cavNrott

I would not get two puppies at once. They bond to eachother rather than their people, plus it's a mammoth task to try to train two puppies. Though you say they are pets for your young children it will be you that does the training, feeding cleaning etc., Puppies, bite, nip, tear your clothes and children get pretty sick of being nipped with needle sharp puppy teeth and scratched with puppy claws. It's very time consuming and frustrating trying to toilet train even one puppy let alone two of them. You know puppies need to be taken outside every hour to house train them at the beginning and you need to get up at least twice during the night to take them outside to eliminate. If you plan on leaving them in a bathroom all night then be prepared to clean up puppy poop and urine first thing in the morning before you can use the bathroom. Should I mention the smell Are these puppies coming from a registered, ethical breeder because most ethical breeders prefer not to sell a pup to anyone who already has a puppy under 12 months of age. edited to add I noticed you said they are Labs. Very lively puppies indeed. Personally I wouldn't do it because I don't think it's good for the puppies and it's very difficult for the owner to raise two well behaved obedient puppies at the same time. To further put a damper on the situation I would never leave young baby puppies outside in the yard alone during the day. They will get up to mischief, eat the inedible, dig under the fence, wreck the garden and it's too darn cold to leave young puppies outside this weather.

I would agree that it's submissive peeing and also some excitement peeing. I suggest you enrol in an obedience club. That will afford you the chance to bond with your dog. (BTW he's not an IT) He will also gain socialisation in the training environment by being around other dogs and people. If you allow him in the house with you it will also strengthen your bond with him and he will probably become more confident. I add a disclaimer here that this is my opinion because I think dogs should be inside with their family. I don't really like the idea of dogs being left outside in the yard. May I ask why you have this puppy chained up outside? He looks such a sweet little fella.

I just typed out a long post whinging about the onco not phoning and keeping me stuck inside the house all day. She just phoned and although Sophie's levels are at the high end of normal she's not concerned because the drugs she takes can often cause elevated enzymes. She thought Sophie looked very well and happy yesterday. I had a bit of a win too. When Sophie had that bad day I phoned them to suggest a human drug that deals with break through pain or if the body becomes resistant to a pain relief drug. Both oncolgists gave me a definite NO as they said this particular drug isn't used in veterinary medicine and in any case they didn't know the correct dosage for dogs. I knew darn well vets in the USA have been using it for at least 4 years so I took up a print out of the results of the clinical trials that have been conducted on dogs and the correct dosage rates and handed it to them yesterday. I wasn't about to mention it again but she just offered me a script for the drug to use if Sophie has another break through day. Evidently she knows a couple of the vet scientists who conducted the trials and had a CD of the conference on this drug but hadn't looked at it until last night. She's left the script and biochem results at the desk for me to collect in the morning. I would only use this drug if Sophie has another break through day but we achieved something at least. Now they might be willing to offer relief to cancer dogs who do suffer a lot of break through pain. edited because the spacing looked all wrong

Well I'll be! The oncologist said the same thing today, Oonga. She said Sophie and I are 'so in tune with eachother' that if I feel strongly that she should go onto a natural therapy regime, that's probably what Sophie needs. She wants to continue the other drugs Sophie takes. I'm ok with that. I want to stop the chemo tablet she has every 48 hours. The onco doesn't know if it's controlling the rate of growth and whether the tumour will grow out of control without the chemo drug. She did an FBE and sent out some bloods for a complete biochemistry profile. She said if Sophie's levels are high then I can stop the chemo drug. We can always go back on it but if the tumour does grow out of control we can't back track and shrink it. I think the tumour is already out of control. I didn't mention I put Sophie on a herbal therapy last Monday that is known to sometimes shrink tumours. Whether it will work for Sophie is a wait and see situation. Onco needed a urine specimen to send away. They usually take a direct draw from her bladder but for some reason the onco wanted a natural specimen. I'm glad I taught Soph to pee on command. She had a big pee before we went in so I wasn't sure. I took her outside and she was squeezing out as much as she could to obey my 'toilet' command. I managed to collect enough for testing. The onco was impressed.LOL. I was so nervous and it went straight down the lead to Sophie. She was really shaking and she never does that. It was all for nothing because the onco didn't give me a hard time and was in total agreement with me doing what I think is best for Sophie. Now we await the chemistry profile. Should be in tomorrow morning. The onco will phone me and email me a copy of the profile. Thanks to the caring people in this thread who are supportive and encouraging. It helps more than you know. efs

Thanks for the vote of confidence Nekhbet. I need it because I know today will not be pleasant and I feel that the treatement I want for Sophie is what she needs. You've given me resolve to stick to my guns. It's not easy arguing with two oncolgists and trying to explain to them why I want to alter the treatment. I've done it before and copped a 'what would you know' attitude....guess I'm in for some more of that today. I'm leaving in 5 minutes and feeling nervous is putting it mildly. I'll update this evening. I'm going to make an appointment with a holistic vet so assess Sophie and we'll go from there. Glad to hear the Diesel is doing so well. Good for you.

