idigadog

What did I win?

It sounds like doggy-dementia. We just went through that for 6 months with our old girl Phoenix First started the incontinence. She didn't even realise she was pooping on her bed or if she felt the urge, it was too late by the time she got herself up. It was hard taking her away to races because she would lose control in the dog trailer and ultimately end up in a mess. She would stand staring at walls for ages until you snapped her out of it by calling her name. It's like they just lose themselves for a little while and don't even realise they are doing it. Phoenix didn't start the heavy panting until the later stages and I think it was because she wasn't as active, fluid was building up around her heart and lungs. She also slept for I guess about 22 out of 24 hours per day. It's so hard to watch them getting old but if I'm perfectly honest, it was harder losing one of my younger boys and not having such a great innings with them. Love her as much as you can, you will know when it's time. She will tell you

Yeah it's not bad for just a phone camera hey! I'm sure if I had a fiddle with it in Photoshop that I could make it a bit better. You can guarantee that if I tried to get the same shot with my digital it would never happen Thanks everyone ;)

All 10 Idigadog boys yesterday. Love these kids Simply taken with my iPhone because it was just one of 'those' moments too good to miss!! Top L-R: Ollie & Spike Bottom L-R: Roary, Sully, Rex, Jonty, Cooper, Rookie, Oscar & Carbon

We are currently down to 10 dogs. 9 adult Siberians and 1 puppy. Food is something we go through alot of especially during racing season when our guys are at peak fitness. A 20kg bag of high performance premium food will only last us 8-9 days but I can stretch that out a bit by adding fish, meat or chicken into their meals. We feed twice daily and our boys are fed in their runs (where dogs are doubled-up) and they all know their turn. They are fed in the same order every time and their bowls are put in the same place at every meal. If someone else feeds them for me, I make sure they know the routine and order as it just makes it so much easier on everyone. Sleeping is easy. We have 5 runs and 2 dogs to each run. There are two kennels and two sack beds in each but we generally find that they will share beds anyway :D Our older dogs spend alot of time in our 'house' yard and will often sleep on a sack bed with blankies at the glass door where they can see us. Unfortunately for the oldies, it seems to be a case of once you come down into the house yard, you never go back up to the dog yard There are some photos of our kennel setup here http://www.idigadog.com.au/kennels.htm. This works for us and our dogs are happy and healthy. Walking doesn't really take place for our adult dogs as we have running yards that they spend all day in. Puppies are taken for daily walks though to the front gate of our property and if one of the oldies wants to come along, then they join in too. During winter, our dogs are trained and race in harness so they get way more exercise and discipline doing that then what I could ever give them by just walking them We haven't tested our limits yet but I know we could easily have 3-4 dogs per run here so that would amount to 15-20 dogs Our dog trailer which we had custom built can easily handle 16 dogs (2 to a bay) or even more for those who like to curl up with each other. Bit scary really to think how many we could have!!!

We missed the race this year - we go down every year for our anniversary and left a few days before the race started coz I had to get back for uni Yep that is the giant pile of snow, it had been there for a few days and when OH saw someone had dug a tunnel through it he got really excited and we spent an hour playing there with the dogs (he's the photographer of the family!). We've got more snow photos HERE - last year and this year. The dogs love it there (and OH is trying to wear me down on the idea of moving there ) PD is going to come and watch the racing next year. Aren't you PuddleDuck

8 out of our 10 dogs have had their dew claws removed. Like SH said, keeping booties on the two that have them, can be a real challenge. We have new pups on the ground now and they will be done as well. I know it's very common for working line Sibes to have them removed, but not so much for the show lines.

You can give him a Claratyne if you have any.

Make sure you use Benadryl Original Formula. The chemist will have it behind the counter, not on the shelf. When our guys had KC this year (5 weeks of it by the time it went through 10 dogs ) we were making up a mix of Peppermint Tea and Manuka Honey. Make sure you get the highest factor honey that you can buy from the health food shop. We were also loading all of them up on Vitamin C but our vet said that dogs don't absorb it like humans and some primates do so it probably wasn't necessary. Just made us feel better giving it to them :D A couple of our dogs ended up on AB's because they couldn't shake it and we were worried about pneumonia. Just note though that not all AB's get to the source of KC and you will need to get something with Doxycycline in it like Vibravet. Only use AB's if you really need to otherwise most dogs shake it themselves. It's a bit like humans having the flu.

