Tag Archive for: Spring 2020

BY CHERESE COBB, FREELANCER

Seven years ago, Rudy—an emaciated Arabian horse trapped in knee-high manure—popped up on Chelsea Harley’s Facebook feed. His owner had already surrendered 60 horses to Shawano County authorities (all shipped to slaughter) before threatening to shoot him if Amazing Grace Equine Rescue (AGES) in Elkhart Lake, Wis., didn’t remove him immediately.

Harley shook when she read he’d been down for several hours and staff couldn’t get him up. So she dumped materials for a sling into her bag and drove nonstop from Chicago, Ill. Every weekend for a month, Harley slept in the barn with Rudy while offering massages to 12 other horses. After being hired by AGES founder Erin Kelley-Groth, she spent 40 hours a week rehabbing Rudy while caring for her two blind horses, two special needs dogs and a young cat with chronic kidney disease.

For the first few weeks, the sorrel stallion was in a sling. Each time she removed it, Rudy collapsed and it’d take a skid-steer and six people to get him back up. “During his recovery, we learned to be mindful of flying hooves and teeth. Several of us have scars and broken bones as a result of his desperate need to protect himself,” she says.

“Many of our horses also have some kind of lameness, and that can be challenging when we want to get them adopted.” For example, Grayce was pulled from a kill pen in Oklahoma. and had a miscarriage in quarantine. She has cartilage and bone fragments floating around in her joints causing her to throw her body around.

Grayce receives daily anti-inflammatories and herbal supplements like Devil’s Claw, Yucca or Boswellia. But she can’t handle a higher workload. “I encourage people not to ask, ‘What can that horse do for me?’ Be open-minded to meeting senior or special needs horses,” Harley says.

“You can still have a wonderful relationship while doing groundwork lessons and providing a forever home.”

drawing of girl with dog

Hi there! My name is Maddie, and I’m just your average fourth grader. Well… maybe not quite average but, rather, a perfectionist and a worrywart with an overactive imagination and a flare for being dramatic. At least that’s how my mother would describe me!

One of my best friends in the whole wide world is our 5-month-old Golden Retriever puppy Bella. We named her Bella because Bella means “beautiful” in Italian, and she really is beautiful. She has become an important part of our family, even though she isn’t human.
At each of Bella’s puppy checkup visits at the veterinary clinic, Dr. Lacy teaches us how to help Bella grow up to be a happy adult that is comfortable in our human world. Dr. Lacy said that even though we think of our pets as part of our families, it is so important to remember that they are, in fact, animals. So they think like animals, and they talk like animals. We think like humans, and we talk like humans, so we have to help our pets understand us, and we have to learn how to understand them whether they’re a dog, a cat or some other critter.

Mom told me to imagine what it would be like to, all of a sudden, find myself in a foreign country where no one spoke English, all by myself unable to understand what anyone was saying. Would it be scary? Frustrating? With my overactive imagination, you can just guess what I thought of this idea! Yep, I immersed myself in this daydream and pictured myself trying to let the people around me know I was hungry or lost (and scared) or that I had to use the restroom. Ugh! It wouldn’t be easy. That’s for sure, and this opened my eyes to how Bella must feel as part of our human family.

Bella barks when she’s excited, like when we play ball, and whines when she needs something such as getting us to open the door so she can go out to potty. Dr. Lacy taught us, though, that most of what Bella says is with her body language—her face, ears, tail, mouth and body.

The first things we learned were how to tell when Bella was happy and how to tell when she was worried or scared because worried or scared dogs are more likely to bite. “Happy dogs” are loose—with relaxed ears; level, sweeping tail; squinty eyes; open mouth. “Worried dogs” are more tense—closed mouth; ears back; wrinkles around eyes or forehead; tail might be wagging but will usually be low and stiff with only the tip of it moving; and they may also yawn or lick their lips or look at you out the sides of their eyes (half-moon eye); or slouch/hunch their body, try to hide or move away. I thought wagging tails meant the dog was happy, so I was so surprised to learn this isn’t always true.

