Hunkie gets a visit from the Journal News (www.lohud.com).

Two days at K9-1 and Hunkie gets his first visitors. Two friendly people from the Journal news. Couldn't be more proud of Hunkie. I brought him down into the classroom and he really was a perfect gentleman even with the biggest camera I ever seen snapping photos at him from just a couple feet away. You can find the article here: Hunkie article.

It has only been his 3rd day at the facility, but so far doing great. Been starting him on my standard 11 step program. For those not familiar with my training programs - I do what I call a foundation training style. Which means you can't really work on certain issues or guarantee the best possible results unless you have certain underlying steps secure first. To give you an example the very first step is simply "Knowledge" of the dog and his personal issues. If we don't understand what makes Hunkie tick and are aware of WHY he does the things that he does we can not move forward.

I will go into this further in a future post the reasons WHY Hunkie has some aggressive tendencies since don't have quite enough time this am to go completely into it - but what i can say is that it definitely has to do with his early rearing and he makes it obvious to me what his issues are with out even having to interview whoever originally abandoned the ol' boy. Hunkie was adopted out once from the shelter, but without any real rehab program or education to the adoptive family he was really set up for failure. But, like I said this is a post in itself - I'll go into his Whys soon.

Step 2 - is health. Look at the photos of the ol' boy. Looks in almost as bad shape as I am. Gooky eyes, overweight (I weighed him in at 88 pounds), uncomfortable dry skin, licking his paws. The poor ol' boy doesn't realize yet that his body can't keep up with his personality for much longer. He runs and frolics with spirit - but you can see the give in his old joints as he comes down on them.

A lot of his issues has to do with the fear of being manipulated. To him there is a strong association with pain. Therefore, by making Hunkie more healthy we make him a dog that needs to be manipulated less. This is a dog that is prone to hot spots, ear infections, soar joints, eye problems, soars on his paws, dental issues, and more. A dog that has been used to being prodded his whole life without any real training to make it more positive instead of just painful is prone to develop aggression issues during these situations - especially when done by someone the dog has no real bond with or developed trust. How many people out there have dogs that never need a muzzle in their life until they go to their yearly vet appointment to be stuck with needles?

Unfortunately, most shelters have to feed their dogs whatever they get donated. So bad health in shelter dogs is pretty common. I believe Hunkie was being fed mostly surplus science diet. Science diet has a healthy sounding name, good marketing, has a strong in with the veterinary community, but anyone who does their research on what is in that food can plainly see that it is NOT a food to give to a dog that you want to thrive - unless you truly believe dogs were meant to thrive on mostly rejected corn from the human market, some by-products, and other cheap ingredients. Whenever I see a dog with skin like Hunkie's the first thing I do is see what the dog is eating. It's surprising how many people still don't know what corn based diets do to many dogs. Other ingredients I like to avoid are wheat and soy.

I immediately switched Hunky to a more holistic diet that has never failed me with any of the dogs. I feed it to the all the dogs at the kennel. Hunkie has taken to the food easily. Now that I see he has no problems with that food I just started putting him on a joint supplement so we can extend the life of his joints so he can enjoy his second chance at life and run around for a few more years than if his aging joints were ignored. Although some dog foods advertise joint supplements in their food, the small amount is really all just for marketing. If you don't give a dog this stuff they simply just can not keep up with the repair work to their joints. There is really no reason dogs should be getting arthritic so Early in their years.
I plan on starting Hunkie on a high grade fish oil in a few days when i see there are no issues with the current diet change.
I get all this stuff shipped to me from Florida - I get it here: Hunkie's food I use the All Life Stages Food, Agility Joint supplement, and sealogic fish oil (from the human section).

With this combination of food and supplements I should start seeing a noticable change in less than a month.

I am also working on trimming a few pounds off the spirited student as part of his new life. I am going to slowly work toward 5 pounds off and then reevaluate. Every pound less where he is still healthy will add time to his lifespan and quality of life.

I'll will write more on what I'm doing with Hunkie as I move along. I will be video taping a lot of his training sessions that the supporters of my site will be able to watch in the members section. Currently, besides Hunkie we have a volunteer job from briarcliff SPCA named Dawson who was labeled unadoptable but is doing awesome! There is also a dog named Jack I am volunteering my time to that we saved from his euthanasia appointment to give a second chance. Also, moving along great is an interesting case of a legally owned wolf hybrid with aggression issues that has made an almost complete turnaround and still moving forward.

Other volunteer things that we have going on at K9-1 is our aggression support group and free puppy classes that are every Saturday at 2:30 for pups 10 weeks to 6 months. Anyone interested bring their proof of current vaccines and negative stool exam to Peekskill Animal Hospital and sign up - if the pup is not current they can set you up. The puppy classes are designed as an early intervention program with focus on preventing all the major behaviors that land dogs in the shelter systems. This is something that could have prevented all of Hunkie's hardships to date and prevented all the long time shelter dogs that are still at putnam humane that have been their for YEARS with still no real plan to get them out. There are some new faces in the board since the changeover there so I'm hoping to get to the rest of the Underdog Club next. I wish it was as easy as jumping through a flaming hoop, but I'm not going away!

Stay posted for announcement of free work shops for owners of dogs with behavior problems and more on Hunkie's progress.

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