Elise+Hudson

What fantastic news about the parvo test! He may have coronavirus perhaps, which still knocks them a little, but not anything like parvo. He is just so adorable.. I can see why so many people want to bring him home. I struggle with this at work all the time when I see the rspca animals come through, or the strays =)

Did they parvo test the little guy? I am hoping for you that its not parvo! He is absolutely gorgeous, what a fantastic thing you are doing for him.

Your vet may also recommend ivermectin injections weekly - these work fantasticly, but I would definitely check for MDR1 sensitivity first - your vet should really be wanting to check this with a collie of any sort.

Yay on getting to start running with Esky! I know I have a long time to wait, but I need to lose a bit of weight for myself anyway. I have walked/run friends dogs in the past and it gives you a purpose for running, your right - I feel a bit dumb sometimes just running when I am obviously not a runner, I am very unfit!

Well I have now started running again! I think partly to try and keep myself busy until I can spend all my puppy time getting everything ready! I have been telling myself I have to be fit enough for when I can eventually run my dog - I know that will be a long time, but I am enjoying myself!

Sounds quite a bit like demotex mites. They can be sometimes difficult to find on skin scrapings especially if you only have a small area to scrape. It is much more common to get demodex lesions on younger dogs, not so much in older which may be why only one is showing signs. I would discuss this possibility with your vet.

Haha, yes pretty much! I would choose a merle if given the choice, but at the moment I trust that the right dog will find me, whatever colour or sex. :D

Just a quick question for you - are you flying with Quantas or Virgin? I am just curious about how much it costs to fly a dog in a crate bigger than their 'medium size' - Size: 66cm in length / 40cm wide / 52cm in height Maximum weight (including pet) : 20 kg I will be wanting to fly with my dog in the future, just curious about the costs.

You guys will be completely sick of me when I finally get a pup. My choice of colours would probably be the merles, but I also do quite like the tri colours.

Thanks for the welcome Abrosia! How funny of me to forget to list the breed in the last post! I will be getting an Australian Shepherd at some stage. :D

I can join in here too now! Still no puppy coming my way, but I am looking and am on waiting lists for a two litters. :D I know it is going to take a while, but It allows me to get better organised for the new addition!

:( I know its absolutely terrible. My life seems to revolve around rat bait at the moment and I must say I am way more than over it. I can't wait until this plague comes under control.

We have a puppy preschool that runs out of the front reception area of our vet clinic. The entire place is cleaned down with F10 before the class. I think a puppy preschool at the vets wound be the same risk than going in for your regular vaccinations.

Hey guys - secondary poisoning definitely does happen! We have been having on average 1-2 dogs a day affected with poisoning and around half of those have no direct access to the baits. The zinc phosphide baits are horrible! If your dog or cat gets a tiny piece of this they can die, and there isn't a heap us vets can do to help - often they don't even make it into the vet clinic after eating it. And there is not a heap known about the secondary poisoning form this - I wouldn't risk it though, it is just too dangerous. And you are right - this poison is only registered for rural use and should not be used in town or even around sheds/buildings. It is doing a great job of killing of the wildlife here, all the poor birds are eating the baited grain!

I strongly dissagree that this hardens veterinary students or veterinarians against death. I for one will never forget those dogs I learnt from during my training. I also think it is a bad generalisation that we see 'dogs on deaths door' and don't care because it 'will die anyway'. It is a sad fact of my job that some animals will die no matter what I do to try and save them, but one of the greatest joys you can have as a veterinarian is have a dog come into you 'on deaths door', find out what is wrong and do your very best to help it. I think you will find that is why the majority of veterinarians work in the industry - not because we are hardened and don't bother with our very sick patients.

As a newly graduated veterinarian who myself was lucky enough to benefit from these wonderful dogs we had for our non-recovery surgeries I can assure you that these dogs were firstly treated with the utmost respect. We allocated half an hour before even pre-medicating the dogs to walking them, cuddling them and generally just being friends with them - giving them all of our attention. How many dogs at the pound have 4 loving people cuddling them in the hours before they are euthanased? From a veterinary standpoint I cannot even begin to explain the amount of knowledge I gained through the use of dogs for these surgeries. We learnt huge amounts about anaesthesia, as we were able to be monitored while completing the whole anaesthetic from start to finish. We also learnt alot about the importance of blood pressure and how to monitor this successfully during surgery, but I think the very most important thing we learnt is how to ensure that we are tying off our knots and such well to prevent bleeding. A surgery which may sound as simple as a 'spey' takes alot of practice from a veterinary student and there are also things that can go wrong. These surgeries allow us to practice all of this, so that if we have a bleeder in our first week out in practice (even though we should have someone supervising) these is no stress - we have done it before. I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to know this. (And surely as a dog/cat owner bringing your animal to the vet this would have to make you feel more comfortable than the chance your pet might be the new vet's very first surgery.) These surgeries are never going to go by without controversy in the news and the general public, although I do honestly feel that if people knew the full story - from the pound/shelter to the vet schools, this would be much less than we see now.