SOUTH AFRICA'S PREMIER DOG MAGAZINE

DIGITAL ISSUE 17A | 2026

Welcome to issue 17A

Something we kept noticing while putting this issue together is how often the honest answer to a dog question is so much more complicated than the one that comes to mind at first. The answer rarely fits neatly on a bag, a breed-standard clause or a social media post, and whilst the nuance is often more useful, it is a minefield out there for dog owners looking to do the best for their companions.

The Rhodesian Ridgeback’s defining ridge, for instance, has been tied to a congenital defect for decades, yet the genetics turn out to be far less settled than most writing on the breed admits. Sterilisation is a clear welfare good for a free-roaming population, and a genuinely individual decision for one large-breed puppy in a secure home, and both of those things are true at the same time. Finally, the picture on a pet food bag, it turns out, is a legal claim with a number attached, whether an owner reads it that way or not.

We hope this issue helps untangle some of those questions you might have about your dog. The volume of information about dogs can feel overwhelming, but our mission with DQ is to simplify as much as possible without losing the nuance that allows us all to make better decisions for our dogs.

We hope this issue makes for a good read and gives you some food for thought!

Lizzie and
the DQ team xxx

Dr Lizzie Harrison | Editor

Designer | Mauray Wolff

DIGITAL ISSUE 17A | 2026

The escutcheon of the breed

The Rhodesian Ridgeback is defined by a strip of backwards-growing hair. The genetics behind it are more contested than anyone likes to admit

Resource guarding

One of the most misread behaviours

Nose first

KUSA's new scent work discipline

What the bag is legally allowed to tell you

Six things on a South African pet food label that carry a legal meaning, and one that does not mean what most owners think it does.

The poison that hides for days

What owners can watch for, why the timing is so cruel, and why not all rat poison is the same

Two true things about sterilisation

The population case vs the individual case

AskDQ

Your questions answered

The escutcheon of the breed

THE RHODESIAN RIDGEBACK IS DEFINED BY A STRIP OF BACKWARDS-GROWING HAIR. THE GENETICS BEHIND IT ARE MORE CONTESTED THAN ANYONE LIKES TO ADMIT

Every breed standard describes a dog, but the Rhodesian Ridgeback standard does something less usual: it disqualifies any dog that does not carry the breed's single defining feature. Under the current FCI standard, published in May 2025 and supplied by the Kennel Union of Southern Africa and the Zimbabwe Kennel Club, a dog without a ridge cannot be shown. The ridge, in the standard's own phrase, is the escutcheon of the breed.

However, that same ridge has been linked for decades to a congenital defect called dermoid sinus. Understanding what that link actually is, and what it is not, as well as its significance for the future, turns out to be considerably harder than most writing on the breed suggests.

ORIGINS

The FCI standard traces the breed’s forebears to the Cape Colony, where the dogs of early European settlers crossed with the semi-domesticated ridged hunting dogs kept by the Khoikhoi. The original standard was drafted by F.R. Barnes in Bulawayo in 1922, modelled on the Dalmatian standard, and approved by the South African Kennel Union in 1926.

This makes the geography reasonably layered. The ancestry is Cape, the standardisation was Zimbabwean, and the recognition was South African. The FCI describes the Ridgeback as the only registered breed indigenous to southern Africa.

WHAT THE STANDARD ASKS FOR

The ridge must be clearly defined, symmetrical and tapering towards the haunch. It must begin immediately behind the shoulders and run to the hip bones. It must contain exactly two crowns, identical and opposite one another, and the lower edges of those crowns must not extend further down the ridge than one third of its length. A good average width for the ridge is given as five centimetres.

Incorrect crowns are listed as a fault. A lack of the ridge is listed as a disqualifying fault, along with other faults including aggression, extreme shyness, and any clear physical or behavioural abnormalities.

So, a ridgeless Ridgeback, which is a structurally normal dog, sits in the same category as a dog with a physical abnormality or behavioural issue. The standard also closes with a note that only functionally and clinically healthy dogs with breed-typical conformation should be used for breeding. Those two requirements are in tension, and the rest of this piece is about that tension.

THE RIDGE

Dermoid sinus is a congenital malformation. It arises during development if the skin fails to separate cleanly from the neural tube. This leaves a tube-like tract running inwards from the skin of the midline. Some of these tracts are shallow, but some connect to the spinal cord. These tracts can become infected, and infection there can cause pain, neurological signs, and in some cases death. The only available treatment is surgery.

In 2006, Swedish researchers established that the ridge is inherited as an autosomal dominant trait, and reported that the trait predisposes to dermoid sinus (Salmon Hillbertz and Andersson, Journal of Small Animal Practice, 2006). The following year, the same group identified the mutation itself: a 133 kilobase duplication on chromosome 18 involving the fibroblast growth factor genes FGF3, FGF4 and FGF19, along with ORAOV1 (Salmon Hillbertz et al., Nature Genetics, 2007).

The proposed model was elegant and widely adopted. One copy of the duplication gives you a ridge and a low risk of dermoid sinus. Two copies give you a ridge indistinguishable from the first and a substantially higher risk of dermoid sinus. On that model, the breed’s signature is inseparable from its signature defect, and breeding two homozygous dogs (dogs with two copies of the duplication) together is the thing to avoid as it would be assumed to increase the risk of puppies with dermoid sinus.

This model is the one repeated in almost every breed article, on most breeder websites, and in the marketing for commercial ridge copy-number DNA tests, even today. However, the recent literature has complicated the model.

Where the evidence now stands

The ridge is caused by a 133 kilobase duplication on chromosome 18. This is well established and not in dispute.
The ridge and dermoid sinus occur together in this breed far more than chance would predict. This is also not disputed.
Whether the ridge duplication itself determines dermoid sinus is now contested. Recent work says probably not, and points to a more complex genetic basis.
Dermoid sinus has been recorded in ridgeless dogs, which the original model did not predict.
German data show the prevalence of dermoid sinus falling year on year.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR DNA TESTING

Ridge copy-number tests are real, validated and useful for what they measure. They tell you whether a dog carries one copy of the duplication or two, which cannot be determined by looking at the dog, since one copy and two copies produce the same ridge.

What is less certain is what that result now predicts. If the duplication is not the locus driving dermoid sinus, then knowing a dog’s ridge copy number tells you less about its puppies’ risk of dermoid sinus than the test’s framing implies. This is not a reason to skip testing, certainly at this stage in the research process. However, it is a reason to be sceptical of anyone who presents a copy-number result as a guarantee, in either direction.

THE REST OF THE HEALTH PICTURE

Outside of the potential ridge and dermoid sinus issue, the breed is reasonably healthy with just a few exceptions.

Firstly, the Ridgeback has its own form of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy, caused by a recessive variant in the DIRAS1 gene and described in 2017 (Wielaender et al., PNAS). Onset is early, from about six weeks to eighteen months, averaging around six months. The characteristic sign is myoclonic jerking that occurs mainly when the dog is relaxed, drowsy or falling asleep, rather than during activity. Roughly a third of affected dogs also develop generalised tonic-clonic seizures. The variant is recessive and fully penetrant, which means a DNA test is genuinely informative here, and two clear parents cannot produce an affected puppy.

Beyond that, the breed’s testing panel covers ground familiar to any large, deep-chested working dog: hip and elbow dysplasia; thyroid disease; degenerative myelopathy, for which an SOD1 test exists; and gastric dilatation and volvulus, which is an emergency and is a conformational risk rather than a genetic one.

Finally, spinal anatomy is also worth considering. A 2025 German study of Ridgeback radiographs from 2012 dogs found lumbosacral transitional vertebrae in 7.4% of dogs, and found no statistically significant association with hip dysplasia (Slunsky et al., Veterinarni Medicina, 2025).

Lifespan figures for the breed are widely quoted at around ten to twelve years, but we could not locate a strong breed-specific primary source for that range, and readers should treat it as a rule of thumb rather than a finding.

THE DIFFICULT QUESTION

Ridgeless puppies are born into most Ridgeback litters at a low but persistent rate. Swedish work put ridgeless dogs at roughly 5.6% of that country’s population. These dogs are healthy but they are not showable, and for this reason, historically, many were culled at birth.

This was not an informal practice; rather, it was documented. The Rhodesian Ridgeback Club of Great Britain’s code of ethics stated that ridgeless puppies shall be culled, a clause raised publicly by the BBC documentary Pedigree Dogs Exposed. The club’s defence at the time pointed to the following sentence, which allowed a breeder who found culling morally impossible to home the puppy instead. They argued that this made culling preferred rather than mandatory.

The direction of travel since then has been clear (and better!). The Rhodesian Ridgeback World Congress meeting in Sweden in 2016 resolved to encourage breed clubs to remove punitive language from codes of ethics regarding healthy dogs with cosmetic faults only. Club codes have been rewritten, and the current code of the Rhodesian Ridgeback Club of the United States requires that puppies with dermoid sinus or ridgelessness be sterilised when sold. The Rhodesian Ridgeback Club of Victoria’s code now commits to desexing ridgeless puppies rather than culling them.

