Vick dogs at Best Friends, and on the front page

Best Friends caregiver McKenzie Garcia with Squeaker. NY Times photo by Garrett Davis.

Front page of the NY Times, hey. A narrated slide show, too!

And I know I should be doing a happy dance over quotes like this:

“These dogs have been beaten and starved and tortured, and they have every reason not to trust us,” Mr. Garcia said as Georgia crawled onto his lap, melted into him for an afternoon nap and began to snore. “But deep down, they love us and still want to be with us. It is amazing how resilient they are.”

But in order to reach that great quote I had to get past this:

“The successful rehab rate for these kinds of dogs is unknown because nobody has ever studied it until now,” Dr. McMillan said. “You might see an incredibly friendly dog, but does that dog’s personality change over several weeks, over several months, after psychological trauma? Are they hard-wired to be aggressive, or can they change? What’s the best way to work with them?”

Honestly, you'd think people at the nation's best-known animal sanctuary would be old hands at caring for unsocialized dogs, abused dogs, fearful dogs, dogs with obsessive-compulsive issues. City pounds and reputable pit bull groups have dealt with badly-scarred ex-fighters, and adopted them out. Yes, a dog's personality can change after psychological trauma [but I'd be very surprised to see "an incredibly friendly dog" become a dangerous, brooding loner unless some underlying health issue were involved. Dogs aren't John Rambo]. Some pit bulls are hard-wired to be dog-aggressive, others not so much, some not at all. What's the best way to work with them? As individual dogs.

[On the left, trainer John Garcia plays pillow.] To be fair to Best Friends, the dramatics may be due to quotes taken entirely out of context over the three-day period the Times reporter spent at the sanctuary. I hope people will remember that all the Vick dogs were treated badly, and over half are already in foster homes and slated for adoption. No dog on earth can survive terrible abuse heart-whole the way a pit bull can: a fact that makes those of us who love pit bulls feel some particularly serious anger and contempt for their abusers, believe me. [I know, I know: Don't hate -- educate.]

Some pit bulls are predisposed to issues like separation anxiety and sound sensitivity, and can suffer from these conditions as much as any border collie. (My male pit bull shakes like a leaf when the wind blows and a door starts to bang on its hinges [or he would, if I hadn't developed door control OCD years ago].) It stands to reason that abusive treatment would make these conditions worse. When I read in the NY Times article about toothless Georgia, my first thought was that she might have worn her teeth to nothing by chewing obsessively on rocks or on her chain tether. And talk about zero socialization:

Little Red is a tiny rust-colored female whose teeth were filed, most likely because she was bait for the Bad Newz fighters. Handlers cannot explain why loud noises make her jumpy.

Cherry, a black-and-white male, has what seems to be chemical burns on his back. His file at Best Friends says he loves car rides and having his backside rubbed. But like many of Mr. Vick’s pit bulls, he is petrified of new situations and new people.

Oscar cowers in the corner of his run when strangers arrive. Shadow runs in circles. Black Bear pants so heavily that he seems on the verge of hyperventilation.

If someone wrote to the Border Collie Boards about a dog that jumped at every sound or rubbed its nose until it bled, you might see a response like this one [by a postdoctoral scholar involved in the Canine Behavioral Genetics Project]. Or a link to an article like this, by the veterinarian who literally wrote the book on companion animal behavior. Excerpt:

Storm and noise phobias are emergencies.

They will only worsen with exposure, and the rate at which they worsen depends on the neurochemistry of the dog and the severity and unpredictability of the storms [...]

Treatment not only saves lives, but it means the difference between a life of quality or a life of pain and suffering. Treatment can involve the dreaded behavior modification, but this is one case where drugs are essential and not optional.

But enough, already: I'm sure the Best Friends folks know all this. I wish for these pit bulls a comfortable future of long walks, cozy sofas and belly rubs from loving owners, and I know the people at Best Friends will do all they can to ensure that future. Follow the whole story here: Best Friends Blog - "They’re front page on the New York Times."

Edited to add: Here's another nice write-up, this one courtesy of ABC News.

Sooty the Sheep vs. Poppy the Staffy

Sooty isn't feeling the love, but Poppy the Staffordshire bull terrier is having a rocking good time. Thanks for the tip, kabbage!

