8 minute read
Spotlight on the farm dog
by VetScript
They’re best mates to many farmers, indispensable to all. Gerard Hutching investigates how caring for farm dogs has changed and the part veterinarians play.
RECENT DECADES HAVE seen a sea change in attitudes to caring for what Marlborough veterinarian Stuart Burrough describes as “amazing animals and elite athletes”.
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Where once farmers might have fed their dogs throwaway lamb offcuts, and left them in kennels at the mercy of the elements, a rising tide of awareness is setting new standards for working farm dog care.
Cathryn Peacocke, Practice Manager at Atkinson & Associates Veterinary Services in the King Country town of Piopio, confirms a shift in attitude from observations she’s made in the past 10 years.
Cathryn explains that some of the big advances in farm dog care can be put down to drugs, nutrition and kennels. For example more farmers are putting coats on their dogs in winter, enabling the dogs to rest rather than use up precious energy pacing around their kennels trying to keep warm.
“Ten years ago it wasn’t uncommon to see very thin farm dogs who weren’t regularly wormed or fed enough, and were sometimes fed poor-quality food. They were injured regularly and didn’t last very long. There are still dogs like that out there, but these days they’re the exception to the rule.”
And where in the past farmers might have waited until arthritis slowed dogs down, they are now being more proactive by putting them on antiinflammatory drugs as soon as they show any signs of stiffness.
“They might just give the drugs as pulse therapy if their dogs have a big day ahead of them – or as the dogs get older they might get a more constant course. There’s one product [mavacoxib] that you can give once a month; it’s been a game-changer for farm dogs because farmers aren’t always compliant in dosing daily.”
Big strides have also been made in nutrition. Dogs used to be fed mutton no matter the quality, but one of the upsides of the better prices farmers are being paid for livestock is that the practice has largely stopped. “It’s a godsend for nutrition,” says veterinarian Caroline Robertson of Vet Services Hawke’s Bay.
Veterinarian Stuart, from Vet Marlborough, compares dogs to elite athletes, and says the All Blacks wouldn’t try to perform on “rubbish” when diets
with high levels of protein and fat give them more stamina and stronger bones.
Specialty dry-food diets don’t come cheap. For example, the Royal Canin mobility diet costs almost $200 for 15kg, but Cathryn says the higher price tag can come with a new lease on life for some dogs.
“I recently talked to a guy who’d put his nine-year-old Huntaway on this food, and he said he’s a different dog,” she says. “It means he can get his young dog going, so rather than having to buy another dog, the old dog can keep going until the younger one is ready.
“He said, ‘I feel I owe it to him, he’s been a really good dog to me.’”
A dog’s working lifespan depends on the terrain in which they work, Cathryn says. Five to seven years is the maximum on steep hill country, and after that they might be sold to someone with an easier property. Cathryn knows of a number of nine-year-olds who are still working and are valuable members of their teams.
Financial self-interest is one of the chief drivers of the transformation in care. Chris Macdonald, station manager at Patearoa in Central Otago, says a welltrained dog can be worth anything from $8,000 to $10,000, so any measures to extend their working life (as the farmer’s second-most-valuable asset after a vehicle) are welcome.
Chris has six dogs on the 20,000-stock-unit property and treats them as part of the family.
“Most guys are pretty caring, and some appreciate their dogs more than others. It depends on your upbringing: if you come from an environment where people treat their dogs well, you will too. Some dogs get good pats during the day, but some people hardly pat their dogs at all; they’re just tools to them.
“Some farmers buy dogs and trade them, while others keep them from pups to when they die. In the past old dogs might have been put down, but now a lot of people value their dogs’ service and treat them to a damn good retirement – which they should get.”
For Chris, a typical day starts with giving his dogs a run before he loads them onto the dog box on the ute and heads off to work. In spring, lambing is the most important job, and he prefers to use the three heading dogs rather than the boisterous Huntaways, who come into their own herding sheep in the yards.
