Skipy

I will try and find one, but I think it is a bit east west, but I dont know that that's all of it. Do you know if east/west issue ever gets better? I adore the way he looks except that area, its very hmmm, not nice......

Amstaff. To be quite honest there might be nothing wrong with his pasterns (probably not, except that his feet go just a bit off to the side) but I do have a feeling that that particular area is a bit on the weak side. I am not quite sure when all the developmental changes finish, I know they say its 18-24 months for amstaffs, but I am not quite sure what exactly development occurs between 12 and 24 months. Is it just more toning, or something else, including pasterns and that whole leg area.

Is there any other way of improving them? I ask because the beach is too far away for us, only option is concrete or grass, but I guess neither one of them really do the same job as sand...... (walking on frontlegs only? maybe he, he, he).

This is continuation from puppy front feet angulation issue, well at least in my mind. I think my dogs (12 months old now) pasterns are not strong enough. Is it possible that those tendons need some time to develop and strengthen. Should this occur naturally, does walking on fine sand help (I heard this from someone), or am I just totally off?

I am glad to hear that! Boy, they can really give us a fright, cant they.

Steve thanks! Yep, I already feed him all of that (except orange juice). I will include orange juice into his food also.

That is the thing, if I am missing something in his diet I have no idea what it is. He gets meat, veges (any green leafy stuff that I find), does eat rice also, rarely fish, and egg yolk whenever I remember. I have another Q that has been bugging me for a while: how does dog's body know that the amount of calcium to phosphorus is off in the food that they get. If they get enough of both, shouldnt that be sufficinet?

Thanks shekhina, so the bottom line is that its lack of Ca absorption. OK, so if I am giving Ca supplements, would I need to worry about phosphorus? My problem is that I do feed meat, that is not necessarily meaty bones (like heart, liver, etc) but I also do feed meaty bones (including chicken necks). I find that my dogs feet do go a bit sideways and I wonder if that is just his developmental stage, cos I think its like his wrists are not strong enough...... Is that ever a problem in larger breeds when it comes to feet, that muscles there might develop slower. His feet are like that when we lift him (not just standing) but he often also bends them when he is lying etc., ie. they are very bendable.... and it really looks like they are just not strong enough. He does stand normally (on his front feet, maybe a bit laid back), although it does look a bit like your dogs feet shekhina prior vit C.

Wow, this was so educational for me. Thank you everyone, especially Steve! Why zinc and Vit C, especially, what do they do? Also, how much of each.

I always used human supplements and kelp. Is there a reason people dont give human sups to their dogs?

Is there any scientific data as to how much is actually used by dogs daily and how well its stored in fat , half life, ,etc

But lets say they get lots of vit E and selenium from food and then give vit E supps. that should be enough? Do you mean they need to be taken physically together?

Dont they get enough selenium from meat, from what I understand they only need tiny amounts?

I found that 1IU of vit E=1.5 mg. I hope it helps.

Can I just ask if he likes anything? There must be something (even if its table scraps that are not that good for him) that he likes. Could you trick him by putting whatever he likes with his actual food.

That list doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps Skipy could enlighten us. No need to be a , I forgot to put its based on 100g portions. Regardless of that its pretty obvious what foods contain most vit E. To add: if I am going to spend ages calculating how much vitamins my dog got from liver that I fed him today, vs some nuts that I gave him yesterday, if absorption of one interferes with abs of other, it would be very painful to manage feeding dogs, and that is why many people choose to feed manufactured food. I think main idea is that people know what should not be given in excess as there are few things that can be detrimental. If somebody is giving fresh food, the odds are that they are already giving sufficient amounts of everything that their dog needs. So, giving supplements (especially where range is quite big) of any amount should be more than enough. What you say about specific requitements I agree with, BUT as I said they are getting most of it from food and in this case vit E supplementation based on human consumption as far as I am concerned is quite appropriate.

