FHRP

You are the third person this week I have heard who's dog has recently bloated. I am glad you found her early and she survived. I lost my Spinone bitch nearly two years ago now when she bloated over night. It's a terrbile thing for a dog to go through and you can take all the advised precautions, but somethimes it will still happen ;)

I would definitely ask your vet about thyroid problems in your dog. I'm not a dobe expert but a friend with one says thyroid problems are common in the breed and her boy had skin and weight issues before being diagnosed (by a vet who breeds dobes).

My first recommendation is BARF. My Vizslas do great on it. I'm pretty sure I told you about Coprice, a rice based dog food when you previously asked this question?? I have used it with my dogs when they have won it (and I've been lazy with BARF) and found it preferable to most other dog foods we've won.

And we spend the next week commiserating on Teddy's racing stripes.. Lily's mishapen bott.. and well, Darcy doesn't need any help from poodlefan to look a bit silly

When my first dog, Bodie the Labrador died I made up an album for him. It includes nearly all pictures he's in, his vet records, his obedience cards, microchip details etc. etc. My Dad did a wonderful drawing and painting of Bodie after he died. I have the drawing framed on my wall and the painting is hanging at my parents house. We buried Bodie in the forest with his favourite stuffed toys and his collar.

Hi Wendy, You old Vizsla was my boys Aunty. Same breeding as his mum

Very sorry to hear of your loss of two lovely dogs My own older Vizsla is from Aranyoz lines, his mum was Ch Aranyoz Aint Misbehavin.

Having a dog that retrieves is a great trick, and very useful!! My older Vizsla had no interest what so ever in retrieving and it wasn't until we started training for open obedience that I decided to train him in earnest to retrieve. Although I can't say we went step by step through Shirley Chongs method (I didn't even know it existed) we did something very similar. We clicker trained it step by step through the look at, nose touch, lip touch etc. etc. He now has his CDX title and the only individual exercise he didn't fail at one time or other in Open was the Retrieve on Flat He has also won Gundog Working Tests which involves a simple mark retrieve. But, even more importantly it has been helpful. I have used his retrieve to retrieve shoes the Whippet has taken out in the yard, remote controls I can't reach, TV guides, even the end of the vacuum cleaner!! Can you tell I'm lazy Thankfully my young Vizsla is a much more natural retriever although we did work on the hold etc. Here are the two with their retriveing dummies.

A fun extension of this trick is teaching the 'count'. My dogs will bark when I hold up fingers and ask 'how many?'. When they have barked the appropriate number of times I close my hand and reward. Fools people all the time The holding up of fingers was just a slight change to the opening and shutting of the hand.