Staranais

Where DO you complain to, if you feel the SPCA have treated you unfairly? I've got to say I wouldn't have the foggiest where to start, and the website doesn't give me any clue either. Does anyone know how you'd go about making a complain or appeal against an RSPCA decision?

It's illegal to feed raw ruminant or pig liver here, too, it must be cooked - I think you can feed raw chicken liver, although I'm not sure about that. Also a legal requirement to cook lungs before feeding, and to freeze sheep meat thoroughly. Oakway's right, it's best to check what's legal for your state. No one is likely to find out if you feed it raw, but the controls are there for a good reason - hydatids isn't nice.

A prey animal is about 3 - 5% liver by weight. So, if you're doing a raw diet, I'd aim in that range. Feed way more than that and you could theoretically get vit A or Cu toxicity, although I've never heard of it happening to a dog in real life (vit A toxicosis does happen to cats, though).

That's interesting, Staranais. What are the differences in health outcomes for the dogs? So far as the studies show, pretty much no difference. The theoretical advantage is that the OVE (ovaries only) is less invasive & usually quicker, possibly making it a slightly safer surgery. The only theoretical disadvantage of OVE is that there's still a possibility of pyometra in the uterus if you give exogenous hormones to the dog or cat afterwards for another medical condition. However, the studies they've shown us have shown that in reality, there's no difference in health outcome they could detect between the two groups of dogs. Watch this space, I guess - perhaps later studies will show a distinct advantage of one procedure over the other.

Which countries are these? I've never heard of any legal bans like that. It is true that in many European countries, far fewer dogs are desexed. And many obedience & agility clubs etc just train around it - if the dog is on heat, you're just expected to be able to control your male around it. Very different to here, where your on-heat dog is practically on house arrest in case she disrupts the neighbourhood. When they do desex female dogs, they also tend to just take the ovaries, not the uterus as well. Rather different to here or in the U.S.A, although I think that will slowly catch on.

It should be easy enough to work out. Say an average basic desexing of a cat or a dog costs $200 (including all surgical materials, staff wages, premed & induction & maintenance drugs, post-op pain relief, oxygen, wear & tear on equipment, cleaning & sterilisation, but making no additional profit). Obviously boy kitties would cost less and a big fat bitch or pregnant animal or an operation where something goes wrong could cost far more, but say that's the average. Take $50 off, that's $150 that the SPCA would need to find for each desexing. So, now all you need to know is how many lots of $150 the SPCA has spare. I have no idea what the answer to that question would be, but it can't be that hard to find out?

Thanks so much, that's really interesting. I asked the specialist that very thing last week, since we were talking cataracts, and he reckoned that removing the lens should restore most sight to the animal, although they wouldn't be able to focus on things very well. He said they should at least get enough vision so as to not bump into things when they run around, which is a huge advantage to an animal that was blind or nearly before. If the cataract is left there I think it can cause inflammation in the retina (uveitis) & the animal possibly could cause loss of sight that way? We have another day or so with the specialist later in the year I think, I'm going to ask him about lens replacement & if we can do it here.

How amazing to be able to do things like that for a dog (or even a human, for that matter, I guess). I'm glad it went well for her! ;) Do you mind me asking how much it was, and how much it would have been to just get the old lens removed & not replaced with anything (if you know, & don't mind answering)?

Nah, staffords are a great size - you can just pick them up off the ground entirely & spin them around in the air! I do miss my old staffy boy sometimes. He played an awesome game of tug.

I think they can tell the difference by the tone of your voice & your body language. If I'm quitting the game because my dog has done something seriously wrong like bitten me, I'll mark the wrong thing by saying "uh", give her a disgusted look, and march off inside and ignore her for a while (just leaving her standing there with the toy - it's no fun if I'm not playing with it too!) To just end the game the regular way, I tell her she's a good girl, but that we've finished playing ("that's enough"). She knows the difference. She has an "out" command within the game too, but I don't usually use it at the end of the game. To us, "out" means if you drop this toy immediately, the game will keep going. Hence, I usually get nice fast clean outs with this word. But different people do things differently.

I can tell my dog "that's enough" & put the tug away, and she drops out of drive & goes back to doing her other stuff, since she knows tug time is over. They just learn that through repetition & patience. Although when building drive, you want to leave the dog wanting more.

I believe you are correct. It is VEGAN policy. And Vegans are not green ..... but? dont they eat green and red, orange, yellow, brown and blue (berries!)

I think there are some people talking about it on & off in the Dog Sport sub-forum in the Training forum. :D

Hmmm, interesting. They did reply - thanks RNZSPCA! Apparently they do not usually endorse trainers, however they say "Doggy Dan" got endorsed as he: * Uses no "aversion techniques" in his training * Gives his services to the SPCA for free They wouldn't tell me if he had any particular qualifications, though, or if he had to pay anything to be endorsed. To give him the benefit of the doubt perhaps he's a decent trainer (although presumably unqualified and with nil understanding of ecollars), just with a terrible, tacky marketing scheme? :D

Oh also have just found in one of my textbooks, the authors reckon there is a 10% chance of it recurring if it's progressed so far as abscessation (i.e., severe prostatitis). That's all I can find. Maybe no one has really studied it.

