I recently had to let go of my own Luther and just the other day, heard that a friend of my brothers’ had to make the same tough decision I recently made.

If you can believe it, this is the second time that this woman has had to make the decision to end the life of an active service dog, and making this situation even more weird is the fact that both dogs were of a similar age.

Her dog just lost to her, developed lymphoma at the age of 7 and despite opting for chemotherapy, his health deteriorated very quickly.

He was still in full service to her, a fact that differs from my own situation a little bit.

Luther was retired, and I had already retrained with my current guide Lars, a beautiful svelt black lab.

Oh what to do?

“A chain, rope, or strap attached to the collar or harness of an animal, especially a dog, and used to lead it or hold it in check.” – Webster’s Dictionary

Hmmmm…

- A chain, or rope used to hold an animal in check?

- A chain, or rope used to lead an animal?

First of all, the purpose of a leash is not to hold an animal in check. The purpose of a leash is to connect the dog to the owner. Furthermore, last time I checked horses did not where leashes, and it is these huge misconceptions of the leash and its proper roll in the lives of the owner/dog team that prompted me to take the time to write this article.

The leash is a great invention due to its simplicity and its purpose. Without its invention, we would not be, along with our faithful four-legged companions able to take advantage of strolls on nice summer days, or brisk morning walks, yet the inability and ignorance of the common dog owner when it comes to using the leash makes me wonder why they do not come with instructions on how to use them.

As I said above, the leash was invented to attach you, the owner to your dog. The purpose of the leash is not for the owner to be the anchor behind the pulling bull, which 9 times out of ten is the actual scenario. Thousands upon thousands of dog owners would enjoy walking their dogs ten fold if they only knew and applied proper leash techniques when doing so.

The purpose of the leash while walking with your dog is to allow you the owner to have constant control over your dog, it is not to sentence your dog to a boring dull walk! Allowing your dog to venture to the boulevard for a sniff, or venturing off course to be lavished with affection by passersby, is simply your dog being a dog. I understand that in most cases it is simply a case of the public just not knowing any better; however, taking the time to find out the correct way to use the most common dog product ever made would help to know end, the relationship, and overall ambiance between dog and master.

Common Mistake

Letting your dog pull you around, is just teaching him/her that having a taught leash is cool and you do not mind being jerked from one place to another. The biggest fault with the taught leash scenario, is that the owner tends to pull back when the dog pulls, thus encouraging the dog to pull thus initiating a tug of war that the dog usually wins.

Solution

The dog must understand that you are in charge of the situation and they are not. Walking with you should be a privilege with acting out of control an undesirable and unacceptable act. By maintaining a slack leash while walking with your dog, you are giving yourself that extra foot of leash, as well as an extra second to react to your dog’s incessant forward lunges.

Technique

Pulling dog

First of all you the owner need to know the correct way to handle your dog’s leash. Always make sure that your leash arm is not straight but bent. By doing this, you are not putting stress on your arm, and you are giving yourself an arm length of leash to use when reacting to unwanted action from your dog:

- When your dog lunges forward from a loose leash to a tight leash, he/she will experience a level of discomfort. This in itself, may be enough to discourage the behavior. - If your dog continues to pull, this is where the bent arm theory comes in: By suddenly straightening your arm and backing up, you are delivering a loose leash, to taught correction to your dog’s forward lunging, thus putting a surprising and abrupt halt to your dog’s forward progress. - The third option is to straighten your arm while turning and walking in the opposite direction. By doing this you are providing a loose leash, to a hard correction, that is ongoing and only ceases when the dog complies with you.

The idea behind this approach is to make an effort to convey to the dog that this type of behavior is unacceptable and you the owner will not tolerate it. You the owner want your dog to make the association between lunging forward, and the resulting discomfort that accompanies that act. If proper leash technique is used correctly and consistently, one can put a stop to incessant pulling of any kind whether it be pulling forward, or pulling sideways. Always make a point to praise and reward the dog upon compliance! By doing this you are only strengthening the dog’s understanding that good behavior leads to good results. By relaying the message to your dog that unwanted activity will lead to discomfort, while compliance will lead to a good outcome, walking your dog will soon become a pleasure not a chore.

