sandgrubber

I wormed my three dogs with pyrantel [the PLUS ingredient in Heartguard Plus] a few days back. We can buy pyrantel in bulk in the US . . . it's a good, safe, and easy to use wormer, and very cheap. The day after being wormed, the puppy crapped out a jointed string of tapeworm ycch, maybe 4 cm long. Very clearly tapeworm and not roundworm. There were also a few smaller white bits that looked like grains of rice, and they squirmed around in the fresh pooh, just as in the descriptions of tapeworm. I've hit roundworm before, many times, but never tapeworm. I routinely observe the dogs poohs to look for possible problems, like excessive ingestion of tennis balls, and have seen none in the other dogs. Funny thing is, pyrantel is not supposed to be effective for tapeworm. I've gone ahead and ordered a broad spectrum wormer that handles both forms of tapeworm, and I figure it won't hurt to do all the dogs one time. Am I going overboard? Is it likely that the pyrantel is actually killing the tapeworm, and further wormers are not required?

Time and patience. ..wait it out. Kennel cough is more alarming than serious in a healthy dog. Often it's just a few days. At worst, a few weeks. You can try to make the dog more comfortable.

Oh how I wish my puppy would make a truce with the broom! I know she will...eventually.

Worth noting that daschunds are a varied breed, with three coat types (smooth, rough and long), and, in some countries, three body types (miniature, standard, and rabbit). The most aggressive daschies I've met have been smooth coats, especially the standard. Never met a rabbit daschund that I know of. Checking the Finnish KC database confirms the suspicion that these have different mortality profiles. For standard, smooth coat daschies, more die of accidents than of old age. For standard, long coat, only about a third as many die of accidents as old age. Likewise, death from euthanasia due to behavioral problems is higher for the smooth coat than the long coat. Not that this is definitive, or that things are the same in Finland as Oz or the US. Just to say that the breed is diverse. Let's hope the fad picks up on relatively friendly, unaggressive strains, as people buying fashionable dogs are often inexperienced.

I would not like to see animal rights nutters given the opportunity to post to the breeders forum . . . so as much as it would be good to offer support, etc., I think the negatives of opening the forum outweigh the positives.

Do you think only terriers chase and kill things? All hounds will kill something - give a whippet a rabbit and look out, give any hound anything and they will do the job they were bred to do. Dacshunds are more chilled than most terriers and work in a different way. In my experience hounds are prey driven, but rarely DA or HA, and noisy at meal time and maybe full moon, but not the sort of dogs that yap at people coming to the door. Daschunds were rated as the most aggressive of breeds by one study based on thousands of owner questionnaires (Breed differences in canine aggression Deborah L. Duffy, Yuying Hsu, James A. Serpell, 2008). I've met a few sweet tempered daschies, but many are as inclined to attack big dogs and ankle bite as the worst of high-strung, badly-trained JRT's.

Hound? I'd say more like the brain of a terrier! Earth dog and many have the temperament needed to drag a badger from its hole. Surprised by the fad. A byb'r is doing well to get $400/pup for dachsies around here.

If you're concerned, talk to a repro vet. I did this once for a girl who I thought hadn't come into season at 2 1/2 yrs.. After a brief exam, the vet laughed at me in a friendly way and said I was wrong. He gave me some meds that brought on her next season. She was mated and had 9 healthy pups.

Hey, wait a minute. Not all Labs stink! I have three. I almost never bathe them. Their smell is quite mild, even when wet ...I only smell them when my nose is right next to their coat, and even then it's not an unpleasant odor. No one else has ever commented on a doggy smell either, so I don't think it's just that I'm used to them. For some reason, some of their bedding ends out smelling raunchy . . . but never the dogs themselves. The first Lab I owned developed some skin condition (I've forgotten its name) that made her really stink. There was a very specific chemical for managing the odor, and I've forgotten its name. Long ago.

why not use a harness? If neck width is close to head width, collars are going to be a problem.

If you play with the Finnish data, you'll find various surprises. Attached is the data for the ASBT. Note that for dogs who make it to old age, average age of death is 12 1/3 yrs. But accidents and euthanasia for behavioral reasons knock off around one in four dogs, typically at an age of 3 to 4. Also note that skeletal or articular disease takes a huge toll at a pretty young age. Cancer, on the other hand, takes out older dogs. Because there are major causes of early death, the average life expectancy for the breed as a whole is a bit under six years. see http://jalostus.kennelliitto.fi/frmTerveystilastot.aspx?R=122&Lang=en If I were an ASBT breeder, these stats would carry some strong messages, eg, that screening for skeletal/articular disease (I presume this includes HD and OSD) is a necessity, that breeding for good temperament is a must, and that puppy buyers should be screened carefully to avoid people who won't be careful of things like fencing. I suspect the reason many breeds come out with shockingly short lifespans in the Finnish data it that the data accounts for deaths we tend to forget . . . ie, accidents, pts's for behaviour, chronic diseases with early onset. I think it's important that both breeders and puppy buyers are aware of the things that pick off dogs when they are young, and work to prevent premature deaths.

