Staranais

Sounds interesting, let us know how it goes! Do you know how the test is supposed to work? Is it detecting IgA in the saliva?

Oh hock is not the best place to get it. OSoSwift is right, if you have to get OCD, the best place is the shoulder, the humeral head has a large surface area & dogs seem to cope quite well with losing a piece of it. My girl got it in the shoulders and has coped very well with surgery, touch wood. Short of surgery, I don't think much helps (and even surgery doesn't usually stop the arthritis completely). From what I know, the best course of action for hock OCD if you can't do surgery (or even if you can) is to throw all the usual arthritis meds & treatments at the dog - pentosan, glucosamine/chondroitan, fish body oil, joint diets, consistent gentle exercise, weight loss, maybe acupuncture, maybe NSAIDs.

My wife having field bred Labrador is high drive dog. I take for 2 hour workout on Sunday, we run, do the jumps chasing the ball do some obedience and I getting home for rest in the chair and straight away when I sitting down, he want to play ball again and barking for me to throw the ball. Maybe I am too old to make high energy dog sleepy anymore? Joe LOL. We sit by the jump and jump back and forth repeatedly, until she can't make the jump height any more. It doesn't tire mine out, exactly, but does take the edge off her for a few hours. Only way I've found to make mine really tired is working her (but even then, she's good to go again after ten minutes rest), or by about the third day of an offleash hike! :D

If the parents haven't been hip scored & elbow scored, and I'm betting they haven't, they shouldn't touch the pup with a barge pole. It could end up costing them a lot of money that they don't have.

Tracking. Jumping in the backyard (you just need one or two jumps). Playing with known dogs on doggy dates. ETA, chasing a ball or frisbee.

Exactly.

This will probably be controversial. But my main reason is that once food is minced, you can't tell what goes into it. When you feed whole organs or large pieces of meat, you can see if the product looks diseased or dirty. Once the food is minced into patties, you simply can't see what is in there. It might be fresh prime beef stake, or it might be pneumonia riddled lungs and cadmium filled kidneys. Once meat is minced, you just can't tell. And that's bad enough if you're feeding kibble, but when you're feeding raw meat I believe quality and hygiene are paramount. That might sound paranoid, but I've been to several slaughterhouses (including working alongside the meat inspectors), and I can honestly tell you that some of the things that get sent to pet food companies as "lamb" or "beef" are are not things I'd ever contemplating feeding to my dog, especially uncooked. I have also toured behind the scenes in two petfood factories, including one that makes a premium export quality raw food (not "BARF" brand), and the terrible quality and hygiene of the meat and grains used in those foods absolutely shocked me. Of course, people do feed these raw pet foods without problems, most dogs do fine on them. But after seeing first hand what can be in raw minced pet foods, I just can't personally bring myself to feed those to my dog.

Mine gets fed in there, goes in there when I tell her to, and spends the day in there when she's on heat, but doesn't tend to go in of her own accord. Sleeps at the end of my bed, though. Crate trained to me just means the dog goes into the crate on command, and is at the very least not distressed by being left in there for a few hours at a time.

My old dog would have reacted exactly the same way - galloped over and barged the other dog, then done it serious damage had it reacted at all. He didn't belong in a dog park, and neither does this dog. I don't think it's always possible to be black and white about which owner is in the wrong, as there are so many factors involved. But in this case, it seems fairly clear to me. I'm not sure what the legal conclusion would be here, though.

My dog has half kibble, half raw. Her raw is: Lamb flaps, $6/kg Salmon heads, $4/kg Green tripe, $5/kg Liver, $8/kg The odd kidney or lamb heart, $7/kg Left overs from my dinners Fish body oil & vit E I would never buy the raw patties, for several reasons, including cost. ETA, all prices are in NZ dollars.

The only use I've seen for those tests are to protect dogs against BSL by showing your city council that your dog is an amstaff or staff-x and not a pitbull (of course, that only works so long as the council doesn't realise that "pitbull" isn't even an option on the test). Can't remember who said they used that trick, think it was someone on this forum though?

There is a test, but it's not very reliable or accurate. Some common breeds (such as American Pitbull Terrier) aren't even included on the profile, last time I checked.

They provided us with a huge small animal nutrition textbook and sponsor everything, no wonder vets like them. Aw, we only got the pocket edition of the nutrition textbook! I feel cheated. Seriously though, I have used their prescription diets several times this year for patients with various health issues, and will continue to use them. I don't feed, or particularly recommend, Hills for normal healthy animals, though. I'm sure it's an OK product, but I don't think it's anything special.

Exercising & training the dog has priority here, or else she makes life miserable for everyone else. But, I knew that's what life would be like before I bought her, so I don't really begrudge it. Most hobbies fit around the dog (e.g. I either do things where she can come, or I make sure I exercise her before I go somewhere she can't come). Most of my study happens at home, so I can break it up with short trick training sessions, like Zug Zug describes. Housework happens, but we're not sparkly clean.

How did the xrays go, Kiwioz?

Was it a university open day? At our uni, Hills sponsor a couple of vet students to promote their food & their free stuff to all the other students. They get their claws into us early, LOL. So perhaps they were the people on the stall? So far as I'm aware, feeding a high protein diet won't hurt a healthy dog (if it's already got kidney problems, or liver problems, that might be a different matter). Adding extra stuff to a formulated kibble can upset the balance of nutrients, if what you're adding isn't itself balanced.

My sister's toller-x is excellent with her cats, & with my dog and cats when she comes to visit, but then again, she deliberately picked the least driven pup in the litter. Not sure how a purebred toller would be, hopefully the toller people can help with that.

LOL @ Ness and Erny, I guess I just didn't want anyone to feel left out. I was wondering about it since my own dog, and the other entire bitch that we commonly train with for SAR, seem to have no problems working during their season. But have just recently met a bitch that is completely scatty and unfocused during her seasons & just can't be worked (they're having her desexed because of that). I'll be interested to see how many DOLers have had either experience.

What were the qualifications of the lady at the Hill's stall?

This is a question for people who train & compete in any dogsport, or any working pursuit, with an entire bitch. I'm wondering, do you see any difference in your girl's behaviour during work when she is in proestrus/estrus? If so, how does her season affect her? Do you still train or compete or work her during her season, or do you give her a break?

Toller? I've never met a pure toller myself, but my sister has a toller cross, & it's pretty calm, pretty smart, and very good natured. The pure ones are about 20kg I think?

Don't know Staranais. I would have to ask. I guess it would depend if the judge felt the dog was out of position for the whole round. Could you ask? I'd really appreciate it. It's just for pure selfish curiosity - I'm wondering whether if I ever end up in Aussie, if I'll need to retrain my heeling! Since my dog would indeed be in the "crowded" NZ/UK style position for the entire round.

Just out of interest - when a judge feels that the NZ/UK style is crowding, how many points are usually deducted for that? Would it still be possible for a team heeling in that style to qualify in Aussie, or would too many points be deducted for that?

Good luck & let us know how it goes. It's hard seeing them in pain.

Was it buprenorphine (Temgesic)? If so that should last somewhere around 4 to 8 hours, depending on the dose, so now would be about right for it starting to wear off. If he looks healthy & well hydrated but just a bit grumpy, then I'd leave him be. But you know him better than anyone - trust your instincts whether you think there's something really wrong. Poor wee guy, I hope they can find out what's wrong with him on Monday.