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Updated Dog Heatstroke Survival Guide

Peanut Butter keeps cool in his wading pool

The other afternoon, we had Hanna out with us beside the pool. I guess we didn’t quite realize how hot it was, because within fifteen or so minutes, she was panting heavily. Luckily, we were able to bring Hanna partway into the pool and cool her off quite easily, but this could just as easily have been a serious situation.

Heat Stroke is a killer of all breeds, not just brachycephalics, and this summer’s extraordinarily hot, muggy conditions are conducive to faster, more serious cases than even the most diligent of us might be used to.

With that in mind, here’s an updated guide to heatstroke in dogs – how to recognize it, and how to treat it. Print it out, and have it in a handy place, because if heatstroke strikes, you do not want to have to go on the internet to look for an info sheet.

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Cancer Study in Dogs

Canine Health Foundation News Alert
Van Andel Research Institute Launches New Canine Cancer Studies! Your Participation is Needed in the Collection of Tumor Samples [Tuesday, June 15, 2010]

The Van Andel Research Institute, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, received a “Grand Opportunities” (GO grant) from the National Institutes of Health. This is enabling the Institute to expand its canine cancer studies, which started with a project partially funded by the Canine Health Foundation investigating hemangiosarcoma in Clumber Spaniels 18 months ago, into a much broader research program. They are launching a new center of excellence in canine genetics and genomics. The first and most important program is the Canine Hereditary Cancer Consortium (CHCC), which is headed by Drs. Jeff Trent (TGen), Nick Duesbery (Van Andel Research Institute), and Paul Meltzer (National Cancer Institute/NIH) . The program is an unprecedented alliance of scientists, veterinarians and physicians. Drs. Duesbery and Froman are intensely focused on recruiting canine cancer patients for the study through a variety of clinical outreach programs. Samples from canine patients will not only allow the researchers to identify genes responsible for breed-specific susceptibilities (such as hemangiosarcoma in Clumber Spaniels and osteosarcoma in Greyhounds), but also to translate these discoveries into new and more precise diagnostics and therapeutics for both canine and human cancer patients. The ultimate goal is to take personalized medicine for dogs to unscaled heights!

You can find more information about this program in  found in the 31st issue of Discoveries, the Canine Health Foundation newsletter.

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Thursday Thirteen – 13 Things My Dogs Have Eaten

This week, my Thursday Thirteen list is a ‘top ten plus 3’ of things that the dogs in my life have eaten. Needless to say, mundane items like food and cookies aren’t included.

1.

Eaten: The solid oak, two hundred year old step off my farmhouse door.
Eater: Murfee, my (English) Mastiff

Notes: The courtyard outside the back door of my farmhouse was cobblestoned brick, which grew nicely warmed by the sun. Murfee would lie there for hours, surveying the yard, barking at passing clouds and foolish cyclists, and contentedly chewing on the door step. Six inches of solid oak had survived two hundred years of history, but 200 pounds of Mastiff proved to be too much for it.

2.

Eaten: my bank deposit
Eater: Jake, Doberman

Notes: Jakey, like all Dobies, was an agile jumper. I thought I’d secured the living room pretty well, but he jumped up onto my partner’s desk, and tore into the canvas sack with my store’s bank deposit. Three hundred plus dollars in cash, assorted credit card slips and a few checks all ended up in Jake’s stomach. Some of the cash was recoverable. Don’t ask.

3.

Eaten: an almost brand new Ferragamo pump in black satin
Eater: Tessa, Hammer and siblings

Notes: I’m not a shoe fanatic, or least not overly so, and I’d normally never pay more than $150 for a pair of shoes (unless they were really good riding boots). The black satin pumps were a gift, and I do admit I liked them enough to ignore my misgivings about wearing shoes that cost more than my entire outfit combined. Unfortunately, I left them inside their rather lovely box on a chair in the living room, which would have been fine if Tessa and the rest of her ten week old siblings hadn’t knocked over the baby gate and gotten into the room. Much crying and wailing on this one, but not quite as much as there was for…

4.

Eaten: Custom ordered, embroidered ‘French Bulldogs Rule’ pillow
Eater: Tessa, Hammer and Siblings

Notes: Destroyed in the same foray that nabbed them the shoes. They had a busy afternoon.

5.

