No snow?

Spring came fast to Kosice this year as always, and we are not up to date with a lot of things, including this blog. But to tell the truth, all we've done for the past year is living a dog's life - all three of us. Vojak's been doing what he does best; played with the ball/frisbee, barked at a lot of doorbell rings, kissed a lot of friends on the nose/in the ear, harassed a couple of other dogs, made some new friends and chilled out on the sofa with, or sometimes without, permission. The two humans in the family have mostly spent their days nose-down in some book. Luckily, there's always room for some fun, and it might be a good sign that we used it for beautiful walks and playtime with Vojak instead of spending time online updating the blog!

Now, as I am in fact updating it, I have too many things to say about the time that passed, so I think I'll let some pictures speak for themselves. In some of them, you'll see Vojak with us skiing.

We bought skis this season, Vojak thinks it's fun, but it still takes some getting used on his part. That'll have to be left for next winter though, since the temperature slowly is crawling toward 20. And oh...if you haven't noticed, the ticks are here again. Found the first one on my own leg a couple of days ago, and then promptly went to get Vojak some spot-on. We're trying out Exspot this year, fingers crossed!

Also, our local petshop ran out of the Eukanuba Jogging and agility diet that Vojak's been on for the past year, and the sudden change in diet (to Eukanuba Working and endurance) has not been welcomed by his intestines so far. Unfortunately we'll just have to stand picking up some soft feces until they get his original diet back in the shelves (please hurry!).

I love the petshop though - for those who weren't already informed, they have 50% off for vet students on all Eukanuba feeds until June. Just saying.

Feeling especially springy!

Sorry for the long wait, this has been a crazy semester for the two students in the family!

Vojak, on the other hand, has had some relaxing months, but he’s done well helping the two-legged get a proper amount of physical activity and fresh air each day. It’s sorely needed when spending the rest of the day nose burried in books and study material.

For Christmas, Vojak godt his very own rucksack, and he bears it proudly for walks in the forest, although he doesn’t always remember it’s hanging there so he tends to get caught up a bit in bushes, fences and other obstacles along the way! We have not been intensifying the load very much in this time. We started just by adjusting the sac and letting Vojak get used to having this foreign element on his body, and with this we had no problem at all. As I already mentioned, he hardly even notices it’s there, so that’s a job done easy for us!

We’re currently up to about 1 kg total, a half kilo on each side, for what he can carry. Usually we have him carry water bottles – one for him and one for us, or some of his snacks. He does such a good job, and the goal is for him to be able to carry his own food for when we go for longer hikes.

It’s been great having Vojak turn the magical 1 year old, we’ve been enjoying being able to jog with him this winter and spring. We got a great jogger-belt and an elastic leash for Christmas too, and it’s amazing how much easier the hard uphill running gets when you have your own Vojak pulling in front!

We’ve also been teaching him tricks on our free time, and he’s a fast learner. His newest hits are the walking-tunnel, the sit-in-tunnel, and some new obedience tasks that we’ve been working on. Yesterday, he put the ball back into the toy-box after playing outside for the first time – we’ve been practicing that for a couple of days, and it just looks really cool!

The water has warmed up to a nice temperature now in the lake Bukovec, so we’ve been taking him there for swims to let him cool down on hot days, and to help making coat shedding a bit faster this spring. There’s a hope now that we won’t have to spend the whole summer picking Vojak-hairs out of our dinner. Now that’s what good times look like if you own a Tervueren!

And one more thing – ticks!! Why do they keep coming back every year? I wish they’d just stay somnolent and quiet like they so pleasantly do during winter time. Vojak’s now equipped with both a tick-collar and spot-on, but they keep turning up! I’m pretty sure they’re extra aggressive this year, seeing as we made do with just the collar last season without making any unpleasant encounters. When the season is over, we’ll do blood work and see if there’s anything to worry about. Until then it’s probably best not to be fanatic – both Babesiosis and Borreliosis are easily treatable if the blood work should turn out positive.

HD-A! It is official!

Vojak is free of hip dysplasia. He got the diagnosis HD-A on both hips. Me and Halldor went to the clinic today, and we picked up the official papers from the professor.

We are really happy about the good news; this means we can do everything we've dreamed of doing with Vojak. There will be agility, trekking, jogging, frisbee-playing and possible breeding waiting for him in his years to come! If he only knew all the fun he's going to have!

Here's a picture of his hips. It's not easy to see anything now that it's not on a proper screen. But at least you'll know now you're looking at perfection!

A vetty Christmas month

It's been a while. Again. But that only means there's more to tell.
We've had a busy autumn, with exams and tests piling up, but we've had time for some wonderful outdoor experiences too. The first snow has fallen, and it seems to be staying for a while. I've never seen a happier dog than Vojak on the first day after snowfall! It seems he has missed it, since his first puppy months in Kosice were all about playing around in the cold, white powder covering his world. He can just walk around in the snow, scoping it up with his mouth and enjoying for once to be able to eat his daily water intake instead of just drinking it like any regular dog. But snow makes our little boy happy, and that's what it's all about.













During this autumn, Vojak's had some intestinal troubles. He's been on different cures to deal with an intermittent diarrhea, but after being on expensive pharmacy feeds for a month, we have now put him on Royal Canine Maxi sensible, which seems to be working perfectly! No runny or pasteous feces what so ever. Hooray! The only drawback is that he should have been on the puppy feed for a couple of more months. But from what I've learned from my Nutrition and Dietetics teacher, I can't see what nutrients he'd be missing out on. And a diarrhea free dog on adult food is obviously a whole lot better than a dog with a semi-upset intestine on puppy food!













Apart from this feed-victory, we've recently gotten his hips X-rayed for hip dysplasia. We've only done it as a precaution, and for two main reasons; that we may want to breed on him when he gets old enough, and that we are planning to sign up to train agility after Christmas.
My radiology teacher let me assist in the X-ray procedure, but I still have to find him to know the results, because the proper HD diagnosis can only be made after several measurements and calculations based on the angle of the head of the femur toward the acetabulum (socket) of the hip joint. The radiologist will fill out the official papers for us, and then we'll know for sure the state of his hip joints. I got a sneak peak at the X-rays before they went into the file for the diagnostic procedure, and to my still untrained eye it looked quite good.

We will post the results when we receive them from the veterinary clinic.






















During the X-ray procedure, we discovered that Vojak does not respond to sedatives according to book standards. He got only half a dose of the sedative, and it didn't seem to work, so we just started the procedure with him half-awake. It worked out well enough, he was awake during the whole thing but didn't mind much. But a good 40 minutes after the shot, when the procedure was finished and we lifted him off the table, he sunk together like a pudding. And he stayed that way for most of the day. We were a bit worried, so we made sure to stay with him the whole time. He vomited a couple of times and looked quite shabby, but when we all woke the next morning he was his old self again - and really hungry after only being offered rice the night before!

Vojak learns to fly

This video is from this weekend, when we for the first time got Vojak to jump up into our arms! The first time, I just tried to get my arms around him once he was jumping to reach the tennis ball we were playing with. But he learns really quickly - once we'd done it a few times with the ball as a treat, he now does it with just the command. And it looks amazingly cool! His tunnel move has also (not intentionally though) been captured in this film.