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Activities for dogs: Obedience
Osteoarthritis
How much should you feed your dog?
Dogslife may be asking for more of your help!
Activities for dogs: Obedience
Obedience is a discipline that requires a dog and handler team to work effectively together to achieve different obedience exercises as precisely as possible. There are around 270 obedience shows held by Kennel Club registered clubs across the UK each year. A variety of classes are available to encompass varying abilities and experience. Dogs of any breed and cross-breeds can take part.
Obedience is divided into six classes ranging from Pre-Beginners and Beginners classes for newcomers, to ‘Class C’ classes for the most experienced dog and handler team. Obedience tests are made up of different exercises which are set by the judge. Competitors know prior to a show which obedience exercises may be included, but do not know the exact content or arrangement of exercises included within a test until the day of the show. Lots of training to produce quick, accurate responses to commands is essential for a successful obedience test.
Obedience exercises include: stay exercises (dogs must maintain a position for a set time while the handler walks away), recall (dogs must stay in position as the handler walks away and go to heel when the handler calls), retrieve (an item is thrown and dogs must retrieve it when their handler commands and drop it back before sitting at heel), send-away (dogs must go to a marked part of the arena and await instruction), and heelwork (dogs must be at the handler’s heel at every direction and pace). For Class C competitors, dogs may be asked to perform control exercises at a distance and carry out scent discrimination (e.g. locating a cloth, out of many, with the judge’s scent on it).
In each obedience class, the judge is accompanied by a ring steward who will call out commands to the handler, and sometimes a score steward to keep the scoreboard updated. Judges look for a happy and alert dog and handler team with prompt reactions to the steward’s commands and perfection in each exercise. The dog and handler team must train meticulously to achieve a high level of accuracy and have a good rapport between them.
The dog and handler team are penalised for any errors or incorrect manoeuvres (made by either the dog or the handler). The final score is the number of points deducted for any faults so the dog and handler with the lowest score wins. In Pre-Beginners and Beginners classes, an Award of Merit Certificate can be awarded, and the Obedience Excellent Certificate can be claimed for dogs that are eligible for places at Open and Championship level. An Obedience Warrant (OW) can be awarded to dogs that while not yet eligible to complete in Championship Class C, have gained a certain amount of points by winning first prizes in Novice, Class A, B and/or C (Open) competitions. Dogs are then graded with the title ‘OW’.
To find out more about obedience or how to get involved, please visit http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/obedience.
Many thanks to The Kennel Club Picture Library (c) for the image in this article
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Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common debilitating condition of joints which is estimated to affect up to 20% of dogs over one year of age. Osteoarthritis is characterised by the destruction of the cartilage surface of the joint which produces pain and lameness. As cartilage does not have any nerves in it, the pain arises from the bone underneath the cartilage and lining of the joint called the synovium. The joints most commonly affected by OA in the dog are the hip, elbow and stifle (knee).
Historically, OA in dogs was considered to arise “secondary” to an underlying disease, such as hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia or cranial cruciate ligament rupture. We now know that there is a clear genetic risk to developing OA, which is independent of these diseases. This explains why dogs often develop OA after joint injury, but that it may have very different severities in different individuals.
At present, the diagnosis of OA in a joint by a veterinarian is based on the historical findings (often the owner reports that the dog is stiff or lame after rest, and that they improve with a little gentle exercise), physical examination (joint swelling, pain, and a restriction in the range of movement) and ultimately changes which are observed on X-rays. As other conditions can have similar clinical signs to those reported in dogs with OA, the attending veterinarian may want to perform additional clinical tests, such as removing some fluid from the joint or putting a small camera (called an “arthroscope”) into the joint to confirm the diagnosis.
At present there is no treatment which can prevent the progression of OA in a joint. However, the clinical signs an affected dog demonstrates can often be ameliorated by avoiding impact activity (such as unrestricted exercise and playing activity), reducing weight (if the dog is overweight) and treating the pain with drugs (most commonly, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which are similar to Asprin in their action but which have been designed specifically for dogs to maximize their safety). Diets which contain high levels of Omega-3 fatty acids have also been shown to be effective in treating the signs associated with OA. When the OA becomes unresponsive to treatment, then salvage procedures such a joint replacement or surgical fusion of the joint can be considered. So whilst an important and common condition, in most dogs an effective treatment regime can usually be found.
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How much should you feed your dog?
In 1987 the Nestle Purina Company initiated a major study following the health of Labrador Retrievers through their lifetime to look at the effects of dietary restriction (dieting!) on health. The investigators hypothesised that reducing the dietary food intake of a group of Labrador Retrievers would reduce the likelihood of them developing hip dysplasia and hip osteoarthritis when compared to a second group who were permitted unrestricted feeding. The two groups of twenty four dogs were otherwise kept in the same conditions for their lifetime, and their health monitored at regular intervals. The study was so successful that it went on to report many previously unknown health benefits which were associated with avoiding obesity in pet dogs.
Unsurprisingly, the dogs which were given unrestricted food became obese, yet restricted fed dogs were relatively slimmer. The results of the study were startling. The restricted fed Labradors lived longer (nearly 2 years longer on average). The causes of death were broadly similar between the two groups. The incidence of osteoarthritis in the restricted fed group was lower at all-time points; for example at 8 years of age only 10% of the restricted fed dogs were affected by osteoarthritis in two or more joints, whereas 77% of the unrestricted food group were affected by osteoarthritis in two or more joints. Dietary restriction also decreased the rate of decline of the numbers of cells in the immune system and their activity.
The results of the study were very clear; if you can avoid your Labrador Retriever becoming fat, they will live longer and healthier, and the diseases they develop will occur later in life. This is probably a moral to us all!
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Dogslife may be asking for more of your help!
Dogslife is contacting a random selection of members to ask for their help in enabling us to compare the illness information recorded in the Dogslife website to the health records kept by their vets. We would like to collect a few veterinary records so that we can find out if we are asking owners the right questions about dogs’ health. If you have been selected, Dogslife will contact you either by phone or email to ask your permission to contact your vet. We will then request a copy of your dog’s health record directly from your vet. Dogslife will not ask any further questions (to owners or their vets) about the details included in either their dog’s Dogslife record, or the veterinary records, and will not pass them on to any other party.
Dogslife will also be contacting the few participants who have not recorded a postcode for details of their location so that we can add it to their dog’s record. Members are not required to provide this information, but obtaining a postcode (or just the first part of it e.g. EH25) means that we can approximately locate where dogs are living in relation to local environmental/climatic conditions that may be affecting their health. All postcodes presented to Dogslife are held in the strictest confidence and will not be forwarded to any other party.
Thanks again to the Dogslife members who are helping us collect these extra details; you are assisting the study enormously and are playing a very important part in our on-going work to improve the questions we ask and validate the quality of information we collect.
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Don't forget to come back to Dogslife to update your dog's record www.dogslife.ac.uk
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