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

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

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.

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 !)

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 !

Winter Greetings !

No idea why this picture is sideways - does anyone know how to fix this in the blog ? Thanks !

Here is a picture of Tika with her "friend to be" - my friend's labrador puppy - 9 days younger. Not sure how they are going to get along yet - possibly signs they might or might not. It would be easier if they could just get along as that would be good for walks once they are a bit older. Anyway her friend decided to follow Tika's fashion sense and got the same very trendy tartan coat ! Essential for minus ten degree temperatures !

For Christmas entertainment, we got her a Jibber Jabber toy from the pet shop ! That kept her busy most of the day. It is a ball which sort of jumps around and responds to their movement - if they throw it through the air it starts jibbering again ! Anyway she wasnt remotely frightened or wary of it as I thought she might have been. But it did provide a lot of fun for her ! Unfortunately just like kids toys, the batteries had run out by the end of the day !

Other news is that she is now toilet trained - yippee !! Mind you we have left no mats of rugs down just in case ! I will eventually risk bringing out the fleece throw I bought from Ikea to protect our chairs but I think its early days yet - I dont want her associating any of these things with "toilet" !!

And today as she hit 16 weeks old we got the parvovirus booster at the vets and also the kennel cough vaccine which she needs for the puppy classes we are going to go along to next week.  So that was more money to the vet - expensive business !  The vet also recommended that depending on her lifestyle we may need to keep worming her every month, but it doesnt always need to be the tablets, sometimes we can use the "spot on" skin version. She now weighs 9.9 kg and when they hit 10 kg they can get adult worm tablets which are larger. I liked the puppy version ones as they went down really easily. However I must admit she seems very calm at the vets and doesnt appear to even notice her injections so thats good news !

Oh yes and the other good news is its finally thawing so we can now see some grass, although there's still lots of ice around...

Winter Still here and Pup now Reluctant to go Outside ! (age 13wks 5days)

Well Tika is still full of energy and has had me running around all day rescuing the various things I dont want to be destroyed - music, sellotape, Christmas cards, glove, Christmas stamper, brush, windowsill (expertly installed by my husband), chocolate from bin that was through the stair gate etc etc. And the headphones which I didnt rescue in time ! Her own toys do not seem to be of any interest today !

Anyway the weather outside is still very cold. Think it was at least -5 degrees today and probably down to minus 10. And the back garden is still mostly snow and ice. So its actually not good for her to run out there. Its not good for them to slip and fall so I have been throwing the ball in the top half of the garden where the sun has melted the ice. However it means that firstly she is not running off energy and secondly the temperature is putting her off (and us off) standing around in the garden to catch those moments when she decides to "do her business". Any time we do catch her going outside we lavish praise on her but at the moment we are running at a 50% success rate and not improving from day to day which I believe is not great for a collie !

Also she refused to go any further on her walk tonight and that was even with her coat on !
Also I have now slipped three times on the ice, Once on our back steps even after I had gritted them heavily. However the snow was melting off the roof and had led to thick ice on the steps. I was lucky to avoid serious injury. The other two falls were while I was walking her. I landed on my left wrist both times but seem to have avoided too much damage.

They are predicting more snow for here in Scotland for Thursday. As you can see from my posts we have had about two or three weeks of this. The bins have not been emptied as the dustmen have all been working on the gritting lorries (not that I have seen any of those !). My neighbour tells me its now three weeks since our bins were collected. I can believe that as we have four bin bags in the hall and two in the cellar as well as all our recycling items stacking up. So its a chaotic run up to Christmas here at the moment !

On a final positive note though we have met lots of dogs and she has got on fine with all of them. She is still on her lead but she has enjoyed meeting them. That is apart from a few older dogs who werent interested and a few terriers whose owners quickly hurried past with their dogs ! 

We also had a day of major socialisation when I took her to watch our local Christmas lights being switched on. So we were able to tick various categories (as recommended in The Perfect Puppy book) - fairground rides, lights, crowds, cars, lorries (she didnt like those), noise, uniforms, shops ! She did very well considering it was a first time for many of those things !

Wax for Paws and more Retail Therapy !

You can apparently buy wax for a dog's paws to protect them from the salt and grit on snowy pavements. So when our pet shop has restocked I might buy some.  Might also buy her a coat and some boots as its been so cold here.... more retail therapy !

Home Made Liver Treats for Dogs !

Good tip for today is that I heard you can make your own chicken liver dog treats which you can chop up and freeze. What a good money saving idea !
Here is the recipe I might try which I got from a friend :

• 2 cups Flour
• 3 tablespoons Vegetable oil
• 1 cup wheat germ or cornmeal if wheat allergies are a problem
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 2 tsp. parsley
• 1 cup cooked chicken liver, chopped or mixed in a mixture

Combine flour and wheat germ. In separate bowl, beat egg with oil, then add broth & parsley, mix well. Add the dry ingredients to bowl a little at a time, stirring well. Fold in chicken livers and mix well. Dough will be firm. Turn dough out on lightly floured surface and knead briefly. Roll out 1/2" thick and cut into shapes. Place on greased cookie sheet 1" apart. Bake at 400F for 15 minutes or until firm. Store in refrigerator or freeze.

I will try this out and let you know how it goes !

Or for an easy life here are some liver treats to buy online.
http://www.petskitchen.co.uk/Pets'-Kitchen-Joe-and-Jack's-Natural-Dog-Food-Natural-snacks/c2_3_11/p36/Poochwork-Liver-Hearts/product_info.html

As they are hard treats remember I think the dogs need to be over 3 months to eat them.  If you want to make or buy liver treats for puppies then you need to buy liver cake. I bought some lovely liver cake from Princess Sisky's Dog Treats at a local craft fair this weekend and Tika loves them ! However they are not available online.

