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Received some funny photos of "Alfie in the Alps" from Joan and Colin. Alfie is from Smudge's litter of nine little Hudges born in 2015, so is our Bumble and Blottie's litter sibling. "Alfie doing what Alfie loves best in the whole world ....... Finding a patch of snow and having a good roll in it!" "Thanks Joan and Colin. All we have here to roll in at the moment is mud.
Jane x" Lovely update for Ruby, who turned 5 years old yesterday, and is now living in Switzerland with her family. Ruby is Bayley's litter sibling. Her Mum is Millie with her Dad being our Reggie. Ruby was born March 2012 along with his six litter siblings, and here is the blog telling of her arrival Seven new arrivals "Hi Jane, I just wanted to touch base with you to let you know how Ruby is getting on especially since its her birthday today! Part of Millies last litter! Well Ruby is a Swiss miss now as we have moved to the land of mountains and chocolate and Ruby is now enjoying walks in snow which she loves rolling in with a really happy look on her face. She is as lovely as ever with her indomitable cheerfulness and energy and affectionate nature. Here's a few pictures of our wonderful family dog who still thinks she's a puppy!! Best wishes to you and your family xx" "Hello Lisa,
lovely to hear from you, and all the way from Switzerland now. Good to here that Ruby is enjoying her new home and life with you all. Thanks for the lovely photos (the snow is a great back drop for photographing her) and for keeping in touch over the past 5 years. Happy 5th Birthday Ruby! Love from us all at Poundlane Jane x" Received a sweet update from Georgina for Barnaby who was the star of the Photobox Christmas Ad 2016 (Photo Mug) and his litter sisters are our Sasha and Bertha. Barnaby is from Henry and Primrose's Brittany/Cavalier litter born July last year One day under their little belts "Hi Jane, Sorry to see that Dolly has had to visit the vet. Hope all turn's out well. I just wanted to send you a couple of photos of Barnaby. He has grown so much and is now as big as his good friend Elvis. He has so much energy when we go out for a walk and will just run and run but he loves a good sleep at home too. Our cats are getting more confident with Barnaby (apart from when he chases them across the garden!) and Snowy often snuggles up to Barnaby for a snooze. Best Wishes, Georgina" "Hello Georgina,
lovely to hear from you, and that all is well with Barnaby. His sisters are well, and they love to play very noisily, but like Barnaby, also sleep well. Thanks for keeping in touch. Kind regards Jane x" Received a lovely email from Glenda, who has Bayley. Bayley is 5 years old today. Bayley's Mum is Millie with his Dad being our Reggie. Bayley was born March 2012 along with his six litter siblings and here is the blog telling of his arrival Seven new arrivals So a Happy 5th Birthday to Bayley and his litter siblings Ruby, Lola, Meg, Lottie, Linsey and Scrappy. Hope you are all well, and had a lovely day. "Hello Jane, Happy Birthday to all Bayley's sibling. I can't believe my litthe boy is now five. I am sure you will not be surprised to hear he is the most wonderful little dog. He is such a cuddly boy, and very obedient. He is my constant companion and I am sure he understands every thing I say to him. One of the photos is just after a bath. Having been down in the woods with his friends he got extremely muddy jumping in the river for sticks. He was absolutely worn out! Do you think he looks like Mum or Dad? I was wondering if you could tell us why he turns his bed upside down, throws all the blankets out and then walks away. He never lays down when he does this. Also, he sleeps on our bed, but he is not content with sleeping on the bottom. He creeps up to sleep above my head on the pillow. I notice that some of your pack like to sleep on the back of your sofas. Does it mean he is trying to be top dog or it means nothing at all, just likes to be high up? I am so sorry to hear about Dolly's latest health issue, fingers crossed for her. I still really enjoy reading your blog, and readily voice my opinion to anyone that is thinking of getting a flat face little dog. Kind regards Glenda" "Hello Glenda,
I can really see his Mum in him, the way he looks at the camera. Reggie does the digging up everything, and then goes and lies somewhere else. Millie and Reggie are both cuddle monsters. They both really love a good cuddle session. The sleeping above your head on the pillow or on the back of sofas, could be dominant behaviour, but I think it could also be just a dog that likes to lie in a position they can see everything going on around them, safe from the vacuum cleaner etc, and it can simply be a cooler place to lie in the home for some, or if a radiator behind the sofa, a warm place to lie. Primrose and Belle like to lie on the back of the sofa, and both are the least dominant dogs in the pack towards humans. Unless you have issues in other areas with a dog being dominant towards you, I would not see lying on the back of the sofa as a dominant behaviour. If you call the dog down from the position, and there is no resistance, I would not read to much in to it. Funnily an old Cavalier I had called "Jemima"(who Millie is the spitting image of) used to sleep around David's head. She is the only dog whilst my husband David and me have been together that has been allowed (in old age) to sleep on our bed. David