Nitwit

Not a "chox mix." Not a "buff mastiff," either: a "shred of historical evidence" for Merritt Clifton. Click on photos to enlarge.

How unnerving it must seem, how humiliating, to be a professional breed-basher this week! Spend years stoking the urban legend machine, and what happens? Famous athlete gets busted for dogfighting, his "ticking time bombs" turn out to be good dogs, and the news is all about friendly pit bulls nestled in the loving arms of their foster moms and dads, or playing happily with other dogs. Playing with children, even.

It's almost enough to make a person feel sorry for Merritt Clifton. Almost.

Clifton is the editor, and I use the term loosely, who lists the "chox mix," the “Dauschund," the “East Highland terrier,” the “Weimaeaner,” the “Buff Mastiff,” etc. among dogs that bite: these are "clearly identified" animals, he states, labeled by people "with evident expertise." ["Clearly identified" and "evident expertise" also mean that the blue heeler, the Australian blue heeler, the Queensland heeler and the Australian cattle dog are described as separate breeds in Clifton's odd tabulation of dog bites, and mixes are lumped together with dogs labeled purebreds.]

No MLA format for Clifton: no footnotes, no in-text citations, no pages of works cited. And because some editors, reporters and columnists can't tell a peer-reviewed study from a pig in a poke, Clifton enjoys a certain amount of air time. Here he is on CNN, talking about pit bulls in general and the Vick dogs in particular:

Considering the risk the fighting dogs pose to shelters, potential owners and other animals, "they just don't have a chance," Clifton said.

"You can compare it to what happens with exotic cats and people who keep tigers in their backyard. It's not the tiger's fault, but you are still on the menu. They are victims, but you do have to treat them as animals that belong in maximum security."

Imagine how ignorant and how biased you'd have to be to make that sort of remark.

Now that the wheel of Karma is bearing down on him, Clifton is beginning to sound shrill:

Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, takes issue with my previous post, in which I wrote: "Remember that only a generation or two ago, pit bulls were renowned as 'America's family dog.'"

He promptly e-mails me, saying:

This is a total fiction. There isn't a shred of historical evidence that pit bulls ever amounted to more than 1% of the total U.S. dog population until under 15 years ago, or that they were ever commonly kept as family pets (or indeed by anyone except dogfighters) until then.

Clifton says that between 1900 and 1950 [according to search results on the NewspaperArchive.com website] 35 breeds of dog accounted for 3.5 million newspaper articles or ads which included the word "dog" and a mention of the breed's name.

Pit bull terriers, Staffordshires, and American bulldogs account for 34,770 results, roughly 1% of the 3.5 million, leading Clifton to believe that from 1900 to 1950 "pit bulls" made up no more than 1% of the U.S. dog population.

There are so many things wrong with this, it's hard to tell where to start.

Forget duplicate ads. Forget multiple references to Lassie and Rin-Tin-Tin and Balto. Forget short stories, movie and book reviews, and breed names used figuratively or used in advertising. Forget the regional, racial and socioeconomic factors that affect what goes into a newspaper. And most of all, forget that Clifton failed to search for bulldogs and bull terriers: the two names most closely associated with the "pit bull" breed in the first half of the 20th century. Set all that aside, and the bias and ignorance still loom large. "Not a shred of historical evidence!" Not a shred, dammit!

To digress just a bit, how is it that people who don't know anything about dogs become dog experts? How is it that Jon Katz -- who allows his dogs to worry sheep and calls it "herding," who believes stockdogs are trained with a clicker, who views the no-kill sheltering movement as a threat to America's children, who [as far as anyone knows] has never trained a dog to do much of anything and has never attended a real sheepdog trial even as a spectator -- how is it that Jon Katz has become, in his publisher's words, "one of the country's most respected" writers on dogs?

How is it that Merritt Clifton -- who wouldn't recognize scientific research if he tripped over it, who thinks German shepherds are bred to "herd," who can't be troubled to edit his spelling errors or find out what dogs are really bred for, who has [as far as anyone knows] never cared for or trained or even patted a pit bull, who has written about "the custom" [known only to him, apparently] "of docking pit bulls' tails so that warning signals are not easily recognized," and who writes that "temperament is not the issue, nor is it even relevant," since virtually all pit bulls are "bad moments" waiting to happen -- how is it that Clifton has become an "expert" on the breed?


