sandgrubber

I, personally, would avoid anything that contains more than 2% salt.

Labrador not eating is an abnormal situation. Labrador too fat is all to common. How old is he or she? How long will he be staying there? How lean or fat was he when you left? Is he showing any signs of distress or ill health. If if it's a stay of a few weeks and he's otherwise well, I wouldn't worry; if he's got a bit of fat on him, a period of not eating may do some good. He'll eventually eat whatever. I agree with others about canned food vs dry food vs wholistic diet.

I was told that working them out in dry sand can also help. Not that there's dry anything around here these days.

It depends on the dog (eg, possible allergies or digestive problems), the dry food used, and the mix of fresh and dry food . . . among other things. For my money, chicken carcasses or meaty frames are preferred because they give a better balance of calcium to potassium (ie bone to meat). . . and it's nice that they're dirt cheap. If they're too big for your dog, get a good meat cleaver and whack them to bits. I use a supplement that's high in zinc and other trace nutrients . . . feeding beef won't up the selinium which is commonly deficient in diets, so might as well up the whole lot together. On the other hand, the greyhound racers down the street feed just beef muscle meat and their dogs aren't short on bone and seem to be tough as nails.

carrots are another good fill. My dogs love them raw . . . hence I don't bother with pumpkin. But the basic way to get a dog to loose weight is to use a balanced diet, and keep reducing portions until the dog starts dropping weight. Good luck on the epilepsy thing. Hope it turns out to be a passing worry.

Like others, fish are good, but I'd be concerned about the salt if you feed enough of them. Also about the price. Strong smelling, oily little bait fish -- eg mullies -- are even better. You can get them frozen for a relatively cheap price.

There's no such thing as "The Barf Diet" . . . it's about like saying "The Chinese Meal". BARF is a style of feeding carnivorous animals, not A diet. Try google'ing the word (add 'dog' to your search terms to avoid getting a lot of vomit references). You'll find lots of suggestions. I feed BARF style . . . the local butcher (or Leonards) is a good place to start, and the markets for fruit and veg. The stores that other people have listed will stock some of the secondary things you may choose to add. But unless you want to pay as much for your dogfood as you would for barramundi steak, I'd suggest using chicken frames as a main staple and building from there.

In my experience MOST dogfoods, including the less permium brands, will give refunds for many reasons. It's much cheaper for them to pay off a customer than to get bad publicity.

A tubal ligation is not a spay. It's simply a thread tied around each of the phallopean (sp?) tubes, which stops eggs getting to the uterus. It does not affect hormone balance. That's actually the downside. It does not eliminate the chance of pyometra and it does not stop the bitch coming into season. My repro vet won't do a spay/Ceasar, but has no problem with a TL/Ceasar.

My father was a medical doctor and liked dogs to have sex. He wasn't bothered by girls coming on heat, boys fighting, and all that stuff. He insisted on tubal ligations. I would have one done if I had a girl who needed a Ceasar and was tp be retired from breeding. It's a two minute job once they're open for a Ceasar. I agree with others, though, it's probably swelling you're looking at. I remember a certain dog who got the nickname of "tennis" after being doctored. That for 'serve me up another pair of balls'. He had massive swelling and really looked like he hadn't been done.

Altough I agree with all the advice you're getting, don't panic. As I understand it the chances are still better than 50:50 that your pup will be fine. Many Labbies with 2's in the elbow never limp; and I know of a couple prominent Lab studs who have a 2 on one elbow and who have thrown a lot of sound pups. A 7:0 hip score may indicate injury and tell you nothing about genetics. (I can't locate the article, but I remember seeing an article that showed the probability of HD/OCD in a lab pup based on the status of the sire and dam. If I remember, clear sire and dam had 10% chance of having affected pups. This rose to 15% if one parent was affected and to around 25% if both parents were affected . . . has anyone else out there read the paper . . . I'm sure it's on the www somewhere.) It's unfortunate, but chocos are in such demands that marginal breeders may cut corners to get choco pups.

Thanks for varied advice and opinions. The bill at Murdoch came to over two grand. Still waiting biopsy results. I live next door to a dog shelter and had a yarn with the woman who runs the shelter. She suggested a vet for a second opinion. The second vet apparently didn't bat an eye . . . just said dermodex mites and prescribed ivermectin (sp?), plus some ointment (which appears to be marketed as a treatment for chafed cow udders). The consensus is that the dog will have to be on meds for life, and that the cure may be slow, but the condition can be kept in check so the dog gets its hair back and can go on to a relatively itch and pain free life.