Thanks for the good thoughts and for caring about us. We're seeing the oncologist later on today and I want to stop one of the drugs I think is doing more harm than good. It's no longer working for Sophie. I guess I won't win any popularity polls there. I should be able to see by next week if this new natural product is working for Sophie so hoping for the best. She's been really well over the last few days. We're not giving up yet.

Thanks for the good wishes guys. I'm not giving up on Sophie. I'm going to try another couple of things that may contain her her mouth tumour and stop it from growing...or at best even shrink it a little then Sophie will be more comfortable. What I'm going to try can't harm her or make her worse so we have nothing to lose by trying something rather unconventional that might improve things a little for her. Her cancer can't be cured nor will she go into remission, I accept that but I'd like her to be comfortable for the time she has left. I've been assured this new stuff is not contraindicated with her current medication and if by any chance there is an improvement after a while on the new preparations then I will stop the chemo tablet she takes on alternate days...it's not working for her anyway. It also has the side effect of causing liver and kidney probs. I'd really like to stop that drug. The oncologist has nothing else to offer and isn't really prepared to discuss alternative therapies so I guess I'll just keep this under my hat when we see her next Thursday and wait to see what happens with Sophie on these new preparations. edited because the gremlins removed some words and it didn't make sense

He shouldn't be doing stairs at this stage. Can you put up a ramp instead of having him use stairs? When my girl was done with titanium implants she was crated for 6 weeks with only on lead toilet breaks and I was told she was not to do stairs or any jumping onto the couch etc., Hope he recovers quickly.

There were two questions asked in the original post. The second question is quoted above, in case you missed it.

Righto! And does the powder have the cotton wool between the powder and the lid? I think the question was about the packing wool. Just trying to link your reply to the question :rolleyes:

;) ;) ;)

Kiash I don't think she will. She is winding down. I doubt she'll make the two months because the tumour is so large and growing....and bleeding daily.

Thanks again to those sending their best wishes to Sophie. We had our vet visit today and he was surprised to see her looking so well. Sophie happily bounced in there and hopped straight onto the scale and sat waiting for the vet nurse to come over to record her weight. The vet said he expected to see her looking dull and lifeless. Her coat is still shiny and she has plenty of go in her, she was so happy to see him, he's one of her favourite people. He was rather surprised at the size of her tumour though and checked her lymph nodes and lungs and couldn't detect any sign of metastasis. He certainly gave her a good going over all of which she accepted without complaint. He doesn't think she is in pain because she didn't shy away or flinch at all while he was pushing and probing her jaw and mouth. If the tumour doesn't erupt then she probably has about two months left. If it does, then her time has come. Her general health is excellent but there's nothing we can do about the tumour. If we were to try and debulk it then it would grow back within 2 weeks and probably worse than it already is. It's the mouth tumour that will be her undoing, not the osteosarcoma in her mandible. He said he would never have thought that she would be in such good condition and 'keep up the good work'. We also discussed our plan for when her time comes.

Thanks for the good wishes for Sophie, they cheer me up when I get that strong, sad feeling of defeat. She's improved every day since her bad day. The tumour hasn't bled at all today. Not sure if that's a good or a bad sign. It's still growing though. I'm taking her to her regular vet in the morning for his assessment. He hasn't seen her for a while because the oncologist took over her care. Our vet has cared for Sophie since she was a baby puppy. He knows her well, he also calls her his favourite because she's so compliant and obedient for him. He wrote a lovely article in his monthly newsletter about her last year. I think at the oncologists she's just another cancer patient whereas the vet has a more personal and long standing relationship with her. I'm not sure I want to continue with the oncologist. The drugs they have Sophie on are no longer working for her and the onco dismisses any suggestions I make about natural products or the new drug trials they are conducting overseas. I think the natural supplements I'm giving Soph might be starting to take effect and maybe her tumour needed to bleed out. I asked the onco if there is anything they can prescribe to slow the progression of her cancer but they say there isn't so I can't seen much point in continuing with them. Our vet can do the blood tests and prescribe the meds. Soph must be feeling well because today she kept bringing the ball and she's been taking the soft toys out of the toy box and tossing them over her shoulder. We didn't go out, it was cold and windy but she had a good day with plenty of energy and lots of play. Oh, I nearly forgot. On the day she was unwell I was bending over her cleaning her mouth and just as I bent down she jumped up and we bumped heads...result...I have a lovely black eye! Hopefully I can cover it with makeup when we go to the vet tomorrow.

