westielover

On 07/09/2018 at 8:05 PM, Dame Danny's Darling said:

    Poor doggy and you, @westielover.  Danny ()went through this and now Jeune is too.  Danny had a few sessions of ablations (is that the right word??) and had a contact lens in his eye for protection.  Jeune is now going through the same thing, but has been treated with Viscotears and Opticin three times a day.  She was doing so well that the last time we went for a check up (these were weekly for quite a few weeks) the vet was so excited at the improvement that she dropped the meds to just Viscotears twice a day.  Yesterday she was back to squinting and eye was watering copiously so I think we need up the meds a little bit.   

 

Oh no - sorry to hear Danny is no longer with us @Dame Danny's Darling Poor little Jeune! Sounds like she is responding well to the treatment though. Sounds like Jeune might need to stay on the combo of Viscotears and Opticin. 

Riley is having the corneal graft today - so hopefully everything will go well. Fingers crossed!

On 07/09/2018 at 6:12 PM, Rappie said:

I have treated a couple of patients with a similar condition. The calcium deposits can slough to leave the resulting ulcer as the defect. There aren't a lot of alternatives, obviously you will be best guided by the specialist - I've seen some discussion of the use of contact lenses, but other than that the cases that I have seen have been treated conservatively with loads of lubricant eye drops, antibiotics (topical and oral) as required, pain relief as required and crossing fingers. One of the benefits to being aged is that the corneal basement membrane is a little less delicate but rupture is still possible as even once the ulcer heals the defect is not entirely replaced with normal cornea. If the cornea ruptures then enucleation is recommended. 

Thanks for the reply Rappie. Turns out my westies is having the corneal graft today. The ulcer is quite deep and the specialist is worried about rupture. His bloods are excellent for a dog of his age so she's she is happy to proceed with the surgery. He's at SASH - so in good hands. Fingers crossed he doesn't get any more ulcers in the future!

30 minutes ago, Dogsfevr said:

Can he see out of either eye .
Did you have a chat to the specialist about other options given his age & what did they suggest

Yes he can see out of both eyes and currently has no cataracts but he has lost depth perception and hoes have greyness in his eyes.

I have put a call into the specialist and waiting for a call back. I was just interest to see if anyone else has has this experience with any fo their dogs and what path was taken.

My 17 year old west highland terrier has just had a diagnosis of calcium deposits in his eyes. One of his eyes currently has an ulcer in it. The opthamologist has suggested a corneal graft because there is damage to the stroma and graft may help prevent the eyes rupturing? His blood results indicate that everything is within normal levels - so nothing stands out as to what could be causing these deposits except for the ageing process. 

I'm not keen to have my little old dog undergo such a big operation on both eyes at his age. :-(

Has anyone been through this with their dog and are there any less invasive options/natural remedies? 

Ohhhhhh Boronia - I just came across this terribly sad news. I'm so sorry to hear of Penny, Mac and Daisy's passing. Gosh and all so soon of each other. Brings tears to my eyes.

They sure had good years with you - what a fabulous age they all lived to. I still have my little Riley, who is 15 now but I lost Winston a few weeks after he turned 13.

Bless you Boronia for taking Penny, Mac and Daisy into your home and giving them a great life - you have a heart of gold.

Oops double post!

Ohhhhhh Westiemum - I just saw that dear Mac has gone to rainbow bridge. I know how sad you must be. It will take a long time before you can think about Mac without getting weepy. Mac had a wonderful life with you and I have no doubt he knew how much you loved him to the very end. Maybe Winston and Mac will hook up at rainbow bridge and get up to some mischief!!

Sending you big hugs xxxx

oops wrong thread

Awwwww - Happy 15th Birthday Mac - you beautiful little white bear!!! What a great age !!

:birthday:

Oops wrong thread!

Hi westiemum

Try Taste of the Wild I use this kibble for low value treats and the boys show no adverse reaction to it - however, I don't tend to feed kibble as a meal.

Stay well away from that place. The owner is a fool!

They also do boarding there.

A few years back someone boarded a west highland terrier puppy there approx 3 months old (yes the owner of pup was a fool to board a pup that young!!). Anyway, when the owner returned to collect her puppy - the owner (John) claims that there was a hot windstorm (it was January) and blew the gate open to the puppy's kennel run and the puppy allegedly ran away and disappeared. They made no effort to contact her to let her know what had happended and they still tried to charge her for boarding!

I helped the owner search for that 'missing' pup - nowhere to be seen - none of the neighbours had seen a stray pup and NONE of the neighbours had anything nice to say about John - quite to contrary actually. He was an obnoxious pig who proceeded to follow us around the area we were searching, and hurled verbal abuse at us!

During the search for the puppy we came across another dog training facility nearby - they appeared to be a professional set up and also had nothing nice to say about sydneydogtraining and John.

