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Liz P

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  1. Yes, it was your responsibility to call the pharmacy prior to driving down there. Unless the medication was discussed and prescribed as chronic (refills available), you should have called your vet to request the refill rather than just requesting it through the pharmacy. If the medication was chronic, during that appointment you should have also discussed recheck exams as required by the state (every 3 months, 6 months, 12 months). Pharmacies automatically spit out refill requests from their computer systems constantly. The pharmacies tell us to ignore them if the client did not first call to request the medication or our system shows we prescribed enough refills that the client should still have plenty of meds.
  2. No, you would not. The pharmacy should have told you if the refill was rejected.
  3. Liz P

    Juniper

    I should not have been writing this post for at least a few more years. She was only 10, but sometimes Mother Nature can be cruel and take her favorites back early. I don't come on the BCBoards much anymore, but since so many of you know Juniper I thought I would post this here too. Juniper was a graduation gift, a new partner to walk by my side into a future filled with hope. I was determined to do everything right with her so that we could make it to Open level competition. She was my next project, my next goal, my new family member. I couldn't think of a name for her when she first came home. It had to be right for her and I was not going to settle on just anything. Then, while sitting with her in the grass on a hot summer day, she saw a beetle fly over, leapt into the air, snatched it up and swallowed it. From that day on I called her June Bug as a term of endearment, though she was registered as Juniper. She was always a pistol. That was clear from the start. Her first look at sheep resembled a tornado more than proper work. I knew I needed help to make sure she succeeded, and was lucky to be able to attend a clinic with Bobby Dalziel. Her first moments with him she looked like a shark on the end of the line, but as soon as she knew the rules she settled and showed me her potential. Gene Estes, who the Midwest crowd will know, saw me working her not too long after that clinic. I expressed my frustration to him about my lack of knowledge as a handler and the fear that I would not do right by her. He just smiled at me and said, "Don't worry. That dog will take you to the Nationals." She did. Over the years, Juniper earned the nickname of Pocket Rocket. She was small but mighty and never quit. I wish I had known then what an amazing gift it is to have a dog with that kind of heart. Determination can move mountains. I once sent her into heavy brush after a small herd of cattle; a bull, cows and calves. Several dogs had already gone in and been chased out. Juniper marched that herd out of the cedar trees, through several fields, across a creek, down a trail in heavy woods and back home to their farm. Juniper was as gentle and kind with other dogs and with people as she was tough on stock. She never met a stranger and could charm anyone. She was also a wonderful mother and mentor to many a pup. I could always count on her to help me get the next generation going, holding the sheep for pups without complaint. Only the greatest of foes could take down a dog who never gave up. Juniper lost her battle with cancer today. Sometimes, the only choice we have is to bow out with grace. That'll do.
  4. I've already spayed one bitch as she is turning 11 soon. I've kept 2 pups off her. One is clear and the other a carrier. The carrier is a bitch and turns 4 soon. I wanted to breed her to keep a pup. I've delayed breeding her up to this point because I suspected she might be a carrier. My other bitch is younger, but at least I have a clear stud to breed to her. It was 10 years ago that I discussed the DNA test with Dr. Neff. It's taken this long to get a linkage test released. My worry Eileen is that people have read that one line in the statement and already decided to not test based on it. If what the researchers say it true, the clears are truly clear, then we can use the test currently available. The issue is finding people willing to test so those of us with carriers can find mates.
  5. "The ABCA HEF does not endorse this marker test, nor do we encourage people to test at this time, before the causative mutation is found." <--- this line right here So what are you saying I should do in the case of my bitches, who are all carriers? Ignore the test results and breed to any stud? What would I tell those puppy buyers if their dogs go deaf? That I chose to ignore the results of the best testing option we had at the time? My plan was to breed the carrier bitches, but only to dogs that tested clear. According to the ABCA statement, those clear dogs have zero risk. That is the safest choice for me right now to save a bloodline. The problem I am having is that many stud owners already decided before the announcement that they would not bother testing. Now more have said that they won't bother. My options were just reduced even further. You want to save genetics? Encourage testing. I get it. The test is not perfect, but I don't ever want to break my heart again, or the heart of a puppy buyer. I don't want to breed a suspected carrier to a suspected carrier and have to worry that some day those pups might go deaf. I want to know that at least one parent of the litter has tested clear (and per the committee's very statements, the clears are genuinely clear).
  6. I am surprised by a statement that agrees that dogs found clear of the linked genes will not go deaf, which implies you could safely breed those dogs to the carriers and at risk dogs and never produce an affected puppy, and yet the ABCA basically just shot this test down by not supporting it. With such a high carrier rate we can't afford to eliminate all these dogs from the gene pool, as your statement said. Nor can we safely keep them in the gene pool without the test. Every single one of my bitches tested as a carrier. I had ONE dog come back clear. I know others in the same boat. How in the world can we safely proceed with a bloodline unless we utilize testing? How in the world can we find safe stud dogs to put to our bitches unless people test?
