Indy !

Indy - what a great name for a collie !

We met an American lady on holiday whose daughter has a collie who she called "Indy" due to the fact she runs round and round in circles and never stops - just like an Indy Car Race !

Great Name !

Collie Holidays !

Well we have now had a couple of holidays with Tika and have survived so far !

She managed two weeks in a tent which went quite well. We took the dog crate with us and she slept in that at night. On hot days we even put it outside in the shade and she could get a sleep in that. We stayed on a campsite in Cornwall called Seaview International at Boswinger (watch out as there are a few "Seaview" campsites in Cornwall). They have great luxury pitches which are very spacious. They are also installing a proper fenced dog walking field. Unfortunately they were just finishing fencing it off on the last day of our holiday. This would have made quite a difference as she could have had a good run after a ball in a fenced field. We didnt want to take the chance of her running off into the campsite after some delicious smells of bacon or similar temptation ! And anyway the campsite rules stated you had to keep her on a lead in the field anyway so we didnt risk letting her off the lead. So overall a recommendation on that site although it is quite a distance from the Newquay and St Ives areas if that is where you are wanting to go. However it was very near the lovely Lost Gardens of Heligan which I enjoyed visiting.

Tika's First Day at the Beach

Tika had great fun at St Andrews Beach yesterday ! She enjoyed fetching her ball and got loads of exercise but in the end was slightly difficult to get her to come back onto the lead. Usually on walks we get her to Come and Sit before she gets the ball thrown again. This means we can get hold of her if need be to put the lead on again. However we didnt do that on the beach but we probably should have. And we also need to work on some obedience with her when we dont have the distraction of a ball with us.

Brave Dog and Homing Instinct

This dog managed to get home 20 days after a tornado hit him. His owners thought he was gone but he crawled back even though he had two broken legs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13577478

Cute Cat and Kitten Video

OK its a cat but this is just very cute - animals are just like humans :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw4KVoEVcr0&feature=player_embedded

Funny Food Video !

This is funny. I think all dogs probably think like this but Tika definitely does !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGeKSiCQkPw

Great Spring Weather !

Well we have had quite a few lovely days of spring weather and here you can see Tika sitting in front of a blossom tree.

We have now raised the height of our fence so she will hopefully not be "going visiting" again !

We took her for a walk today and for the first time she walked well along a main road without jumping at every car. She watched them but didnt make a move towards them and seemed quite relaxed. I dont know if that is because I also took her a walk yesterday along the main road so she's had two days in a row of it or if its some other reason. Maybe she's getting more sensible ?!?

And the destruction is still continuing (and the associated expense !). This is with three walks a day as well as ball games in the garden. So far the tally this weekend is a watering can, which I have tried to repair as well as a new tin of lypsyl and a toilet roll. So we are talking about £10 of damage just like that ! She can also spot exactly what you dont want her to damage. At one point in the garden I found a very small holly seedling which I thought could replace a plant which had died. Next thing I know she is away off with it ! I managed to retrieve it but whether it will survive remains to be seen !

Well lets hope this weather continues, although its pretty hot - I wonder if she will start to moult soon ?

Nearly a Collie Catastrophe Today

Well its been an exhausting day today. It could have ended badly but thankfully hasn't.
Its been a warning about how a dog could in theory cause a lot of harm !

This is what happened !

Firstly Tika has so far been contained by our lovely new fenced garden. She has only twice lept the new fence and that was when in the middle of a very exciting game.
So around lunchtime today she was pottering the garden and our neighbour who she seems to love called her over. The neighbours were sitting out enjoying the sun. I had been out playing with Tika but left her pottering in the garden. Anwyay I watched from the window and she leapt the fence and went to say hello. The neighbours didnt mind but I did so went to rescue her as she could have ended up going to the front of their house and into the street.

The next incident was then more dramatic as she went to visit the neighbours again and this time ended up in their house !

And finally i asked someone to walk her in the garden on the lead until I had time this evening to build a higher fence ! However the person I asked seemed not to have heard about the earlier incidents (do you know people like that as well ?!?) Anyway they decided to leave her playing in the garden.
Next thing is she has gone visiting again and I didnt realise straight away so the neighbours were trying to catch her. When I finally arrived she very nearly could have caused my elderly neighbour to get injured and another of their family who had a broken leg to have fallen over, and she had disrupted their dinner.

So obviously it is not acceptable. And thank goodness no-one was injured. We have now started to raise the height of the fence !
I know as well that you shouldnt really leave a collie on their own in the garden - she needs occupied at all times - games, exercise etc.
Its like having a naughty child though at this stage !