I have an amstaff and this is the advice I have received and it seemed to work OK. No long walks, for more than 15-20 minutes until they are about 1 year old, key word being repetitive work such as non-stop walking that can put stress on their joints. If you go for low joint stress walk around the neighbourhood where your pup can sniff around, stop for a while, that kind of thing, 30mins should be fine but when you get them I would start 10-15 min walks. In the backyard, they will play to the extent that they can and will stop when they get tired so I dont think you should prevent this, they also get tired very quickly and will have many naps during day. Hope this helps. JMO

There are quite specific recommended amounts of vitamins and minerals for dogs. It's not really just a matter of saying a dog is half the size of a human and go from their. Their needs are different. For example an adult human RDI for calcium is about 800 - 1000 mg per day. A 25 kg dog requires around 1975mg. If you were to halve an adult dose you would only be giving 400mg. I will say I am very anal about my dog's nutrition. I posted earlier the rdi for dog's vitamin e. .5 IU/kg bodyweight and the safe upper limit at 17 IU/kg bodyweight. i.u vitamin E = 0.67 mg d-alpha tocopherol (natural source vitamin E) or 1 mg dl-alpha tocopheryl acetate (synthetic vitamin E). dl-alpha tocopheryl is only about 50% absorbable, so a 200iu capsule of the synthetic vit e yeilds only 100iu of the vitamin. Some people do prefer the synthetic form if their dog has allergies to soy, as vitamin e is often derived from soy. Calcium is very different to vitamins such as vit E. Ca for dogs changes over the age of the dog and people should be more careful. Vit E dogs get from the food as well and if you want to suplement vit E, you will see that its not too different from human. Of course, you can make it extremely difficlut and measure every mg of food that they eat, but for most things (Ca being one of the few exceptions, together with vit A) approximation is good enough.

I guess only guideline would be what they recomend for humans to use. Usually for a smaller dog I would give 1/2 of human dose and maybe not every day but 3-4 times a week. Sometimes its hard to transfer IU into mg or g, in fact in can be a real pain, but I have found that what is recomended for humans is not too different (especially for children) to what should be used for dogs.

Foods containing vit E Oils and Fats Vitamin E in IU (PER 100g portion) Wheat Germ Oil 178 Sunflower Oil 72.6 Safflower Oil 59 Peanut Oil 28 Soft Margarine 29.7 Mayonnaise 19.3 Hard Margarine 16 Soybean Oil 11.8 Butter 3.2 Grains Wheat Germ 17.4 Rolled Oats 2 Brown Rice, Cooked 2 Whole Wheat Bread 0.8 White Rice, Cooked 0.1 Nuts and Seeds Raw Sunflower Seeds 73.4 Almonds 40.5 Dry Roasted Peanuts 10.7 Peanut Butter 9.2 Cashews 0.3 Meat, Fish, Dairy Broiled Liver 0.9 Shrimp, Baked 0.9 Fried Chicken 0.9 Eggs 0.7 Bacon 0.7 Broiled Chicken 0.6 Broiled Steak 0.5 Fruits Blackberries 4.9 Apples 0.5 Bananas 0.3 Cantaloupe 0.2 Strawberries 0.2 Fresh Vegetables Asparagus 2.7 Spinach 2.7 Peas 0.8 Broccoli 0.7 Although fat soluble (ie. you can overdo it) there does not seem to be many side effects and I think that level that can cause side effects is pretty high. If you are not giving any of the above foods that contain high amount (mainly fats such as margarine or nuts) I would suplement, any human vit suplement that has reasonable vit E should be good (I think around few (to change:not thousand), hundred IU is sufficient). I prepare rice for my dog and I put a bit of margarine into it so he gets it that way, but while he was younger I did give him human suplements....

All scientific papers that others have posted, yet again but you seem to ignore have to have reasonable sized groups that are not biased in any way, so that the only variable is the one that they are talking about, ie. desexing, etc. So they accout for all other variables sucha s different breeds of dogs (or the specify that they are only looking at a particular breed),\ age, etc. Any scientific paper published can not be biased, otherwise it is not published. In addition, it is reviewed by others in the same field in order for them to be published. I guess for some people only conclussive evidence is for a dog to drop dead after surgery.....

There is conclussive scientific evidence but people just choose to ignore it.

Isnt fasting with giving them just a bone to chew on pretty good for anal glands? I heard that somewhere, that if dogs stool is not as hard as it should be (depending on a type of diet I guess) fasting them for 1 day on marrow bone is good..... I am thinking older dogs, puppies still need so much food.

I meant at 8 weeks, and yes any dog that has ANY kind of health issues caused by any kind of a procedure, ie. was not born like that when sold is "damaged goods". I am not refering to all desexed dogs, which you would know if you read all the posts.

Do you know how hard it is with some breeds to get a pup that is not desexed young? You think that is brilliant, I think that is horrific. I know how much love and dedication I put into pups that I get, and I will not have anybody give me damaged goods because of their lack of knowledge. The breeders have a choice, they might have a think about it (if vet says its OK, what is there to think about), but how many of them really research pros and cons of early desexing, or desexing at all, compared to the amount of research they put into researching pedigrees of the dogs.