I believe you are correct. It is VEGAN policy. And Vegans are not green ..... I think it depends on the vegan. I know vegans that have cats and dogs (being vegan just means they don't eat the cats and dogs, drink their milk, or wear their skins - they're still allowed to keep them around for company!) Of course, you get some vegans with crazy PETA animal-liberation ideas, but every group of people has its share of nasties or crazies.

I suspect you're right - I suspect he just paid them something to be on their site, without them examining his qualifications or training methods or marketing ethics too closely. Disappointing. Anyway, I've emailed the SPCA to politely ask how one becomes a fully endorsed dog trainer with them. Will be interesting to see if they reply! Who else does he remind you of, Aussienot?

There's so much to say about tug I don't think anyone could cover it in a single thread. Getting hands on help from an experienced trainer can be useful if you want to build drive & use it as a motivator. If you're close to Erny, I'd pay her a visit. There are also some really great book and video resources out there (although not agility specific), I really like the Michael Ellis DVDs, Ivan Balabanov DVDs, & K9Pro does an excellent distance learning course. Probably the agility people could recommend some more agility-specific tug resources, but those are the ones I like.

I wanted to pick two options for the last question. My girl is supervised (out of the corner of my eye!) with any edible bones. With the huge recreational bones that she couldn't possibly swallow, she's allowed to take those away and munch them out of sight.

I have not heard of it being inherited either. From what I know acute prostatitis can make them infertile, but doesn't always, & when it does it's sometimes reversible. If she's concerned, she could possibly get the semen assessed & cultured to check for presence of bacteria before using him at stud.

Yup. Chicken necks are great, but are not balanced by themselves. If you replace a substantial part of a balanced diet with chicken necks alone, it's no longer balanced, & you could be missing some important nutrients. Chicken necks lack lots of things that dogs need for skin health, e.g. essential fatty acids & zinc for skin health, plus they have heaps of calcium that can bind zinc and stop it being absorbed. If you're going to make a substantial part of a puppy's diet raw, then IMO you should do it properly - red meat, organs, skin, as well as chicken bones. Chucking a healthy, well nourished dog a chicken neck or two a day as a minor part of their diet is a different matter.

Wow, the vets can't win sometimes, can they? You recommend bones, you're just trying to make money from surgeries. You recommend against bones, you're just trying to make money from dentals... Riley's Mum, I hope your boy is OK. I'm one of the people that don't feed weight bearing bones (unless they're way too big to swallow), but I know several dogs that are fed lamb shanks that do fine.

I don't know, I wouldn't laugh at her - it would have upset me too. But on the other hand, there are lots of upsetting things you need to do when you're learning to be a vet. I think you're right that perhaps she wouldn't have lasted through the course. If she couldn't cope with this, she may also not have coped with the various horrible things we do to farm animals, or with putting to sleep the unwanted kittens when you're on the SPCA roster, or with aborting baby puppies and kittens, or etc. I really don't like any of those things myself.

Don't stop giving them without checking with your vet. It's generally important to completely finish any course of antibiotics you are given. If you stop giving the antibiotics before the course is complete this often allows resistant bacteria to survive. That means if the hotspot comes back, the same antibiotic might not work a second time, since the bacteria there will likely be resistant to it.

So, I was looking for some "dog themed" xmas cards to send to the farmers who let me use their land for tracking purposes, & thought I'd give the SPCA a try. Going to the main NZ SPCA website, I was interested to see a prominent link to "The Online Dog Trainer", which leads to an internet marketing spiel for an "SPCA endorsed" online dog trainer. http://www.rnzspca.org.nz/ I have never heard of this guy, he doesn't give his full name, and he presents absolutely no credentials or qualifications on the website. However, apparently if you buy his product he'll send you videos that mean "every single problem you could possibly ever have with your dog or puppy is solved" by "teaching you to be the leader of the pack". And best of all, it only costs $1! (Of course, after the first 7 days, you're charged rather more for the service... $37 per month until you cancel). WTF? Am I out of touch, or is endorsing this a seriously bizarre and incredibly tacky thing for the SPCA to do? I wonder how much he paid in order to become "endorsed", and if he actually had to sit any kind of competency test to get "endorsed" by the SPCA? I find it very hard to believe that even the best trainer could solve every single problem my dog could possibly ever have without ever seeing my dog... On top of that, I was further dismayed by the really misinformed diatribe about ecollars. As a horrible mean ecollar user, I think I'm going to be looking elsewhere for my xmas cards this year... ;)