What is on my forehead?
 

What is written on my forehead ... Sucker, Easy Target?
I took Rosie to the vet to get microchipped today. I asked them for something to calm her down. Rosie is a breeder surrender and is very timid and frightened. We are going camping in a couple of weeks and I was expecting medication for the trip.
That's when it happened. They brought out a "Calming Collar"? She is to wear it for four weeks. If she is still timid she will need one for another four weeks. It is called Adaptil. It contains a synthetic pheromone that mimics what "nursing mother dogs naturally produce" helps reduce stress.
Anyone ever heard of this? Time will tell if it works or if the vet got my money.

Please keep us up to date on whether you feel it works or not...im always a sucker for those kinds of things. My Rosie always has an anxiety moment the first hour when we go on driving trips so would be nice if something like this actually worked!

Oh Jan. We all have sucker written on our foreheads when it comes to our Yorkies!! :). Hope it works for Miss Rosie.

ur not a sucka if it works. will be interested to see what you think about it also as lola is always fighting anxiety and fear....do you mind me asking how much it was???

I just pray it works. If it does, that is great!!

I will keep everyone up-to-date on her progress. I do hope it works. The cost was $25. Worth it if it works.
They said she won't have to wear it forever. It is a training tool.

well thats not a horrible amount! wishing you the best results with it.

There is a lot of evidence to suggest this pheromone helps calms dogs that’s the reason I bought the spray before and used it in Ralphie's travel crate; it seems to have helped him. The collar probably keeps the odor at a consistent level, and I think this is much safer than drugs which can affect the central nervous system and of course, the liver. I believe it would be helpful to use the collar in conjunction with some type of training to build confidence. I'm a big believer in giving a dog a job and letting them know the rules. Most dogs take well to walking and a walk around the block can be their job and this can instill confidence in them. Making a dog sit before it gets its dinner can make a dog feel that they have some type of control over their environment, if they obey. they get something that they want. Predictable cause and effects help build confidence. Of course these shy types of dogs can have setbacks if you yell at them or they get scared, so forget punishment, and modify behavior by positive reinforcement and extinction. Wish you the best of luck!

this is great advice...lola will not walk on a leash..no matter how many different ways i try. she will walk with me in the yard and stay right with me but when we do walks she refuses and is in her stroller. i think she was in a kennel or crate most of her life. so it is very hard to give her a job..i cannot even get her to sit for a treat. she has no idea what i am asking of her. shes come a long way in the almost year ive had her but i still need to find a way bring her further along. maybe though ill inquire about this collar. thank you for sharing.

How does the producer of the chemical get pheromones from a mother dog and get it into a form that is breathable?

It's a synthetic pheromone, they somehow get the pheromone from the mother and detect what chemicals/ingrediants make it up.

So they take a pheromone from the mother's urine or sweat or something?

Is she food motivated? Maybe putting on her harness and leash in the house and making her walk with you and give her a treat. The idea is to break the desired behavior into tiny steps, maybe at first just getting her use to her harness.

i have and in the house she is fine with the leash...its when we get outside she will stand and stare like a deer in headlights. she is fine with wearing her harness anytime. im just not sure how to make her understand shell be ok. she fears everything outside which is why i started with the stroller in hopes that she would get used to the outside and the noises then i tried the leash indoors and then outside. im still gonna start all over again with it when we can see grass. maybe ill try plain boiled chicken this time as the motivation instead of treats. she loves that. thank you. :)

You could just take her outside within something protected and give her some Peanut Butter to lick or chicken if she will eat it to help her associate being outside with something very pleasant. If she is too nervous to eat or lick, just taking her outside inside a protected airline or other carrier she feels can be a safe "den" while still letting her experience the open outdoor for small periods of time will eventually, over time, slowly desensitize her to the outdoors. Then you can open the door and let her out and then back in and take her inside. Slow things like that will help her slowly adjust to the scents and sounds of the outdoors and she will come to see that nothing bad happens and in time, should start to take good food rewards to help her pleasant association of food with the outdoors.

