sandgrubber

A friend's dog (Labrador) apparently did this. Not sure what the swallowed object was . . .could have been foam rubber . . . could have been a meat absorber thingy. He developed a blockage and all the symptoms (vomiting, wretching, obvious discomfort) and got put into emergancy. They put a barium tracer through him and Xrayed hourly to try and find where the blockage was (the thing didn't show up well on Xray). It eventually passed without surgery, but I'm sure the vet bill was horrid.

Don't worry so much about weight as profile and feel. If you can feel the ribs and see a waistline, you're pretty much ok. 23 kg sounds like a mid-range weight for an 8 mo lab bitch, presuming she has a fair amount of bone. As for the exercise thing . . . I sold a lovely Lab pup to a family with instructions to constrain activity until about a year . . . gentle walks only . . . blah, blah, blah. What did they do? Of course, took him out horse back riding, on a regular basis, starting at around six months. I was horrified and shocked. Sent him in to be rayed at 1 year. Guess what. 2:1 hips and 0:0 elbows. As good as any of my dogs. I asked our vet, who has a history working with Guide Dogs. He said, straight ahead exercise generally doesn't do harm and may do good. Twisting and bumping and jumping are what you need to avoid

Honey is good for dogs, so long as you don't feed it by the kilo. But it's not good to give them lots of bread, so maybe better not to give them the sandwiches.

Note, it looks like you're getting a lot of possibly useful advice. Try things one at a time, and give them enough time to work. You may already be alert to this, but I think it deserves stating: Trying lots of things at once is not generally a good strategy because: -- you'll never be able to work out what is working -- two things may interact, causing further problems -- some of the things you are using are probably doing nothing, and others may be doing harm.

If you're worming regularly, what's the problem? If they get worms, you take care of them. The odd parasite isn't a problem. It's when you get a build up that they do harm. I let my mob loose in the bush and I'm sure they also enjoy roo, bandicoot, rabbit, and Lord only knows what else.

My labs (nine at the moment) like the curry-comb style "brushes". Rubber nibbly things rather than bristles. If they're at all itchy, they love getting combed and scratched. And they like it otherwise. Maybe you just need to be patient. Some puppies don't like to stand still for anything.

I use a dietary supplement called Selvita, which is very high in selenium -- also has many vitamins, rare amino acids, Omega 3 and 6's, and minerals. The recommended doses are small and it's reasonably cheap. See http://www.vetnpetdirect.com.au/catalog/Se...gs-p-16405.html

My theory is it's a natural sort of pro-biotics . I've never met a dog that doesn't love kitty crunchies. I'm a little more worried when I see loads of vermiculite (which is what I use for kitty litter) show up in the dog poohs . . . but it seems to go through them with no harm .

In my experience, we use some human medications on dogs (eg vallium). Where meds are developed specifically for the veterinary market they give them a different name (and a different price, and with different description sheets). But there may be times when the vet specifies the chemical name rather than the drug name given by the drug company. . . in which case human and dog meds with the same active ingredient will be called by the same drug name.

I breed Labbies. Nutrition is important, but not the latch-key to arthritic problems. I suspect the dogfood manufacturers like to take advantage of distress. I don't have AN ANSWER. But feel free to PM for casual not legally binding opinion. p.s. (which should come before all else). Sorry to hear your pup is in pain.

I run a boarding kennel. I just had a 12 year old Weimeraner bitch die while boarding. She was on Metacam. Her last days were associated with fever, severe stomach / gasto problems. She had obvious skeletal problems when she came in (severely abnormal gait) -- which is why she was on metacam. I'm not taking sides in any way . . . just trying to add one datum to the tally.

Sounds like an excellent excuse to get a second dog . Mine clean one anothers ears and they never get infections (knock on wood).

If she's lactose intolerant, milk will give her the runs. I think -- but may be wrong -- that pups feed cow's milk from early on tend not to develop lactose tolerance. I try to keep my dogs lactose intolerant -- and give them a good dose of milk when things aren't moving down below.

Great thread. I haven't seen any discussion of the effect on growth patterns for a young dog. Thought it might be worth noting that I asked our local leading repro vet (Steve Metcalf at Applecross) about possibly using it on one of my boys to simplify running the boy with the girls. He advised against it . . . at least for a Labbie. He said cutting down testosterone would affect bone growth, probably resulting in a taller, lankier dog. In his opinion the best use of the implant was for full grown dogs who could stand a bit of toning down of testosterone-driven behaviours. He didn't seem willing to guarantee that a dog would be able to return to stud duty when the drug has worn off . . . though he didn't rule it out.

I doubt she had KC before . . . no one else had it . . . but could be. As I understand it there is no treatment for the viral component of the KC-complex, but antibiotics can knock back secondary bacterial infections, which can make KC nasty. My vet says the stronger (than Amox) antibiotics are mostly dangerous for puppys. Apparently they affect the enamel of the adult teeth (Vibravet = doxicycline being the one recommended for respiratory problems). Benedryl seems to soothe the throat and make the pup drowsy, hence reducing the chronic aspect of the cough. Fingers crossed she pulls out of it soon.

Is she sneezing and sneezing and sneezing and sneezing? Or does she just sneeze once in awhile? If it's non-stop, I'd take her to a good vet. Something may be lodged in her nasal passage. It's very hard to see this in most cases cause the pup won't stand still and the visibility is poor. Especially, if you think the sneezing is affecting her appetite, I'd go to the vet. If it's once in awhile, I'd suspect something in the environment bothers her nose. I'd try to observe when and where she has the problem and see if I could work out what was bothering her.