Tie is a brindle male, and can be seen in this YouTube Clip.

Enter Newman into the fray, born December 29 2009.

Newman was 1 of 4 puppies from the litter, comprised of 2 boys and 2 ladies.

Ron gets to take him home in March, stay tuned for some interesting videos of Tie boxing the little guy.

He spends bountiful amounts of time on it, and if I ever need to find him for whatever reason, that is the first and only place I need to look.

Don’t get me wrong, he is the furthest thing from a lazy dog that exists whatever that thing may be, but he, without a doubt enjoys his leisure time.

Lars is a very energetic dog, and he has outlets for sure to burn off this energy whether it be from daily play sessions, guide work or actual trail running.

It is funny to see such an active dog spend so much time lying down, but Lars has developed a true passion for putting himself to bed, at anytime of day.

If anybody who did not know Lars were to see him on a daily basis, they’d think I work him to the bone, 8 hours a day.

He is not getting as much running time because of the winter weather we are dealing with but he is still logging 2 to 3 runs a week, plus all the playtime he demands, lol.

He reminds me a little of myself in a way due to his apparent need for lengthy naps during the day.

I work from home, and being a national team level track athlete, have the flexibility to train when I want, as much as I want and to nap as often as I can.

I keep telling Lars that maybe when he retires from guide work, he can sleep on the “big bed.”

January 10 is the anniversary of Luther and I meeting each other for the first time

January 11 is the anniversary of his death

The 12th day of the 4th month, April 12 was Luther’s birthday.

Told you it was weird.

In a weird twist, I actually selected the urn he would be put in, while he was still alive, in the same room for that matter, how messed up is that?

He has been dead for just over 2 weeks now, and honestly I can say that not a day goes by when he is not on my mind for the majority of it.

Sometimes it feels like he has been dead for much longer than he has, and other times it feels like he died only yesterday.

I’m not sure why I have these flip flop feelings, maybe its an example of the saying: life is a roller coaster of emotions.

I know one thing is for sure, I have never been a huge fan of amusement parks.

I have documented his deteriorating health from when things started going south for the big guy, and Friday, made the decision to put him out of whatever misery he was living in on a daily basis.

Lu, for those who maybe reading this blog for the first time was my first guide dog, working from January 2001, until the summer of 2008.

He was a beautiful yellow labrador, standing 23 inches high and weighing anywhere from 74 to 77lbs on his good days with a few little ahem, hick ups along the way.

Lu and I shared quite the adventures over the years, ranging from a 3-month trip to the Bahamas, to countless hours on Greyhound buses traversing Ontario.

He was an amazing dog, placid and gentle, loyal and trustworthy and he will forever have a very special place in my heart.

Near the end of August, Lu began exhibiting symptoms indicating kidney disease, a fact confirmed by lab tests performed on him by our veterinarian.

I, being internet savvy, Google symptomes he was having and determined that there was a reasonably good possibility that Lu had Cushing’s disease, a fact confirmed by yet more lab tests.

He was put on a drug to treat the condition, but through nobody’s fault received too much of it, thus basically frying his pituitary gland.

He was put on prednizone to try to bring up his steroid levels, with limited success as following 2 subsequent blood tests, his steroid level was still far below what it should’ve been.

This last week, his dosage was increased considerably to kickstart the pituitary gland, but his tremors, which began sometime ago, and which were supposed to cease, in fact were persisting.

For the past 2 weeks, Luther on a daily basis spent the majority of his days lying on the floor quietly shaking and minding his own business, traits that would suggest he was not really loving life.

Since August, his eating pattern had also changed, with him reverting to passively approaching and consuming food, not typical behavior for him at all.