Probably sweat. I don't think it would be the urine, she gives the scent off while nursing.

I have never used one, but I know people who do use them and I have heard they do work....maybe not for all dogs, but certainly for some. Some people use a piece of the collar inserted into a 'pocket' on a harness or shirt, and seal the rest back up for later use, and some also use either the collar or a piece of one together with a thundershirt for really stressed dogs/situations. I have also heard of putting the collar into a carry kennel with...not on...the dog...for flying, etc. I have pheromone spray for the cats so I had looked into them after hearing about them, but do not currently have a need for one. I hope it works for yours.

Yes, I think I'd would try that, it worked well with my rescue and make the walks short and sweet. I wonder what freaked her out? Poor little thing.

So from the milk or vulva? And then they take chemicals that act like those chemicals in her milk or discharge and make them in the lab into a liquid that they impregnate the collar for the dog to sniff the aerosolized molecules of the simulated pheromone into its nostrils and then into the bloodstream? Is that something of the process? It is a chemical lab simulation of these chemicals from the mother's milk or discharge or saliva or something? Does a drug lab do this, does anyone know?

Please do update us. I have heard about this but talked to anyone that tried it. We do know Thunder Shirts do work for some and not for others.

Lol, you have more questions than I can answer, I just figured the mother let off a scent when she was nursing and this helped calm puppies. I think most pheromones are hormones and while a gland might produce them, I'm not sure how the odor is presented. Wikipedia gives a basic understanding of them and they have references, maybe one of the references will give you more detailed information. Pheromone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thanks, Nancy. I've read about pheromones and know about them. But I was wondering how they make the simulated pheromones that are in use today for dogs. Do large chemical or drug labs make them out of certain unknown chemicals? I think the D.A.P.'s all say they mimic natural pheromones so it sounds like they take chemicals that are manipulated in the lab to act like a natural-occurring product of a dog. That made me wonders who makes them and out of what kinds of chemicals and are there known carcinogens or potential bad things in them like - oh, I don't know what - arsenic or something really bad - even if in small amounts. I don't know if these kinds of things - D.A.P.'s are FDA-approved or go through clinical trials or anything. Something that a dog smells and takes into his bloodstream or nervous system through his nose that calms him and is not actually from another dog or something natural but made as if it's a drug kind of worries me if there's not much info online about its genesis. I can't seem to find a thing about what chemicals are used to mimic the mother's nursing pheromones - so what are they using? Other hormones or what? It's just a general question for anyone that might have any more info.

I think the average person has a skewed view of chemicals. Remember the elements from chemistry class? An element is a substance that is made entirely from one type of atom. There are 117 known elements. This site has a list of all of them. Alphabetical List of Elements So think of the elements as ingredients in a recipe. Every known thing, including humans are made from these elements. Water made in the laboratory or found in a stream is the same, H2O, and the water made in the lab is probably purer. I'm sure that if you do more searching you could find out more about how this is made, but the Internet is still limited as far as a knowledge source, it's better than it was a few years ago, you won't easily find the sort of books you'd find in a university library. You might be interested in this forum: http://www.pheromonetalk.com/mens-ph...aqs-12544.html

I've never heard of this... Let us know if it works!

Not me. Oh, my, I need chemicals to live - they are usually from the earth - just don't like the harmful ones or even vitamins or good herbs in too large a quantify. I need my good herbs and drugs and whatall. I just hate the ones that contain the really damaging stuff - and when they won't tell or can't tell you what something is made of - I question. For the life of me, I can't find anything out about what DAP's and things like it are made of - specifically, what chemicals(good or bad) are in them! If they are from hormones or what? I've found some manuals with words 30 alpha characters long and such but not very helpful. Was hoping someone on the web had published something for the layperson to read.

That last website is just about pheromones from what I could see and I visited there earlier today in my search. I'm interested in simulated pheromones and what makes up their chemical components - what they contain and their mode of operation within the canine body since they are not actual pheromones. Not much info out there that I can find. Everything says what they supposedly do and where real pheromones come from and all of that but not much on the kind made in the lab.