dancinbcs

In some breeds luxating patella can be picked up as early as 6 weeks and if the the patella is sitting well and ligaments are tight at that age there is usually no problem later. Apparently in some of the smaller toy breeds though, it can develop as they grow. Someone on here that has a lot of experience with it in toys mentioned this some time ago. Like HD, it is a polygenetic inherited condition so parents that are perfect can have affected offspring. There also doesn't need to be an affected dog in the known pedigree for the genes that cause it to fall into line and create a case. In most toy breeds there are probably affected dogs, somewhere way back on the pedigree before anyone ever started to worry about the problem but breeders today would have no idea where. If the breeder is getting her dogs checked by a competant vet and not breeding with any affected dogs then they are doing all they can to avoid the problem but it can still happen despite their best efforts. If you buy any small breed there is always a risk of patella luxation and it is the risk you take. If you intend to breed small dogs, you also need to be prepared for the fact that it might happen in anything you breed. HD can occur in a puppy with 4 complete generations of great hips behind it, so can LP. this is not somehting that has a simple genetic test that allows you avoid it. The other point is that quite a few dogs have been diagnosed with luxating patella, when in fact the dog has an injury to the stifle joint that has caused the patella to dislodge. If the vet is not very experienced with the condition I would be seeking a second opinion before any treatment. Many vets just jump to the logical diagnosis if it is known to be a breed problem and sometimes even when it isn't seen in that breed.

Thanks for your reply, Stevie is now 9 months old and has been desexed since she was 6 months, I was also thinking she might just be sick of the food she has, I tried putting some watered down stock on top and she was a little more interested, I think we might get some different food and mix it with what's left of her current food, fingers crossed this is the case :-) thanks again At 9 months her growth rate has probably suddenly slowed down and so has her appetite. As they finish growing some puppies continue to eat the same amount and get very fat, others reduce their own food intake. Growing puppies can need up to 4 times the quantity of an adult dog and it can come as a shock to realise they need so much less food as they stop growing. If she is still eating treats she isn't ill. Just offer a lot less food for a couple of days and see if she seems more interested. Offer small quantities and only give more if she eats the first lot. Also some dogs will not eat if it is hot so feed late at night in the warmer weather. Keep an eye on her weight and condition. If this seems right she is eating enough.

Yep, me too.

Perhaps the undesexed animals entering your facility are the ones that are in undesirable or irresponsible homes to begin with. I would suggest that the 70-something-% who do desex their pets are also the kind that keep their pets safe and secure, and do not surrender their animals at a 'drop of the hat'. Exactly. Responsible owners that desex their pets are less likely to dump them at a shelter or in the street to become strays. It is the "don't give a damn" types that get a cheap puppy, don't desex or train it and get rid of it when it becomes a nuisance. Then they go out and get another cute puppy and so the cycle continues. You have to work in a shelter accepting surrenders to believe the attitude of these people. Puppys and kittens are easy to get and just as easy to dump when the novelty runs out. These people are the number one reason so many animals need to be pts in shelters. they tend to put no thought into the type of dog or cat and pick somehting that is unlikley to appeal to to many others when they get sick of it. All puppies and kittens are cute but a lot are not so attractive when they grow up. Then there are the impulse pet shop or online buys by people who realise they didn't really want to have look after an animal. When I worked in a shelter about a quarter of the surrenders were sad cases were the owners really could not find suitable housing that allowed pets or the pets had belonged to elderly people and no one was able to take them when the owner passed away or went into car. These are the genuine cases where more needs to be done to help and most of these animals were already desexed. The other three quarters of the surrenders were from owners that simply didn't care what happened to the animals so long as it was no longer their problem.

I always thought Border Collies where the experts at zoomies but my new Jap Spitz leaves the Borders for dead. How a 3kg, 14 week old puppy can do zoomies for 40 min straight has me beat but he managed it one night a few weeks ago.

My Dog is Friendly A friend just posted this link on FB. Everyone with a dog should read it and it applies to all public areas, off lead or on lead.

Thanks stonecutter. I have been involved with the breed for about 9 years now, helping to handle at occassional shows but finally have one of my own. You have seen my little Tango on FB.

I never thought of collies as being a rare breed as I grew up in a neighborhood of Uk immigrants and the collie was often their breed of choice for the family pet. Then a few weeks ago I was driving through town and saw someone walking a beautiful black tri collie and I slowed down to look and it suddenly dawned on me that it's a very rare sight these days to see a collie anywhere outside of dog shows. Pity, because they are a wonderful family dog. No one on here ever seems to suggest them and they are wonderful family pets and much easier to live with than BCs and Aussies who are more suited to those that seriously want to compete in dog sports.

