A Lab and a Vizsla go Camping

We have just returned from a wonderful two week vacation of camping with the dogs.  We love to include the dogs in our travels and everyone enjoys it but I find it interesting how taking the dogs out of our normal daytime routine highlights the differences in their personalities.

Both dogs are pretty good travelers but it is odd that the two year old "high energy breed" is actually easier to travel with than the seven year old labrador.   Stella goes into the vehicle and basically just settles down and goes to sleep for the duration.  Riley usually needs a walk before a long driving time otherwise he is convinced that we are driving somewhere good to go for a walk.  Every time we slow down somewhere he gets all excited and is sure that the party is about to start.  We manage this but there are times that it can be frustrating to have a big black dog panting in my ear from the back seat.  Even days that he is walked if we drive for a long time he tends to get bored and restless. The dogs wear seatbelts so that helps keep everyone safe and under control.

Riley is a total pain in the the butt if he doesn't get a daily walk but we could skip a day of exercise with Stella if necessary and she would be fine.

Life in the campground usually highlights the princess factor for Stella.  She likes her "creature comforts" and opts to use the dog beds almost always compared to Riley who often prefers the dirt.  She gets cold easily as a single coat dog so loves the sunny spots, sleeps under the covers and often wears a light fleece in the evenings.   When the evening gets cool she makes it pretty clear that she would like to go in the trailer.  Riley is almost always warm so seeks out cool spots and likes the air conditioning.  In the vehicle I always aim the air conditioning vents all away from Stella and towards Riley.

We did lots of swimming on our trip and Stella is an amazingly efficient swimmer.   She easily speeds by Riley to steal the ball much to his dismay but gets chilled easily when swimming for long periods of time.  The lake at the final spot we camped was quite chilly so she opted mostly to splash in the shallows.  Riley is over the top intense when swimming for a ball but luckily there is never a conflict between the dogs and we always have an extra ball to throw so they each get to bring one back to shore.  Riley would swim for a ball until he fell over from exhaustion so we have to watch him to make sure he doesn't do to much.  We also have started to only throw the ball once he is standing deep enough into the lake to need to swim right away.  If we throw from shore he leaps through all the shallows and that tweaks his back and hips.

Both dogs are wonderfully sociable and are always happy to meet other people which is good in a busy campground.  Stella can sometimes be a bit barky at things when we are hanging out in the campsite.  She tends to be suspicious of people standing off alone.   Sometimes they want to bark at other dogs walking by but we always keep a bunch of treats and usually work "look at that" in those situations so now mostly they are conditioned to see other dogs and then look at us waiting for their rewards.

Camping is the perfect "family" activity for us and is the main reason we purchased our own little trailer.  It is much easier to bring our own house along on vacation then to find suitable dog friendly accommodations!

Hubby with the dogs

Stella stalking some ducks

Happy Girl

Can we swim yet?

Hiking the trail

Vacation Part 2

This is a follow up post to Oregon camping vacation part 1.  The second week of our holiday was spent camping on the gorgeous Oregon coast near Florence.   Florence is about mid-coast and is surrounded by spectacular sand dunes and beaches.    There is something about the wild west coast beaches (OR, WA and Tofino) that speaks to my soul and leaves me feeling both rested and rejuvenated.  Oregon is very dog friendly and it is easy to find deserted stretches of beach to romp and play.  We had great weather the entire week and only had fog on the final day.

I would say based on the following pics that the dogs had a pretty good holiday!

Vacation Part 1

Hubby, the dogs and I headed off a few weeks ago to beautiful Oregon with our trailer for some summer camping fun.  First week was LaPine State Park near Bend, Oregon.  This is a great area that would likely be classified as high mountain desert.  The Deschutes River winds through the campsite and the Newberry National Volcanic Monument Park is close by with wonderful sights, lakes and hiking. 

We had a very relaxing, mellow trip.  Riley is okay with shorter (1-1.5 hours) hikes so we did some exploring and took advantage of swimming opportunities.  Stella ate some grass that irritated her throat badly on the first day which then caused her to want to eat lots more grass to throw up and repeat in a vicious cycle.    This resulted in a few miserable days for her where she had an upset gastro-intestinal system (vomiting and a few diarhea poops) and a sore throat area.  Through all of that she still was mostly her happy, bouncy self and everything got sorted out and settled down after a few days.   Both my dogs munch on grass often here with no problems other than the occasional stringy grass poop but this stuff was just longer, dry stuff with sharper edges.  She is also low to the ground and darn sneaky so it was very hard to keep it away from her unless she was tied up on a short rope in the campsite.  Luckily once she felt better it was much less attractive to her.  We still managed to have lots of fun and the warm weather was perfect for dog swimming.

