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 !