Jump to content
BC Boards

Liz P

Registered Users
  • Posts

    5,101
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Liz P

  1. I tried to submit a newly identified EOD producer, BAER tested normal multiple times, over the age of 8 years old. No response whatsoever. A friend of mine tried to submit a newly identified 6 year old dog who went deaf. No response. I have heard similar stories from others online. It's making people frustrated and lose faith in the study. Who is responsible for responding to those request forms to submit dogs to the study?
  2. Never, ever correct growling. Never. Did I say never enough? His growl is his way of saying he is scared. Imagine if your child came in your room, said he was afraid of the thunder and you punished him. Would that help the fear? Or destroy his trust in you? Remember those stories you hear about the dog biting "out of the blue" or "with no warning?" Guess what, their owners almost certainly corrected them for growling. Growling is communication. Figure out what it means and address the problem. In your pup's case, it's fear. Protect him. He needs to know you have his back. If he trust you, he will relax. Do not let people come near him if he is scared. Do praise and shove treats in his mouth when you are near scary things. That way you can associate good experiences with what scares him. Read this article "He Just Wants to say Hi."
  3. I don't think it's fair for the cat to be followed constantly, let alone herded (cut off from going places). I correct my pups the minute I see them staring or following. You may not be able to stop a dog from being obsessed with the cat, but you should be able to stop them from acting on their obsession. Imagine how annoying it would be if someone followed you all the time and constantly got in your way.
  4. I would want to see the pedigrees of all 3 parents first, sire and the two dams. Call me skeptical about the red merle, but I've seen a bunch of red merles out west advertised as being out of a great working bitch. They were out of a bitch who I personally knew of that was sold several times for being a failure on sheep. (No stock sense, super weak.)
  5. I sure wouldn't do it. Better to tough out the recovery time than risk the incision opening, adhesions and other potential complications.
  6. Ack! Vet here. They should NOT be back to normal running and playing less than a week after surgery. As the body heals and replaces the initial tissue laid down immediately post op, the incision becomes weaker before it becomes stronger. For a spay, 2 weeks of actual rest. Just on a leash to potty. No jumping onto or off of furniture. No long walks, no running.
  7. Smalahunder, no, it's not. Most vets keep their prices so low compared to their costs that the profession is hemorrhaging skilled employees, there is little to no profit margin and we cannot afford to pay back our student loans. We are actually drastically undercharge for our services. If something doesn't change, the profession will implode or will no longer attract the best and the brightest.
  8. "And yes, very much to just filling any Rx at a real drug store that can be. Walmart's pharmacy is better, but even Walgreens is cheaper than the vet dispensing most things." The old business model in vet med was to charge relatively little for services like exams and earn the profit on marked up products like drugs. As consumers purchase drugs elsewhere, from places like Walmart, the times are changing. Walmart and other big retailers can use their vast purchasing power to get better prices than small mom and pop vet hospitals. They can also take losses on drugs, making up for it with impulse purchases on other items. Vets can't sell for less than what they pay. What does that mean for you, the clients? We can't operate hospitals at a loss. Salaries need to get paid, as do water bills, mortgages/rent, equipment companies, etc. So how is a vet to make money? They raise the fees for their services. Yes, vets have to make a living too. They have families to feed, bills to pay.
  9. It's not that simple. Uncomplicated urinary tract infections are rare in males. There is usually something else going on, and doing a thorough physical exam and taking a history is key in finding the correct diagnosis. Unless I have an established relationship with a client and their pet, we already know the cause of repeated UTIs and how to best deal with them, have worked out a game plan and the dog is current on an exam, I won't let them just drop off a sample. That makes for poor medicine. Things get missed. Dogs can get worse or die if critical information gets missed. It has nothing to do with being greedy and everything to do with practicing good medicine. GentleLake, yes, doing something you did not authorize is wrong. I won't disagree with that. However, your assumption that just because you feed raw and your dog's teeth look good it means they are healthy is not correct. I worked at a hospital where were testing some new technology: test strips that detected byproducts of the bacteria that cause periodontal disease. We used the strips on all dogs coming in for wellness exams and scored them. Those scores were compared to full mouth radiographs and other information collected on our dental cases. I was surprised by the number of dogs who had high scores (bad) on the strips that had pretty looking teeth. Two of them were my own dogs, whose teeth looked quite pristine due to raw bone consumption. The dogs who scored high on the strips did indeed have significant periodontal disease (bone loss, pocketing, etc) that could only be detected during a thorough dental that included rads. Cleaning those teeth *below the gum line* and applying specialized antibiotic products will help save them.
