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.

Summer highlights

We spent two wonderful months of summer holidays in Norway, and just got back to Slovakia
and daily student (and dog) life.
Vojak got himself a herd of fans back in Norway, waiting to see him next summer, or even this Christmas if possible. My family's German shepherd bitch fell hard in love with him, and went looking for him around the house when he was gone.
Anyway, these are Vojak's and our summer highlights:

1. Flying from Budapest to Norway
- went very well! No barking, no whining, just happy to get out of the cage after the flight.

We spent two wonderful months of summer holidays in Norway, and just got back to Slovakia and daily student (and dog) life. Vojak loved Norway, and he managed the flight both there and back again so well that he's sure to come with us time and time again! And he got himself a herd of fans back in Norway, waiting to see him next summer, or even this Christmas if possible. My family's german shepherd bitch fell hard in love with him, and went looking for him around the house when he was gone 2. Elisabeth and Halldor got married
















- not a particularly big day for Vojak, but such a big day for us that it has to be mentioned!

3. Learned to swim, or more correctly; learned to love it!













- Bringing back sticks from the water is the favorite past time of my parents dog, and Vojak could not see himself beaten by a girl, and therefore had to splash into the lake with her!

4. Went to Førde on holiday











- had a great weekend, where Vojak got to use his new swimming skills in the sea. He met a lot of live fish and encountered his first crabs. Scary, but hard to resist!

5. Excelled in his first dog show

















- during our weekend in Førde, we spent one day in Karmøy where we'd signed the little one up for a puppy show. He was judged by danish judge Kitty Sjong, and won titles BOB (best of breed) puppy, and came in 2nd BIG (best in group). We got a little critique from the judge for not having the appropriate leash and stuff, but she was obviously charmed anyway. And we promised to get it for next time... We might have done a couple of wrongs, but Vojak was brilliant; we're very proud of him!

6. Spent time with friends and family



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- met a lot of old favourites for the second time, and made many new friends during the course of the holidays.

7. Became familiar with sitting in the trunk of a car
- had some problems with this in the beginning, but after many repetitions he has now learned that driving equals adventure, and is happy to jump in whenever the trunk door's being opened! Which is good, because our little family just scraped together enough money to buy a car this autumn. A white Skoda Fabia combi, with lots of space in the back for Vojak.

8. Went back to Slovakia, only to get bitten by a wild boar on the first day back!
- Obviously, our usual walking terrain had not been used during the summer, because Vojak had the most crazy experience his first day back.
It could have gone really wrong when he suddenly got crazy about a new smell and ran into some bushes just beside the road. Two seconds later, there was the obvious stink of male pig, and Vojak whimpered.

Instincts took over fast, and me and Halldor ran toward the bushes, screaming our throats hoarse to scare the pig off. And we were lucky. Vojak was soon visible again; he'd gotten away with a few scratches and a bitten thigh. He limped markedly and we found some wounds that didn't look very nice. But the vet, who luckily lives next door to us, gave him strong antibiotics and anti-inflammatories, and a week later he was fine, the limping all gone and his curiosity back on track.
No need to say, we're keeping a close watch on him now, whenever an exciting smell gets him high. And for Gods sake, keep your dog out of the bushes!

I think that's all the notable stuff that happened this summer. Now were back in school, Vojak's met his dog friends again. Of course, his best friend Belle is sorely missed.. But we hope she's doing great things in Israel, keeping Lihi company in her new life as a vet!

Summer getting closer

It's the exam period. That's my excuse both for not writing anything for a while, and for actually writing something now!
Vojak has grown a lot, and is currently discovering the wonderful world of puberty. Which means that if he's not either horny, overexcited or just stubborn - he's probably asleep! Actually, to be honest, he's not that bad. He just started to absolutely love the smell of female dogs in their heat, and he is trying to push the limits a bit to see what we'll allow him to do... Yesterday as I came home from uni, I found him chilling out on the sofa with a pack of dog snacks that he'd teared apart. That's what I call a teenager!

Kosice has been attacked by bad weather the last weeks. We've had beautiful summer mornings that have turned into an inferno of rain and thunder by mid day, and I've lost count on how many times we've been woken up during the night by thunder shrells.
Vojak loves being out in the rain, and we have the forest nearby, we've been up there a lot training him to search for and scare up pheasants. Of course, we don't hunt or anything, so it's just because we like to explore the wildlife, and pheasants are such grand birds!

I said before that I'd like to see him swim before summer, but the river is still so flooded and the current so strong that I'm glad he's not jumping in when we go to the park. We want his first real swim to be as pleasant as possible, so that he'll be encouraged to do it again and again...

This week we're taking the antibody titer test to see if he's developed enough antibodies agains rabies virus to be able to come with me to Norway when I leave in a couple of weeks. Probably all will go well, but we had a problem with Liska who never developed any antibodies, and somewhere inside I'm scared it's going to repeat itself with Vojak. So everybody; fingers crossed tomorrow!!