Honey the Great Dane

* So sorry – Hsin-Yi has a lot of writing deadlines at the moment and so has been too busy to help me visit my blog friends much! Will come round as soon as I can - promise!

Well, you know I had an ouchie front leg after my big playdate with my new Dane friends - it got better the next day but I was still “favouring” it a bit after my walks so my humans decided it was better to take me to see the vet.

It’s been very difficult finding a good vet in my new home in Brisbane.  We have been looking since I arrived in December. My vets back in Auckland were wonderful and I had known them since I was a baby puppy and they were always gentle & kind and gave me lots of treats!  They were very patient and answered Hsin-Yi’s million questions everytime we went to see them and they didn’t mind listening to different ideas, like the raw diet.

But when we tried to see some new vets here in Brisbane, they were not so nice! The first vet we went to (just to register) - they gave my humans a telling off for feeding me the raw diet and said that if my humans really loved me and wanted the best for me, I should only be eating the dry kibble which they sell.

Hsin-Yi says: I couldn’t believe the lecture we got – and just by the vet nurse in reception! What really annoyed me was that she was just spouting the typical brain-washed spiel from pet-food manufacturers and yet obviously had no idea what the “raw diet” actually was – saying things like, “well, just cooking your dog meat and 2 veg is not balanced at all…” Of course, I’m the first to agree that the raw diet is not necessarily suitable for every dog (or every household) but I do think you should make an effort to understand something properly before you have the gall to criticise it!

I also don’t expect our vets to necessarily promote the raw diet – our vets back in Auckland were conventional vets too - not alternative, homeopathic vets – but at least they had an open mind and were willing to consider the merits of different options. I didn’t want to register with a vet who would then blame every problem Honey might have on her raw diet.

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So we tried another vet. This time, Hsin-Yi emailed him first and she was happier because he didn’t mind the BARF-type raw diet (mix of raw stuff minced together which you buy from a petshop) although he didn’t understand about raw meaty bones (which is the type of raw diet I mainly eat) and said they were bad things!

But anyway, my humans took me to try this vet – just for a check-up, for my pet insurance. 

Well! I have never met such a rude vet in my life!

When we went into his room, he didn’t say hello or hold his hand out for me sniff – he just grabbed me and stuck a thermometor in my bottom! Lucky for him that I’m such a good-natured and well-socialised doggie with humans…a lot of other doggies would have bitten him (and he would have deserved it!)

My vets back in Auckland always gave me some treats first every time they saw me and gave me pats and cuddles before they started doing my check-up, so I liked them a lot and didn’t feel scared or stressy. This vet didn’t talk to me at all – he just pushed and pulled me around and made me feel very stressy. I kept looking at his counter hopefully because I know that is where vets keep their treats (at least, they did back in Auckland!) but he was mean and didn’t give me anything – not even a smile!

 Then he wanted me to lie down on the floor so he could check my tummy and he tried to push me over, which made me feel even more stressy! Hsin-Yi told him to wait and let her do it slowly – because she has taught me a “Tummy Rub” command which means I must lie down on my side and I am very good and will do this if you don’t rush me and make me feel scared – but the rude vet didn’t want to wait – he just kept trying to roll me over! So of course, I planted my feet and pushed back! There is no way you can move a 70kg (150lbs) Great Dane if we don’t want to!!

Hsin-Yi says: I have never had such a terrible experience at a vet! I was horrified at his terrible “bedside manners” – I just don’t understand it – surely a vet should know the basics of interacting with a dog and not do all the most stupid, threatening things they’re always advising against in the education campaigns?! Poor Honey – she was so good to put up with it all and she kept looking at him hopefully for treats but he treated her like a piece of meat in an abbatoir! I even gave him some of my own treats and asked him to please give them to Honey – and he looked at me like I was mad! He is bloody lucky that she is such a tolerant dog and has been socialised so well – otherwise he could easily have lost a finger! 

And then he wouldn’t give me a bit of time to get her to lie down – for God’s sake! You stress a dog out with threatening behaviour and then you want them to lie down in a vulnerable position and are impatient because they won’t do it immediately! He got so impatient when I was trying to coax Honey into lying down using her command and treats – all she needed was a bit more time – but he just wouldn’t wait and started trying to physically manhandle her to roll over. Stupid man. The first rule with giant dogs is never to try and physically force them to do anything because they will instantly learn that they are much stronger than you!

I get Honey to do everything through verbal commands only and the “force of my personality”,  so to speak – because the minute I lay a hand on her, I have lost the battle. She will always know that she is stronger than me – whereas at the moment, Honey probably thinks I am 10 feet tall with the power of Godzilla – because I’ve never allowed her to test me and prove otherwise!

