A Short Update and on to Other Things

The dogs are all cough free and have been since Friday morning. Our vet had a long discussion with us this morning and he is of the very strong opinion that a dog is no more or less contagious in 7 days than they will be tomorrow, and that he can see no medical reason why the dogs shouldn’t go to the Championships next weekend. As it is an airborne disease there is also no reason why it should be more likely to transfer via tennis balls etc, and as our dogs are extremely fit and healthy he thinks they will cope with the exercise fine. He even said he would have been happy to vaccinate our dogs on Monday but he advised we leave it until after any major events as it can cause the dog to start coughing again.

I am uneasy about this decision for various reasons, so this is a short update on the Kennel Cough front. I understand the make-up of Kennel Cough and how it is spread and I also understand why the vaccines are now so much more efficient (I asked, I’m a geek! I used to be good at science y’know), but there has been this constantly repeated “7-days” thing from dog owners that it feels like it must be right. Our vet is telling us it’s wrong, and I do trust our vet, so I’m still being pulled in 2 different directions.

The dogs had an awesome long walk today in the rain, and then we played at tricks again. Kim brushed up on all her old skills, and then we did fetch-the-post which we haven’t done in years because I’d forgotten I’d taught it her. She really enjoyed that one, I left “the post” (an old IKEA instruction booklet) in the other room so she got to run around a bit. She’s surprisingly gentle with “post”! Mollie isn’t, we tried with her and she attempted to rip “the post” into tiny shreds, so we gave up. Dylan is scared of “the post” because it flaps around when he tries to pick it up and he doesn’t like it.

Instead, Dylan and I worked on his obedience. I’m not an obedience person and I only know very vaguely how to teach him all the proper competitive stuff, so it’s a bit hit and miss. He has a lovely close heel position at a sit but as soon as we set off it all falls apart. We’re working on it! We also have some issues with stand, as apparently I’ve accidentally taught him that stand means ‘stand in front of me’ so we can’t do that at a distance. Oops!