Cavalier

That was just a general statement used to make a point.

I do live in the country and as I said, my very lazy Cavalier could not be bothered taking on a magpie

Ok before I say anymore, I have been trained in nutrition and within 12 months will be a vet, so I am not going to be consulting my vet on this topic.

Point number two. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I will respect everyone elses as long as you respect mine. Please lets have no attacks in this thread!

I have no problem with my pets eating meat as long as they have hunted it down and killed it themselves. I cannot see my Cavalier doing this there =fore I am looking for alternatives!!! Dogs are not wild animals anymore. I have chosen to keep an breed which intensively bred over hundreds/thousands of years as a pet and I do not wish to inflict an unfair death on another animal because I made this choice.

I am a vegetarian and have been for a while. My dog at the moment is fed meat based commercial diet. I am considering changing my Cavalier to a vegetarian commercial diet based on soy protein, eggs etc both for the reasons I have stated above and to improve her health.

It has been well documented in humans that a well balanced vegetarian diet reduces the risk of heart disease (big plus in a Cav), cancer, diabetes, pancreatitis and many other diseases.

On the topic of cats. You are able to buy taurine which has been synthesised using bacterial recombinant DNA. There is a a vegan cat and a vegan dog commercial diet which has been tested and approved by AFFCO. No animal cruelty involved!

There is actually no physiological or biochemical reason why dogs cannot be fed a vegetarian diet.

They are technically omnivores...not carnivores.

Have any members here raised their dogs on a vegetarian diet? This includes dairy (lactose free of course) and egg products, just no meat.

Sweeping statements like "nobodywould recommend Hills Science Diet" and "Hills Science Diet causes cancer" have absolutely no backing to them except your opinion.

You are obviously very pro BARF and that is great. BUT that does not mean that your way is the only way you can keep a dog healthy throughout its life.

Many MANY MANY dogs are fed premium commercial diets and do fantastically. Just because Your dog was fed HSD and it happened to get cancer, does not mean that the HSD caused the cancer!!!!!!

Both my dogs are fed commercial diets and every dog I have owned before them has been fed a commercial diet. They are/were all very healthy and lived til ripe old ages.

If you want to go to the trouble of mixing up a BARF diet then go for it!!! But dont ridicule other people when they do not follow what you do.

We are blessed over here is WA. We get the small brown kangaroo tick up in the hills, but not the paralysis tick.

We just have thousands of deadly tiger snakes!

Erny,

I know the airconditioning tunnel is not to standard size, but as I said before, it teaches the dog the principles.

So far it has been sturdy enough to take my 7kg Cavalier running through it each day. NOt sure it would be sturdy enough for a big dog though

So far I have just banged the poles into the ground. Eventually when I get some time I will put some kind of base on them so it is easier to bang them in :rolleyes:

I am a student, so when I saw the price of some of the equipment, I almost died. But I have managed to create a basic course that does the job for the cost of an hour of my time (which is not much!!!).

Silverblue that does not surprise me one bit. Some people are absolute idiots when it comes to dogs, and any animal for that matter.

We get people ringing up all the time, usually on a Saturday afternoon as we are about to close and say "my dog has had bloody diarrhoea and vomitting for 5 days, do you think I need to bring it in? Can I have credit coz I have no money?"

These people are morons and should not be allowed to own animals.

Tha active ingredient in Ratsak is Warfarin. It depletes the Vitamin K store in the body and as people have correctly pointed out the pup will bleed to death if it is not taken to the vets. It will require weeks of vitamin K treatment by either daily injections or via a syrup.

I would give a 0 chance of survival if they dont take it to a vet.

I just made all my own equipment.

I have weave pole, 3 jumps, a tyre, a table and a tunnel.

The weave poles are PVC pipe, the table is an old table I found in my shed, jumps are bricks with an old broom handle and the tunnel is a length of industrial airconditioning venting.

Even though none of it it at the specified heights etc, it teaches the dog the principles and gives us something to practice at home between formal training at our club.

She has improved greatly since I have been able to train at home.

Panting in dogs can be a sign of pain.

Get the vet to check out his joints (using flexion and extention tests) and palpate his abdomen. As well as the normal full physical examination.

My GSD who has hip dysplasia pants when her hips are getting sore.

My 5 year old GSD has severe hip dysplasia and was diagnosed about 18 months ago.

At first she seemed depressed, was panting at odd times and licking her paws. Within about a week she was showing what we thought were signs of abdominal pain (tucked up apperance and resented any kind of abdominal palpation). She also didnt want to jump on the lounge or in the car anymore.

She has never shown any distinct signs of lameness although if you look really closely she drags her hind toes when she walks.

At the vets they did a full work up, including felxing and extending her hips, where she showed no pain response. So we did blood tests and cultured urine for Aspergillus. She was diagnosed and treated for a urinary tract infection, which was not the wrong diagnosis as we had a culture done, but the HD was missed. Once her UTI had cleared up, the signs were still there so I requested x-rays were done and her hips were awful.

HD can show some weird signs so my suggestions would be if you have an at risk breed (ie large) get hips xrays done regardless. Better to be safe than sorry.

I am saving my pennies for my GSD's hip replacements....

I started training my dog the day I got her (8 weeks) also. She is now 2 years old and we are starting formal training at my local club in two weeks. I cant wait!