Eaten: Christmas tree ornaments made out of flour and water paste, assorted candy canes
Eaters: no proof, but I assume that Tara (Tessa’s mom), Daisy the Bulldog and Murfee the Mastiff all helped in equal measure

Notes: they were polite and careful thieves, and only ate the ornaments and candy canes that were on the back of the tree.

6.

Eaten: Drop n’ Flop Pet Bed, giant sized
Eater: Murfee, mastiff

Notes: Drop n’ Flops are great pet beds. They’re water proof, they conform to the shape of your pet, they’re outdoor safe and the dogs love them. Unfortunately, they’re stuffed with the same stuff modern day bean bag chairs are stuffed with – teeny, tiny styrofoam beads, like itsy bitsy versions of the ones used for shipping goods. Picture a sack big enough to comfortably cradle a 200+ pound mastiff, stuffed full of those tiny little beads. Now picture it torn open, with the beads blowing everywhere. On a windy day. We found beads for months, everyplace. We found them blocks away…

7.

Eaten: wooden handles on brand new, leather La-Z-Boy recliner and sofa
Eater: not sure, but clues point to Delilah, Bunny and possibly Tula

Notes: Sean has wanted leather La-Z-Boy furniture forever. We never considered, however, the ramifications of such temptingly shaped chunks of wood, at such a perfect height. They’re now coated with about three bottles worth of bitter apple, thus rendering the action of simultaneously reclining the furniture and eating a sandwich a very bad idea.

8.

Eaten: Every single wooden coffee table I have ever owned
Eater: Every single puppy I have ever had, and a few
very bad adults

Notes: At my house, pups graduate to the family room by about six weeks. They split their time between the play pen, and being on the floor with the other dogs. Of course we try to never, ever let them loose without supervision, but accidents happen, and they tend to happen to my coffee tables. I swear to God, the next one I buy will be wrought iron. Or just a big chunk of rock, whatever.

9.

Eaten: the corners on every plastic dog crate we have
Eater: mostly Tessa

Notes: Tessa is a really good dog. Once she’d reached maturity, Tessa never had an accident in the house, and she never chewed on shoes or furniture – except for plastic dog crates. Plastic crates are Tessa’s crack cocaine. She craves them like some dogs crave Tennis balls. Thanks to Tessa, every plastic crate I own looks moth eaten.

10.

Eaten: drywall
Eater: Skye the Mastiff

Notes: Skye was a really good girl, unlike her predecessor, who never met a piece of wood she wouldn’t happily destroy. Skye loved her kongs and her nylabones, and left the rest of the house alone, until the day she decided that the wall behind ‘her’ futon needed a window. Since she didn’t have opposable thumbs, she simply chewed a hole in the drywall. The outer brick wall, however, defeated her.

11.

Eaten: wainscoting and baseboards
Eater: Murfee

Notes: Like Skye, Murfee preferred to eat what she could most easily reach – in this case, the wainscoting and baseboards behind her dog bed in the family room. It was an outdated look anyways…

12.

Eaten: an entire frozen turkey
Eater: Lizard, honorary dog

Notes: Lizard was a big, ugly, one eyed, one eared, muzzle scarred, broken tailed dump cat who lived with me as a child (notice that I don’t say I ‘owned’ Lizard. This is not for peta-ish reasons of political correctness, but rather because no one could ever conceive of owning an entity like Lizard). Lizard jumped into a flat bed we’d unloaded at the local dump, and came home with us, after which no mouse within ten miles would dare to come near our house, and the resident dogs quaked in fear of catching Lizard’s attention. He once road all the way to end of our driveway, perched claws deep in the back of my brother’s screeching, frantic Doberman. One day, I watched Lizard drag an entire frozen chicken across the room, after he’d stolen it off of the counter top. He growled and hissed the entire length of the room, refusing to let go of the bird, no matter that it outweighed him by a good three pounds. Lizard seemed to consider it a challenge. He managed to get the turkey out of the porch door, and that was the last we saw of him for a few days. I can neither confirm nor deny that I held the door open for him so he could get the chicken outside.

13.

Eaten: Barbie dolls (but just the heads, for the most part)
Eater: Murfee, Mastiff

Notes: I’ll just re-print the story I wrote for Murfee’s memorial page, since it sums the entire incident up:

murfee1.jpgThroughout most of her life, Murfee radiated a calm sense of dignity. She could be playful when it suited her, but for the most part she truly fit the description “Grandeur and Good Nature”. What few people knew was that, underneath that sophisticated demeanor, there lay the heart of a wonderfully weird dog.

