aatainc

I am pretty sure advantage is safe for those over 6 weeks too - maybe try that?

Bommy, sorry to bother you while you must be so upset - but I have a question. Someone else has asked me about neospora and I think you will have the answer. Above you stated that the multi-celled tumours were not caused by the neospora. So I'm wondering, what are the effects of neospora? Is the fact that she has it contributed to her short time left with you? Or is it just the cancer? All I need to know is what symptoms and long term effects there are of neospora in dogs. Thank you - and I hope you're feeling better.

I use different vets for different things. After our regular vet's practice owner stuffed up a TPLO (IMO) I won't let him touch my dogs. But I would trust him with dentistry in a heartbeat as he's great at that. The vet I usually see at that surgery is a bit laid back (which is good!) but for some medical stuff that really concerns me I will go to my local vet if she can't find what's wrong- but for surgery (minor) ie. desexing - I wouldn't go past her as her stitching is beautiful and my dogs recover so much faster when she has done it as opposed to anyone else. She is also wonderful with the dogs and is always my first choice vet. There are also 2 local vets I use. I will only use the practice owner and none of the locums or junior vets at either surgery. The closest surgery I will use for anything that I think natural remedies might help with - and for my cat as she is a bit cheaper and the cat rarely has anythign seriously wrong with him - the other local vet I will use for my newfy (As he's known her since birth) and for cat absesses. I think sometimes you have to pick and choose based on what's wrong. If it was life threatening I'd go to the latter local vet - but usually I do drive 20 mins to our regular vet. I would be very concerned about a vet recommending calcium supplements for pups. I mean, surely they know that calcium will make him grow faster!! Maybe you shoudl see him for routine stuff but go elsewhere for nutritional advice or anything to do with your pup's growth.

So sorry, thank you for the timely reminder. I hope that your vet is wrong and that you have longer - but if not - that you have the strength to say goodbye when she's ready.

I'm afraid most of y'all seem to be barking up the wrong tree! Humans can take pyrantel, the active ingredient in combantrin (and drontal), but the dosage recommendation for human wormers is only enough to kill off human thread worm. I have dealt with this recently as I was concerned about hookworm and I was told that I would have to worm myself with a double dose of combantrin everyday for 3 days every 2 weeks. Basically, unless you did this - your combantrin would do nothing. However, using it regularly is still a good idea for people who work a lot with kids because lots of kids do get the human thread worm. The point is that with th exception of hydatids, none of the worms commonly encountered in dogs usually use humans as hosts. Yes, you can get one or two adult worms inside you but generally they won't breed in there and they would die off pretty quickly because they're not adapted to our conditions. Hookworm is the exception but given that most of the hookworm's cycle is spent in the bloodstream - not in the gut - it's really rather pointless worming because no amount of combantrin or any other wormer can kill worms that are present in the bloodstream as it does not cross the barrier from digestive system into the blood. You would have to follow the regime above and I doubt many of us are willing to spend that much money, time and effort on that much combantrin for just a precaution! Also, praziquantal is the active ingredient in drontal that kills hydatids and tapeworm (which can get inside us) but as it's not in any over the counter human wormers nothing you can buy would touch them anyway. If you knew you had been in contact with hydatids you CAN get praziquantal for humans from the hospital/doctor although I dare say drontal is cheaper. The only real question about the safety of drontal for humans concerns purity of ingredients and manufacturing processes. I personally would be a little concerned about potential toxic trace contamination. I also don't think I'd enjoy swallowing them!! If you had concerns about tapeworm or hydatids and you wanted to use dog wormer, you would probably be better getting just a tapewormer - ie Droncit - as the other ingredients in drontal are what make it more expensive and are available in combantrin anyway. Hope that all makes sense. iF it was me, I would take Droncit if I thought I had been exposed to tapeworm but I wouldn't take Drontal.

I dunno, I reckon a smidgeon could come off - maybe 500g - but I prefer mine lean and in working condition - if you know what I mean.

Well I would imagine that at 5 months he would already be too old for any puppy preschool - I would enrol in your local obedience club for some ideas to get him started with. I also wouldn't bother with the dog whisperer people. They are NOT really "dog whisperers' they have played on that image and made people feel that they have something special. They rely heavily on dominance theory for everything so their methods really only work on dogs with complete beginner owners. Honestly, their book contained nothing that was not already in "who's the boss' by Val Bonney - a book that came out I think 10 years earlier. I would think you'd be wasting your money. While I think obedience training might be a good activity for you to pursue, I really don't think any of the behaviours you're describing are indicative of a real problem. Let's face it - at 5 months - and being an excitable breed - what you're describing is pretty normal! As for behaving around your kids - it's kind of leaving it a bit late but it would still be worth socialising him to as many kids as possible. Take lots of treats with you and reward all calm behaviour. Good luck!

