Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Microchip trying to escape
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Cows and Slovakian Rough Haired Pointer at Pegwell Nature Reserve Kent
A general walk
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Can you help? 6 year old Eva (Aucassin Despina) very sick with suspected AI Disease
Eva's parents are Sholto de ''Etang aux Colverts x Aucassin Comfrey.
The problem I've seen with so many of these mysterious AI pain issues that have come to light that result in steroid or anti-biotic treatment, there seem to be as many diagnoses as there are dogs. But one thing they all share is how distressing it is for the dogs and their owners. So if you think you can help with advice or experience, or if your Slovak is related to Eva, please get in touch: greytheslovak@gmail.com and I'll forward it on.
If you suspect your own Slovak might have had a health concern, no matter how minor, that you can now recall, please do take the time to fill out a health report for the breed club. Did you have a pup that reacted badly to vaccinations? Any pain incidents that seemed strange? It is only through reporting of issues within our breed that we can help get to the bottom of conditions like this. The link to the health form is on the breed club website to download.
Here is the lovely Eva (aka giant Doof) in happier days spaniel sitting this summer.
She is now on prednisolone at 4x original dose ie maximum plus antibiotics in case there is a spinal infection. Problem looks to be at L4/5 or thereabouts.
When Eva was small she had recurrent bouts of elevated temperature, pain, neck stiffness, loss of appetite all responsive to steroids from around 16 weeks on. The attacks put her on a drip in the surgery if not spotted quickly enough. Then decreasing attacks and almost no problems for 2 years with the last 12 months clear. One week ago she was looking for pheasants in fields. She had slightly stiff neck next day, no temperature, but over 3 days reducing hind limb proprioception ending up in loss of motor power and no response to pain. Very sudden and a new manifestation.
Her brother died in England at around 2 years after a lifetime of the symptoms suffered by Eva although he had some loss of proprioception earlier. Another sibling died at a few months of age in the breeder's vets. Another sibling was ill.
Really hoping that Eva recovers soon. If you think you can help, please do get in touch.
Sunday, 11 December 2011
We're back! Cyclists, cut paws and paddling
Poor Grey's Days Blog. Can't believe I haven't posted since October. My excuse is that I've been busy building and maintaining other blogs about other things. I shall endeavour to improve things.
Grey is well and in fine fettle. He's just recovering from a badly cut hind paw pad. £64 trip to the vet to find that we were struggling to get him to allow me to stand his foot in a hibiscrub bath or to let me put a plastic bag on it either in an attempt to keep it clean. In the end, following good sense advice from a friend, I took him down to the sea after a few days of rest at home and let him do his favourite thing. Paddle.
He's still a bugger on the lead and I'm thinking about tackling this. But just thinking about it at the moment. Not looking for stress.
His recalls are good and we seem to have 99% cracked cyclist and jogger chasing. Woohoo! I think it has taken about 9 months. I started pairing 'ready Grey!' with a raised arm about to throw a pebble into the sea. Very soon, 'ready Grey' has him stop and watch me ready to come in and chase the pebble. Then I did 'ready Grey' and 'wait' and then throw. I started to do this whenever I saw a distraction like a cyclist. I moved on to having some food he can clearly see. So I have my hand raised, which becomes like a stop sign. The 'ready Grey' works as a recall, but a recall tied to something exciting about to happen. The 'wait' is with the added visual cue of my raised hand. The cyclist passes and then I reward with an exciting 'Go!' and throw of the food for him to chase and eat. He now actively looks for me if he sees cyclists. I've found this a good compromise and better than a 'leave it'. He loves it so much that as it has built up over time, cyclists now equal fun games and food.
Here are some piccies from our walk today.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Project Grey's Nails - positively training to have his nails clipped
I decided to start videoing my sessions with Grey working on him feeling comfortable having his nails handled. The video is titled session 1, but I realise this might make people think it is the first ever session in this training. Sorry! Its actually it's been a few weeks of me teaching him paw and accepting casual touches of his nails. He's also been shown clippers and the dremel and had them out near him and near food.
His nails on his front paws are really are very long now and they simply do not wear down. It seems Slovak nails being dark are very hard. This hardness makes cutting them a harder task. Hard to see the quick and more pressure to actually clip the nail.
Grey gets very stressed if I go to clip his nails. He doesn't growl he jerks away and struggles really strongly. This makes it impossible to safely cut his nails. So I'm trying to condition him to accept me gradually working towards having his nails cut. In this video Grey is not restrained and is free to leave at any moment. When he flinches I go back a step to an area of his body away from from the paw and to work again towards the paw. Have to remember to take it slow.
This first session went on too long and you'll see at the end, he gave up and didn't want to do it anymore. I'll keep future sessions shorter. It's easy to get carried away with this kind of training and to take things forward. But the best and only way really is to go at the dog's pace. I'm not aiming for him to love getting his nails done. Do we love going to the dentist? The aim is for him to be as relaxed so I can get that unpleasant clipping action over and done with minimal stress and without him having a strong pre-emptive fear of the process. This might take a very long while.
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Working on the nail handling
We're about day 3 into working on nail handling. I worked on him from his main body, down his legs and on to his paws. He'll now let me touch his nails with a pen, insert the nails into the clip of the pen and generally let me tap the nail with the pen and scrape underneath. I have a feeling he might actually tolerate a dremel more than the clippers. So I'm going to look up dremels. Other than that, we've been back out on our beach today. Tourists have gone and we're back having the whole place to ourselves. Yesterday the car was out of action so we worked on lead walking on the square. I went back to Ian Dunbars method of waiting for sits after a giant step. It gave him lots of time to take in his surroundings. And interestingly, he was calm through loads of his usual triggers: bikes, sirens, lorries.
