Do you have a problem dog?

If you are a dog lover, then sometime in your life you've run into an issue or two. While I am no trainer past sit - stay - leash and house. For some reason all of the dogs here immediately know what 'house' means. It's a good thing. A Reunion Rescue thing. Whether it's coming in from outdoors or going for some crate time and I've been known to use 'house' to get them to jump into the car for a ride. But, this is about dog aggression or behavior issues that might have you pulling your hair out.

I've been in rescue a good number of years and have seen my side of problem dogs, most especially from abuse cases and coming from high kill death row shelters. I've accumulated a number of supplements I'd like to share with you.

#1 is Robert MacDowell behavior modification tincture. It’s kinda pricey but worth every penny. Just a squirt into each dog’s food daily.
 Robert McDowell Herbal Remedies You will order the Animal Botanical Relax for dogs. They have even more for the more difficult cases and in fact the company treats dogs, cats, horses and even people. They support tons of various cancers and other illnesses of the body. 

#2 is Emergency Australian Bush Flower Essence. I get the stock option..it’s something like Rescue Remedy, but this product is much better. Get a couple of mixing bottles like the one the Emergency comes in and make your own. One bottle of the stock will last you a year or more. You put one dropperful of the stock into the empty mixing bottle, fill with purified water and a couple of drops of some kind of liquor - I use brandy - to preserve. Shake it and/or pound on palm each time you use to energize. One squirt into the water bowl daily and each time they drink, they re-energize the tincture and calm the body.

And a little CBD oil always helps. I hope these suggestions help you as much as they've helped me and the Reunion Rescue dogs over the years.

Put a pit bull in your library

Reunion Rescue and Pit Bull Nation have a great idea. Let's put a pit bull in every library. This is one way to do away with BSL and all of the media horror stories promoted by the press.

One never sees or hears about the happy stories about millions of pit bull family pets and that's exactly why Pit Bull Nation was written. For the true story behind the book Pit Bull Nation about pulling death row dogs being killed at a city shelter along with how Reunion Rescue runs the world's only holistic raw-feeding no kill pit bull refuge, this book is a must read.

We are asking every pit bull lover to call their local library and request a copy of Pit Bull Nation be put on the shelves.

It's easy and besides educating the public, proceeds from all sales go toward helping dogs....talk about win/win, right?

Please visit Pit Bull Nation on Facebook and attend our Put a pit bull in your library event on Facebook. We love your photos and comments, too!

End of the rope and a silver lining...

Yesterday should have been one of the happiest days in Reunion Rescue's rocky past, but it turned into a day from hell.

Tara has entered our foster to adopt program after falling in love with William who's since been renamed Quentin. He is named for 'The Sound and the Fury" Quentin Compson, As complex as a Faulkner character, our Quentin had a rough start yesterday.

 He made the first leg to meet Tara and our in-house APBT advocate, Adena. First stop was a bath as Quentin has been living out in the country and needed a bit of city-fying.

After arriving in San Francisco, it was discovered Quentin only prefers wire kennels, so yet another trip to the pet store last night to purchase another kennel, dog bed, more food and enticing treats to encourage Quentin to love his new crate and begin serious Kong training.

Our program insures with a good Kong training, any dog can get a full upper-body workout in his crate while mom or dad is otherwise occupied. Then, pup takes a nice long nap until the whistle blows.

Tara took Quentin on two long jogs yesterday afternoon and evening to try and tucker him out. Our boy is going to require some exercise. He is one of those boys who needs to run! Unfortunately, torrential downpours in San Francisco put a bit of a damper on things, but Tara and Quentin trudged ahead. With one minor incident involving a couple having an argument, Quentin remained strong even though as a timid boy, he was frightened by the episode.

Lots of Emergency Australian Bush Flower Essences will be helping Quentin make this big huge transition from country life to city living. We as humans understand these things, but imagine what it must be like for a dog who was nearly starved to death, dragged behind a car, thrown on a bar-b-que grill while burning and then winding up at the worst hellhole on earth, Stockton Animal Control.

Quentin is going to do just fine. It took some work, but an exhausted Tara got him into his new crate last night for his first night in a real home, in a real house, in the big city.

Jump to present....Quentin made it through his first big night. Tara just called and he slept through the night in his wire kennel. He's eating and learning Kong and digesting the sights, sounds and smells of the beautiful city by the bay.

I can finally take a deep breath and know that things might just work out. Quentin is enrolled for his first Better Way Dog Training class tomorrow morning with the best dog trainer in the world, Bob Gutierrez. Bob is the secret reason Reunion Rescue lays claim to having 'the friendliest pit bulls in the world.'

Mom Tara and Quentin

So I'm off now to walk Pip and get her ready for her first night in her new home with Brett and Jenny. Pip has been with me four years and has her own chapter in Pit Bull Nation, been through three high kill shelters and lived to tell about it.

There is a big silver lining in our clouds today.

Good girls get the cookies

I learned an expensive and good lesson from BeBe the other day. People don't give you cookies if you misbehave. Hmmm. For years I've been claiming it's no accident I rescue pit bulls.

I've never been one to back down over things that matter to me. There's an old saying, 'if you stop to fight with every barking dog, you'll never get to town.' That has come back around to bite me in the ass more than a couple of times. I guess the trick is to qualify what really matters.

