spottychick

I buy from vetnpetdirect all the time - great service and great prices - totally reliable and have been very generous with discounts at times when I've spoken to them on the phone. I just ordered a sighthound collar for a friend and some other things - got here in no time with a little free gift included (as usual). I can't recommend them enough. You just need to re-set your account with them - it's gone out of whack since they set up their new (excrutiatingly slow for us folks still stuck with dialup!!!) website.

What a rude, stupid woman!!! What if you had picked up her child and thrown it over the fence into the dog area??? Some people seem to think that a dog is public property :shakehead: More calm????? Rubbish! I may very well have slapped her. Stupid cow, endangering her own child by throwing a dog towards her, quite apart from the animal cruelty issue.

Youre welcome LC By th way Raineth - that's one handsome pooch you have in your sig

Mine too. A gentler one is the PAW cleaner which I use for regular maintenance when they have no ear problems. I just wipe out the ear with it and only dribble a bit into the ear.

hmmmm yes I can see the reasoning of holding it in there to kill the mites/bacteria or whatever BUT when you do it the way I was shown there is still some of the malaseb left in the ear canal anyway and that would take at least 10 minutes to dry out. SO you still get the effect of the malaseb working as well as the flushing out of debris. LOL how I would get my dogs to keep the cotton wool in there for that long is beyond me, they'd shake it out in seconds. And I wouldn't want to push it too far down the ear canal. But if I was following that method I reckon the trick would be to do that the first time and then flush out a few more times the way I usually do it to make sure I rinse stuff out of the canal. Oh and re the OP question - I use about 4 ml to 100 ml water

Yes make it fresh each time. You wouldn't do it more than once a day. When my dogs are having ear problems I do it once a week. I usually take em outside, fill their ear canal till it runs out (squeezing the liquid in GENTLY) and sometimes I see brown gunk flowing out. Then I try to keep the head up and sort of massage the base of the ear to squish it around. THen let them shake their head (stand back!!!) and wipe out anything that flicks out onto the ear flap. I'll keep doing that a couple of times till they stop flicking out brown stuff. I don't know about blocking the ear canal with cotton wool. Sounds like it defeats the purpose of flushing the gunk out of the ear.

Awww but CavnRott/RnL - I HATE dentists. I'd rather tear my own head off than see a dentist - really I would!!!

LOL I'm happy to surprise you Casster!!! Yep Aiden - NOW I know what they are. No worries re finding all the bits. I'm still working on getting them to set up the posts closer to the house in a spot than can be later converted to a proper run.

It says in the article that the neighbour retrieved the dog then phoned the RSPCA, then says the inspector arrived to find the dog with the chain around it's neck. So did the neighbour just retrieve the dog chain and all? Journalists often get things wrong - they just get the bare details and fill in the rest themselves, whether or not it's accurate. My guess is the pic was taken by the neighbour.

Okay ta muchly

So then any of them should be able to do it as long as I know where to send it even if they dont - so I can tell them. Does anyone know where it's sent to?

Due to the recent death of my darling dally boy from a cancer that many have suggested could have been related to vaccinations (due to the type and location) I'm pretty much against vaccinating my adult dogs. I hadn't vaccinated any of them for years and had no problems at all. I only did it the year before he got the cancer because I thought I would be needing to board them. Now I just think forget boarding them, I will get a dog-sitter or stay home myself. Personally I would titer as long as I could find someone here in Tas that does it.

There are a lot of good options out there. It depends on what your priorities are. I tend to look for holistic, natural products, preferably with locally sourced organic ingredients (ie no rice derivatives from CHINA!!!, no preservatives, no dodgy additives, no vague "meat products", no corn, no "fillers" etc etc) and I study the ingredients religiously. Also the way the food is produced is important. I usually feed my dogs a raw diet with VANs complete mix sometimes mixed in. But when I do buy kibble (laziness, special needs whatever) I get Eaglepack holistic kibble. I have also heard and read good things about Artemis (I should order a sample!!!) but didn't try it because it's too hard and expensive to get it delivered to Tassie (or it was - might have changed since I last looked). There are some others that have too much meat content for dalmatians - ziwipeak I think is one, natural balance, and another newcomer with a BIG focus on maximum protein whose name I can't think of right now LOL - if I remember it I'll post it. I havent checked the others out much tho because their meat levels (one of them was something like 70% if I remember right) are just a big no-no for my lot. I really wish you could get Flint River Ranch here because that's the one I'd go with if I could!!! ETA: the other one I couldn't think of is Orijen - as I said I have no idea what it's like tho.

