Getting excited for Saint Bernard Nationals

Next week is a big week for Saint Bernard fanciers across the US. The Saint Bernard Club of America will be holding their annual National Specialty Show the week of September 11-18th in Findley, New York at the lovely Peek ‘n Peak resort. Many of the top American Saint Bernards will be there competing, their owners will be socializing and attending a multitude of personal seminars on showing, breeding and health concerns.

This will be my first year going to Nationals and I’m so excited to go!  Although I won’t be there the entire week, I will be there for several days.  I will be there in time to watch Sweeps.  I can’t wait to meet up with some of my friends from Crufts (England, March 2011).  I’m planning on attending some of the seminars, socialize, photograph and basically drool over the gorgeous dogs.  I’m am also bringing my traveling buddy Rufus. Better dig out his doggles and traveling hat!

See you all in a few days!

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Cody’s story continues: Getting healthy, getting a home

[Editor note: In January, we brought you the beginning of Cody's story.  Cody is the Flat Coated Retriever who needed the liver shunt surgery to have a chance at a normal life, before being adopted by his not-yet-determined forever home. Now that the ending is known, the second half the story can be told. Stephanie Green is the founder of Milbrose Retrievers in New Hampshire. In her words, this is the second part of Cody's saga.]

Thirty hours after my first call for help, we had raised $7,000.00 to cover the surgery that would keep Cody alive.

I didn’t even have the puppy yet but was honored that so many people had trusted me and answered the call for donations. We didn’t know much at this point, in the middle of January, other than that Cody, like my own puppy Bing, had a liver shunt. Without surgery a liver shunt is a sure death sentence.

Cody was bred by a woman in her twenties who lived with her parents. She was in over her head. I would like to think she had the best of intentions. She could have dumped him at the shelter or not disclosed his issue to his new family but she didn’t do either of those things. I had received an email a week earlier stating that her father was saying that he would be euthanized if they couldn’t find him a home. He was peeing in the house and they did not have the finances to provide him with the special food and medication that he needed.

I had previously had a golden puppy that I had bred with a shunt and we had found a wonderful vet by the name of Dr. Chick Weisse who had performed an interventional radiology procedure on my Bing and saved his life.   It didn’t seem fair that my Bing should have a chance at a normal life and Cody should not because of circumstances and money.

I had decided that I was going to get Cody no matter what. Even if he couldn’t get the surgery he needed, he would be safe.

But we did raise the money and the trip to get Cody was planned.

Victor, New York is about ten hours from my home in New Hampshire. It made for a long day, but I was able to pick him up and get him home on the same day. The plan was for him to spend the first few days at my home in New Hampshire, where we would start the process of getting him ready to go to the Animal Medical Center in Manhattan to have surgery.

The Holistic Vet Center in Concord was very kind to us and covered many of Cody’s expenses, including the same medications and herbs Bing was on. The blood work was sent to Dr. Weisse for analysis.

The plan was for him to stay at my home a couple of days, get the initial medical work done and then go to the home of another flat coat breeder.  I brought Cody home and introduced him to a few of my pack of eight retrievers. He did great. The older dogs thought he was a dopey kid but they were fine with him and the younger ones thought he was a great playmate.

By the end of the first day, Cody was a new member of the pack and it was as if he had been here his entire life. We scrapped our original plan and decided that he would stay in our home. As a university professor, I only taught a couple days a week and I had been through this process before, so it seemed to make sense for him to stay.

I had been putting out feelers for a new home for Cody, and my husband and I went back and forth about whether we could keep him. He fit so well into our pack and we just adored the boy. He was affectionate and easy going. He played well with the other dogs and while he came to my house un-housebroken, he was now trustworthy. Many shunt dogs are difficult to housebreak because the kidneys are performing double duty cleansing the blood for the liver. With his herbs and vet care, Cody was now mostly housebroken.

I had heard from the newsletter editor from the Northeast Flat Coated Retriever Club asking to reprint the original article about Cody that David wrote for Pet Connection back in January. They thought it would be a good story for the members. A few days after the story was printed in the newsletter I received an email from a family not far from my home. They had read about Cody in the NEFCRC newsletter, and were anxious to see if Cody might be a good fit for them.

The issue was that Cody had some health problems that were not only serious, but also we were not fully clear on the future ramifications of these issues.

