Staranais

Yup, look at Huski's videos, they're awesome! Here's one from my girl quite a few months back now - her heel position isn't perfect yet in this clip but I'm very happy with her focus - anyway as you can see our training at this stage is mostly play with a bit of heeling in it, later on there is more heeling and less play, but the play reward always remains, it is never just work with no play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avcpSJ-w_rY

If you want animation like in that video, you need something your dog is crazy for. If your dog doesn't go crazy for your praise, you won't get heeling like that by using praise alone. You'll need another reward to motivate the dog.

Although, call me a perfectionist, but I didn't like the way that dog licked its lips on the left turns - it looked nervous to me on those turns. Also, it was kind of forged some of the time. ETA - I teach heel like that using food, and then add in toys for animation. But when I just take my dog for a walk, she's allowed to look wherever she wants. We have two commands - heel (which is a work in progress!) and just a casual loose leash walk near my side.

Heeling really nicely like that takes a lot of training. Like Huski says, there's no quick route. On the other hand, you'd never need or use stylised heeling like that in every day life. It's a skill for competition. That dog won't be heeling like that when his owner takes him for a walk to the shops - he will only be heeling for short bursts of time, and he will be getting a super reward for it afterwards. So unless you want to compete, you could just teach your dog to loose leash walk, which would be much quicker & easier to teach, as well as more practical.

Nah, the z/d is still protein, & the body still recognises it as such, it's just smaller chains of protein than usually comes in meat or other foodstuffs. The body would break down the vast majority of eaten food protein into pieces smaller than the z/d before it absorbed & used them, so it has no trouble recognising the z/d as protein. It's just that the z/d proteins are never large enough to bridge two particular receptors on the specific type of gut immune cells that usually mediate immune reactions to food molecules. If that makes sense? Pretty sure z/d is approved for adult maintenance, and haven't heard of any issues with having a dog on it permanently (except for cost!) If he's doing well on z/d and chicken, though, you could experiment with adding different foods in, one new food every few weeks, & see what effect they have? He might be able to tolerate quite a wide range of things, and if you introduce them slowly, you can work out which ones suit him and which don't. Although if you wanted to just enjoy your success and keep him on z/d and chicken, I can't imagine why that would do him any harm (except perhaps that he'd miss out on the dental benefits of bones - easily fixed if you brush his teeth instead).

That is very good news! I wonder if it was the diet (z/d plus chicken) or the thyroid meds that did it? Or perhaps a combination of both? Poor boy if he has both hypothyroidism and food intolerances - and lucky boy that he has such a persistent owner. I be he looks reasonably settled compared to my terror.

You'd need to talk to the shelter about it. If they're stuck on thinking annual core vaccines are best, perhaps your vet could write them a letter or provide a handout stating that the new protocol for pets is every 3 years for the core vaccines. Or you could just tell your shelter that your dogs see a vet regularly and you vaccinate as often as your vet recommends - I don't see why a shelter would argue with that.

Depends what you want to achieve, I think. Either way, I'd start by working out if it's the chicken or the kibble that she's reacting to. If it is the kibble, she will have reacted to one (or more) of the individual ingredients in the kibble. If it's a common kibble ingredient that has upset her, you may find as you trial different dry foods you may start to have a suspicion about which ingredient it is (and can therefore pick future foods without that ingredient). I'd be keeping records of what's in each food you trial, so you can compare & contrast what is in each diet that she reacts to (or does well on). Not sure if that helps.

You're more than welcome - please let me know if it's any help or not (so I know whether to recommend it again!)

I used to hang a tire from a tree for my old boy, he must have had it for a few years & didn't manage to get through it. Also he had & loved one of those huge boomer balls, it's not a chew toy, but is something they can play with & not break (since they can't get their jaws around it!)

I've met some very smart people who went no further than high school, and heard some very dumb things from people with pHDs and medical degrees. Having loads of letters after your name doesn't necessarily make you any smarter than someone who has none.

LOL, I think apple is practically NO fat. Swimming has got to use some energy, though. Perhaps your lab is eating more to compensate for the energy she's using to swim (or perhaps she is moving about less at other times since she started swimming?) Otherwise simple physics dictates she must lose weight. Very curious.

