Staranais

I did a spay last week on a healthy 5 year old dog, with a BP monitor fitted, and it was a huge heads up to me to find out first hand how very low BP can drop before you notice a problem with perfusion just based on clinical signs. Our specialist anaesthetist (watching over my shoulder!) says she's had several calls over the years from vets who didn't fit a BP monitor, gave NSAIDs after the operation as routine pain relief, and then called in a panic when the dog went into acute renal failure due to the combination of low BP and NSAIDs... like I say, it was a huge learning experience for me. Sorry to go OT, OP.

Yes, I totally agree. I think dogs do understand the idea of hierarchy, and most do better when they have a leader who protects them, communicates clearly to them, & who makes things very black & white. . The only issue I have is when people think that "being dominant" over the dog is a substitute for actually motivating their dog, and that if you're dominant, the dog shouldn't need to be rewarded. Or when people automatically assume that whenever their dog does something that they don't like the dog is being dominant. Or when people believe that if you don't follow certain rigid rules around the house (eat first! never let the dog lean on you! never let the dog walk ahead of you!) that your otherwise well adjusted dog will invariably become dominant and take over the household. Actually, that was a few issues.

That is great advice. Price doesn't necessarily equal quality so far as surgery is concerned - many very good clinics heavily subsidise spays & neuters to encourage people to speuter their pets. But some clinics offer very cheap speuters as they are cutting corners. Some clinics save you money by skimping on things that can be really useful for ensuring anaesthetic safety or animal comfort. Cathether placed or not - do you want us to waste precious minutes trying to find a vein if your animal has an anaesthetic emergency? Blood pressure monitor and IV fluids - how risky for the kidneys do you want the operation to be? Post op pain relief - would you want this if you had had your reproductive organs chopped out? etc, etc. Most of the time you get away with omitting these things with healthy young animals, it's not even exactly bad practice - it's just that sometimes you don't get away with it. Up to you how much risk you're willing to accept. If I was looking for a clinic to spay my girl, would ask what is included in the price of the surgery, so I knew I was comparing apples with apples. I'd also pick a clinic with a good reputation, that seems clean & with staff that seem very caring & knowledgeable. I'd ask them if they'd lost any animals during routine neuters during the last year (in most practices this is a very rare occurrence - in some it's sadly a little more common). I would also always get IV fluids when my animals go under GA, even for a totally elective procedure. Always.

That is very true, good post. However, I personally have not been able to achieve as much reliability with positive only as I have by including corrections. For example, as of a few months ago I had a very (very) good recall on my current dog around distraction by using reward only, no corrections. But I just couldn't seem to get her totally reliable around a few rare, extremely exciting & unpredictable distractions using reward only. So I'm currently using an e collar (under advice of a pro behaviourist/trainer) to tidy up the recall & chase that elusive 100%, since I want as reliable recall as I can get on her, in every situation I can think of. Possibly a better trainer than myself could have gotten even closer to 100% recall using positive methods alone. But I'm the trainer she's stuck with, and I have to work within my own skills to get the best result I can for her. We muddle along OK, she seems pretty happy.

How much exercise & training does she get currently? Perhaps she is getting enough for a pet, but is she getting enough for a working dog? Even a working dog can learn to settle in the house to some degree, but many of them do just simply need a lot more mental & physical stimulation than a dog bred to be a pet needs.

LOL, I guess not, I didn't think of that! Luckily we get all the local SPCA cases here to spay, but we've done pets too, and that's a little more nerve wracking since you know how special they are to their owners. Good thing we have real vets looking over our shoulders the entire time! :D

She's gorgeous! Coccidia is rather common around here, and I think in most places. But I guess it's possible that the breeder has just never encountered it before?

Your boy is so interesting. Will he eat chicken with bones if you just sear the outside to make it taste cooked? More bones might reduce the need for vegetables. Perhaps he knows something you don't, though, if he has gut issues I guess raw chicken might not be the best thing to feed him since his natural gut defences against Salmonella etc would be weak.

We will do our best to find him anyway, though... Great post, Muttaburra.

If only I lived closer!

Just watched the Leerburg tracking through drive DVD. Bloody brilliant, highly recommended! Except the bit where he said that most bitches couldn't do tracking in drive - had to cover my girl's ears for that bit.

I hope it all goes well! Did you get to do it yourself? I love surgery, but wouldn't be too keen to operate on my own furries - I know students & vets who do, though.

Presumably Moselle & her dogs are vegan? Since I've worked on several farms (sheep, beef, dairy) and visited hundreds more, and can tell you that most hunted meat is at least as humane as any animal product you'll buy at the supermarket. If only I lived closer! My girl would love to try rabbit.

