Staranais

We can get the FHV and FCV together as Ducat (at least we could, I think we still can). Don't think many people bother using it though, I guess they figure if they're going to get the other components done annually they might as well just give all 3 together.

The AVA has just released their new vaccination guidelines - they've been in the works for quite some time. It recommends a 3 yearly protocol for core vaccination (parvo, distemper, hepatitis) then annual vaccination for additional vaccinations if they are required (parainfluenza / bordatella / leptospirosis etc). It has prompted a review of our protocols even though we are already on a 3 year protocol. Feline vaccination is a bit tricky - the recommendations are for a 3 year protocol but no one has tested a 3 year DOI. Do we (the profession) take the leap of faith, or reluctantly stick with the registered protocol, or go halfway and do 3 year with patients who are 'low risk'? "Forcat" from Intervet offers a 3 year duration of immunity for the panleukopenia component, Rappie - perhaps you can't get it in Australia though? They still recommend annual revaccinations for the calcivirus and viral rhinitis components, though.

If you do processed green veges along with some probiotics/natural yoghurt, IMO that's probably about as close as you're going to get to the real thing.

That's fair enough, Stormie, it makes a lot of sense for vets that have seen horrible parvo outbreaks in the past would be a lot more cautious than newer vets (or members of the public) that have not actually experienced a parvo outbreak first hand. Like you, I have talked to vets that want nothing to do with anything that they think could possibly result in seeing more parvo cases. And a lot of the anti-vaccination information available on the internet is biased, misleading or just plain incorrect - I'd never suggest a vet (or anyone else, for that matter) decide on their vaccine protocols based merely on internet information! But on the other hand, lots of good, robust studies on vaccine duration of immunity are out there in the scientific journals. It takes a bit of time and effort to dig it up, plus probably a trip to the local university library to access the journals, but it's possible for anyone to find and assess the evidence for themselves and make a true informed decision (either for or against annual vaccinations), instead of just sitting back waiting to be spoon fed information by the manufacturers as many vets seem content to do.

I'm sorry Laffi - I'm a kiwi! It's worth trying any vet teaching hospital though I think, as they're generally up with the current state of play, more so than regular clinics sometimes.

Yes Rommimum, you're reading it correctly (for the 3 core vaccines anyway - hepatitis/adeno, parvo, and distemper). As for how long will it take the vets to catch up - depends who your vet is, I guess! The teaching hospital at my uni already recommends 3 yearly core vaccines to all their clients, as far as I know we haven't had any problems with the new protocol so far. Other vets I guess just haven't done their own research, or perhaps have liability concerns, maybe they're waiting for the vaccine manufacturers to change the official protocol before they stop recommending annual boosters?

Yes, that's a worry to me as well - hepatitis (adenovirus) is one of the core vaccines that all pups should get. Another interesting link for those interested in vaccine guidelines: WSAVA current vaccine guidelines

In NZ non approved breeds of dog also can't trial in character work but are allowed to trial to get their BH, plus do the individual obedience and tracking components to get their OB1, OB2, OB3, TR1, TR2 & TR3. I guess probably also the FH1 and 2? So perhaps it's similar in Australia for non approved breeds? Even if you can't get a full IPOIII or SchIII, getting an OB3 TR3 on your dog is nothing to sniff at!

Well done! :D I wish we had ringsport over here, it would be great to see a trial in real life.

Specialist vets can replace lost teeth if they're kept alive, but I'm not sure if regular vets would know how to go about it? Could be wrong of course. You can get implants, but they're really pricey (the vet dentist specialist whose lecture I attended quoted about $5000 per tooth to us for an artificial replacement incisor... ouch!) If she's lost it due to trauma, and it doesn't appear hurt her, I wouldn't worry about it. My old boy lost bits of most of his incisors and all of his canines from chewing on things, and it didn't slow him down one bit. But call your vet if you're concerned. ;)

I use a hand held palm up then lifted upwards (the opposite of my down signal, which is a flat hand held facing down, swept downwards). Not sure if that's proper or not, but the dog seems to understand. ;)

