Pure Dog Talk

• 677 – Overcoming Obstacles by Giving Grace

  Overcoming Obstacles by Giving Grace [caption id="attachment_13611" align="alignleft" width="429"] Rebecca Fletcher with her Dogo Argentino.[/caption] Rebecca Fletcher joins host Laura Reeves to talk about her journey as a service dog trainer and breeder owner handler of Dogo Argentino, while overcoming extreme obstacles after losing her leg. Fletcher, a retired Marine, started her journey by training her own Dogo Argentino as her first service dog. “Don't give up, but give yourself grace,” Fletcher said. “Grace is absolutely vital. And I wasn't very good at it. I get mad myself. You know, I train service dogs for disabled people and I tell them all the time, you know, you gotta be patient with yourself. And I give them some great advice. I'm not always good at taking my own advice. “I got my first Group One under Doctor Keating. And it meant so much to me because I was on the verge of not willing to do this anymore. I don't know if he'll ever know how much it meant to me to actually be in his ring and have a dog that I love so much be awarded. But it was amazing. “I didn't know anybody in the dog show world really. And it was a process, but a lot of people were very, very welcoming and guiding me. It's been a great learning process of figuring out how I can be in the ring with my disability. And again, advocating for yourself, you know, the AKC is not exempt from providing reasonable accommodations to us. "I hope to continue inspiring people to get out there and try and do whatever they can do. My goal is to help inspire other people to overcome their challenges and keep going. "We all have challenges and how we face those challenges I think is what makes all the difference."

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• 676 – Brucellosis or CHV? Deadly Diseases for Puppies

  Brucellosis or CHV? Deadly Diseases for Puppies Dr. Marty Greer joins host Laura Reeves for a Veterinary Voice topic that can be devastating for breeders and deadly for puppies. Brucellosis and CHV (Canine Herpes Virus) can both decimate a litter. “If you lose even a single puppy in a litter, have testing done on that puppy,” Greer said. “Have a necropsy done of some form at your vet clinic or at a referral center or at a reference lab, so that you find out what happened because you can't learn from it if you bury your mistakes. You can't learn anything and you can't move your breeding program forward until you know what happened. “There is no diagnosis of fadubg puppy syndrome. So if your vet says that's what you have, you need to find another vet or dig a little harder with the one you're working with. Because you need to find out what happened. “Brucellosis hasn't gone away. There's no vaccine for it. So yes, you can have anything from a normal looking bitch and a normal looking stud dog to a stud dog that has inflamed testicles. You can see normal adult dogs develop brucellosis symptoms. “These can be uveitis, which is inflammation of the eye. They can be disco spondylitis, which is inflammation of a disc. So if you go in for a diagnosis at your vet clinic and you have certain symptoms, even in a normal dog that isn't a breeding dog they may test for brucellosis because it can cause other diseases. “In bitches we can see anything from apparent infertility where she looks like she didn't conceive but she actually conceived and lost the litter, to puppies that are born weak that died shortly thereafter, puppies that are born normal and die afterwards, bitches that have infertility. It is shared through venereal spread, which is male to female breeding, but it can be spread through any body fluid. So urine, placentas, all those things. “Brucellosis survives freezing semen, so it doesn't even get killed at that -300° that we see semen frozen at. So you need to be aware that when we say you should test for brucellosis, we’re not joking around. You should test for brucellosis.” Listen in for more information. Learn more about USDA approved brucellosis testing HERE.

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• 675 – “Each puppy is another little sketch” – Liz Hansen and Sketchbook

  “Each puppy is another little sketch” – Liz Hansen and Sketchbook [caption id="attachment_13591" align="alignleft" width="300"] Liz Hansen with Seasar at WKC.[/caption] Host Laura Reeves is joined by Liz Hansen, Sketchbook Standard Schnauzers, AKC’s Breeder of the Year nominee for the working group. With a degree from the University of Minnesota in scientific illustration, Hansen named her breeding program Sketchbook. “Sketchbook came just sort of naturally from that because these are little sketches I make. Each little puppy is another little sketch,” Hansen said. “Almost 26 years ago, another breeder and I ran into a problem. We had epilepsy show up in our lines that were related and went looking for somebody to help us keep the good and get rid of this problem. And we were at a show in Columbia, MO, and went and talked to Gary Johnson at the university. And after about a year of bringing him samples and getting other clubs involved and helping to write grants and all this kind of stuff, he said, ‘You know, you just need to come work for me, so I changed jobs over epilepsy. (Listen to Liz’ conversation with Laura about this project from 2017!) [caption id="attachment_13590" align="alignright" width="444"] Standard Schnauzers compete in herding competitions.[/caption] "That's good people that I gave a good dog, just like my sister and I got a great dog to start with. I try to coach people along.” “I like to coach the people that get my dogs,” Hansen said. “We've got over 200 champions and most of those are standard schnauzers and well over 250 performance titles on the standard Schnauzers. And that's not all me. That's good people that I gave a good dog, just like my sister and I got a great dog to start with. I try to coach people along.”