That is real progress. However, what has not changed is the disqualifying fault in the standard, which is the pressure that produced the practice of culling in the first place.

LIVING WITH A RIDGEBACK

The standard asks for a dog that is dignified, intelligent and aloof with strangers, showing neither aggression nor shyness. Males stand 63 to 69 centimetres at the withers, females 61 to 66, with reference weights of 36.5 and 32 kilograms. The coat is short, dense and glossy, light wheaten to red wheaten.

Aloof is the operative word, and it is often misread. A Ridgeback that ignores your visitors is doing what the standard asks. A Ridgeback that lunges at them is not, and neither is one that cowers. Both aggression and shyness are faults under the standard, and both are worth raising with a breeder rather than explaining away as breed character.

This is a dog bred to work at pace over distance and to hold large game at bay until a hunter arrived. That history produces independence, a considerable prey drive, and a physical need that a suburban garden does not meet.

What to ask a breeder

Have both parents been hip and elbow scored, and may I see the certificates rather than a verbal assurance?
Have both parents been DNA tested for juvenile myoclonic epilepsy? This one is recessive and fully penetrant, so the answer should be unambiguous.
Has every puppy in the litter been checked for dermoid sinus, and by whom?
What happens to ridgeless puppies born here? The answer, and the manner of the answer, tells you a great deal about the breeder.
Are the parents ridge copy-number tested, and how do you use that result? A breeder who treats it as one input among several is being more honest than one who treats it as a guarantee.

THE VERDICT

The Rhodesian Ridgeback is a sound, athletic, strikingly good dog with a smaller catalogue of inherited disease than many breeds of comparable size and popularity.

However, the honest summary of the genetics is not the tidy one on either side. The ridge is not a proven cause of dermoid sinus, and anyone telling you it is has not read the last four years of literature. However, the association is also not imaginary, and anyone telling you that has not read the twenty years before it. The two travel together in this breed for reasons that are not yet fully understood, but in good news, the prevalence is falling.

What remains difficult, in our view, is a standard that treats the absence of a cosmetic trait as a disqualification in a breed where that trait sits close to a congenital defect, while simultaneously asking that only functionally and clinically healthy dogs be bred. The science will hopefully give us a definitive answer to the dermoid sinus question one day, but an update to the breed standard is what we’re far more interested in.

References
• FCI Standard No. 146, Rhodesian Ridgeback, official valid standard published 15 May 2025, supplied by the Kennel Union of Southern Africa and the Zimbabwe Kennel Club. • Salmon Hillbertz NHC and Andersson G. Autosomal dominant mutation causing the dorsal ridge predisposes for dermoid sinus in Rhodesian ridgeback dogs. Journal of Small Animal Practice, 2006; 47: 184 to 188. • Salmon Hillbertz NHC et al. Duplication of FGF3, FGF4, FGF19 and ORAOV1 causes hair ridge and predisposition to dermoid sinus in Ridgeback dogs. Nature Genetics, 2007; 39: 1318 to 1320. • Distl O. Prevalence and segregation analysis of dermoid sinus in Rhodesian Ridgebacks. The Veterinary Journal, 2022; 280: 105803. • Zhang X and Distl O. A study of Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs indicates that the duplication responsible for hair ridge is not identical with the hypothesized locus for dermoid sinus. Animal Genetics, 2022; 53: 231 to 233. • Wielaender F et al. Generalized myoclonic epilepsy with photosensitivity in juvenile dogs caused by a defective DIRAS family GTPase 1. PNAS, 2017; 114: 2669 to 2674. • Slunsky SK et al. Prevalence of lumbosacral transitional vertebrae and association with hip dysplasia in Rhodesian Ridgebacks in Germany. Veterinarni Medicina, 2025.

Resource guarding

One of the most misread behaviours

A dog is lying with a bone or treat, and someone walks past; the dog freezes, and a low growl starts up. The usual reading of that moment is that the dog is being aggressive, or worse, that he is ‘challenging his owner for status’, and that the correct response is to take the bone away and show the dog who is boss.

Almost every part of that reading is wrong, and acting on it is one of the more reliable ways to turn a manageable behaviour into a bite. This is what the evidence actually says about resource guarding, and about the single most important decision an owner makes when they meet it is whether to reach for confrontation or move away from it.

WHAT RESOURCE GUARDING IS

Resource guarding describes the behaviours a dog uses to keep control of something he values, in the presence of a person or another animal. The resource is usually food, a chew or a toy, but it can be a sleeping spot, or even a person.
The behaviours run along a spectrum, from the barely noticeable to the dangerous: eating faster as a person approaches, turning the body away, hovering over the object, a hard stare, a freeze, a lifted lip, a growl, a snap, and at the far end, a bite.

It is worth being precise about the language, because the field itself has argued over it. A 2018 study surveying canine behaviour experts noted that the terms resource guarding and possessive aggression are often used interchangeably, and that this inconsistency muddles communication between owners and clinicians and can affect how well the behaviour is treated (Jacobs et al., Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 2018). The useful distinction underneath the terminology is one of degree. Keeping hold of something valuable is normal. The question is where on the spectrum a given dog sits, and how much of what looks alarming is actually just communication.

Resource guarding in a well-fed pet is not a power grab. Your dog is not trying to take over the world. Rather, he is showing anxiety about loss, running on instincts built for a different world.

WHETHER IT IS NORMAL

The behaviour is normal in the sense that it is common; it appears in dogs with no history of abuse or deprivation, and the underlying instinct to hold onto a valuable thing is one that would serve any animal well in a competitive environment. Guarding food and objects is adaptive when resources are genuinely scarce and contested.

However, researchers have pointed out that a companion dog on a reliable feeding schedule does not actually need to guard, because unlike a free-ranging dog he is not competing to stay alive (a point made by Bradshaw and colleagues, and discussed in Jacobs’s work on the behaviour). This means that resource guarding in a well-fed pet is better understood not as a rational response to true scarcity, but as an emotional response, most often rooted in anxiety about loss, running on instincts built for a world the dog doesn’t live in.

That distinction matters enormously for what we as owners do next, because it tells us that the dog guarding his bowl is not making a bid for control of the household. Rather, he is worried, and we cannot punish an animal out of being worried. We can only make the animal more so.

WHY THE GROWL IS GOOD

The most counterintuitive thing in this whole topic is that the growl is not the problem. The growl is the warning that lets us avoid the problem.

A dog that growls over his food is telling us, clearly and non-violently, that he is uncomfortable and would like us to give him space. This is a functioning early-warning system. The dog that has learned growling gets him punished does not stop feeling uncomfortable, but he might stop warning. He then may skip the growl and go to the bite, because the safe middle step has been trained out. This is why experienced behaviourists are close to unanimous on one point: do not punish the growl.

This is also why the folk cure of regularly taking a dog’s food away to teach him who is in charge is precisely backwards. From the dog’s point of view, when we do this, we confirm his biggest fear: people approaching the bowl really do take good things away. When we do this, we have made the resource more worth defending, not less. In one clinical description, an owner who reached in to take an item was met with a growl, persisted, and was bitten. The dog did not escalate out of nowhere. He escalated because his warning was ignored.

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS ABOUT PUNISHMENT

The case against confrontational methods is not a matter of training-world fashion. It sits on some of the more solid evidence in companion animal behaviour.

The most quoted study surveyed 140 owners of dogs referred to a veterinary behaviour service, asking what techniques they had tried and how the dog had responded (Herron et al., Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 2009). The confrontational methods produced aggression at strikingly high rates. Hitting or kicking the dog for undesirable behaviour drew an aggressive response in 43% of the dogs it was used on. Growling at the dog, 41%. Physically forcing an item from the dog’s mouth, 39%. The alpha roll, 31%. Grabbing the dog by the jowls and shaking, 26%. By contrast, non-aversive approaches such as rewards and additional exercise produced very little aggression.

That is directly relevant to resource guarding, because forcing an item from a dog’s mouth is exactly the intervention a guarding dog most often meets, and it is one of the most reliable ways of getting bitten in the whole list.

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SUPPORTS

Resource guarding is common and appears in dogs with no history of abuse or deprivation.
A growl is a warning. Punishing it removes the warning, not the feeling, and raises the risk of a bite.
Confrontational methods, including forcing items from the mouth, provoke aggression in a large share of dogs.
Reward-based methods are at least as effective and carry far less risk.
A reliable, trained ‘drop it’ on cue is associated with a lower risk of biting.

A wider review pulled together seventeen studies on training methods and concluded that aversive methods, meaning positive punishment and negative reinforcement, can jeopardise both the physical and mental welfare of dogs, and that there is no evidence they work better than reward-based methods, with some evidence the opposite is true (Ziv, Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 2017). In fairness, this was a focused literature review rather than a formal systematic review, and the individual studies it draws on have their own limitations, but the direction of the evidence is consistent across surveys, observational work and interventions, and it points one way.

On the specific question of what helps, a study of risk factors for guarding found that dogs taught to reliably drop an item on cue were significantly less likely to bite in guarding situations (Jacobs, 2018). The thing that reduces the danger is not dominance, but a trained, rewarded, voluntary release.