  7. Not just socialization, but genetic temperament. Plenty of dogs have been rescued from horrific neglect situations and turned out fine. Plenty of dogs were raised in home environments and turned out fearful. Socialization and training do help tip the balance, but good genes are critical.
  8. Haven't seen any I would touch at that price.
  9. $1200 for an 8 week old pup from Open trial winning parents with hip scores and a full DNA panel. Pups BAER and CERF checked. So for those pups? $300 maybe.
  10. Dr. Freeman is one of the smartest, hardest working, most ethical veterinarians you could ever meet. If she is concerned about nutritional DCM and recommends avoiding certain diets, I would take her advice. She is a clinical nutritionist first and foremost and has her patients' best interest at heart. She has indeed been paid to do some research for big pet food companies, including helping some of them develop new therapeutic diets. I assure you that her intent is pure and she is the last person to endorse a food unless she believes in it. I would refer clients to her and happily follow her advice for my own pets. In fact, I have fed one of my dogs (who was diagnosed with heart disease 5 years ago) a diet she developed in conjunction with a cardiologist and other colleagues to help slow the progress of heart disease in dogs.
  11. Nothing I ever say will be good enough for you. I am hoping to make people stop and think before they blindly follow the advice of pet store employees trying to sell them food.
  12. For the last 10 years I've fed almost exclusively one brand, aside from a period during which I could not get it due to shipping issues. The first ingredients were fish meal, chicken meal and corn. A brief history of DCM in pets: Phase one took place many decades ago, before my time. Vets noticed lots of cats are dying of this new form of heart disease. They did some research. Oops! Turned out cats are really dependent on taurine, so they changed things to make sure they get plenty in their diets. Phase two took place a few decades ago. I know some of the researchers who were involved. People were starting to become more conscious of dog food and demanding of "all natural" and new and exciting things like novel proteins. Back then, novel meant stuff like lamb instead of chicken and rice instead of corn. Rare cases of DCM in breeds not known to suffer from it popped up. More research was done. All these dogs were found to be eating one of a few brands of food. Back then, there just weren't many brands of food, so the pattern was easier to spot in one sense, but harder in the sense that most people still fed the mainstays like Purina and Hills. At this point researchers realized that dogs, like cats, could also suffer from nutritional DCM. The companies were approached and claimed to have fixed the issue, though vets were still getting reports of nDCM occasionally. Still, not many people fed these brands, so the general public was, for the most part, blissfully unaware. Phase three started about 15 years ago. People were really starting to become obsessed with dog food. More brands hit the market. They were touting more natural formulas, high in animal proteins and low in plant products (Innova Evo for example). They were indeed mostly protein. They had their hearts in the right place. Then things got out of hand. Their marketing worked too well. All of a sudden grain free was all the rage. More and more pet owners started to switch. Phase four started more recently, maybe 5 years ago. By this time grain free was everywhere. You were a horrible pet owner if you were feeding corn. Companies saw big money. Everyone was rushing grain free formulas to the market. As is typical of companies, they wanted to maximize profit. As pet owners become more educated about food, they had to become trickier to do so. Pet owners wanted to see high protein levels. Pet food companies started to add more and more plant based proteins to artificially increase the tested levels. They started to add peas and other legumes in increasing amounts, slowly eroding at the actual amount of animal based protein in their diets. Pet owners became aware of reading labels and that ingredients listed higher were found in larger amounts (by weight). They wanted to see "real meat at the first ingredient." Pet food companies got smart. Things like meat meal are nutrient dense whereas something like fresh, deboned chicken breast is mostly water. So by weight, fresh meat would appear high on a list while actually containing relative low nutrient density. They also started ingredient splitting. Instead of listing peas or whole peas, they would list the components separately (pea fiber, pea protein, etc). This would bump the components lower on the list of ingredients. What does that mean on a label? A food that has ground yellow corn as their number one ingredient and poultry byproduct meal as the second ingredient may actually contain a lot more animal protein that a food that lists fresh chicken meat as their number one and potato starch, pea fiber, pea protein as their next few ingredients. So now all of a sudden we have a massive number of people feeding these new diets and a huge shift in ingredients. And then the DCM cases started to pour in.
  13. How in the world does logic bring you to that conclusion? We've known for decades which brands cause it. It's not ALL foods. It's certain foods. These new fad diets do NOT have any research behind them. Any fool celebrity can put out their own brand.
  14. Nutritional DCM has been around for a long time. We just saw a huge surge in it when people started feeding brands that had zero feeding trials behind them. I know vets who have been researching this for decades. I see no reason for people to be taking a huge risk and feeding diets with nothing more than good marketing behind them when foods proven through research to be nutritionally complete are available.
  15. Please do not feed 4Health. It's one of over 40 foods that has been found to cause heart failure in dogs. Right now Royal Canin, Purina, Hills, Eukanuba and Iams are on the list of brands with no cases. Corn does not cause diarrhea in most dogs. Parasites, sudden change in diet and other things will cause diarrhea. There is no one dewormer that kills all parasites, so it's best to have a fecal sample sent to a lab to check prior to deworming.
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