ness_bc

Less is definitely more when your first starting out. I have occasionally run a novice dog in novice jumping and open jumping if I haven't been happy with their contact performance but they are more then ready to handle the distance challenge in open. No NADAC here in this part of Australia its all ANKC or kennel club.

A huge fan of the product - have both my girls on it. My oldie was 14 on Sunday and is 12 months post a cruciate repair. My young BC has plenty of ortho issues and it was the last ditch effort as nothing else we were doing was helping. I have tried other joint products and definitely think this one trumps all others. My young girl has been on it for about 20 months and my oldie would be coming up for 16 or so months on the product. A couple of video updates I did. This is my girl who was 14 on the weekend a few months ago (so about 8 or so months post cruciate surgery) - And my baby girl (well not so baby she is 6 now but has been having lameness issues since she was 3) - Neither dog are on anything other than supplements although I will occasionally use a tramadol with my old girl if she does to much. Not all products work equally well for all dogs but its definitely one that has worked for my two. Its safe to use at higher then the loading dose for extended period of times.

Bit late on this but my young BC girl with ortho issues has been on and off a combination of tramadol and carprofen (which is effectively rimadyl). The specialist said if I could get away with just tramadol then it was a safer long term alternative for her and he was much happier for her to be on that. We did dosage reductions to see what was the lowest dose of the drugs she can still be ok on. In the end she is now on carprofen and tramadol as needed.

Here is the link to the full 20 minute clip . http://player.vimeo.com/video/80670275?portrait=0

Not only is he a top canine rehab guru but produces some awesome videos. A very multi-talented individual. I am looking forward to watching the full version. Will post a link here when its available .

Hey guys, A friend has asked that I share this around - its a trailer to a short film due to be released shortly entitled "The Shepherd". If its anything like the other clips I have seen of his work it will be well worth watching . http://player.vimeo.com/video/80582945?portrait=0

My 5 year old BC has BCC as far as the researchers are confirmed. There is a Facebook group that a few people have set up with dogs who are affected. Mostly just as a way of exchanging information. Katie Minor who is involved with the research is also a member of the group.

Megs - you can teach the dog to track by laying the tracks yourself so the dog is tracking your scent. Thats how I have taught Kenz (who is also scared of strangers). She learned the game by me laying a track and following my scent to a t-shirt with a container of food. IPO tracking the preliminary tracks the handlers lays.

Yeah I know nosework is about the only option - selfish desire to try and find something I can still compete with her in. We may still have to resort to playing things like that when her body finally gives up on her. As long as both the specialist and the chiro vet are ok with her tracking I will give it a go. If things continue to worsen I will restrict her further but since the advice provided is that we can see how she does I am loathed to give up everything until I absolutely have to.

Thanks yes I had read up on that and I am just not sure it hasn't been suggested. When I emailed the specialist to organise more pain meds to have on hand he asked if Kenz had been sedated to diagnosis it which she hadn't been. I didn't think it seemed like it would need sedating to diagnose. She was only at the ortho about 6 weeks ago but also when she saw him she had been doing restricted activity/UWTM twice a week so wondering if its emerged since I have her let go a little bit.

She can do tracking if she does it at a low to moderate speed. Problem with doing to much in the way of tricks is she throws herself at everything with so much enthusiasm I am sure its making her issues worse anyway. She will literally throw herself at me. She isn't really into "food" or "puzzle" toys. Just isn't foodie and would rather a toy. I also have to be careful because if she gets mentally wound up then she is just as liable to a collapse episode.

Had a check-up appointment with the chiro vet - he didn't feel either medial luxating patella was to bad. She could tolerate a fair amount of pressure and while they aren't normal he didn't think they warranted surgery. However she has gone back to having some intermittent front end lameness so he checked out her front and is fairly convinced she has a medial shoulder instability in her right shoulder. What a frustrating saga this dog has turned out to be. Advice now is to manage her pain with meds as necessary and try and encourage a lower activity level lifestyle. Not happening unfortunately she is just becoming more feral with doing less.

Fish oil and a natural anti-inflam based on rose-hip is what my girls are on. I gather from the company this is the US brand of the rose-hip supplement - http://icanflex.com/

Not sure nobody has suggested it. The problem is the surgeon wants to do the RH first to give her a good leg and then maybe avoid doing the LH (which is the one she had surgery on already) but the LH bothers her just as much as the RH does. I was wondering about pushing to have the LH redone (it will be done cheaper because its considered a complication of the first surgery) and then worry about finding money to repair the other leg at some point in time. I really am not looking forward to trying to crate rest her for another 4 months either .