Sorry, but I'm with anne. 9wks old far too young to sleep outside on his own. He could get bitten by a nasty something, he could attack a toad and die, he could get too cold, he could dig under the fence, he could get stolen, or baited - who knows! i would not ask a pup under 6 months to sleep outside alone. We did let our newfoundland sleep outside on her own from 10 weeks old but she was on an enclosed veranda and the reason for that was that she howled the place down if we slept her anywhere inside - reason being - it was january - and she was HOT! When we realised it was because she was overheating we let her sleep outside but only with the veranda gated off for her protection. Other than that I would never put a pup outside to sleep on it's own. Even now my adults all sleep in the garage at night (closed in) or in a crate upstairs. The garage is sometimes cooler so they usually choose that.

Oh Jane, I'm SO SORRY! What happened? (Don't mean to sticky beak - but if you can share - I just can't believe it.) RIP Ely.

I just had a look at the scientific research on this subject - albeit briefly. It seems that just because your dog has a high titre of it doesn't mean anything. This can simply mean that she has had it in the past - she has some resistance to it which is good. The research also seems to indicate that the most common symptom of it is very mild intestinal infection which passes quickly. There have also been some cases of nodules developing under the skin but these were easily treated with drugs. The studies also seem to say that the dogs get it from eating infected fetal or placental material - muscle meat is apparently an unlikely cause of infection. If I was you and were concerned I would just stick to chicken and turkey for a while until more research is done. Beef isn't exactly the best meat choice for a dog anyway so it shouldn't really hurt to remove it. Go to google and enter "neospora and dog' and read all of the information you can find. I'm just re-hashing what I read there - not claiming to be an expert. If my vet told me my dogs had a high titre for it I honestly wouldn't be too worried - unless the vet could point to a definitive link between a symptom my dog had and the neospora. I don't know - I just wonder if perhaps your vet is panicking a little too much?

I would be checking with multiple vets adn textbooks about Neospora. I would suspect that lots of dogs have a high titre for it without suffering from any side effects. I'm not really sure, but until i found a causal link between this spore and any actual disease in your dog I wouldn't change.

edit: I need to do some research to make sure what I said was right. Will be back soon!

I am trialling dexter in novice obedience at the moment. Hopefully we'll get our CD on saturday. Cross your fingers! I am about to start obedience trialling with Rocket and Grace. I am also entering conformation with Solo the pointer baby - we have our first show in 2 weeks and am very nervous. Of course, this is all on top of training all of them as service dogs for the disabled!

the dog whisperer is made out to be this all new dog training idea - in reality it's a basic book not good for much beyond beginners - and it's all about dominance theory!

vegies are needed at least once a week though, even in the original barf book. There are a number of vitamins that can only be got through vegies and a dog fed without them will eventually become ill.

mix your vegies into his mince and offal etc and leave it there. Don't take it away, he may just need to take longer over his food. I wouldn't care if my dogs refused to eat for 4 days - so long as I knew they weren't sick. Try feeding his chicken frames outside. He's only a little dog, he can't possibly swallow the frames all in one go - he won't swallow anything that won't go down - don't worry about it! All mine are scoffers adn after 4 years of scoffing they're all still right as rain. Also, in the house he may feel pressured to eat more quickly because you're all around. IF you let him take his bone into the yard then he may feel more isolated there and may take longer over it. As for the search, most people use the term "Pal" not pedigree - so try that. Magnum quote: "Advance spend thousands of dollars of research on their product so you know that the best is given to your beloved pooch" Are you serious?

don't worry, I found it for you - man that was hard! Here is the link to the topic: http://forums.dogzonline.com.au/index.php?...topic=10304&hl=

Hi electrawoman. I have written a very long and protracted reply to this in the past. click on my username - then on find all posts by this user and go back to June last year. (early june.) it's a very long post you shouldn't have trouble finding it. Let me know if you do and I can email it to you.