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD

The evidence-based approach has two halves that work together: manage the environment so the behaviour is not triggered, and change the underlying emotion so the trigger stops mattering as much. Crucially, neither half involves a confrontation.

Manage first. If a dog guards a particular chew, the immediate answer is often simply not to hand out that chew, or to give it in a separate room behind a closed door where nobody has to walk past. This is not a failure to train. It is preventing rehearsal, and every guarding incident that does not happen is one that does not get more practised and more entrenched.

Then change the association. The two techniques with the best support are counterconditioning and teaching a trade. Counterconditioning means turning a person’s approach into a reliable predictor of something good: rather than the person near the bowl meaning the food is about to be taken, it comes to mean an even better piece of food is about to be added. Over many repetitions, at a distance the dog is comfortable with to begin with, the dog’s feeling about the approach changes. The trade is the same logic made into a cue. The dog learns that giving something up produces something better, so ‘drop it’ becomes a good deal rather than a threat.

The mechanism running underneath both is worth stating, because it is the whole reason the approach works. We are not suppressing the behaviour, but rather removing the reason for it. A dog that no longer believes people take his things has nothing left to guard against.

WHEN THE GUARDING IS BETWEEN DOGS

So far this has mostly described a dog guarding from a person. In practice, a great deal of resource guarding in South African homes is dog-on-dog, and it deserves treating in its own right rather than as a footnote, because both the risk and the management are different.

The research bears out how common it is. The same group that clarified the terminology also looked specifically at guarding directed at other dogs, in a survey of thousands of owners, and found that dogs living in multi-dog households were significantly more likely to show guarding aggression, avoidance and rapid eating than dogs living alone (Jacobs et al., Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 2018). Put plainly, adding a second dog raises the odds of guarding, because now there is a genuine competitor in the room rather than a person who was never really after the bowl in the first place.

This is the important difference from the human version. When a dog guards from a person, the fix rests on teaching him that the person is not a threat to his resources, which is usually true. Between two dogs, the competition is real. The other dog might actually take the bone. Therefore, the emphasis shifts away from changing a false belief and towards removing the competition, so that neither dog has anything to contest.

In a multi-dog home the management is the intervention, and it is not a temporary measure while training happens. It is often the permanent arrangement, and there is nothing second-rate about that.

One thing worth saying: the old advice to let dogs ‘sort it out between themselves’ is not sound, and it is not kind. Dogs do not reliably resolve resource conflict on their own, and every fight that is allowed to happen teaches both dogs that the next confrontation is worth escalating. Left unmanaged, a low-level grumble over a bone can harden into two dogs who genuinely cannot be fed in the same room, and relationships between housemate dogs can break down in ways that are very hard to repair.

MANAGING GUARDING BETWEEN DOGS

Feed dogs completely separately, in different rooms or crates or behind a baby gate, every meal, without exception. This is the single most effective step and the one most often skipped.
Pick up bowls once each dog has finished and walked away, so there is nothing left to linger over or contest.
Do not leave high-value chews, bones or favourite toys lying about. Bring them out for separate, supervised sessions and put them away afterwards.
Watch the flashpoints that are not food: a doorway, the sofa, a favourite bed, or the owner’s attention when everyone comes home at once. Guarding of space and of people is easy to miss.
Make sure there is plenty to go round. Several beds, several water bowls, enough toys, so that no single resource becomes the thing worth fighting over.

IF A FIGHT BREAKS OUT

Even in a well-managed home, guarding can occasionally tip into a fight, so it is worth knowing in advance how to separate two dogs without adding a bitten person to the casualty list. The instinct is to grab collars and reach in with both hands. That instinct is how owners lose fingers, because dogs in a fight are reacting rather than thinking, and will redirect a bite onto whatever is closest, including a familiar hand, without recognising it.

The safer sequence, drawn from the guidance veterinary and welfare bodies give, is this. First, try to interrupt without touching either dog at all: a sudden loud noise, or a barrier such as a large piece of board, a bin lid or a chair pushed between them, or water from a hose or an upended bucket. Startling the dogs apart is far safer than pulling them apart.

If they must be physically separated and there are two people, the method with the widest support is the ‘wheelbarrow’. Each person takes one dog, grasps the tops of his back legs where they meet the body, lifts the back end off the ground like a wheelbarrow, and walks backwards, turning in a curve rather than a straight line so the lifted dog cannot swing round to bite. Grasp high, at the thigh rather than below the knee, to avoid injuring the joint. The dogs should then be taken out of sight of one another and given time to settle before anyone checks them over for injuries.

Doing this alone is genuinely dangerous, and there is no fully safe one-person technique, which is the strongest possible argument for prevention. If guarding in a household has already produced a fight, that is the point to bring in a qualified behaviourist rather than to keep managing it alone, and any dog involved should be checked by a vet, since puncture wounds often look trivial and are not.

WHEN TO CALL A PROFESSIONAL

Mild guarding of a favourite toy that resolves when the dog is left alone with it is the sort of thing an owner can often manage with the approach above, plus patience. However, some situations need more than an article can begin to offer.

A dog that leaves his food to go after a person or another dog is doing something beyond ordinary guarding and should be seen by a vet or a qualified behaviourist, partly because a sudden change in this behaviour can have a medical cause, from pain to gastrointestinal disease. Similarly, guarding in a home with young children is not a situation to experiment with, because the cost of getting it wrong is too high. And any dog that has already bitten, or that guards so intensely the household is organising itself around avoiding it, needs professional help rather than a home programme.

Because South Africa’s behaviour profession is not tightly regulated, choosing a behaviourist well matters. The single most useful filter is method. A behaviourist who talks about dominance, being the pack leader, or correcting the dog is working from a framework the evidence has moved past, and in this particular behaviour that framework is not just outdated but actively risky. Ask directly what happens when the dog growls, and if the answer involves punishing it, keep looking.

THE VERDICT

Resource guarding is one of the clearest cases in dog behaviour where the instinctive human response and the evidence-based one point in opposite directions. The instinct is to meet a growl with force and assert control. The evidence says that force is what converts a warning into a bite, and that the dog was never after control in the first place.

The dog with the bone is not staging a global takeover. He is telling us, in the only language he has, that he is afraid of losing something he values. Whether that fear is of a person or of the other dog on the sofa, the good news is the same: this is one of the more solvable problems in behaviour, and the solution is neither complicated nor confrontational. It is to remove the thing the dog is worried about.

References
• Herron ME, Shofer FS, Reisner IR. Survey of the use and outcome of confrontational and non-confrontational training methods in client-owned dogs showing undesired behaviors. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 2009; 117: 47 to 54. • Ziv G. The effects of using aversive training methods in dogs, a review. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 2017; 19: 50 to 60. • Jacobs JA, Coe JB, Widowski TM, Pearl DL, Niel L. Defining and clarifying the terms canine possessive aggression and resource guarding: a study of expert opinion. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 2018; 5: 115. • Jacobs JA, Coe JB, Pearl DL, Widowski TM, Niel L. Factors associated with canine resource guarding behaviour in the presence of dogs: a cross-sectional survey of dog owners. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 2018. • Wheelbarrow and fight-separation guidance consolidated from veterinary and welfare bodies (for example, AKC and Preventive Vet).

Nose first

KUSA's new scent work discipline

Few people are better placed to explain a new South African dog sport than a person involved in drafting the rulebook.

Claire Patterson-Abrolat has just moved into a new role at the Kennel Union of Southern Africa as its Communications and Public Relations Lead, after four years running Club Affairs. Among the responsibilities she carries into the new job is the updating and publishing of KUSA’s Schedules, the regulations governing every licensed dog sport in the country. Schedule 11B, which sets out the new scent work discipline element by element and level by level, is one of them.

She comes to dog sports as a competitor as much as an administrator. She has had multiple champions across several branches of dog sports, won national titles, and competed in Europe with one of her dogs. She is a qualified judge in eight disciplines: working trials (classic), tracking trials, obedience, rally dog, agility, flyball, canine good citizen and trick dog.

Dogs are one of two careers. The other is conservation, where she has spent more than thirty years and holds an MPhil in environmental ethics. For several of those years she managed bird and wildlife control programmes at airports, work that put dogs on the payroll!

We asked her about scent sports, and about the new discipline KUSA is bringing to South Africa.

We’re incredibly grateful for her insights and look forward to seeing the new discipline launched here in South Africa.

WHO IS KUSA?
The Kennel Union of Southern Africa is the country’s national canine organisation. It was founded in 1891 out of two older clubs, one in Port Elizabeth and one in Cape Town, and it celebrated its 125th year in 2016.
KUSA does LOTS of different things, but three main things that are relevant to this article. Firstly, it registers dogs. Secondly, it licenses shows and trials and thirdly, it writes the rulebooks, called Schedules, for every recognised dog sport in the country, from breed showing and agility through to obedience, tracking and now scent work.
KUSA is a member of the Fédération Cynologique Internationale, the world’s largest canine federation, which is why South African working qualifications carry weight internationally.