Of course, I train & practise what I am asking for before we really need to use it – using rewards & encouragement in a less challenging environment at first and then proofing it in lots of different situations - and making sure that she always has to do it when I ask her. She can’t get out of it. If she resists, I find a way to make her but not through physical force (if you use your brain, you can always outsmart a dog and find a way to make them do things - but people often seem to resort to physical restraint and force to get their way, which might work with smaller dogs but definitely won’t work with large ones and simply shows up your own weakness to the dog!). So she never questions that she always has to obey me…so that when I really do need her to do it in a difficult situation, I know she will comply – although it can take a bit of time, especially if she is stressed and scared! You can’t rush things with animals!

Anyway, I was furious with that vet and left there thinking that I was never going back there again and subjecting Honey to that kind of treatment!

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Well, after those two bad vet visits, I was very depressed. Would I ever find a nice vet in Brisbane?

Then Hsin-Yi found another vet which is a bit further away from where we live but she was happy because on their website, they talked about raw diets under “Special Diets” so she thought they might be more understanding.

So last week when I had my leg ouchie, Hsin-Yi took me to see this 3rd vet. There was a big waiting room and it was VERY exciting with lots of *CAT* smells so I started jumping around and pulling on my leash, trying to see where the cats were hiding.

I know they’re here! I can smell them! But where are they? Where are they? Under this chair? Behind this bag of dog food? On the counter? In this crate? Oops! That was a grumpy little doggie – sorry!

This made Hsin-Yi VERY grumpy because there were lots of other dogs and people in the waiting room and she was busy trying to write my name and age and other things about me on a special paper - so she didn’t like me pulling her everywhere. But see – I know she doesn’t like to tell me off or show that she is grumpy when there are lots of other people around so I can get away with being a bit naughty! Hee! Hee!

So I kept on pulling and jumping around, looking for cats…until suddenly Hsin-Yi started wearing The Scary Face and said in her Grumpy Whisper, “THAT’S ENOUGH, HONEY!”

Uh-oh.

I know when she wears The Scary Face and uses that Grumpy Whisper, I am in Big Trouble. So I stopped pulling and quickly sat down beside her and tried to look cute by giving her my paw to shake. 

Then the new vet called us into his room. Of course, he wasn’t like my favourite vet, Marieke, back in Auckland, who always talked to me in a baby voice and called me “bubba” and gave me lots of cuddles and treats but he was nice – I liked him. And he did give me treats from his counter!

And I decided that since I was so naughty in the waiting room and Hsin-Yi was still wearing her Scary Face, I’d better be extra good now while the vet did my check-up!

The vet was really surprised by how good I was, letting him check everywhere without wriggling or pulling away or getting grumpy - he said I was so well trained and the best patient he had ever had and he wished all his other doggie patients could be like me! This made me feel very proud of myself – and it made Hsin-Yi stop wearing her Scary Face. (Whew!)

Then Hsin-Yi asked him about my leg ouchie and he took us out into the carpark for me to run around, so he could see my legs walking and running. Actually my leg wasn’t feeling ouchie anymore and so I was just trotting around in my normal way and the vet couldn’t see anything wrong with me.

So we went back to his room and he asked me to lie down so he could look at my leg properly. So Hsin-Yi gave me my Tummy Rub command and because I wasn’t feeling scared or stressy, I did it immediately!

The vet  did lots of pushing and pulling and prodding and twisting - I think he was trying to find my ouchie place but nothing was bothering me at all. I think my ouchie just disappeared!

In the end, the vet said he could not find anything wrong with my leg. He did not think it was the ‘arthritis sickie’ because there was no swelling and I can jump out of bed really quickly in the mornings and was not stiff after lying down – my leg only got ouchie after I had been running and doing exercise.

So he thinks I have just hurt my leg muscles (“soft tissue damage”) and if I rest them properly, they will get better. But ‘properly’ means no running and jumping – and definitely no playdates – for 6 weeks!!!! Oh no! What am I going to do? I can’t play with my friends or chase my ball for 6 weeks!!

Hsin-Yi says: it’s a relief that Honey isn’t showing signs of early arthritis! Although I wasn’t really seriously concerned because she hadn’t been showing any of the ‘typical symptoms’ of arthritis:

In fact, Honey is full of beans and would keep on doing everything at full throttle – sore leg or not – if we didn’t stop her! But of course, given that she is a breed prone to arthritis and her advancing age, it’s always something to worry about. So it’s good to be reassured.

And actually, I wasn’t too surprised by the diagnosis – Honey had an exact same episode about 3 years ago in the same leg, after an extra rough play session, and our vets back in Auckland diagnosed tendonitis - inflammation of the tendons connecting her paw to her leg. They had warned us that she would have a ‘weakness’ there and was likely to have a flare-up again at some point. I guess it’s like us spraining our ankle or tearing a muscle and then always having a slight weakness there for the rest of our lives.

