Lyme Disease

Lyme DiseaseCanine Borreliosis is caused by a unique germ, a spirochete called Borrelia burgdorfer the name of which is not particularly important. While the disease has been reported in Europe since the early 1900’s, it was firmly diagnosed first i…

Rat Poisoning

Hunting dogs are generally exposed to more toxins than house pets. The most common poisoning we see in hunting dogs involved “commercial anticoagulant rodenticides” or, more commonly called “warfarin poisoning”.These poisons are commonly used by homeo…

Apologies for Lack of Posting

Sorry about the lack of posting of late. For several weeks, I have just been busy and not in the mood.Then, I went to Oklahoma for a week deer hunting. [Yes, I killed a nice 8 pt that the landowner said was in the “140 class”. I haven’t measured him…

Energy Supplements for Hunting Dogs

I guess the most common question I get around field trials and hunt tests involves something to “give my dog a boost”. This desire for helping dogs perform better is reflected in the dozens of products for sale that offer nutritional supplementation. …

Is Linebreeding Really a Good Idea

When our various breeds were first being developed, decades ago, it was necessary to “set” the desirable genes to establish the breed types. As the years went by, certain outstanding individuals were heavily bred to create a reproducible type that exhi…

Bad Boy Buggies

In the spring of 2007, I broke down and bought a Bad Boy Buggie. I have bought a lot of stuff for hunting over the years but the BBB has to rank as one of the all-time best purchases I have made.First, let’s get the bad points out of the way:It is too…

More On Cruciate Problems

Since damaged ACL’s (anterior cruciate ligaments) are so common, I wanted to expand a little on this situation in addition to the previous posts. A recent article in one of our journals, the Clinician’s Brief by Dr. James Roush at Kansas State clarifie…

Ear Diseases in Hunting Dogs

Several years ago, I was in a duck blind with a classmate from veterinary school. The ducks were slow, so we started talking about veterinary medicine, our practices, and life in general. I told my friend “I need to be a specialist in something; some …

Should I Vacccinate My Dogs for Lepto

When I graduated from veterinary school in 1970, we vaccinated every puppy for Leptospirosis. Over time, the incidence of Lepto decreased to the point that vaccination seemed unnecessary so most veterinarians deleted the vaccine from our core program.A…

Choosing a Dog Food for Hunting Season

There are books written about this subject, so I will try to capture the facts as closely as possible in this short post.Rule #1: It is all about energy. Energy equals calories. Calories allow the dog to have stamina, hunt with its mouth closed for b…

Upcoming Topics

Timing the mating in dogsSupplements for Hunting DogsModular KennelsControlling Internal ParasitesConditioning the Hunting DogRaising Healthy Puppies

Heartworm Prevention

Since we work with a lot of large hunting dog kennels, a common request is for us to “mix up some heartworm stuff in the lab for us to use”. What they want is a cattle dewormer, Ivomec, mixed in a vehicle for heartworm prevention. Ivomec’s active ingre…

Eli

Last September, I was visiting with my good friends, Gene & Lona Kluck from Watertown SD. I asked Lona “Which of your dogs is the very best?” She pointed to a black Drahthaar female named Enid vom Sodak. I only keep females but, for several years, …

Ear Hematomas

We see them all the time. A hunting dog comes in with a large, soft swelling in its ear flap. It is full of blood and called an “aural (for ear) hematoma”.The cause is continual head shaking from some type of ear problem (mites, infection, etc). The d…

My Drilling

As a versatile hunting dog owner, I always wanted a drilling. I checked the Internet frequently but all the three-barrel guns I found were too expensive for a country vet. I was at an outdoor show in Selma AL a few years ago and mentioned to a gun man…