Greytmate

Generally, the vet surgeries that are attched to large animal shelters, are slightly cheaper than others. I can't help you more than that, as I am not from Sydney.

I just shove the tablet down their throat, shut their mouth, blow into their nostrils to make them swallow, and wipe the slobber off my hands.

Why not indeed?

Some vets keep them in overnight, some let them go in the evening. Personally I like to take them home, but I can understand why some vets would want to keep them in. Desexing is major surgery, and the dog really does need to be kept still and quiet afterwards. Jumping in and out of the car is not a good thing for the dog to be doing, and I don't know of any five month old pups that like to keep still and not jump around, so crating is a very good idea. It is standard practice for the vets I use, to admit the dogs early in the morning, before morning consultations, and operate after lunch. Desexing is not an emergency, it can be done anytime in the afternoon. The vet doesn't know what emergency operations will come in in the morning, that's why it can be hard to say when the spay will be done. Of course the vet will have to treat any dog that is injured or sick, before doing the desexing. So don't worry about your girl, she will be sitting safely in her crate before and after the operation. Don't fed your dog after 8.00pm the evening before, so that by the time she has her operation her tummy will be empty. It's not normally a production line, and it's good to know that if somebody has to rush a dog to the vet because something is wrong, that would take precedence over a routine desexing. If you can borrow a crate from somebody, you have a week to get her used to being in one.

This topic has been discussed quite a few times in the past. Seeing this is a discussion forum, and anyone is free to try to prove or disprove the claims you are making Zorro. Here is link to the topic last time this was discussed. People may prefer to read what others have said there, and perhaps respond there intead. Iams topic

You are not wrong. In Victoria, you are supposed to inform the council if the dog has been trained for attack purposes, and the dog may be declared dangerous.

No, the can only contains chicken, rice and vegetables, 70% of which is chicken. There are no other ingredients, otherwise I would have said so. Regardless of what you say about cooked foods containing less nutrition than raw, you still have not convinced me that the can that I occasionally feed my dog is unacceptable. It has an adequate level of nutrients for most dogs. While vegetables and rice may not be neccessary, they do contain vitamins and minerals, and that contributes to the nutrient content in the food, without increasing the level of fat. There are canned foods that I would give to my dog, and there are canned foods that I would not give to my dog. I do not belive that the brand that I sometimes feed my dog is junk food. I think that it is quite ignorant to make comments about canned food as if every different type of canned food is the same quality. It is zealotry to automatically condemn something without evaluating it first. I have also researched dog's dietry requirements, and have noticed that the information that preaches about how inadequate commercial foods are, never seems to be able to go much further than simple comparisons between nutrient levels in a raw diet and a commercial diet, as if all raw diets are of a similar quality, and as if all dogs require the same high level of nutrition. The condemnation of commercial food uses the emotive language and often the scare tactics of zealots. Far more educational are the articles that explain how and when nutrients are absorbed, stored and used by the dog, how the nutrients get into the food, how and why nutrients are lost from food, and why there are variations in this. With this knowledge, and with observations of my dog's health I am able to decide for myself what level of nutrition is appropriate for my dogs, and what combination of higher or lower quality raw foods, dry foods, or canned foods will meet my dog's needs. It does not matter to me what dogs in the wild eat. It is quite insulting to be told that because I am not feeding an exclusively raw diet, that I am feeding my dogs junk, that I am feeding unacceptable food, and that I am feeding my dogs food that it does not need. Just because I am given anecdotal evidence of some dogs not doing well on some commercial diets, it does not follow that all commercial diets are inadequate. I would prefer to be educated about the qualities and value of different ingredients, the consequences of different methods of storing, preparation and processing of those ingredients, and the ways that nutrition is absorbed, used and stored by a dog, than to accept at face value the simplistic, generalised view that if a food is commercially packaged it must be condemned regardless of what the food actually contains.

