Malamum

Wow - they are so damn cute. There is nothing like cute little puppies to make a person smile.

Another set of fingers crossed for Grover here. I hope they figure out what it is soon and get him on the road to recovery.

I can't even describe how cute she is. I want one!

That is so funny.

What lovely photos!

Awww all three are just adorable, but how cute is the puppy!

Gosh, Lab puppies are cute!

This is such a great topic. However it has made me realise that I don't have many if any pictures with the dogs. I have a few of Indy and I but they are all pre digital camera and are poor quality and very old. I don't have a single picture with Kira. I think I might bath them both next weekend and get some photos. Below is a really really old one of Indy and I at training. He would be less than a year old, which makes the photo at least 6 years old, however it's reminded me of how good he can be when he chooses to.

She is such a cutie.

Thanks Diva. From the sounds of it she doesn't seem to have a too severe case. She can still walk, she is just going slow and taking her time and thinking about it. If she gets excited then she tends to fall over. We are just trying to keep her calm and we are not letting her go outside on her own as we have lots of steps and ledges she can fall off in the back yard. We just put her on a leash and walk her out the front for her to go to the toilet. She's almost 40K so carrying her is bit hard. The OH almost broke his back carrying her to the car yesterday morning. My Dad has gone to stay with her today while we are at work and said she is happy enough, still just wobbly on her legs when he takes her outside to go to the toilet. She is also on a course of antibiotics in case it's an inner ear infection that is causing it, however there is no obvious ear infection in the outer ear canal. Hopefully she will make a full recovery as she is still young. I was getting a bit worried that it would be a permanent ongoing issue but from what I've been reading that doesn't seem to be how it usually goes.

Thanks Persephone. I should have thought to do a search. I've had a bit of a read and it was helpful.

Does anyone have any experience with vestibular disease? On Monday night Kira was fine and was her usual happy self. When we went downstairs on Tuesday morning she was lying on the group and wouldn't get up and walk around. When she did she would fall over. We were worried about it being a tick, or poison or that she was bitten by something so rushed her to the vet. Turns out that she probably has vestibular disease, which basically means she is getting disoriented and dizzy and loosing her balance and falling over. This is apparently a fairly common condition in geriatric dogs, but Kira is only 6, so pretty young for this to be occurring. Granted, she is a large dog but she is still young and otherwise healthy. Just wondering if anyone else has had a dog that has suffered from this and how they went. Is it an ongoing thing, does it totally go away, is it reoccurring etc etc? We have her at home and need to keep any eye on her and then take her back for another assessment so the vet will obviously answer all my questions (and I've done a bit of reading up on it on the net) but I'm also curious about other people's experiences.

Indy goes ballistic over tinned fish. It would be his favourite meal hands down. I've never given them fresh raw fish as it's just something I never think to buy (getting tinned fish for them is just part of the regular grocery shop). There is a fish shop in the mall that I walk through on my way to the station each afternoon so I should rememer to have a look to see if they have anything suitable.

I'll try and get some over the weekend, where I pay specific attention to their coats. Any of my standard photos I already have aren't going to show the difference as it's quite subtle. It's the undercoat that is really different and it's very noticeable when you touch it. I'm not sure how will the camera will pick it up but I'll try. In my signature, it's the female on the left and the male on the right but the picture doesn't show the texture of thier coats.

Tkay, Our female has a longer fluffy coat and our male has a coat that is as per the standard. The standard coat repels water so much better. When bathing them it's so much harder and takes a lot longer to get the male soaked to the skin as the water just won't penetrate the coat fully. We don't notice this anywhere near as much with our girl who has the longer coat. So I guess the standard coat really does do it's job (can't commet on the snow side of things though).

I've only ever fed my dogs tinned fish but it's their absolute favourite. You have all motivated me to hunt down some fesh fish for them.

It does seem to work. We don't have tinned pumpkin here but in the past I have steamed some fresh pumpkin and mashed it for the dogs.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

They won't digest then properly and get any nutrients from them that way however like others have said I would imagine them to be good for their teeth. My two won't touch a whole raw carrot, they just turn their noses up and walk away.

Firstly, is the door big enough? How is she hitting the side? It took a while for our two to get used to ours. We taped the flap up to start with as it scared them at first. We didn't really force them to go through it. However we did stop letting them through the normal door so if they wanted to go outside then the only option was to go through the dog door. We lured with treats once or twice but then we would go out the normal door ourselves and shut it behind us. The desire for them to be outside with us over rode any fear of the door.

Our Malamute puppy used to howl every time we left the house. He would only do it for about 10 mins or so though. He's now 6 and we also have a second dog. He no longer howls when we leave the house. However they both howl if one gets to go for a walk and the other gets left behind (I only walk one at a time). The male is worse than the female and the noise he makes so so pityful - it sounds like he is being tortured. I haven't figured out a way to get them to stop. I just make sure I don't walk too early in the morning so the neighbours don't get upset. Not much help I know, but I figured I'd let you know you are not alone with the howling.

I've only just read this. I'm so sorry for your loss.

I think when we got Indy done is was approx $200 -$300. Don't really remember as it was so long ago now. It is expensive but they are having surgery so as long as they come out the other end ok then I'm happy. With this in mind I wouldn't be comfortable with shopping around, I'd rather just go to the practice that we always go to as we know and trust them.

That is pretty much what my dogs do with them. They don't bite bits off. The whole wing goes in their mouth, there are about 2 or 3 big crunches and then they swallow.

I also highly recommend the book "Give a Dog a Bone". The book is not so much about giving you recipies and telling you exactly what to feed, It more gives you background info on the whole concept of feeding raw vs commercial. That way you can make up your own mind about what you want to feed rather than just blindly following a specific recipe.