This is not about blood trail dogs as much as caring for your dog during the off season, self medicating, and saving yourself a lot of money and extending your dogs life.
First I recommend that you get Ivermectin in a liquid form from the feed store for heart worm prevention. 1/2 cc per 50 pound dog orally once a month is my best advise.
I wanted to put a photo of a bottle of Ivermec here, but I am on a new computer, and I don't have all my photos in this new Windows 10 yet. Sorry, maybe I can come back and edit it in later.
It is OK to over dose because Ivermec also works against intestinal parasites at the same time it prevents heart worms. If you live in a southern state of the USA, you live in a parasite rich environment and I don't care if it is an inside dog, you need to worm them once a month minimum. Regarding parasites, my dogs get wormed twice a month. Read on...
In addition to Ivermec, I recommend Safeguard, Panacur, or Valbazen once a month for intestinal parasites. And what is so great about Valbazen is it kills liver flukes. And if you have a blood tracking dog, and you are training with deer liver, you are risking your dogs life, if you DON'T use Valbazen!
And I like to dose Ivermec and two weeks later, Panacur, then two weeks later, Ivermec, and two weeks later, Panacur. I do it on the weekends and I don't keep a written record, because I do it every other weekend 12 months a year.
If you live in the Rocky mountains or the west coast you can proberbly get by worming your dog twice a year, and think I am over medicating my dog. But here along the Gulf coast and especially all the southern states, based upon my experience and watching other people learn the hard way, we don't worm our dogs enough.
But, I recommend 'you' keep a record because too many people do not worm enough and going to the vet is time consuming and a big waste of money in my opinion! You will read more about veterinarians in my email letter to Carlos below.
I worm puppies every week with a drop of Panacur for 12-16 weeks, and then once a month like the adults.
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Below is my email to a very satisfied customer from south Texas who bought a tracking dog a year ago as a puppy and got her spayed at the beginning of the season in November 2018, at his veterinarians advise. I tried to explain to him why he should wait, but he wanted to 'get it done'. Even justified his plan based upon the presumption that he would 'need' her to track in January and didn't want her coming in heat and not being a 'good' tracker. But bear in mind he already had a great tracking dog, and the puppy was a back up for the future. In the end he didn't use a tracking dog one time this past season!
Email to Carlos regarding Lizzie's heritage 4/5/2019
Jesse is her Daddy,
NALC Reg. C Arrow Patch is her grandfather,
and Bobalou, is her great, great grandfather.
Regarding getting Lizzie spayed...
I wish you would have listened to me,
because in my opinion you really f@%ked up getting her spayed.
But it is your dog, and the veterinarian is in a for-profit business,
and he will ALWAYS tell you what leads to the bottom line OF PROFIT for him, not your dogs best interest.
You did not need her as a tracking dog this past season! You were putting the cart before the horse.
Spaying her before breeding her seriously compromised her immune system.
Do you recall she had complications after surgery? I am not surprised!
One more thing: annual 'boosters' is 'over vaccination' and does not increase or improve immunity.
This applies to government mandated rabies as well as the annual 'parvo shot'.
It compromises your dogs immunity, and shortens their life, it does not protect or extend the life of the dog,
but does the exact opposite! And where did I get that from? My old-time veterinarian who just passed away!
I took my dog to Doc, for vaccinations and he advised me that he: "didn't trust those vaccinations." Soooo, I got a second opinion.
I then went to my 'new' veterinarian who had just moved here from San Francisco to retire,
and he broke it down for me. The American Veterinarian Association issued an announcement that research had proven that 'annual boosters' were compromising dogs immunity and they understood the financial implications, but in their opinion, annual boosters did nothing but boost the veterinarians bank account and shorten the dogs life.
And information came to me in 2004, well that was 15 years ago?
And I never heard another word about it, even though I am constantly researching the issue!
You may believe that the vet is your friend but human and animal doctors are just like the police:
They lead us to believe that they are here to protect and serve us, but in reality,
they protect the cash flow and serve themselves in the long run.
Doctors are not in the business of curing dogs or humans. They are in the business of creating repeat customers!
Please forgive me for speaking so harshly about 'your friend' the veterinarian, but I have had 3 'old time' veterinarians in the last decade, who opened my eyes to what is really going on. Two of them actually said this to me: "Boy, don't you know, a veterinarian license is a license to lie and steal?"
