Collaboration brings Pet Wellness day to Six Nations Reserve

Kate MacDonald
InfoStream Guest Author 

Last weekend, the Ontario SPCA and their affiliated society, the Welland & District Humane Society threw its support behind the annual Pet Wellness Day on the Six Nations Reserve. 

Led by Dr. Tammy Hornack DVM, Dr. Shane Bateman DVM and Chair of the Guelph Humane Society, and Programs Supervisor of Six Nations Animal Control, Penny Hill, Animal Wellness day focused on providing health checks and vaccinations for the pets of the Six Nations community. 

A team of volunteers, including over 20 vets and approximately 15 vet techs were on hand to provide services for a small fee. Pet owners lined up early to participate. 

Ontario SPCA Executive Director Kate MacDonald, shared her thoughts on the day's events as an InfoStream Guest Author. 


We're here today as guests of the Six Nations Reserve in Southern Ontario to partner in hosting an Animal Wellness Day.

The Ontario SPCA is well represented as both the Welland Humane Society and the Guelph Humane Society have been long time partners in this animal wellness initiative.  We thank both for including us in the mix!

The group is fortunate to have the leadership and support of Penny Hill, Programs Supervisor of Six Nations Animal Control and Dr. Tammy Hornak, who runs both a private clinic and an Animal Welfare charity - Canon's Cause.

Supporting Tammy in this effort are Dr. Shane Bateman, Chair, Guelph Humane Society and Agent John Greer, Executive Director, Welland & District Humane Society.

The centre of the action for the Animal Wellness Day is the local sports arena where the 'clients' are domestic dogs.

In addition, there is space out front to accommodate aggressive dogs and space to accommodate cats.

It is an inspirational experience to see so many partners, people and organizations collaborate to improve animal care and wellness!

We look forward to showcasing the event at the Ontario SPCA's Animal Welfare Educational Conference.

More information is available at ospcablog.ca.

This collaborative effort between the Humane & Rescue and Health & Wellness sectors shares many ties with the Alliance for Urban Animals. Dr. Bateman was awarded a 2012 Emerging Leader Scholarship by industry peers and Dr. Hornak was nominated for a Distinguished Service Provider Summit in 2012 and 2013. 

Bylaw Amendment: Household pet limits *UPDATE*

Results to a survey requesting feedback on a proposed household pet limit bylaw amendment for the City of Calgary were made available by councillor Diane Colley-Urquart last week. 

Earlier this month, Colley-Urquart posted a short survey to her professional blog asking whether or not limits on the number of household pets should be implemented and what that limit should be. She received over 1,300 responses and noted that, "while this poll was by no means scientific, the level of engagement on my blog and survey was impressive and shows how much Calgarians care about their pets." 

To summarize, survey 67% of participants responded that there should be no limit to the maximum number of dogs allowed in a single family home. Sixty-five percent of participants responded there should be no limit to the number of cats allowed. 

Colley-Urquart presented her notice of motion to Calgary city councillors during the regular meeting of council Monday, May 26, 2014.

Detailed responses and participant comments available HERE.  

Off-leash dog park skills

Barbara Walmer CPDT-KSA, CBCC-KA, KPA CTP, ACDBC
InfoStream Guest Author 

As off-leash parks become a more popular destination for urban dogs it’s essential we keep them enjoyable and safe. Educating the public about dogs is crucial to accomplishing this goal. Most problems do not come ‘out of nowhere’ and people need to understand more about dog body language to avoid these issues. Aggression commonly occurs as a result of not reading the dog’s body signals or as a consequence of inadvertently putting too much social pressure on dogs. Space can be a major factor!

People also have to teach their dogs a recall. This not an easy skill to teach, but it is a very valuable one. We can work on teaching dogs to check-in and come when called by rewarding successive approximations and using management tools, such as a long line. Dogs will do what gets them reinforcement and this poses a problem with social dogs that run all over at a park. Whether their owner calls them on or not the dog wants to play with other dogs, meet new people and smell new things. After all, they get to spend the rest of the day with their owner and often, being around their owner predicts leaving the park.

To teach recall we need to start by working on the behaviour away from the park or distractions enabling the dog to become comfortable and understand that turning away from distractions are what we want. This takes continual practice. In the beginning this skill can be taught with any dog at home and progresses to being on-leash outside. When your dog turns his head away from a distraction, pay him for it. Payment can be made using treats, a game with a toy, special social interaction with praise and touch that your dog enjoys, or access to a new direction he wants to go. We start with just adding reinforcement to the behaviour of turning away and then add a cue to that behaviour; for example, “come” or “here”.  Avoid using the cue until the dog displays this behaviour consistently at a high frequency. Using recall cues by saying them when our dog is distracted and cannot listen only encourages them to ignore it. The more dogs are around low-level distractions in a controlled environment, the more they learn that reinforcement happens for certain behaviour, and they will be able to function in greater distractions. We can help dogs understand that the goal behaviour is for them to come to us, by rewarding them in our general vicinity. 

The biggest problem with teaching a dog recall is that we want to gradually increase the level of distractions while keeping them successful with displaying the ‘turn away’ or ‘look at me behaviour.’ We progressively increase distractions and then add in distance, as the dog is successful with the each approximation.  Always have a management tool, like a leash or long line, to be able to influence your dog as  we want to avoid the dog not getting the opportunity to indulge in the external reinforcement at the wrong time. Allow your dog freedom and reward him lavishly for any contact with you.

What often happens is we use our recall cue in our house a couple times and give our dogs some verbal praise. Then we take Fido to the park, let him off leash and say our cue and Fido continues to run around and ignore us. The changes in criteria between the house and the park are vast, and the behaviour we are wanting looks very different to the dog due to the distance and distraction level. Start training your dog today for this very important skill and you will see improvements in your dog’s recall behaviour and your dog park visits will be safer.