I only entered this topic when lillysmum made inaccurate claims about canned food. Reduced yes, but the food does not become nutritionally deficient as you claimed in your earlier post. It still contains plenty of nutrients. It might do us better, but that does not mean that cooking is bad. Sorry, that is just bullshit Erny. Think about it properly. If cooking really did render fats, proteins and carbs as indigestible, what would happen? We would shit all those foreign molecules out the other end, and die of malnutrition. Nobody would ever get fat. Nobody would ever have any energy. Except for those eating a purely raw diet. Does that make sense to you? It does not to me. What processing Erny? I am talking about COOKED FOOD. You know, the stuff you eat at mealtimes. BREAD - COOKED in the oven STEAK - COOKED on a pan VEGETABLES - COOKED in a steamer RICE - COOKED in a rice cooker TUNA - COOKED and (gasp) CANNED TOO. Yes, that's right, much of my food is cooked. I don't think that any nutritionist would have a problem with it. Why do you have a problem with it? Because I used to work for a dog food manuafcturer. I saw all the ingredients, I saw the manufacturing, I fed the food to my dogs. Now you think I'm a liar if you like, and keep believing the American Barf Zealotry websites if you like, but don't expect me to sit back silently while all the apprentice zealots start bagging the healthy nutritious varieties of canned food along with the poorer varieties. Not because I have any loyalty to a pet food manufacturer, but because I do not like bullshit. Because, in Australia, there is a surplus of good food. Pieces of chicken that are broken, bruised, a bit smashed up, or have a few feathers still attached, carrots that are a bit tough, a bit old, a funny shape, or broken in half. Grains of rice that are not whole. All the good food that is produced that Mr and Mrs Shop-at-coles would not touch with a barge pole. Yes the food for human consumption is monitored for quality, and the quality standards are so high that cosmetic faults are enough to get that food rejected into the pet food bin. Pet food is for pets, because a pet has different nutritional requirements than a human. Pet food is for pets, because if you bought a piece of chicken that had a few feathers stuck to it, you would take it back to coles for a refund. Pet food is for pets, because the market demands it. This is not America. We have a large organic recycling industry, and much of what in America would be sold as 4D meat, is turned into fertiliser in this country. Oh yes I do think that it is an effort to stop people feeding their dogs canned food. That is the reason why I entered this topic. Who are you saying is uncertain about what is in canned food? You? Lillysmum? Then perhaps you should not make comments on things that you are uncertain of. Me? I know what is in some brands of canned food, no uncertainty here. So why not say some brands of food in particular instead of saying canned foods in general? Give me an proven example of a food that when eaten in normal amounts causes cancer. And then tell me what that has to do with canned dog food. Hang on a minute Erny, you have stated that "The characteristics of major nutrients such as fats, proteins and carbohydrates are altered by the 'cooking' process (the greater the heat, the greater the change) - so much so they become not only indigestible" . So make up your mind here. Does cooking make fat, proteins and carbs indigestible or not? The presence of obese dogs suggests to me that it does not make these substances indigestable. The only possible way that fat can be deposited in the body is if it is digested, or put there by a plastic surgeon. That is why I mentioned obesity, not because I think obesity is healthy, but because it is such an obvious indication that fat is being digested. Obesity is a form of overnourishment though. No, I did not mean that at all. Perhaps I did not make the point clearly enough. My point about obesity was to illustrate that your arguement that cooking food makes fat indigestable was bullshit. We see plenty of obese people and dogs, and most of them got that way from eating cooked foods not raw foods. If we were to believe you that cooking makes fat indigestable, then the only fat people that we would ever see would have had to digested that fat from the raw foods that they have eaten. According to your theory, we could eat chips and donuts and hamburgers all day, and never put on a gram of weight, because the fat contained in cooked food is indigestable. Did you just make that up? Preservatives are not added to canned food, because the process of canning is the preservative. It is the reason why food is canned. Why did you think that canning was invented in the first place? Salt is sometimes added to some varieties canned food as a flavour enhancer, but I would not recommend those varieties of canned food, as there is enough naturally occurring salt in the ingedients of good quality canned food. I can only say that rehashing the information given on American Barf Zealotry websites is not research. As I said before, I only entered the topic to correct an inaccurate statement written about canned food. It could have been left at that if your intention was not to convince people of anything. And I am not saying that a canned diet is superior to a raw diet. I do not believe that it is. All I am saying is that there are plenty of commercially available foods, canned or processed in other ways that contain adequate nutrition for a dog. Not all of them, but some of them. Despite what the American Barf Zealots would have us believe, cooking, canning or processed food can still be an excellent source of nutrition for a pet. There is such a thing as too much nutrition, if all the nutrition provided cannot be used by the dog. I am tired of the "commercial food bad", "raw food good" mantra. There is as much nutritional variation in raw food as there is in commercial food. Unless you are feeding your dog only prime cuts of the freshest steak, coming only from cattle that has been fed the best quality grain, and that grain was only grown in the most fertile and richest soil imaginable, then you too are guilty not giving your dog the most nutritious food available. Edited to add -