"There isn't a shred of historical evidence" [Clifton writes] that pit bulls "were ever commonly kept as family pets (or indeed by anyone except dogfighters)" until the 1980s.

Wrong. Again.

On the left: one example of a pit bull on a citrus crate label. I grew up in a region famous for its citrus crops, and love historic crate labels. Lots of the old ones feature popular breeds -- Airedales, Saint Bernards -- and these days modern breeds are occasionally photoshopped into old citrus labels. The Pup Brand label is an authentic oldie. This facsimile is for sale here.

At the top of this post is a photo of a book called The Dog Album. From the dust jacket: "For the nineteenth-century businessman, newly engaged couple, or Victorian family dressed in their Sunday best, a photo session was indeed a special occasion. Which makes it all the more fascinating to see how often the family dog participated in the event." The Dog Album includes a dozen or so photos of pit bull type dogs with their people. There are more pit bulls in this book than collies. More pit bulls than pugs, in fact. Even more pit bulls than Saint Bernards.

Vintage photos of people and their pit bulls are a staple on eBay. Here's a link to the photo below.


And here's a shot of a handsome pit bull with a group of railroad engineers:



On the right, a postcard of a lady. No, Zelig fans, it's not the same dog ;~)

A pit bull is the subject of New Yorker icon James Thurber's classic Snapshot of a Dog. "'An American bull terrier,' we used to say, proudly; none of your English bulls." "American bull terrier" was one of many names given to the dog now called a pit bull, according to American Kennel Gazette editor Arthur Frederick Jones. Jones wrote a chapter on terriers for the National Geographic Book of Dogs, and began the chapter with an appreciation of Joffre, the Staffordshire terrier his family owned when Jones was a boy.

Anyone familiar with pit bulls knows that these dogs have always been called bulldogs in rural areas and in southern parts of the U.S. When Laura Ingalls Wilder writes about the family bulldog, Jack, she's writing about a dog we would recognize as a pit bull. In the great children's book Sounder the dog of the title is half hound, half bulldog: that is, half pit bull.

Listen to Texan Jim Crainer of Hawgs, Dawgs, and Hunting:

Hello David,

I appreciate you taking the time to write. Your question is "Do I hunt with pitbulls and do I presently have any pups I'm selling or giving away". First, Do I hunt with Bull dogs? Yes, but I only use them in a catch dog capacity. When the hog is bayed up, I get as close as I can and release a protected vest covered and cut collar wearing bull dog to go catch the hog. I dont have bull dogs that I let hunt for me, but know of some people who do. Its just a personal preference on type of dogs is the reason I dont. Suprisingly to alot of people, some strains of bull dogs are good hunters and have a good nose especially for rig or hood hunting. But its like any breed of dog, you have to find the right dog to do it with. Such as, just because a fella has a blackmouth cur or a catahoula doesnt mean he will bay cattle or hogs. Or just because a person has a walker hound doesnt mean he will tree a coon. You have to go thru a number of them or get them from reputible breeders to find one that will work for you. Second, Do I have any bull dogs puppies to sell or give away? I usually raise one litter of bull dog pups a year, there is a picture of the two I kept on the baydog pictures, Under Dogs, picture #3. I do sell them occasionally when I raise a litter. Thanks again for your question.

Good Hunting,

Jim

[Crainer writes elsewhere that he favors the Carver line of pit bulls -- a fighting strain --and won't bother with a pit bull unless it's people friendly and can ride loose in the rig with other dogs.]

If Merritt Clifton actually knew much about dogs, or cared enough to study the history of dogs in the U.S., he would know all this. Pit bulls -- bulldogs -- have been common for the better part of a century and a half, though not as ubiquitous as they are today. They were, and are, kept and loved by all sorts of people.

The photo below was taken in the 1890s. The toddler is my maternal great-aunt [a wonderful woman who loved dogs, and owned some legendary ones -- legendary in our household, anyway] and her uncle Albert. Albert was crippled: the dog in the photo is helping to hide Albert's legs in addition to providing support for the child. Seventy years after this photo was taken, my great-aunt remembered the dog's name and spoke of him fondly as "our bulldog." Her parents were hard-working, pragmatic Iowa farmers who liked good dogs and didn't keep bad ones. They were not dogfighters.