Hmm Kenz has now had 7 weeks of hydrotherapy/underwater treadmill twice a week. She had her last session yesterday and managed 3 reasonable sessions. Specialist has suggested repairing the RH MPL, then recheck x-rays at 4 weeks and then potentially starting underwater treadmill at 4 weeks post-op then have a follow up appointment at 6 and 8 weeks and then do a revision surgery on her LH MPL at the 8 week mark. She is struggling so much poor girl. Just not in a financial position to be able to go ahead for the moment so she is basically on pain meds as necessary and whatever exercise she can cope with (which isn't much). Life sucks - poor girl.

My young BC has BCC and yes she had had collapse episodes with relatively light exercise but then she has been coming off restricted activity and is out of condition so that has made things worse. Most seem to involve much more intense activity though although it doesn't take much. Couple of minutes of play. I have posted elsewhere video of one of her more extreme collapse episodes. Worth monitoring though and keeping a close eye to see if there is a pattern of episodes.

Specialist is happy there is nothing else going on but her right hind luxating patella has deteriorated since she last saw him in January. The left hind which had surgery still has a grade 1 patella luxation. No real suggestion or recommendation of further surgery at this stage - not that I could afford it anyway.

Hmmm well its run at a vet practice and because she does have grade 2 bilateral luxating patellas, a small amount of non-weight bearing lameness at times is somewhat inevitable. I was up front when I showed up for the appointment on Thursday. He asked how she had been. It wasn't lasting lameness as such. She was shifting weight off her right hind towards the end of the session above and by the time we went the 10m to the gate she was holding the leg up. It resolved by the time we got to the car (maybe another 100m away). She was fine in Thursdays session but each amount of treadmill time was cut by 30 seconds. Interesting comments though - its hard when you can only really be guided by the vets in charge of these places.

Hmm haven't been on here awhile but I thought I would come back as I am really not sure what to do. The saga continued and she was subsequently diagnosed with having a luxating patella in her other hind leg. She is/was still having issues with the surgery leg as well. Back in February she went back to the specialist who regraded her surgery leg as the same grading MPL as before surgery. However she had such significant muscle wastage he wasn't sure if that wasn't the reason and so reluctant to put her back to surgery. In the last few weeks we decided to go ahead and try some underwater treadmill. She has been having two sessions a week for the last 3 and a bit weeks. Last Monday (session 6) she came up non-weight bearing while in the tank and was non-weight bearing after her session. The video of her session is here - Because of that her session on Thursday (session 7) was significantly shorter. She has been getting tramadol twice a day and carprofen twice a day for the last few months. She still has huge issues with doing stairs and all the things she use to. I have tentatively booked her in to the specialist this coming Tuesday because the person who I have been corresponding with over the hydrotherapy suggested it was worth taking her back to the specialist to make sure there wasn't anything more going on and to get a more current picture on the MPLs. Really not sure what to do with her but figured I'd post the video here and see if anybody else has any ideas.

Definitely worth looking into Covelo - I was very impressed with the level of scientific backing the product had and certainly saw huge changes in both dogs since having them on it.

Hmm not sure if you can get access to something like it over there but there is a new supplement over here based on rose hips. I have a young dog with bilateral medial luxating patellas and I think this product in combination with fish oil is working better then anything I have used containing glucosamine. The rose hips are a natural anti-inflammatory. I have also put my 12.5 year old on it who has slight arthritic changes and she is doing brilliantly as well. http://rosehipvitalcanine.com.au/

Lame dogs are certainly a journey - fingers crossed he remains fit and sound (I am still hoping I can get a dog to that point ).

Great news and I to have enjoyed the journal and following along with Celt's recovery.

Thanks Sue R. Kenz has another physio appointment next Thursday (had to squeeze one in before Christmas because her physio is on leave from mid January). Not sure we don't seem to have made any forward ground in the last month unfortunately. Although I suppose the good thing is things haven't got any worse either. Still frustrating bigtime.

Hmm here is a link I have found when I was looking into it - http://petsurgery.com/caudeaquinasyndrome.html