Dr. Lacy taught us that there are many things that humans do that dogs can find stressful or scary, such as hugging/kissing the dog (which can make them feel trapped), staring at the dog and patting them on top of their head and that, kids, most of all, can seem scary to many dogs because we move quickly, make screechy noises, are unpredictable at times and might do scary things such as pulling hair or body parts, climbing on the dog or going up to the dog when it is resting or has a special treat, food or toy item.

Just yesterday, my little sister, Katie, who’s 5, was jumping around just a few feet away from Bella, and my mom noticed that Bella yawned, put her ears back, turned her head away and closed her mouth. Mom said was Bella saying she was worried. She asked Katie to play further away, and then Bella relaxed and closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. Maybe Bella wasn’t sure what might happen next? Would Katie jump on her? It makes sense that she’d be worried.

This really is a very big topic, so in the next issue we will explore more about how dogs talk and all the things that humans, and especially kids, do that can make dogs worried. All of this will help us to know how to interact so that the dog is happy and comfortable.

Note to parents: Use this story and the other resources to prompt/support a family discussion about dog body language and how to foster trusting relationships between dogs and kids:

If you’d like to read more about Maddie and Bella, “Bella’s First Checkup” is available on Amazon or you can contact Dr. Kohler for a signed copy by emailing her at [email protected].

BY CHERESE COBB, FREELANCER

“Great Danes are like having a toddler in a dog suit,” says Jennifer Klika, president of the Upper Midwest Great Dane Rescue in Eagan, Minn. “There are days I’d need a pitchfork to push my 9-year-old out of bed. Then he gets the zoomies and runs like a maniac for 15 minutes and looks like a camel whose legs are falling off.” With a lanky body and a head that doesn’t quite match, Danes pout when they want attention, slump when they’re disappointed and bounce when they’re happy.

History
Danes were originally bred to hunt boars. Assyrians, a major power in the ancient Middle East, traded them with the Greeks and Romans. They mixed them with Irish Wolfhounds, Irish Greyhounds and the ancestors of English Mastiffs.

By the 1500s, German nobility used Danes to protect their homes and loved ones. They considered the breed to be the biggest and most handsome of dogs, calling them Kammerhundes (Chamber Dogs). They were given gilded collars trimmed with fringe and padded with velvet.

In the 1700s, French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon discovered a slimmer German Boarhound. He said the Danish climate caused it to become a Grand Danois (Big Danish). He didn’t develop the breed. But the name stuck.

Dane Mom For Life
After Victoria Burger’s Saint Bernard, Holly, passed away, she opened her home to three Danes. Finley’s former owners broke her jaw by pulling on her collar and punished her by yanking her ears. “Even if I’m not touching them, she’ll yelp because she has some nerve damage,” Burger says. “There are some holes in her training, but she’s still wonderful.”

Partly deaf and blind, Marlo weighed 38 pounds when he was pulled from a Texas backyard. “When he’s happy, he squints his eyes, smiles with his lips and wags his tail,” she says. Mooshie, who was purchased from a Canadian breeder, is stoic. “She makes a lot of eye contact. When we’re out walking—and she’s off-leash—she’ll stop, look back and wait,” says Burger.

Mooshie doesn’t nab chicken from the table or nip when children tug on her. “I have two horses, and she’s very respectful of them. She likes to kiss their noses,” Burger says. When Mooshie isn’t getting pawdicures every two weeks, she totes around her owner’s childhood teddy bear. “She’ll fall asleep with it in her mouth. He’s got like a duct tape diaper on him because I’m tired of sewing him up,” she says.

In the summer, her Danes are up at 5:45 a.m. to go hiking and swimming. “Their activity level is influenced by mine. I walk them four times a day,” Burger says. “Danes don’t ignore you and are always in tune with you … I’ll never have another breed. I’m a Dane mom for life.”