That's so true. Some dogs have constitutions of iron and will survive quite happily on anything. And there's always the exception that proves the rule - the dog that ate the cheapest crap in a bag and survived till he was 23, the person that smoked all their live yet lived to 105, etc. Plus, so many effects of poor diet show up only in a small percentage of dogs, and only over the very long term, so how could you even tell if a particular dog food or diet was 10% more likely to cause cancer (for example) over a dog's lifespan? That would be a huge, expensive, longterm study to organise! You're right, it's a good thread. Most (all?) people here are trying to do what's right by their dog after all, doing the best they can within their budget and the time they have available, so it's nice to share ideas. Plus I'm a dog food geek so love any conversation like this (I just today found out that they do have the 2006 NRC guidelines publication at my university, just very cunningly hidden in the library catalogue! I'd be embarrased to describe how excited I was by this discovery). ;)

I'm not a BARF feeder so not sure if my answer counts. :D But grassfed cows and sheep eat fresh green matter when it's available but will also plenty of seedheads (= grains) when the grass goes to seed in the summer and autumn. I presume wild ruminants do the same? And I'm not sure what small mammals eat, but I would suspect that mice often eat seedheads and fruit preferentially since they're higher in calories than green matter is. So I agree with you that ideally vegetable matter in a diet should be mostly green vege, but I see nothing unnatural with including some grain and some fruit. Using fresh green tripe instead, if you can get that, is probably an even more "natural" source of vegetable matter. But realistically, I doubt it matters that much exactly what vege matter you decide to feed, dogs are very adaptable (like we are!) I've seen dogs do OK on all flesh/bone diets, and OK on almost completely vegetarian diets. So exactly which type of vegetable matter you choose to feed is probably a minor quibble.

If you do, I'd be really interested to hear your results.

That's very true, but an imbalanced Ca:P ratio shouldn't be caused by the milk Poodlefan. Cow's milk has an ideal great Ca:P ratio for puppies, around 1.3:1.

All titre testing means is that your dog had a good antibody response to the vaccine when you did the test. It's like a snapshot in time. For core canine vaccines (C3), there is good evidence that shows that this one positive titre test means your dog is probably immune for at least 3 years after you did the test and possibly for the rest of their lives. That doesn't hold true for titre results from all veterinary vaccines, but it does for the core canine viruses (and possibly parainfluenza too). Repeated titre testing is of limited use, since if the dog doesn't come into contact with the virus, he'll probably gradually lose the antibody in his system and will "fail" the titre test, which doesn't mean that he's no longer immune - it just means you can't "prove" he's still immune, since memory cells are invisible to the titre test. Really, it depends what your dogsport club says, and how long they are willing to accept your C3 titre test scores as valid for before they make you retest to check whether your dog is still provably immune. Most kennels and dogsport clubs don't accept one titre test as proof of life long immunity, but I predict that in years to come they probably will come to do so.

It's possible that she's been vaccinated and just not come in contact with the agent since, so the level of antibody in her system has faded (while she has retained the memory cells so is still adequately immune to the disease). I'm not sure how fast that could happen, so am not sure if it's a possibility in this scenario. It's also possible that she didn't have a good response to the vaccine you used. We can't tell if that happened, since you didn't have her titred immediately after the first vaccination to see if she responded to it or not. (That's not a dig at you - most people don't, it's expensive). You could try a different brand of vaccine - they're sometimes made of different strains of virus - or a different "type" if you have one available. Different vaccines often use different antigen combinations, so that way you'd be targeting a different B cell(s) in her immune system. If she lacks the cell(s) to respond to the first vaccine, she could still have the cell(s) to respond to the second. That's the approach I would take if it was my dog. Since she's responded beautifully to the parvo, she's obviously capable of a good immune response to some things. No matter what you decide to revaccinate with, I'd personally try to get a distemper only shot - no point repeating the parvo since she's still immune to that. If you do revaccinate and you do see that you have got a good response after a month to the vaccine, I feel you can be more confident leaving her 3 years or more before vaccinating again (if you choose to do that), since you know the vaccine definitely worked this time and any fall in titre is probably simply due to less antibody (not less memory cells) in circulation.

No further than special beginners. Since my dog had aggression issues, I couldn't justify taking him into any competition where I wasn't able to keep my eyes on him 100% of the time, including during all of the stays. If I could keep my eyes on him, I knew I could recall him if another dog that looked like trouble started approaching him. So we won out of both elementary classes and then pretty much had to stop, since going further would have required back-turned stays, and I just didn't think that was appropriate to do with a dog with his history. The club was setting up Rally-O when Monster passed away last year, and I hoped to compete in that since it was all onleash therefore perfectly safe for us. He had lovely focused heeling for a little staffy, though. Hopefully I'll get to go further with my second dog!

