Animals

Over the years JAW has lived with several different cats and dogs.

Gus and Holly

These two lovable mates were brother and sister born September 16th 1996. They used to hang around with their big brother Zak and then Fleur the rottweillers and generally do nothing... ah, such is a cat's life.

Sound: hungry kittens

A previous cat of ours, "Max" loved our big boofy rottweiller Zak and thought that *all* rotties were big and lovable. Until one day he found a neighbouring rottweiller that wasn't lovable and killed him. So for Gus and Holly I built a special "cat cage" where they got locked up every night.

They never were allowed to roam around at night and although this sounds a bit cruel I think it is best for both them and the environment. Because I started it from day dot, they never knew any better anyway. Besides, with plenty of room, nice shelves to sleep on, food to eat and toys to play with sometimes they didn't even bother to get up when the cage was unlocked in the morning...

The local council prefers that all cats are sterilised, in fact it is manditory at the cat haven, where they came from. Thus at six months of age both were fixed. It is for the best again for both them and the environment.

Sadly, in 2001, Gus was taken by a dog - same as Max. Although he was locked up everynight, he came across an "unfriendly" dog during the day. Being such a placid cat he wouldn't have run, not expecting what was to come. I came to the conclusion that if you have a big dog and a cat, the cat will get used to big dogs and instead of running in fear when it sees them it carrys on its business - only some big dogs kill cats on sight.

I retrieved his body, and let his sisters Holly and Fleur see him, in case they needed to see and understand what had happened (who knows how an animals mind works?) Holly, his biological sister, was horrified and ran off. Fleur, being a young puppy didn't really understand and sniffed for a while before walking off. I then buried him deep next to our other cat.

Holly took a long while to adjust, they had always been together since birth. She moved her affection to Fleur the Rottie instead - she always hanged out with her, licking her like she was cleaning her own kittens. It is really quite a bizarre sight - a cat grooming a dog with both of them loving it!

In 2002 our suburb really started taking off and there were new young cats everywhere. Since cats are a bit territorial, and there were so many cats, some tried to muscle in on Hollys territory. There were constant fights between her and them and she usually came off second best being older, slower and not really used to having to defend her ground. Not to mention being locked up at night doesn't help keep her territory. Some mornings I had to shoo away the cats that were trying to get into the cage to pick a fight!

Several trips to the vet happened until in 2003 I had to make that really hard decision - she had a huge absiss over her head and was in a bad way. I knew it was just going to happen over and over, she couldn't become a completely indoor cat as she wasn't adjusting too well to our newborn baby. I sadly gave the nod to the green needle rather than keep shelling out hundreds of dollars at the vets.

Although the missus and I love cats we've decided no more for now. 2 taken buy dogs, 2 getting the green needle from fighting with young neighbourhood cats. If we ever get another cat it will have to be a 100% inside cat. It is the only option I can see that will work.

Zak

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We adopted Zak just before heading north for a 6 month contract in Port Hedland Western Australia in '94. He was a noisy little chap for the first few months but soon adapted to life in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

He got "the chop" after 6 months as we never wanted to breed him, he was pure Rottie but without papers.

Once we'd moved into our new house in Perth he was pretty happy with the cooler climate. He'd always been near the ocean and this was no change - regular walks to the beach meeting new dog friends. But being a male ,pretty big and a dominating type he was more interested in showing everyone who was the boss ;)

Rottweillers (as with most big dogs) are prone to hip displacea, a heriditary disease. This was a bit of a worry to us as once the hips start to wear down there is not much that can be done.

We had him out running in some sand dunes fetching sticks one time when we saw him trip with a bit of a yelp and he started limping. A month later he'd stopped limping mostly but we could see it still troubled him, we took him to the vet fearing he'd done his hip in.

As it turned out he had torn both cruciate ligaments in his rear right knee. Suffice to say that an expensive operation and 6 months later he was almost back to normal. He always limped a little when cold during the winter months but the vet had done an excellent job and he got full use of his knee again. Lesson: don't run your big dog through loose sand!

During the operation he had a x-ray and got a perfect hip score. Reassuringly he was never going to have problems with hip displacea.

For those who don't know about Rotties they are a loving and loyal dog, and sometimes too clever for their own good... Zak can sit,stay,drop,shake,fetch your ball, etc etc - in fact sometimes I might have said something to him and I swear he understood me ;)

There is one area of caution however. Being a bit dominating he could tend to be possessive of his food. We tried to get him out of that habit when he would growl at us while eating from an early age. No amount of yelling or punishing would stop him. We tried for years, we figure it was linked to the way we had brought him up using food as a reward. Advice: teach them from the word go to eat with you hanging around annoying them, putting hands in their bowl, scratching their bellies, rubbing their paws...

Zak died 28th December 2000 from bloat. Bloat happens when the dogs stomach gets twisted and stuff can't get through. The gut expands, stopping blood circulation which causes the dog to go into into shock and die. It happens quite quickly.

Bloat is common in large chested dogs, and just happens. When not identified quickly death occurs fast, can be within a day. Often the stomach will get twisted if the dog is rolling around just after eating - the body twists but the stomach stays still - which causes the twist in the stomach.

Dogs with bloat can be operated on but if it is too far gone then often there is not much they can do. When a dogs stomach has been twisted once it is quite prone to happening again. The operation often entails stapling the stomach to the chest wall to prevent it from further twisting.

My best advice is to ensure your large-chested dog does not gulp their food down, and don't encourage them to play hard just after they finish eating.

Sound: Zak, annoyed

Fleur

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Fleur was born 19th November 2000. We got her at 6 weeks out of the paper from two Rottie enthusiasts who had their first litter.

Since previously having our big male Rottie we decided that (a) Rotties are the only dogs to have and (b) we'd have a female this time.

Fleurs personality is typical of Rotties but there are a couple of differences we've noticed - she's not as "sooky" as a male, but she is "sneaky" unlike the male. Where the male would hear a noise, run through the garden to the fence to bark then think "oh dear, what have I done" and come covering to you; she'll sneak into the garden, dig around and then try to cover her tracks...

Since having our first child I have worked out that female dogs are more kid-friendly than male dogs. If kids are pulling Fleurs ears, whacking her head, or just generally doing things that young kids do - Fleur will take it for as long as she could be bothered, and walk off once she'd had enough. Zak, undoubtable, would have snapped at the kid. He would test even us from time to time to see who the boss was, so I can only assume he would decide that he was the boss of the kid *always*!

Fleur tried on the "who's the boss" with our daughter quite regularly but we were always around to remind her. We taught our daughter that she was the boss, and to tell Fleur to "sit" and "drop" and make sure she did it. By the time our daughter was taller, eye-to-eye, than the dog, Fleur had, albeit with sadness, relegated herself back down to the very bottom of the pecking order.

With that said however, these days our daughter loves to spend time and play with Fleur - who welcomes all the extra attention, even if there is some ear pulling involved ;)

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