Friday, January 25, 2013

What a Load of Tripe

Last summer when we had a couple of training sessions with dog trainer extraordinaire, Laurie, we worked mostly on preparing Ray for the addition of a baby in the house but at the end of one of the sessions, she asked if there was anything  else we wanted her  to work on.  Weeeellll, at seven months old, Ray still would not got down the stairs and at his weight it was getting to be more and more of an issue.  I had tried luring him down with treats on each stair, coaxing with a toy, etc., to no avail.  As she went out to her car and dug in the trunk, I wondered what she was going to bring us.  I was sure she was going to teach me some magical technique that I could work on with Ray.  Would we start at the landing and work our way up and down from there? 

She came  back with a can.  A can of some magical, disgusting, vile, green goo that she popped open and waved around above Ray's nose working  him up to an excited frenzy, she wafted the scent around his snout, gave him a small lick from the can and let him chase her up and down the stairs.  Up. and. down. the. stairs.  Twice.

photo from pet360.com




Green beef tripe is a magical, disgusting (did I mention magical) mess that seems to make Ray do anything you want him to do.  After that session, Ray never hesitated around stairs again.  From what I can tell, though, this horrible can of innards is only available by the case and really?  I don't want a case of green tripe.  Just having an opened can in the fridge was terrible enough.  Remembering that, however, I decided to look for some tripe in the form of treats.  I figured it was worth a shot to maybe find some tripe in handy treatable morsels to aid in training. 


At my last visit to Mr Chewy, I ordered some Tripe Treats by Petkind which I thought might do the trick.  I was hoping they were small enough to make into training treats and I was excited enough to not read too carefully.

(Photo from Amazon)

These are not small and they are not easily broken, so they are more of a "go to your mat" treat to settle rather than a small tidbit to reward with.  That's ok, because Ray loves his tripe and a bag of these should last well over a week if given once a day, which I doubt we'll do.  In the meantime, I'll keep looking for some smelly, bite-sized tripe, I guess.

Have you ever used tripe?  What kind of results did you achieve?



13 comments:

  1. That is so funny! Yuck is right! Those tripe treats look a little better than the case of cans anyway! Hey, whatever works :-)

    Oink oink,
    Katie and Coccolino the mini pig

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  2. We've never tried it with Athena, but I'm sure she would love it! I will have to look around for some at the different pet stores around town to see if I spot any bite sized treats. I'll let you know if I ever spot any!

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  3. Tripe is awesome! Not only is it the stinkiest thing to come in a can, but it's also great for their health, full of digestive enzymes. I use it as part of our Kong concoctions and highly recommend it to anyone who needs to get a sick dog to start eating again.

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    Replies
    1. I know he loves it, but it's hard to give to him without retching. :-)

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  4. I've never seen it before, but by your description it sounds very stinky!

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  5. Wow gross, never seen tripe in stores that I know of! Norman hates getting in the car and it's always a game of placing treats at the right spot on the seat and making sure he knows they are there and then waiting another minute or so for him to decide it's worth it. Maybe I need a can of tripe!

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    Replies
    1. It is truly miracle stuff. Even the dried tripe sticks which STINK are very good incentive.

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  6. Love the new blog look! We haven't tried anything like tripe yet...but maybe if we really need some good incentive for something we'll turn to it!

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  7. I don't fink wez get thoze can'z here but wez sure could do wiff some..BOL I just can't get Humom to do what I want her to do..BOL xx00xx

    Mollie and Alfie

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  8. I've never tried tripe, partly because our dogs don't get any beef. (It's beef... right?)
    When we adopted Hades he wouldn't go down our stairs but he would go up. Jay carried him for a couple days and then one day he ran down magically like his butt was on fire. I don't think we tried any tactics with him, I think we were just lucky he got over it quick.

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  9. Mom almost got some green beef tripe for me, but then I guess she changed her mind. Maybe she will change it back again; this stuff sound Delicious! :)

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  10. IT's a pity you live so far away as my training treats would be ideal!! http://www.waggfoods.com/products/UK/wagg-training-treats-chicken-cheese O well a good reason to move to the UK i think! BOL

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