A Collie Rough would suit all of your criteria. Almost a rare breed these days, there are certainly less of them at shows than Aussie Shepherds. Med-large, easy care long coat, very easy going, easy to train, much calmer and not as bouncy as a Beardie or an Aussie.

From that it sounds like she does not have HD but has stretched her hip ligaments with inappropriate exercise and excess weight. If it is not corrected she could end up with HD. Swimming and walking her in a harness will help with that. Encourage her to pull into the harness when walking. With the swimming, if you can find a dog pool, put her in a harness and drop her in over the edge where she can't get out. Walk around the pool holding a rope on the harness to direct her and keep her afloat until she gets the hang of it. Also supplement with Vit C, about a 250mg tablet a day or a pinch of Calcium Ascorbate powder. Vit C helps tighten ligaments. I had a BC bitch stretch her hip ligaments when she had her first litter because she never slowed down, running around like an idiot. Her hips where sitting a good cm out of the sockets on the x-ray. I swam her, walked her on a harness and confined her so she couldn't run flat out for 3 months and the hips were perfect on the next x-ray. Weight wise my new JS male show puppy is just on 4kg at 4 months, so your girl is big for a JS. They do vary in size but if the vet thinks she is 2kg overweight then that is serious and she needs to have her food drastically reduced. Is she desexed? If she was desexed in the last few months her metabolism may have slowed dramatically and she will need a lot less food than when she was growing and entire.

Lumps of tree thick tree branches or fire wood can often keep them amused for a long time. I find most destructive chewers like to chew wood and prefer it attached to the house (door frames, skirting boards, etc) but can usually be directed to wood pieces that belong to them.

Strange considering the fact that the hereditary basis for PDA has nor been established in any breed as far as I am aware. The siblings may produce the problem but I have no idea how he can say they are carriers. From the few cases I know of in my breed it appears to most likely be a dominant gene so only one parent is the problem and has a very,very minor case of PDA that is not clinically able to be determined. There is no real way to work out which parent unless they produce another case to another partner. Any genetically unaffected siblings definitely do not seem to carry it. I know one breeder who had one case occur in several litters many years ago. Breeding on from those same lines she has not had another case in 20 years. It is one of the two most common heart congenital heart defect in all pure and cross bred dogs (and I think in humans) and is the failure of the heart vessels to separate properly as the heart develops. It is extremely unusual for a murmur from PDA to not be detected at 6 weeks so you and the breeder have been very unlucky to have this missed. In some puppies the condition corrects up to 3-4 months as they grow and in others it gets worse. There is no screening test to avoid breeding PDA, other than not breeding with dogs with heart murmurs. Surgery before the heart is damaged works very well but most people would not spend $5000+ for testing and surgery and would put the puppy down. In the unlikely event that a puppy with PDA is sold most breeders would expect the owner to return the puppy or have it pts and would offer either a replacement or refund, when another puppy or the funds becoem available. This is what the specialist said about it being hereditary: This is a congenital defect. Poodles lines have been studied with PDA histories, and a hereditary mechanism has been proven in this breed. It also occurs more frequently in females. The presence of this defect requires changes to be made to the current breeding program. Both the sire and dam should also be assessed by a specialist via both auscultation and echocardiographic assessment for evidence of a PDA. Small PDAs are not always discernible via auscultation. Either the sire or the dam/or both a carriers for this defect. Not all carriers will have the phenotypic expression of the defect themselves. Unaffected siblings of this pup may also be carriers. I am happy to wait for the money when another litter is born instead of another pup which will be sometime next year. I guess we just hope the breeder keeps their word to that and oh well if not. I am still going to keep them upto date on Coco and send pictures as she grows up and gets new hair cuts and what not as I always have That quote from the specialist is correct but is not what you posted earlier. The siblings may be carriers or may be completely genetically free of the problem and therefore able to carry on the bloodline with no risk of the condition happening again. One of the parents is also likely to be completely normal so not breeding with either parent would be eliminating a perfectly normal dog from the gene pool. I hope Coco recovers after the surgery with no ill affects but I would be wary about doing surgery if there is already heart damage. I know of one puppy that already had too much damage by 3 months for surgery to be an option. If the blood flow reverses it causes damage that cannot be undone. Please give the breeder a little while to digest all this because it will probably have been a big shock to them if they have never encountered it before. Then ask them to consider a refund at some time when the funds are available. Hopefully they will be able to do this for you.

