16th June 2008

 

Alaska has just had her eyes tested with the annual BVA check and she is clear. Of all the tests most breeders dislike the eye test the most …… everything in the vets room is dead quiet and dark as he does his tests, no grunts, no expression, and then you wait on tenterhooks for the verdict ……. “Yep they are fine” …. PHEW! … and you visibly relax and think the world is a great place again! Our thoughts go to those unfortunate few whom nature has dealt a bad hand who sometimes fail this test as it must be so disappointing and frustrating.

 

The results of Lightning’s hips and elbows scores have been returned, both being very very good. Her hips are 3:3 and her elbows are 0:0. Great results.

 

I think this puts to bed the old adage that you must not let your dogs go up and down stairs too much when a puppy, or jump up at you etc etc as this is suppose to be bad for the hips. Our house is on 3 levels and there are steps and stairs everywhere inside and out! …. The dogs cannot avoid them, they run up and down them all day everyday and we are fortunate to be able to say that our dogs hips are excellent, usually improving on the mother/father scores. Out of our 9 Leonbergers the ‘worse’ score is Thunder’s, and his hips are very good at 8 total, well below the average total of 12!

 

After discussion with the vet who takes the X-rays he agreed that the stairs may help to actually strengthen the muscles and ligaments around the hip joint thereby pulling the ball into the socket giving a better fit. Not straining it as used to be thought. Maybe another example of us humans interfering with the natural behaviour of our puppies to strengthen their joints etc by over protecting them and not let them do what they feel they can achieve and actually making the joints worse through lack of exercise? Who knows?

 

Jumping up is another issue, as all our dogs have a tendency to want to jump up at you in their enthusiasm to see you, play etc. We should curb it more than we do, but enjoy their exuberance too much to totally stop them! Again, Lightning is the worse for this, and has done this from the earliest days of being a puppy who could carry her own weight on her back legs. Again it has not affected her scores, it could even have improved them.

 

Interesting subject for debate, but overall it does seem that inheritance is the overriding contributory factor….. Good parents/grandparents hips and the majority of the time gives good offspring hips. There are always exceptions of course through injury or nature’s quirkiness.

 

The only concern with regards to the stairs is if it deteriorates the elbow joints due to the pounding they take on the way down. Not conclusive about this but the logic is there.

 

We only have a couple of weeks to find out if Storm is pregnant with her scan.

 

Mandy’s Music link has been updated with her latest songs …. Have a listen to the new tracks.