sandgrubber

I'd add canned dog food to schmoo's list. It's mostly water, often contains unhealthy fat:protein rations and too much salt, and it tends to make 'em fart I agree with tollersowned . . . the list is a bit alarmist. A blanket ban on eating plants is a bit overdone, though I wish mine had less apetite for pot plants :D . I would feed my dogs a lot of avocado if I could afford to. I can't imagine how you'd get even a labrador to eat enough citrus oil to do any damage. The odd hand full of raisins does not harm. But there's little disagreement on some things on the list, eg, onions, corn cobs, chocolate and meat packs.

There's mince and there's mince. My local bulk supplier of chicken mince just takes chicken frames (from the same supplier as I use for frames) and runs them through a mincer, hence their chicken mince has exactly the same nutritional content as frames -- and is only 10 cents a kilo dearer. The problem is that chicken mince does nothing for teeth and gums, so frames are better, but mince is not bad. When you get mince from most of the red meat animals, it contains little or no bone. If you try putting beef bones through a conventional mincer, you'll understand why. So all the concerns about Ca:P ratio pertain.

As others have indicated, the potential problem is simply the runs. Not a serious problem, and easy to diagnose. My dogs love milk and when I have milk that goes off, I give it to them. I've never had any problems. There are cheaper and healthier foods for a puppy, but apart from making things a bit harder to clean up, I can't see why its a problem. Note, dog (ok bitch . . . ok canine) milk is very high fat, so I would be inclined to use full cream rather than skim milk. The lactose content is the same. Lactose is a sugar. It stays behind when they skim off the cream.

I basically agree with the advice others have given . . . discuss it with your vet first. BUT there are some vets out there who have fixed attitudes and don't keep up with the literature. No one can know everything, and all competent professionals are open to new information. If you think you can't discuss it with the vet, or your vet isn't willing to listen to the outcomes of studies based on scientific evidence, CHANGE VETS.

I run a boarding kennel. Blood in stools is fairly common in the yards I clean up (maybe one in twenty dogs. . . wild guess). I have asked my vet about this and she says that it is not a RED ALERT problem with dogs, and is often insignificant. Of course, it's best to get it checked out. But it isn't a matter for panic as it would be for humans.

One of the vets I use regularly recommends asparin for aches and pains . . . she thinks rimdyl is better . . . but if you don't have any on hand asparin will do. However, long term use of asparin may cause stomach ulcers.

Yes, raw carrots. The BARF people say to put them through a feed processor and feed the mush that comes out, but I cut them coarsely. My eight Labbies go through a 20 kg bag (~$6) of horse-food carrots in about 2 weeks (I probably pinch 3 kg of for the people). I don't think they digest most of it, judging from the orange flecks in their poohs, but they enjoy eating them, and I think the roughage is probably healthy for the gut. The also love cabbage, broccoli stems, apples, cauliflower and almost anything else that falls on the floor when I'm cooking. I throw veggies all over the floor and the dogs have great fun chasing / catching them. I use peanut butter or pet mince to get tablets down. Cheese is fine in small qualities, but I prefer to keep it for myself. The staple for mine is chicken carcasses . . . trimmed of fat . . . hit with a meat cleaver first for the puppies. They also get some biscuit ~1/2 C each daily. I use Bonnie (I do use a higher grade for the younger pups). Needn't be super premium if it is just a side course to the main meal. I supplement with some nasty fish-derived stuff with lots of trace minerals, vitamins, Omega 3/6, etc. I can't honestly answer you about protein x vegetables x biscuit balances. I don't think the veggies provide much energy . I don't pretend that's the best way to feed Labs. But mine are healthy enough, their coats are great, mostly I've gotten A-grade hips and elbows, and the girls mostly whelp large litters . . . so it couldn't be too bad.

An elderly Irish lady once told me that people used to ask her mother "How do you feed all those [13] children?" She said her mother always said: "Figure out what they don't like and feed them lots of it". If it had been Labrador puppies, I would have been ok with this advice, apart from the 'lots of it' part. If they're bored, find a few small treats to spice things up for them. Carrots are great. Liver snacks are ok, too, if you want to pay $30+/kg for dogfood. As for the main staple . . . if they're eating it, but not gobbling it down, that's good enough. Just not too many snacks, and no fatty foods as snacks.

I wash my dogs (Labbies) as little as possible. They swim daily. I also get comments on how lovely their coats are . . . except when they're blowing coats. I use dog shampoo (Fidos herbal or oatmeal) in the hydrobath when I do wash dogs. It leaves them smelling nice for so long (particularly important if you let your dogs in the bed).