Pumpkin, at 12 weeks, had a C4 plus a nasal "injection" for kennel cough. I run a boarding kennel, and belong to an association whose code of ethics requires kennel cough vaccinations.. . . hence deleting the bordatella was not an option. Shortly after the injection Pumpkin developed a cough very much like kennel cough. Another pup was injected at the same time and is not coughing. The cough has persisted for about 10 days and is borderline serious (lots of coughing, horrid sounding chest, sleeping a lot), though she is not feverish and still bright (when she's not crashed). Question: I know there's been a lot of discussion of adverse effects of C5, but what I've read doesn't seem to include Pumpkin's symptoms. Have others had problems with pups apparently getting kennel cough from the nasal vaccination? (It's possible that the cough has nothing to do with the vaccination). Question 2: My vet says baby pups can't have Vibravet and has Pumpkin on Clavulox (sp?). Using Benedryl for relief of coughing. Can anyone suggest better meds for a baby puppy with a bad cough.

I second the idea of taking the dog to a vet . . . but you should be warned, some seizures aren't easy to diagnose. Don't expect miracles from your vet. Hope it only happens once and you'll never need to find out what it was (I had a dog that had one massive seizure at about four years of age and never seized again -- fortunately, I had a vet who said 'let's not run all the tests now. Lets just wait and see if it happens again). If it reoccurs they'll have a better chance of diagnosing and treating.

My (very experienced) vet says that the canine digestive system is able to handle most kinds of 'off'. There is, however, one important exception. Puppies younger than four months have not fully developed their immune systems and Salmonella can make them very sick, if not kill them. The basis for this statement wasn't published literature, but rather, experience treating sick pups. I find that dogs in the boarding kennel occasionally get the runs from digging up and eating a chicken carcass that someone else has buried and I haven't found, but I have never had one get seriously sick. My Labbies never let anything go off in their own yard . . . but eating things -- Gawd only knows what but they often reek -- they find in the bush doesn't seem to do them any harm.

I apologise for using the word 'flimsy'. However, I think we're all better off admitting that the best available evidence on diet is often weak. Having accepted this, we should be able to operate knowing that we're all operating on 'best guess' reasoning . . . and anyone riding a high horse can be seen as someone making a fool of themselves. I personally tend to BARF diet, but not because Billinghurst's scientific evidence is compelling . . . simply because it has 'face validity' . . . ie, it sits well with how I think about the world. That said . . . I think there is some objective data on one aspect of bone growth. Would take awhile to dig it up, but I am reasonably certain that there are independent vet school studies showing that calcium supplementation is bad -- it wasn't the petfood companies that made it unfashionable to pour Sandoz syrup over the puppy chow.

Not to be a pain in the arse, but those articles can hardly be said to come from an independent source, and -- apart from general knowledge statements about the balance of amino acids and a few tangential points -- the sources they site are mostly from pet food companies and one unpublished PhD dissertation. What is required is a report on systematic trials with good statistical control, conducted by a party with no vested interest in the outcome, and peer reviewed to (hopefully) catch any serious flaws. I am not saying that "b-naturals" are dishonest. But the quality of the scientific evidence presented is as flimsy as that used by cigarette companies to 'prove' that smoking is good for you.

I'll bet this is one of those many things where there's no good answer . I feed all pups the same. Some of 'em grow rapidly. Some of 'em grow slow. Some of the rapid growers have ended out with bad hip and elbow scores. Other rapid growers score out well. I suspect genetics has been more important than diet, but perhaps the genetics could have been expressed differently if the diet was tweeked. I doubt you could run a scientific test that began to assess the question for less than a few hundred thousand dollars . . . and it would still leave lots of questions unanswered.

I don't think diabetes can be effectively managed without veterinary monitoring. If they won't change vets, is there any chance of feeding information to the vet? I don't want to dramatise the situation, but I suspect this dog's life is in danger.

If he's diabetic and on insulin and the vet can't figure it out, I'd suggest trying another vet. May be that the dosage is wrong? Or something is going on in the metabolism. I regularly look after a 10 yr old diabetic labbie bitch who could stand to loose 20 kg. She gobbles anything and everything like a normal lab. Gets an insulin shot before each meal. I know they had a rough time with her when the diabetes treatment started -- she lost an eye.

I don't think Lepto is included in a C5. It is included in C7 (maybe C6, not sure) but Lepto is only found in the far northern parts of Australia I believe. My dogs are now on a 3yr booster regime and as persuasive as the vets can be about giving a C5, mine will get a C3 in the future. My vet -- who advises me in reading the certificates that come into the boarding kennel -- tells me that the Australian system has no checks on consistency . . . ie, all C5's don't include the same vaccines. My mind blurred beyond this . . . but bottom line is that it's complicated. But -- yes -- there is now a C3 vaccination that is ok'd for once every third year. My veterinary advice is this is the preferred option . . . and use the adjunct vaccine for kennel cough, etc. if and when you think KC is a problem, or if you need to use a kennel that requires KC vaccination. Of course, if you use the 3 yr stuff and you don't have vet documents that indicate the vaccination is good for three years, boarding kennels will not accept it. (We all have to cover our backsides :rolleyes: ).