Where there is one birth defect there may be others, and we already knew about one of them.  We learned that Cody has a serious heart murmur in addition to the liver shunt.  How bad was the murmur? We didn’t yet know.

I explained the health issues, but Jim and Ann did not seem fazed by the information. After several hours I fell absolutely in love with them as did Cody. They were perfect. They had previous flat coat experience, they had a fenced yard, used a vet I knew, and would continue taking Cody to my holistic vet. Ann planned on cooking for him. Even better, they owned a beach house and a boat. How can anyone deny a retriever a beach house and a boat? We agreed that I would keep them posted on Cody’s upcoming health evaluations and if all went well they could consider him theirs; or shall I say Cody would consider them his!

The appointment for Cody’s surgery was set for March 21, 2011, the week of my spring break.

We drove to the Animal Medical Center on Monday morning and met with Dr. Weisse and his team. They commented about how I was a glutton for punishment after having been through this once already (I think the word actually used was “sucker”). One of the team members was a resident who was already a board certified cardiologist and was in the process of getting her certification in internal medicine as well; she was also from the Boston area, so a lucky break for us as she is a relatively local vet that we could follow up with.

The plan for the week was for Cody to have his CT scan on Monday to establish exactly where the shunt was located, and to be neutered. Then on Tuesday he would have the interventional radiology procedure and spend until Thursday in intensive care.

I was staying with a friend and our plan was to drop Cody off at the vet in the morning and then spend the day eating and shopping in New York City. On Monday afternoon while we were shopping I got a call from Dr. Weisse; the CT Scan was done and the shunt was not inside Cody’s liver.

Cody was one of the few large dogs with a shunt outside of his liver. The surgery was in some ways easier with a higher long term success rate, but considerably more invasive. He had been doing very well with just medical management and his blood work was not normal but it wasn’t terrible either. The heart murmur which hadn’t been a concern all of a sudden became a big issue.

Do we do the surgery? Do we not? Do we pick him up and have the surgery done closer to home in Boston? Is it worth the risk considering the heart murmur? What does this do with regard to our money issue? Would his potential new family still want him if he did not have the surgery? What would all the folks who donated the money want me to do? The more I talked to Dr. Weisse, the more unsure I became.

We agreed to talk the following morning and make a decision. We would both sleep on it and come to a decision in the morning. I spent the night talking to my husband, talking to friends, and talking to donor, and by 3 am I was no closer to making a decision.

The majority I talked to told me to go ahead and have the surgery done. But I was the one that would be directly responsible if he did not survive surgery.

What was going to be a two-stitch incision in his jugular would be a full abdominal incision and major procedure. Dr. Weisse was concerned that he was doing so well now and what could happen with surgery, as any surgery is a risk and with the heart murmur did we want to risk surgery?

Not to mention spend all the money that this surgery would cost, considering how well he was doing, how invasive the surgery was and the inherent risks of a big abdominal surgery.

Chick wasn’t pushing me in either direction; he said we could go home and have it done in Boston, but that if I wanted him to do it that he would be happy to perform the surgery. He had no strong feelings either way. It was then that I realized that here we were, with a world reknowned vet/researcher, and Cody was in the care of the best; why would I want him to be anywhere else? I bit the bullet and told him to go ahead.

While Cody was under anesthesia they opted to check his heart again. The earlier cardiologist had diagnosed him with a mitral valve dysplasia, a condition that if it progressed would surely shorten Cody’s life. This knowledge only added to the angst about whether or not to do the surgery.

But when they tested Cody on a newer piece of equipment at the Animal Medical Center, the cardiologist found the same noisy mitral valve but her conclusion was very different. On their equipment she was able to conclude that the likelihood of this heart murmur ever being a problem was very low, and thus it became clear that we had made the right decision in going ahead with surgery.

The surgery went well. You really don’t know if it succeeds in closing the shunt until about a month after the surgery. Cody was neutered and we picked him up on Thursday morning and brought him home. Keeping a young flat coat quiet for two weeks can be quite a challenge, but we succeeded and two weeks later Cody had his first bloodwork. It was still slightly abnormal but more normal than it had been. Two weeks later he had another set of bloodwork and that was absolutely normal. Since that time we have succeeded in taking Cody off all medications and his special food and his bloodwork has stayed normal.

Cody had gone for short weekend visits to his new family’s home, and we watched him stand at the door and watch them leave when they dropped him off after the weekend was over. He knew they were his family.

