Dreadful Start To Year For The Kelpies

[Neal 1,873]

Noggin's going from strength to strength and is now easily managing lead walks of around an hour...though I'm wary of letting him off lead yet but I'll have to bite the bullet soon. Unfortunately his excellent bomb-proof character seems to have been effected and he's, understandably, wary of traffic and is less likely to be friendly towards strange dogs than he used to be. Having said that, he is improving week by week so I have high hopes for a full personality recovery as well as full physical recovery.

[forest of dean redneck 11,686]

Fingers crossed for you Neal.

[Neal 1,873]

Fingers crossed for you Neal.

Thanks! I would put up a thumbs up emoticon but whenever I put them on posts (since loading windows 10) the posts won't work.

[longbow 14]

Neal what a tale of woe,that was hard to read, you do have my sympathy. I enjoy your posts & I guess it's you who writes articles on kelpies in EDRD, interesting & well written.

I suggest you and the kelpies enjoy a long summer of R&R

Cheers

[Neal 1,873]

Neal what a tale of woe,that was hard to read, you do have my sympathy. I enjoy your posts & I guess it's you who writes articles on kelpies in EDRD, interesting & well written.

I suggest you and the kelpies enjoy a long summer of R&R

Cheers

Thanks Longbow; yes, that's me, and thanks for the compliment.

 

On a positive note, Noggin continues to improve. He can now easily manage a walk of over an hour on the lead without evidence of a limp but whenever I give him a few minutes off lead then the limp is still evident. It's been over six weeks now so I think I'll give him a couple more weeks and then pop back to the vet over the Easter for a check up to find out if he simply needs more time or whether he'll always walk slightly skewiff. Being a tad wonky never seemed to put Rusty off catching though so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

 

I start a maternity cover from next week until the end of the summer term (I mean me covering somebody else on maternity leave rather than me on maternity leave!) so it should work out well in terms of him having a good length of time to recuperate. The other benefit we're finding is that it's working out well having both Noggin and Scout in as house dogs so it may become a permanent fixture.

[Tracy Priestnall 83]

 

i was talking to your rusty on the phone , he reckon's your a jinx !

[gamerooster 1,179]

Always followed your posts neal, as you know I think kelpies are seriously underestimated and plan my next dog to be a kelpie grey, hope the young dog comes right and sorry to hear about the old dog.... just out of curiosity, do they catch feather?

[Neal 1,873]

Gamerooster: Both Rusty and Scout have caught a lot of pigeons. Scout was lucky to catch a winged one on the farm when she was a young pup which I presume bolstered her confidence so she's never assumed she can't catch them...confidence breeding confidence and all that...she has the knack of stalking them and then rushing in when there's a lot of foliage above them so they can't get as high. Noggin is very interested in pheasant too but hasn't caught one yet.

 

Edited to add: Noggin's paternal grandsire (who's also his maternal great grandsire so accounts for 3/8 of his breeding) had the knack of catching crows when they tried to mob him when he was working sheep and cattle.

Edited April 7, 2016 by Neal

[Neal 1,873]

Final update: I took Noggin back to the vet yesterday for a check-up. He's been regularly having lead walks of around an hour, morning and evening, and occasional off-road walks of around thirty or forty minutes. I decided to test him more fully before taking him to the vets so he's also had two walks of about two and a half hours around the forest during the Easter fortnight (when I could spare the time what with the avalanche of planning, assessment and associated paperwork!) he was a tad tired after the first one and had a good sleep but seemed more his usual self after the second walk. There doesn't appear to be any problem with his movement (other than the limp which I mentioned above) and he can bounce, jump and zoom around the house when retrieving and playing with his kong.

 

The vet rotated both front legs at both joints and found no signs of restricted movement and no apparent signs of pain so advised me to go back to full exercise for him. The only fly in the ointment was that there was some "crackling" around the elbow in his front right leg i.e. the one which had been dislocated, which could mean that his limp will always be there and that he's more likely to be troubled by arthritis at an earlier age than would have otherwise been the case. I was also told that the nurses have been asking after him as he developed a bit of a fan club!

 

Re temperament: I mentioned above how he seemed a little less friendly towards dogs than before. My perception of this has altered but has also caused me to come up with a rough idea of how the accident may have happened in the first place. At first I thought he was generally less friendly but with time I noticed he was still his usual out-going charming self with people and with dogs he already knew. I then noted that all aggression was directed at a certain type of dog. While on an earlier visit to the vet he'd been friendly and unflappable with every other dog in the waiting room...until a large, rough-coated, black dog came in...his hackles went up and he produced that low resonating grumble which says, "I'm not happy." As the weeks went by I noticed his dislike and apprehension was always directed at large black dogs and German Shepherds. We have two women who walk long-coated all black Shepherds in my local wood and neither are able to control them. One in particular often walks hers early in the morning (to avoid other walkers) and I've had a few verbal run-ins with her. I'm therefore thinking that he was probably attacked by a large black dog (probably Shepherd...and possibly the one I've mentioned) which caused him to panic and run. Whatever happened I guess I'll never know but I'm certainly happy that he's almost back to his old self and that the prognosis is a good deal better than it was about ten weeks ago. Onwards and upwards!

Edited April 9, 2016 by Neal

[kyboy44 11]

Just wanted to ask is hunting normal for the kelip I was thinking that they were stock dog but would like to know how they do as a hunting dog