Check the ears weekly but more frequently if you have been out working your dog or have been anywhere that grass seeds could penetrate their way down the ear.

Routine clipping or stripping of the hair from the outer part of the ears should be carried out to allow good ventilation.  The hair should not be removed from down the ear canal, although this practice was popular in the past professional groomers are now being told that this is not a good practice.  The Spinone is one of the few breeds that grows hair all the way down the ear canal, it is there to protect the ear drum.

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Although the eyelids of the Spinone should be tight many have a slightly loose eyelid, which will enable foreign bodies such as dust and grass husks to become trapped.  If not removed these can set up an irritation and infection.

Most Spinone wake up with a slight collection of jelly in the corner of their eyes.  It is easy to remove this with a tissue.  If there is a green discharge this can very often be cured by irrigating with a saline solution (1 teaspoon of salt to ½ a cup of water) or cold

With summer fast approaching I thought that I would write about a subject which comes up each year.  I am talking about grass seeds and the problems they can cause. I don’t know if all owners are aware that dogs can have grass seeds pierce their skin and end up travelling through their body. 

I am writing this to share my experience in the hope that it might make a few more people aware of the damage they can do. I’m sure you have all come back from either a walk or a days working with your dogs and noticed spear grasses caught up in there coat.  This is obviously soon rectified by either taking it off or coming it out, but are you also aware that some spear grasses and grass seeds can pierce the skin and travel through the body?.

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On Vacation!

The Pet Travel Scheme (PETS) is the system that allows pet dogs (also cats and ferrets) from certain countries to enter the UK without quarantine as long as they meet the rules.   It also means that people in the UK can take their dogs (also cats and ferrets) to other European Union (EU) countries, and return with them to the UK.  They can also, having taken their dogs to certain non-EU countries, bring them back to the UK without the need for quarantine.  These rules are to keep the UK free from rabies and certain other diseases.

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Urinary incontinence, or ‘urinary sphincter mechanism incompetence’,is the involuntary passage of urine and is most commonly seen in bitches.   There are many reasons for incontinence, and these are most simply grouped under two headings – ‘congenital incontinence’ affecting juvenile dogs and bitches and ‘acquired incontinence’ affecting the more mature animal.

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This is a topic that is hard to swallow.  Sorry!

Coprophagia– isthe scientific term for a dog eating its own or another animals stools!   There are thought to be two main reasons for this behaviour – one is the adult dogs eating the puppies faeces to keep the communal den clean and to prevent scent attracting predators;  the other is the belief (not shared by everyone) that the stools may contain the valuable nutritional vitamins B and K.

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Parvovirus is a viral disease that was recognised for the first time in 1978.  There are two types of Parvovirus.

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PSS is a congenital disorder which means “born with”.

At or around the time of whelping the blood vessels within the foetus must close. 

The puppies’ liver should then start to work normally. 

If the blood vessels fail to close then the blood is shunted around the liver rather than through it, hence the name “liver shunt”.

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Tottie was always a little bit “nice but dim”, she had a bad start with a Mum that was careless to say the least. Some bitches just never really settle into the maternal role and Tottie’s Mum certainly resented the time spent cleaning and feeding the squirmy little babies. I went to visit the litter five days after they had been born, to cut a long story short, I came home with three tiny Spinoni wrapped in a blanket in an apple box……

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