Posted on 06/23/2006 5:37:26 AM PDT by Dysart
Perhaps he did overheat on the way home, because of agitation, which is one of the causes of hyperthermia. A beagle would probably just have gotten hot, but if this was a very driven shepherd, the excitement may have sent his body temp through the roof.
FWIW, I found a number of references to Malignant Hyperthermia, a killer of black labs. This is associated with a reaction to some anesthetics.
My old cat had arthritis for years. It didn't seem to cause her much discomfort, but she was very slow, and spent a lot of time resting in the sun.
Cute dogs!
Very interesting information, thanks!
I didn't mean to imply that's what happened with this. You're correct that we don't know the circumstances of this story. I was just generalizing to the fact that so many "kind" kennels and vets refuse to use chokers when they could be the difference between life and roadkill. If it turned out the dog "slipped out" of some "kind" collar, that would just be 1 definite thing I'd put on a list of "suable" negligence. Along with just a few other things, like lousy kennel fencing, etc. But I'm still not a sue-happy person, so it'd have to seem egregious.
Wow, you'd think they'd let the dogs be together as it was! Even if just side-by-side adjoining kennels.
Nice-looking dogs.
This story doesn't tell us much at all. After reading it I thought, maybe the dog hung around the house for several days exposed, and of course got dehydrated and "hot"! So maybe it had nothing to do with hyperthermia, just over-exposure. But again, the story doesn't make it clear at all, just as with how he escaped.
I agree that many dogs have necks that are larger than their head, so buckle collars aren't always secure. But I can also see why they'd say they wouldn't leave a dog with a choker on in the kennel unattended, the dog could get it caught on something. I leave buckle collars on mine, intentionally loose enough that they ~could~ pull out of it if they needed.
I found a dog collar snagged on my fence, with tag still on it. I called the number to see if the dog made it home OK... he did. She said she was glad to have the collar back, because he'd lost them before... I said, whatever you do, don't tighten it. If he hadn't have slipped out of it, he might have been stuck back there a long time before I saw it.
Even if they were walking him when he got loose, he probably had to hop a fence to get out. My guess is he opened, or climbed, his kennel because he was alone and anxious.
Good points. However, I think chokes should be on any dog who is out on lead walking, being transferred, etc.
(And I've NEVER had a problem with chokes - that's all my dogs wear, or my sister's [when they have collars]. That's just us, but we've never had such snagging incidents. Which, BTW, it's much more likely they'll "snag" AT THE LINKS than directly IN the pull ring - the only way to make it close! More likely to me they'll try to run from the vet's office during overnight stays.)
True enough that they'd have to be a special kind of unlucky to snag the ring on the choker... unless they were tied with one and were running with a broken or dropped lead behind.
Poor baby....
Heat stress is a huge problem for dogs.
Thanks for the additional information. It's very sad.
I'm sure they are devastated.
Even if it wasn't far, if it was hot, and it has been in Texas... and his handler was away and there was no water available, a dog can get overheated in a hurry.
Sad but moving story. :(
We've had our babies...(the EVIL pit and the almost as EVIL boxer mix)...in the kennel a couple of times. The last time, over Christmas, Evil Miss Patches wouldn't eat or drink, and had to go the emergency vet hospital. $1k in vet bills later, we decided to keep them at home while we went away and pay someone to stay at our house. They still stress, but not nearly as bad. And we don't stress nearly as much, either.
(there are pics of the little devils on my home page)
I have managed a boarding kennel, under NO circumstances would I leave any kind of collar on a dog in boarding. The number of times dogs have died this way is unreal. They catch on anything and they die.
A lot depends on genetics...for some shepherd lines, 8 is old age; for others it's late middle aged, but as some others here have indicated, I look at a German shepherd who lives beyond 11 as a person who lives past 100...doesn't happen as a rule, but certainly not unheard of. A shep that lives beyond 12 is like a person that makes it past 110...exceptionally rare, but possible.
GRAPEVINE -- Darby the Grapevine police dog escaped from a Corinth kennel Thursday by climbing over a 6-foot-tall chain-link fence and then eluding a worker who chased him for 25 minutes on a motorcycle, police Sgt. Bob Murphy said Friday.
Darby ran miles before finding his way to the neighborhood where his handler lives, about a mile from the clinic.
But the heat and the chase may have proved too much for the 8-year-old German shepherd, who died after he was returned to the Corinth Animal Hospital, Murphy said.
A woman who answered the telephone there Friday said the hospital would not comment.
Police are awaiting the results of a post-mortem exam to determine the cause of death, Murphy said.
Darby's handler, officer Brian Hintz, had just dropped the dog off and left town to go to a family reunion in San Antonio. After Darby escaped, the clinic called Hintz and he returned to help search.
Hintz saw Darby down the street from his house, already in physical distress.
The dog had not been ill before Thursday, Murphy said.
"It all went on in a relatively short amount of time," he said
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