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Bluzinnias

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Everything posted by Bluzinnias

  1. I'm planning to spend Sunday at the festival. The weather is supposed to be fabulous this weekend! Usually I watch all three sheepdog demos. The schedule is available for download at www.sheepandwool.org. Michelle
  2. Here at the hospital where I work, we prescribe quite a bit of Atopica with great results. The nice thing is there aren't a lot of the same side effects experienced with prednisone and other allergy drugs. However, once on Atopic, a patient usually has to remain on it for their lifetime. I don't know how it is priced in Canada, but here in the US it just came down about 33%. Novartis also has some pretty good coupons for it too. Ask you vet if they have some because here some of the dosages have a $75 coupon. Michelle
  3. Home Again has just recently enhanced their features. They now have a more aggressive recovery program that is optional. If you wish to join, for $15/year, your pet will become part of the new program. At first I boo hooed it but now I'm pretty impressed. The new features include a kind of Amber alert system - all clinics, shelters etc within 25 miles of where your pet was lost will be sent information via fax and/or email that this pet is missing and to keep a look out. Vaccination history and even medical conditions will be available to the finder of the pet. For example, if a lab was recovered in our clinic and we scanned it and found a microchip - Home Again will provide us with vaccination history and medical conditions such as diabetes, thyroid, epilepsy that may require immediate treatment. Currently if we recover a pet without vax history we have to quarantine. The pet owner will be able to download a photo and print lost pet posters. What is cool is that the contact number is an 800 number directly to Home Again - pet owners won't have their personal phone numbers tacked to telephone poles and bulletin boards. Don't get me wrong - I don't mean to come off as pushing them, I just think it's a great idea especially if you have a pet with a chronic medical condition. It's kind of like a medical alert bracelet. Michelle
  4. The Sheep and Wool Festival is Fantastic - I'll be there on Saturday!!! Plenty to see and do and is definately an all day affair. In addition to the sheep shows, there are barns full of vendors - if you do any craft work with fiber, this is the place to pick it up. They also have shearing demos, sheep dog demos, music entertainment etc. Did I mention the food??? Like Julie said, they do not allow dogs. Definately something I look forward to every year. I usually take my little neice and nephew and they have a great time too. It's also the same weekend as the Baltimore Flower mart about 45 mins away. Also a fun event. Michelle
  5. Virbac does make Iverhart Max which is a bioequivalent to Heartguard with Pyrantel Pamoate as it's active ingredient plus Praziqantel which is the same ingredient as Drontal which treats tapeworm. It basically the same thing as Heartguard with the added ingredient to treat tapeworms. You can also get Iverhart Plus - pyrantel pamaote without the tape worm dewormer. The Iverhart is about 1/3 less expensive than Heartguard but it is a tablet like Interceptor. As for a "generic" Heartguard along the lines of "Acme" green beans vs. Bird's Eye green beens - I don't know of one. Michelle ETA: Sorry, the Virbac product is along the lines of HEARTGUARD PLUS not the regular Heartguard. However, beware buying from internet pharmacies - some products have been found to be "fake". There was a report of internet pharmacies not too long ago that were selling "lower cost" human drugs including chemo drugs, that were constituted of nothing but inert ingredients. The one pill even had Pfizer embossed on it. These drugs ended up in major pharmacy chains such as CVS and Walgreens. There is a huge market out there for these and the major drug companies such as Novartis and Merial openly state that they do not sell to these outfits - leads me to ask - where do they get it from. Just recently in the veterinary industry, distributors are required to provide a "pedigree" for pharmaceuticals that shows where they originated from and who makes them. Also, if your pet does contract any of the diseases that these products prevent and they were originally bought through an unauthorized reseller (ie Pet Meds) they will not stand behind the product. On the other hand, if the products where bought through your veterinarian and your pet contracts Heartworm or intestinal parasites, Merial/Novartis/Virbac will pay for the treatment.
  6. Sorry... I didn't check the search feature. I don't post that often and I'm not real familiar with all the bells and whistles. Michelle
  7. I can't find the original post but wanted to remind everyone that tonight is the Outdoors Maryland episode partially filmed at one of the Long Shot trials this winter. MPT at 7:30pm. Michelle
  8. I've been checking this board all day here at work waiting to hear that he had been found!!! Yeah!! Now I can go home and not worry. So glad she found him. Michelle
  9. The Idexx snap test costs $10 so by the time they pay for the syringe,time for tech to draw blood, refrigeration of test etc... $16 seems quite low.
  10. Darn, I don't know what I did wrong in posting them. Any suggestions, I'll be happy to try again.
  11. Still a few more: 6/60/66/38/0/38666036511_0_ALB.jpg[/img]
  12. More Pictures.... The only dog I know for sure who it is:
  13. It was great to meet everyone over the weekend. It was a fabulous clinic! Stacy and Peter went above and beyond, everything was perfect. It's great to get to put some faces to the names you see. Now I just have to digest what I've learned and put it into practice. Here are some photos from the weekend. Hope I do this right
  14. I have had accupuncture done on my dog for his hips and he just seems to love it. He is very, very relaxed while our veterinarian inserts the needles and almost goes into a trans, lying on the rug, just completely vegged out while they're in. I have it done as a precautionary measure because his hips look so bad. So far, he's not been in any pain (he's only 2.5years old) but my vet said it wouldn't be a bad idea in the meantime to try it. We have a wonderful holistic vet that works at our practice twice a week.
