Sandra777

She has got them very well trained :-) Assuming there is no medical reason for her lack of appetite they'll need to try tough love. Have they had her teeth checked? How much exercise does she get? After spaying a bitch's food needs is (apparently!) reduced. Perhaps they are lucky and she simply does not need much food and doesn't eat more than she needs. Is she underweight? Suggest they get small (like 100g) quantities of two different minces - chicken, beef, lamb etc, maybe the prepackaged stuff for cats which is in the separate plastic bubbles would suit. Use no more than a golfball sized piece per meal. Cook in a pot with less than 1/4 cup of water and 1/8-1/4 teaspoon of crushed garlic until just broken up and warmed through. Add a small amount of kibble and let it soak until the mixture is cool. Put dog and plate in a small area (bathroom? laundry?) somewhere boring and with no distractions. Leave them for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes remove all food left, throw it away. No more food for 24 hours. If she eats all the food, big fuss and give her a couple of pieces of a special treat (cheese, smelly salami, polony) - ON THE PLATE. Absolutely NO treats unless the plate is empty. If she eats up one night, next night give her a little bit more food, like no more than 5 kibble more and a pinch more mince. Next day use a different sort of mince. They can also use sardines or tinned salmon or tuna warmed to room temperature to release the smell. If she is otherwise healthy, occasionally 1/4 teaspoon of vegemite with 1/8 cup of really hot water makes a nice smelly sauce - but it's salty so not good for everyday. Another one that works is cheap and nasty canned cat food, a cheap sloppy one. Warm it slightly (it will STINK LOL) and mix with some kibble. Not good for a dog with a dicky tummy. Over time (a week, two weeks, depends on the dog) they could cook the mince less, maybe just warm it to room temperature and mix with the kibble. Slow steps. Of course they could do it the really mean way. Get another dog (borrowed I mean). Put the picky eater in a crate or behind a baby gate. Feed both dogs close (not TOO close) together. When the other dog has finished eating let it approach but not get right up to the picky eater (not close enough to intimidate). If she continues to eat cool, if she wanders off then pick up the plate and give it to the other dog very obviously and in full sight of the picky eater. Repeat as required. This worked for MIL's picky 'foxy' when she came to visit..

As I said above - have you considered doggy daycare when she is older (fully vaccinated)? A lot of people have puppies and work full time. No it's not perfect, but if I could stay home all day with the dogs I'd be a very happy person - just the bank manager would be a touch upset :-) Don't beat yourself up about "leaving her alone too much" - there are a lot of things that can be done to make her alone time more interesting.

I'm not sure the behaviour is separation anxiety as such, much more likely to be attention seeking (understandably) and boredom (understandably). IMO separation anxiety gets blamed a lot... Is it possible to change the position of the playpen every day, so she is seeing different things during her alone time? Also change the time of day the person comes in. Is it possible for the person to come in twice a day say two times a week and once a day three times a week? Just change things around to stop her getting bored. Change the toys she is left with every day + the person coming to see her gives her new toys. Why crate time during the 6pm-11pm time? Personally I would not be 'encouraging' her to have crate time, this should be her 'with people' time. If she wants to snooze in her crate that's fine, but definitely not 'encouraged' to. During weekends our dogs are out all the time if we are home, I don't believe it is necessary to make them stick to the week day schedule at weekends. Always done this with pups too. JMHO For when she's older have you considered doggy daycare?

We recently moved countries :-) and brought 3 Stafford bitches with us. Two couldn't care less, the third turned in to a total nut case. They are used to being crated/travelling and came on the same flight as us so basically we put them in their crates, the freight guys took them away and 5 hours later we took them out of their crates and put them in the car. One went to stay with people she knows the other two (including the fruitloop) went to kennels for 2 weeks until we got a house. This was in October and it wasn't until 2 or 3 weeks ago that the fruitloop began to settle down. This is her third move, one involved travelling 12 hours in the dog trailer (with stops obviously!) the other was only 10 minutes up the road. In your friend's case I would check out what sounds there might be in the new neighbourhood. Mouse (the fruitloop) is very sound sensative. Have they moved closer to a main road? Is there an industry near by which produces an unusual noise? Even something like a neighbour having a baby or toddler which makes noises she's not used to or a pet bird which the dog isn't used to could upset her. How many days were they together in the house before they left her alone all day to go to work? If they moved on a Saturday and went to work Monday am then the bitch probably imagines she's being abandoned in a "strange place". Staffords are strange creatures at times - all tough and rough on the outside but as soft as butter on the inside. Personally I would NEVER leave one of my dogs loose in the backyard all day, Staffords are far too good and wreaking/escaping for that. What does she have in the yard with her? Familiar things from her previous house? Maybe they need to provide her with more familiar things?

Labs flaps (sorry, couldn't help it)

Does his breath smell sort of "meaty", a touch bloody? If so this is pretty normal in a teething puppy. If it smells rotten and foul he's probably either got at retained tooth which is rotten or something stuck in his teeth. Has he been wormed? A wormy pup generally has sour smelling breath.

In addition to all the above, how much bone is he getting? Is there ever any bone in his vomit (I guess you would have said so). Quite often a dog new to BARF doesn't have the right digestive components to digest all the bone they get so they vomit it back up. If he's getting pre-made patties or minced chicken with bone included you probably won't see any bone and it's unlikely this would cause vomiting, but not impossible.

Early socialisation is a great idea, but when your pup becomes a fully mature adult (which might not be until she's 2 or even 3 years old) then do NOT assume she will continue to like all the dogs she liked when she was a puppy. Sadly a lot of people get lulled into a false sense of security with Staffords, Amstaffs and Bull Terriers. They're great with other dogs as pups (although usually a bit rougher than their playmates) but with some it makes no difference how much socialisation you've done, when they grow up they just plain don't like certain other dogs. Had Staffords 30 years so not anti

Definitely don't leave food down all day - this makes toilet training really really hard. Feed morning and night and he'll poop morning and night, feed all day and he'll poop all day. He's 8 months old, with most toy dogs this is virtually full grown (physically speaking), if you believe in feeding once a day he's nearly ready to be fed once a day, not eating until 7pm won't exactly kill him. He's not a "baby" any more! You could try changing his diet to something which will leave less residue so he doesn't need to poop so much - raw feeding does this but there are low-residue dry foods too. Not sure they're recommended for young dogs but you can research that yourself Good luck, very frustrating to have a dog you think you did everything right with!

Has he always been like this or is it a recent development? At 15 weeks he might be starting to teeth and from what I know of Toy Poodles (not a lot!) this can be a difficult process for some with retained teeth etc. Perhaps his mouth is sore and he doesn't want to chew. A bigger dog can swallow dry dog food whole, I don't think a TP could manage this. The meat would slide on down without chewing. Also, raw meat is virtually always more appealing to any dog than dry biscuits so if he's not all that hungry he's obviously not going to bother with the boring stuff. If he's always been a picky eater and you are definite about wanting to feed him dry food then try mixing his food with other things as mentioned. IMO you're a lot better off feeding him a raw food or BARF diet, but each to their own.

Oats are meant to be very soothing to the stomach and are also good for milk production in a sick bitch so I wouldn't say they have no place, but for a 4.5 month old pup I wouldn't be "wasting" stomach space on something that isn't a natural food for a carnivore. All the supplements sound very complex to me to, but if you're happy with what you're doing and have done the research that's great. Can you not mix his supplements in something like mince?

Go the Portie! Thank doG Tammy will never get to see that clip - she'd probably do that just to get on TV ;) That said, hope the dog was OK (looked to be waging it's tail before the second person came swooping in on it) and maybe with the inside venues the tyre needs to be a break-away type as I can't see how you could anchor it. Molasseslass - at the tyre not being pegged down especially with beginner dogs!

Excellent idea! I got the bag from the breeder so poor fool me Still, ask the breeder if Eukanuba has a money back guaranee or ask them if they will buy it back for their own use as your pup won't eat it. Really don't see the point in making a puppy's diet something it doesn't like. But then again.... how long have you had the pup? If only a couple of days maybe s/he is still settling in and will get their appetite back in time.

Don't know about Eukenuba but many of the premium foods offer a money back guarantee so check out the bag and ask the place where you bought it from. If it's going to waste donate it to dog rescue.....

Dog's don't get the chance, eat 'em myself. Um Um Um!!!!!!! A while ago I did get the contents of someone's freezer which had been in a power outage and that included a couple of beef tongues which the dogs liked very much. Just a muscle meat like rump or shin or any other muscle. Little dogs might need the skin slit for them.

