What's the best trick you can teach your dog?

Have had to start thinking again about improving Grey's grooming and handling stress. He recently had a flare up of the skin infection on his tummy and this then was coupled, as last time, with problems with his anal glands. So the tell tale fishy smell and him twisting round to smell his own bum and then either a sit down or a run away from himself, both with a worried look on his face. Since this started flaring up last summer, he's become a lot more stressed at the vets. So he now won't let the vet touch his back side. This has also meant him being stressed about the vets in general and procedures that he was previously fine about, like vaccinations, he now isn't.

I've started a programme of home training on general husbandry. It's something I wish I'd done a lot more of when he was little. But seeing as I can't turn the clock back, I'll start from where we are now and move forwards. These simple things will make a positive impact on our life and possibly could save it in the future. I've posted about this before, citing the US trainer, Kathy Sadao, with her experiences from working in a zoo environment. Most of the training they do in zoos on a day to day basis is husbandry. She asks why do many people use coercive methods (restraints and force) to groom their dogs. The answer quite simply is because they can. But this simply wouldn't work for a killer whale or elephant. So training plans have to be thought out.

I'm notoriously bad at finishing things that I start. This is the reason that Grey doesn't have a range of tricks he knows. But no matter. What does matter is that he won't keep still to be examined, won't let his anal glands be emptied and won't let his nails be clipped.

So yesterday, we started training on the anal gland task and the front paw handling.

Day 1:

I got the duvet out and we both sat on it. We had a session where he was lying across my legs and relaxing and he would let me touch him all over, including his bum and under the tail. I can touch his legs and take hold of his paws.

Day 2:

I got out a vet bed mat which is a cue for training and for him to sit or lie on it. He was in a sit and I'm in front of him sitting cross legged. I worked being able to hold his front legs and down to his paw. Take his paw and gently squeeze the pads. Developed into him presenting his paw into my hand and then with the addition of a pad squeeze.

 

The Road Refresher no spill dog bowl

 

Thing is with beardy dogs there is an awful lot of spillage. Especially with a dog like Grey who has a helpful habit of walking away from his bowl after having scooped up the water and opening and closing his mouth as he goes as if eating. There is an awful lot of water with a busy and thirsty slovak. This caused some problems with his duvet in the back of the car crate. So today the postman arrived with a road refresher bowl (in grey, of course!) Now we've got rid of the bowl mounted to the side of the crate that tended to slop water over when going over bumps. Happy days. We got the large one. 

 

 

UK Slovakian Rough Haired Pointer Report is now published

A very good day for the future of UK Slovaks. The health report written by fellow Slovak owner, Kate Reevel, has been published on the Breed Club website and is availble to download.

http://www.slovakianroughhairedpointerclub.org.uk/healthreports.html

It's also been linked on the following forums for discussion:

http://workinghprs.myfastforum.org/about4072.html

http://www.dogsey.com/showthread.php?p=2334293#post2334293

We Love Slovakian Rough Haired Pointers page on Facebook

Slovakian Rough Haired Pointer Facebook group

 

Grey portraits aged 3

A few weeks ago while out visiting friends in Surrey, Grey had his portrait taken. Here is aged 3 and looking very handsome. We hope to book in again after his hair has grown back all scruffy in the winter.  Penel has such a way with animals. I think Grey would do anything for her! Such a treat to have quality pictures that aren't of him up on the beach.

More info: Penelope Malby Photography

Too hot, let's swim!

I took Grey down to the river today in the marshes. It was hot and I thought he'd love a swim. After a bit of nervousness initially, he got the hang of having to jump into deep water.  It's amazing to think he couldn't swim until last summer. Very quickly he was jumping in with a big splash and would have kept going and going. He had a mad charge about when the train went by in the distance. It would be great if I could work out a way to stop him doing that. He goes full pelt along a path out of sight and has a look of madness for a few minutes.

Here's a video of hairy boy doing water retrieves.