  Stella swimming in Paulina Lake



Riley swimming in Deschutes River



Friends exploring the trails

We also met a fun three month old female vizsla pup in the campground.  Stella had a blast playing with puppy Olive who actually lives fairly close to us here in Vancouver.  It was funny to meet them when we are both so far from home!

Stella playing with Olive

Campsite





 

Does Socializing End?

People have a lot of expectations these days for their dogs.  While the majority of people probably aren't interested in competing with their dogs in dog sports I would bet that close to 100% of people want a dog that has good public manners and is comfortable in most environments.   There is a ton of information out there on socializing for puppies but my thoughts are whether we ever really can stop "socializing" our dogs.  I don't think we need to do the super vigilent type of puppy socializing but I do think that it is important to regularly challenge our dogs with new environments.

A few years ago I stopped with Riley to run some errands that include some dog friendly spots on a very busy street.  He is a very confident dog but he was very distracted and a little bit stressed.  I realized then that although I had done that sort of stuff when he was a puppy we rarely did it anymore.  Those times had been replaced by hiking off leash on mountain trails in much calmer, quieter settings.  I began stopping in strange places and popping out to walk for a few minutes or do some fun training.  We had good puppy foundations so he adjusted back to being comfortable within a few short sessions but it was a good lesson for me.  That exposure is important for everyday living and has the added benefit of helping our dogs be comfortable in competition environments.

Stella is a very environmentally aware dog.  This was something I underestimated when researching the vizsla breed.   Vizslas are bred to hunt, point and retrieve so it makes sense that they are going to be always keeping an eye out.  Luckily even though she is vigilant she is also quite comfortable and happy to train in new and different environments.  We did a lot of puppy socializing but part of her comfort is the ongoing exposure to new places.  Our dogs travel with us, go camping and often go along just for a car ride.  Living on the west coast means we aren't subject to very many temperature extremes which makes it easier for them to tag along.  On our recent camping trip she barked about her observations a fair amount for the first few days but then seemed to settle down into the new routine.  She is a vocal dog (loves to roo-roo and talk) and the barking was not in an aggressive manner but she needed to figure out that not everything in the area is her business.   Things are also a bit different for her recently with Riley being activity restricted as I think she takes his cues on how to respond sometimes.  It sucks that he is restricted but has probably been good for her to have more "alone" time and make her own choices.

Here are a few more pics from our camping trip.

Hip Displaysia

It's been a while since I said I would post about Riley's hip displaysia but it turns out my brain needed more time to start coming to terms with what this means for us.  We also snuck away for a lovely week of camping in an area where there is minimal internet access.

Riley's xrays show his left hip is dysplasic and has significant degenerative changes (aka arthritis). His right hip is in fairly good shape. His knees are pretty strong but he has some degenerative changes in his hocks (bone spurs and arthritis) which are likely due to compensating for the hip and not considered a significant factor at this point.  When I received this news I was quite overwhelmed.  I have known for a long time that his structure is not very good but had wrongly assumed that any recurring problems he had were from his back not his hips.  If he was ten years old and I received this news then I would be willing to manage this with supplements, medications and therapies but he just turned six years old.  I have never expected him to be a super long-lived lab due to his size but I did expect him to have a good 3-4 more active years.  He is a very healthy and active dog but I do worry about the long term effects of using NSAIDs.

Our options are to restrict his activities and manage the pain or to do surgery.  Neither option is clearly defined at this stage.  He is currently on a NSAID and we have done a four week course of cartophen injections.  I have been supplementing him with good quality glucosamine products for years and using homeopathic remedies like Arnica or Traumeel when he had soreness in the past.  We usually walk 1-1.5 hours every day with a lot of that off leash hiking on local trails so he is actually in very good shape other than this problem.  He has been on leash more the past few months in an effort to treat his soreness and prior to our holiday we were starting to get back to more regular activity levels with some modifications. 

While on holidays I experimented with letting him have more off leash freedoms and unfortunately he paid the price.  We didn't do any major hiking but still a longer (1.5 hour) walk was just to much for him and he was sore later.  Darn dog has absolutely no filter on how to retrict himself and just go, go, goes while he is in the "moment".   He does recover with a few days rest and does well if kept mostly on leash.  It sucks for him because he loves to run and explore but for now I will closely monitor his activity and reactions.

The other option is surgery.  There are two types of hip surgery.  One involves cutting off the head of the hip bone so it no longer rubs against the joint causing pain.  The muscles can stabalize the joint and recovery is fairly easy.  Unfortunately that surgery is mainly successful for dogs under 50-60 pounds.  The option I am looking at is a total hip replacement just like they do in humans.  It will cost a small fortune (around 5 or 6 thousand) and involves a pretty major three month recovery.  The first month has the largest risk of dislocation so is basically no activity other than potty breaks and then gradually over months two and three we build up from very short walks to regular activity.  It appears there is a very good (90+%) success rate for the surgery but of course there are always risks and if things go wrong then he will be really screwed.   Despite that I am still leaning towards that option.  His soreness levels last week have convinced me that it will not be easy to treat this without surgery.  It is very expensive but I also know from experience with Lucy that supplements, meds and therapies add up a lot and there is a lot of time and travel involved for chiro visits, swim visits etc.   