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• 674 – Irish Wolfhounds: Soulful Gentle Giants

  Irish Wolfhounds: Soulful Gentle Giants Love the Breeds returns as host Laura Reeves talks with Jamie Souza Bartlett about Irish Wolfhounds, the gentle giants of the dog world. [caption id="attachment_13583" align="alignleft" width="318"] Jamie grew up with Irish Wolfhounds with her mom, Linda Souza.[/caption] “They're just, they're soulful, they're sweet. They're the gentle giants and I was very, very fortunate to grow up with them,” Jamie says. “Wolfhounds, much like a lot of breeds, were bred for a specific purpose, which was to hunt wolves in Ireland. Eventually, the wolves became extinct in Ireland, and consequently the wolfhounds almost became extinct. And then several years later Captain Graham came along and really found that this was a breed that required rejuvenation and real, real rescuing and bringing back because they're just so wonderful. “You don't own wolfhounds, you're owned by them. It's not an easy breed to have by any means. It comes with its own set of issues. But when you do own them and you're owned by them, there's just really no greater thing in the world. They are so soulful and so wonderful and like, you become part wolfhound. Feeding “As a young dog, they eat quite a bit because you're looking at a puppy that is a pound when it's born and it'll be 100 pounds by the time it's six months old. So the growth rate is very rapid and they do eat quite a bit as babies. And then quite quickly, once they kind of reach their full height it curbs significantly because you're not looking at a dog that's like a Doberman or something that's constantly pacing, constantly moving around. They will have bursts of energy. Big burst of energy in the morning, big burst of energy when it gets cold at night, and the rest of the time they’re chilling. So they really don't eat as much as an adult as one would think, considering their size. [caption id="attachment_13582" align="alignright" width="521"] Puppies in the breed grow fast![/caption] “I always encourage anybody to listen to their breeder and their breeding program because different lines tend to evolve differently and grow at different rates. We were always just really careful. We wanted them off of puppy food and anything that was promoting rapid growth as quickly as possible. We're trying to do things that are keeping them from growing too fast, which is kind of like the opposite of what a lot of other people do or they want them to like beef up. Really, that's absolutely what we don't want to do. Exercise “We also have a lot of protocols, not just around food, but around exercise. And we tell all of our new puppy buyers like you have to be very, very careful with this breed as they're growing up. And again, the inclination is like, ‘ohh, I got a puppy and I want it to go run around and play with my other dogs and I want it to be jumping around and being goofy’ and it's just a hard no. “Until these dogs’ growth plates close you can do really, really irreparable damage and we tell people don't take them into the hotel rooms and let them jump on the beds and jump down, you don't want all that impact on them as they're growing. Once they hit that two year old range then we'll start putting them out carefully with other dogs. It was one of the great things actually about having whippets. My whippets are fantastic exercising our wolfhound puppies, right, because there was no to low impact, but it helped with their movement. They're running, but kept them developmentally in a good place where they weren't getting injuries to the shoulders or elbows or anything else.”

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• 673 – Maripi Wooldridge on How to Make Your Dog a Winner

  Maripi Wooldridge on How to Make Your Dog a Winner Host Laura Reeves is joined by Maripi Wooldridge, handler of the 1995 Westminster Kennel Club Best in Show winning Scottish Terrier, Ch. Gaelforce Postscript. More recently, Maripi’s Lakeland Terrier MM won the group here in 2022. Maripi takes us through how she thinks about making a dog a winner. [caption id="attachment_13576" align="alignleft" width="468"] Maripi Wooldridge judging the 2024 Wire Fox Terrier National Specialty show.[/caption] LR: If you want your dog to always be best in show ready? Any breed, what are your three top tips? MW: Conditioning both mental and physical. They have to be fed right, exercised right. Mentally, they have to be treated like they’re best in show dogs so they know it. I think you always have to start out with a good dog and people think that ‘oh good enough is good enough’ and good enough is just not good enough. A lot of people do some winning with “good enough” but to really have a top dog you have to have good ones and you have to manage them right. You have to manage how you go to dog shows, where you go to dog shows, and have a good relationship with your clients. Nowadays, there are way fewer good clients and money clients that can afford to do this business. LR: Treat it like a best in show dog. What does that mean to you? What does that look like to you? MW: Well, as far as my breeding program, I bring every puppy up like if it's going to be a good one. I think most good breeders and successful breeders do that. Anybody that can pick a puppy at eight weeks and put their mortgage on it, they’re way better than me. But when you get them in as a handler, they have to feel special. They have to feel special over the class dogs that are gonna go home in a month and a half. They have to have things whether it's walks, whether it's put on the table every day, and even if you just brush their coats or clean their coats or pet 'em, so that they know they are special. Bring them in last instead of first, so that they are the big dogs around. I mean, little things that mean a lot to the dogs that people don't even think about. First out in the morning, that's very big if you want a dog to feel special. It makes a huge difference, especially with the smart breeds. I mean, there's some dogs that doesn't really matter, they're fine, I'm here. But with breeds that are clever and smart, you have to bend over backwards. I had an assistant when I was showing Peggy Sue that would go in the crate room in the middle of the night with a flashlight to look into her crate to see how she was laying because she would wake up in the morning and have like a little wrinkle on the side of her coat. So she made bedding so that she would not get that little wrinkle on the side of her thigh. That level of attention is absolutely needed for a dog to give you everything they have. The second half of the episode is available for Patrons Only. Subscribe at https://puredogtalk.com/patron/to hear more from Maripi's decades of insight.

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