That is a cool study, Yellowgirl. I'd seen it before, but a while ago and hadn't recorded where so had lost track of it. Thanks for posting it. It's a really interesting idea for a study, taking some "typical" BARF and RAW diets and analysing them to see if they meet theoretical nutrient guidelines, and if they match up with the authors ideas of what a typical "ancestral" dog diet might be. The author has done a good job at remaining unbiased and evenhanded, and has done a good job at analysing different diet types. It's really interesting to see how well the NRC values match (or sometimes don't match) the author's idea of a typical ancestral dog diet. The ancestral diet is generally at least as mineral and vitamin dense as the NRC guidelines, very much so in the case of calcium. Whereas all home made diets were found to be lower in trace minerals than either the "ancestral" diet or the NRC recommendations. Also I find it really great how the author tried to rejig each diet plan so it fit the NRC values better, rather than just discarding the diets totally because they were unbalanced (which I've seen another paper from a more mainstream journal do when the analysed raw diets didn't match recommended values). There are a few questions I had about the paper, though: a) Does it really matter whether a dog's diet is a little low in nutrients? I'm not sure if it always does matter. I mean, I'm pretty sure that if I ran my own diet against the recommended values for humans, I'd come up a little short in a few micronutrients, yet I'm pretty healthy and fit on the whole since I eat a varied, healthy diet. The science behind NRC recommendations is sometimes solid, but also sometimes just the "best guess" based on shaky science. A diet that comes out as slightly too low, or slightly too high, on some nutrients against theoretical values need not (IMO) necessarily be discarded or altered if the dogs appear to do well on it. b) On the other hand, I do wonder about those homemade diets that seem substantially too low or too high on some nutrients. The BARF-style diet they analysed had only 1/6 of the recommended copper, for example, and half the recommended zinc. Does this matter in the long term? The truth is that noone knows - noone has funded long term studies on dogs fed raw to see if diets that don't meet NRC values have deleterious effects on the dog the long term. It's also quite possible that mineral or vitamin deficiencies or excesses could affect the long term health of some dogs and not others (different genetics, different co-existing diseases, etc), and for different nutrients and not others (for example, it's far far harder to overdose an animal on water soluble vitamins than on fat soluble vitamins). My own perspective is that I personally find it hard to design a diet that meets all the NRC values using only natural ingredients and no supplements (which I prefer not to use, except for fish oil and kelp). When I have to compromise, I think it's best to have several minerals slightly deficient, rather than one really out of whack and the others fine, since having a severe mineral imbalance (as opposed to a simple deficiency) can cause additional problems with absorption of those minerals. Several of the analysed diets weren't following that "rule", so I'd be reluctant to use them without adjustment. c) I'd be really interesting to see some commercial diets that passed the AAFCO 26 week "feed trials" analysed for nutritional values like this. As far as I'm aware a product has to either pass a feed trial or be analysed in order to bear the AAFCO stamp of approval. So it's perfectly possible, I suspect, for a commercial product to pass a feeding trial but still have out-of-whack nutrient values like these homemade diets do. To look at it another way, all of these home made diet plans would probably have passed the AAFCO feed trial process were they analysed that way, even though they don't meet the NRC nutrient values. IMO a diet that is home made from natural ingredients, and balanced to NRC standards, is far more likely to be truly balanced than a commercial food that has merely passed an AAFCO feed trial test, yet commercial foods tested this way aren't being put under the spotlight in the same way that raw diets are. d) The author has a really weird background. Did anyone else notice that he started off breeding designer dogs, then graduated to making dog food? Irrelevant, but funny. What were your thoughts on the study, Yellowgirl? Tomas - I wish I lived in Auckland (well, I don't actually - I just wish Bombay petfoods delivered to Palmy North!) I can't find spleen or green tripe anywhere local consistently.

