Jill Bowen

Jill Bowen has practiced veterinary medicine in England and Texas and has taught at Texas A&M. She lives with her veterinarian husband and two cats in Blacksburg. If you have a question, please write to her in care of The Roanoke Times, P.O. Box 540, Christiansburg, VA 24068, or send an e-mail to mjbowen@radford.edu

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I own a  22-year-old mare. She is very gentle, sensible, kind and willing, with great manners. To save money I decided to pasture board her during the  fall and  spring  but plan to keep her in a stall half  time  in the winter and summer .

She has suddenly become difficult if not impossible to catch. Shortly after she went to field board, I heard that people were having trouble catching her  and having to use grain to catch her. However, after about a month, I, too, had trouble.  The only reliable way to catch her is to have the a.m. feeders put her up. She comes up for the morning feeding and so far she is catchable at that time. When she lived in a stall half the day, I would often arrive to ride while she was in her stall, but even if I arrived after turnout, I could walk right up to her in the field and catch her. Any suggestions on how to break her of this bad habit ?

Obviously your mare had a bad experience when being caught and has decided that she is better off exerting her independence and remaining loose. I presume that she is turned out with several other horses and sometimes the uncaught horses can bully the one being caught.   Also, because horses are  herd animals, she may well be copying the lead mare.  I always took grain or horse nuts when catching our horses because I wanted them to enjoy the experience rather than view it as a necessary evil. I see nothing wrong in putting her up after the morning feed, especially because she is used to being in a stall. It is quite possible that once she is back in the old routine of being in a stall half time,  she will revert to being easy to catch . Meantime, I suggest  you ask the livery owner if she can be out at grass in a small paddock with perhaps one or two other horses rather than in a large pasture with a whole herd , especially if some of these are also hard to catch. Horses are great at learning bad habits from their friends.  Always take her a treat when catching her so she associates you with something good.

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I was watching a  dog show  and one of the dogs mentioned was a shiba inu.  I have never heard of this breed. What are they?

The shiba inu is the most popular dog in Japan and arrived in the United States  relatively recently. The origin of the shiba inu can be traced  to the mountain people of Japan many thousands of years ago where the dogs were used to flush birds, small game and wild boars. The dogs are excellent watchdogs, with a high-pitched bark. Shiba inu weigh between 16 and  22 pounds and are 13 to 16 inches tall at the shoulder. They have a double-layer  coat, and the most popular color is  a bright orange-red with a cream or gray undercoat so they look like  a teddy bear. Shiba inu make good apartment dogs because they do not need a great deal of exercise, and apart from spring and fall when they change their coat, they are minimal shedders.

Shiba inu  need early obedience training and socialization; without this they can be quite destructive. Care must also be taken with visitors and small children because they have a tendency to snap. Being a sight-hunter with boundless energy, speed and a love of the chase, any yard needs to be very secure, and they should not be left outside without supervision.

Basically healthy dogs, Shiba inu are prone to the inherited problems of luxating patellas, hip dysplasia and abnormal dentition.