The owner of the puppy took John to court in order to get re-imbursed for the cost of her puppy and the associated boarding fees. She won and received 80% of what she asked for.

To this day - we have no idea what happened to that puppy.

I would never ever recommend anyone to either board their dog there or have their dog trained by this fool. His entire demeanour and attitude screamed unprofessional, obnoxious, arrogant, unhelpful - he was an awful awful man and I honestly cannot believe that he would be kind to an animal. Personally, I would not trust him with my dogs!

Yes!

Great runs Westielover & congrats in getting into the finals Come on guys....where are all the videos....or am I being punished for not being there myself.

They are great runs aren't they :-)

The Dane and Viszla aren't mine - they belong to a friend of mine - I just did the filming for her so she would have something to keep from the nationals :-)

I have captured more runs from the nationals but I haven't had time to do the editing etc yet - I will load them in the next few days - had to go back to work this week sadly

Here's one to get this video thread going .... Sash the Great Dane and Mars the Vizla (bred by Bokezu). This was day 2 in the outdoor rings :-)

Both dogs got into the finals - yay!!

A close friend of mine lost her 2 border collies last year and I had some graphite drawings done for her:

Noah

Zues

Luckily she's in the habit of taking lots of photo's of her fur kids and putting them up on Flickr - so I was able to grab some lovely photos for the artist without my friend knowing. I also had them framed.

She loved the drawings and both the boys have a special place on the wall where they can be remembered every day :)

24 x 7 access to house & yard via a dog door.

All toilet trained - otherwise would be outside until toilet trained!

When I used to foster - all dogs outside until foster dog toilet trained (much to the dismay of my dogs :laugh: )

I can't just pick 5

Coolie

Kelpie

Field Bred Springer Spaniel

Brittany

Norfolk Terrier

Rough coat JRT

West Highland Terrier

To be honest - I couldn't pick the above dogs just for looks - they are all dogs which I do like the look of but I also like the breed and what they are bred for. I just can't bring myself to pick a breed for looks only.

My westies are 11 and 10 years old now. They have not been vaccinated since they were 4 or 5 years old (can't quite remember now). They used to have titre tests every year - but now i just have their bloods done every year (for general health checking) and they are both very healthy dogs who have never had the typical skins problems that westies have. Their bloods come back normal every year so far. They honestly seem fit & healthy looking for dogs of their age. They have also been fed a natural diet all of their lives and I honestly believe that the healthy food & lack of regular vaccinations has contributed greatly to their overall health.

I have seen other small dogs around the 10/11 year mark who are in terrible condition and upon chatting to the owners - the common differences always seem to be commercial food and annual vaccinations ...... I am a firm believer that we over vaccinate our dogs unnecessarily.

11 year old west highland terrier - male - desexed

10 year old west highland terrier - male - desexed

5 year old springer spaniel cross - male - desexed

2.5 year old kelpie - male - desexed

All get along fantastically well. They seem to be a very happy harmonious pack who are comfortable to eat food in front of each other without scuffles - they play together well and generally appear to enjoy each other's company.

So far a scuffle-less pack

(touches wood!!)

So sorry for your loss Staffyluv

Rest in peace Ollie dog - you will be remembered by many

My 11 year old westie had this treatment in May this year. He seems much more comfortable now.

Big congrats to Vickie & Trim.

Here's the video!

What happens to the owners of the dog who killed the child? Do they get punished in any way? Do they cop a manslaughter charge? Or do they walk away free?

Does anyone know?

Yeah - I did some work with him in the ring (NFC) and he managed to walk down the end of the DW and do a contact and i did some extra work with food later... he refuses to budge when he is on the horizontal part, even with food. He is too scared to move a paw! I'll just have to do lots of work with him to build him back up. It's unfortunate because he used to LOVE doing his contacts.

Hey TN, Ruby is proof that they can get over the fear and get back on it. She's had 2 scares now and so I've had to battle twice to get her back on the dogwalk, but she's been ok for most of this year and is trialling in agility. She has always feared "ramps" even before her dogwalk phobia started so she does creep up the dogwalk instead of running over it, but at least she's getting on there and wants to! I had to use loooooooooots of treats, also tried getting her to follow another dog over it, also had other exciting new handlers take her over. Just a combination of those and patience got her back on it. Good luck!! What happened, did I miss you posting about it? Congrats on your quallies, too!!!

Vickie might be able to describe what happened better than me, as an outsider's perspective. But he basically all but fell off the DW. He couldn't get his footing, started freaking out and so sped up and then launched off the top of the down-ramp. And now he refuses to get onto the DW and freezes if I lift him onto it.

Maybe go right back to basics to rebuild his confidence and get him used to walking the dog walk at ground level and then slowly building the height back up to full height. Maybe some rear end awareness work through a ladder might help his confidence as well.

They were just 2 ideas which popped into my head reading your post. I didn't see poor Jedi fall off the dog walk. Congrats on the jumping quallie