came in to my life when she was 7 years old, and obviously I had just been filling in caring for her until she met the love of her love "David."She was besotted by him. He was her designated human. She would start by his feet, when we went to bed, to then by the morning be sleeping like a sort of dog halo above his head on the pillow. She was a lovely dog, and was brilliant with our first born child and was never aggressive to anyone of us, although I knew where her heart lay, in the hands of David. When we had to have her put to sleep at 12 years old, due to MVD. David made me pledge to not call another dog "Jemima." He told me, "There could only ever be one Jemima." She is buried in his heart. Thanks for the lovely photos of Bayley, and for keeping in touch over the last 5 years. Happy 5th Birthday to Bayley! Love from us all at Poundlane Jane x" Cavalier health: Pre CHF prescription of pimobendan should only be given by a cardiologist vet18/3/2017 Over at the CavalierHealth.org website they have a very interesting article about diagnosing the right time to start pimobendan (known as vetmedin in the UK) since the EPIC Study with pimobendan Will general practice veterinarians cut corners to prematurely prescribe pimobendan to MVD-affected cavaliers? "The EPIC Study report, published in September 2016 and financed wholly by the manufacturer of pimobendan (Vetmedin), set three separate minimum measurements of dogs’ heart enlargement before prescribing the drug to any dog which does not yet display symptoms of congestive heart failure due to mitral valve disease. Two of those measurements are taken by echocardiograph devices and the other is by an x-ray of the dog’s heart." So to be able to diagnose giving pimobendan before Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). The veterinary practice needs to have a echocardiograph device specifically a M-mode, or motion mode along with a x-ray machine, and a vet who is highly experienced in using these devices and reading the images resulting from them. So a pre CHF prescription of pimobendan should only be given by a vet specialized in cardiology, a veterinary cardiologists.
Some Veterinary cardiologists have even spoke out against the pre-CHF use of pimobendan: Dr. Amara Estrada warned: “There is evidence that treatment with a positive inotropic agent such as pimobendan prior to the development of systolic myocardial failure can have deleterious effects. ... Pimobendan ... should be reserved for use when systolic myocardial failure is detected or suspected.” Dr. George A. Kramer warned: “Most dogs with chronic heart disease do not have decreased contractility and do not need positive inotropic support.” Dr. Mark Rishniw warned: “One study in dogs with early mitral valve disease suggested an increase in valve damage in the dogs give pimobendan.” So as the CavalierHealth.org blog says, and I'm inclined to agree with, "The bottom line is to not allow any GP vet to prescribe pimobendan to any cavalier King Charles spaniel." I spoke to the vet this morning about Dolly. It's not brilliant, looks very much like we are dealing with a spread of cancer from the Squamous Cell Carcinoma removed from her throat in August last year Dolly and the big "C" She is booked in next week to be put under anesthetic to do a soft tissue biopsy, so we are 100% that it is cancer again, as this will help with treatment going forward. I'm probably clutching at straws with a further biopsy. There is a chance it might be something less worrying, but it is all now starting to point at it being cancer. I have had an awful gut feeling from the start, when I first noticed the lump, but chin up. At the moment Dolly is still firing on all cylinders and living her life to the full. I would love to tell you she would want to walk on the beach with the sun setting behind her, ride in a police car or even get a 'pawicure' if she could make a bucket list, but if Dolly could really make a bucket list, it would look a bit like this:
Just been sent this very interesting article Crufts winners should be the healthiest dogs, not just the best looking on the Telegraph website written by Pete the Vet telling us what happened at Crufts just a few hours after the Kennel Club were handed, and accepted a petition signed by 30000 people, asking the organisation to register Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppies only if their parents have been tested for mitral valve disease (MVD) and syringomyelia (SM), two common and serious inherited health issues in the breed. "Hours after the petition had been presented to the Kennel Club, the Cavalier best of breed was awarded to a young dog, owned by a Cavalier Club committee member, which had failed to comply with the heart disease prevention breeding guidelines for this breed, as endorsed by the Cavalier Club. These state that a stud dog should preferably be at least 2½ (two and a half) years old with a clear heart (as tested by a vet), and with parents with clear heart certificates issued at 5 (five) years of age or older. But the winning dog, who turned 2.5 years only a few days ago, has already sired seven litters, the first when he was just 13 months old. The owner of the dog though omitted to say whether the bitches the dog was mated with were at least 2.5 years old at the time, or whether both parents of the bitches his dog was mated with had parents both over 5 with a clear heart certificate. I seriously doubt if they all did.
