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hortfurball

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Everything posted by hortfurball

  1. Damn, too late if it is. If she has it, I'm going to have to treat all three. I woosed out of a couple of puppy playdates with both my first foster and early on with Ebony because I'd heard it was around and I didn't want to risk Kuges getting it at nearly 13 and on heart pills. What an irony if Ella's brought it in. I'll suggest it to the vet tomorrow seeing as he didn't even mention it. He had grass seeds in his mind and nothing else, a bit like Crysti lee's ear mite situation.
  2. Ella seems to quite often snort grass while snuffling for dropped treats at obedience and snort kitty litter while snuffling for dropped cat biscuits. On Wednesday I took her to the vet because her reactive 'gasping' went on all morning off and on, and developed into coughing up small amounts of white foam. The vet couldn't get her to let him look down her throat, said it was probably just an inflammation, gave her a cortisone shot and told me to get back in touch if she was still doing it after 24 hours. This morning she woke me with her 'gasping' followed by coughing that went on for about an hour. I tried to book her back in this am but they were too busy so we're going in tomorrow. My concern is I've never encountered kennel cough and wouldn't know it if I tripped over it, could it be that? Do they cough up white foam when they have kennel cough? Does the 'gasping' rule it out? Is there some other symptom of kennel cough that she isn't showing? Kennel cough is prevalent in Perth at the moment.
  3. Hi Monah, sorry to hear about your girl. As you say, it is so heartbreaking because they ought to be running around having fun being puppies! I have Ebony (and Kuges) on the Joint Guard already, but the swimming and cartrophen injections have to wait a couple of weeks as she was just desexed on Friday. I'm really hoping that Ebony's just had some weird growth spurts and will even out somewhat with maturity. If her pelvis grows, it may align better with the hip ball in time, fingers crossed. Oh, it's bilateral, btw, both equally as bad. Austen, if you have any concerns at all, see your vet, then if it is HD, you can get the management plan going early. If there is a problem, the sooner you catch it the better so you can slow the deterioration by lubricating and protecting the joints, and give your dog a longer life expectancy.
  4. Lumps nearly the size of flattened smarties sound like an allergic reaction to an insect sting. When Ella was younger she was highly allergic to either bees or wasps, never did figure out what the culprit was as we always have both in the garden. Anyway, silly twit used to chase them, one minute she was fine, the next minute her face had puffed up like you wouldn't believe and she had lumps and bumps all over her body, ranging from smartie size upwards. Looked very strange!
  5. Have done some research on food brands - a couple of threads started in this forum recently re food and supplements were very helpful. Thanks Gomez The Norfolk for this link http://www.dogfoodproject.com/ Really helpful for me in making my decision to keep going with Advance and buy Joint Guard powder. Silly me didn't get it online though and probably just paid too much. I'll actually switch Kuges over to Joint Guard too, as at the moment he gets his Chondroitin from Eukanuba and his Glucosamine as human supplements, but misses out on the MSM, Vit C and other stuff, whatever the other stuff does. 2.5g of Joint Guard Powder contains Glucosamine HCI 500 mg Chondroitin Sulfate 400 mg MSM 51 mg Manganese Gluconate 45.5 mg Calcium Ascorbate (Vit C) 80 mg Zinc 2.1 mg Copper 0.17 mg Vitamin E 1.5 mg
  6. :D ;) ;) :D Think I'll wait 'til you're home thanks!! :D Dammit, this may mean you see me in bathers after all! :D Better wear shades, you might go snow blind! I would love to visit you and ILFC to borrow your pools to get her into the water and used to it, but then I can go to the one in Canning Vale. I don't want to just throw her in, would prefer a more gentle introduction, walking in with her but don't actually want to go into the water at CV as there could be 20 or 30 dogs going in it every day and that doesn't sound quite clean enough for me! We'll just have to be careful of the frogs at your place!
  7. Thanks Yancelby, I've emailed them to find out more.
  8. hehe, 'small' is so relative! I consider Ebony small enough to carry everywhere! :thumbsup: After lugging 25 kilo bags of potting mix, a 14.4 kilo puppy isn't much at all! Will try that technique, thanks. Riverstar, yes, she has a doggie life jacket, it is tall and strong and would never let her sink!
