Product Review: Canidae TidNips

This month we did another review for Chewy.com.  This time we tried Canidae TidNips.

This is another soft, jerky like treat.  I like any of these that are not too greasy and also not too crumbly.  This fit the bill just fine. And they are easy to break into smaller pieces as needed.  As far as the dogs go, you know we don't have any picky eaters here.  However, everyone, including Penny, thought these were tasty enough to nearly take my hand off for.  So, that's eight (?) thumbs up?  And they do contain chicken, turkey, lamb, and salmon so they should appeal to most pets no matter what their favorite meat is!  But with these multiple meats, among other ingredients they may not work for allergic or sensitive dogs.

But, in our house, it's one we would try again!

As always, available online. And they are reasonably priced compared to other high end treats. Enjoy!

All grown up

I've been meaning to post pictures of a full-grown Kahuna for awhile now.  But, I keep forgetting, and he's not great as posing.  But I finally managed to get it done today!

He's now two years old and big, sweet, spoiled boy.  I'm not sure how much he weighs though because as sweet as he is, he doesn't like being picked up and doing so may result in bodily harm.  But I would estimate 15 pounds plus.  I'm not sure if he's as big as Spring was, and he's definitely not as big as the 19-20 lbs they told me he would be, but he's a big bunny nonetheless.

And apparently, one good way to get good pictures is to just hand him the treat bag.  

Penny

While I am not generally a fan of smushy faced dogs, you must admit-she is pretty cute.

Never ending winter

Saturday we got about 2 inches of sleet. Sunday night we got about 4-5 inches of snow on top of that.  Yay,  snow in March (insert sarcasm here).  But Monday (a day off work for me thanks to all this bad weather) was at least sunny.  So here are our March snow pictures.  Let's hope there will be no more!

Legend, with her face covered in snow, as usual.

Lyric says it's way too cold just give me the cookie! 

 Penny says she's gonna do just fine in New Hampshire.

 Zodiac...Mr. Handsome

Annual Heartworm Testing

If you live in an area where heartworms are uncommon then this likely is of little importance.  But here in the thick of heartworm country this is a daily dilemma of veterinarians and dog owners.

Many, many clients wonder why, if heartworm preventatives are so reliable do they need to spend money on an annual test to see if their dogs are still negative.  After all, why shell out all that money (although some prevntatives are very reasonably priced) if we still have to run the test?  And when heartworm tests range from $12-$40 depending on the test and the clinic and a person has multiple dogs, this seems a reasonable question to ask.

So, here are some reasons...

Heartworm preventatives are prescription drugs.  There are some legal and ethical reasons that a veterinarian may not want to allow purchase of a prescription drug without first knowing the dog's heartworm status.  In fact, certain preventatives can cause an adverse reaction if given to a heartworm positive dog.

Many companies will offer some sort of guarantee of their product and pay for all or part of the treatment if your dog contracts heartworms while on their product.  Part of this guarantee requires annual heartworm testing.

While these products are all very good, no drug is 100% effective all the time and annual testing ensures that if there is any failure of the drug we catch it early.  If you wait until your dog is clinical from heartworm disease then his chances at full recovery and less than if caught early.  Also, heartworms are doing damage on a microscopic level even early in the disease so the sooner we know about it the better.

Resistance to heartworm preventatives is a fairly new, and geographically limited topic.  And depending on who you ask, the issue may or may not be actual resistance, but poor owner compliance, etc.  However, it is something we need to keep in mind.

Owner compliance is something that is a big issue-usually more so from the veterinarian standpoint that the owners.  Typical scenario is that the owner claims to have kept their dog on prevention all year, but the records show that not enough prevention was purchased.  Possible to have gotten some somewhere else, leftover from a dog that passed away etc, but trust me, those exceptions cannot possibly account for the number of times this situation actually comes up.  Other situation is that when asked if owner needs more prevention they say they don't because they still have some.  Again records would show that they should have used it all up by now indicating that they missed a few months.

And finally, there are the freak things that can happen such as the dog spitting out the pill when the owner isn't looking, jumping in the pool or lake right after a topical is applied, etc.  And I know everyone will say that doesn't happen, they watch their dog,  and those are great hypothetical situations, but I have a real world example of just such a situation.  In fact, it's what brought this topic to the forefront of my mind.

Last month I gave all the dogs their heartworm prevention as usual.  Lyric got a Heartgard chewable tablet.  Eighteen hours later, she vomited up the whole pill, entirely undigested.  Luckily I was home and also it was February.  But what if I hadn't been there to see it, or it happened outside?  In fact, I don't know that something like hasn't happened before.  So it really served to remind me, and now hopefully my readers and clients how important annual heartworm testing can be.

Public Service Annoncement

Red merle Australian Shepherd

Red merle Border Collie

Not the same.

Good timing

Recently, my best friend from vet school lost her beloved pug of more than 13 years. She rescued him as a puppy our first year of school and he accompanied her on two cross country moves and multiple life changes. His passing left her searching for a new smushy faced dog to fill the void. 

When we walked into the local feed store today to pick up a few things before the storm supposedly hits there was a small rescue group having an adoption day. And they had this. 