And from the Kennel Club the same old spiel, "Health testing is not a legal requirement" and "the Kennel club is only voluntary." Surely if you spout on the home page of your website, "We are the UK’s largest organisation dedicated to protecting and promoting the health and welfare of all dogs." Health testing is then a moral requirement. Unfortunately, the lump in Dolly's neck is back again Dolly's got a few more games to play
It had never disappeared altogether, and Tuesday morning I noticed her just walking back from the pack outside. I leaned down and could feel the lump had become enlarged again, and this time, on touching it, she was showing discomfort. I rung the vet, and half an hour later I was in surgery with her. We decided that it might be a good idea to do a biopsy. Opting first for just doing this by removing fluid from the area with a needle and syringe. He was able to remove a good 20 ml of fluid from the lump.This method of biopsy, does not always give you such a good chance of a definitive answer and may just tells us that we have inflammation and infection, which we already know. If it does come back inconclusive, and the antibiotics she is on do not reduce the lump, we will look at putting her out to get a soft tissue biopsy of the lump. The anitbiotics seemed to of stopped the lump causing her discomfort, and I think today there has been some reduction in size. It is about the size of a bantam egg now. The vet took her off to extract the sample, and when he came back. He commented on how lovely and easy she was to do anything with. This vet had never meet Dolly before, but he did a very good job for me a while ago, when Primrose injured her eye, You can read about Primrose's eye on the blog entry Where is the key ? and Still standing and dancing. He then told me that she had been so relaxed with them removing the fuid from her lump, someone had taken a photo. He rather shyly then asked if I minded it being put on the Veterinary surgeries Facebook page. I said, "That was okay." So below is the photo of Dolly at the vets on Tuesday which you can also find on their Facebook page Market Veterinary Centre. I am now just waiting for results of the sample that was taken. Dolly seems her normal lucky go self, plus lump. Fingers crossed.
"In 2013, I published a paper in the Canadian Veterinary Journal entitled Stop Brachycephalism, Now (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3552601/). Since then, I have read and heard many argruments in defense of brachycephalic animals, but they have done nothing to disuade me that breeding deformity for esthetic purposes is unethical. I have now compiled a manifesto of arguments and rebuttals (https://www.facebook.com/stopbrachycephalism/posts/1007849159313220). A Nationwide Study Shows Short-Nosed Dogs Are Less Healthy The full study can be found here But reading the remarks on the comments on the CRUFFA Facebook page to this study, you are still getting denial and deflection, asking, "Have they distinguished if the dogs comes from puppy mills or assured breeders? Do not forget that there are a huge amount of puppymills in the United States. It will not be credible if we do not describe the statistics in a more in depth way." They just cannot except that the conformation of Brachycephaly is detrimental to a dogs health and the query is clutching at straws. Do not forget that just as many, if not more dogs without Brachycephaly are also bred in puppy mills. If you split the groups into whether puppy mill or American Kennel Club (AKC) breeder, I'm pretty confident you will end up with this result: Puppy mill bred bracyhcephalic dogs are more unhealthy than Puppy mill bred non-brachycephalic dogs, and AKC bred brachycephalic dogs are less healthy than AKC bred non-brachycephalic dogs. I even suspect if you compared AKC bred brachycephalic dogs to Puppy milled non-brachycephalics. The non-brachycephalics dogs would still be healthier. Wake up! Stop breeding dogs with Brachycephaly.
Over at the CavalierHealth.org website they report 3-D echocardiograms show differences in shapes of mitral valves of MVD-affected dogs versus healthy dogs.
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“The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you,but he will make a fool of himself, too.”
― Samuel Butler Me (Jane) with Puddin' and Teagol, waiting patiently to flush a patch of kale, December 2019
AuthorHello, I am Jane! Archives
March 2022
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