(Thanks to EmilyS for the note that prompted this post.)

See the Vick dogs! Part II

Yes, I am still beaming about Hector. He's the middle dog in the photo to the left, a happy shot for the ages by Associated Press photographer Eric Risberg. [Click on the photo for a larger view.] View this photo and many more by visiting the BAD RAP blog: they have a late-Saturday-night roundup of the best news coverage, and you can feel their relief that the dogs are finally, really safe and that the press is starting to get it.

Four posts with Hector's photo: one, two, three, four. I sure can pick em. [sprains arm patting self on back] You could call it a crush.

Another crush -- my new favorite football player, Jarrod Cooper:


A dog that made my heart turn to water -- the twin of my muddy girl in the right sidebar:


[Both screen grabs from the Contra Costa Times.]

Finally, from the boundless, staggering ignorance dept., a PETA news release:

For Immediate Release:
January 24, 2008

Richmond, Va. - Holding signs that read, "Report Dogfighters" and "Dogs Deserve Justice," next to photos of dogs who have been mauled in fights, PETA members will rally outside the federal courthouse in Richmond on Friday as Williamsburg-area resident Oscar Allen is sentenced on dogfighting charges. Allen's sentencing is related to the case that has already seen fallen Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick and three codefendants receive prison terms.

Date: Friday, January 25
Time: 8:30 a.m.
Place: U.S. District Courthouse, 1000 E. Main St., Richmond

[...]
"Vick's heinous dogfighting operation has been busted, but there are others just like it across the county," says PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. "We're calling on people across the U.S. to report dogfighters and for police and prosecutors to send them to jail."

"Holding signs that read, 'Dogs Deserve Justice'"? [Stop laughing, dammit!] Yes, that's the same Daphna Nachminovitch who told the press, "These dogs are a ticking time bomb. Rehabilitating fighting dogs is not in the cards. It’s widely accepted that euthanasia is the most humane thing for them." Yes, the same Daphna Nachminovitch whose organization wants all pit bulls dead. Ironic? Ironic doesn't even come close. Talk to the paw, Daphna: a bad day for PETA has been a very, very good day for some very good dogs.

See the Vick dogs!

Check them out in all their tail-wagging glory! The whole story is here, via BAD RAP. See the BAD RAP blog for more links. Coverage by the Chronicle, with photos, is here. The Contra Costa Times weighs in with a column by noted dog trainer and behaviorist [/irony] Gary Bogue here [more photos, and a video].

Go. Read. See the photos and watch the videos, and thank doG these good dogs got the chance they deserved. I'll be adding to this post as the day rolls on. Can't tell you how glad I am for these dogs. (That's Hector above, with his BAD RAP foster mom, screen grab from the Contra Costa Times video.)

CNN video interview with BAD RAP's Tim Racer here. Excellent comments from Tim. Good job, CNN. Love his comments to the effect that these dogs didn't need to be rehabilitated -- they're good dogs. They need good care and training and a couch to lie on.

DogTime deserves its own link. Video city! Great job, DogTime.

Best Friends will introduce its own "Vicktory" dogs on Monday.

The Salinas Californian has an excellent story here. That's Stella on the left with Justin Phillips, shelter supervisor at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for Monterey County, one of the nine-person evaluation team chosen to work with the Vick dogs last October. More on the SPCAMC website, here.

The Murky News tells why Jarrod Cooper is my new favorite sports hero:

Today [the BAD RAP founders] got help from Jarrod Cooper, a Raiders special teams player. He and other Raiders players are helping fund a new initiative called "Code 597," after the penal code violation for animal abuse. The goal is to educate the public on better care and to fund dog shelters and other gear for local pit bull owners.

Cooper volunteers almost daily at the shelter, where pit bulls make up about half the animals that arrive at the shelter, and two-thirds of those euthanized, shelter officials said.

More coverage, including a great video report by Manuel Ramos, on the Bay Area's CBS station.

He made it! He's OK! Aw, crap, Donna, you made my eyes puddle up -- what great news, and thanks so much for everything, this news especially. #44, below?


That's Hector! Hector, the dog in the photo at the top of this post. Ossum.

Yet another link: detailed article at SeattlePI.com.

Dog bites and bite force

Memo to Merritt Clifton: here's what good GSDs have really been doing for the past 100 years.