Two weeks ago, once he was weaned off his meds and special food, they came to pick him up and he went to live with them. He has a fenced yard, wonderful experienced owners who adore him, he is the center of attention and he has a beach house and a boat. They are looking for another rescue dog who needs them so Cody will have a friend. They are thrilled to have him, and all it took was one look at Cody to know that he is thrilled to have them and hopefully will have the good, long, healthy life with a family that loves him that every dog deserves.

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Getting the Most from Your Dogged Volunteer Work

John Lipp's guest post today will tell you how to have a fantastic, rewarding volunteer experience. Here he is, with a good friend.

John Lipp is president of Pets Are Wonderful Support (PAWS) in San Francisco, and works with more than  500 active volunteers to fulfill the agency’s mission and ensure that low-income, disabled and senior people are never separated from the unconditional love of their pets. He’s also the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Recruiting and Managing Volunteers (2009 Alpha/Penguin Books). In other words, he knows all about the world of volunteers, and knows what it takes for volunteers to be happy. Since Dogster is rife with wonderful people who volunteer their time on behalf of animals, I asked John, with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working over the years, to write a guest post on how dog lovers can get the most from their volunteer experiences. And here he is now! Enjoy!

Maria Goodavage

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Dog owners are pretty terrific people. Most pick up the poop, work hard to have good canine citizens, and are usually very generous donors and volunteers for the many nonprofit groups that work tirelessly for animal welfare. Hanging with these people at the dog park, I hear a wide variety of opinions about what it’s like to volunteer, ranging from “best thing I ever did” to “what a horrible waste of time.” This got me to wondering why some people had a better experience volunteering than others and, more important, how much of that was due to their own initiative. So while most of my work over the past 24 years has been dedicated to what organizations need to do to support and nurture their volunteer programs, this blog is devoted to things volunteers can do themselves to get the most out of their experience.

1. The Right Fit

Organizations spend a lot of time and resources screening volunteers to make sure they get the right person to the right job. Yet with all of these screening tools, the only person who truly knows if it’s the right fit is the volunteer her/himself. If something isn’t working for you, be honest with your supervisor and explore if the job can be modified, if there might be another opportunity in the organization, or maybe another organization may be a better fit. There are thousands and thousands of great opportunities for volunteers out there; the volunteers who are happiest are the ones who take the time to find that right position.

2. Be Proactive

Let your supervisor know what it is you want to achieve from your volunteer experience and periodically assess if your goals are being met. Along the way don’t be afraid to speak up (in a nice way, of course!) and share your ideas for making things better. Even if your suggestions can’t be implemented, making yourself heard is a powerful way to build a deeper relationship with your co-workers and the organization you care so deeply about.

3. Understand the Big Picture

Make a commitment to learn about all aspects of the organization you work for so that you understand how your service as a volunteer fits into the big picture. You may discover other volunteer opportunities within the organization and, at the very least, will have an increased appreciation for all the moving parts that go into delivering services.

4. Be an Advocate

As a volunteer, you have a lot of knowledge and understanding about important issues impacting the community. Whether you help recruit new volunteers, collect donations, or just open up a few minds, embrace your inner advocate and share your passion and knowledge with others. At the end of the day, there is nothing more motivating that sharing your experience with another person and seeing your own passion reflected in their face.

5. Acknowledge your Coworkers

Take time to get to know your coworkers (paid staff, other volunteers, and your supervisor) and pay attention to what makes them unique and effective. When they least expect it, let them know how much you appreciate them. As Mark Twain said, “The happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts and the happy delivery of it another.”

6. Find the Balance

As much as you love you volunteer work and the difference you are making, part of what makes you successful is your ability to find balance in your life, keep things in perspective, and keep all the parts in harmony. Acknowledge your limitations – we can’t be everything to everybody! – and know how much time you can realistically give as a volunteer. The happiest volunteers measure their success in the quality of the time they donate, not the quantity.

7. Know when to Leave

Volunteering for an organization is a journey of discovery and, like all journeys, there is often an ending. Whether your volunteer tenure with an organization is a couple of years or a couple of decades, there will come a time when that inner voice that tells you you’ve given all you can give and that it’s time to start a new journey. When this happens, work closely with your organization to prepare an exit plan that ensures your important work will continue and that other volunteers are in place, ready to fight the good fight. And, of course, just because you no longer volunteer for an organization, doesn’t mean you have to stop being an advocate. (See #4 above!)

