Taking Puppies to the Vet

This week we got to try out the new dog training truck and take our litter of brittany puppies to the vet for their 6 week shots and a checkup. They did well on their first ride in a dog box and were a big hit at the vets office.

After a few months of loafing and enjoying the lazy days of summer the dogs tend to lose some muscle and get pudgy like their owner. With the fall pheasant hunting season only 2 months away it is time for our daily runs to get back on track. With temperatures reaching into the high 90′s during the day we usually go for our run first thing in the morning when it is still cool out. The dogs are a little soft so it will take a couple weeks to get back in shape and running hard.

Yesterday we picked up this white and liver brittany dog named Buster. He is a nice sized 4-year-old male out of Dave Walkers brittany kennels. Buster’s sire is FC Ricoche-T or “Rico” and his dam is Sweet Dreams who is a Beans Blaze bred female by DC Chick’s Blaze’N Sawtooth Sam JH. We are excited to add Buster to our brittany kennels and look forward to shooting a lot of pheasants for him this fall at the pheasant hunting preserve.

Ace had an allergic reaction to something this week and I had to take him to the vet for treatment. His poor little snout was swollen up and he was in obvious discomfort. The Vet gave hime a couple of shots and some antibiotics to fight against infection. He was pretty miserable but by the next morning he seemed as good as new. I have no idea what caused the reaction but the Vet suspected something like a spider bite. You can see where it started oozing after he scratched and pawed at it all morning.  You never know what kind of trouble puppies are gonna get into.

While running the dogs today we were able to get into some mule deer. It worked out perfectly, the deer were crossing the road right in front of us and Abby couldn’t resist the chasing. She began to bark and give pursuit and when I knew she was focused on nothing but the deer – I gave her some stimulation with the e-collar. I didn’t shout any commands or pay any attention to her, I just continued driving down the road. Abby got the message loud and clear – Deer are not fun to chase. I will test her on it in a few days and see if she needs a gentle reminder.

Lately, I have been running the dogs seperately for about a half mile at a time. They always have the e-collar on when we are working, they have come to learn that the collar means fun times ahead. I tried running all three dogs at once for a few weeks but they got distracted too easily and would often range too far. Now that I run them independently I let them roam free but stop every few hundreds yard and call them back to check in. This has been working nicely and they are in the habit of coming back to me when they hear the ranger stop.

Another thing I work on daily is the “Wait!” command. I make the dogs wait when I let them out of the kennel, the door doesn’t open until they are calm and quiet. When we go into or out of the door to my shop, I give the wait command and make sure they are calm – then I go first, they follow. When I have them loaded in the ranger I make them wait even after the tailgate is down, until I give the command “Unload”. Abby is getting better and waiting for longer periods. Today she struggled even more because she could see this herd of elk on the ridge above us.

The past few weeks have found us covered in a solid layer of white stuff. Winter can seem depressing when the sun is gone for days at a time. I find it refreshing to actually have a Winter after moving here from the Southwest where the snows rarely fell. This morning we were able to get the sidewalks shoveled of fresh snow and take the dogs up for a romp in the hills. We were thrilled to be the first set of tracks in the new snow. Max always loves to ride in the Polaris Ranger with me to run the dogs. He tells his Mom we are “goin up a mountain, shoot a Deers”. He loves to be outside so I can rarely sneak outside without him by my side. We have been seeing Mule Deer nearly every day now as the weather pushes them down into the valley for food and water. The dogs are learning not to chase the Deer and the training is going very well.

Through the hot summer months my dogs didn’t have much of an appetite so I only fed them once daily. Since the weather started to cool off a few weeks ago it seems they are suddenly interested in food. This week I started feeding the dogs twice daily again as they try to bulk-up for the winter. With Fall and Winter comes the hunting seasons and a lot more action. So, between burning energy to stay warm at night and burning more energy just flat out working hard they truly need more food this time of year. Specifically, they need more fats and proteins to get them through it all. I have fed my dogs Black Gold Performance Blend dog food since they were pups and I wouldn’t change brands for anything. Feeding the right dog food makes it easy for me to help my dogs stay healthy and strong for the bird hunting season. Another thing I do is sneak them a couple of raw eggs from our laying hens a couple times a week. This adds some good protein to their diet and also is a fun treat that they look forward to.

Part of the joys of living in the west is dealing with things like cactus needles. When I took the dogs for a run the other night Abby came back covered in cactus needles. It wouldn’t have happened if she would have just stayed on the dirt road with me. But, how to you tell a hunting dog not to hunt? I try to let them roam free on our runs in the hills, chasing jackrabbits and tweety birds. So I got to spend the next 15-20 minutes pulling cactus needles out of Jake and Abby’s legs. Abby had them far worse than Jake covering the front of each of her four legs. I pulled one very large needle from her front paw and immediately blood began to spurt in short rhythmic pulses. It was messy for a moment until Abby licked it and the bleeding stopped.

The funny thing was that neither of my dogs seemed to care that they were covered in cactus needles. They didn’t even seem to notice, no limping, licking or anything. I was pretty sure it was at least a little uncomfortable so I did my best to remove every last needle. The smaller ones were left because I found it impossible to remove the furry little clusters. When I checked both of the dogs the next morning, I couldn’t even find a single trace. In general, I think dogs are pretty good at taking care of things themsleves. After all, they aren’t really that far removed from the wild days of only the strong survive.

This week I got a very nice email from the breeders of my german shorthair dog Abby. They were kind enough to send along a picture of Abby’s good looking littermate Shelby. They own Abby’s Dam “Gambles Princess Belle” and decided to keep this dog Shelby to see if the breeding was everything they hoped for. It sounds like things are going well with Shelby’s training out in Colorado and Belle seems to be a great bird hunter as well. A big thanks to Travis and Alexis John for choosing to send Abby to us, we are glad to have her.

I was also pleased to hear what some of the other puppies in the litter turned out like. Any first time breeding should be watched carefully to see if the good trates were properly passed down to the offspring. As we plan to have a litter of puppies with Abby sometime in the future, we are very interested in hearing about the other littermates. We want to make sure that we are carrying on with a good thing and not having puppies just for fun. Abby is still young, but we are pleased with her natural abilities and bird dog training so far. The Chukar season begins this weekend which means we will be getting Abby behind a lot of wild birds.