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A
Rookies Journey
October 6, 2005
The fun experience this week was worming the dog team. The protocol
that my vet recommends for my size kennel is quarterly worming,
three times with pyrantel pamoate and once a year with Panacur.
Please don’t ask me to remember which one does what.
The pyrantel pamoate is a yellow liquid that the dogs kind of like
and you just put in on top of their meal and they will scarf it
down. Panacur, however, is a whole different story. Dogs that will
eagerly eat all kinds of garbage, deal animals and rotten smelly
fish will adamantly refuse to swallow this stuff. So the protocol
is to draw the appropriate dosage into a syringe, restrain the dog,
gently open his mouth and calmly squirt the Panacur into his mouth.
Then stoke his throat to encourage him to swallow. Good Dog. Unfortunately
none of my dogs ever read this procedure. And you must do this three
days in a row to be effective.
DUDE
DOG
by Theresa Daily © 1990
The worming medicine
did not go undetected |
Day 1:
Calmly withdraw the first dog’s dose into the syringe. Approach
the friendly, excited dog. Lacking a third and fourth hand capture
the dog between your knees. Reach for the dog’s mouth and attempt
to open it. Now approach the somewhat concerned dog and try to gently
restrain him between your knees – hold firmly! Reach for the
dog’s mouth and attempt to open. Ok, now approach the very concerned
dog and hold him between your knees. As the dog tries hard to escape
back him into a corner at the end of his chain. Reach down with both
hands and capture the head. With one hand open the mouth and with
this other squirt the Panacur on your pants as the dog ducks quickly.
If you miss your pants the ground is an acceptable substitute at this
point.
Refill the syringe, trying hard not to consider the cost of the Panacur
and try again. This time you actually get the Panacur into the dog’s
mouth and gently stroke his throat to encourage swallowing. After
30 seconds or so release the head and watch the dog swing his head
quickly from side to side to spray the unswallowed Panacur. Try to
estimate the amount that wound up outside the dog (do not count the
first syringe full, but do count the spray on the dog house and your
shirt) and withdraw that into the syringe. Now capture the frantic
dog that knows you are trying to poison him, hold him firmly and put
the rest of his dose in his mouth. Watch carefully for indications
of swallowing – please note that foaming at the mouth is not
an indication, merely an attempt not to swallow any more of the nasty
stuff.
Note that an alternate technique is to gently insert the plastic end
of the syringe between the teeth and inject the Panacur into the mouth
without actually opening it. When the Panacur starts to run out of
the corners of the mouth you have reached capacity until the dog swallows
or gets loose.
Repeat for each of the 20 dogs in the lot.
Day 2:
On day 1 you took the dog’s by surprise, by day 2 it is obvious
they have been performing head and jaw exercises to strengthen those
muscles. Most of the dogs have figured out what you intend and want
no part of it.
Day 3: Now the dogs are getting organized and swapping techniques
– the passive resistance dogs lay on their side and just let
the Panacur run out onto the ground. Another favorite is Snoopy’s
vulture look with the nose pointing firmly down – gravity assist.
The active resistance dogs are showing such athletic skill and stamina
that several circuses have scouts watching the performance. Leaps
and bounds, flying cartwheels, you would swear these dogs have no
bones, but must have hidden wings. And this is while you are holding
them.
The job is finally done and the dogs are protected for another 3 months
in addition to the yard, dog houses, my shirt, my pants, and me. Meanwhile
I am amazed the with all the commotion, much of it from wide eyed
thrashing dogs that never once was I even nipped, let alone bit. These
are really great animals and I love them dearly, even if they are
sometimes convinced that my evil twin is in the dog lot.
I’m sure everyone is wondering how Platinum did back at the
nasty turn he refused last week. As planned we went back through that
same turn, still going left instead of right, but this time with Bass
in dual lead with Platinum. It was a sight to see. Platinum still
really wanted to turn right, but Bass dug in with all 4 feet and pulled
Platinum around with the neck line. As soon as he got Platinum moving
in the correct direction, Platinum got happy and finished the run
in grand style. We need to go back over that turn several times to
reinforce the lesson, but we will do that in the next couple of weeks.
This is stressful for the dogs and we are supposed to be having fun
in addition to learning.
We did go to Eklutna on Sunday. Jim and Bonnie Foster brought their
new four-wheeler so we could run the two teams consecutively instead
of sequentially. That saved a lot of time and made it more fun for
all. The trail by Lake Eklutna is an old road and runs along side
the lake, with several good hills where it climbs above the water
level. There is still lots of recreational traffic and some hunting
there. Both teams passed other 4 wheelers, hikers, bikers, and even
a couple of loose dogs with no hesitation. I was very proud of them
since it was the first passing experience this year. I was going to
run at Eklutna most of this week but Bonnie pointed out that running
two teams by myself meant that I had to leave one in the parking lot
while I ran the other. I do this at the Beach Lake trail system all
the time, but at Eklutna there has been a problem with break-ins and
vandalism. The more I thought about leaving the dogs there alone,
even in their boxes, the less I liked the idea, so we are back to
the Beach Lake trails doing loops.
Poor Balu is firmly convinced that I don’t love him. He has
to wait 10 days after the cyst was removed to take the stitches out
and cannot run until then (the cyst was on his right shoulder). Then
on Monday Java stepped on something and bruised a pad. He is a three
legged dog, so he won’t run until next Monday (to give him a
chance to heal).
Just to break the routine and keep me from getting bored, the four
wheeler quit again today halfway through the ten mile run. I’ve
cleaned and replaced the spark plug – no joy. Checked the choke
and a nut that holds the assembly to the carburetor is stripped and
needs to be replaced. Hopefully that will do it. Bonnie Foster and
I are off to the Fairbanks symposium ( www.sleddog.org ) first thing
in the morning so it will be Monday morning before I can work on the
4-wheeler and I’d like to run the dogs Monday.
You know, I learned never to pray for coping skills or more patience
because neither is a gift, but both are like muscles and need to be
trained and exercised to improve. So God never gives you either one
in response to your prayers, but the opportunity to increase your
abilities with practice.
Keep ‘em Northbound
Eric
© 2005 All rights reserved
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Have
you ever wanted to be part of the Iditarod adventure
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