The Awful Donut Syndrome in Dogs

This is an old comic picture drawn by my friend Jasur Rakhimov (http://jasur.rakhimovs.com) a while ago for my dog website. We wrote about the Awful Donut Syndrome. We had a lot of fun, I know it is somewhat silly but thought I would share anyway. We are concerned about dog's health and breeding practices.

...Imagine that in your favorite breed now there is a terrible inheritable disease which affects dog's hearing, nerve conductibility, coordination and ability to understand commands (well if you do not train your dogs and do not give them any commands, the latter might not be a big issue). This disease manifests itself all of a sudden, without any initial signs and leads to full disability. Your dog curls into a donut, stops eating, rolls around the house and shits everywhere despite not eating anything (a real enigma of nature!). Then of course it will die a painful death.

The only way to be certain that your dog does not carry the Donut syndrome is to check if you can teach it to crawl under your bed following the command "Tara-Bara-Schmeps-Fuchs!" and then to crawl back. Please bear in mind that the bed must be of the relevant size so that the dog actually fits under it. This test was developed by certified specialists, biologists, veterinarians and ethologists. They chose that very combination of sounds and movement that allows to confirm whether the dog bears this awful genetic heritage. If the dog cannot pass this test, it will definitely have the Donut syndrome and will pass it to the progeny, in the autosomal dominant way.

Would you be interested in filtering these dogs out of your breeding program, assuming of course that you do not like such donuts? And if yes, would you agree to train and test your dogs, given that you know that the problem exists and three dogs of your friend have already turn donuts? However those who passed the test will not donut at all. So, how about testing?

And, if any of your breeding stock does not pass, will you avoid breeding the dog, despite all its champion titles? Let us say that is a stunning dog, a show star, but definitely a future donut?

And please do not tell me that dogs do not go donut in our country. They do. Especially as everyone now tries to import new modern breeding stock. Please do test and be fair with yourself, if you see that a dog is a potential donut - do not breed it! Even though the Donut Test is not mandatory, please test your dogs. Also please consider bringing in new lines and bloods fully free from Donut. Although... of course it is up to you. You are allowed to breed Donuts if you like.

Snow Fun with the Dog and Sleighs

Last year we bought a weight pulling harness for the dog to make winter even more fun. My daughter loves her little sleighs, and I thought that some additional exercise would be beneficial for Jager, so I did some research and bought this harness. Obviously, for sleighs like this - small ones, where the rope is fastened at a low level - you need weight pulling harness rather than the more professional sledding harness. A professional sled harness is for taller sleighs, and the vector of effort there goes in parallel with the ground like here:

(source: www.windchill.com.au)

Obviously, with the children's sleighs like ours, it would be uncomfortable and even damaging for the dog, because there will be a very large pressure on the croup. All that pulling effort actually should go evenly and smoothly to the sleigh, without pressing too hard on any spot on the dog's body, so for our needs a weight pulling harness was the best, according to the professional advice. You can see that there is no pressure on the tail area if the dog pulls. The load distributes evenly to the dog's back. 

This is a cleverly made and inexpensive harness that fits well. I bought it on Ebay from there very nice and helpful US sellers - 5kpetproducts. They make these harnesses themselves with a number of other products, and helped me choose the size properly.

We have had lots of fun with it last year; we even gave a ride to my younger brother...

...only he was not very good at driving this vehicle and got lost somewhere on the way. 

I could not see any difference in the physical shape of the dog, frankly. He is fully grown and, while I think such workouts are beneficial for him, I do not believe they can make his chest wider or muscles bulkier. That was just time well spent. 

If you have a large-size adult strong, healthy and energetic dog, you can try this, too - chances are you will both enjoy playing like this in the snow. And then, who knows, you might become a fan of weight pulling or sledding! Just make sure that you start with empty sleighs and increase the load gradually, and be patient while teaching the dog. 

Jager: Glamour and Reality

I have no time to write today, as I am finishing a large report and revamping the shop at the same time. I am so deeply immersed in the shop these days - I do hope that I will not write anything about silk blouses and ikat pillow covers in this report on agricultural development.

In the meantime I just want to post these two photos of my dog, Jager. They are not new, but I like them and some of you (well, few of you) may have not seen them. They were made during the same morning walk, within 40 minutes, which makes them especially funny to me. .

I find the contrast hilarious. It makes me think of cover girls - what they might look like when they have a chance to relax and just enjoy themselves, forgetting about their beauty. And what does it bring to your mind?