Phew!! So glad coat colour isn't an important factor in my breed of choice. I'd be up s#@t street otherwise

I'm pretty sure the snakes around here have decided this year that they want to give me a nervous breakdown

Thanks Esky. Given how many black & white Sibes we have, it's nice to get a bit of variety every now and then

If only hey :D I truly don't mind the snakes being on the rest of our property but why can't they just ping off out of the dog yards and house yard

And just for SnowPaws - this is Echo, a white Siberian

You should have given me a nudge PF. I only just found this thread Taxi - an Agouti Roary - an Agouti Piebald Jonty - a White & Grey Piebald Stig - a Sable & White Splash Coat The result of mating an Agouti bitch to a Grey & White Piebald (Jonty) - Two White/Black Piebalds, two Wolf Grey's, one Sable/White Splash Coat and one Agouti Piebald (who is Roary )

You're not friggin wrong!!! Another plus is there is alot of snow that we can run our puppies on I did more cleaning up and snake proofing today. Over it

Thanks everyone. It's a week today since we said goodbye to Phoenix. Missing her badly and still

Cheers!

Agreed! Would you mind posting a piccie of what you've done please? I'm just not sure what more I can do around here :p

Re the antihistamine - I don't know! We live about 25 minutes from the vet and by the time we got him in there it would have been close to 45-50 minutes so they had to act fast. I must ask them next time Your poor Buster. Yes I can imagine that it has aged him. Two hits in quick succession, he's lucky to be still here with you :p Our dogs are Siberians, so high prey drive and buckley's chance of them ever leaving a snake alone!!

Aww poor Buster. It's such an awful thing to go through. Rookie reacted really badly to the anti-venom. The second vial was actually put into his drip and given to him over a period of 5-6 hours. The black tar that he produced for the next two weeks was absolutely disgusting. Rookie's sister was bitten by a Red Belly about a month ago. She developed a severe infection and was kept sedated at the vets for about a week and a half. I had never heard of a dog reacting that bad to a black snake. I worry greatly as to what damage has been done to her internal organs and whether she will be able to race again in the future. She doesn't live with me so I don't know all the details as to what her bloods revealed.

We have been told that also. Snakes at the beginning of the season have a higher concentration of venom because they have just awoken from winter hibernation. Not sure if it's true though as our boy Drifter was killed mid March, which is towards the end of the season no? Pretty sure Drifter was bitten around the mouth and that's why we lost him so quickly. As to where Sully was bitten, we have no idea but we're guessing that he copped maybe the second or third hit from the same snake that killed Drifter. Sully did not show any signs of venimation until 14 hours after I found them with the snake :p Rookie was bitten on the chest by the brown and we only know that because we saw it happen. Lots of fur there but it certainly didn't protect him. Two vials of anti-venom for that little mishap

Cooper must have got it at the right moment. He bit it in half ;) before I could get to him. It would have been over a metre long. We had a brown get into the yard in January and that was when Rookie was bitten. Two days in ICU and he recovered really well. March was a baby tiger which would have been no thicker than my ring finger and less than a foot long. It killed Drifter and also put Sully into ICU for two days. How did they get in? We have no idea Our yards have shade mesh (the thickest grade you can buy) all the way up the cyclone fencing as well as buried a foot into the ground. Gaps have been filled up with bird netting that has been scrunched so tightly you would have a hard time getting it out. Unfortunately, I have now gone to the extent of putting bird netting all around the bottom of our dog yards. I didn't want to do it, and I know what people think of those that use it, but you know what, when it comes to protecting my family I will go to any length ;) We check the netting twice a day to make sure there are no lizards caught and IF by chance we get a snake in it, well I'm afraid that I will be jumping for joy. The tiger snake that was in Caleb's yard, we think may have been in the retaining wall over winter and it wouldn't surprise me if it was from the same batch as the baby one we had in March. So I guess in essence I have trapped them in but what else can I do?

We have our dog yards and house yard completely snake proofed - or so we thought! Three snake bites this year over January and March which resulted in losing one of our gorgeous yearlings, Drifter. Last Friday, I had the 10 week old puppy in our house yard as my four year old son was playing with him while I was doing poo-patrol (as you do ;) ). I decided to let the puppy's sire into the house yard as well and not even 5 minutes later, he had caught a bleedin tiger snake Where he found it, was less than 2 metres from where Caleb has his digging pit with all his trucks and cars. Someone must have been watching over us because if Cooper hadn't found it, I hate to think what may have happened. Needless to say, Cooper was the hero of the moment and I cannot believe he wasn't bitten or worse, that the snake didn't get the puppy or Caleb ;)