It's his eyelids, not his eyes. If the lower lids are drooping it would mean that he has Ectropion. He's been diagnosed with Entropion so it seems the upper eyelids are the problem. His eyes do look very irritated but the pics are not clear enough to tell. When my girl had surgery for entropion many years ago the first surgery didn't turn out too well and had to be done again a year or so later. It never was much good even after the second surgery. The second eyelid was good and gave her no further problems.

I'm a bit confused here. What does pigment have to to with entropion. Isn't entropion about eyelashes growing inwards and rubbing on the eye? The pigementation is what occurs from the irritation of the eyelashes rubbing on the eye. Are you sure? The rubbing causes ulceration which can lead to scarring but what does this have to do with pigmentation? That's exactly what I thought too peigirl. One of my old Rotties had entropion and had surgery on both eyes. There was no issue or even any mention of pigmentation but she was tested many times to see if her eyes had developed an ulcer before the surgeries.

Thanks Jodi. I think we experienced our first REALLY bad day. I remember you saying on bad days you think 'this is it'. That's exactly what I thought and now I know what you mean. There is no way I expected Sophie to feel better today. She's tired after yesterday but is her usual happy self. I rang the oncologist this morning and she said Sophie probably had 'break through pain'. Evidently this isn't unusual with cancer patients. I wish she'd warned me before it happened. The pain meds are working well today and the bleeding is intermittent instead of constant. In fact I think the tumour looks a bit smaller after expelling all that blood. eta: Thanks for the hugs...we need them.

Sophie is looking and feeling much better today so I won't make the dreaded decision today. She slept well last night and ate her breakfast with enthusiasm so today is not her day. She hasn't given me 'the' look. It will be only a matter of days but today isn't the day unless she goes into rapid decline as the day wears on. I got up very early this morning and I've been watching her very closely for hours...she's not ready to go yet. I'm about to ring the oncologist and ask if I should bring her in for their assessment. I'd feel much better if a specialist took a good look at her. There may be some slim chance they can give her something to make her feel a little better and stop the bleeding. I'll update tonight. Thank you for thinking of us and please send pain free, gentle vibes to Sophie.

I'm a bit confused here. What does pigment have to to with entropion. Isn't entropion about eyelashes growing inwards and rubbing on the eye?

Alix I'm so sorry for your loss of the lovely boy. Rest in Peace

Thanks for asking after her Kiash. She's not too good at all. I phoned the vet this afternoon to alert him that we're getting very close. He wasn't there and he's off duty until next Monday. It's difficult to catch him these days. He seems to do 3 days on and 4 days off. I wanted him to be the one to do what needs to be done when the time comes because Sophie likes him and trusts him. Sophie's gone downhill over the last two days. I took her to the park yesterday and she did her usual rolling but that was about it. We stayed for just 10 minutes and she only trotted and sniffed. No big run for her and that's out of character for her. Today she looks unwell and unhappy. She didn't look well enough to take out and it was cold and windy. She's been sleeping or at least resting for most of the day and her tumour bled most of yesterday and all of today. This will probably cause anaemia and make her feel worse but there's nothing we can do to help. I'm hoping she'll rally around and feel better tomorrow. Her appetite is still good, she ate all her dinner and happily takes her medication so I'm hoping she'll feel a bit better tomorrow. She does look at me all the time but I haven't seen THE look yet. I'll see how she is in the morning and keep her on heavy pain relief tonight. If she is like this or worse tomorrow then I'll call the vet who treated Dana to come to the house and put Sophie to rest. I don't want to rob her of her life but I also don't want her to suffer. I'd rather be one day early than one day late and cause her to her suffer for an extra day. It's so hard to see my happy, fun loving dog so sick and tired.

Freezing raw meat destroys Neospora. All meat my dogs eat has been frozen and thawed out in the fridge before I feed it to them. I guess that doesn't help much if your dog already has the problem though.

Just pointing out that this thread is 3 years old and perhaps we shouldn't put the owner through the sad events of that awful day when she lost Irial again.

Sorry but why would you not take that dog to the vet. That's not a minor abrasion and it looks very uncomfortable, if not painful. Please take the poor little thing to the vet.

petmezz: When is he booked in for surgery? I hope it all goes well and the lumps are benign.