The problem when someone is behaving like that with a dangerous weapon in their hands is that they can just as easily hit the person instead of the dog, especially if she panics so easily. This risk is increased if you put yourself between the dog and her in an effort to protect the dog. What if the dog is being walked by a child? This woman is unsafe, regardless of whether she's got a phobia, a mental illness etc, to people AS WELL as dogs and that is probably why the council and Police would be concerned at her behaviour.

Rescue people are amazing. What a loverly boy he is!!!!

Thanks guys! I forgot to add the other slightly better thing - he had a chain round his neck that was held together with wire wrapped multiple times around the two end links. THere were at least two major issues with this. One is that if he ever got the chain collar caught on something no-one would be able to get the chain off him which could be life threatening. And the second is that the ends of the wire wrap were extremely sharp ( they cut Sam's finger when she went to grab the collar) and were sticking into Buddy!!!! ANyway, when I was there today, without any prompting, her brother went inside and found a "shackle". Then he got pliers and unwound the wire wrap from the chain (took ages!!!) and replaced it with the shackle loop. SO at least Buddy is slightly more comfortable tonight when chained up at the back of the block. Baby steps - still working on getting a better "containment" system for Buddy. ps CavnRott - my tooth has actually been knocked out of whack so it's now loose and slightly pushed in one side and out on the other - if that makes sense. I'm having trouble biting into my toast

Awwww he is incredibly cute - especially in that pic with the post-it note LOL What a sweetheart! It must have been awful to go through - I hate seeing my dogs in even the slightest pain, let alone something really bad. Poor loves. PS I have a friend who has a cat named Snot. The cat came into his life after the cat migrated over from a neighbours house and decided he liked it better with my friend. After a while the neighbour told him he might as well keep him. But from the get go he named the cat Snot and ever since whenever anyone asks him what his cats name is he'd say Snot - 'snot my cat. Cracks me up everytime

Okay - a little update! Actually it's a bit long but I'm excited and wanted to give the whole story! I went around to Buddy's owners house today and we got Buddy out of his "prison". As usual I sheltered behind a large tree because he just barrels straight into people when he first gets loose and has knocked me over in the past. I waited till he was sniffing at things instead of charging at people then we tried to pat him (almost impossible - think 50 or so kg hyperactive puppy). After a while we put a choke chain on him and I also put an Easy Walker harness on him. It has taken two of us to hold him in the past so we put a lead on both the chain and the harness and held a lead each. Buddy immediately started leaping in the air and doing clever twirls which twisted the two leads together and totally skuppered our plans. All the while his tongue is out and his tail is wagging furiously and he's trying his darnedest to wrench our arms out of their sockets. SO I unclipped the harness and we tried walking him just with the choker chain - his owner (let's call her "Sam") felt she could hold him by herself with the choke chain on. And off they went LMAO screaming around the garden in this frantic tug of war, each pulling against the other. She was all red faced and puffing and looking angry but trying really hard not to yell at him. It was hell to watch and Buddy was running with his front legs off the ground and making this horrific rasping noise. I stopped it because I'm worried he's damaged his trachea being chained up and straining and hanging himself all the time - I didn't think this was going well at all. So I clipped my lead onto the harness instead and led him away (while she recovered sitting on the grass!) AND OH MY GOD! A different dog. Apart from initially an occasional attempt to leap right into my face (one of which landed a blow on my mouth and actually knocked my front tooth loose - I kid you not!!!) he was walking calmly on the Easy Walker within a couple of minutes, no pulling, no straining. He just walked next to me and sometimes slightly ahead calmly sniffing at the ground and looking around with this happy expression. Occassionally he'd try to go off in his own direction and I'd tell him "This way Buddy" in my quiet but silly "isnt this fun" voice and he'd follow me. "Sam" and her brother were sitting on the lawn watching all this and they both had their mouths hanging open in shock. I asked Sam if she wanted a try and she leapt at the offer. I handed the lead to Sam and she happily walked him round the yard like he'd been trained to walk on a loose leash!! I gave her a few instructions (eg dont yell at him, talk in a happy voice, give him losts of praise he's doing the right thing, distract him when he pulls toward the cat etc) but otherwise she was doing it all by herself. Walking her dog and SMILING!!!! SHe was so stunned and thrilled she took him out of the yard and into the recreation ground next door and we walked him all the way to the other side of the oval - with absolutely NO pulling, no misbehaving - NOTHING. A couple of times a passing dog distracted him and I just told her to pull him back to her and say lightly "Come on Buddy! Let's go!" or whatever - so she did and he stopped being interested in the dog and looked at HER!!!! I can't tell you how transformed this dog was. We even got him to sit a few times and get a quiet non-hyper chest rub. I am absolutely thrilled! 'Sam is clearly excited by what happened and is talking about walking him to the river everyday when she gets back from a trip on Tuesday. I really think she means it this time because she was so happy walking him. She just kept going across the oval long after I thought she'd stop and being really nice to him - she even ran with him for a while!!! (This woman rarely runs LOL). Thankyou especially to CavNRott for helping me out with this and for all the suggestions and support from folks in this thread. We were looking at Buddy today - first time I could actually see him properly because he wasn't moving like a maniac all the time. He looks like a mastiff cross labrador. He is totally gorgeous. Every time I tried to get him to sit he tried to roll over for a belly rub. Not in a cringing way - just in a puppy happy way, flinging his legs around in the air - and sort of gnawed on my hand and licked my face. He was one happy pooch when I left. I'm going to try and remember my camera next time and hopefully get a pic or two!!! :D