She seemed like a pretty young, healthy little Pekingese so I figured what the heck and sent off a quick pic. Love at first sight ensued via cyberspace and  several texts and a few phone calls later we walked out the door with "Penny."

This little girl has been very well behaved so far, seems unphased by the other dogs and cats, quiet, and housebroken. We'll get to see more of her personality in the next ten days and then she will head off to New Hampshire where she will a pampered and spoiled "purse dog" for the rest of her days. Pretty lucky day for a little stray dog!

Random Musings

PayPal should be accepted on all websites.

Why can't they just leave olives empty?  Who really likes pimentos? And better yet, what are pimentos?

I wish my bank had one of those apps where you just take a picture of a check to deposit it. 

Why do they still make single-ply toilet paper?  Is there anyone who hasn't realized that you just use it twice as fast?

Are people unfamiliar with the general rules of driving or they just don't care?

All clothing should be tagless. 

Sometimes bananas make me sick.  But not always.  So I keep eating them until one does.  Then the rest of the bananas go bad. 

I find it hard to believe the same people who enjoy watching the olympics also enjoy the closing ceremonies. 

North Dakota was recently declared the happiest state.  I doubt the people who determined this are familiar with all the states south of North Dakota. 

Nosework

Legend and I started a Nosework class  two weeks ago and so far, just like tracking, she loves it.  What's really nice about Nosework is that it has similar concepts to tracking but takes a lot less time and space to practice.  All you need to get started is cardboard boxes and treats!

Essentially the first phase of learning is to teach the dog to search an area by arranging boxes all over and putting the treat in one.  When they find it, you just move the boxes around so the treat box is in a different spot.  As the dog gets better you put boxes on chairs, in corners, on top of each other etc to add dimension and challenge to the search area.  And that's as far as we have gotten so far-this week will be our third class.  But last week, in just the second class, once she saw the boxes it was all I could do to  hold on to her!

So I think this will be another fun activity for us to pursue along with tracking.  And they are complimentary so the training in one will help with the other.  Always, a plus!

For more about Nosework check out these sites:

https://nacsw.net

www.funnosework.com

Doodle Dilemma Part 2

Recently, there has been a trend toward "purpose bred" mixed breed dogs for sport (most commonly flyball or sometimes agililty).  The most recent article I read on this topic pointed out that some of these breeders used healthy, well-cared for dogs with health clearances and did all the things that responsible breeders of purebred dogs do.  They make the point that there is no cut-off date for creation of new breeds.  But the question is does all this make it "ok?"

While I understand that these people are trying to produce a dog with a specific purpose in mind, that purpose is, for all intents and purposes, a game, hobby, or recreational activity. I mean, we're not talking about working farm dogs, military dogs, police dogs, service dogs or other dogs that in some way benefit society.  Can we really justify producing more mixed breed dogs for the sole purpose of playing games while there are millions of these same dogs available in shelters?  I appreciate the good intentions but when you are mixing two very different types of dogs together you have no idea what you are going to get.  What if they don't turn out like you planned?  What if they don't excel at said sport? Then what happens?  You don't get a black and white dog by breeding a black dog to a white dog-it's just not that simple. And not to belittle flyball but we need a specific breed of dog to jump 4 hurdles and fetch a ball from a box?

There is no guarantee that your $1000 purebred dog, your $1000 "well-bred" mixed breed dog, your purebred rescue, or your mixed breed shelter puppy is going to perform up to your expectations, not get injured, or be healthy.  You can sometimes tip the odds in your favor with a responsibly bred purebred.  But only sometimes.  I have seem some very expensive dogs with bad injuries or illnesses.  In the end you are better off to seek the dog that has the qualities you are looking for, regardless of where is comes from (bad breeders excluded of course!) and in the price range you can afford.  There is no need to try and create one out of two very different dogs and hope for the best.  If health concerns factor in many shelters and rescue would be happy to  have the testing you want done perfomed.  Even if you have to pay for it, you are likely going to get a better deal on your "Border Jack" from the shelter than from a "breeder."  

And they can harp on genetics all they want as far as health concerns go, but genetic disease are tricky, and can come back to haunt you.  There is a recessive gene in Chinese Crested dogs that causes a fatal, progressive brain disease.  There is a recessive gene in Kerry Blue Terriers that causes a fatal, progressive brain disease.  Do you know how they determined that this is the same gene?  They bred a carrier of each breed together.  This could happen in other breeds unknowingly.  Aren't we better off to focus on eliminating diseases in breeds we know about instead of accidently creating more problems?

 

By and large most dogs today are pets.  Even "working" sport dogs.  And there are hundreds of breeds available to choose from.  If none of those are what you want then there are literally millions of unique mixes available for adoption.  And beyond this we often tout dog sports like agility or flyball as something any dog can do-so what does it say when all of sudden we decide that no current dog on the planet is good enough and everyone needs to have a dog that looks and acts specifically like "dog x" to compete effectively?  At this time, my opinion is that we don't need to create more breeds of dogs.  Obviously some will debate that, but they can start their own blog!