This just in: big dogs bite harder than small dogs. [In other news: this fact is completely irrelevant if you are six weeks old.]

Contrary to urban legend, canine bite force is a size thing, not a breed thing. The larger the dog, the greater the potential for damage [but see mitigating factors above and in the final blockquote, below]. If you were to ask the gentleman wearing the German shepherd on his sleeve, he'd tell you: big dogs bite harder. [Protection-sport decoys are the unsung experts on bite force.] A 100 lb SchH III Rottweiler bites a good deal harder than his 45 lb pit bull counterpart.

There is just one study that I've been able to find in PubMed regarding bite force in dogs. Here's the link. The abstract:

A force transducer was developed to measure bite force in dogs. A total of 101 readings was obtained from 22 pet dogs ranging in size from 7 to 55 kg. Bite forces ranged from 13 to 1394 Newtons with a mean for all dogs of 256 Newtons and a median of 163 Newtons. Most measurements fell within the low end of the range, with 55% of the biting episodes less than 200 Newtons and 77% less than 400 Newtons.

1 newton = 0.224808943 pounds force, so 1394 Newtons would be 313.38 pounds force, according to OnlineConversion.com. I'm betting the dog that weighed 55 kg (121 lb) was responsible for the highest bite-force measurement in the study.

So how on earth did the 2003 Handbook of Pediatric Emergency Medicine come up with the following nonsense on bite force? No footnotes or references, by the way:

Aside from treating breed identification as if it carried weight [the CDC has indicated for a decade now that it does not], the Handbook's "2000 psi in Rottweilers [...] enough to tear through sheet metal" is pulled out of thin air. Some Rotties are hard-biting dogs, but 2000 psi? For that you need an alligator.

From Animal Planet News:

Sept. 15, 2003 — Cheetahs chomp hard and even humans can bite through an ear, but one animal reigns supreme when it comes to possessing the strongest bite — the alligator.

American alligators, Alligator mississippiensis, have the most powerful bite force ever measured. According to a recent study published in the Journal of Zoology of London, alligators snap their strong jaws shut with a force of 2,125 pounds, or with about as much force as a mid-size sedan falling on top of someone.
[...]
"Bite force is linked to the size of an animal," explained Kent Vliet, a University of Florida zoologist who headed up the study. "Since the report was published, we measured the bite of a wild gator, even bigger than Hercules at 13 1/2 feet in length missing the end of his tail. He bit down with a force of 2,960 pounds."
[...]
To put the record measurement into perspective, hyenas, which are bone-crushing mammals, have a bite force of 1,000 pounds, slightly more than the 940 recorded for lions. Dusky sharks manage 330 pounds of force, and a common dog, the Labrador, bites with 125 pounds of force. Humans surprisingly beat out the pet dog, and measured in at 170 pounds of force.

Here's a video of a Rottie from Norway [where tail docking has been illegal since 1987, in case you were wondering]:



Strong, yes -- but the jaw strength of a 600 lb alligator? Nooo.

When Brady Barr measured the bite force of various animals for a National Geographic program, the hyena again was measured at 1000 psi pounds of force. The lion's bite measured 691, the shark 669, and a Rottweiler at 328 psi pounds of force. A pit bull was measured at 235 psi pounds of force. [Edited January 27, 2007. See "note from a scientist," below.]

Ah, but don't pit bulls have a "unique bite, hold, shake" style of attack that makes them ever so much more "potentially dangerous" than any other breed?

There are two things that come to mind when I'm subjected to this particular example of boundless, staggering ignorance:
1) Have you ever seen a protection-sport dog work a sleeve or a bite suit? For that matter, have you ever seen a puppy with a sock?
2) Which pit bull? I keep pit bulls and border collies, and at one time or another, over the years, each of my pit bulls has been bloodied by a collie bitch. In each case the pit bull did nothing in response but yip and retreat. In the worst instance my heart dog was nailed in the side so badly by one of the collies he needed sutures and a drain. The collie responsible for the damage didn't have a mark on her.

