In Dog We Trust

The oldest known evidence of human domestication of dogs is approximately 14,000 years old. Only a jawbone with some teeth attached, it was found in the 1950's buried under the floor of a cave in the region we now call Iraq, and wasn't properly dated until 1974. In his excellent book The Intelligence of Dogs, Stanley Coren finishes the tale:

"... the importance and age of this fossil were not recognized at first. This is because the fossil was of a dog so similar to contemporary dogs that the archaeologists thought a modern dog must have wandered into the ancient cave site and died there."

It is safe to say that were you knapping your flint spear head by the fire in paleolithic times, the dog curled up next to you would be indistinguishable in appearance and behaviour from one you might meet on any street in the world.

History and myth world wide abounds with stories underlining the importance of the dog in human history. Referring once again to The Intelligence of Dogs, Stanley Coren reveals this:
"According to the Kato Indians of California, the god Nagaicho created the world. First he erected four great pillars at the corners of the sky to hold it up and to expose the earth. Then he began a casual stroll around this new world and proceeded to create the things to fill it. The myth specifies how man and woman were made of earth, how the creeks and rivers were made by Nagaicho's dragging feet, how each animal was made and placed in its proper spot in the world - each animal, that is, except the dog. Nowhere in the story is there any mention of Nagaicho, the creator, creating the dog. Rather, when Nagaicho first started on his walk, he took a dog with him: God already had a dog."

Giardia and Hiking With Your Dog

In late July of 2001 Cinders and I were on a training exercise in a rugged region at the far northern end of Lunenburg County (the picture at left was taken that day). In the course of the trip Cinders stepped into what appeared to be a mass of wet dead leaves filling a crack in the granite outcropping we were traversing only to find out that it was actually a mass of dead leaves floating at the top of a very deep puddle of water filling a gap in the outcropping. She plunged in head first and I grabbed her harness in time to help her out before the rest of her went in.

Her entire front end was coated in a brown mess of rotted leaves that I took her to a nearby clear running stream to wash off. Soon, with Cinders restored to her former beauty, fresh smelling and no worse for wear, we continued on with what was a very enjoyable day.

That evening I noticed that Cinders was showing signs of a rapidly developing eye infection and was holding her head in a way that pointed to an ear infection on the same side of her head. Prepared for this sort of thing, I treated both and resolved to take her to our vet the next day. Later that evening she vomited back her entire meal and pretty much simultaneously developed explosive bouts of liquid diarrhea.

At the time I had six dogs of my own and four more were visiting from Florida with their owner who was trained as a veterinary technician. By the time I got Cinders to our vet the following morning she was dangerously dehydrated and several of the other dogs had also begun to show symptoms of diarrhea and vomiting, undoubtedly infected through use of the common water bowl.

Over the next five days there was little rest in my house. Stool samples were tested for all the normally encountered parasites and microbes, a couple of antibiotics were tried to little affect (except Cinders' eye and ear infections cleared), and each one of the eight dogs that had become ill was administered subcutaneous fluids every few hours to keep them hydrated. Without this latter procedure, administered by a qualified vet tech whom The Gods had decreed would "happen" to be visiting my house at the time, I have no doubt that some, if not all, of the affected dogs would have died.

After five days of little sleep, filled with treating sick dogs, cleaning up vomit and decontaminating a yard awash in liquid feces, I asked my vet if he had tested for giardia. He told me no, that there had never been any cases of giardiasis, the intestinal infection caused by the giardia parasite, documented in Nova Scotia. I presented him with a stool sample and asked him to humour me. The sample was couriered to PEI where, you guessed it, it tested positive for giardia cysts.

All the infected dogs were put on an antibiotic known to be specifically effective in the treatment of giardiasis and almost instantly showed improvement. The effect was like night and day. Diarrhea stopped so suddenly that my yellow Labrador retriever Sherlock got nicknamed "No Shit Sherlock" for a short time. In the end all was well.

The lesson here is that giardia is common THROUGHOUT North America including ALL parts of Canada. When hiking with your dog you should avoid letting them drink from or play in water that you wouldn't drink from or play in yourself. Easier said than done with real dogs in the real world I realize, but just be aware and if there is exposure you should note the location of the possible infection source as well as the time of exposure and watch over the next couple of days for any of the symptoms I described here. Giardiasis responds well to appropriate treatment so administering antibiotics prophyllactically isn't necessary, but PROMPT testing and treatment if they do appear IS.

Now get out there, pay attention, and play safe.