  9. Ooh, pool, the magic word That would be lovely if your OH doesn't object to dogs in pools. I'm going to have to figure out how to teach her to swim.
  10. Piximatosis kindly gave me permission to quote her PM in case anyone else finds themselves in my position and stumbles across this thread.
  11. Oh, and am looking into the best way to get supplements into her, whether we go Sasha's Blend, change to Hills or just add the appropriate supplements like I do for Kuges, haven't decided yet. Bikle, yes please!! I'd love details as I hate the beach Yes I know, I'm odd. It's all that soft sand you see, bad for her. Well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
  12. Thanks for your concern and well wishes everyone. The little girl is back from the vet. I took her outside when we got home and she immediately did a wee the good little girl (wonder how long she'd been holding on) and has been crashed on the couch ever since. I saw the x-rays, not good. Even my untrained eye can see it's severe. they showed me a normal x-ray for comparison and it is markedly different. The ball is right out of the joint and resting on the edge of it. There's no way I'd be able to completely stop her exercising, as she tends to do little figure eights chasing flies in the backyard. That doesn't actually worry me too much as there are no short sharp movements, and she needs to do some exercise. I intend to keep taking her to obedience and hopefully do obedience trials with her now that agility is out of the question. Puppy playdates will resume in a few weeks under careful supervision with off leash time limited to very short social sessions, with her being on leash the majority of the time. Her switch from Advance Puppy Growth to Advance Adult (Normal) is underway. I'll keep her weight right down to low normal, as I do with the old arthritic Kugameister. Her Cartrophen injections will start in 2 weeks when she goes back to have her stitches out.
  13. The vet mentioned swimming too. There are no dog pools in Perth are there? Anyone know? Will PM Pixi for advice and do a forum search too. I've been managing my old boy's arthritis for years so am sort of used to that. None of my dogs have ever been overweight so managing that is not an issue. I'm used to adjusting up and down by half and quarter cups judging by the waistline.
  14. Kuges had pimples on his face when he was younger. Reasonably common in all breeds I've heard.
  15. Option 1 - Management: I have to treat her like an old arthritic dog for her whole life. No agility. No ball throwing. Playdates cut short. Cartrophen injections, fish oil, Glucosamine, Chondroitin. Option 2 - Treatment: For approx. $5000- they can fracture her pelvis and try to realign it with the hips, but she'll still end up with arthritis, and it's not guaranteed. Hugely invasive. Think I'll be going option 1 and hope for the best. Life is just not fair. My poor little girl. What did she do to deserve this? She's the sweetest thing on legs.
  16. OMG She has hip dysplasia. :cheer: Edited for spelling
  17. Thanks Loraine. Surely life wouldn't be that unkind to the poor little poppet. A bad start and bad hips would be too much.
  18. Thanks Poodlefan. When the vet nurse took her leash I thought she'd lead her straight out the back but she paused and Ebony saw me leave through the glass doors. That little face was heartbreaking. I could see fear of abandonment. She thought I wasn't coming back. Won't she be pleased to see me later!
  19. She's at the vet being desexed. I got a call - they had a look at her hips, rear legs and lower back at my request and said it feels like she has 'loose hips' (ie the ball is a little free in the socket) and are doing x-rays to get an idea of exactly what's going on. It may be something that will fix itself in time (hopefully) as she still has some growing to do, or it may be more serious. Will let you know when I know. Either way, limited exercise from now on.
  20. Poodle wrangler, Yes she does zoomies...even more so yesterday because they all got wet in the river! It's definitely not luxating patellas - I'd recognise that because Kuges has had both back knees operated on for it. Sorry to hear about your young one, has your vet indicated he'll need an op in the future? I've already started the changeover to adult biccies, will limit her free time on playdates, and will be taking her to the vet to make sure it is nothing more serious than a tired stiff pup. Fingers crossed.