Although in many cases human and pet medicines have the same active ingredients, the dosages are often quite different. If you are not confident about the required animal dose and able to cut pills or whatever to deliver the correct dose, I would be very cautious of using leftovers from the drug cupboard . . . my vet is happy to give advice on such things, and I always consult the vet first.

Please check the URL. My server says "site not found" so I suspect there's an error somewhere.

You can purchase a surprisingly large number of dog medicines online or through warehouse-type pet stores. Self-diagnosis can be risky . . . but if your dog has a recurring problem with something, eg hot spots, and you're confident of your judgement, I see no problem with skipping the vet. Many vets overmedicate. Eg, the first time I went to a vet with a dog with hotspots, the affected area was shaved and the dog was given salve AND antibiotics. Next time I went to another vet and they were strongly against using antibiotics . . . and just gave me a walsh. Thereafter, I treated hot spots myself. My relatively folksy vet tells me you can treat them with lots of things . . . the important part is drying the area out and killing the bacteria.

I don't know anything about gangrene in dogs, but my mother got it in a finger and had to have the finger amputated. She only had the gangrene for a few days. My impression is that it is a very rapidly spreading and horrible condition. That's why they amputate. If it is gangrene the situation is dire and the need for treatment is URGENT

I think the concern with fish is about long bones being sharp and possibly perforating stomach or gut. Heads should not have that problem because the bones are plate-like rather than needle like. So I think it comes down to whether or not your dogs like them. Being a Norwegian breed, they ought to (I feed whole raw mullies [little bait fish] to labbies and huskies -- they love them).

I am posting this for a woman who has her dog in my kennel at the moment. She's come in from the country to see the dermatologist at the local Vet School (Uni). To date she as spent around $11,000 on vet bills, and her poor dog looks really awful. She's afraid he won't make it, and is also afraid she's going to end out in a situation where she has to drive into the city regularly for treatment, which will be very difficult for her. He's a curiously long haired dog born in a litter of blue heelers. Lovely temperament. About two years old. Lives in Karlgoolie and the heat and humidity don't seem to help. Symptoms: Massive loss of hair and skin in patches, particularly on face and around bum and genitals. Around 10% of body surface now hairless Ugly, scaly skin remaining -- this cracks and bleeds Loss of apetite and weight loss. Vomiting what owner describes as green bile at times hot, and at times drinking huge amounts of water uncontrollable licking continual movement when asleep distinct smell flicking of ears -- not contagious. He's been around other dogs and none have been affected. Treatment to date includes * elimination of dermadex mites (which he had from birth) -- scrapings showing he is no longer affected * antibiotics * Lupus tests (came out negative) * put on Hills perscription low residue dog food Hopefully the Uni vets will come up with a clear course of treatment . . . but the poor woman has tried all sorts of things with little success. Does anyone have any idea what this might be and how to help the dog get better? p.s. I'll try to get a good photo later. He's at the vet today.

My dogs often browse kitty litter. I use vermiculite. It goes right through and the little sparkly bits are visible after they go through. Silica gel is likely to be nasty, though, cause it sucks out liquids to an astounding degree. You've probably (wisely) been to the vet already, and what is going to happen has happened. But in the future, I'd avoid silica gel litter around dogs. Or keep the kitty litter in a place where the dog has no chance of reaching it.

Check around. I use a wonderful mobile vet who charges $20 for C3 and $25 for microchip when I do a whole litter. . . .and equivalent discounts for the annual event when I get jabs for all my adults.

I'd say the 2-3% number is just a starting point. Keep your eye on the dog. If he's getting fat, he's eating too much. If he looke emaciated, he could eat more. In the boarding kennel I find huge differences between dogs, often breed related. I have a fat Lab cross who eats almost nothing and stays fat. I get 30 kg GSP's who stay lean given 2 kg+ a day. The type of bones matters. Eg, marrow bones and well-trimmed lamb necks do not count as their weight, and you can see from the white turds that most of it is passing straight through.

DiVetelac?

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.