Last year my male pit bull was in such agony from injury-exacerbated arthritis of the spine [he's OK now] that he was trembling violently and screaming when handled, but when the vet touched him where the pain was worst, all he did was bump her with his closed mouth. He could easily have bitten her -- he turned towards her arm faster than anyone could have stopped him -- but with people [as opposed to possums, say] he has extraordinary bite inhibition. And my vet knows and trusts him. To quote BAD RAP, dogs are individuals -- stereotype at your peril.

Dog bites are more complex events than ignorant people would have you believe. This terrific post by Rinalia [from an open-to-everyone section of the Pit Bull Forum] explains:

How hard a dog bites depends on their bite inhibition (how hard or soft a dog bites), their past experiences and their bite threshold (how quick they are to use teeth). The severity of a bite depends on the aforementioned factors plus size of dog, size of victim, location of bite, whether the dog bites once or multiple times, etc.

Let's just say I have four 60-lb dogs. I have one dog each with the following characteristics:
Dog #1: low bite threshold & low bite inhibition = quick to bite and bites hard
Dog #2: low bite threshold & high bite inhibition = quick to bite and bites soft
Dog #3: high bite threshold & low bite inhibition = slow to bite and bites hard
Dog #4: high bite threshold & high bite inhibition = slow to bite and bites soft

And that is not to say that all dogs fit into those categories. There is a whole spectrum - dogs with moderate bite thresholds, moderate bite inhibitions. Dogs who bite once, dogs who bite multiple times. Dogs who prefer legs and arms, dogs who prefer backs or stomachs.

At the outset, It would seem like Dog #1 is the most dangerous - he'll bite you at the drop of a hat and he'll bite you hard...but maybe he only bites once. But let's say Dog #3, when he is FINALLY provoked into biting, likes to bite multiple times and aims for the neck.

Add to that dog size, victim size, location of bite, warning behaviors, etc. ad nauseam, you can quickly see that there is no logic in making a statement like "Pit bulls cause more damage than other breeds." Such a generalized statement is both inaccurate and ignores the myriad factors that cause a dog to bite.

Breed is perhaps the LEAST important factor.

What a pity this is all over the heads of certain idiots in Ontario and Denver -- the dog-killing idiots that make Michael Vick look like an amateur. These legislators could have saved far more children and adults from harm by addressing swimming pool safety or handing out bicycle helmets, but with the pitchfork-waving mentality common to all bigots they decided instead to confiscate good dogs from law abiding citizens, to confiscate family pets and kill them, based on nothing more than a broad skull or a brindle coat.


"[Laws] banning breeds will not make you safer, and the illusion that they will do so is dangerous to humans and unfair to dogs." [Dr. Karen Overall]

*Note from a scientist:

"A newton equals 0.2248 pound force, which is the force a one pound weight would exert on whatever it is resting on on Earth. Thus 12 newtons = 2.7 pound weight equivalent, and 9452 newtons is equivalent to 2125 pounds of pressure exertion on an object. A newton does not distinguish the area of the force it is exerting on, ie 12 newtons or 2.7 pounds if it was pushing against a square inch, then it would be 2.7 pounds per square inch, but if it was an exertion on 12 square inches, then it woud be 2.7 pounds per square foot. It was interesting to see in the article that human and lab dog have about the same bite force, and wolves only have about 2.5 times more bite force than humans."

See the comment from Caveat in response to this post, which includes the following:

"I corresponded with Canada's version of Beck/Clifton, Stanley Coren, when I found him making the '2000 psi' statement in a little book I'd bought about 'dangerous dogs'. He switches it between 'rottweilers' and 'pit bulls' depending on the day of the week.

He could not support it, had no idea where he'd heard it, hemmed and hawed and ducked and weaved but didn't have a reference for it.

Trouble is, people like Coren or Beck, who the media think are experts, or journals such as the Pediatric one, merrily repeat these things and they put another put another nail into the coffin, not only of certain breeds, but of dog ownership as a whole."

Caveat's 2006 bite force article can be found here, and includes the "Note from a scientist" I 've quoted above.

Vestibular disease: Leave a light on

UPDATE: This thread now has over 100 comments. On some computers [that is, in some browsers] the comment form no longer functions, so please post new comments at Vestibular Disease II on this same blog. Thank you!

Who knew YouTube would be such a depository of vestibular videos?

They aren't kidding when they say, "Canine idiopathic vestibular disease begins acutely and resolves acutely." Let me back up a bit: it began acutely. I hope it resolves acutely and completely. In any event, she's much better now [huge sigh of relief].