Are you saying that the words chicken, rice and vegetables are misleading? In what way are they misleading? What do those words really mean? No other member answered the questions that I asked you, so why can't you answer the questions? It was you that made the statement "It's full of stuff they do not need and very light on the ingredients that work best for the canine." Why can't you explain how exactly a can of dog food containing 70% chicken, rice, and vegetables, is full of stuff they do not need? Why won't you explain why you think that the can is light on the ingedients that work best for the canine? You are full of criticism of canned food, but can show no reasons to back up your harsh statements. I am not surprised that you planned on saying the same things as 'another member'. You probably both get your 'research' from the same American Barf Zealotry websites. I did not get you started on this. You started it yourself when you made the statement. Some people should be less worried about what crap gets fed to their dog, and more worried about the crap that gets fed to their brain courtesy of certain American Barf Zealots

In my reply to your post, I was discussing canned food for canines. Perhaps you are not aware of some of the more nutritious brands of canned dog food. I would be interested in what hearing what type of canned food that the vet was recommending. There are some brands that I would happily feed my dog, there are some that I would not. There are some varieties of canned food that are sold by vets, and I am fairly sure that they would not stock them unless they were happy to recommend them. I do not find it odd at all that a vet would recommend a soft diet for a puppy. If you are going to stand by your comments about canned food, would you please read my post again, and answer the specific questions that I asked you. Otherwise it would seem that your criticism is unfounded. How can you judge the nutritional content of a food, based on the type of packaging it comes in?

There are canine nutritionists that give advice to racing dog trainers. They do not work for dog food companies. The nutrition that a racing greyhound can make use of is different to the nutrition that an endurance working dog can use, and both are different from the nutrition than a pet dog can use. Think about the highly specialised and individualised diets given to the various types of athletes by the dieticians at the Institute of Sport. Same concept, but for dogs. It is actually quite amazing to read what is involved with delivering top level canine nutrition. Complete waste on the average pet dog though, if nutrients are not used or stored, they just end up in the dog poo.

