The mark of an Amazing Business and an article on Predatory Drift

Readers, I had a very stressful morning.

Let me preface with the fact that two weeks ago, give or take, I read this article.

This morning, it all started when I brought Miles to daycare. I dropped him off, and someone was waiting outside, and they had a beautiful dog. I said hi to the dog in my little "you're-so-stinkin'-cute" voice, and started to make my way toward the dog without asking. If I were being responsible, and had I thought it through, I should have asked.

I started to make my way toward him to pet him, and and without warning, the dog bared his teeth, started growling and barking, and it was at this point that I stopped. He then lunged toward me (luckily, he was leashed, otherwise I'm pretty sure I'd be in the hospital right now...he was about a 70-pound dog), ready to attack. His owner was yelling "DOWN!" at him, to no avail. He was ready to turn on her as well when the owner's husband came out and made him lay down right on the pavement. I rushed to my car just as the dog started to lunge, and sat there until it was safe to go. I felt terrible, and continued to on my way into work.

My terrible feelings were both that the situation was my fault, and also worry that Miles might be in danger. I know that the owner of his daycare exercises common sense, but I didn't assume that she didn't admit him for the day. I figured she would isolate him until he calmed down, and have him play with the dogs when she was absolutely sure he was ok. I figured it was something about me that made him afraid, and he would be fine once I left and was able to take a minute.

Not able to let it go, I texted the owner of the daycare to apologize, and she said to me to not worry about it one bit, and that he would not be admitted back into the daycare until his behavior was addressed and she could be sure that that would never happen again.

This tells me two things about this daycare:

1. Safety of her clients, both of the human and canine persuasions, is paramount to her.

2. Safety is so paramount, she is willing to lose clients in order to ensure the safety of everyone.

Truth be told, she was in danger too. I was not even anywhere near this dog when he started to come after me, and what if she had done that to her, in a place that not only is a dog not regularly leashed, but also not even collared? Either her or someone in her family could have been seriously, seriously hurt by this dog. But there are many business owners that would put the Almighty Dollar over anything else in this situation, and when I think about how she didn't, it makes me even more sure (as if I needed to be) that we picked the right place to send Miles when we need someone to take care of him during the day.

I checked out three other places for daycare before landing on Lucky Paws, and the owner, Christine, was the only one that offered to have me come in and take a look around with Miles. She introduced me to the other dogs, and let Miles play when we came - she was interviewing us as we were interviewing her. She really works hard to make sure that all dogs are safe in her care, and today, it showed. She kept a cool head (at least in front of me), and handled the situation as any responsible business owner would or should. I read that article a couple of weeks ago, and as someone who's neurotic, I worried that something like that would happen at daycare to Miles. However, she has two separate areas - one for small dogs and one for large dogs. All of the dogs that Miles plays with are his size or very close to it in either direction, and after today, I no longer worry one bit about Miles' safety from things like predatory drift while he's there. I know, without a doubt, that she would never put Miles in a situation where something like that could happen. Not that I didn't know that he was safe before, but sometimes I just get that affirmation, ya know?

So, while this morning was scary to be sure, by the time I had resolved it in my own brain, I felt even more confident about many things related to Miles. For that, I am thankful.

With that, I will go pick up Miles, and leave you with this picture. We had him for two weeks, and I am pretty sure that we were on our way for him to meet his cousin Yogi for the first time. Look at his little face. He's such a good boy.

Mmmmm...marrow bones.

We've always been hearing from fellow dog owners that marrow bones are the cat's meow. For dogs. They love the taste, it keeps them occupied, and they're just all around awesome.

So, we finally broke down and bought one for Miles. It REALLY helps with the chewing, and it literally kept him occupied all night last night.

However, I definitely had a moment of panic when I realized that he was able to chew off chunks of bone from the side instead of just hollowing it out. I had heard that it's really dangerous to feed dogs bones because they splinter in their stomach, and that's exactly where my brain went, and I was like "WEHAVETOTAKEITAWAYFROMHIMRIGHTNOWORHE'SGOINGTOGETSPLINTERSINHISSTOMACHANDDIE!"
Rob, the cooler head of the two of us, said, "I really don't think that's going to happen, but we can take it away if you want."

So, of course, when my husband and I have such polar opposite reactions, because he's had a family dog before that he can remember, I always have to find out why he's right. It turns out that only cooked bones have the splintering danger, and Miles wasn't chewing off huge chunks, so it wasn't a big deal. Crisis averted. Chew away, Miles. Chew away.


The big thing that I want to talk about today is antibiotics. Over the past few years, I have really adopted an anti-antibiotic stance. I try to avoid them at all costs for myself, and so does Rob. They do terrible things to humans, not the least of which is diminishing ability to fight infections on our own. Animals are no different. Miles is now on his fourth round of them since we've had him, and knowing how much antibiotics can damage humans, and my research about how damaging they can be for dogs, naturally I'm pretty worried about it. I am also starting to realize that the lesson here is to check him whenever he comes home from daycare for cuts and clean them immediately, because that's how two of the infections have happened. We generally don't have to put him on antibiotics for very long (one course was three days, two were five), but this time the infection was bad, so we have to give them to him for fourteen days.

We have been feeding him probiotics with his food (alternating with the antibiotics, and with breakfast and dinner when he's not on antibiotics) in order to promote healthy bacteria growth in his gut, and it seems to be serving him just fine. But the idea of prevention of these infections is more compelling to me, because I would really like to not have him on antibiotics at all if I can help it. It can cause a whole host of problems, like bloat, food allergies, and secondary infections because of lack of good bacteria, just to name three of the laundry list I've found.

So, I think that solving this issue is going to take a plan from two angles: Checking him whenever we get home from anywhere for cuts and to clean them immediately, and looking for natural remedies so that we can avoid antibiotics altogether. It looks like I'm not the only dog owner who's worried about this, and this blog looks like a great start. :) I'm going to also talk to my vet and do some more research to figure this out.

For now, I will leave you with an adorable picture of Miles chewing on his favorite thing on earth, his marrow bone.

He's such a good boy.

Miles has a new favorite toy!

The laser pointer! Watching him play with it is actually better than tv.

Plus, it provides rainy day stimulation and fun, which is important because we don't walk when it's raining.

In other news, we left Miles home alone for longer than 3 or 4 hours for the first time today. We kept him crated because we're still concerned that he'll rip the house apart, but overall, it was wildly successful.

We're also working on the barking, which is helping. We were at the beach yesterday, with TONS of stimulation, and he hardly barked at all, and only when he wanted to play because a ball got too close to him or someone walked by too quickly. So, we're working on the patience aspect of it from my end and it's definitely working.

Have I also mentioned that Miles is so good at self-entertainment that it's awesome? When we don't want to play and he does, he goes to his bucket-o-toys, and picks one out and throws it around, probably pretending it's one of us throwing it. Then he throws and chases. And throws and chases. It's hilarious to watch.

I heart my dog.

He's such a good boy.