This vet explained that part of the problem was that the inflammation would die down after Honey had rested a bit so the pain would go away and she would feel better and start overdoing things again – and that would cause everything to get inflammed again…vicious cycle. So the only way for it to really heal was to let it rest for 6 weeks – walking is fine and she needs to keep active but no hard running or jumping and definitely no playing with other dogs, because that’s when she gallops and does sudden stops and turns and twisting jumps, all of which put too much pressure on her tendons. (sigh) Such a shame as we’d only just finally found good playmates! Oh well, I guess we’re going to be doing a lot more clicker training in the next few weeks!

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Before we left, the vet gave me a heartworm injection. Heartworm is a nasty sickie that us doggies can get from mosquitoes that bite us. There is no heartworm in NZ but here in Australia, all doggies have to have special medicines to protect them from heartworm. The medicines can be tablets that you take every month or an injection you get once a year. My humans had been giving me tablets for the first few months after I arrived in Brisbane but they were worried about forgetting and all the vets told them it would be easier for me to have the injection just once a year. I didn’t mind too much because I couldn’t really feel the needle anyway and the vet gave me some yummy treats afterwards!

Then he started telling Hsin-Yi about another special medicine for giant doggies like me who can get the arthritis sickie when we get older. It is an injection which you have to have every week, for 4 weeks – every 6 months – even before you get the arthritis sickie, so that it might stop the arthritis sickie from coming. Also, some powder which I must eat every day, that contains glucosamine, chondroitin and NZ green-lipped mussel.

He told Hsin-Yi that all humans of big and giant doggies in Australia  are told to get this special medicine. But Hsin-Yi wasn’t sure – because I don’t have any signs of the arthritis sickie yet and it seems silly to give me lots of injections (which cost a lot of money paper too!) when there is no promise that the injections will stop the arthritis sickie from coming….she said we should go home and ask Paul, because he is a Human Vet and knows about lots of medicines. 

I was glad because I didn’t want anymore injections!!

Hsin-Yi says: I have to say, I was a bit sceptical about this arthritis protection programme – it felt more like a marketing push from the pet pharmaceuticals. Paul did a literature search and found that – just like in humans -  yes, there is good evidence that giving supplements like glucosamine and chondroitin can help AFTER a dog develops arthritis BUT there is NO clinical evidence to support that giving them prophylactically BEFORE makes any difference to the development or progression of the disease. In other words, taking glucosamine & chrondroitin and other supplements BEFORE you get arthritis does not prevent arthritis but it can help with symptoms after you get it.

I also called our old vets in Auckland to ask their opinion and they said that in NZ, they only prescribe this programme for dogs who have developed arthritis already but do not push it on owners just because they own a giant or large breed (and quite disapproved of this!).

I am sure this vet had the best intentions but I do feel that he was probably just repeating what a drug rep had promised. I certainly didn’t like being made to feel like an inadequate, irresponsible owner for not giving this ‘treatment’ to my dog and I think it’s very wrong of the pet drug companies to prey on an owner’s feelings and try to scare them with marketing pseudo-science. Do they think we’d just agree to a treatment without clinical evidence that it does work? It isn’t the money (although it IS horrendously expensive) – I’d be perfectly happy to spend anything on Honey if it was important and necessary – but it’s stupid to spend a lot of money on something which has no proof of working. 

Perhaps it is all part of a different attitude here in Australia – they seem to be a lot more commercial and ”aggressive” in their treatment of things (something that Paul sees in human medicine too). Our Auckland vet told us that he was horrified when he came over to an Australian conference and one of the talks was on how to make sure clients are paying by cheque or cash, as they are being led into the consulting room…he said he would be ashamed if they had such an aggressively commercial attitude in NZ! 

Certainly, I feel that our vets in NZ had a much more conservative approach – not doing invasive surgery or advising aggressive drug treatments unless absolutely necessary and generally having a much more ‘realistic’ down-to-earth attitude about things and accepting that dogs (and humans) do get old and have age-related changes – such as pigmentation, sagging skin and benign fatty lumps – which don’t all have to be tackled with a scalpel!

Overall, I guess I’m happy with this 3rd vet and we will stick with them, even though I’m a bit sceptical about the commercial attitude but that is probably not his fault – and more a country-wide Australian cultural phenomenon. He was very thorough in examining Honey, had great bedside manners, was good at listening to and answering my questions  and respected my own knowledge and research. He is very young and so probably not quite as experienced as our vets back in Auckland (with their additional years of experience in Europe) – although there are several other vets at that clinic, probably some older with more experience – but he seemed to have an open mind, which I feel is one of the most important qualities.