Caoimhe's Day Out

Some of Magic's blog  followers may have noticed that her younger sister Caoimhe hasn't been blogging or even turning up in the blog posts for a bit. I thought I would take over a post to just explain what has been happening with her this past few months. We had struggled a lot with what we thought was her bad behaviour - screaming at other dogs; attacking our cats; hyperactive on walks etc. After months of training, herbal remedies; Thunder shirts etc etc things were just deteriorating. Caoimhe was so fearful of everything even a leaf falling off a tree near her frightened her. She never rested, was always on the alert and so different to Magic in every way. We tried to remember when this all started as she was not at all like that when we first had her as a puppy - laid back, happy, playing with our cats...and then someone suggested it could be related to her vaccinations.

To cut a long story short, the timing seemed to fit and, as our usual vet was unable to help with this, we took Caoimhe to a holistic vet practice some miles away where as well as being trained in conventional veterinary medicine, they are trained in veterinary homeopathy. We saw a lovely American vet who after a 2 hour consultation prescribed one dose of a homeopathic remedy which has shown amazing results! Caoimhe is now 3 weeks on and has calmed down hugely, she walks well on lead (most of the time :-)) she will rest and snooze like the other dogs, she is better behaved around the cats who are now coming back into the house. It seems that Caoimhe must have suffered encephalitis from the live distemper vaccine (she was given this  as part of her vaccination programme at 8 and 10 weeks old) which has caused some damage to her brain and triggered the terrible fearfulness she suffered. Sadly she may never get back to the laid back happy dog she was as a pup but if we can get her more stable, less fearful and able to go out and about with the others it will be a huge step forward. At the suggestion of the vet we made a change from the routine we had been sticking to up till now and took Caoimhe for a day out to Castle Howard, a dog friendly stately home not too far from here, on her own, to see how she coped and all went well. Here are some more photos of her day out:

Castle Howard

Watching the Koi Carp

Balancing on the fountain's edge

A bit of furtling

Enjoying some strawberry milkshake

Caoimhe relaxed after an enjoyable day out.