She had had a good walk this morning although it was slightly curtailed as there was a dog walker walking eight dogs on the moorland where I was walking so I had to change route and put her back on the lead earlier than I might have done so that is a bit annoying. I dont understand how people can walk 8 dogs ! She actually lost one of the spaniels which had come across to say hello to us. Last thing I saw it was heading back to her. But they must be earning at least £40 for that walk but how under control realistically can you be in charge of 8 dogs ! I cant even keep control of one dog as you can see from today's hectic day !

Have a look at this - if its true its remarkable !

A goose that helps out a blind dog !
http://blogs.discovery.com/daily_treat/2011/04/seeing-eye-goose-befriends-blind-dog.html

Ticks Out

Well the bad news is that we found a Tick on Tika today. It was swollen up so had probably been on her overnight. I managed to create a tick remover by folding a paper clip into a similar shape to the one I had bought (and left behind at home !)

So that is the news - ticks are definitely out here in Scotland for the summer - we got this one in Perthshire I think. The weather has been good for quite a few weeks now and as long as there have been no more frosts then the ticks start to appear.

Also unfortunately I just gave her a dose of Advocate Spot On a couple of days ago. This covers worms plus lungworm which can be caught if they eat snails and slugs which Tika will probably do once they appear in the garden a bit more.
However the plan was to give her Advantix "spot on", which has some sort of action against ticks, in a months time. But it looks like we have maybe been a bit too late with this plan !
So hopefully she'll not have caught Lyme disease or any other nasty thing from it. The tick appeared to come out whole as it was still alive and its legs were wriggling - it actually had pretty big legs when you saw it.

Really Cute Video - Puppy Lullaby !

This is very cute !

Spayed

Well we took the advice of our vets and got Tika spayed a week ago. So far she seems to be OK and her wound is healing. We were advised to only walk her on a lead to allow the wound to heal, but it is very difficult to stop a collie leaping around ! The vet advised that it was better to tire her out with a lead walk than not walking her and having her leaping about the house.
However even with all our best intentions she has still managed to leap a fence and yesterday I found her on the breakfast bar ! However I was able to lift her down....

There is an interesting discussion though about the merits of spaying and neutering and the best age to do it at :
http://www.doglistener.co.uk/medical/neuter.shtml

I remember when we got our bitch spayed when I was younger I always felt after it that other dogs didnt know if she was a male or a female and it caused confusion. I remember she didnt seem to get along with other dogs so well after it.
However I hope that that doesnt happen with Tika. She has been fairly well socialised up to now so lets hope that continues...

Also the vet advised that from a medical point of view if you spay before their first season then this lessens risk of mammary tumours.

However we may yet find that it is not advantageous from a phsychological point of view.

Let us know how you got on if you got your pet neutered or spayed.

Worms, Fleas and Ticks !

Lovely heading you might say !
But what a minefield it all is.

Tika arrived with us at 7.5 weeks old having had some worm treatmentsat 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 weeks as a puppy. At that time you have to then worm them monthly.
So I followed the vets directions after that and took her to be weighed and then she was given worm tablets or skin spot on treatment every month.
Then it all started to get a bit complicated !

There isnt one treatment which will tackle all the types of worms along with Fleas and Ticks. So as we now move towards spring and summer these start to become a problem. Apparently ticks will only begin to appear after the last frost disappears. I suspect we still have some more frost to come here in Scotland so I hope not to have to worry about that yet. However we definitely go places in the summer in Scotland where there are ticks and also where there is lyme disease in the ticks so I am definitely wanting to avoid those if possible.

Another risk which I know Tika will be exposed to in the summer is slugs and snails. She already ate some of the ones which were lying around in our garden in the autumn and it will be difficult to clear them from the garden so I need to make sure she is protected from lungworms which can be found in slugs and snails but also in any water they may have drunk from or dog toys etc that they may have crawled over in the night.

Anyway here is a quick summary of the types of treatment she will now be taking at age 6 months :

Monthly - Advocate on skin on back of neck - this deals with lungworm, fleas and worms. - she will get this this evening - 15th March
In two weeks we will give her Milbemax which will last 3 months and deals with a broad spectrum of worms - roundworms, hookworm, whipworm, tapeworm, heartworm (apparently the only thing we are double dosing against with these two treatments is roundworms.) The two treatments need to be taken two weeks apart at they both contain something collies may react against and its in case of overdose (I think !)

This treatment should take us to mid June.
At this point we will be spending quite a bit of the summer camping or walking moorland so ticks will become a problem and they are also worse later in the summer when its wet apparenlty.
So in Mid June we will give her Frontline as a spot on which is effective against ticks and the next Milbemax tablet for the broadspectrum of worms.

