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.

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!