If he's not convinced by the low fat treats, I'd just be making him work for his meals, or cutting down on his meals to compensate for giving him treats. If you have access to anywhere you can swim him, that might help with the weight loss too.

You had to only pick one option so I didn't pick any of them. My next working or competition dog will preferably be anything up to a year old when I get them. I don't mind getting a pup, it's nice to be able to raise your own puppy, but it's a lot of work too & things can go wrong - I'd be just as happy to get an older pup or young dog if it had the temperament & attitude & drives I like. Any older than a year or so though & you're eating into the dog's working years. If it were only a pet, I'd be happy to get an older dog too.

Given that priority will be given to the safety of all people involved, my guess is that a large calibre firearm will be the solution. And then of course the cops will be castigated for shooting "pets". Exactly.

Yes, thanks!

If you wanted to do the raw/home cooked CKD diet route, I wonder if it would be worth getting a consult with a canine nutritionist to help you design a suitable diet? I wouldn't know where to start, personally - I don't know which raw ingredients are high/low in potassium or sodium and omega ratio, plus it might be quite hard to get a low protein diet using typical raw foods? And it's not the kind of thing you'd want to play around with. Sorry I can't be more help. ETA, I've had a hunt around & apparently there are a few books out there with supposedly nutritionally balanced homemade recipes for CKD patients, such as: "Home Prepared Dog & Cat Diets" by Dr Donald Strombeck. "Waltham Book of Clinical Nutrition of the Dog and Cat". I've never read either of these so can't vouch for how good or how well balanced or how easy to formulate the recipes are - but they might be helpful if you can get hold of them.

I'm sorry, Kelly Louise. It really sucks when they get old. This article might be some help as regards your diet questions: http://calve.massey.ac.nz/comp/urology/Ren...0with%20CRF.pdf ETA - if you can't access it, the gist is that yes, commercial renal diets (in this case Hills specifically) do appear to slow the rate of kidney damage quite substantially compared to regular maintenance diets, in dogs with CKD. The CKD diet tested had reduced protein, sodium & phosphorus, and increased omega 3:6 ratio, compared to the maintenance diet.

I'd be wary sending any dog away for boarding & training unless I already knew the trainer really well. I've heard too many horror stories about what goes on behind closed doors with incompetent or harsh trainers. Nothing against the Alpha Boarding Kennels in particular, since I know nothing about them.

Yup. You could also take some video of it happening & load it on Youtube so experienced BC breeders here can take a look and tell you if it looks abnormal to them.

Remember too that most vets deliberately subsidise spay operations, both to stay competitive, and to encourage people to spay. Spays tend to be rather cheap compared to other abdominal operations of similar complexity. Having said that, I do know one practice owner who refuses to subsidise bitch spays as he hates doing them, and he figures that if he makes them expensive people will go elsewhere. True story. Perhaps the Greencross vet is similar!

someone once told me that the reason sheepdogs, even fit ones, are prone to this is that b/c they are concentrating so hard, they don't open their mouth to pant. If this is true, it'd be hard to reproduce with exercise alone. I have seen it once with one of my dogs & 3 times with other dogs, all have been very intense dogs who didn't pant a lot. Interesting, thanks Vickie, I will file that piece of information away for future use. From the owner's description of the collapsing episodes I think this may be a little different - our specialists are leaning towards an inborn error of metabolism as the cause in this dog. But like I say, we didn't have sufficient space on campus to really work the dog in the way the owner said tended to trigger the collapsing episodes. Hopefully we can persuade the farmer to come back & try again later. It's not my case, but pretty interesting, so I'm keeping an eye on it.

Was a diagnosis and prognosis given? Not yet so far as I know, we tried a few weeks back but weren't able to run the dog hard enough to get the collapse. It's a very fit working sheepdog.

Yup, that's a good plan for next time, if they'll let you do that. Even if the vet is kind enough to give you credit this time, they might be less sympathetic if you repeatedly ask for credit for your animals. I think it's even less likely that a new vet would give you credit, after all they have no relationship with you and have no idea if you're trustworthy.

We've had a case similar to this in the last month at my vet school, the diagnostic plan was to deliberately cause the collapse by exercising the dog, and then run in & take physical parameters, blood for tests, while the dog was collapsed. That is the type of thing you'd want to do at a referral centre, I think, so perhaps your vet can refer to a specialist in small animal medicine.