Follow John on Twitter at www.twitter.com/voluncheer and receive Volunteer Recognition tips and other great ideas for your volunteer program. He can be reached at jlipp@pawssf.org.

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Nature vs. nurture: They’re both big factors in getting to ‘Good Dog’

We’re all about having fun at Kindred Spirits Dog Training. Although we often deal with dogs (and owners) with problem behaviors, we also want to emphasize the dog and owner relationship, having fun with training, fun classes, and so on. But the trainers often have some fun and interesting discussions, too, and one of those occurred last night.

One of the  trainers, Melissa, is thinking of adding a new puppy to her home. The last dog to join her family was Goliath, who was rescued from a less than desirable situation at the age of 14. He’s doing well today at 15, even enjoying training, but Melissa would like a puppy this time. She was looking at a litter and a particular puppy in the litter, and said something along the lines that she couldn’t really tell a lot about his personality. The breeder was going to have someone come in and do temperament tests, and she’d wait until she found out how those turned out.

Several trainers told her not to think too much about the choice, to talk to the breeder, find out about the temperament tests, but also to listen to her heart and choose the puppy that caught her eye, for whatever reason. Choosing a puppy needs to be a logical yet also an emotional decision. This began a discussion that was really quite fascinating.

The first was definitions: Temperament is that which a being is born with (nature) while personality is that which is built upon that temperament and is shaped by experiences (nurture). An example given was that a litter of puppies can have the inherited tendencies to have stable temperaments, but if the mother  is nervous about having a litter, is stressed while caring for the puppies, or has a traumatic experience; she could affect the puppies enough to make them fearful or nervous.

Another example closer to home, Bashir and Logan (pictured) are litter brothers. When we saw the litter, there were differences between Logan and Bashir.  Bashir was calmer and more serious, but both were very nice puppies.  Bashir went home with me while Logan went home with my business partner and friend, Petra. There was some discord in Petra’s home while Logan was growing up, and then a divorce, and Logan reacted to that discord. He is much more reactive than Bashir and there was definitely a personality shift.

This discussion was centered around the idea that while the baby puppy’s temperament is important, puppies can also be shaped and guided as they grow and develop. Therefore a good part of who they grow up to be is also based on their experiences as they grow up.

So our discussion then asked, “How important is nature? How important is nurture? Are they equally important in shaping who our dogs grow up to be? Does nature have a stronger influence or does nurture?” Wow! What good questions.

I won’t tell you where our discussion continued but instead will ask, what do you all think?

Photo: Litter brothers Bashir (left) and Logan. Photo by Liz Palika

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Project therapy dog: Harper’s getting closer

I have loved the idea of therapy pets ever since I first heard about them some 20 years ago. All but one of my dogs have been well-suited to the task, but for various reasons I never got any of them certified to do the work. Darcy, for one, licked too much. My Delta Society student manual says dogs who frequently lick the handler, evaluator or assistant are “not ready.”

With Harper, though, I’m getting close. I spent all day Saturday getting a taste of what we would need to do to pass the evaluation. The morning was spent assisting at other teams’ evaluations. I crossed their paths on crutches, argued loudly with a fellow volunteer regarding the merits of Cavaliers vs. Vizslas, rushed up to people to pet their dogs, and was part of the “crowd” each team had to navigate. After each evaluation, we would discuss the team’s good points and where they needed work. Most of them were recertifications, and it was reassuring to see that even some of those dogs occasionally jumped up on people, were a little slow to respond to commands or needed to be refocused before performing their tasks. (Pictured are evaluator Maryanne Dell; her Tibetan Spaniel Jitterbug; and Steve, who is under the mistaken impression that Vizslas are better than Cavaliers.)

In the afternoon we watched a slide show that reprised the material in the workbook. Then came the fun part. The evaluators performed a series of skits and we had to point out what each handler did wrong–or right. I learned a lot from both sessions, and I think we have a reasonably good chance of passing if I can just keep Harper from going la-la during the evaluation. She’s capable of doing everything called for in the evaluation, but like me, she doesn’t always test well. It’s very difficult for her not to go right up to strangers, for instance. One of the evaluators mentioned that people with certain breeds, like Goldens, often wait until the dogs are about seven years old before getting them certified, just because it takes that long for their exuberance to mellow. I’m guessing Cavaliers are the same way.