Pewithers, I'll need you to let me know what to order by tomorrow morning (before 9am) if you want to collect it on wednesday as it takes a couple days to get here. You hadn't yet confirmed any order that's all. And no, I wouldn't castigate her either - but it doesn't mean you have to stick to it either.

pewithers, is that the diet from your breeder that you posted? For what it's worth - I'd be looking around for something better - WAY better. But that's just my opinion....

by the way, wanted to add - divine angel - you are doing the right thing by sticking to barf - it'll work out much better for you in the long run!

ok, the lactose thingy... Having done this in Animal Nutrition at Uni (in which, I might add, we did well over double the amount of animal nutrition that a vet does) I can safely say that the enzyme is not species specific. ALL young mammals (normal ones that is) produce lactase - the enzyme to break down lactose. Only an absolutely miniscule amount of defective animals fail to produce this. In these cases, most of the babies would die as a result because they couldn't digest mum's milk. Steve is right, after they stop drinking mum's milk the pups do stop producing lactase, however studies have shown that this is NOT a natural cessation of enzyme production - it is not on an internal timer as such - it is triggered by the enzyme's newly found redunancy after weaning. Basically, use it or lose it. When the enzyme is being produced but no longer needed the body detects the increased concentration of lactase compared to lactose and stops producing the enzyme. HOWEVER, if for some reason the animal continues to eat some lactose the enzyme will not stop being produced. Thus, when dr Harry says that over half of all pets are lactose intolerant, what he should really be saying is that over half of all pets have BECOME lactose intolerant through lack of exposure to lactose. Genuine cases of lactose intolerance from birth are very rare - and you can usually tell if that's the case because the reaction to even the tiniest amount of cheese etc will be extremely severe. This also happens when the pup does not get enough lactose in the first weeks of life - ie. - if the pup is handreared on a lactose free milk such as divetelact. I have had one of these handreared pups and his reaction to even half a teaspoon of milk/yoghurt/cheese/icecream was totally watery diarrhea for a day. He was raised on lactose free milk and I think if he had have been fed some normal bitch's or cow's milk during those early weeks he would not have had such a problem. So the moral of the story is, if you would like to feed your dog some milk products during its life then please continue to feed it some lactose products while it is young - at least once a week. Don't bother with the puppy milk it's expensive and a waste of time anyway - when MOST pups can tolerate normal cow's milk - although I still wouldn't be giving excessive amounts. Give a new pup lactose from cow's milk from weaning onwards and it will likely never react badly to it. If the breeder stops giving it lactose from weaning until you get the pup it's possible puppy may have already stopped producing lactase so there may be some upset but usually not. Also, anecdotal evidence (of my own) has shown that by slowly reintroducing lactose to an adult dog's diet he may again produce lactase and will eventually stop being lactose intolerant. When raising large breed pups that can tend to be on the skinny side through growth spurts I find the extra fat in full cream milk or yoghurt to be a good way to keep the weight on. (in fact, full fat yoghurt and oil was the only way I could get my pointer baby to stop looking like a greyhound - he was eating more than he could fit in his tummy but not putting enough fat covering on his ribs - very fat yoghurt helped fix this without filling him up any more.) as for Dr Billinghurst - he does actually recommend milk. In give your dog a bone (which seems to have been largely superseded - to some barfer's peril I think) he recommends a milk meal for puppies - it's milk plus an egg yolk plus something else which I can't remember - I think maybe oil? When we have crying pups that dont' settle well at night we give them 1 cup of warm milk with an egg yolk shaken into it which helps them sleep. One older lady who raised a pup said that if that didn't work it was more effective if you put a nip of brandy into it!

raw. Your vet is unlikely to have actually had any experience with a raw food diet because most vets believe the pet food company hype - and just feed that. Dogs are much more resistant to the bacteria in raw meat than humans are. Read the thread "salmonella poisoning" further down in this forum.

oh LB, with your bank problems and now this - you must be feeling awful! Hope you get better soon!

malaseb is not safe for them to ingest (I don't think) - so you really can't use it around the mouth unless you are very careful to remove it all afterwards. I do agree that it's likely to be fungal - in which case antibiotics are unlikely to really help. They look much like what my cocker gets - simply because he is always moist there. I would avoid antibiotics. Keep the area as dry as possible in between treatments of apple cider vinegar. Technically (according to my microcbiologist mum) vinegar shouldn't work but I've been using it on my guy for a while now and it does help - although I think it stings a bit as he avoids me putting it on him. I would apply it after every meal and put a little in the water bowl too. If that doesn't help after a week or two then definitely see the vet. Also, see the vet if it seems to be really bothering her (or you!) or if the area is increasing in size. definitely see the vet immediately if she starts to appear ill or if the area gets really hot or pussy. BTW - the yellow stuff doesn't look to be puss to me - I think it's dried lymph. (i.e. - weeping stuff.) Puss is less clear and thicker and doesn't tend to dry up like that. JMHO.