Some dogs are just chronic chewers. I currently have my third one and a different breed to the the other two. The only answer is supervision when they are not confined to an area where they cannot damage anything. When they are being supervised give them lots of things they can chew and make sure you always praise them for chewing "their" things. I keep my dog toys in a basket and they get praised for going to the basket. If they go to chew anything else there should be an immediate reprimand. They do catch on eventually but you must prevent them from chewing your things when you aren't around by keeping them confined with their things. Also rubbing deterants like Vicks on things can help or for outdoor woodwork try Crib Stop from the produce store.

I know of several BCs that have had successful cruciate ligament surgery over the past 10 years and the prices for one leg have ranged from $600 for our vet (who do lots of them) to about $2000 for a specialist. The prices have probably gone up a bit over the years but no one has paid anything like the prices being quoted here. The worst part is not the price but the three months complete crate rest afterwards.

I agree with the bolded bit above. Krystal&coco, if you go ahead with the surgery ask the breeder for a refund instead of a puppy when the next litter is sold. They probably don't have a spare $1300 lying around to give to you now but should have no objection to giving you the money when they get it from selling another puppy. Christina, desexing both parents and the siblings in this case is "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". The breeder needs to have the parents and siblings heart tested by a specialist, just in case they can pick up any with a problem. If the can't then they need to breed them to different partners and have the puppies carefully checked. Almost all cases of PDA are detected at 6 weeks so if they get another one they will then know where they stand with it. This is a very, very unusual situation for a puppy to not be diagnosed until 6 months. The breeder could well have other related dogs that will produce PDA at some time, but one of the parents and the siblings may never produce it. If you aren't prepared to work around genetic problems as they crop up, then don't breed animals. Dogs are a multi progeny animal and nature never intended for every puppy to survive. Simply desexing everything every time a problem occurs would lead to no dogs at all in a very short time. All living creatures carry a roughly estimated 6 lethal genes. Many in dogs have not even been defined yet, so breeding is always a case of Russian Roulette with gene combinations. If you breed enough litters, you will encounter lots of genetic defects and luckily most are detected when the puppy is still with the breeder. Those that are more common in a breed and have a simple genetic basis, have a chance of having screening tests developed and are then easily managed. Multi genetic and dominant genes with incomplete or varying degrees of penetrance, like HD and PDA, are a lot harder to deal with but reducing the gene pool because of one problem always leads to an increase other problems.

I am a big advocate of health testing, having been part of the sub-committee of the BC club for over 25 years that helped organise the development of DNA tests in our breed. BUT, there is certainly a point where health testing can be overdone. Testing is needed when dogs in a breed start to have problems. If they are going blind, you need to find out why and have screening tests developed. If dogs are becoming lame and moving strange than you need to look at hips and elbows. It is just overkill to test for all these things if no one in the breed is ever getting these problems in their dogs. Greyhounds are a perfect example. A Greyhound with HD cannot run so they simply do not exist in the gene pool. Despite their size there is no need to hip score racing Greyhounds. Apart from Greyhounds, HD and ED are very much related to the weight of the puppy at a critical stage of their development. Lighter breeds simply do not get heavy enough to create a problem unless they are grossly overweight and 2kg extra is grossly overweight for a 6 month old JS. Generally most breeds that mature under 15kgs are highly unlikely to have hip or elbow problems unless they are an abnormal shape, like the Bulldog breeds. For the majority of dogs in lighter breeds the risk of HD is so low that routine hip scoring is simply wasting money and risking dog's lives by having a GA. Yes dogs have died having their hips scored. Jess11, I would definitely get another opinion as most "pet" vets really have no idea. You need a vet with experience dealing with lots of breeders. Tell us where you are located and someone on here will be able to suggest an experienced vet or specialist. Oh, and get that weight down fast by cutting the food down and do on lead exercise and swimming to tighten the ligaments without straining the joints.

Strange considering the fact that the hereditary basis for PDA has nor been established in any breed as far as I am aware. The siblings may produce the problem but I have no idea how he can say they are carriers. From the few cases I know of in my breed it appears to most likely be a dominant gene so only one parent is the problem and has a very,very minor case of PDA that is not clinically able to be determined. There is no real way to work out which parent unless they produce another case to another partner. Any genetically unaffected siblings definitely do not seem to carry it. I know one breeder who had one case occur in several litters many years ago. Breeding on from those same lines she has not had another case in 20 years. It is one of the two most common heart congenital heart defect in all pure and cross bred dogs (and I think in humans) and is the failure of the heart vessels to separate properly as the heart develops. It is extremely unusual for a murmur from PDA to not be detected at 6 weeks so you and the breeder have been very unlucky to have this missed. In some puppies the condition corrects up to 3-4 months as they grow and in others it gets worse. There is no screening test to avoid breeding PDA, other than not breeding with dogs with heart murmurs. Surgery before the heart is damaged works very well but most people would not spend $5000+ for testing and surgery and would put the puppy down. In the unlikely event that a puppy with PDA is sold most breeders would expect the owner to return the puppy or have it pts and would offer either a replacement or refund, when another puppy or the funds becoem available.