Peanut sits for a cookie!

So how can I expect BeBe and the other dogs to behave, not bark, sit pretty and be nice without a reward? They all want a cookie. And...the nice girls get the cookies. A little secret, I call them all girls. Little Peanut from Alvin who was salvaged from the Spindletop raid had the hardest time learning a sit, but today he became a man. Today, Peanut offered his first sit for a cookie. Huge.

Peanut has the slim build of a habitual criminal. You know, the guys you see in prison, somebody's punk, like a Barney Fife who just fell in with the wrong crowd. Peanut came here very stressed out. He'd survived the high kill animal control in Alvin only to be pulled by Leah Purcell of Spindletop under Reunion Rescue's 501(c)(3). Slight problem, Reunion didn't even know until long after the raid and Peanut, then known as Feo, was being held at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds by the authorities.

Since I'd written the initial story about Feo, I felt responsible for him. After all, he was a Reunion dog. Full here with the defacto no kill shelter we had to set up with limited resources, Feo was placed in boarding.

Angel, now Hub, was adopted by a longtime Reunion adopter who has relocated to Minnesota which opened up a spot for Feo. When Feo arrived, he was a total mess. He vomited everything and has terrible diarrhea. This went on for a couple of months. After several recent horror stories with conventional vets, I was certainly reticent to subject poor Feo to a battery of tests and what I knew they'd prescribe, nasty ass Metronidazole (Flagyl) which would leave him certainly worse for wear in the long run.

I held true to what I've learned homeopathically and started Peanut on a quality kibble diet, even though all the rescued cats and dogs here at the sanctuary are fed organic raw. I knew the jump to raw diet would stress his system and patience would win in the end.

It took a few weeks and slowly Peanut was transitioned to raw. First he, like Nolan, started on chicken necks and a beef blend, but eventually, he was chomping down on a chicken quarter like the best of them. Little narrow-ass Peanut had won. I knew he was truly on the road to recovery.

I also knew that Peanut would be a hard sell on the sit. For weeks, I could only get one sit per session from him, truly a half-ass sit, if you get my drift, by use of the tennis ball. Peanut is a ball freak. Loves to fetch.

He was not food oriented for obvious reasons. Who knows what and when he was eating at Spindletop and his gastro-intestinal problems dogging him from place to place had been very hard on his little system. Food was not Peanut's friend. He needed time and good nourishment on a steady basis to learn that food was a good thing.

Also, and very importantly, Peanut had probably never even seen a cookie. I had to remember this. Here is a poor boy whose system has been ravaged by bad food and some crazy lady waving more of it in his face saying, 'sit' which sounds like something in German. Poor baby.

But, today, he made the final step. Peanut sat for a cookie. And sat for another cookie. And again and again and again. I was ecstatic. I had to stop, because I knew I'd give him an upset stomach if I kept it up. Peaunut is a winner. He is going to be a wonderful pet someday when he learns he can trust people. I don't blame him for being a little slow to believe. I'm still trying to learn to trust people.

I'm also learning to be a good girl since good girls get the cookies in life. It works on people, too.

Rainy days and easy cheese

Amber...I'm waiting for my man, I mean Kong....

Yesterday was one of those long rainy days with a houseful of bored pit bulls. We are all about the crate training, but these guys need that extra boost. Usually, the girls are the ones not too interested in the sodden outdoors, but nobody wants to go outside.

I got a little bit lucky with Peanut who scampered around the deck a minute, but the rest of them just wanted back inside. It was time to get creative.

Amber's ice cream Kong

I keep a back log of stuffed Kongs in the freezer, but you certainly don't want to feed these guys 24/7. Amber is already getting some love handles, but I just can't help it with her. She is so easy to spoil. Life's too short to not be able to spoil Amber. She waits for her Kong just like Lou Reed is waiting on his man. Oh, boy!

Reunion Rescue has a Kong training doc along with about a million recipes for stuffing the Kong. Here's Amber with her Kong cream cone...instead of ice cream, she is getting organic ground beef blend stuffed with a couple of cookies and topped with cream cheese.

Nolan doing some serious Kong time

Nolan is still not completely Kong trained, so he's getting his breakfast, lunch and snack time through the Kong. He gets beef or chicken blend with some tasty raw dog food roll and topped with a squirt of Easy Cheese or cream cheese. Yum! Fattening up Nolan is getting easier by the moment. These stuffed Kongs are Reunion's way of funning up the old Satin Balls routine.

Peanut licking his lips

Peanut was a hard sell. He's still having a few tummy issues due to his abusive past. Like some people, Peanut is sensitive and gets an upset tummy.  For the longest time, we had to feed Peanut kibble and yogurt with Slippery Elm. He had a very hard time keeping it down, but recently has made to leap to raw!

It was a great day when Peanut decided he could join the others eating a good organic raw food diet. He gets lots of chicken or beef blend filled Kongs with a squirt of Easy Cheese or cream cheese to top it off. He keeps us on our toes to make sure his Kong looks like neighbor Amber's.

Nolan and Peanut are still served Kong room temp since they are not at the Kong training level of hard core girls BeBe and Amber who like to chew and knaw on a frozen Kong.

Today is a bit sunnier and the guys will have more grass and yard time to romp and exercise, but on a rainy day, the Kong is a dog's and his rescuers best friend.