I feed a raw food diet too Erny, I only feed canned occasionally. If we are to believe that the canning process destroys all nutritional value in food, we may as well empty our pantries of canned tuna, canned vegetables and other canned food and throw it all in the bin. If we believe that cooking food renders it unfit to be eaten, we could do away with stoves and cupboards full of pots and pans, and just eat the raw ingredients straight out of the fridge. I don't believe that cooked food or canned food is nutritionally useless, for myself or my dog. I eat it regularly, it forms a large part of my diet, and I am not malnourished or suffering from any vitamin or mineral deficiencies. The point of my post was merely to point out the inaccuracy of saying that canned food is not acceptable, that it contains unneccessary ingredients, and is short on neccessary ingredients. Some canned food is very acceptable as a part of the diet of dogs or humans, as long as we are mindful of what is in the can. We have plenty of healthy options for feeding our dogs whether we choose a commercial or home prepared diet or a combination of both. I think it is great that people are prepared to share their knowledge of what diets work well for their dogs, but it becomes zealotry when people continually make inaccurate claims in an effort to stop people feeding their dogs certain types of food. Erny, you studied only three of the many varieties of canned food available, perhaps that was not enough for you to be able to comment on all varieties of canned food. Fats, proteins and carbohydrates do not beome indigestable by the cooking process, and are not recognised by the body as foreign molecules. If only they were, then we would rarely see obesity in dogs and humans. How many people do you know that have become overweight purely by eating raw food? Perhaps if the food is burnt to black ashes it might become indigestible or carcenogenic. Meat does come from dead animals, and not from dying ones. I can assure you of that. I am guessing from your terminology you are getting your information from an American website. (No doubt another Barf Zealotry website) The meat industry in America is completely different to the meat industry in Australia, and much higher standards apply here. While different gradings of meat and vegetables do exist in Australia, much of it is in appearance only. We do not have 4 D meat here. Commercial dog food manufacturers buy in much larger quantities than could be collected from spillages swept up at at human food manufacturing plants. (As if those places would sell it off cheaply for dog food instead of sweeping it up and putting it back into production) What chemical treatment is applied to prohibit meat from human consumption? What is the chemical contamination of vegetables in the 'fields'? (I thought that they were called paddocks in Australia). Why would preservatives be neccessary in any canned food, given that canning is a highly effective way of preserving food? You ask why the change from guaranteed analysys to typical analysis, and I would have thought that the answer would lie in the natural variation of the raw ingredients that go into the production of commercially prepared dog food. Natural variation occurs seasonally with meat, and with vegetables it depends on the fertility of the soil that the plants are grown in. A guaranteed analysis could only be provided if all of the nutrients were artificially added. You are going to have to do some more thorough research than quoting American Barf Zealotry websites to convince me that the nutrition derived from commercially available food is inadequate for a pet dog.

On what basis do you make the assumption that because food is canned, that it must contain ingredients that dogs do not need, and that it has a shortage of nutritious ingredients? The can that I occasionally feed my dogs contains - 70% chicken rice vegetables Why is this not acceptable for most dogs? What is it full of that they do not need? What ingredients that work best for the canine are 'light on'? You cannot judge a product on the packaging, it is what is inside the packaging that counts. The ingredients are always listed on the label, and it might be a good idea to read what they are before giving your opinion on their nutritional value.

The ratio of water to nutrients in some canned food is no different to the ratio of water to nutrients if the dog is fed a raw diet, or if the dog is fed a complete dry food, and drinks extra water out of a water bucket. I would agree that some canned foods do not have same the nutritional value of a raw or other diet, but some canned foods do, and some canned foods contain a more balanced and appropriate level of nutrition than a poorly balanced raw diet. Not all commercially prepared foods or canned foods, contain preservatives or other artificial ingredients, so I would not be totally dismissing the vet's advice. As others have said, you would have to go to some effort to make sure that a raw diet contains the neccessary balance of nutrients for a pup. Perhaps the vet is not confident that the average pup owner is able to do this. Preservatives and artificial ingredients affect some dogs badly, other dogs moderately, and do not affect some dogs at all. The other point to keep in mind when reading about dog nutrition is that more nutrition does not neccessarily equal appropriate nutrition for your particular dog. Give a dog higher levels than it requires and the dog might get fat, or have very nutritious poo.

The oil from fish or meat is better than vegetable oils for dogs (Not like humans). Any oil is better than none though. I can't remember why exactly, but I have read a few articles about it. Perhaps you could do a search. A spoonful of lard or some oily sardines is what we recommend for glossy coats.

You owe it to your dog to request nicely that these people keep their dog away from yours. If the people get pissed off about you asking, that is their problem and not yours.