  10. I would say fine if the pup is on a leash most of the time. It's when they run like crazy trying to keep up with the mature dogs that they get overly tired and injured.
  11. Not working vs sport, just different personalities. My dogs live in the house with me, so I can't stand dogs who fidget and pace all the time. I like a naturally calm minded dog. That's very different than drive level, which far too many get confused about. Some think insane, over the top dogs = high drive while calm dogs = low drive. I want dogs with self control that are high drive.
  12. Denice, I will agree to a point. I've raised a lot of pups from different lines. They are all taught self control, basic obedience, how to settle in the house. The lines make a huge difference. Some take a lot more work and are a lot less likely to be naturally calm and relaxed (months of training vs years to get the same effect).
  13. Load of bull. It's determined by lines, not coat and ear set.
  14. Honestly, I would not choose a Border Collie as a service dog for most situations. It really depends on what you need and the individual dog. That said, I have personal experience with one of my dogs stepping up to the plate when I suffered from some nasty health problems. I think you are better off getting a trained dog from an organization than you are getting a pup. I see a ton of pups wash out and never make the grade.
  15. Some of the European kennel clubs such as Sweden and Germany have excellent, comprehensive numbers. The USA data is limited to a select group of individual dogs.
  16. Tweed is a Sheltie x Great Dane cross.
  17. Where are you? The Mid States Stock Dog club is pretty active in eastern OK. Other clubs cover the rest of the state. There are plenty of trainers around. Many do have cattle, but even most of the cattle people keep some sheep or goats around to start dogs. Yes, working goats will transfer to sheep. The dog will need some experience with sheep if you want to do well at trials. They often react a little differently, generally being lighter. Lessons and clinics are the best way to learn. Joining your local stock dog club is the best way to network and find those opportunities.
  18. Honestly, I think far too many people jump to BCC when the dog had an episode of heat stroke. It doesn't have to be hot for a dog to overheat. We actually see a lot of cases in the ER when the spring temps hit about 70F. Dogs and people aren't used to that after a cold winter, the weather seems so nice that people can't resist and they play outside. If that involves really exciting, high intensity exercise for the dog, they can easily overheat. I've even seen dogs get too hot in temps around 30F when they were running full out.
  19. I would not panic, but I also sure would not be taking my dog to a groomer right now. I will be curios to see how this develops, is it really a local kennel cough outbreak or has dog flu made it to the KC area? PS, I saw a distemper case last week. Dog had not been vaccinated in 5.5 years. The holistic med types like to proclaim lifelong immunity from viral vaccines, but that has not been my experience in clinical practice.
  20. I've never trained or handled one, so take this with a grain of salt... My experience with Rough and Smooth Collies has been watching runs at AHBA trials. They are very sweet dogs and seemed to really enjoy the work. They were upright, loose eyed and to a dog lacked any push. Most also lacked stock sense, though I have seen two that did understand the behavior of sheep enough to do some of their own thinking. They could look ok in smaller spaces on broke stock, but the second the sheep ran or challenged the dogs, they fell to pieces and showed a total lack of control (the sheep got away). On the flip side, I've seen some top notching working Kelpies, Bearded Collies, NZ Heading Dogs, Huntaways, Aussies and even a talented Hairy Mouth Cur. I saw a video of a few lovely landrace German tending dogs. I've seen one GSD with good working talent. To date, I've never seen an English Shepherd with any talent. I've never seen a Welsh Sheepdog work at all, so no opinion on them. I've seen some nice enough Catahoulas, but the working style was so radically different that I don't think you could compare them to BCs in any recognizable way. I've seen plenty of Corgis working. They are gamey little dogs and most have a lot of desire to work. Some have excellent confidence. They aren't gathering dogs though, even though some can be taught to do an outrun. Their legs are too short to allow them to catch stock that decides to bolt. They are meant to help drive stock, and I think they could be fine for that purpose. All that said, if I wanted a good working that can gather, drive, help in pens, sort and pretty much do anything, it's a Border Collie for me. If Border Collies ceased to exist, I would get Kelpies. JMHO