Health
Danes live an average of 7 to 10 years. They’re prone to bone cancer, heart disease, hypothyroidism, ear infections and hip dislocation. “Digestion problems and allergies also are surprisingly high in Danes. My personal guy gets Benadryl during allergy season. Or he licks his little paws pink,” Klika says.

According to the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW), 42 percent of Great Danes develop bloat during their lifetimes. Treatment consists of a gastropexy (or “pexy”), in which the dog’s stomach is sutured to the body wall, preventing it from twisting. “This procedure is recommended at the time of spay or neuter, as opposed to a second anesthetic event,” says Dr. Morgan McCoy from Magnolia Springs Veterinary Center in Sturtevant, Wis.

Should You Adopt a Dane?
Although Danes are gentle giants, they’re not for everyone. They hate being alone (so they may cope by eating 43 of your socks) and love to cuddle, even if that means suffocating you under their heft. Danes will follow you to the bathroom and scratch on the door if you “accidentally” lock them out. They slobber and lumber around in a rather bumptious manner. They might be afraid of cats, plastic bags or suspicious-looking rocks. But they’ll fill awkward silences with woofs, grunts and pitiful stares.

As I write this editorial, concerns of the coronavirus are spreading. As it continues to jump from person to person and country to country, one question (rooted in fear) remains for some pet lovers … can my pet get it and can they give it to me? This novel virus now named COVID-19 is wreaking havoc in many communities. It seems to be mostly lethal to populations 70 and older or for those with compromised immune systems (that we know of).

But what about our pets? Are we prepared for them? What is happening to the pets in these communities with active outbreaks? How can we help?

In Hong Kong, a dog without symptoms recently tested positive and will remain in quarantine until tests are negative. What does this mean to you? This grave situation is filled with too many variables and unknowns yet that people can barely protect themselves, let alone their beloved pets. People are being advised to not panic and to prepare for the virus to hit, especially here in Wisconsin.

However, in Wuhan, pets are being abandoned or unfairly targeted. They are being left in apartments alone while their owners are prohibited from entering the city. Wuhan Small Animal Protection Association has already rescued hundreds since this outbreak began. So what I plead to you is … help in anyway you can. Hug and love your own companion(s) every day. Do not abandon your pet. They need you to be strong and to take care of them, and in return, they will take care of you. Stress depletes the immune system; I know this firsthand. And pets help relieve stress. Get prepared as best you can.

This brings me to my 6-year-old son, Ezra. Even he has stress. He may be autistic, but why stress? Maybe it’s hereditary. Each day he struggles to control his body and his mind. It’s like watching someone whose body is on fire and whose mind is constantly just feeding it more fuel. His body just takes over. Animals help my son! I notice during equine therapy that he is trying hard to focus. It’s so hard as a mom to watch your child struggle each day (now imagine the moms in Wuhan). Animals are so therapeutic and comforting that it’s astounding that there aren’t more laws protecting them and more people taking care of them.

I would like to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone helping those in need right now. I pray for the people who are infected, for the ones who have past, for the ones just trying to go home and especially for the ones who have children or animals they are responsible for. Be strong!

To all of you out there protecting & aiding your loved ones … don’t forget about yourself along the way,

NPutz

BY MEGAN TREMELLING, DVM, LVS

There was a big game on TV this year. I didn’t see it, but I’ve heard that one of the commercials featured a beautiful Golden Retriever named Scout. Last year, Scout had a form of cancer called cardiac hemangiosarcoma. He was treated at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine. He is doing well, and his owner was so grateful that he paid for this ad in hopes people would donate money to the UW School of Veterinary Medicine. Apparently it is working quite well, and hundreds of thousands of dollars have been donated. It’s a very sweet story and a pleasant change from the usual headlines.