Last Tuesday evening my thirteen-and-a-half-year-old border collie was motoring around the back yard, keen, cheerful and busy, a tad stiff but nothing that herbs and acupuncture couldn't help, and it was a beautiful evening and everything was good.

Half an hour later she was flailing panicky-eyed on the kitchen floor, all sense of balance gone.

I helped her to her feet, but she couldn't stand. And then she could, but she was unsteady as a new calf, and when she tried to walk she staggered and would have fallen if I hadn't been there to hold her. Her eyes weren't focused on anything. Vestibular? Wouldn't her head be tilted? My little dog looked old, frail and very frightened.

Seizure? Stroke?

There are times you say to yourself, "Eh, I'll watch her for a while, maybe take her to the vet if it doesn't get better in a day or two." This was not one of those times. We headed for the emergency vet hospital.

In my mind, or heart, there are a thousand images of my good girl at the farm moving sheep across the pastures, sometimes barely visible through the summer dust or winter rain, working or waiting to work. She was a great partner. Did I think of those times on the drive to the vet's? You know I did. I should have petted her more often. She was never a demonstrative dog, but last year she began sitting next to me each night when I took the pack out. She'd tap my leg with her paw to get attention, and if I stopped petting her she'd tap my leg again. Silly animal, so different from her younger, fiercer self. Her last surviving littermate died of a brain tumor in October. My girl was one of three pups, and she was born smiling: I told her she was mine before she was out of the sac.

The emergency vet seemed far less anxious than I felt. Temp was normal. A tech carried my little dog away for bloodwork, and those numbers were perfectly normal, too.

"Brain tumors, strokes and vestibular disease can share symptoms," said the vet, "but I think it's vestibular. An MRI would tell us more, if you'd like. Keep her on a well padded-floor where she won't hurt herself if she falls. Be sure she gets enough to eat and drink -- the vertigo often makes dogs too nauseated to show any interest in food. She can stand on her own: that's a good sign. She's already compensating for the loss of balance."

By the time we got home the head tilt was pronounced, and her eyes were flickering, slow to the left, fast to the right, constant, involuntary movement.

"Vestibular," said my traditional vet, watching my dog's eyes on Wednesday. "Once they've had it, they usually don't get it again. Keep me posted. If she isn't showing some improvement by the end of the week, it might be something else. Be sure she gets enough food and water. If you're on the computer [who, me?] go to veterinarypartners.com -- they'll have an article or two."

"Her ears and her facial nerves and reflexes seem fine," said my holistic vet on Thursday. "I'll fix some herbs for her after I put the needles in."

I won't bore you with my views on [amazing, wonderful] acupuncture. I will tell you that my good girl slipped past me and navigated the back stairs by herself on Friday morning, and managed just fine. I caught a glimpse of her tail as she trotted off with the other dogs. Yesterday, Sunday, she ate her first full meal in days, and ate it on her own -- no hand-feeding. She's on the mend.

My first bit of advice for anyone whose dog is suffering from vestibular disease: leave a light on 24/7. She can't maintain any kind of balance if she can't see.

Also: don't carry her unless she is quite small and you can put your hand under one or two of her front feet. Web legend, perhaps, but it really does seem to give the dog a "grounded" feeling. Losing contact with solid earth is frightening when you have no other reliable means to tell which way is up. If a dog is too big to be carried easily, use a padded harness to help her move around outside so that the dog can keep her feet on the ground. This will be easier on her and much easier on your back. Target, Home Despot and other stores have cheap, non-slip floormats that provide secure footing.

My girl was never so incapacitated that I needed to dribble water into her mouth with an eye dropper or turkey baster, and she never completely lost her appetite. If she had gone a day without eating I think I would have called the vet for a consult.

If you google dog + vestibular you'll probably read about someone's pet that recovered completely in 72 hours and someone else's that was still unsteady on his feet a year later. Many dogs are left with a permanent head tilt. My holistic vet said that three to four weeks is the average recovery time, based on the cases she's seen in her practice.

Another thoughtful YouTuber has posted several videos of her miniature schnauzer's experience with vestibular disease. Here's the first one:



Here is the VeterinaryPartner article on vestibular disease.

And here's my girl. Suffolks feared her: