Basic Care and First Aid for Working Cattle Dogs

Kim Heezen, DVM

Fall 2007 

Your cow dog, whether header or heeler, Border Collie, Catahoula or Australian Cattle Dog, is an integral part of your herd management. He saves time and labor, and can cover rough ground with ease. Here are some basic things you can do to keep your friend healthy.

            Vaccinations are very important, even if you think your dog never leaves the ranch. Your local coyotes and wolves can carry parvo, distemper, and leptospirosis. You can bring parvo home on your boots, and maybe that stray dog you saw two days ago isn't the healthiest. The simplest way to protect your dog is through vaccination. Now, one shot given to a 6 week old puppy doesn't protect him for life. Puppies need vaccines given at 8, 12, and 16 weeks of age for greatest protection. If you got your pup after 12 weeks, he will need 2 doses of vaccine spaced 3-4 weeks apart. Rabies shots can be given after 12 weeks of age, but only by veterinarians. As an adult, your dog needs a distemper/parvo/ Adenovirus Type 2/parainfluenza/lepto vaccine every year. Talk with your vet about how often he needs a rabies booster. There is also now a vaccine available for rattlesnake bites. It unfortunately doesn't prevent the bite, but can decrease the severity of the reaction to the venom.

            Parasite control is an important but often overlooked aspect of health care. Ticks can be brutal during the spring and summer. They can cause tick paralysis, and carry a number of nasty diseases. Dogs that catch and eat rodents are susceptible to tapeworms, hookworms and roundworms that not only harm your dog's gut but can be transmitted to humans. There are now a number of excellent products on the market that can greatly reduce the number of little critters your buddy is toting around.

                Working dogs are exposed to many hazards every day - from riding in the back of a pickup to being stomped by an ornery old cow. A little first aid knowledge always comes in handy. Wounds, in general, are very treatable. Keeping them clean with a mild soap and saline solution (like for contact lenses) goes a long way toward healing. And no, dog's saliva has no special healing properties. In fact, too much licking is like you rubbing a wound with sandpaper - it makes things worse. If you think a wound needs stitches, get help as soon as possible. We have the best luck sewing up a wound if it is less than 6 hours old. After that, the risk of infection is very high, and the vet may leave it open. Broken bones are common, and the success rate for fixation is pretty high. If you think your dog broke something, don't wait. Take him to your vet as soon as possible. Putting the puzzle pieces back together is much easier when the fracture happened last night instead of 6 days ago. Rattlesnake bites, scorpion stings, and serious beestings can usually be treated fairly easily, but again, time is of the essence. Eye injuries tend to be very serious, and to save his sight, need to be treated immediately. Sometimes vets have to send certain cases to an opthalmologist for the best outcome. Cheetgrass is the bane of cattle dogs - it can get into his eyes, ears, between his toes, and into any little crevice. Inspect your dog's feet every evening, and remove the awns before they have a chance to burrow in. Check the armpits, groin and around the tail regularly, as the cheet can burrow into the tender skin in these areas and cause abscesses. If he starts shaking his head or whining when you rub his ears, have a vet check them as soon as possible. We have a special little tool to snag the awn out. If your dog starts holding an eye closed, carefully inspect under the lids or flush the eye with saline solution. Take him to a vet immediately if the eye looks abnormal or you can't grab the seed without causing more damage.

            Last but not least, please don't base your dog food purchase on the price tag. He needs high quality nutrition for high quality work. And in a lot of ways, good quality food costs less than cheap stuff- he won't need to eat as much, and therefore won't pass as much stool. A bright eye, shiny haircoat, healthy weight, and willing attitude are worth a few pennies more, right?

Brucellosis Answers

By Helen Klapprich, DVM

Spring 2006 

As many of you already know, Idaho has lost the brucellosis free status we have had for the past fifteen years.  Idaho is now a brucellosis class A state, and I will explain how this affects us as cattle producers.  Most of you may remember when we needed to bleed all the cattle as they went through the sales for breeding purposes.  We became brucellosis free in 1991 and have not had to do this again, until now.

      Any breeding cattle over 18 months of age, need to be bangs tested in order to travel out of the state.  This does not affect in state cattle right now.  The test is done at the sale yard on the day of sale to allow the travel of these cattle.  The state still requires our heifers to be bangs vaccinated before they are a year of age.  However, we have the option to mature vaccinate cattle if we forget to have it done as calves.  In order to mature vaccinate the cow, blood needs to be drawn and tested negative for brucellosis. Permission from the state is needed, and then we vaccinate and tattoo the cow different than if she was vaccinated as a calf.  This allows us to differentiate the mature vaccinates and the calf hood vaccinates.  These mature vaccinated cows can go back into Idaho or into Washington.  Most other states do not accept the adult vaccinated cattle, which is another reason to get them vaccinated as calves.