Personally, I've resolved to get a new dog no more often than once every four years. That saves me from the bind of ending out with multiple oldies -- and attendant sorrows and vet bills -- at once.

Yup! I'm just jealous of the Finns. See http://jalostus.kenn...x?R=153&Lang=en The way to do it would be online with open access. You'll notice that the Finnish data is imprefect, with "cause of death not noted" being a common entry. But it's a lot better than nothing. Also, I did human demography and a bit of epidemiology long before I got involved with dogs, and it bugs me that dog culture accepts a crappy system that records births but not deaths. How can you scientifically approach health without data? Controlled studies are too expensive . . . very very few of them have been done for periods of several years. Seems to me that keeping track of health concerns is the #1 reason for bothering with pedigrees at all. Why do hundreds (thousands) of dollars of testing, and record keeping on tests, when simple mortality statistics would be at least as effective. OMG! You mean people would have to be honest to make the system work? If that's the real problem, I don't see that the pedigree dog world can ride a high horse in competition with BYB's and commercial breeders.

There's an interesting thread going on why health testing isn't mandatory. Following from that thread, it strikes me that even before health testing, KC's should be keeping records of age of death and cause of death. In reading a pedigree, I would much rather know whether there were patterns of early death from cancer, or long lives, or much euthanasia for behavioral problems, than whether hip or elbow Xrays were good. I know the Finnish KC has begun recording mortality data, but I don't know of any other clubs that do so. Why are these records not kept?

The efficacy of tests also needs to be considered. If the incidence of cataracts that can't be detected by DNA test is, say 3% in some breed, and there is no known incidence of juvenile cataracts in some breeder's lines, I would say that breeder might be justified in skipping annual opthamology screening. If you go to offa.com, you'll see that some small breeds have high radiographic incidence of HD / OCD . . . but very low clinical manifestation of hip or elbow problems. I can understand why the relevant breed clubs seldom require hip and elbow scoring. The seriousness of the disease is also relevant. Before there was a DNA test for Exercise Induced Collapse, there were thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of Labradors who were affected, in genetic terms, but lived their entire lives without any clinical signs. As genetic tests multiply, we need to think carefully about what we require, and need to begin putting pressure on providers to bundle tests. I would not like to end up with a situation where one had to submit 20 different DNA tests for 20 different conditions, and keep records for all of them...and explain all the results to each prospective puppy buyer.

http://actavet.vfu.cz/pdf/200776030431.pdf Interesting review article: discusses some interesting studies Genetics of Canine Behavior Abstract Houpt K.A.: Genetics of Canine Behavior. Acta Vet. Brno 2007, 76: 431-444. Canine behavioral genetics is a rapidly moving area of research. In this review, breed differences in behavior are emphasized. Dog professionals’ opinions of the various breeds on many behavior traits reveal factors such as reactivity, aggression, ease of training and immaturity. Heritability of various behaviors – hunting ability, playfulness, and aggression to people and other dogs – has been calculated. The neurotransmitters believed to be involved in aggression are discussed. The gene for aggression remains elusive, but identifi cation of single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with breed-specifi c behavior traits are leading us in the right direction. The unique syndrome of aggression found in English Springer Spaniels may be a model for detecting the gene involved.

Returning to the if clause in the OP . . . I can't imagine circumstances in which I could not get a purebred dog. May that day never come.

toxicity depends on dosage. I'm sure you could poison a dog with pure tea tree oil. My guess is the amount of the relevant chemical compounds in shampoo, and the fraction of that amount that actually gets into your dog's systems, is so low that it can be ignored. I wouldn't worry about toxicity, only ab out whether it is doing what you want from a shampoo.

Alternatively, use a hot wire for a few weeks. That will be enough to teach the dogs. Then leave the wire up and remove the juice. It cannot be illegal to have a wire up if it isn't electrified. My dogs won't go near electric fence wire, hot or not. When it's installed near the ground to prevent digging it's not very conspicuous, and probably won't be reported.

Mine tend to either go for the feet, or lie with butt toward my head. I've always figured this had something to do with avoiding disturbance by arms when I toss and turn. Sometimes they start out with head close in, but then migrate out of the arm zone.

I, and many others on rural properties, have successfully stopped pups from digging under fences by setting up a single strand of electric fence about 15m mm above the ground, close enough to the fence that they cannot approach the base of the fence without getting zapped. This is probably illegal where you live, but if your fence is solid, it would be inconspicuous. After being zapped a couple times, mine don't even approach the base of the fence.

My puppy is an idiot because she will try to eat anything that falls on the kitchen floor. She got pretty far along on a Jalapeno pepper before realizing it bites back. Then she barked at it.

Kidney malfunction? If so, you need a vet, not a chiro.

Most dogs seem to have a favorite toy. The most recent in my household came from an op-shop. It was once a T-Rex, maybe 150 mm long. The dogs have been enjoying it for about five months. It's not clear to me why they like this so well, but they keep coming back to it. What charming oddities have your pooches been working on?

My dog is a dope because she goes out the doggie door at night, and then barks at the front door to get let back in. How many times do I have to walk her around to the doggie door before she gets it?