As above LOL. Nothing to do with "what age" but everything to do with "what training". Until he will come back regardless of distractions then he isn't trained well enough. With a Papillon you might be tempted to think 'oh well, he won't do any harm and he won't frighten anyone', which is probably true - but if he dashes up to an ON leash dog which is in a bad mood, or protective of it's owner or dog aggressive then with a little dog like a Pap, one snap and he'll never be coming back, and that won't be the fault on the ON leash under control dog. ETA: and you say you're worried he might get chased by a big dog. Off leash, *most* dogs don't fight but some will, and again if you can't get you're little guy back and a big dog decides he's a rabbit then it's all over. Yep, big dogs should be under control and not allowed to chase little dogs either, but I wouldn't be gambling the life of my dog on that one.

The whole problem with "only give them big bones" is that the point of the exercise is for the dog to chew up the bone and if the dog chews a piece of the big bone which is still too big for it to swallow you may as well have given it a small bone to start with. I raw feed and my dogs always have some sort of bone every day, but never unattended as they will chew off a piece and then will try to swallow it whether it fits or not.

There have been a number of dogs in Australia which have been DNA tested to be carriers - but as for the actual % of carriers to the total population I think that's not very high. So far as I know L2-HGA doesn't exist in other breeds - would like to know if that's wrong! - so if that's true a cross between a Stafford and another pure bred dog could not have the condition as the gene has to come from both parents.... but a dog who's a mongrel and has Stafford ancestors on both side of the pedigree could have the condition as the gene could have come from both parents. Most of the Stafford clubs have info on their websites.

A number of ballons filled with water each hanging down level with some old rags (put them inside old pillowcases or similar if you can) will usually work for Staffords since they usually hate water! You might have to do it four or five times over a period of a couple of weeks if the pup goes back to her old ways.

I don't sell dogs and bitches for different prices, and I've been breeding Staffords for 30 years. This isn't uncommon with BYB toy and SWF "breeders" for the same reason this "breeder" gave you, but I've never heard of it in Staffords. Personally I'd run - also the prices you quoted a just a small amount below the average price for the breed, which also makes me a bit wary. No, all breeders don't have to sell for the same price but being a bit below the current going rate for a breed is a warning flag. PLUS, you want a pet but why is she so willing to sell her pups as 'breeding bitches' to (apparently) just anyone. Good breeders get very protective of who breeds from their puppies and actually most actively discourage buyers by telling them what could go wrong. Phone her back and ask her what her dogs' L2-HGA & HC test results were.

My suggestion too. Has the vet checked her feet. An old bitch I bred has been lame for weeks, owner has racked up huge vet bills and when I went to stay for the weekend the first thing I did was check her feet and yep - broken toe. It looks a lot like a shoulder injury when they walk but is subtly different.

Time for a new vet, no doubt about it. Also - is there a specific reason why you need a titre test? (Boarding Kennels? Obedience Club?)

Haven't read the whole thread so maybe this has been discussed I had some Stafford pups do this (one litter only). Vet suggested they were hypoglaucemic (sp!!!!!!!) - low blood sugar in English Gave them strong glucose solution every couple of hours for 36 hours. Neither of them made it but the bouts of stiffness didn't come back. Their mother was a totally useless mother so they may have got cold but the whelping box has a built in heater so I shouldn't think so, and they were not cold anytime I touched them

Most dogs couldn't even GET fit on less exercise than that so not sure how you come to that conclusion. Slow walking exercise for that length of time might cover one or 2 km, which is very little exercise for anything other than a Peke.

Cut it into small pieces (like 1cm or less square) and boil it first, then it doesn't stink quite so bad if you want to dry it in the oven. Better yet - make liver cake which doesn't stink at all. Puree however much liver you have in a blender. Add enough flour to make it really sticky and thick like scone or bread dough, add an egg if you want to, add some garlic if you want to. When it's mixed, spread it on a flat baking sheet about 1cm thick or so and bake it in a slow oven (150 degrees is heaps) until it's dry all over. Cut into bits and freeze in a bag, you can get out a handful when you need, thaws out in about 2 minutes. You can pull bits off very easily. Only problem is, you probably don't want to hold it in your mouth like some people do with dried liver. You can make this same thing with any sort of pureed meat or fish.