For one thing, she had a Barbie fetish. I have lost count of the number of decapitated Barbie corpses we found floating around the house.The mystery of where the heads went was solved one day in our back yard, and remains one of our fondest memories of the dog my ex-husband still calls “the Natural Disaster”.

We saw Murf galloping wildly around the back yard, whipping her head from side to side. Every so often, she’d stop and roll around on the grass, gazing dolefully at her rear end. When she got closer, we saw she had something attached to her butt – we thought it was a burr, or a clump of thistle grass. As she raced past us, we saw that it was a half digested Barbie head, dangling from her rear by just the hair and swaying eerily in the breeze. Spooky, to say the least. As she ran around the yard, Barbie head trailing behind her, my husband and I debated whether or not we should try to catch her and detach the grisly remnant of her snack. We were both laughing too hard to actually do anything about it.

We hope there are Barbie heads in heaven, too. Preferably hairless.

Thursday Thirteen – 13 Most Useful Books on Dog Breeding

 

Thirteen Things Most Useful Books for Dog Breeders

I should note here that I don’t think that any book can ever replace the best source of information and advice on dog breeding, and that’s a mentor. A mentor is an older dog breeder who ‘takes you under their wing’ and offers hands on advice, help, suggestions (and usually really good gossip).

That said, I’ve also gotten a lot of useful, practical advice from the following books, including a crash introductory course on canine genetics.

A caveat: books with asterisks beside them are pretty much French Bulldog specific only.

1. Born To Win: Breed to Succeed
Patricia Craige’s book is a really great crash course on how to go beyond just ‘dog breeding’ and start breeding to win.

2. Genetics of the Dog
Malcom Willis’ book is considered to be the classic ‘layman’s’ guide to canine genetics. Invaluable for understanding – or at least trying to understand – coat color genetics, in particular.

3. Canine Reproduction: The Breeder’s Guide
Patricia Holst’s book is a wellspring of practical, no nonsense advice and tips. I refer to this book at least once per litter.

4. Successful Dog Breeding: The Complete Handbook of Canine Midwifery
Offering more than just practical advice, Chris Walkowicz emphasizes the ethics and responsibility that goes along with breeding.

5. The Whelping and Rearing of Puppies: A Complete and Practical Guide
A great book that covers all of the ‘what ifs’ and best and worst case scenarios. Spiral binding makes it a breeze to use in the somewhat hectic conditions of the whelping room. And no, I’m not saying that just because Muriel is my editor at ‘Just Frenchies‘.

6. Puppy Intensive Care: A Breeder’s Guide to Care of Newborn Puppies
This is just about the most useful book for a novice breeder. It comes along with shopping lists, and a companion CD showing video illustrations on such topics as tube feeding and a live delivery.

7. Breeding Better Dogs
Long time breeder and judge Carmen Battaglia shows you how to apply canine genetics to your specific breeding program.

8. Another Piece of the Puzzle: Puppy Development
This useful little paperback helps breeders to develop the absolute best puppies possible, utilizing puppy’s varying developmental phases to enhance temperament and behaviors. Really useful and simple to follow.

9. The Joy of Breeding Your Own Show Dog
This book, like “Successful Dog Breeding“, shows you how to plan out a breeding with the ultimate goal of producing a show winning litter. Helping you to see beyond just what’s down on paper, to what’s actually within your dog’s genes.

10. Dog Owner’s Home Veterinary Handbook
Every dog breeder needs a good, basic, simple to understand veterinary handbook, and this one does an exceptional job at being easy to read and follow.

11. The Healing Touch for Dogs: The Proven Massage Program for Dogs
This might seem like an odd choice for a list on dog breeding, but I’ve found that using massage on pregnant moms, moms in whelp and on puppies enhances their health and wellbeing. New, nervous moms can be calmed into accepting their pups more readily if you use massage while introducing them – especially useful if mom is shaking off the effects of anesthesia from a c-section.

* 12. The French Bulldog by Steve Eltinge
Yes, we know this book require deep pockets, but this is the classic book on French Bulldogs, and contains some fantastic photos of dogs you’ll find behind the pedigrees of most of the top show dogs in North America. Put it on your wishlist.

* 13. The French Bulldog (Kennel Club Classic)
Pockets not quite deep enough for the Eltinge book? Muriel Lee’s new book is a fantastic, more up to date alternative. Covering health, history and much more on the Frenchie, it’s an essential addition to the library of any aspiring French Bulldog breeder.

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