What are you feeding them? (Not that there are many things Labbies don't like). I think all my Labbies were gutzers every day of their lives . . . apart from bitches in whelp. I wouldn't worry about it if they still have good energy level, normal poohs, and aren't puking. . . . unless you think there's a chance that the food has gone off or came from a bad batch.

THick walled poly pipe is good for destructive dogs that like long things (as opposed to balls). Cheap paint rollers take awhile to destroy and don't make a big mess. Many pups love them. And of course, there's sticks. Judo belts are good for destructive dogs that like to tug.

Weekly washes???? Why? I always thought dogs' skins were better off with more brushing and very little soap . . . which strips out the oils. I own a hydrobath, but only bathe the dogs every few months, or when they find something delightful to roll in, or before shows.

Hope you get to breath sighs of relief soon . . . and that the event helps in training OH.

Hope he's going ok. Please update us.

Hope Nelly's back to full wag. Here's a link for cold tail. http://www.woodhavenlabs.com/coldtail.html Sounds like that's one possibility . . . but your vet's guess also sounds reasonable . . . eg, spider bite.

I've got a couple dogs in kennels whose owner supplied Royal Canin Jr for them. They are very happy pinching the ProPlan small dog that I've given the other small dogs in their exercise area.

Some foods produce loose poohs, particularly those with a lot of (undigestable) grain in them. Try a high-end dry dogfood, if you're not using one already. Avoid canned food. Alternatively, try a BARF style diet . . . BARF dogs generally have hard little turds that turn white because they're so full of calcium. There are differences between dogs in what they digest and what they don't . . . but if your present dry food is rich in maize corn it's a likely culprit. Corn meal goes right through a lot of dogs.

As noted in a previous post, some 'chocolate', particularly cheapo varieties, doesn't contain much chocolate at all . . . the dangers are in eating large portions or small portions of dark stuff. I do wish they wouldn't make those dog chocolate drop treats, though. It gives people the wrong idea.

I have four labs under two years of age. It's very convenient to have five acres of what used to be a sandpit and they have a ball digging. One got good at digging under fences, though, and I eventually had to put up electric fence to keep her from digging out. Electric fencing doesn't sound nice, but it does work when everything else fails. The dogs learn fast, and it's rare for them to get shocked more than once.

An experienced breeder might be more help than a vet. I'd try posting something on the breeder's forum (you can post things there and read other people's posts, but cannot reply to threads) asking for urgent help and give your location. Note, some breeders are very down on breedings of non-pedigree dogs, so you may get some guff, but there are also some very helpful and knowledgable people. If I were you I'd be aiming for a heated location, and trying to set up a whelping box of some sort. Puppies are very succeptible to cold in their first three or four days.

As I understand it -- and my understanding may be wrong -- a PROPERLY vaccinated dog is protected, full stop. However, pups that have been vaccinated at six weeks often do not develop immunity because the maternal antibodies attack the vaccine. The window between the first and second vaccinations is a dangerous time. And there are occasional cases where the second jab doesn't take either. One of my vets said that the first annual booster clinches in the protection.

It would be great to have some science-based advice on the exercise question. Has anyone seen any peer reviewed studies on the subject? I always end up confused when I advise puppy buyers. The vet I trust most on the subject is at odds with run-of-the-mill breeders advice. The worst skeletal problems I've had were a pair of lovely girls who played hard together but were not walked until they were older. But other pups who've had playmates have been fine. And several pups who have been walked from four months were fine. But I don't walk dogs hard and a lot of it is off lead. Maybe the anti-walking advice came from experiences of power walkers???? Eight months is past the main period of bone calcification, and in the way I understand it, is near the time when you can begin shifting from building bone to building muscle. Or are newly calcified bones more fragile? I don't know.

Sounds like time to get a new dog to me But I don't know your situation, so that may be out of order.

I run a boarding kennel. From my observations, your dog is perfectly normal. Most dogs will eat dry biscuits ONLY if they are hungry and they can't find anything better to eat (a few, including most Labradors, will eat anything put before them in almost any quantity). If you enjoy watching your dog enjoy eating, find some healthy treats. You'll find lots written on raw food diets. Most dogs love them and they can be very healthy. But if you don't like that sort of thing, use a premium grade dry food for small dogs and dress it up a bit with healthy treats. Milk and cheese are fine in small amounts (less than, say 10% of diet), especially if they don't give your dog the runs or make it fart a lot.

You've probably done a lot of reading and talking by now and this may be old hat . . . but in case you haven't picked up on it, epilepsy is hard to diagnose. I had a girl who had one tremendous grand mal seizure (at about three years old) and then never had another. I'm sure it feels good in a way to have a positive diagnosis, but keep an open mind. If he doesn't respond to meds as expected, it could be because it isn't classic epilepsy.