DQ: For readers who have never tried organised dog sport, what exactly is scent work, and why is
it a good sport to try?
Claire: Sniffing is a completely natural and instinctive behaviour for dogs; when puppies are born, the first thing they do is use their noses to find their mom’s teat and suckle. Dogs love using their noses; just think of how often they stop and sniff items when out on a walk. Scent sports enable dogs to utilise this natural behaviour and instinct in a fun way that leads to mental stimulation and builds a relationship with you as their companion.

There are four basic elements to KUSA’s Scent Work tests; a search using just 10 containers, a search indoors, a search outdoors and one where the articles are ‘buried’ lightly under sand or placed in water. Each of these components has four levels of difficulty, meaning new handlers and dogs can start out with low complexity and build up through the levels and types of searches, as adeptness increases.

DQ: What does scent work give a dog, both mentally and physically?
Claire: Scent exercises require a dog to focus on scents and analyse them; if you think of them sniffing on a walk, they are not just determining whether another dog had passed by, but through smell they can analyse when the other dog was there, whether it was big or small, male or female, friendly or hostile, etc. All this analysis really stimulates a dog mentally and can tire them out in a way that just throwing a ball, and generally building fitness, can’t. A dog that is mentally stimulated is likely to display fewer behavioural problems, such as digging or chewing objects at home.

DQ: What kind of dogs is scent work most suitable for?
Claire: All dogs have noses and are therefore capable of doing scent sports. The propensity to smell is not breed-specific or confined to purebred dogs. Some breeds, for instance, Bloodhounds, have been specifically bred for scenting, but all dogs are capable of detecting and marking scent.

DISCIPLINES

DQ: KUSA runs several scent-based disciplines. Could you give us a quick map of the main ones, working trials, tracking trials, field trials and the new scent work, and how they differ from one another?
Claire: KUSA’s various branches of Dogsport that include scent exercises include:

Tracking Trials – this sport consists only of tracking. Essentially, someone walks through the veld, and the dog is required to follow the track and find the articles dropped along the way. Tracks are laid on cut veld grass (or grass specially planted for animal fodder), a ploughed field or grass being grown at lawn farms. The dog works the track anything from 30 minutes to 180 minutes after the tracklayer has laid the track, depending on the level the dog is competing at. The complexity varies from 2 corners to up to 7, which may be of any angle and may even include curves. It is a fun but demanding sport where accuracy is key. Although open to any breed or crossbreed, the dog must be registered on one of KUSA’s registers.

WHAT ‘REGISTERED WITH KUSA’ ACTUALLY MEANS
Every dog competing at a KUSA event has to be on one of KUSA’s registers, but that is not the same as needing a pedigree.
The Breed Register is for dogs of recognised breeds with complete ancestry records. Only these dogs can enter breed, or conformation, shows.
The Dogsport Register is for dogs of any ancestry, including crossbreeds, rescues and dogs with no known parentage. These dogs cannot enter breed shows, but they can compete in the sporting disciplines.
So when Claire says all dogs have noses and all dogs can do scent sports, the practical requirement is a registration number, not a pedigree! Application forms are on the KUSA website.

Working Trials (Classic) – dogs move up the ranks from Companion Dog to Tracker Dog I, II and III. There is also a Police Dog stake. Each class consists of two to four ‘groups’ of exercises: a Control Group (heelwork, send away, recall, retrieve, stay and gunshot steadiness), an Agility Group (A-frame, long jump and clear jump) and a Nosework Group, which includes exercises such as an area search (dog to bring one to four articles out an area 25x25m), a Search and Identify (dog to find and bark next to a largish item hidden in an area 100x100m) and a track of from 4 to 10 corners and up to 800m in length. The Police Dog stake also includes various protection exercises. While any dog registered with KUSA can take part, it does require a high degree of fitness and versatility as dogs must perform, and pass, all exercises on the day.
FCI-IGP (Internationale Gebrauchshundeprüfung) – consists of an entry-level test known as BH and then FCI-IGP I, II and III. While the BH is open to all dogs, the IGP levels are only open to breeds such as German Shepherd Dogs, Belgian Shepherd Dogs, Rottweilers, Dobermanns, etc. The FCI-IGP levels consist of an Obedience Group (stays, heelwork, retrieves over jumps etc.), a Protection Group and a Tracking Exercise. Tests are usually conducted over two days with the predominant emphasis on precision.

IGP, DECODED
FCI-IGP stands for Internationale Gebrauchshundeprüfung, roughly ‘international working dog test’. Many handlers still call it Schutzhund, its original German name. It became IPO along the way and was renamed IGP by the FCI in 2019, which is why you will see all three terms used by people talking about the same sport.
An IGP trial has three phases: tracking, obedience and protection. Dogs work up through IGP 1, 2 and 3, and the emphasis throughout is on precision rather than speed.
Nobody starts at IGP 1. First the dog has to pass the BH, short for Begleithundeprüfung or companion dog test, which assesses temperament and basic obedience and includes a traffic and distraction section in a public setting. Under KUSA rules the minimum age for a BH is 15 months.

HOW A SCENT WORK DOG BECOMES A CHAMPION

Champion: three qualifying runs at Master level within a single element, earned under at least two different judges. The title names the element, for example Scent Work Container Champion.
Grand Champion: three or more of those champion titles. This is also the entry ticket to the Detective Class.
Supreme Champion: five qualifying runs in the Detective Class.

Titles are appended to the dog’s registered name.

THE WORKING TRIALS VOCABULARY
Stake or grade: a level of competition. Working Trials (Classic) runs Beginner Companion Dog, Companion Dog, Tracker Dog I, II and III, Police Dog, and a Veterans trial for dogs of seven and over.
Group: a block of exercises within a stake. Control, agility and nosework, plus a fourth police work group in the Police Dog stake. A dog needs a minimum mark in every group and 80% overall to qualify.
Send away: the handler sends the dog out in a straight line to a marked point and stops him there on command. The distance climbs from roughly 15m at beginner level to 50m plus a change of direction at the top.
Steadiness to gunshot: the dog must stay settled while a starting pistol or blank is fired from at least 20m away. Live ammunition is never used.
Clear jump, long jump and A-frame: the three agility obstacles. Heights and lengths are scaled to the dog’s height at the withers, so a small dog is not asked to clear what a German Shepherd clears.
Controlled search: the dog recovers up to four small articles from a marked 25m by 25m block of ground in five minutes, with the handler staying outside the boundary.
Search and identify: at Tracker Dog III, a larger article is hidden somewhere in a 100m by 100m area. The dog has ten minutes to find it and must bark to bring the handler in, without biting or retrieving the article.

DQ: The new scent work discipline launching later this year sounds like a real milestone. What will it involve, how does detection-style work differ from following a trail, and when and where might readers first be able to take part?
Claire: KUSA is really excited about launching this new sport, which is based on detection-type exercises. It will see two streams – one where the handler uses their own scent and another where dogs must find certain essential oil scents such as cypress, anise, clove and vetiver. Within each stream, there are four elements – container, indoor, outdoor and buried. Moreover, each element has four levels of difficulty.

Unlike tracking, where the principles of Search and Rescue are mimicked with the dog following a trail to find a missing person or a suspect running away, Scent Work is more aligned with detection activities such as the drug-sniffing dogs at airports or bomb-detection dogs used by the military. Handlers can choose if they want to do all four elements with their dogs or just follow one to its highest skill level. However, achieving three qualifications in at least three elements at the highest level will see the dog achieving the status of Grand Champion.

We are hoping that competitions will be on offer from as early as October, but definitely by 2027. We are finalising the material to ensure the Judges are fully qualified and ready to qualify teams that perform successfully.

THE NEW SCENT WORK DISCIPLINE AT A GLANCE
KUSA’s Schedule 11B sets the sport out in two divisions, four elements and four levels.
Odour search division: the target is an essential oil. Cypress only at Novice, cypress and anise at Advanced, clove added at Excellent, vetiver added at Master.
Handler discrimination division: the target is the handler’s own scent on a cotton article, which the dog has to pick out from an article carrying the judge’s scent, and at Master level a steward’s scent as well.

The four elements are the search environments: container, interior, exterior and buried. Buried searches use tubs of play sand or drinking-quality water with the scent vessel sitting about 10cm down under a metal grid, so dogs cannot dig.

The four levels are Novice, Advanced, Excellent and Master. As a dog climbs, the search area grows, the number of hides stops being announced, hides may be placed out of nose reach, and distractions are introduced. A tennis ball at Advanced becomes food, a sound, a light, a realistic stuffed animal, or a person standing quietly in the search area by Master.
Above all of those sits the Detective Class, an integrated indoor and outdoor course of 200 to 500 square metres with between five and ten hides and one clock running throughout.

GETTING STARTED

DQ: If a curious owner wanted to try a little scent work at home this weekend, what could they do, and what basic kit would they need?
Claire: To start your dog scenting and searching, take his or her favourite toy and hide it in the garden (or bedroom, kitchen, etc). Start in a small area, let the dog see where you are placing it, and verbally encourage them to find it. When they do, praise enthusiastically. Do this several times until the dog understands what ‘find’ means. You can then up the game by not letting your dog see where you’ve hidden the toy but still asking them to search in a relatively small area. This builds enthusiasm for searching. However, in Scent Work you will want your dog to indicate the location of an article, not retrieve it, so you need to also teach the end-behaviour, which is to sit or ‘down’ when the article is found.