      Cattle that are not vaccinated can only go directly to approved feedlots for slaughter or to a slaughter facility.  The best way to get the most value from our calves or breeding stock is to make sure to vaccinate them against brucellosis as calves.  At least we have the option to mature vaccinate the cows, but they still have the limitations mentioned above.  If they were to test positive for bangs, the state would probably want to investigate why and possibly look at the rest of the cattle in the herd.  So vaccinating them under a year is the best case scenario.

      The state of Idaho wants to ensure that all our cattle are vaccinated as calves or now as mature vaccinates.  In order to gain the free status back, we need to get our herds protected.  The goal is to have the Idaho cattle 100%  vaccinated.

      I realize that any time we deal with state regulations and blood testing, it gets confusing and can be frustrating.  I hope I have given you information to clear up some of these  questions.  Please don’t hesitate to call me for more information.

Editor’s Note - Helen has opened a new vet clinic in Cottonwood:  Cottonwood Veterinary Service.  She may be reached at 208-962-3450

Recent Vaccine Updates

By Virgil Frei, DVM

Summer 2005

I know it is that time of the year when I should be talking about pasture management, trough placement, alfalfa pasturing or something like that. Believe it or not I was starting to write an article like that when it hit me that you would probably want to know more about vaccines and vaccine schedules. Oh yes us vets are constantly changing the vaccine protocols just to keep you on your toes. So here goes.

It used to be thought that calves less than four months of age would not respond to a vaccination program because of the passive immunity they receive from their mom. Research now shows that this is not true and that they respond quite well to IBR, PIS and BRS V even though they have passive antibodies to these viruses. This holds especially true for the modified live vaccines. BVD may be an exception, yet vaccinating for this virus does help a little even though they have antibodies to this virus. In real life this means we can vaccinate our calves as early as 5 weeks old and receive very good results from this vaccination schedule. It has also been shown in some tests that when we vaccinate our weaned calves it may not be such a great idea to vaccinate with a modified live (MLV) IBR, PIS, BVD, BRSV in conjunction with a Pasturella vaccine. The MLV vaccine may interfere with the body's immune system to develop antibodies to the Pasturella vaccine. The end result is a small response to the Pasturella vaccine and possibly sick calves later from these bacteria. If we vaccinate with this combination it is better to separate the two vaccines by at least two weeks.

Finally, lately you probably have been reading advertisements in the beef magazines on a new Lepto vaccine. If you want me to bore you with all the Latin names, the Lepto vaccine we use now is what everyone would call their five way Lepto vaccine. If you look at the names it includes Lepto pomona, Lepto canicola, Lepto icteroheaemorrhagiae, Lepto grippotyphosa and Lepto hardjo. When a company makes a vaccine it tries to cover as many problems in as many different areas as it can. So for example in the case of the Lepto vaccines we may only really have a problem with Lepto pomona or Lepto canicola and the other strains do not even exist here but are a problem somewhere else say back east or in Europe. This is the case with Lepto hardjo (now called Lepto hardjo-prajitno) which is a problem in Europe but not in the U.S. What they are finding out is that there exists another strain of Lepto hardjo called Lepto hardjo-bovis which does exists in the U.S. and that there are ranches that suffer from this problem. This strain of Lepto is very hard to diagnose because not all labs to which we send samples can test for this form of Lepto and it also does not work too well to just test a few animals that you feel may have this problem. What is recommended is a urine and blood sample from at least 10% of your herd to see if any of these animals have a titer to this Lepto or show the organism. Like other forms of Lepto, it primarily shows as infertility, delayed breeding from embryo mortality and some still births. There is a company that makes a vaccine for this type of Lepto but it does have a little bit of a price tag to it compared to other Lepto vaccines, so you would probably want to know if you have the disease before you just randomly vaccinate for this.

As with all these schedules please contact your veterinarian on the program that bests suits your individual needs. Also there are certain restrictions to vaccinating with a MLV vaccine to your calves at this age that you would want to talk to your vet about. And if I have totally confused you on the different types of Lepto vaccines please talk to him/her about that too.