Coponeinthenuts

Nah I think it was becasue we were one of the last couple of people to pick-up our puppy out of the litter that she may have forgotten to tell us, she was a nice person and we've been there multiple times over the last year while we waited for one of her bitches to have a litter. After doing some more research it looks like an umbilical hernia, plus my missus was abit paranoid coz the puppy hadn't eaten at night and the next morning after her first puppy pre-school class and thought it was parvo (plus she was lethargic and not drinking) but when we took her to the vet this time there was someone else and this vet was fine with it, so I think the previous vet may have been a new/just graduated vet. Yeah I've just been massaging it & I keep an eye on it, when she's lying down or rolling around.

I knows there are a few good kennels down in Southern River area, just not sure on their availability. Than again not sure if you want to drive to kennel your dogs that far away.

The breeder said that they were from the mother, as she was there to help the mother during the procedure. She said one got a rather large one becasue she was abit rough with him and simply because of the size she took him to get it fixed this morning but the rest all have about the same size, but from the article I think it is a delayed closure.

Thanks for the link, the breeder explained it like was written where it says to turn the puppy over and massage the "hernia" to move any gut back into the stomach. Either way she said if we are still worried we can get a second opinion at the vet she goes to (who specialises in German shepherd dogs)

I have brought home my German Shepherd Dog puppy on Sunday (8 weeks old) and took her to the vet for a quick check and also to get her used to going there. Anyway the vet told me about her Hernia and said we should get it removed asap. I called the breeder (who has been a vet nurse for ~20 years now) and she said that all the puppys in the litter have them from where the mother at birth takes the placenta, she said that it should be ok to leave it until she is desexed at 18 months (because desexing a large breed dog before her bones have fully grown can cause a risk of the adult dog getting hip &/or elbow dysplasia). She basically said as long as the Hernia is soft it is ok if it hardens then there is a problem, but if we want we can get the hernia removed early. Anyway basically should we just keep an eye on it and wait for when she is desexed and do it all in one or do it now?

There's nothing funny about this, it's a good idea in fact you've kind of made me think i can train my dog to do this also as my mum has type 2 diabetes and my niece has type 1, but my puppy is only 6 weeks at the moment (so first I have to wait to get it and second I have to wait till it's a little older to train it). But I've read that you can train dogs to smell out cancers, becasue it's a molecular change in the body, and as diabetes is also a molecular change (which has it's own scent change not noticeable to humans unless it is a major change) but I'd say it is definitely possible, I guess it's just first linking the scent to a reward then linking the scent to the action of ringing the bell.

Tracking is great fun and plenty of exercise. RS if you do it, I'm happy to practice with you,we can lay tracks for each other. I'll have two dogs doing it next year hopefully, we can car pool if you want to. This year we hardly got any rain and although a few mornings were cold, you soon warmed up. You do get use to the early mornings to ;) . Tiggy, there was some talk of having a special puppy group next year too. Here is the beautiful pine forrest we train in, hopefully it hasn't all been knocked down by next year and one of Jenna tracking. Earlier this month there was a large fire going through there but I think it was just fire burn off for later this summer. My partner and I are getting our new German Shepherd Dog puppy in a couple of weeks and I was thinking a little later we'd take it to do some track with trackwest.....it'll be easier for us since the pine forrest is only about a 5 minute drive for us.