Separately from the above, which is just aimed at building enthusiasm, place the toy in a container with a lid with holes in it (cardboard box or old ice-cream tub) and when the dog walks over to sniff it, reward them. Encourage them to hold the position, so you can be sure, on test day, that they have found the hidden scent.

When training by oneself, the biggest challenge is that of scent contamination. For example, if I’m training my dog to do container scent, and I put out a few boxes and hide an article with my scent in one, all the boxes will actually smell like me because I put them all out so which one should the dog indicate? It is very easy to confuse a dog this way. Rather, invest in a pair of tongs or rubber gloves to avoid touching the articles. To start with, you will want some containers such as ice-cream tubs or cardboard boxes for the container search. For indoor and outdoor searches, you will need a small tube into which to place the scent. Initially, it doesn’t really matter what you use (although the essential oils can degrade plastic). Be careful with glass tubes or metal, which may get hot out in the sun.

SPEAKING SCENT WORK
Hide: one instance of the target odour placed in a search area.
Scent aid: the cotton ball or swab carrying two drops of essential oil.
Scent vessel: the small container the scent aid sits inside, such as a plastic straw, an empty lip balm tube or a metal tin. Never glass.
Alert: the handler’s call to the judge that the dog has found something. The handler makes the call, not the dog, which is why reading your own dog is half the sport.
Finish: the handler’s call that they believe every hide in the area has been found. It stops the clock.
Indication: whatever the dog does to say ‘here’. No formal behaviour is required. A turn of the head, a twitch of the ears, a freeze, a sit or a bark all count, as long as the judge can read it.
Blank area: a search area with nothing hidden in it. The dog still has to work it and the handler still has to call finish.
Distraction: something planted deliberately to test focus, from a dog toy to a human being.

DQ: How does someone find a club, class or trainer near them, and is provision spread across the country or concentrated in particular areas?
Claire: They are welcome to get in touch with KUSA, and we can put them in touch with someone in their area. Most of the major centres have trainers or people willing to assist. A few schools can also be found on social media, such as Facebook.

DQ: What does the path into competition look like for someone who gets hooked?
Claire: Your trainer can best advise you on this when the time comes that you are ready to enter. To register your dog, you can search on the KUSA website for the applicable application form. Upcoming Shows (competitions) are also listed under Events > Events Calendars, or you can research them using the search button on the right.

BIG PICTURE

DQ: You mentioned huge potential for scent work in South Africa. Where would you love to see it in a few years, and what would help it get there?
Claire: We would love to see more dogs and handlers getting involved in the sport. It offers so many benefits for dogs, invigorating and stimulating them and enhancing their bonds with their companions. It is neither a physically demanding sport nor one that requires a lot of expensive equipment; it’s accessible to people from all walks of life. The environment required by the searches means that competitions can take place in a variety of places, e.g. the indoor searches can be held in warehouses, office blocks to storerooms, whereas outdoor searches can take place in a park, a piece of veld, or someone’s garden – wherever you have permission to gain access and where it is safe for the participants and spectators.

CONTACT KUSA FOR MORE INFORMATION
Telephone: +27 21 423 9027 (09:00 – 15:00)
Postal Address: P.O. Box 2659, Cape Town 8000, South Africa
E-Mail Address: info@kusa.co.za
Web Address: www.kusa.co.za

Six things on a South African pet food label that carry a legal meaning, and one that does not mean what most owners think it does.

Almost every guide to reading a pet food label is written for an American or a European reader, and we wanted to change that. South African pet food is regulated differently from both US and European feeds; it is considered a farm feed under an Act passed in 1947, and the labelling rules sit in a single regulation made under it. Several of those rules are far more specific than we expected and one of them is weaker than the imported advice assumes. Here is what actually has legal force on a bag bought in this country.

1. THE PICTURE ON THE FRONT IS A CLAIM

Since 2010, images on a pet food label have carried percentage requirements. If the label shows vegetables, fish, milk or eggs, that ingredient must make up at least 4% of the finished product. Cereals or grains pictured, at least 14%. Meat pictured, at least 26% (regulation 22(2)(a)). A graphic or pictorial representation may also not misrepresent the contents of the package.

Most of us read packaging imagery as decoration, but in South Africa it is a claim with a number attached, and it is the easiest thing on the whole bag to check.

DID YOU KNOW?

A picture of meat on the front of the bag legally means at least 26% of that meat is in the food.

2. THE WORDING TELLS YOU THE PERCENTAGE

The regulation sets a ladder of meanings for ingredient claims, based on the finished product (regulation 22(2)(i)). Using chicken as the example:

‘With chicken flavour’: traces of the flavour substance, or up to and including 4% chicken.
‘With chicken’: at least 4%.
‘High in chicken’, ‘rich in chicken’ or ‘with extra chicken’: at least 14%.
‘Chicken dinner’, ‘chicken recipe’ or ‘chicken menu’: at least 26%.
‘All chicken’: at least 65%.

Word order matters too. Where the form of the material follows its name, as in ‘beef cubes’, the inclusion must be at least 26%, but where the form precedes the name, as in ‘cubed beef’, it must be at least 65%.

It is also worth knowing what ‘meat’ may cover. For a meat claim, the material may include all parts of that species except a listed set: added blood, bone and bone meal, bone fractions and contents, meals or greaves from knackers, claws, hair, horns, hide other than pork rind, feathers, teeth, hooves, the content proportion of intestines, and added fat (regulation 22(2)(j)). Organ meat and connective tissue are not on that list.

3. THE ANALYSIS IS AN AVERAGE, NOT A GUARANTEE

This is the one that catches people out, including people who work in the industry.

Until 2010, South African labels carried a ‘Guaranteed Analysis’, with crude protein and crude fat declared as minimums and fibre, moisture and ash as maximums. An amendment in June 2010 replaced that requirement. Labels must now carry an ‘Average analysis’ or ‘analysis’, listing crude protein, moisture, crude fat or oil, crude fibre and crude ash, with the minimum and maximum designations removed. Calcium and phosphorus are optional (regulation 22(1)(g), substituted by GNR 552 of 2010).

This is a real difference from the American labelling most online advice is based on, where protein is a guaranteed floor; a protein figure on a South African bag is a central value, not a minimum.

However, it does not follow that the number is meaningless, and it would be unfair to suggest so. Registration is granted on condition that a product’s composition does not deviate by more than the allowable deviation under which it was registered (regulation 5(1)), and permitted tolerances are set out separately. The regulation is also internally inconsistent: it retains a definition of ‘guaranteed analysis’ and still uses the word ‘guarantees’ in the subregulation immediately after the one that removed them, but the effect is that the figure printed on the bag is an average, and it should be read as one.

Figures are declared on an as-fed basis, so a wet food and a dry food cannot be compared straight off the tin and the bag. Converting to a dry matter basis first is the only fair way to make a comparison between wet and dry food.

4. ‘PREMIUM’ IS A COMPARISON WITH ITSELF

Claims such as premium, super-premium and high-digestibility must be scientifically substantiated by the manufacturer, but the regulation requires that substantiation to be made against standard or baseline products within the manufacturer’s own product range (regulation 22(2)(s)).

There is no industry benchmark and no external standard. Premium means better than the same company’s cheaper food. Two premium foods from two different manufacturers are not making comparable claims, and comparing them on that word alone tells you nothing.

The same structure applies to calorie terms such as light, less and reduced, and to fat terms such as lean and reduced fat. Both are substantiated against a standard maintenance diet in the applicant’s own range (regulation 22(2)(f) and (g)).

Two terms do have fixed external meanings. ‘Enriched’ requires 25% more, and ‘fortified’ 15% more, than the nutrient requirements laid down in the regulation’s own tables (regulation 22(2)(e)).

5. CALORIES ARE OPTIONAL, UNLESS THE BAG MENTIONS THE WEIGHT

Energy content statements are permitted on a label only if they are substantiated. But where a label makes any claim referring to weight control or obesity, it must be accompanied by a declaration of the product’s energy content (regulation 22(2)(q)).

Therefore, a food marketed on weight management that gives you no energy figure is not meeting the requirement. For every other food, there is no obligation to declare energy content at all, which is a genuine gap for anyone managing a dog’s weight. The manufacturer has certainly calculated it, because feeding quantities in grams per day must be based on the metabolisable energy content of the diet (regulation 22(1)(c)). It just does not have to appear on the packaging.

Statements of digestibility of nutrients or dry matter content are not permitted on labels at all (regulation 22(2)(r)).

6. THE V NUMBER, AND WHAT DOES NOT NEED ONE

Every registered pet food must carry its registration number, expressed as ‘Reg. No. V … Act No. 36/1947’, together with the name, company registration number and address of the person in whose favour it is registered. Those details must appear below one another in that sequence (regulation 22(1)).