Fledge is also keen on the Canidae ALS. It's apparently not quite as palatable to her as the Royal Canin, but she still likes it, and I also kind of worry about the very palatable foods (what do they put in them to make the dogs scarf them up like McDonalds?!) I did some research before I bought it, there was a kerfuffle a few years ago when they changed the formula & some dogs got diarrhoea from the change, but Fledgie has been find on it, so I wonder if it was the sudden change that was the problem for those dogs more than anything else?

I have heard the criticism before, that keeping pets is selfish when people are starving. I guess that's true to some degree, but only so much as any hobby that costs money is selfish. Buying a better car or house than you need, or buying DVDs or flash clothes, instead of donating the money to a starvation relief fund is just as "selfish" as spending money on food for a dog when people are in poverty. So why do people only criticise the dog owner? It's also important to remember that many of the things we feed our dogs cannot be fed to humans. Most pet food is made from meat not allowed into the human food chain for various reasons. Even the human quality meat I buy my dog tends to be things humans would prefer not to eat - offal, bones, etc. A lady over here tried to donate some (human grade) dog food ingredients to the poor in Somalia a few years back, and was turned down for "insulting" them and crucified for being racist! http://www.mg.co.za/article/2006-01-31-ken...dog-food-relief Dairy is a big contributer to waterway pollution over here. Our fish & game council started a big "dirty dairying" media campaign a few years back that didn't go down well with the farmers, but they raised some important issues.

Yup you've got it. You'll almost always only get a pyo after removing the ovaries if you've accidentally left an ovarian remnant in, or you give the dog synthetic hormones (e.g. a mismating shot) later on. The surgeon said it was just a cultural thing, we & the Americans do OVH out of habit, and but many europeans think we're strange for doing anything but OVE.

I've just learned this year that in europe they apparently most commonly do an OVE not an OVH when they desex dogs (that is, they only take the ovaries, not the uterus too). It's a smaller operation, for the same benefit - rates of pyometra are similar between populations. Very interesting. I also do not get any of my animals put under without fluids.

That's the only real problem that I can see - the guy was bloody rude. His actual request was reasonable if his dog is reactive when other dogs get in its space, it was just not phrased very nicely! I'm not sure if you can report aggressive humans.

I think some people think it's undignified, making the dog do something "cute" just for humans to laugh at them. I can understand that since I wouldn't teach a trick that I felt made my dog look undignified. We just do the dignified kind of tricks.

Seems a bit sensationalised, to me. I think it's reasonable to say that eating species appropriate fresh food is generally healthy for all animals, and that commercial companies don't necessarily have the best interest of your pet at heart. But that's different to taking it further and claiming that commercial diets cause various diseases like this article tries (without evidence) to do. They also bring up the old chestnut that vet students only get information from commercial feed companies. I have heard this too many times to number. It's certainly not true on our campus. It's good that the information is getting out there & making people think about what they feed their pets, but I'd be happier to see something a bit more balanced - instead of pushing the "kibble bad, raw good" barrow, why couldn't they include information on how to choose a good kibble if you do want to feed kibble, & how to feed raw properly if you prefer to feed raw (since a bad raw diet can be just as bad as a bad commercial diet).

I like your system better too. There's been some talk here about awarding titles at dogs that win out of each of the 5 levels, which I think is a fantastic idea, although nothing has come of it yet.

Not many. There are two "practice" levels, and five "real" levels, and you don't get any title until you win into the top level (which means winning each preceding level twice). The best I've done so far is win into the first "real" level with a staffy. I was happy, though!

Us too. It just depends where and what discipline you compete in, I think. In NZKC obedience, they want close heeling - as my instructor told me once, in NZKC competition obedience the judge does not want to see daylight between you and the dog. The schutzhund folks I have seen have a slightly looser style of heeling, but they still like the focus and prance. And working trials & ANKC appear to have a very loose style of heeling. I wonder if it is the more competitive disciplines that drive the tighter/closer heeling styles? For example, if you showed up at a NZKC obedience trial here with heelwork in the video Poodlefan posted, you'd never win - and why else would you do NZKC obedience, there are no prizes for second place, we don't have a thing as simply qualifying. Whereas you will see much looser heeling in the working trials here, where you don't need to come first to qualify for a title. I don't think that's a coincidence. The tight style of heeling is impractical in real life, it is clearly more of a trick, but then again many obedience exercises are. And I suppose if you drilled the dog for hours in an attention heel it could strain her neck, but we rarely do more than a few minutes at a time. Doing many obedience exercises for 20 minutes could be uncomfortable - I can't imagine my dog liking a 20 minute stand for exam, or liking presenting a dumbbell for 20 minutes, so we just do those things for a few minutes at time also.

It was very clever. But dogs in dresses always weird me out a little.

he,he,he.Reminds me of my Kieran ( around 40 kg of dane x) Whenever he was supposed to lie down, I would always say "resting puppy" Tee hee, well I've always loved meerkats, and joked to my family that if I ever live in Africa I'm adopting one. Now I don't need to, since I have a 28kg meerkat living in my house!