Late last March, my wife and I adopted an elderly toy "choodle" (poodle-chihuahua mix) from the local ASPCA. Peanut is now one of the joys of our lives.

We're taking her with us when we drive to Cincinnati to see my wife's parents for Christmas. Peanut is an old girl, no less than 10 years, probably more like 15, so we took a Pet First Aid course. We even have the wallet cards (now laminated) to prove it. Lessons learned:

(1) People don't really seem to care about learning first aid for their pets. We were two of THREE people in the class. They'd rather rush to the vet's and pay BIG money.

(2) People don't want to spend money to learn first aid for their pets. We paid $30 a pop. Acquaintances thought I was a sucker. Why would I take this course when I "could just call the vet."

(3) The Red Cross is losing money by hosting these courses. They may not continue. The contract instructor was paid more than we paid in fees. That is sad.

(4) I live in Mongomery County, PA. I had to go to the Berks County Chapter for this course. The reason? I couldn't get through to anyone at the Montgomery Chapter. Not by phone. Not by email.

The Montco chapter's web site is sad. Broken links and all. I resorted to calling fire stations and leaving messages for the training coordinators to call me back. Not one did.

I called Berks County and someone picked up the phone immediately. The Berks web site is well organized and I found what I was looking for in seconds.

The funny thing is, Montgomery County is the biggest county in PA. I thought its web presence would be well-funded and well-organized. I guess I thought wrong.

Has anyone else here taken Red Cross Pet First Aid?

-- Craig

That sounds like a really good idea. I have a dog that's very important to me. She's very active, plays frisbee a lot, and I've taken her to Agility classes every week for most of her life, and been to several Agility competitions. I'd sure like to know what to do if she got hurt. I just looked on the website for my local red cross, St. Paul, and they had 2 classes this year- last one was 2 fricken days ago! They were held at the university's Animal Sciences building, so they probably know what they're talking about. I'll have to look for it next year.

Lots of pictures on my web site of her on my web site, just follow the link in my sig.

Red Cross has a good Pet 1st Aid book, when I volunteered with them I picked some up and gave them to everyone I knew with a dog/cat. The list of Pet FAK items is very good.

My main concern with Peanut is choking. The vet thinks Peanut is in remarkably good condition for how old she thinks the dog is -- except her teeth are in poor shape.

Dogs tend to "wolf" their food down anyway, so I wanted to know how to treat choking in small pets. Now I do. I followed the link, by the way. Very handsome dog.

-- Craig

As the proud owner of a new chocolate lab pup, I am extremely interested in the content of the class you took. Can you tell us what was taught? Would taking a class be that much more worthwhile than simply buying some written materials? My gut says yes but I would like to hear specifics. Aside from the fact a dog can't tell you where it hurts or what it's discomfort is, what are the main differences between canine and human "first aid"?

Thanks, Vince

That's the problem: They can't tell you what's wrong, so you have to make an intelligent guess based on how well you know your pet. What's your pet's basic heartbeat, for starters? What's their body temperature when they are healthy? You have to measure that rectally <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> . How many breaths per minute does he or she take at rest and during play? That kind of thing.

Here's the link for the specific course I took. It will tell you basically what is involved:

Pet First Aid Course Details

Here's a link to the Pet First Aid course as described by the American Red Cross:

Pet First Aid

This is what got me started searching for a local course.

I hope this helps somewhat.

-- Craig

What's the title? I wonder if that's the one we got at the course.

I'll check tonight, but I'm sure the ARC only has 1 Pet FA book. Call your local chapter or check their web site.
Dave

I'm proud to say I did a CPR on a poodle (more for the peace of the owner than for any good) and gave oxygen via pediatric non rebreather to a mutt who had an allergic reaction and transported him to the vet. I also rescued a hawk in my local park.

But certainly I would love to learn more.

Matt

Here's one tip you pet owners should all know about. Dogs communicate their feelings through smell. You have to be a dog to get the full nuances of the smells, and the best place is in the butt. A dog sniffing another dog's butt is basically asking "how are you doing?".

Humans can learn to recognize some of the smells, and without smelling a dog's butt. Oddly enough, the bad smells usually mean a bad mood, and the good smells mean a good mood, at least with my dog. Just pay attention to the smell of your dog at various times and you'll learn to recognize it. The most recognizable smells in my dog are the "fear" and "happy" smells. She gets the strongest "happy" smell when my wife is getting ready to take her for a run, and the "fear" smell I've noticed strongest when she's been attacked by another dog.

The point is, dogs really do communicate how they're feeling, we just don't know how to "listen".

So how are dogs changing the way they smell? Are we talking about pheromones? If so then your nose is a lot more sensitive than mine! My dogs seem to smile and wag their tails when they're happy and growl when they're mad and wimper when they're sad. They communicate a lot with other less obvious audible and visual body language too. As far as smells go...... um no... cept one of them passes a lot of gas, but I'm pretty sure thats from my son sneaking her his breakfast ever morning rather than her moods. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I don't know if it's pheromones, but there are glands in various places. But yes, there are other communication clues they use too, that are probably easier to read. But this is just one more you can use to help get to know your dog.

Humans have co-evolved with dogs for a very long time, some theories put it at over 100,000 years, and it may have been our advantage over the neanderthals. So we already have a pretty good instict for reading dog body language. But it's not all obvious, and I learned a lot from this book:

Dog Language: An Encyclopedia of Canine Behavior

Fergus's fur smells like, of all things, Fritos corn chips. I kid you not. I wonder what he is trying to tell me?

Vince

This is very useful. If I am able to differentiate between a problem requiring a vet visit and one that doesn't, then this course would be well worth it. Thanks again.

Regards, Vince

I can say I'm certainly glad I did. Our vet is less than five minutes away, but when our cat slashed the dog under her eye during one of their confrontations, that vet was closed.

My wife had to find an open vet, I was on my way to work, stuck in standstill traffic as usual, and was not near any exits.

Everything turned out alright, except that the dog and cat have decided to dislike each other, so we must keep them separated. A jealous 9-year-old, 14-pound cat will out-fight a 15-year-old, 7-pound toy poodle with bad teeth every time.

-- Craig

The book is available from MOSBY at 1-800-667-2968 or www.mosby-ml.com ISBN # 1-57857-000-X.
The ARC stock # is 657100 www.redcross.org/hss
Pet First Aid by Mammato

That's the one we have. Looks like a good reference, too.