I have asked my vet for a referral to the surgeon so we can assess if Riley is a good candidate for the surgery.  If it turns out that he isn't then I will look further at regular therapy like swimming, accupuncture etc as well as some other alternative therapies.  I have a friend who had good success with gold bead accupuncture implants for her dog and have also heard good things about stem cell therapies.  I don't know much about either option currently but I will research. 

Lots of information for me to digest and assess over the coming months.  If we proceed with surgery then I am hoping to do it early september which allows for our summer holiday. 

Here are a few pics of last weeks lovely camping trip.  It was good to get away and just enjoy time with hubby and the dogs.

Camping fun

This past weekend was a long weekend and the first camping of the season.  The weather was fabulous friday, saturday and a mixed rain/cloud mixture for sunday and monday.   The campground is attached to a wonderful dog-friendly beach so the dogs got to romp and play on the beach every day.   Stella had a few short camping trips last year as a puppy but then the season was over so I was curious to see how she would settle in.  She loved it!  We all had a great time but unfortunately Riley overdid things and had a significant setback on his recovery.  He had been back to almost full activity levels and was doing well but on the last day he did a wierd jump, tackle & turn move that didn't go very well and he has been sore all week now.  I think I am going to have his back and hips xrayed next week to see if we have something serious going on.  He is registered for a trial this weekend so I will see how he is and decide what to do then but might scratch him.

We also snuck in a lovely visit to friends who own a dog therapy swimming pool.  Their vizslas are closely related to Stella.   The dogs got to go swimming and we all had a wonderful time.  Riley had never been there before so he was a little unsure of the ramp but soon figured it out and was splashing in and out like a pro.  Stella had been there once before so she also enjoyed it but prefered if I was in the water with her.  I think she is going to be a dog that is happy to swim and doesn't mind water but I don't think she will have a real "love" for water.  That could still change this summer when she is exposed to a lot more swimming opportunities. 

Here are some pics from the weekend:

Swimming fun

Shandy (aunt), Murphy (cousin 3 weeks older), Stella

Cheeky Girl

Riley's version of doggy heaven

Missy Stella Bean almost grown up





Beach fun

We have wrapped up our visit to Long Beach (Tofino) on the "wet" coast which more than lived up to it's nick name.  We started our time with a few beautiful days of sunshine, had one horrible weather day in the middle and then two normal rainy days.  The dogs were still happy to go for their daily beach adventure although on the really horrible day Stella was quite chilled.  Luckily my friend K had brought a few small dog size coats for us to try for her.  The next rainy days she wore her a dog coat and that seemed to make her much more comfortable.  The labs in our life have rarely needed jackets and Riley especially hates to wear anything (harness, coat, boots etc). 

Rainy days on the beach are still great fun as long as you are dressed for the weather.  There were a lot of surfers out enjoying the big waves which is both inspiring and entertaining to watch.  Today I got quite the surprise on our final walk as we happened upon a dead sea lion.  It was very windy last night so the high tides washed up a bunch of new logs, tons of seaweed etc. and a few icky things. 

Here are a few quick videos of the dogs.

and some more pictures ....

Travelling Dogs

Our dogs go almost everywhere with us.  The majority of any time away includes them.  These trips provide fabulous socialization and as a result our dogs have learned to be comforable in most situations.  We camp in our travel trailer in the summer and in the winter we rent dog-friendly accomodations for any ski time or other visits.  This week marks the final camping trip of the year.  Our trailer "winters" on Vancouver Island with family who have a much larger area to park it so we generally wind up the season with a trip to Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island.  

Stella is already a seasoned car traveller.  Both dogs wear seatbelts in our vehicle which keeps all of us safe and she has already learned to travel quietly.  She does however sometimes get bored and has a few minutes with a "pawwwwty for one" which involves her making all sorts of strange noises, pawing at the seat and bouncing as much as she is able.  She then settles down to regular travel mode.  Considering she is only a 15 week puppy she does very well!

We spent last night with family and she slept very well in her collapsible crate.  This is a good step for her to learn to be crated in unfamiliar environments which will be great when we get to dog competitions later on.

So we are here in Tofino and managed to squeek in a shorter beach walk this afternoon when we arrived.   Stella was thrilled with so many things to pick up on the beach that I was willing to trade cookies to have her drop :o).  Riley just loves everything about the beach so he is in doggy heaven here.

Lots more beach adventures will follow this week.