  21. There isn't much talk about it on the veterinary message boards right now. I've heard it's in northern IL and OK as well as several other states not officially listed. The biggest outbreak is supposed to be among show dogs. A lot were exposed at one show (can't remember which state but it was eastern), then the next weekend they went to shows in other areas and spread it. We are having an outbreak of something in the KC area right now. Over the past few weeks I've seen at least a few cases a day of dogs coming in for coughing/sneezing and lethargy. Most had just been to the groomer, but I've also seen pups from 3 different breeding kennels in MO that were sick within a few days of purchase. Several of those pups were sold sick (coughing on the drive home with their new owners), which really makes me angry. I've not taken samples from any of those dogs to prove it's Bordetella (kennel cough) and not flu. I wasn't terribly worried since they seemed like standard cases, none were particularly worrying. I did see a dog today with pneumonia. He was in rough shape and has been sick for several weeks. He has me concerned. You don't usually see such severe symptoms with Bordetella unless the dog is immune compromised or brachiocephalic. He is elderly, so that could be the reason, but still... Aside from the puppies, all these dogs have been vaccinated for Bordetella. Now, the vaccine is NOT 100% effective, but I usually mostly see unprotected dogs getting clinical disease. That, combined with the one dog today with pneumonia, is making me question if this may be the flu. I would have loved a sample from the dog with pneumonia, but his head can't be touched even by the owner, so there was simply no way to get a good swab to send in for testing. I experienced a very serious dog flu outbreak in 2008 (the original strain). All of my dogs got sick and coughed for a month. They ran high fevers, went off their food and had the most horrendous sounding hacking cough. You could tell they felt terrible. One of mine even developed pneumonia and took several months to recover. The virulence of that strain was mind boggling. Dogs with ZERO exposure to other dogs were getting sick because it was spreading through indirect contact (fomites). I am surprised the articles don't mention that outbreak, because it was pretty substantial. I think it was the first time dog flu had made it to New England. Given that I have several trials and a dog centered vacation planned for the next month, I think I might just give my dogs the flu vaccine to be safe. It's not something I usually do, but in the face of an outbreak it could be a wise choice.
  22. Missouri has actually passed some fairly strict breeding laws. However, people have to get caught for them to be enforced. You aren't supposed to have more than 3 intact bitches, whether or not you are breeding them, without a kennel license.
  23. I owned mine since birth as well and we were very close. I never, ever imagined he would be leaving my home. Seeing him go made me feel physically sick. A week after his new owner took him, a rescue volunteer saw them together. She said they were deeply bonded and looked as if they had been best friends for many years. That made me feel a lot better, but I didn't stop missing him for a long time. I still do really. It was the right choice though. I didn't mean to imply she made the sheep run. I could see how they took off like rockets as soon as they saw a dog coming. They reminded me of Black Belly Barbados sheep for that reason. I love trying out different types of stock with my dogs and seeing how they handle themselves. I think those experiences make for a more well rounded working partner. Anyway, this disease sure is a heartbreaker. I hope the DNA test is finalized soon. Before Frankie's dam died I had collected several DNA samples and saved them. Frankie's new owner has been kind enough to send in samples to various studies as well.
  24. I did end up placing my EOD affected dog in a pet home. I tried to use him for work after he went deaf, but after some dangerous near misses I stopped. Of course, this made him super frustrated when I took the other dogs out to work. He started to try to break out of the house to join us, so I had to crate him. Then he started to bloody his mouth and break his teeth on the crate door if I took another dog out to work. His new owner loves him to death. They travel all over the USA together and I get reports about how well he is doing. I know he is happy, but I cried for a long time after he left. Knowing it's for the best doesn't make the decision any easier. PS, what kind of sheep are those? They are fast!
  25. Mark, I believe for the person who started this topic on FB, it was noticed on the ranch. When the young dogs were taken out to do real work, some fell short of their peers in stamina. I do agree that trials are an unnaturally stressful environment for the dogs and will lead to overheating faster than at home. Julie, I live in an area where cattle trials are more common than sheep, so I compete at both. I would say among the cow dog exclusive people there are two mindsets. Some do like the really aggressive biting dogs that need to be trained to let go and back off. Some want genuine feel and stock sense backed up with power and the willingness to bite hard when it's needed. Both types compete in trials and use them for ranch work, so you still get the spectrum of weekend warriors to dogs that work long days every day.
×
×
  • Create New...