Cruisin' Canines logo of a white dog with an orange background

Cruisin' Canines

As just part of our dog walkers’ continuing education, a newsletter is emailed out most weeks with any important information about the upcoming week, weather and safety advisories, as well as tips, tricks, and other useful or fun information about the dogs we care for daily. Here are some of the things we like to share!


Happy Monday! Hope you had an awesome weekend. Quick reminder first, it’s still summer and still hot out! Ensure the dogs you are walking have your complete attention and call us right away with any concerns. Better to be safe than over do it and risk paw burns, heat stroke, or worse.
 
Extra reading up this week, some new, some old, but all worth reading. Please pay particular attention to the first article about “foxtail” grasses as one of our own pup-clients recently had a scary encounter with some along the river walking trail. Luckily his humans saw him ingest it, and after a visit to the ER Vet is doing okay. We helped a lost dog Friday morning too make it to CACC safely in hopes of his family finding him there, Hopefully he’s made it home by the time you read this, but if not, please share his picture to help get him home!


Beware of Foxtail Grass This Summer

Tis the season for these deadly grass seeds to dig into your dog.
“Foxtail” is a generic term that’s often applied to several species of wild grasses, but is specifically associated with a type of wild barley (Hordeum jubatum).

As the plant begins to dry out in the summer months, the seed heads, also known as awns, become brittle and fall off the plant. As they continue to dry, the long foxtail breaks into smaller and smaller segments, with each sharp-pointed awn sporting a few long bristles. Viewed under a magnifying glass, each bristle is covered with an infinite number of microscopic barbs. If an animal brushes by the dry plant (or steps on it, sniffs it, rolls on it, lies on it, ad nauseum), the microscopic barbs catch on its fur.

Sometimes the awn falls from the animal’s fur on its own. However, if the awn doesn’t fall out, is ingested, or it hooks into another area of the animal, that’s when the trouble starts.

Read on in Whole Dog Journal or do a quick Google Image search to see just some of the potential consequences.


Found Dog

Do you recognize him?
Sweet male Samoyed found very early Friday morning in Roscoe Village, please share to find his family and help get him home! Intact male, found with collar and leash but no tags and no microchip. He was taken to Chicago Animal Care and Control, ID#A202948.


Ancient Dogs of the Americas…

Were Wiped Out by European Colonization
The first dogs came to the Americas more than 10,000 years ago, across the Bering land bridge that connected North America and Asia. Afterward, the dogs dispersed across the Americas, where they lived for 9,000 years, isolated from the world. But those dogs aren’t the dogs you’ll pet today.
So what happened to them? Read more at Live Science


From National Geographic: 

Just like human babies, dogs have non-verbal ways of getting what they want. While studying canine behavior, researchers recently identified 19 referential gestures. A referential gesture is one that brings the owner’s attention to a specific object or event.
While the short video here is pretty basic, that actual study published in the journal Animal Cognition is rather interesting.


https://youtu.be/jhluke9_faM

Coolest Dogs of 2019

here to show you how to do it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Cruisin' Canines logo of a white dog with an orange background