 

Slovaks make you laugh

Headed over to Surrey yesterday to Dog Communication groups. We left Margate in the rain and by the time we got to Banstead it was bright sunshine. Grey was lovely and relaxed. He's learnt loads since we first went. He's happy go lucky and all the dogs like him. We had a chance to see this in real life a few days ago. On one of our walks a rescue staffie was being walked. The staff was a bit stressed as his owners were shoving his bum down into a sit at the edge of the large field area. I don't know why people do this. It starts the whole offlead part of the walk quite stressfully. But anyway, they were about to put their dog back on the lead and I told them that Grey would be ok if there dog was ok. So the dogs got to meet offlead. The staff was a bit nervous and Grey just stood there nicely with a nice slow friendly wag and a smile. Then a play bow and off they went. The owners were amazed because they said the staff was scared of most things and didn't have any friends. Grey took him off into his gang straight away and lead him astray. I was supposed to be keeping him off the beach while he has a sore tummy (got the beginnings of a skin infection again). So Grey shows Dave the staff his favourite game of running up to the top of the goat track and then charging down the 100m slope and beach down to the sea. They did this about 3 times before Grey said his goodbyes and we went along the fields the other way. Grey rolling in the grass to dry off and  me laughing because he's so bloody funny sometimes. I think I laugh every time we're on a walk at something.

 

 

Having fun with his friend Sprocket

Here are some lovely shots taken of Grey playing with his bestest friend Sprocket after they had finished the Dog Communication group session. Everyone had packed up to leave and Grey and Sprocket had a great play together. They seem to really like each other. Grey is obviously huge compared to Sprocket. Sprocket realises occasionally he might have bitten off more than he intended. I particularly like the photos of them lying down together. They did this for ages. Funny boys.

Makes me very happy to know that Grey can get on with most kinds of dogs. We come across other dogs all the time on our walks, so it's great that he's such a sociable soul. You can see how his coat looks after the handstripping. All the weird hair patches from his operation have gone and his rough coat has grown back.

The link between of genetic predisposition and inbreeding or high COI

Someone on the Working HPR forum discussion on Slovakian Rough Haired Pointer health thread posted a link to an interesting article by Angela Helen Harvey. The article is available to read as a PDF here. The discussion today moved on to how possibly insignificant and minor conditions may add up to form a pattern and if a breed is too inbred that risks to these conditions increase.

Here are some excerpts:

"In an inbred individual, the chance that both parents have passed on identical genes...increases. This situation diminishes the body‟s capability to mount an effective immune response. Such dogs are more prone to infections and are more likely to suffer autoimmune disease or allergies... 

Overall the canine population probably contains as much MHC diversity as it ever did, BUT when we begin dividing the species into individual breeds, and then we line and inbreed within these breeds the available MHC allele become limited. 

Without diversity within the MHC, the dog is much more vulnerable to disease. If the disease is bad enough, the dog may die... 

The regular use of popular sires over several generations can play havoc with MHC diversity...if a significant portion of a breed descends from a relative few individual dogs the population may not be able to respond effectively to the next canine plague that comes along. 

Inbreeding has been the norm in domestic dogs for more than a century. As we have said the technique is used quite effectively to “fix” traits deemed desirable. The practice of inbreeding to improve breed traits has inadvertently led to a reduction of MHC diversity within the individual breeds. Unfortunately most Breeders do not appreciate that continued line Breeding is a form of Inbreeding! 

Popular sire use is especially pernicious because each such sire can have only two MHC haplotypes--nowhere near the hundreds that exist in the canine genome. Therefore, when a significant portion of a breed descends from one individual, those dogs‟ resistance to infectious disease or susceptibility to autoimmune disease can be seriously affected. No dog affected with chronic autoimmune disease or serious allergies should be bred. Auto Immune diseases include “Collie nose” which is an autoimmune dermatitis of the face. Another growing problem created by a faulty immune system is generalised Demodectic Mange."

 

 

Slovakian Rough Haired Pointers Health Debate

Those of you who read about Slovakian Rough Haired Pointers might have been following recent discussions about health, genetics and breeding on forums such as WorkingHPRForum and 'We Love Slovakian Rough Haired Pointers' on Facebook (although the interesting discussion has now dropped right down the wall posts and off the front page).

I was going to write something about it, but you know what? I don't think I can add much more to this excellent blog post from Galody.

Slovakian Rough Haired Pointer population in terms of breeding and health. I do think that the situation needs to be discussed and debated. If you check out the entire Dogsey Slovak thread which has been running over 3 years now (you might have to skim read through 50 pages!), you'll see the progression of a number of young puppies who go on later to have suffered some frightening and serious conditions.  When you track the pedigrees, work out the COIs via Mate Select from the KC, a pattern of some sort starts to emerge. 

A report on UK Slovakian Rough Haired Pointer health  has been written by another owner (See it really isn't only me!) and is currently with the Breed Club who are hopefully going to publish it. I hope it will be out before the end of the summer.  Armed with the facts, this will help people decide whether they really need to breed from their dog or bitch and if they do decide to embark on it, that they are armed with the information to ensure a good match for the progression of the breed.