Not everything in the pet aisle needs one, though. Pet chews, toys and exercisers made of rawhide, wood, man-made material, hooves, ears, bones or ligaments, whether flavour coated or not, are exempt from registration entirely, unless the label claims a nutritional value or benefit such as digestibility or tartar control (regulation 18(1)(a)). Treats and complementary pet foods require no nutritional adequacy validation at all (regulation 18(1)(b)), although those with a nutritional value must still show an analysis and an ingredient statement.

And one thing the label may never do

A pet food label may not claim that the food will treat or cure a disease. It may not attribute properties the food does not possess, and it may not suggest that a food has special characteristics when in fact all similar foods possess them (regulation 22(2)(o)).

If a chew does carry a plaque, tartar or breath claim, that claim must be substantiated (regulation 22(2)(y)). Claims about cleaning or whitening teeth by abrasive or mechanical action are allowed, but also require substantiation (regulation 22(2)(x)).

THE VERDICT

South African pet food labelling is more informative, and in places stricter, than most of us assume. The picture rules and the ingredient percentage ladder are genuinely useful and genuinely enforceable. The honest problem is not that the label lies, but that there is a gap between what the law requires and what we, as consumers, have been taught to read.

The two real weaknesses we found are the shift from a guaranteed to an average analysis, and the fact that premium and its relatives are defined only against the manufacturer’s own shelf.

Yet, these regulations are taken seriously by the government, and failure to comply with them is a criminal offence.

What to check in the aisle

Is there a V number and an Act 36 reference? If not, and it is not an exempt chew, it should not be on sale.
Does it say complete or complementary? Complementary is not a full diet.
Read the front of the bag as a set of percentages. Flavour means up to 4%. Dinner means at least 26%.
Check what the pictures commit to, not just the words.
If it claims weight control, look for an energy figure. It is required.
Ignore ‘premium’ when comparing across brands. It only ranks a manufacturer against itself.
Convert to a dry matter basis before comparing a tin with a bag.

THE BIGGER PROBLEM

All of the above sits in regulations made under the Fertilisers, Farm Feeds, Agricultural Remedies and Stock Remedies Act of 1947. The pet food labelling provisions were last substantively amended in June 2010.

A replacement has been in the works for a long time. The legislative review began in 2008 with the publication of an animal feed policy for South Africa. The resulting Feeds and Pet Food Bill was published for public comment in February 2019, and still carried the short title ‘Feeds and Pet Foods Act, 2018’. Industry consultation was still underway in August 2024 and a further set of proposed amendments to the farm feeds regulations went out for public comment in January 2026.

But, here is the part that matters for anyone hoping the label is about to improve. The Bill as published does not fix anything on the bag. Its entire labelling provision is a single sentence requiring manufacturers to comply with labelling requirements ‘as may be prescribed’, leaving every detail to regulations that have not yet been written (section 23). The Bill would prohibit false or misleading packaging, labelling and advertising, much as the current regulation does but beyond that, it delegates to another section that we don’t have sight of yet.

So even if the Bill were signed tomorrow, nothing about what a South African owner can read on a bag of dog food would change until someone drafts the regulations underneath it. In the meantime, the rules that govern what you are told about your dog’s food are seventy nine years old, and the useful parts of them are sixteen.

Sources
• Regulations relating to Farm Feeds, Government Notice R.1087, Government Gazette 29332, 3 November 2006, as amended by GNR 552 in Government Gazette 33310, 25 June 2010, corrected by GNR 789 in Government Gazette 33519, 10 September 2010. • Feeds and Pet Food Bill, published for public comment under Notice 70 of 2019, Government Gazette 42230, 15 February 2019. • AFMA White Paper on Feeds and Pet Food Bill Issues, 30 August 2024. • Amended Regulations relating to Farm Feeds: invitation for public comment, Government Notice 6998, Government Gazette 53956, 16 January 2026.

The

poison that
hides for days

What owners can watch for, why the timing is so cruel,
and why not all rat poison is the same

The dog seems fine on Monday, but by Thursday he is quiet, a little wobbly, perhaps breathing faster than usual, and there may be a smear of blood somewhere it should not be. Typically, nobody saw him eat anything unusual, but he definitely isn’t ‘right’. The vet asks about rat poison and the owner says there might be some in the garage, but that it was put out days ago, and the dog was never seen to go anywhere near it.

This is the typical presentation of anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning, and the reason it kills dogs who could have been saved. The gap between eating the bait and looking ill is days, so by the time anything is visibly wrong, the poison has had a long head start. It is worth all of us understanding how rodenticide poisoning works, because the knowing does most of the saving in these cases.

WINTER PEAK

As the weather cools, rodents move indoors looking for warmth and food, and households respond by putting bait down. More bait in more homes means more chances for a dog to find it, and dogs are far more inclined than cats to eat the stuff, because many baits are cereal-based and formulated to be palatable to rodents, which makes them palatable to a dog too.

The bait does not have to be reached directly off the floor, either. A dog may dig out a block that was pushed into a wall cavity, find one a rat has carried and dropped in the garden, or, less commonly, eat a poisoned rodent. That last route, secondary poisoning, is real but requires a dog to eat a fair number of poisoned rodents, so it is a much bigger risk for wildlife than for the average pet.

HOW THE POISON ACTS

Blood clotting depends on a set of clotting factors that the body can only manufacture with the help of vitamin K. Anticoagulant rodenticides block the enzyme that recycles vitamin K, so over a day or two the existing clotting factors get used up and are not replaced. The blood gradually loses its ability to clot, and the animal begins to bleed.

The cruelty of the poisoning is in the delay. The clotting factors already circulating keep working until they run down, which is why a dog can eat bait on Monday and look completely well until Wednesday or Thursday. In fact, clinical signs are said to typically begin around three to five days after ingestion. By then the poison is long absorbed, and the window in which simply emptying the stomach would have helped has closed.

When the bleeding starts, it is often hidden, which is the second trap. We expect blood we can see, but much of the bleeding happens internally, into the chest, the abdomen, the lungs, the gut or the joints. A dog bleeding to death internally may show nothing more specific than lethargy, weakness, pale gums, a swollen or painful belly, or laboured breathing. Visible bleeding from the nose, mouth, in the urine or as bruising under the skin does happen, but its absence is not reassuring in itself.

THE SIGNS TO ACT ON

Because the bleeding is usually internal, the signs are vague, and that is exactly why owners should treat known or suspected access to bait as the emergency, rather than waiting for something dramatic to appear. The things that should prompt a call to a vet include:

Unusual lethargy, weakness or collapse, especially if it comes on over a day or two.
Pale gums, which can be a sign of blood loss.
Faster or laboured breathing, or a cough, which can mean bleeding into the chest or lungs.
A swollen, tender abdomen.
Bleeding that does not stop, or bruising appearing under the skin.
Blood in the urine or stool, from the nose or mouth, or prolonged bleeding from a small wound.
Lameness or swollen joints, from bleeding into a joint.

The single most important point is this: if a dog is known or suspected to have eaten rat bait, the right time to see a vet is immediately, not once he looks sick. A dog seen within a few hours of eating bait can often be treated before any harm is done at all, by emptying the stomach and starting the antidote. A dog brought in already bleeding is a much harder and more dangerous case to treat.

ANTIDOTES

For this specific poison, there is a genuine antidote, which is great news. Vitamin K1, given as a course of tablets, replaces what the poison is blocking and allows normal clotting to resume. A dog caught early and treated properly has an excellent chance of survival.

Two details matter when it comes to vitamin K1. The first is that vitamin K1 is a prescription medicine, and it is not the same as the vitamin K sold in health shops, so treatment is not something to attempt at home. The second is that the course is long, often several weeks, because the second-generation baits most commonly sold today persist in the body for a long time. The temptation to stop the tablets once the dog looks better is dangerous, because the poison can outlast a short course and the bleeding can return. The course is finished when confirmed by a clotting test, and not before.

A severely affected, actively bleeding dog may also need a plasma or blood transfusion to replace clotting ability immediately, because the antidote takes a day or so to work. This requires hospital admission.

IF A DOG EATS RAT BAIT

Phone a vet immediately. Do not wait for signs. The best outcomes come from dogs treated before they are ill.
Take the packaging with you, or photograph it, including the active ingredient and registration number.
Do not try to make the dog vomit at home unless a vet tells you to. Some cases need it, some do not, and the wrong choice can cause harm.
Do not treat at home with vitamin supplements. The antidote is a specific prescription medicine and only works against one type of poison.
Finish the full course of treatment given by the vet, however well the dog looks. Second-generation baits outlast a short course.

NOT ALL RAT POISON IS THE SAME

Everything above applies to anticoagulant rodenticides, which for many years were the standard type, but they are not the only rat poison on the shelf now, and the other poisons are not treated in the same way at all.

Two other types of rodenticide matter for our dogs. Bromethalin is a nerve poison that causes tremors, wobbliness, paralysis and seizures rather than bleeding. Cholecalciferol, a concentrated form of vitamin D, raises blood calcium to the point that it damages the kidneys and other organs. Crucially, vitamin K1 does nothing for either of these. There is no simple antidote for these poisons, and the treatment is completely different.

