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| a great place for pets - www.thevets.com.au | |||
June 2005 edition
1. Power steering for your dog 2. Time to oil those squeaky joints 3. Make a cool cat or dog toy 4. Agility - from beginner to champion 5. Hidden talents - working dogs in the city 6. Disappearing Frogs |
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1. Power steering for your dog Sounds great doesn't it! We all know how much easier it is to drive a car with power steering. Imagine if our dog had power steering. A standard lead and collar, lead and check chain or choker chain or harness provide little or no control. A specially fitted Black dog Halti helps control the head to steer your dog. Just imagine having complete control of your dog and making it an enjoyable walk for you and your dog. Interested in Power steering – give us a call! Professional grooming Coast and Country Vets Nerang and Helensvale have Professional groomers who are able to give your pet the perfect doo for their next special outing. Lisa our Professional groomer at Nerang is available to groom your pets on Thursday and Fridays while at Helensvale Vicki looks forward to reshaping your pet's look on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Both of our groomers have several years experience grooming pets and do a great job of bringing out your pet's best features! Or if your pet is not in need of a groom but a good bath we can take care of that! We offer hydrobathing at both clinics during the week and on Saturdays. Both Hydrobathing and Grooming include a nail trim, ear clean and thorough bath to have your pet smelling fresh. Back to top |
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2. Time to oil those squeaky joints Sally is an 8 year old Border Collie whose owner, Frank, noticed she was becoming a bit stiff as she walked and was less happy about getting up onto her bed in the evenings. She was taken to the vet where it was established that Sally was showing signs common to many dogs her age – slightly overweight and with some pain in the joints. After a complete health check that established that otherwise she was well, Sally was put onto a program to help her get the spark back in her life. The program comprised a special food, regulated exercise and some medication in the initial stages. The plan was to help her lose weight, reduce the pain in the joints and ensure she was receiving the best nutrition for the health of her joints. New research shows that Eicosapentaenoic Acid (EPA), an omega-3 fatty acid found in high concentrations in fish oil, can help maintain joint function. EPA is one of the key components of the food. 21 days later, Sally was much improved. The medication had helped ease the discomfort in the first few days allowing her to exercise more freely for the first time in months. The special food was helping her to lose weight and get her joints in good shape for the long term. Sally will now keep on this program and can look forward to many more happy times. Hill's Prescription Diet Canine j/d has a unique formula with high levels of EPA. It also contains glucosamine and chondrotin sulfate, which provide building blocks for healthy cartilage, and L-carnitine, which helps maintain optimum body weight. For more information click here. Back to top |
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3. Make a cool cat or dog toy Here's something for a rainy day – especially with school holidays coming up – make your own dog or cat toy. The link to the instructions below shows in 10 easy steps how to create a fun soft toy – a bone for a dog and a fish for a cat. It's up to you how the end product looks - you can stamp your personality all over it. You can adjust the scale. For instance, the bone can be small enough to be carried around by your dog or big enough to curl up with in bed. Choose a material that suits – from plain single colours through to a wild furry pink – you know your pet best! Back to top |
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4. Agility - from beginner to champion After learning the basics of sit, come and stay, it's fun to do some new things. Learning to walk through a tunnel is a challenge and one that can form the basis of competing in Agility – the action packed sport for dogs and handlers. To watch a short video of how to teach your dog to go through a tunnel, click here [1.86MB]. The important steps are: 1. Get yourself a tunnel. Kids play tunnels are ideal, available from stores such as Ikea for around $20. 2. Sprinkle food rewards inside the tunnel and verbally encourage your dog to enter. Most dogs are a bit apprehensive about entering a tunnel for the first time, so use lots of praise. 3. Progressively throw the food rewards further into the tunnel as your dog takes steps inside 4. Once your dog has reached ¾ of the way along, run to the other end and call him through 5. Soon you'll be able to call him all the way through from the other end From small things, big things grow. If you'd like to see how the champions do it, check out this short video of Jaspah clicking here [1.5MB]. He started his Agility career with very simple steps and has racked up an impressive list of titles - Agility Dog Master, Jumping Dog Master and the Outstanding Elite Jumping Certificate. On the poles [as seen in the video] he has only been beaten once – and that was by the dog that holds the world record! Back to top |
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5. Hidden talents - working dogs in the city Are you the lucky owner of a working dog - such as a Kelpie, Border Collie or Cattle Dog? Even if they do spend a lot of time on the couch, these dogs are usually the ones rounding up the birds in the local park or chasing people on bikes. It's because they have a very strong desire to work. This instinct can be frustrated by living in an urban environment – which is why we sometimes see them producing unwanted behaviour such as digging the garden or destroying the washing. If these dogs were human, they'd be the ones doing the very difficult cryptic crossword. One way to give them the relief they crave is to give them real herding experience at a working dog school. These schools are found all round the country. Some are now offering 2-day courses that teach city dogs and handlers the fundamentals of working stock. Dogs have the opportunity to work with not only sheep, but the highly herdable Indian Runner duck – a site to behold! Any dog with a herding instinct can benefit. There's the unlikely story of the Standard Poodle who'd never seen a sheep let alone been on a farm. He arrived for a working dog course done up to the nines. Not expecting much, his owner and the instructor just about fell off the fence when he started with the sheep. He worked them like he'd done it every day of his life - he was a natural. For a nation wide list of working dog instructors and courses click here. Back to top |
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6. Disappearing Frogs Our continent is occupied from its coldest peaks to its driest deserts by an extraordinary range of frogs (216 currently described). They have evolved an unimaginable repertoire of adaptations and behaviours. We have frogs that manufacture sunscreens, insect repellents, antibiotics and antivirals. Others have mastered suspended animation and can sleep for years waiting for rain. Frogs communicate with each other using sound, chemicals and even sign language. There are males who carry their young in pouches, females who grow tadpoles in their stomach and those who have dispensed with tadpoles completely and lay eggs that hatch into fully formed frogs! They are critical to many ecosystems; tadpoles can be up to 80% of the diet of some waterbirds while frogs consume enormous quantities of insects many of which we consider pests. But sadly many species are less common than they once were and seven Australian species are now extinct. Remarkably the likely cause of many declines and extinctions has been a fungal disease almost certainly brought here on the back of a frog shipped from Africa for human pregnancy tests. To get in touch with a frog group in our area go to frogs.org.au/launchpad. To learn how to build a frog pond, see pictures of local species or find caresheets for looking after pet frogs and tadpoles go to frogs.org.au. Back to top |
The Vets Nerang Unit 5/90 Spencer Road Nerang 4211 ph 5596 2322 fx 5596 0549 Helensvale Unit 7/14 Sir John Overall Drive Helensvale 4212 ph 5529 8011 fx 5529 4133 www.thevets.com.au |
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