Finally, help for Maple's Car Sickness Problem

Pfizer sent out a press release in the USA recently advising people that they can now happily bring their car sick prone dogs along on family holiday trips.

CERENIA is a drug only available through your dog's veterinarian, but it can quell those nasty problems that car sick dogs have, such as excessive drooling and vomiting.

Good news, right?

But wait, according to Pfizer, "the common side effects seen with CERENIA are excessive drooling, lethargy and vomiting not due to motion sickness." (italics my own)

Fantastic! Now Maple can travel in the car and we won't have to worry about her drooling excessively and vomiting due to car sickness. It will be such a relief to know that her drooling and vomiting are due to the preventative meds instead.

A Very Discerning Palate

Maple has a very discerning palate.

She loves crayons. Regular wax crayons. So delicious are they that as soon as she gets a chance to go into The Boy's room, or into the play room she head straight for the arts and craft box. Once there, if the lid is open she will gleefully sort through the detritus in the box until she finds a crayon, then she will quickly run away somewhere less obvious and munch away on her treat. If the lid is closed she will work diligently to open it.

So while poop patrol is not always fun, at least it is colourful.

Sabi

This is one of those incredible, yet feel good stories that happen occasionally.

Sabi is a bomb detection dog for the Australian Army. In September 2008 she was working in Afghanistan when her unit came under heavy attack by the Taliban. This was a particularly fierce attack 9 soldiers were wounded, and the soldiers had to get out quickly. Sabi was lost and reported as missing in action.

The fighting was actually so fierce that one solider was awared the Victoria Cross. The VC is the highest medal for heroism that can be awarded to Australian soldiers. There have only ever been 97 of them awarded, and this is the first, and so far only one, since the Vietnam War.

But back to Sabi.... After the battle there had been repeated, unsuccessful efforts to find Sabi.

Fast forward 14 months. Last week an American soldier in north-eastern Uruzgan spotted a black lab that seemed special. He spent a bit of time with Sabi and realized that she was the missing Australian dog. Sabi was flown to Tarin Kowt to be reunited with one of trainers, and will most likely soon return back to Australia.

Video of Sabi

Resource news report here

A Very Much Over-due Pup-Date

Maple is growing like a weed. She is now approximately 14kg (30lbs), tall, slim and leggy. Because she is so long she can reach up well onto the kitchen counter and steal anything and everything that might be up there.

She now also loves playing in the water. Unfortunately she gets car sick, and the river is a 10 minute car ride away along the highway. It is not far enough that she actually vomits, but far enough that she feels nauseated and miserable. So even though she loves all the places that we take her in the car she now avoids the car and does anything she can to avoid a car ride because she knows that the car makes her sick. However, we keep persevering with these short rides to very fun places in the hope that she will outgrow it.

Sorry for the video footage, but we forgot the good camera and just used the phone to take the following video of Maple and Gromit playing in the Murray River 2 weeks ago.

Perfect Day for Water Play

Today is a gorgeous spring-like day. Bright, sunny, 17 degrees celcius - in other words, the perfect day to skip out on the housework and take the dogs out to the river. It only takes about 10 minutes to drive to my favourite spot to take the dogs out for a good walk and a swim in the Murray River.

Even though it is a friday I was surprised that I didn't meet anyone else walking their dog. There is a paved walking/bike track along side the river which is normally quite popular as it is nowhere near any houses nor roads.

Gromit must be part retriever. He was happy when we got to the part of the river that he could swim and splash around in. If I threw a rock into the water, he would run out to that spot, look around for the rock, and even stick his head fully underwater in the search for the rock.

Maple, on the other hand, is not so fond of water. She did brave the river up to about her elbows but then would run back to the shore and run along the shore waiting for Gromit to come back out of the water. The longer we were there, the slightly braver she got, but Maple never got to the point of wetting more than just the lowest part of her undersides.

I had my first suspicions that Maple might not be a water loving dog when I had to give her bath at approx 10 weeks of age, and she fought it like a cat - and repeated the exact same behaviour the next time she had a bath.

Both dogs had a great time playing along side the river and running around the river flats. They are both sound asleep outside right now.

Since the walking track seemed to be deserted, I decided to try walking Maple off leash. She was very good and mostly kept very close to Gromit. I did practice lots of recall with Maple, and she was fairly good at it, but she still needs a lot more practice before I would be comfortable allowing her off leash with anyone else around.

I didn't take the camera with me, so no pics or videos - hopefully next time.

Maple and Her Sister Musings

Maple had a great time visiting with her sister. They were together for just over 24 hours. It was amazing to see how different the two girls were.

When we arrived at Bella's house, Maple was outgoing and curious whereas Bella was very nervous and frightened. Bella kept escaping to the bedroom to hide under the bed. Even after Bella was carried outside to play with Maple, she kept on hiding under her human mum's chair and growling at the kids and Maple if she got too close.

After about 5 minutes Bella's curiosity got the better of her and she decided to venture forth to see what Maple was all about. And then they started playing. Bella seemed to thoroughly enjoy playing with Maple, but she kept an eye out for what the kids were doing and would once again become skittish and hide under the chair if one of the kids tried to play with the pups or come near them.

Bella and Maple not only have different personalities, but they look quite different too. Bella is much stockier than Maple. Maple is definitely leggier, but Bella's feet were larger. Bella was ever so slightly darker in colour and her fur was a bit longer than Maple's. It is probably difficult to see these differences in the video in the post below, but in person they were quite obvious.

It was not surprising that Maple slept the whole 3 hour car ride home from Bella's house.

Littermate Reunion

Maple and Bella are sisters from the same litter. They were separated at 8.5 weeks of age, and met again earlier this week at age 16 weeks.