kitkat - what's curash?

Conditioning not to value life is completely different to acting out random violence and cruelty. We kill animals for food and many of our society are conditioned not to value the life of a sheep for example. But that doesn't mean everyone goes around punching sheep, breaking their legs and so on just for the hell of it. Nor would most AUstralians be okay with anyone else doing that. I don't know what happens in China (and don't think I want to!!!) but at the very least, there is some sort of reason - however vile and screwy it seems to us. Others commit what we see as acts of cruelty in order to scratch out a living (I am not going to explain that any further as I can't even bring myself to write about what they do). But this guy was just purely and simply - and horrendously - attacking a dog. I don't imagine he intended eating it or was trying to "improve the taste". He just went into a violent frenzy against a defenceless animal. I suspect he enjoys torturing kittens too. Heaven only knows what he would do if he got hold of a child.

I treat the itches with malaseb and then wipe some pyohex on their feet before going for a walk. And if it's already inflammed I bathe it in lukewarm chamomile tea until the redness/inflammation as gone down before washing with malaseb (cos it can be a bit harsh on inflammed skin).

Took me a sec to work out what you meant ROFLMAO

I doubt that anyone who could do this to a defenceless animal (and clearly this dog was NOT defending itself or attacking even tho it could) has much, if any, compassion for any other living creature. The correlation between cruelty to animals and violent crime has been shown over and over again. But okay - people we are not using the term "psychopath" in it's official, scientific sense - people tend to say "psychopath" to mean a variety of different things but generally about someone who does something horrific. I have a pedantic friend who does the same thing as you Lo Pan - she's always pulling me up for using scientific words in a casual unscientific way and I'm always telling her not to be so picky!! But who cares anyway? Bottom line is the man is not normal or he wouldn't be able to do this. I don't care what motivates him or if his daddy was mean to him when he was an iddy biddy baby or his mummy didn't let him have his favourite lollies or whatever. He is an adult and has choices now and he has chosen to do this. He is either a psychopath (in whatever way that word is used) and has no control over his extreme senseless violence (in which case lock him safely away from society) OR he is perfectly sane and just a totally evil *#**#** (again - throw away the key). Either way - I want to see him named and punished and removed from society. Sorry if my attitude seems "mean" or not politically correct but frankly I'm sick of people getting slapped on the wrist and being 'felt sorry for' when they perpetrate violent crimes on animals, children etc. usually they go on to commit even worse crimes and why is anyone surprised???

nnnaaawwwwww poor baby!!! At least it was classy champagne and not something disgusting tho!

Several dogs around here have been having hot spots and other problems every summer due to grass allergies. My dallys just have itchy feet while the JRT down the road is covered in itchy spots (closer to the grass!!!)