Saturday, May 14, 2011

Introduction

Hello everyone!  Welcome to my blog.  I'll be writing posts about the health and wellness of dogs, with particular attention given to the needs of working, working sport, and performance dogs.  I started this blog because while the majority of dogs seen by vets fit somewhere in between couch potatoes and weekend warriors, dogs that do herding, protection sport, field trials, military working dogs, police dogs, hunting, agility, dog sledding, racing, and so on are a bit different.  I try to learn as much as I can about the different working and performance sports so as to better serve the canine athletes and their owners and handlers.

As an introduction, I earned a doctor of veterinary medicine degree, masters and bachelors degrees in biological sciences, and a bachelors degree in religious studies all from the University of Missouri.  My special interests are in clinical nutrition, canine sports medicine, behavior, reproduction, and holistic medicine. 

I currently have three working sport dogs (and one old pet dog).  Fawkes (Ordre du Phenix du Dantero BH, AD, CGC, TT) is a four year old Belgian Malinois and my main dog I train with.  We've trained or dabbled in protection sport (PSA, teeny bit of Schutzhund), herding, dock diving, and disc.  If it looks fun, we'll try it!  We hope to be getting more titles in dock diving and PSA this summer.  *fingers crossed*  Lily TDI, PALS cert., CGC, TT is a 6 year old Belgian Malinois who was a rescue.  My husband handles her in herding and I dabble a bit with her in PSA.  Elsa vom Gestalt CGC, PALS cert. is a 12 year old Rottweiler who is a shelter dog, a certified therapy dog, and a very natural herding dog.  Buck CGC is a 14 year old husky/Rottweiler mix. 

This is Fawkes and me below.  Pretty handsome fellow, eh?  Welcome to my blog and feel free to leave questions and comments!

4 comments:

  1. Any advice regarding probiotics for canines?

    I have a soon to be 12 year old sheltie that is recovering from a 2 month battle with what started as a foreign body blocking her pylorus, then after it passed left her with bacterial overgrowth (Clostridium perfringens, C. difficile, and Campylobacter all confirmed by the disease diagnostic lab. She is doing much better now after two weeks on antibiotics, but still on bland diet. Wondering if she now would benefit from probiotics to repopulate the GI tract?

    Thanks so much for sharing your blog!

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  2. Hi Rosie, thanks for the question. I have been meaning to write an entry about probiotics as this is a question that comes up frequently. I'm glad your Sheltie is doing better after the obstruction. I like probiotics after episodes like this. My favorite brand is Proviable by Nutramax Laboratories, which is a veterinary specific product that your vet can order some for you. In the mean time, you can also try yogurt, though there can be highly variable amounts in commercially available yogurt. I like the plain Stonyfield Organic yogurt, which you can find in big tubs in most grocery stores including Walmart. Good luck!

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  3. Thank you, so very much appreciated! My Greta did well, but two weeks off her antibiotics she had a relapse, so she is now back on metronidazole and Baytril. I think we need to try the probiotics for when she gets off the antibiotics this next time, to try to tip the odds in favor of the good guys. Thanks again!

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