Doggie Pubs !

Just found this website - hope to check some of these out once she is a bit older ! And toilet trained !!
http://www.doggiepubs.org.uk/

Pet Insurance !

We also are in the process of finalising which pet insurance to go with. So far we have narrowed it down to Pet Plan, More Than or maybe the Kennel Club. They all offer different cover and vary between £15 and £25 a month.  Its a lot of money. They vary between offering £4,000 per condition per year which would be good for a long term condition. The other cover offered £7,000 total for any one condition but didnt state that cover was for life so I'm not sure if they might not be able to terminate the policy if they felt like it. Its quite difficult to decide. The vet thought that £4,000 should be enough to cover most things but then you hear stories from some people whose dogs have cost a lot more than that for various things......

International Sheepdog Society

We discovered that our breeder has registered her pedigree with the International Sheep Dog Society. I never knew there was such a thing but there is lots of interesting reading at : http://www.isds.org.uk/

They have some lovely Collie themed presents as well as dog whistles etc for sheep dog trials.

Their information about dog names says that the Society permits the use of only one, simple working name for a registered dog.  Working on the fields, perhaps with more than one dog, a shepherd will be able to cope with names such as "Ben", "Meg", "Cap" or "Moss".  But names such as "Philip", "Flossie","Pretty Boy", etc. would be impossible to work with. They are happy to accept non-English language names.  The test is that the names should, ideally, be single-syllable.  This is the same advice we were given by a relative who had had a collie but unfortunately we had already named her. So lets hope the name is OK !  I am only planning to have one dog so hopefully the name will work out. Once we got her we thought of some other names such as Mystic which would have been nice. Meg was a name we had in reserve as well.

Fireworks

Well we survived Fireworks night. Two nights of fireworks although the Credit Crunch has cut down the number from previous years I would say. We followed the advice of the books and turned up television noise and we didnt react to any fireworks. It seemed to work but whether that is just because she doesnt yet really have an understanding that there is a world "outside" the kitchen yet I dont know. Anyway we got through it.

We are not sure if she may have a bit of urinary infection at the moment but she is going all over the place. However she still seems bright so I am keeping an eye on her at the moment.

The crate is working well. She is comfortable in it and settles down. I have now managed to escape from the campbed and slept upstairs again last night. She seems perfectly happy now in the kitchen. The only thing is that I need to be able to hear her squeak in the night around about 3 or 4 to get out to go to the toilet - she was very good last night and just got up for this then straight back to bed. I am sure I can probably leave her with the kitchen to roam in rather than closing the crate door but I still prefer to know exactly what she is up to.  We have found some toys and books are absolutely essential and I will list them if they are on Amazon. The crate we got is 36 inches long and is a good size although wouldnt be big enough if you need to be out at work for 4 hours or more. In that case you need to set up a puppy playpen area with a crate plus extra space for toileting.

4 Days Later

Well the first night with a puppy did not go as planned !  We had followed the advice of some books and thought that she could have two nights in a soft crate in one of our rooms before migrating to her metal crate downstairs (which has bedding etc in it - its not just metal !).
Anyway she became a howling, teeth flashing demon trying to get out. I doubt she was missing her littermates at all and was merely concerned with getting out. However as we live in a semi detached house, firstly we couldnt just keep ignoring the noise and secondly when I looked at her, I thought she was possibly going to get a tooth trapped in the fibres of the soft cage door. So out she came and into bed ! In fact I was even contemplating taking her back the next day but when I brought her through to see everyone else the next morning they were all happy to see her so that was the end of that ! So we now have our new family member !

In fact it has been quite an adjustment getting to know that new member of the family. However by day 5 she is now a firm member of the family and I think I am getting used to it !

She now sleeps in a crate and I took the advice of a friend and slept the last three nights in a camp bed next to her. It was supposed to be for two nights but we have found that she is pretty good at her toilet training but in fact she still needs up once in the night for a "No. 2" or a poo, whatever is the polite term for that ! So following advice from the books, I have not interacted at all with her until after she does her business and at that point its fine to praise her then settle her back to bed. So so far I had one night that was 11 - 7 with a wakening at 4 and last night she was 12 - 7 with two breaks at 1.30 and 5.
I am surviving OK on that so far as I was a bit of a latenighter before. However I am making sure I get to bed at the same time as her and get as much sleep as is possible.

Other things we got on top of is that we seem to have managed to stop her "puppy biting". A combination of sharp "Nos", ending the game is she bites and diverting bites onto her toys has worked.

Toyswise, we already had a teddy and an old baby rattle and a Kong Wubba which has been good. Today I went out and got a great ball which you can hide a treat in and there is a hole which the treat will fall out of when it turns the right way. She has thoroughly enjoyed this ball and exhausts herself chasing it. The Pet Shop also recommended a small space hopper which squeaks which you can throw to them and they bring back holding onto the handles. Apparently the feedback from customers has been good about this. However she is a bit wary of that at the moment.

Well I must go and get back to my new "routine".  Oh yes and the ironing has piled up - the pile is currently the volume of an arm chair! Aargh !  Oh and the other thing is we have had lots of visitors eager to meet her so that is good and helps with her socialisation. All have to remove shoes at the door to keep the dreaded parvovirus out until after she completes her vaccinations.

And the other thing is to see how tomorrow night goes with Fireworks night. I am hoping she will be too young to notice them but if there are very loud that might be difficult.... Bye til the next time !