  21. Ah, thanks, I was wondering about that. In the dane thread they often talk about too much protein. We're nearly at the end of the bag of puppy food, so I'll start mixing now for the gradual changeover. It does say on the pack up to 12 months of age but I thought I'd get a second opinion here which is why I mentioned it.
  22. It's only an issue after her puppy playdates. At home she tends to play for a bit then rest. In fact she mostly rests. That's what I mean, she's surprisingly quiet. She's sleeping at the moment. She has lots of toys - rubber bouncy ones, ones that squeak, tug ropes to play tug with Ella and for some reason has taken to a piece of stretch velvet that she drags around and drapes over herself. We do obedience classes once a week and practice a bit at home for brain training. I will limit her activity at future playdates though, seeing as a few of you think that is an issue. Catch her after 20-30 mins and leash her for the rest of the time, or go home early. She just seemed to be having such a good time I was enjoying watching her and didn't think about that side of things. When Kuges was a pup it was different because being a large breed I knew he shouldn't be overexercised. Didn't realise it applied to small active types, silly me.
  23. Thanks for your responses. Poodlefan, I did wonder if a pup could be overexercised. Given what others have said about working dog mixes I thought she was pretty quiet as a general rule. I've heard stories of other pups that are a lot more active. My friend's lab pup of similar age (1 month older) was running with her the whole time and no such troubles for the labbie pup. I hope that's all it is, but I may ask the vet just to make certain. I think maybe I just got all over-emotional last night because I was thinking how unfair it would be for her if she had some physical issue on top of a questionable start to life. Was also wondering if poor nutrition may have played a part but might be self-fixing now she's on decent food. But I've had her 2 1/2 months so would have thought it would have been fixed by now if that was the case. I don't really know much about the effects of poor nutrition.
  24. Yep. She won't starve in a couple of days. If she doesn't eat it, just pick up her bowl and put it somewhere ant proof for next time. Eventually she'll give in. Don't soak either, there's no need if she's happily eating bones, and you won't be able to keep it for next time.
  25. Sorry, long post. Little Ebony is having lots of puppy playdates. After she came home from the first few, she seemed to walk slightly differently and be unwilling to jump up onto the bed or couch and while aware of it, I put it down to her being tired. I decided to keep an eye on it to see if it wasn't just a tired pup in combination with my imagination. At yesterday's playdate, a very active day at the river with lots of running and jumping through soft sand, after about an hour and a half she just came to sit/lie with us humans so after about 15 minutes or so I decided we might as well go home. She seemed to hobble and lag a bit on the way back to the car. She did get into the car unassisted for the first time ever. She gets car sick so hates the car but must have finally clicked yesterday that it means we are going home. All evening she was walking very strangely, sort of favouring the back legs, and didn't want to go out. Normally when she hears the click of the key in the back security door, she's there, but this time, she walked a few steps and then just lay down. Needed heaps of encouragement to get her to go out for toileting. Her back end sort of rolls as she walks more than usual and she looks like she might be limping but I can't tell which leg. When she goes to get up, the front half is fine, but sometimes it takes her two attempts to get her back legs under her. She's a border collie x kelpie so should be highly active I would have thought, although she's always been reasonably sedate for that mix. I don't take her for a forced run or anything, basically she sets her own boundaries for how much she runs with the other dogs at her playdates. She's a pound pup so I have no idea of her nutrition or physical treatment up to the age of 14 weeks. I do think she has been hit but don't know to what extent. I put her on Advance Puppy Growth when I got her, with the odd bones, bit of meat and raw egg left over from baking, and various tasty tidbits for training from chicken and Schmackos through to polony. I'm in Perth, so no paralysis ticks here. This morning she's pretty much back to normal, but I'm pretty sure this is not just a tired puppy. Last night I had a little teary moment when after walking like an old arthritic dog to her bed, she was all cuddly and waggy when I went to see if she was ok. She's too sweet and doesn't deserve this on top of her bad start. Any ideas what this could be, and should I be getting her to a vet? Now that she's back to normal, will they be able to tell what's going on? Edited to change displasia to dysplasia in the title!
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