, emergency, or simply a long swim after a stick. It is also very helpful in the boat because of the large handle on its back which helps to control your pup while in the boat, as well as to help him in if he falls/jumps overboard. Lastly, when it is wet, it actually helps to keep your pup cool on a hot day by trapping moisture and keeping the sun away from him.

Director of Training Mary Mazzeri is a veteran instructor/exhibitor and co-founder of the International Association of Canine Professionals. She is a member of the National Association of Dog Obedience Instructors. Mary holds a B. A. in Education. Care 's instructors have over one hundred years combined experience in training pet dogs, advanced obedience competition dogs and in correcting problem behaviors.

How to create a good foundation with the Electronic Remote Trainer

We read with interest the article in last month’s issue about the "Shock Collar as a Last Resort". In the past 20 years that we have been using Electronic Remote Trainers to train dogs, we have never considered them as a last resort, but simply as the most effective and humane way to have a reliable dog for obedience, field trialing, or hunting.

Most first time owners of Bernese Mountain Dogs are unfamiliar with dog shows or purebred dog competitions. Depending on the terms under which you purchased your Berner, obtaining a championship may be one of the requirements. Your breeder may think that your puppy has the potential to do well in the show ring and may ask if you are interested in having your dog shown. Once you learn what dog shows are all about, you may want to try your hand in the ring yourself, rather than have someone else do it for you. Showing your dog can be a fun and rewarding.

If you are going to live with a deaf dog, you will have to learn a new way to communicate with that dog. You will have to tune into the world of movement, vibration and light. You must use some type of sign language system, either American Sign Language or signs you invent yourself. It will seem strange at first, but both you and your dog will adapt quickly. All that's required is a willingness to learn. (For more information on hand signs and training your deaf dog, see our Signs page.)

Now a lot of you reading this, are saying “Sure, I play with my dog all the time!” but I’m asking do you REALLY play with your dog? Do you play with your dog the way your dog likes to play?

What I am talking about is playing games with your dog that are your dog’s favorite games. If you watch your dog interact with other dogs you will learn a lot about how your dog likes to play. Some dogs like to wrestle and are very physical in their play with each other, other dogs like to run and chase and play a form of “tag” with each other, some dogs like to play “keep away” with toys from the other dogs, and other dogs like to play tug with toys and other dogs. There are other ways that dogs play with each other as well, these are just a few. (Granted, dogs have to be well socialized with other dogs in order to truly exhibit play with each other.) Very playful dogs will engage in two or more of these types of play depending on the situation

A study involving 36 domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) in a simple search task provides evidence of a correlation between paw use and performance. The study was carried out to determine whether or not paw use is related to task performance. Different aspects of task performance were taken into consideration. The results of an experiment indicate that dogs departing with the left front paw perform significantly better than dogs departing with the right front paw. Moreover, gender differentiation was not replicated by our data, thus opening new avenues of research with other or other additional factors to gain insight in the gender differentiation found earlier.

It's not easy to characterize the course, as I taught it. Dogs with different needs and problems were brought together in the same training class. Most dog owners simply wanted to teach their dogs to be good companions—they were taught the basic course. Obedience, agility, tracking and hunting devotees worked on skills that gave their dogs a head start for doing those specialized tasks. Some dogs already had some advanced training, but were not yet under good control—they took the regular course, but did it on an accelerated schedule. Puppies were put on limited play-training.

This site was established on August 14, 2001 and will be undergoing major construction over the upcoming months... if not indefinitely.

If this is your first trip to this site, it won't take long for you to see that it is a bit different from most medical sites. Not many that I have come across try to tackle the whole of health care, that of both people and their pets. But, once the reader spends a little time reading the pages and essays placed there, they will see why such an undertaking of almost epic proportion was such a natural and rewarding thing to do.

In July of 1986, a seminar was held in Parker, Colorado. This seminar was the introduction of French Ring Sport to the American working dog population. Many of the Trainers and working dog enthusiasts that attended the seminar were totally impressed with the degree of training, the difficulty of some of the exercises and totally shocked at the degree of control that the French trainers had achieved with their Ring Dogs. The 5 days of seminar left most of us walking around babbling about what we had witnessed. Some of the French training theories were totally opposite from the theories that had been around in this country for many years. The French approach to the methods of training were very simple and methodical. Many of us were so impressed that we had several meetings, hastily put together, in the evenings and off hours to organize a National Ring Sport Association which was later called the American Ring Federation, A.R.F. The person that got this movement going was Stuart Hilliard of Larkspur, Colorado. Several dignitaries from France volunteered to come to America, at their own expense, to share their very popular Sport with us. Ms. Bernard Ajoulas, a long standing Judge of the Sport and President of the French Ring Sub-Commission, Jean Claude LaLanne a very experienced Decoy brought over his Ring III, Belgian Malinois, Snap. Jean Michael Moreau, also a very accomplished Decoy and suit maker and Michael Hasbrook, a very knowledgeable enthusiast of Ring and the Author of a Column in Dog Sport Magazine, called "The European Scene" and his Ring III, German Shepherd, "Sioux" were the dignitaries that conducted the seminar.