Hemangiosarcoma is unfortunately a very common cancer in dogs. Two of its commonest forms, splenic and cardiac, tend to be extremely aggressive. What typically happens is this: A middle-aged dog (a Golden Retriever as often as not) is happily going about their typical day when it suddenly starts to feel tired. Over a few minutes to a few hours, the dog goes from bouncing and playing to collapsed, unable to get up and gasping for breath. This is because hemangiosarcomas, which develop from the walls of blood vessels, have an unfortunate tendency to burst, causing internal bleeding that can be rapidly fatal.

If the hemangiosarcoma is in the heart (a cardiac hemangiosarcoma), the amount of blood lost is usually not extremely large, but it causes problems because of its location. A protective fibrous sac called the pericardium encloses the heart. When a tumor bleeds, it can fill up the pericardium and cause so much pressure that the heart cannot fill and pump properly. The term “pericardial effusion” refers to any fluid that is in the pericardium, and a bleeding tumor is not the only possible cause. We sometimes see effusions caused by inflammation or infection, bleeding disorders, heart disease and so on. Whatever caused it, if it is causing problems, we want to get it out of there. We do this by placing a long needle or catheter into the chest and into the pericardium to drain out as much fluid as possible, relieving the pressure on the heart so that it can fill properly.

Of course, having once solved that problem, we want to do our best to prevent it from coming back. Sometimes, analyzing the fluid will tell us about a cause, such as an infection, that we can treat. Most of the time, it is just blood, and that puts the owners and us in the uncomfortable position of trying to figure out what to do next. If the effusion is benign, meaning it is caused by inflammation rather than cancer, it may never come back again or may improve with medication. If it is caused by cancer, however, it will bleed again. It’s important to know what we’re up against.

A mass on the heart doesn’t show up well on x-rays, but sometimes a skilled ultrasonographer can identify it. We can also look for circumstantial evidence. Hemangiosarcoma is a cancer that is often found in several organs at once, so we look for it in the liver and spleen with an ultrasound exam or in the lungs with a chest x-ray. If we find masses in those organs, it makes diagnosis easier. Whether it has spread to other organs or not, cardiac hemangiosarcoma has a grave prognosis, with most patients surviving less than a month from diagnosis. Many owners elect to euthanize their pets at the time of diagnosis because the prognosis is poor even with treatment.

For those owners who decide to give cancer a fight, veterinarians, like medical doctors, have many tools to offer. Surgically removing some kinds of masses can be extremely successful, but surgery is rarely possible with cardiac tumors. Chemotherapy (medication to slow down or destroy cancer) is regularly administered by veterinarians and can be very beneficial for some types of cancers. In the case of hemangiosarcoma, it can extend average life expectancy up to 6-7 months. Some other forms of treatment are less routinely used and less well-studied by veterinarians due to issues with the cost, the availability and the advanced training required to use them. However, veterinary oncologists (cancer specialists) do have access to these tools. Here in Milwaukee, for example, we have access to stereotactic radiation therapy that allows the precise targeting of tumors with minimal damage to nearby healthy tissue. Our oncologists then use immunotherapy which works like a vaccination to help the patient’s own immune system fight the tumor.

A diagnosis of cardiac hemangiosarcoma is never a good thing, but Scout was very fortunate to have an owner with the resources and the drive to do anything that could be done to help his dog. Fortunately, Scout and his owner lived not far from Madison, where the UW School of Veterinary Medicine has an excellent oncology program. Scout was treated with chemotherapy, radiation therapy and immunotherapy. He is reportedly doing well at home for now. Treatment is not likely to cure him, but it is buying him quality time. His owner apparently was grateful for the care Scout had received and wanted the oncologists to be able to treat the disease more effectively, so he took out the ad soliciting donations for the veterinary school.

With his owner’s decision to take out the ad, everyone wins. The veterinary school obviously benefits from the donations. It wasn’t a bad choice for Scout’s owner either as this ad has attracted far more attention to his company than any traditional commercial touting its products.

And here’s the beauty of supporting veterinary cancer research: Dogs, it turns out, are excellent models for the study of cancer in humans. What we learn treating dogs with cancer can be useful when studying human disease and sometimes far more useful than other models such as mice.