I'm sorry to hear that Sas, you tried so hard with Turbo. My condolences to you and Leila. RIP Turbo.

Only greyhounds are eligible to compete in greyhound races. People that are serious about a sport will buy a dog that is suited to that sport and will be competitive in that sport. Why should the people that work hard on a voluntary basis (or in a low paid role) for clubs because they are serious about the sport and want to promote excellence in that sport have their time wasted by those that just want to come along and use the resources just to pass the time and have a bit of fun with no end goal in mind? Nobody is saying that anyone can't take any old breed and put it behind a lure, train it to bite a sleeve or bring back a dead duck. Go for your life. The thing is, if you are not serious enough to want to own a breed that is suitable for and competitive in these pursuits, then do it on your own time, on your own land with your own money and resources, instead of making demands on other people to help you do it.

I would scare other dogs away too if they tried to intrude into my space while I was walking my dog. Not every dog appreciates other dogs in their face. If you have a look at the Victorian dog laws, dogs are not supposed to be off-leash within a certain distance of a child's playground, even though the off leash area may be adjacent to the playground. So your dog should not be near kids on razor scooters within play areas. What about a child's right to be able to ride a scooter within a park without colliding with a dog? I don't think such children are menacing, anyone would think you are suggesting that they are purposely trying to hurt your dog. People should be able to picnic in any area of a park that they like. Many times I have had picnics on the grass with my dog lying next to me off-leash, and the off-leash area is the appropriate place to do this. Dogs are not permitted to be off-lead within a certain distance of BBQ areas either, regardless of whether the BBQ area is in or adjacent to an off-leash area. Say what you like about nanny states. I think perhaps you should read up on the legislation before you accuse others of being irresponsible. You obviously have little knowledge about your own responsibilities as a dog owner. The whole concept of leash free areas in parks is that the responsibility of the dog owner is to ensure that their dog does not interfere with the public enjoyment of public property. The fact that we have been given leash free areas is a recognition that some dogs owners can be responsible for ensuring that their dog is under control without having to be on leash. The whole concept of leash-free ares was never about giving anybody the right to allow their dog total freedom in public space. It seems that you are the one with the arrogant attitude here, and it is the attitude that dogs have more rights than other park users that will convince councils to reduce leash-free areas. Having a picnic in an open park is not the same as having a picnic on a bike path, and if you cannot see the difference, it can only be due to your own stupidity.

You take her to task? It is actually illegal to have a dog that is not under control at any park, whether it is an off-leash park or not. It is you that is breaking the law by having a dog that will not reliably recall off-leash in public. The law states that the dog must be under control at all times. If your dog does not recall reliably, then it is not under your control. Just because a park is designated off-leash, does not mean that it is not public space for everyone else to enjoy as well.

There is a difference between not liking other dogs, and fear agression. If a dog is fearful and aggressive, it is not a happy dog, it is a very upset and distressed dog. I do not understand why the wearing of a muzzle would make your dog associate training 'as a bad thing', especially if it is comfortable about wearing a muzzle at other times. Does this mean that you will not be taking your dog out in public anymore, just in case you come across another dog?

Carpet is much more appealing for dogs to toilet on, because it is more absorbent than newspaper. In a way, your dog is toilet trained. It is following its natural instincts not to soil its den area. A normal dog will move into a different area to toilet if it has a choice, and by taking it into the loungeroom, you are giving it that choice. I would suggest that you take the puppy outside to toilet, rather than into the loungeroom. Your dog is extremely unlikely to pick up any diseases from the cats, and a regular parasite preventative will keep your dog free of fleas and worms.

Meaty muesli is full of sugar. Like lollies for dogs I gave it to my dogs as a special treat on Christmas day.

RIP Jenna. I am sorry to hear this, and I know how you are feeling. :rolleyes:

Thank you for your very kind words everyone, my heart goes out to the others in the same position as me. I am so terribly sad at the moment.