Staranais

Oh wow, I think I need to transfer to your school (except that I hopefully only have 5 months of this left!)

Rajacadoo, no thio for sighthounds. As for which other induction agent is best to use, it is impossible to give a blanket recommendation as it depends on a couple of things. All anaesthetic agents have different adverse effects - they are basically controlled poisoning of the central nervous system, they can also depress the respiratory system, and affect the liver, kidneys and cardiovascular system in different ways. Animals with different health conditions may therefore benefit from different anaesthetic agents. But most importantly, the anaesthetic agent that a vet or tech is most familiar with is often the safest. My (very knowledgeable) anaesthesia lecturer has a favourite saying: "there are no safe anaesthetic agents, and no safe anaesthetic protocols. There are only safe anaesthetists".

I'm sorry

Hope you are better soon!

I wish we were the same - I'm at the only vet school in the country & we have a no pets on campus rule (unless they are specifically there for treatment at the clinic). When I'm on a 24 hour watch caring for someone else's sick dog, it would be very convenient to be able to have my dog on campus with me!

I think Sandgrubber is American. The internet is international, remember.

Most important thing is to regularly monitor your bitch's mammary glands, especially the rear ones, and especially as she ages. Approx 50% of mammary tumours are malignant, many of those metastasise to the lungs. Tumours detected earlier are less likely to have metastasised & more likely to be successfully treated by excision. Giving megestrol acetate ("Suppress") or other progestins increase the risk of mammary cancer. Bitches that are obese at a young age are also more likely to eventually suffer from mammary cancer, and the type of food you feed may also have some type of influence. There's an article in the Journal of Small Animal Practice about it (by Perez Alenza et al in 2000), but that is the gist.

That's good advice, too. If you want a foldback down from a sit, they have to stand up first and then lie down = much more complicated.

Lure him backwards into a straight fold back down and click immediately, before he has time to flop over on one hip. After a while of doing that you can start to build duration.

Can be difficult to teach a nice quick out on a ball (as it is difficult to hold the ball completely still until the dog lets go), so might be an idea to introduce the command "out" on a tug before transferring it to the ball. Good luck!

Losing a back leg is better than losing a front leg, in terms of stress on the dog from athletic activity. Back legs are your accelerator, front legs are your brakes and shock absorbers. Better to lose some acceleration than lose half your brakes! I'd say go ahead with the agility, so long as his remaining 3 legs are fully functional. Take it slow and keep an eye on him, you can always dial back the training if he's showing any sign of reluctance.

Agree with those posters that suggest teaching her to give the ball, rather than to drop it. If she's not giving the ball to you, either she doesn't understand the idea that giving the ball to you restarts the game, or she values having the ball more than she values chasing it. Playing two balls might help with this. Also, playing with a ball on a rope (and having a little tug when she brings it back, then teaching an "out" as you would teach on a tug) might help.

That is an excellent idea, and I am going to pinch it and use it! Why did I never think about introducing the SFE as a sit for exam?

I'm sorry. Will have fingers crossed that things aren't as bad as they appear.

If he's still got an upset tummy, I'd personally put him on a bland diet (e.g. lightly cooked chicken & rice) for a day or two until his tummy settles, then gradually introduce the new food. Otherwise, if he was OK on the nature's gift canned, your last idea sounds OK.

Oh dear, I hope she is OK.

That's a pretty misinformed statement. I think you'll find that the AVA won't back you up. Doing JPS on asymptomatic pups is controversial. But not all H.D. puppies are asymptomatic. Some pups are limping horribly by 16 weeks. Some have hardly any hip socket when you radiograph them at 16 weeks. If a 16 week old pup is clearly severely dysplastic on both clinical examination and radiograph, then all waiting does is allow further damage to occur to the joint, plus force owners to pay for a more expensive, more invasive type of surgery later. I'd also be interested to know which clinic is charging $6000 for a JPS! Around here a JPS is significantly cheaper than a TPO, which is $2000 - $3000 NZ.

Yup, if they want to JPS, you need to do it before the pelvic bones fuse by themselves. Basically, the op involves using heat to cause the pelvic symphysis to fuse before it normally would, so the bones of the pelvis will grow in a slightly different shape, causing more of the femoral head to be covered by the hip socket. It's a pretty good option for a young pup that's showing clinical signs of H.D. Studies show it has similar effects to a TPO. It's simpler & less invasive than any other H.D. surgery, and probably safer, with a shorter recovery time for the dog. Here, it's also significantly cheaper than any other H.D. surgery, and doesn't always require referral to a specialist. However, I wouldn't go for it without getting a 2nd opinion from a specialist radiologist/surgeon, especially in pup that wasn't clinically dysplastic. Radiographs don't always correlate to clinical signs where H.D. is concerned. Doing a JPS (or any other surgery) on a pup with no clinical signs of H.D. is pretty controversial.

Steve, have you ever had any issues with them protecting people or stock inappropriately? How would you manage the situation if (for example) you needed to let someone in the house for some reason, but your LGD considered them to be a threat? Fascinating thread, thanks.

Where in the eye were the deposits? In the cornea? I've heard of that being associated with corneal inflammation, also being an early warning sign of kidney problems or Cushings dz. Although sometimes, I think they have no idea what the cause is. I've heard of topical solutions of EDTA being used to help prevent further deposits, not sure how well that works.

Great job Steve A & handlers!

3 items today (2 decoy, one target) and by the end of the session she was starting to use her nose! Thanks guys.

Yes, that's fair enough too - I guess you're right that it would be better for them to bring it up earlier and not spring it on you when you turn up. It could be tricky for them to explain the medical details over the phone, especially if you're talking to a receptionist who isn't a vet nurse, but they could have quoted you a range of possible prices over the phone instead of just telling you the one price.

I think it is becoming more & more common for things like pre-anaesthetic blood tests, IV surgical fluids, and take-home pain relief to be offered to clients as "extras". Not all practices do it this way, but many do. To be fair, it's hard for vets to win, no matter how they structure their fees for anaesthesia & surgery. If you practice "gold standard" medicine and automatically include all these things in the regular price of an anaesthetic to make it as safe and comfortable as humanly possible, then you will inevitably lose clients to the cheaper practice down the road (that doesn't include all these things in their price but assures clients that they're just as good as you) or the animal sometimes ends up not getting the surgery it needs as the owner can't afford it. If you don't offer these things at all, then you're not even giving your clients the chance to do the very best for their pet, which is IMO wrong. Or if you include these things as options, then apparently you can confuse your clients or make them feel guilty for not accepting the options. So, I'm not sure what the ideal solution is.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but it seems to me that you are living in your mother's home - and since it's her home, I think she has a perfect right to run it how she likes, and she's allowed to have whoever she likes to stay. Part of living with your parents is that they almost inevitably get a certain say over how you live, especially if you're still at all dependent on them financially or you're not paying market board for your room (I have no idea if you are or not). If you don't like your mother's rules or how she runs her house, then you need to move out and get your own place, where you can run things the way you like them. I'd say, move out now before you get too upset with your mother, that way you can preserve your good relationship with her. Families are important. Sounds like you and your mother just need your own space. That's not unusual - I think me and my mother would drive each other up the wall if we lived together permanently!