There’s no final word on how much money has been raised as a result of the ad, but it is likely to be a substantial amount. Scout’s doctors, the veterinary oncologists you see in the ad, are brilliant research scientists and will put it to good use. I look forward to someday having more options to offer the many dogs that I see with hemangiosarcoma.

https://news.wisc.edu/lucky-dog-scout-and-uw-school-of-veterinary-medicine-star-in-weathertech-super-bowl-commercial/

BY CHERESE COBB, FREELANCER

Flashy on the outside and a gentleman on the inside, Acado is a 13-year-old Hanoverian. “He’s one of the most handsome horses in the barn,” says Jenny Caldwell, assistant trainer. “When he walks into a different environment, he puts his head up and looks around, but he’s never spooked.” The Show Hunter isn’t just a Steady Eddie; he’s a class act.

History
Hanoverians are one of the oldest warmbloods. They come from destriers: hot-blooded horses who carried fully armored knights into battles, tournaments and jousts. In the 1600s, they were imported into north-central Germany. They worked as cavalry remounts and harness horses.

King George II of England was the first person to breed Hanoverians. In 1735, he founded the Stallion Depot in Celle, Lower Saxony. He used Black Holsteins as a foundation stock. They’re powerful coach horses produced by crossing German mares with Neapolitan, Spanish and Oriental blood.

Modern Hanoverians were used in British royal processions until the reign of Edward VIII when they were replaced by Windsor Greys. At the end of WWII, the breed was mixed with Thoroughbreds and Trakehner. They became increasingly light, agile, athletic and graceful.

Health
Hanoverians may suffer from osteochondritis dissecans (OCD). It’s caused by poor nutrition, physical trauma and rapid growth. OCD creates lesions that encourage fluid buildup, small fractures or cartilage destruction. Twenty-five percent of the time, OCD is found in the fetlocks. Ten percent of Hanoverians get OCD in their hock joints.

With a digestive system that’s similar to rabbits and rats, horses can’t vomit or burp (what goes in must take the long way out). “If a horse gets a belly ache [or colic], its stomach can twist on itself,” Caldwell says. The second leading cause of death in horses, colic is caused by a change of diet, a lack of roughage or parasites. Its symptoms include pawing, restlessness, rapid breathing or violent rolling.

“Acado is treated like an Olympic athlete,” says rider Brooke Brodersen. He has his own masseuse, chiropractor and indoor treadmill. He takes a daily electrolyte, joint supplement and probiotic. Because Acado’s teeth continually grow and are worn down by chewing feed, he gets his teeth floated or filed down twice per year. He also eats high-quality hay and snacks on carrots, apples and, occasionally, licorice jelly beans.

Hunters & Jumpers
Show hunter Acado wears aluminum shoes on his front hooves and steel shoes on his backs. His mane and tail are braided, and his tack is a simple snaffle bit and traditional bridle. Brodersen wears a black helmet, black gloves, tan breeches, black field boots, a white show shirt and a dark-colored hunt coat.

In the ring, Hunters like Acado jump over eight to 12 fences that are conservative and natural, including colors like white, brown and green. “The judges are really looking for a perfect flow without bobbles,” Brodersen says. They’re looking for horses that are well-mannered, athletic and attractive to ride safely and smoothly over the obstacles.

“It looks kind of like we’re going around the ring automatically, but every single step requires communication between the horse and rider,” Brodersen says. “If you’re not paying attention, steps can get stretched out, and you can’t make the distance of the jump.”

Jumpers ride over technically difficult courses that twist and turn. Fences are bright, colorful and lofty. Jumpers’ manes and tails aren’t braided. Saddle pads and ear bonnets are allowed. If horses knock down a fence, stop at a fence or don’t complete the course in a certain time limit, they incur “faults” or penalties. The horse with the fewest faults and the fastest time wins.