A Blast From the Past

The following article first appeared in the 27 January 1999 edition of the Lunenburg "Progress Enterprise" At the time this occurred, our Whynacht Security & Survival alarm monitoring station was the central dispatch centre for both the Lunenburg and District Fire Department and the Lunenburg - Mahone Bay Police Service. Randy personally processed this call and hastens to add that the reason he "... dispatched the fire department after receiving two calls about the dogs ...." as the article states is that the calls came in back to back and had to be answered before he could initiate any response.

We are happy to report that both dogs named in the article weren't at SHAID long before they were adopted. As of today's date, their litter mate Dusty (picture at left) is 11 years old and still going strong as the grand old man of our pack. How he got to be here is a story for another post.

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Firefighters Rescue Dogs

Theresa Hawkesworth
Lighthouse staff

LUNENBURG - Man was dog's best friend last week as Lunenburg firefighters rescued two puppies from the Back Harbour.

Now those dogs need another friend.

When "Pete" and "Martha" fell through the ice near Sawpit Wharf January 21, Lunenburg firefighters responded.

They arrived with the department's Rescue Alive board and managed to pull the dogs to safety.

After the dogs recovered at dispatcher Randy Whynacht's home, they were taken to the Shelter for Homeless Animals in Distress (S.H.A.I.D.). Now they need homes.

"They're very nice dogs. They're very adoptable dogs," said Mr. Whynacht, who owns one of their litter mates. His company, Whynacht Security, dispatched the fire department after receiving two calls about the dogs.

"We had no qualms about paging this out as a water rescue page. The fire department rolled on it as if it were you or me in the water. They got there, they deployed without hesitation. They grabbed those dogs and got them out of the water," he said. "It was really quite impressive."

When the fire department arrived, the dogs were surrounded by ice about 100 feet from shore. Whining and barking, one unsuccessfully attempted to climb onto the ice.

"In this scenario the dogs were in pretty rough shape," said Mr. Whynacht. "One of them had gone under for the second time. He was getting pretty weak and unable to hang on much longer."

Firefighter John Lohnes manned the department's Rescue Alive board. The ice was so thin, the board would not slide across the ice as intended.

"The Rescue Alive board is built in such a way that you can basically run across the ice between the rails, but yesterday the ice was so thin, we had to physically break through the ice and push our way out," said Lunenburg Fire Chief Terry Conrad. "The kind of ice that we encountered yesterday is probably the most dangerous and hardest to recover type of ice that there is."

Whistling to lure the dogs closer, Mr. Lohnes pulled them on board. It took only seconds for firefighters on shore to pull them to safety.

"The retrieval is very, very quick," he said.

The Lunenburg Fire Department bought Rescue Alive just over a year ago after receiving an anonymous donation. Though firefighters have trained and practiced with it, Pete and Martha were their first live victims.

"We always knew we had the possibility to use it to save lives. I guess I never, ever thought that we would be out rescuing dogs on it, but I guess if we can rescue a dog, that can give us no help at all, rescuing a human should be much easier," said Mr. Conrad.

Knowing he would probably end up with the dogs overnight, Mr. Whynacht also responded to the call. He and his wife, who have four dogs of their own, often hold lost or stray dogs found in the Lunenburg-Mahone Bay area until the owner calls or the dog control officer can transport them to S.H.A.I.D.

"I was just arriving when the second dog was being pulled out of the water," he said. "They had been in the water for awhile."

Siblings, the six- to eight-month-old dogs are thought to be a cross between Black Labrador Retriever and Border Collie. Mr. Whynacht thinks the male fell through the ice first.

"The female recovered very quickly. It only took about half an hour and she was up wagging her tail and running around," he said. "The other one we worked on for at least an hour and he was still shivering after that."

Mr. Whynacht called veterinarian Dr. David Evans to make sure he was treating the dogs properly. The male, spastic, uncoordinated and shivering, was suffering from hypothermia so he held him, covered him with blankets and used a blow dryer, at low heat, to dry his fur.

"And a lot of comforting. In about an hour's time he was able to have a little something to eat, a little something to drink and about an hour after that he was up wagging his tail."

"(The next morning) they were bright eyed and bushy tailed," said Mr. Whynacht.

Police and South Shore Emergency Medical Care also responded to the call.

Who Are We?

Randy L. Whynacht

President and Director of Operations for Whynacht Security & Survival, Randy has been a professional security consultant since 1981, and a survival/self-reliance instructor since 1983. Randy has been training and rehabilitating dogs since 1994.










Diana Kleszczynski

A native of Poland, Diana grew up in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. A professional consultant to Whynacht Security & Survival in surveillance technology and IT security since 2003, Diana has been training and rehabilitating dogs since 2002.






More detailed biographies are on the Whynacht Security & Survival website.

Working as a team., Diana and Randy give their clients the skills required to bring balance and joy back to the dog/human relationship.