Why do I need a dot at the end of my lookup?

[Thomas Kinghorn [MTNNS -Rosebank]]

Hi List
I am having issues with my dns server adding a "int.domain.name" to the
end of each request.

See below:

Query was c:\nslookup www.cisco.com server.domain.name

A TCP dump on server shows:

Host.domain.name.1959 > server.domain.name.domain:  2+ A?
www.cisco.com.int.domain.name. (45) [tos 0x28] 
10:56:53.125569 host.domain.name.1960 > server.domain.name.domain:  3+
A? www.cisco.com. (31) [tos 0x28] 
10:56:53.126579 server.domain.name.domain > host.domain.name.1960:  3
1/2/0 A www.cisco.com (83) (DF)

This is causing a  "dns request timeout: Timout was 2 seconds " error on
each lookup.

However, if you add a dot to the end of the query, the problem goes
away.

So I am assuming the server is trying to qualify each request, even
though it is qualified.

How do I rectify this?

I have googled but find nothing usefull (or that works)

Regards, 
Tom