For my last dog? Mostly to prove I could. Does that seem wrong? I just found it incredibly satisfying to be in the ring winning obedience ribbons with a dog I had been told to PTS by several trainers. Unfortunately, I could never trust him enough to trial higher than Special Beginners (the last obedience level in NZ that allows you to keep your eyes on your dog at all times, even in the stays) - it just wouldn't have been fair to anyone. With my new dog, if I end up competing, it will be for several reasons. Because doing well in the ring and showing off my lovely dog off is fun, because it gives us something interesting to work on in training sessions between competitions, because it encourages me to train regularly and therefore builds my bond with my dog, because training different things regularly is good for my dog's mental development, and because I like to have external proof of my dog's training in the form of titles.

If by a positive interrupter, you just mean something like a "watch me", then yes, I have trained one. When my old boy started to posture at other dogs at obedience schools many moons ago, I'd tell him "watch" (trained with food treats), and if we were far enough away from the other dogs and he wasn't too far along in firing up, then he'd generally stop what he was doing and watch me to get the treat he knew would be forthcoming. We did a similar thing later, with drive training, which was much more effective. Anyway, my thoughts on your questions about the benefits of positive vs negative interrupters: Advantages of positive interrupter: 1. Teaches dog what it can actually do, so can result in less frustration than just telling the dog "don't do that" and leaving it just sitting there still wanting to chew something (for example) without knowing any legal options for satisfying that urge. 2. It is arguably nicer for the dog not to get growled at by the owner (though I think most dogs cope with this very well, and possibly even like being given clear boundaries in this fasion). Disadvantages of positive interrupter: 1. A smart dog can learn to engage in the undesirable behaviour in order to get the positive interrupter (i.e "Corvus is being really boring right now. Hmmm, perhaps if I start to chew the furniture she'll start paying attention to me like she always does when I chew the furniture, and we'll have one of those fun training session together with the treats I like, like we did last time when I started chewing the furniture.") 2. I just don't always want to be telling my dog what to do. It got kind of old at dog obedience school, having to be perpetually telling my dog to "watch" and pumping treats into him to ensure he didn't engage in the unwanted behaviour - since he did invariably revert back to his old behaviour if I wasn't constantly interrupting it with commands and food treats. I wonder if it's nicer for the dog too, since negative interupters give them more freedom to choose their own behaviours? i.e, they have more behavioural freedom if they can do anything EXCEPT what you say, rather than ONLY do what you say. Is that the kind of answer you're after? I personally think that there is a place for a positive and a negative interrupter in training, it gives the maximal amount of information to my puppy if I growl at her or time out her for chewing the furniture, then redirect her to a more appropriate activity with heaps of praise, rather than just one or the other technique.

And... we have a kick back stand! Thanks everyone, the tickle the toes (and gently lift the belly) method was the winner for us, she's really starting to get the hang of what I'm after and is getting it right 80% of the time. Now I just need to wean her off hand signals and onto verbal cues. I'm sure she just thinks I'm barking at her when I talk!

Are you saying it makes no difference if it's a negative or a positive interruptor? I'm saying I think you can interrupt a behavior without the dog seeing the interuption as being either negative or positive. If my pup is doing something and I clap my hands, she often reorients to me on my clap, then I can send her off to do something else. It's not negative, it's not positive, it's just a noise to get her attention off what she's doing. So to me, an interupter is different to either punishment or reinforcement. It's in a class of its own. Doggy zen is great, most of my training is based around doggy zen - the idea that paying attention to me instead of to the reward is actually the fastest route to the reward. But I also like to be able to communicate to my dog "that's not right, I don't like that". Whether by using a "no reward marker" in training, or by growling "uh-uh" in day to day life. It just feels more honest and communicative and less manipulative and convoluted to directly tell the dog what I don't like, rather than just distracting her and hoping she doesn't try it again. I realise that's me putting my human interpretation on things, and that Fledge may not see the difference at all. However, I'm 50% of the partnership here, so my feeling about training matters as much as hers does. Swedish Vallhund? Interesting! Would love to see pictures when she/he arrives!

As far as I'm aware, calcium from a natural source can still cause issues. Calcium is calcium. Puppies have limited mechanisms to regulate calcium absorption and excretion compared to adult dogs. I've never read anything reputable to indicate otherwise. However, milk doesn't actually have very concentrated calcium in it (about 1/10 of what bone has by weight), so they'd have to be drinking a lot of liquid milk for it to become an issue IMO. I'd be more concerned about them getting the runs from all that milk.

I am in NZ,so can't help you there,the white stuff is bleached and all the good stuff lost Me too - so where do you get your green tripe?