His excessive drinking and urinating, one of the sure signs of Cushing’s did cease when he began treatment, and even his constant tummy upset was checked to a degree thanks to the drugs.

His muscle tone, lost initially was beginning to return but his fatigue, disinterest in things around him and the constant tremors he was experiencing were persisting and on Friday seemed very, very prominant.

It is hard to know sometimes when the time is right to step in and interveen when our pets are not doing so well. People had told me that Luther would give me a sign when he was ready to go, but how does one really know what that sign is?

Is it a simple nuzzle of the head? Could it be when Lu sat down in front of me on Wednesday and gave me his paw for no apparent reason what soever?

It is all to easy to act in a selfish way, prolonging the lives of our pets for needs totally of our own and not those of our animals.

I can surely say that if I was Luther, I would want to die with dignity, not being forced to live out a life of sickness, just to prolong the optimism my owner would have of a potential cure.

I am sure in my heart that the decision I made on Friday was the right one, although it is easy to doubt when I reach down to pet a dog that is no longer there.

As my brother pointed out, Luther was able to walk into the animal hospital on his own, and right up until the end showed the gentle loving nature that made him the best dog ever.

Ironically just before Luther entered into my life, I was sitting on the floor in a room of the San Raffael guide dog campus residence, nervously awaiting to meet the dog that would change my life for ever.

On Friday when he died, I was once again, sitting on the floor with him, arms around him, head against his side, waiting to hear that final beat of his heart.

A part of me wishes that I was a believer in some form of afterlife, because if I did then knowing that Luther was going to a better place, disease free, would go a long way to making me come to terms with his death.

Luther - April 12 1999, to December 11, 2009.

He was supposed to be on his final large dose day today, but due to his tremors persisting, the vet wants to keep him on the drug at the current 20mg daily dose for another 7 days.

As for his stomach issues, they have all but disappeared, meaning that the prednizone is actually helping him, but the shaking is persisting.

According to his vet, the shaking is generally the last symptom to go away once a dog begins treatment so we’re hoping that another week of the higher prednizone dose will do the trick.

He appears to be having nausea also, a side effect of the prednizone because he is taking his sweet time eating, a teltail sign that the drug is making him feel a little off.

All said though, he is definitely doing better, and continues to regain muscle tone in his back legs.

His excessive drinking is gone, and he is begging more and more, a sure sign that the old Lu is somewhere not too far from the surface.

We have been lucky up until now when it comes to the snow/salt but as with most good things in life, they are never, everlasting, thus this morning the poor little man was reintroduced to one of the pains in his butt.

I think the entire bootie experience would be appreciated much more by our dogs, if they actually could comprehend the reason for wearing them.

Lars, falls into this category of uncomprehending of course, and even Luther back in his snow days was not that tolerant of the boots.

Lars should love his boots, afterall they do invoke quite a reaction from anybody who sees him wearing them and since he loves being at the center of attention you’d think he’d be all for them.

Here’s the point where I can imagine Luther laughing at Lars when he sees me bringing out the boots, and Lars scowling back at Lu, internally planning revenge upon our return from wherever we are going.

This is a direct result of his lysodren overdose, but the hope was that by medicating him with prednizone that this would counteract that damaging effect of the drug.

He has been on prednizone for the last 3 weeks now, and although he did appear to perk up, the last few days have been more of a digression for him.

He has also begun shaking, ya know the kind of shaking that dogs do when they are scared of something, something I brought to the vet’s attention yesterday.

According to the vet, the shaking, and upset tummy Lu, and I have also been dealing with can be a direct result of a steroid deficiency in the body, meaning that now, his prednizone dose has been significantly bumped up.

He will be on the drug for the month of December, but in a larger dose, as the previous dose he was on did not result in any movement in his steroid levels at all.

He does appear to be a little more lively as of late though as I mentioned in my last post.

He goes up stairs, not willingly but he will do it, and he is a little more interested in what is going on around him, begging on a regular basis, lol.