PHEW !!

And watch out - one thing I have found out is that collies and related dogs have a problem in their brains with processing some chemical which is in Milbemax and there is also a warning on the lable of Advocate to be very careful that collies dont manage to lick the Advocate as it affects that type of dog so you need to be very careful when applying it.  And with the Milbemax you must be very careful to give the right dose and not overdose as the problem arises if you were to give a dose of 5x the recommeneded.  Its just as well collie owners are as clever as their dogs or we just couldnt cope with all this !

Hope you find this useful and please send any comments which you think can add to the discussion and help us all understand this a bit better.

For more information about worms : http://www.wormfree.co.uk/dog_cat_worms/en/index.shtml
http://www.ashwoodvet.co.uk/news/view-article.php?Title=SLUGS+AND+SNAILS+and+DOGS+!!!+-+A+VERY+BAD+MIX+!

Ticks already spotted in Scotland in March 2011 ! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-12804689

Advantix website : http://www.animalhealth.bayerhealthcare.com/5614.0.html

European ticks now found in some areas of the UK : http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9432000/9432605.stm

Some very detailed information including about diseases that can be caught in Europe or abroad : http://www.cvbd.org/

Here is information about lungworm - it is very good and easy to read information and the good news is it seems that lungworm is treatable. http://www.lungworm.co.uk/scripts/pages/en/home.php

More confusing updates from vets (18 May) - apparently the Milbemax 3 month does doesnt work after a while against lungworm - we would need to give her the monthly version for that and that is off license ! (but this conflicts with what I have already written ...someone is not telling me the right story -......aaarghh !)

Interesting Website about Working Collies

Here's an interesting website about working collies :
http://www.workingsheepdog.co.uk/sheepdog_for_sale_trained_working_farm_dog_uk.htm

Crate Training

"Crate Training" has proved to be a great success and has certainly saved our sanity a bit during the early puppy months.

The crate we bought should take an adult sized collie. It is 36 inches long (I Think !)

Here is a link to our crate listed on Amazon :

The advice is that you should typically only use a crate for 1 to 2 hours. However on a very few occassions we have left her for three hours and she has been absolutely fine.
Every time I have returned to see her she has been either sleeping or just sitting looking out and is not in any way desperate to get out.
This has meant we can leave her safely and not come home to find she has destroyed the kitchen etc.
The advice is in the early days to just get them used to going in and out of the crate. We have put her dog bed in there and she slept in the crate from the second night we had her home. (In the very early days she needed out to go to the toilet in the middle of the night but eventually she was able to sleep through).  In fact she has been such a good sleeper from 10 through to 7.30 that we have been able to leave her sleeping in the kitchen. She choses to sleep either in her crate or in a chair. I know the dog training advises against her sleeping on your furniture but I am afraid I decided to let her onto the chair in the kitchen as the thought of fighting each night over whether she could go in that and when I wasnt in the room anyway seemed a battle I decided not to fight. However I did find out at dog training this week that it may be OK to let her use that chair as long as I have invited her up onto it.

Further tips we used for crate training though were that we didn't make a big fuss when leaving her in the crate and then leaving the house. Also when we returned to the house we made a point of not immediately going to her to make a fuss. We would do a few tasks in the kitchen and then go and let her out.

So I would say it has worked and even though she may eventually be safe to leave loose in the kitchen I think it may well be useful to keep occassionally using the crate as there may well be times when it will come in useful, for example when people are visiting.

Happy New Year 2011

Well hope you all have a great 2011 !

So far we are getting on OK with our new collie !
She is now just over 4 months old.

The crate training is working out well and we can leave her for 3 hours if need be and she is happy. We havent done this long every day but we can if we need to.

She has enjoyed two dog training classes since I last blogged. We have learned about dog grooming and harnesses and leads as well as trying out walking on the lead (always on the left) and doing a Sit-Stay exercise. Next week the puppies may be allowed to socialise which should be interesting !

We were shown how to make the dog sit by tweaking her muscle at her "knee" - I think I have the hang of this but its apparently a safe way to make them sit if they havent obeyed after hearing Sit twice. It has worked and now she does sit well.

The main issue at the moment is that she is showing a huge interest in cars. I think it was probably fear based to start with but now she will walk OK with four cars going past and then she might launch herself across pavement on the next car going past and she is watching all the cars. We are trying things like carrying treats or a ball to distract her and also saying a strong "No" when she tries to go towards the car. As well as still encouraging her to "heel" and walk well.  If anyone has had similar experiences and if you have managed to sort it out then please send us your comments !