I used to work in a grooming parlour with two other groomers. All the dogs got bows when they were finished so we could easily look around and see who was finished and who still needed more drying/grooming. With 15-20 dogs in each day it got very hectic and it was a simple way to keep some order.

At 10 weeks he should only be training for about 2-3 min at a time so quit while you are ahead and don't keep going until he starts to play with the lead. Lots of little training sessions are better than one large one a day. Also try to train him to heel without the lead. Then repeat the exercise, exactly the same but with the lead attached.

It seems very strange that neither your vet or the breeder's vet found the murmur before 6 months. They are usually worse in younger puppies and tend to improve or stay the same with age. Rarely they get worse but are usually easily detected at 6 weeks and puppies with a heart murmur should not be sold unless and until they grow out of it. To me this suggests that she may have an aquired heart problem, not a congenital one. The specialist should be able to tell which it is. If I was you I would ask the breeder to go with you to the ultrasound so she can hear the result, direct from the specialist. If I bred the puppy, I would want to know what is going on and if the condition is congenital, then I would refund the purchase price of the puppy as soon as I had the money available. If it is an aquired condition then the breeder cannot be liable in any way. Dogs, like people can get ill with all sorts of things and no breeder can guarantee a dog will stay healthy for life.

Definitely the heavier puppy. He is far better angulated, especially in the front. Hard to tell with the rear because he is stretched out but looks a better shape all over. The lighter one is not just lighter in bone , but lacks depth of chest and width of forquarter and hindquarter.

It is a risk all breeders of bobtail gene dogs take all the time and the one they hate the most. Most homozygous puppies are never born but those that are will likely be deformed and have to be euthanised, just like any other deformed puppy. The homozygous bob tail has nothing to do with inbreeding but inbreeding does increase the risk of other common dog developmental deformities like cleft palate, club feet and heart defects like PDA.

Our vets deal mainly with show breeders so most of the puppies they see are show dogs and not being desexed. They still recommend waiting until right on 6 months (but not later) to remove retained teeth. Most of my dogs have had two sets of canines with the adult teeth forcing out the the baby teeth as they partly or fully emerge. I have often had to wriggle them for a week or so to get them out. I don't think I have ever had one where the baby teeth fell out before the adult tooth started to emerge. The only dog I have bred that needed a vet to pull a baby tooth was 6 months old when the instructors at show training picked up on the canine coming through crooked. The owner went off to their usual vet who charged them a $70 consult (about 16 years ago) and said the dog needed to see a specialist because he had no idea why the tooth was crooked. Before they went to the specialist I saw the dog at a show. He had snapped the baby tooth off and the base of it was stuck in the gum pushing the new tooth out of alignment. I sent them off to a more competant vet who removed the offending tooth stump under GA in a couple of seconds. Within a week the adult tooth had moved into the vacant space and straightened up. So no specialist needed, just a vet that knew what they were doing.

Sorry but I don't see the point in this research when the DNA test is available and has been for about 6 years. Approx 20% of the show lines and working lines in the UK are CEA carriers so it goes right back to the origins of the breed. You don't need to know what lines it is in, you just need to test your breeding stock. DNA testing allows all breeding stock to be tested and then future matings should always have one DNA normal/clear parent to avoid breeding any affected offspring. You can still breed from carriers and can even breed existing affected dogs so long as they are always put to a DNA normal. This is what the show breeders have been doing to 6 years. There is no need to try to eliminate the gene from the breed, you just ensure no affected puppies are born in future. Puppies from a DNA affected to a DNA normal are all carriers, so do not need testing. Puppies from a DNA carrier to a DNA normal have a 50% chance of being a carrier and only need to be tested before they are bred. You don't need to test anything that is being desexed. Working line breeders should also be testing for TNS which also goes back to the origins of the breed in the UK, with about 10% of dogs being carriers and CL which is rarer but came from the one of the first working imports into Aust, from the UK, via NZ. Edited to add that what you are asking is about 20 years behind where we started investigating CEA in the show Borders. If you want any more info just PM me. Happy to help out as I have been working on research into hereditary problems in the breed for over 25 years.

I don't think it matters. I have used the juice and the dog loved it. Also boil some barley and feed it with the water it was cooked in. Great for any bladder inflamation and dogs digest barley very well.