We’ll be practicing a lot over the next few weeks. Evaluations are coming up late this month and in March. Wish us luck!

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German Shepherd Rescued After Getting Head Stuck in Cinderblock Wall

Look at these photos and imagine being this 8-month-old German Shepherd. Poooooor puppy! He really got himself into a pickle yesterday when he stuck his head through a hole in an 18-inch thick retaining wall on his owner’s property near Palm Springs. That does not look comfortable at all!

Animal control rescuers, who aren’t sure what drove Rebel to want to see what was on the other side of the wall, first made sure his breathing was OK and unrestricted, according to Southwest Riverside News Network. Then they started pulling from one side, pushing from the other.

“He let us know if we were pushing too hard, but he kept working right along with us. He helped us a lot. You could see his hind legs stiffen to assist in the direction we were going. He knew we were trying to save him,” said Riverside County Animal Services Sgt. James Huffman.

In about a half hour, Rebel was free, with only minor injuries. Animal control officials will be talking to the property owner about covering the hole with chicken wire so Rebel doesn’t end up looking like a mounted moose head again.

(Photos: Southwest Riverside News Network)

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Getting out the vote for World Vets!

Pet Connection friends, can I ask you to help World Vets, a great international organization that provides veterinary care for animals all over the world, win $25,000? All they need is your vote!

Heska International, which makes diagnostic tests and other veterinary products worldwide, is going to give a $25,000 grant to an organization that serves animals in inspiring ways. The winner of the most votes in the “Inspiration in Action” contest will win that prize.

Heska asked veterinary professionals to nominate organizations they thought could benefit from this money, and then narrowed it down to four finalists.

One of those is World Vets, an organization I’ve supported for a long time. This group of dedicated veterinarians and support staff is headed up by Cathy King, the sister of my Lakewood Animal Hospital colleague, Dr. Bruce King.

What do the great folks at World Vets do? What don’t they do might be a better question. I’ll let their own words answer that question:

The focus of World Vets is to provide international veterinary assistance to impoverished nations outside of North America. Below we have listed a variety of ways in which World Vets is able to assist foreign animal groups, animal health care professionals, and/or communities reach their animal welfare goals. We are not a grantmaking organization.

Small Animal

World Vets can provide a skilled team of veterinarians and technicians to provide community wide spay neuter campaigns as well as health consultations for dogs and cats to control the local animal population as well as treat and prevent zoonotic diseases. World Vets volunteers can also perform other surgeries on a case by case basis. We operate a fully functional mobile surgery setup and also bring the veterinary supplies needed to provide routine veterinary care.

Equine & Livestock

World Vets can provide a skilled team of veterinarians and technicians to provide routine veterinary care for horses and livestock as well as the veterinary supplies needed to perform such tasks as parasite control, vaccinations and/or treat any health concerns specified.

Veterinary Supplies

Given that World Vets has the requested veterinary supplies on hand and the means to ship them, we are able to provide donations of veterinary supplies.

Disaster Relief

World Vets is currently developing a Disaster Response Program. At the moment we are not capable of leading animal disaster relief efforts. However, in times of crisis we may have volunteers and/or veterinary supplies to contribute to relief efforts. Assistance for natural and/or man made emergencies are evaluated on a case by case basis.

Training & Capacity Building

World Vets is able to provide training for foreign veterinarians, veterinary students and/or animal health professionals in many capacities; spay neuter surgery, animal husbandry, diagnostics/treatment etc..

I was really glad to find out voting isn’t only open to veterinarians, and I knew that the folks at Pet Connection were just the kind of informed and caring pet lovers who could help put this worthy organization over the hump.

Of course, if you think one of the other groups is more deserving of your vote, that’s great, too — all the nominees are terrific organizations. I’m just asking that you click on over to the Heska “Inspiration in Action” site and consider giving your vote to World Vets.

One thing that some of the people on my Facebook page wondered about: Yes, Heska does make you register before you can vote. This is how they limit the chance of multiple votes from one person. But they state clearly that they won’t use your email address for any other purpose, so I hope you won’t let that inconvenience stop you from supporting these great animal charities with your vote.

Here’s the link — voting ends Dec. 14, so get out the vote today! And GO, WORLD VETS!

Photo: World Vets.

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