Chris sees veterinarians as being at the forefront of dog health and wellbeing, and says care has become more sophisticated. Equally, farmers are more prepared these days to spend a lot of money on rehabilitating their dogs if they’re injured.
Veterinarians Stuart and Caroline are part of a team of three helping to spearhead the newly launched Wallago Dogs, a learning programme that includes a free set of resources for veterinary practices. They, together with Elanco technical veterinarian Kirstie Inglis, who’s also an animal wellbeing representative for the company, developed the resources.
The aim of Wallago Dogs is to enthuse clinics to improve the services they offer their farm dog clients. Ideally clinics will designate ‘Wallago Champions’ – staff who drive proactive farm dog health initiatives including annual health checks, recording and following up on examination findings and advising on kennel set-ups. The programme is bankrolled by Elanco but clinics don’t have to buy in or use their products.
“I wanted to spread enthusiasm and information, and reignite conversations nationwide about proactive working dog health,” says Kirstie.
Wallago Dogs includes a learning module from Stuart hosted on VetSpace, which explains how to get the most out of the all-important farm visits, such as by checking that all dogs are on worming and flea treatment programmes, and getting monthly sheep measles treatment if appropriate. Other things to look out for include poor teeth, tumours that can be removed at a small size (rather than waiting until they are big), and arthritis.
Stuart says that by going onto farms veterinarians see the dogs’ environments
and gain a good understanding of their situations. The visits also offer farmers peace of mind by releasing some of their responsibility for dog care. Wallago Dogs also offers tear-off examination pads for veterinarians and veterinary nurses (see page 35), designed with easy tick boxes and diagrams. The pads are also provided as a digital version so clinics can tweak them to, for example, include the clinic’s logo or vaccination schedule. There’s also newsletter articles on arthritis, ectoparasites and worming; a video starring a farmer who loves his dogs; and the winner of a ‘Pimp My Kennel’ competition.
Kirstie, whose interest in New Zealand farm dogs was sparked some 15 years ago, says one of the big pushes for creating Wallago Dogs was wanting to give the dogs the healthcare they deserve.
Working in a veterinary practice, she and colleagues used to do annual dog runs, where in three days they would vaccinate as many dogs as possible.
While she laments that they didn’t have enough time to examine the dogs properly, she notes that many practices are now doing a good job in providing farm dog healthcare.
“If a veterinary practice were to send a dog expert to a farm, rather than a farm veterinarian who normally doesn’t treat dogs, and they did a noseto-tail exam (as they would with a pet dog), they could pick up and foresee health problems a lot better than they would through the frantic ‘let’s cram all the dog vaccinations in the area into three days’,” Kirstie says.
Stuart and Caroline describe Wallago Dogs as a channel for sharing their intellectual property. In their own ways they’ve been following similar programmes for several decades, but they’ve never given it a formal name. Caroline says the initial focus was on vaccinating dogs and trying to get herd immunity, but it has expanded to improving overall animal health.
“We’re giving veterinarians a push,” says Caroline. “Wallago Dogs is a good thing for practices, clients and animals, and gets veterinarians out on farms offering a value-added service.”
Stuart says the resources are mainly aimed at practices that have not yet developed farm dog health programmes, giving them the tools and confidence to get started. He likens a thorough clinical examination to a car’s warrant of fitness check; it will pick up preventable problems.
“Farmers benefit from Wallago Dogs because they can extend their dogs’ working lives by dealing with problems before they develop. And practices benefit through earning income from follow-up procedures. It’s a win-win.”
For Kirstie, Wallago Dogs isn’t just about dogs; it’s also about veterinarians. “I’d love to see more cooperation between clinics, and people being generous with their expertise. It could lead to greater job satisfaction for veterinarians and veterinary nurses through their getting to know farmers and their dogs better.”
The Wallago Dogs learning modules are available at
www.vetspace.nz.
For more information about the programme, email animalhealth_nz@ elancoah.com.
The examination report provided as part of Wallago Dogs guides veterinarians and veterinary nurses through a top-to-tail farm dog health assessment.