The reason this matters so much to an owner is a fact that surprises most people (including us when we were putting together the article!): the colour, shape and size of the bait tell you nothing about which poison it contains. A green/blue block may actually be any of the three poisons. The only reliable guide is the active ingredient printed on the packaging, or the registration number.

THE WIDER HARM

There is a reason to care about rodenticide beyond the risk to one’s own dog.

The baits are potent enough to kill a rat with a single feed, but they also linger in that rat’s body for weeks to months, meaning a poisoned rat will die but does not die quickly. It grows slow and clumsy, which makes it easy prey, and everything that then eats it takes in the poison. This is how rat bait travels up the food chain and kills the very animals that control rats: owls, other birds of prey, and small predators.

This is not a theoretical concern; a study of predators in Cape Town found anticoagulant rodenticide exposure to be widespread, including in the city’s caracals, and local bird rehabilitation centres have long reported rodenticide poisoning as a major killer of owls and other raptors.

None of this is written to shame anyone; rodents in the home are a genuine health problem, and people reach for what works, but it is worth owners knowing that the most convenient product is often the most persistent one, and that the same properties that make it dangerous to a dog make it dangerous to a barn owl. Where rodent control is unavoidable, there are gentler routes: snap traps, which act instantly and leave no residue to travel up the food chain; sealing the gaps that let rodents in; removing the food that draws them; and, for those with the space, encouraging the owls that do the job at no cost and no risk. For anyone set on bait, a first-generation product, used in a covered bait station out of a dog’s reach, carries less of this long-lived secondary risk than the second-generation blocks that now tend to dominate the shelf.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Anticoagulant rodenticide is dangerous because it gives no warning at the moment it matters, and the signs, when they come, are easy to mistake for something less serious. The owner who understands that access to bait is itself the emergency, who acts before the dog looks ill, and who takes the packaging to the vet, has already done the most important part of saving their dog.

As with any suspected poisoning, this article is a guide to recognition and prevention, not a substitute for veterinary care. Any dog that may have had access to rodenticide should be seen by a vet without delay.

References
• Beauvais W, Cardwell JM, Brodbelt DC. The effect of neutering on the risk of mammary tumours in dogs, a systematic review. Journal of Small Animal Practice, 2012; 53: 314 to 322. • Hart BL, Hart LA, Thigpen AP, Willits NH. Assisting decision-making on age of neutering for 35 breeds of dogs. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 2020; 7: 388. • Hart BL, Hart LA, Thigpen AP, Willits NH. Assisting decision-making on age of neutering for mixed breed dogs of five weight categories. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 2020; 7: 472. • Conan A et al. Population dynamics of owned, free-roaming dogs: implications for rabies control. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 2015.

Two true things about

sterilisation

The population case vs the individual case

Sterilisation is one of the topics in dog welfare where the argument has hardened into two camps that mostly talk past each other. One side treats spaying and neutering as an unqualified good, to be done as early and as often as possible. The other has read a handful of recent papers and concluded that neutering is quietly harming dogs. Both are reading and reviewing real evidence, so the tricky part comes in deciding where the ‘truth’ lies.

The honest position, as is so often the case, is more nuanced than either perspective allows.

At population level the question is not whether to sterilise. It is whether people who want it can reach it and afford it.

THE POPULATION CASE

This part is genuinely settled. At the level of a community rather than an individual dog, widespread sterilisation is a welfare intervention with few equals.

Every unsterilised free-roaming dog is a source of puppies, most of which in an under-resourced setting will not find homes. The result is a self-sustaining population of animals living short, hard lives, competing for food, spreading disease, and being managed in the worst cases by culling. Reducing the birth rate at source is the humane lever, and it is the one welfare organisations across South Africa
have been pulling for years.

The local programmes are real, and their numbers are not trivial. Mass sterilisation drives in townships including Khayelitsha have sterilised thousands of animals, often paired with rabies vaccination and free primary care. Some community programmes in the Western Cape report having sterilised more than 80% of dogs in the towns they cover. This is the coverage level at which a population stops replacing itself faster than it can be rehomed and is an unbelievable achievement on the part of these rescue organisations.

None of the individual-dog nuance that follows touches this key point. For a free-roaming or loosely owned dog in a high-density, low-resource setting, the calculus is not close. Sterilisation prevents far more suffering than it could plausibly cause, and access to it is a welfare issue in the most direct sense. The barrier is cost and distance, not evidence that this is the right approach here.

THE INDIVIDUAL CASE

The individual case is where the nuance lies and the evidence has shifted in recent years. For a specific, owned dog, the question of whether to sterilise, and at what age, has a more mixed evidence base than the standard advice reflects.

Two of the historical justifications for early spaying have weakened under recent scientific scrutiny. The strongest was mammary cancer: the long-standing claim that spaying before the first season dramatically reduces mammary tumour risk. A systematic review assessed the evidence behind that claim and rated it weak, judging that it was not a sound basis for firm recommendations (Beauvais et al., Journal of Small Animal Practice, 2012). The protective effect may well be real, but the studies underpinning the confident version were old and vulnerable to confounding bias; later reviews of the data have echoed the need for caution.

This does not mean spaying has no health benefits. It reliably eliminates pyometra, a common and potentially fatal uterine infection in older intact bitches, and it removes the risk of ovarian and uterine tumours. Those benefits are not in dispute. It is specifically the strength of the early-spay mammary argument that has been overstated.

On the other side of the ledger, a body of work from the University of California, Davis has linked neutering, particularly early neutering, to raised risks of certain joint disorders and cancers. The joint disorders are hip dysplasia, cranial cruciate ligament rupture and elbow dysplasia. The cancers include lymphoma, mast cell tumour, haemangiosarcoma and osteosarcoma. In the earlier breed studies, neutering before a year of age was associated with joint disorder risks two to four times that of intact dogs in some breeds (Hart et al., across studies from 2014 onwards).

THE CRUCIAL DETAIL

The finding that neither the pro- nor the anti-camp likes to quote, because it muddies the water of both arguments, is that the effect is not uniform across dogs.

The 2020 Davis study extended the analysis to 35 breeds and found major differences between them (Hart et al., Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 2020). Small-breed dogs generally showed little or no increased joint risk from neutering. Rather, the elevated risks clustered in larger breeds. For most breeds in the study, the authors concluded, an owner could choose the age of neutering without increasing the risk of these joint disorders or cancers. A companion paper found the same size pattern in mixed-breed dogs, with risk rising by weight category.
So the correct reading of the Davis work is not that neutering is risky. It is that the age at which neutering is safe depends on the individual dog, chiefly its eventual size and breed, and that a single blanket rule of neuter every dog by six months was never well matched to that variation. The same research that the anti-neutering camp cites is, read fully, in our view, an argument for tailoring rather than an argument against sterilisation.

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SUPPORTS

Population level: widespread sterilisation is a strong welfare good. It is almost impossible to seriously contest this (although some keyboard warriors on Facebook do try!)
Pyometra prevention and elimination of ovarian and uterine tumours: real and reliable benefits of spaying.
Early-spay protection against mammary cancer: probably real, but the evidence is weaker than the confident claims made in previous years.
Joint and cancer risks from early neutering: real, but concentrated in larger breeds and largely absent in small ones.
Optimal timing: depends on the individual dog. There is no single correct age for every dog.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN SETTING

It would be easy to take the Davis findings and arrive at a fashionable conclusion: delay neutering, or skip it, to protect the individual dog’s joints. In a certain kind of home, with a securely contained single large-breed dog and an owner who will manage an intact animal responsibly, that is a legitimate conversation to have with a vet.

However, sadly, most dogs in South Africa are not that dog, and importing a northern-hemisphere debate about optimal neuter timing for a show-bred Golden Retriever into a context of free-roaming populations and overwhelmed shelters gets the welfare priorities backwards. The timing nuance is a luxury that applies to contained, owned and monitored dogs. For every dog outside that category, the population case dominates and access to sterilisation becomes the name of the game.

This is the tension, and it does not resolve into a social media slogan. The same intervention is close to an unqualified good at the scale of a township and a genuinely individual decision at the scale of one large-breed puppy in a secure suburban home. A welfare position that only holds one of those in mind at a time will give bad advice to half its readers.

IN PRACTICE

For most owners, the practical answer is undramatic: sterilise. The reasons to do so, from pyometra prevention to the avoidance of unwanted litters to the simple fact of not adding to a population problem, are strong and hold across almost every situation.

The genuine open question is narrower than social media suggests. It is not whether to sterilise, for the large majority of dogs, but when to sterilise, for a minority of them. For a large or giant breed, there is a real conversation to be had about waiting until closer to skeletal maturity, and that conversation should happen with a vet who knows the individual dog rather than being settled by an Instagram post pushing in either direction.

What owners should be wary of is anyone offering certainty. A vet who dismisses the timing evidence is behind in their reading of the literature (at least at the time of this publication). A breeder or forum insisting that neutering will harm your dog has read half of it (or less). The honest answer involves the dog’s breed, its size, its sex, its home and the realistic likelihood of an accidental litter, and it will not be the same answer for every dog.