  15. Mark, Thank you so much for your response. We actually met at the summer VBCA trial. I volunteered in the set out pen all day. I've read the links (sorry I didn't use the search feature first) and they were very helpful. As soon as one of our dr's come out of surgery, I'm going to give them information I've printed about the Labrador EIC. The description of what happens and the symptoms that occur hit it right on the head. At least I have some idea of a prognosis even if I don't like it. Michelle
  16. I'm wondering if anyone on the board has had a situation similar to mine. Sorry this is so long. My dog is just over two years old and is very active. We walk briskly around the neighborhood everynight for about 40mins, he plays ball in the field almost everynight and on weekends we work sheep at least one day, sometimes two and if we don't make it we go to the dog park, walk around the city....what I'm saying is that he is in no means out of shape. On three occasions now for no explained reason, he has collapsed after a short time of exercise (less than 10 minutes). There was no seizure but total loss of strength in the rear limbs, temperature over 107, and heavy, heavy breathing. He completely recovers in about 30 minutes and we can continue walking (no ball). This has never happened while we are working with stock, only when out playing ball. I work at a vet hospital and the first time it happened severly, we were here at the hospital. One of our kennel attendants took Speck outside with him for a cigarette break and threw the ball for about 5 minutes before he went down. The doctors and I have researched this through VIN and other collegues and a lot of them have seen this occur in border collies. After blood tests both pre and post episode, cardiology tests etc. the dogs (including mine) seem normal. Since this only happens when he is playing ball, my opinion (not very professional) is that he is over stimulated with the interaction and anticipation of people and balls. It breaks my heart to stop playing ball with him as it is what he loves most (after sheep of course). The veterinary resources that I have checked all compare this to a similar syndrome that working labradors experience. However, there is no treatment other than avoiding the exercise. My question to the board is: has any one else had a dog that experiences these symptoms and if so, how does it progress? There isn't any prognosis information out there that I have found and I don't know if this is going to get worse, cause further problems or limit his activities as he gets older. Right now, it doesn't seem to set in while we are working stock, but he does seem to quit a lot sooner than other dogs I have seen. We are just beginning and Speck isn't doing the 500 yard outruns but honestly (and it's hard to even say this) I don't know if he could. We were at a clinic just days after this happened the first time in the spring and I'm watching all these dogs working and thinking will my dog be able to run like this? This weekend was the third bad episode with it and I'm just so upset about it. He's the greatest dog and together we are learning so much. Health wise, he's just been a mess - broke two teeth off below the gumline that required oral surgery - twice, terrible hips (even with a OFA Good and OFA Excellent parents) and now this. My other dogs are working JRT's and man, they bounce back from just about anything. Any input would be great.
  17. Uggg....Somebody understands my pain!!!!! I can't find where they are picking them up and it's killing me. My JRT's are easy...a flea comb gets them right out of their wirey fur, but my bc is another story. Luckily he doesn't seem to pick up 1/2 as many as the girls but then the JRT's are always finding trouble. Michelle
  18. The injections also sound a lot like Adequan. My two year old has HD to a moderate degree on one side. He wasn't in pain, I work at a vet hospital and we had just gotten our xray machine serviced and my dog was under having dental surgery so we shot his hips. So I was totally taken by surprise. Parents were good and excellent OFA but you can never guarantee good hips. I'm trying to proactively delay any onset of symptoms and prevent more damage. So far, he's on Cosequin and having acupuncture on a bi-monthly basis. Our holistic vet practices acupuncture on a lot of HD cases in conjunction with traditional pain meds. You might want to check it out. Around here, it's not that expensive. Michelle
  19. Those photos are beautiful!! Thanks for sharing them. Michelle
  20. I don't treat my dogs every month with Frontline but I do use it if I notice fleas on them. In the between time I use Frontline spray. I just mist their feet, legs and belly as we come in. (this is of course if I remember!) It's expensive in a spray but I've had the same bottle for going on two summers and I've only used about three doses per dog in that same time so it probably works out to about the same as monthly dosing.
  21. I forgot to add that we did to the snap test for lymes and sent a sample to the reference lab and both were negative. It was odd because he presented with the same symptoms as a tick borne illness.
  22. My Speck had pano. I was sure it was lymes or some other tick borne virus having just lost a 5yr old JRT to lymes. My former vet was hell bent on him having some kind of virus so he prescribed all kinds of antibiotics which he prescribed at 1/3 of the effect dose for his size as we came to find out. Without much improvment and increased frustration we went to a new dr who xrayed and diagnosed pano, sent us home on a low dose nsaid and we were good to go! I think it the symptoms let up after just a day or two and he was on the nsaid for about a week.
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