THE VERDICT

Sterilisation is a welfare good. Access to it, for the people and animals who most need it and can least afford it, is a welfare priority that nothing in the recent research undermines. Research organisations in this country deserve our whole-hearted support in their mission to sterilise as many dogs as possible. Their work is vital and despite their minimal financial resources, they have achieved great success in this domain.

At the same time, the old one-size rule of every dog, by six months, has not survived contact with the recent evidence, and the honest version of the advice now includes the word ‘depends’. Holding both of those in mind at once is harder than picking a side, but it is the only position that actually holds true.

YOUR DOG QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Q: My older dog seems stiffer and slower to get going now that the cold has set in. Is winter making his joints worse, and what can I do to help him?

A: You're describing something a lot of owners of senior dogs notice at this time of year, so you're not imagining it. A fair note on the evidence, though: cold weather doesn't cause arthritis, and the research specifically in dogs is fairly limited. What we can say is that a seasonal increase in stiffness is very widely reported by owners and vets. The likely contributors are reduced activity in the cold, joints and muscles moving less freely, and dogs curling into tighter positions to stay warm, rather than any single proven mechanism.

The practical side is more solid:

Keep him warm and off cold floors with a supportive, draught-free bed.
Consider a coat on walks if he is thin-coated or short-haired.
Keep him moving with gentle, regular, low-impact exercise rather than a big weekend outing, because movement keeps stiff joints mobile while too little makes the stiffness worse.
Watch his weight, since we all tend to feed a bit more in winter and every extra kilo loads those joints.
Rugs or runners over slippery tiles also help him feel more secure getting up.

One caution: please don't reach for human painkillers. Anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen and medicines containing paracetamol can be dangerous, even fatal, to dogs. If he is newly stiff or clearly getting worse, book a vet visit so the cause can be confirmed and proper, dog-safe pain relief prescribed. Your vet can also talk you through joint supplements and other options suited to his age and condition.

Q: My dog barks and lunges at other dogs when we're out walking. It's stressful and embarrassing, and nothing I try seems to help. How do I stop it?

A: First, some reassurance: this is one of the most common problems dog owners bring to trainers, and it's usually rooted in fear or frustration rather than your dog being dominant or badly behaved. That distinction matters, because the old ‘show him who's boss’ approach tends to make lead reactivity worse, not better.

The key idea is distance. Your dog has a threshold, a distance at which he notices another dog but hasn't yet tipped into barking and lunging. All the useful work happens under that threshold, so give yourself room to work: cross the road, turn away, or step behind a car so he sees the other dog without going over the edge. When he clocks another dog and stays calm, or looks back at you, reward him immediately with something he really loves. If this is done consistently, you start to change how he feels about other dogs, from a trigger into a predictor of good things.

Just as important as what to do, though, is what to avoid doing. Jerking the lead or shouting adds a bad association to an already tense moment and can deepen the reaction. In the meantime, set him up to succeed by choosing quieter routes and times, which is one small upside of winter, when parks tend to be emptier, and use a well-fitted harness for secure, comfortable control.

If the behaviour is severe, escalating, or tips into aggression that genuinely worries you, don't try to tough it out alone. Ask your vet to refer you to a qualified, reward-based behaviourist who can watch your dog in person and build a plan for him.

Q: Is it safe to give my dog cat treats? He finds them easier to eat because they are small.

A: The short answer is that the odd cat treat is unlikely to harm a healthy dog, but they aren't a good regular choice, and the size problem you're describing has a much simpler fix.

Cat treats and cat food are formulated for obligate carnivores, so they run higher in protein, fat and calories than anything made for dogs. Two practical issues follow from that. The first is weight gain, because they are calorie-dense and it adds up quickly in a smaller dog. The second is that high fat content is one of the recognised risk factors for pancreatitis, a painful and potentially serious inflammation of the pancreas. It's also worth reading the ingredient list, as some cat treats carry onion or garlic flavouring, both of which are toxic to dogs, along with fairly high salt levels.

The same logic applies to cat food generally. A stolen mouthful from the cat's bowl is not an emergency, but it isn't something to feed on purpose, and it shouldn't ever replace part of a balanced dog diet.

The good news is that the thing your dog actually likes, small and easy to eat, is easy to give him safely. Break his usual dog treats into pea-sized pieces, or buy training treats or small-breed treats, which are made for dogs and designed to be tiny. A few pieces of his own kibble also work well as rewards on a walk. If he ever does raid something fatty and then goes off his food, becomes lethargic, vomits or stands in a hunched position, call your vet, as those can be early signs of pancreatitis.

Q: Why do rescue centres ask so many questions when you want to adopt? Sometimes it feels more like an interrogation than a welcome.

A: It can certainly feel that way when you've arrived full of good intentions, so it helps to understand what all the questions are actually for.

Most of it comes down to matching the right dog to the right home. A centre wants to know about your space, your working hours, your existing pets, whether there are children, and how active you are, because a mismatch is one of the most common reasons an adoption fails and the dog comes back. A returned dog is a genuine setback for the animal, so a thorough conversation up front spares everyone that heartbreak later.

Some questions are about the practical basics of care, such as a secured yard, permission from a landlord if you rent, and the budget for food and veterinary bills over the dog's life. And some, uncomfortable as it is, are welfare screening. Rescues in South Africa are alert to people sourcing dogs for fighting, as bait, or for backyard breeding, and careful questioning is one of the few tools they have to prevent it.

Here is the honest counterpoint, though. Not every centre pitches this well and it can come across as adversarial. A well-run centre should be willing to explain why it is asking something and treat the process as a conversation rather than a test. So if it starts to feel confrontational, it is completely reasonable to ask them to talk you through their concerns. In most cases, though, the questions are a sign that the centre takes responsibility for where its dogs end up, which is exactly what you want from the people rehoming your future companion.

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SOUTH AFRICA'S PREMIER DOG MAGAZINE

DIGITAL ISSUE 17A | 2026

Lizzie and the DQ team xxx

DIGITAL ISSUE 17A | 2026

CONTENTS

The escutcheon of the breed

THE RHODESIAN RIDGEBACK IS DEFINED BY A STRIP OF BACKWARDS-GROWING HAIR. THE GENETICS BEHIND IT ARE MORE CONTESTED THAN ANYONE LIKES TO ADMIT

ORIGINS

WHAT THE STANDARD ASKS FOR

THE RIDGE

Where the evidence now stands

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR DNA TESTING

THE REST OF THE HEALTH PICTURE

THE DIFFICULT QUESTION

LIVING WITH A RIDGEBACK

What to ask a breeder

THE VERDICT

Resource guarding

One of the most misread behaviours

WHAT RESOURCE GUARDING IS

WHETHER IT IS NORMAL

WHY THE GROWL IS GOOD

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS ABOUT PUNISHMENT

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SUPPORTS

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD

WHEN THE GUARDING IS BETWEEN DOGS

MANAGING GUARDING BETWEEN DOGS

IF A FIGHT BREAKS OUT

WHEN TO CALL A PROFESSIONAL

THE VERDICT

Nose first

KUSA's new scent work discipline

DISCIPLINES

HOW A SCENT WORK DOG BECOMES A CHAMPION

GETTING STARTED

BIG PICTURE

Six things on a South African pet food label that carry a legal meaning, and one that does not mean what most owners think it does.

1. THE PICTURE ON THE FRONT IS A CLAIM

DID YOU KNOW?

2. THE WORDING TELLS YOU THE PERCENTAGE

3. THE ANALYSIS IS AN AVERAGE, NOT A GUARANTEE

4. ‘PREMIUM’ IS A COMPARISON WITH ITSELF

5. CALORIES ARE OPTIONAL, UNLESS THE BAG MENTIONS THE WEIGHT

6. THE V NUMBER, AND WHAT DOES NOT NEED ONE

And one thing the label may never do

THE VERDICT

What to check in the aisle

THE BIGGER PROBLEM

The

poison that hides for days

What owners can watch for, why the timing is so cruel, and why not all rat poison is the same

WINTER PEAK

HOW THE POISON ACTS

THE SIGNS TO ACT ON

ANTIDOTES

IF A DOG EATS RAT BAIT

NOT ALL RAT POISON IS THE SAME

THE WIDER HARM

THE BOTTOM LINE

Two true things about

sterilisation

The population case vs the individual case

THE POPULATION CASE

THE INDIVIDUAL CASE

THE CRUCIAL DETAIL

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SUPPORTS

THE SOUTH AFRICAN SETTING

IN PRACTICE

THE VERDICT

YOUR DOG QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Q: My older dog seems stiffer and slower to get going now that the cold has set in. Is winter making his joints worse, and what can I do to help him?

Q: My dog barks and lunges at other dogs when we're out walking. It's stressful and embarrassing, and nothing I try seems to help. How do I stop it?

Q: Is it safe to give my dog cat treats? He finds them easier to eat because they are small.

Q: Why do rescue centres ask so many questions when you want to adopt? Sometimes it feels more like an interrogation than a welcome.

Products we love

Shopping fun

PaleoPet Pure 100% Green Beef Tripe for Dogs

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Lizzie and
the DQ team xxx

poison that
hides for days

What owners can watch for, why the timing is so cruel,
and why not all rat poison is the same