westiemum

And just to be indulgent here are the absolutely beautiful shots that Snook took of Andy and Sarah late last year: Andy is about 6 and Sarah has just turned 11. My adored rescue boys and bossy girl.

he's gorgeous Sheridan - got any full body shots? :) Id love to see a full shot of the old boy we've been discussing all this time. Here's Mac at a friend's pirate birthday party!

Blackdogs here's a photo of Mac immediately after a clip - I know I'm biased but I think he's a really handsome boy! He's continuing to do really well. I'm not working at the moment and he seems to be responding very well to the company during the day. I've also added a regular daily fish oil capsule to his routine - not sure if its making a difference but he did really well at the dog park earlier in the week - really very spritely for an old fellow! Sheridan do you have a photo of Grumpy? :)

Good on you Tia. I hope the treat was a piece of the Colonel's best (without any cooked bone of course!). Yes I know what its like trying to squeeze stuff like this which needs consistency into overfull days - but I promise you if you can make it a priority for a fortnight and enlist the rest of your family to help you'll really notice a difference. As I said, my Sarah can now do over two hours up to the Clare Valley without a problem - she now associates the car with good things which is most of the battle. Will be very interested in your progress. :)

It seems many of our dogs are 'synced' for a 9 pm bed time all over the country! :laugh: You can set your watch by my westie girl. At 9 pm she takes herself off to bed (corner pillow, with pillow case and Ikea rug on my bed!) - and if I don't follow soon after she comes out again and looks at me as if to say "Well... are you coming!!) I swear if she had human hips her paws would be on them!! :laugh:

LOL Boronia! I get that all the time! People are amazed when I say that mine get human grade raw food mainly - and start to get the idea when I ask them if they would eat the unsatisfying muck in the can! Apart from that I just get amazement and comments about 'how gorgeous' my guys are - particularly when I'm walking all three at once and they are walking beautifully on lead! (No mean feat for late learners from a notorious puppy farm!). :)

K have you had a look at my post on the first page? A number of people with sick dogs have done really well with it in the past and it worked really well with me. The trick is to take really small baby and repeat them often enough. If it is anxiety related then it should work fairly quickly and you won't have to constantly medicate which is a pain for you and often not very pleasant for the dog. Hope it helps and good luck. :) I personally will be using medication in the future if natural remedies don't kick in quickly and the dog is sever enough. After 18mths of vomiting and drooling with one dog I don't think I would put them through that again when I could use something to assist them along faster. Desensitisation did eventually work but I regret allowing it to take so long when medicating could have been a short cut once anxiety became a factor too. I tried ginger, not feeding/feeding (feeding worked with my last puppy- would vomit bile on an empty tummy, but happy enough after a small meal), desensitising the car (a little hard when the dog had such strong associations with nausea so wouldn't eat near the car). Also I have heard of dogs that don't improve with desensitisation alone. Why shouldn't this person try medication- it is rarely a life long requirement, just something to help the process of desensitisation along?? Jumabaar I'm happy to agree to disagree. In my experience medication is often a long-term solution as it only addresses the symptoms and not the cause of anxiety related car sickness. Desensitization works well if you use baby steps and make a concerted effort over a short period of time eg a week or two and the dog doesn't suffer if the steps are small enough. The reason it fails or stalls in my experience is people take it in too big steps or not consistently over a short period of time. And if there is a way to avoid medication, particularly long-term where all it takes is a bit of consistent effort I still say why wouldn't you try it ? I prefer not to medicate in these circumstances if possible. But like I said, I'm happy to agree to disagree .

Good luck Tia - will be very interested in how you get on. It's worked wonders for my very sick westie girl. :)

Yep same here - helped my westie girl to be on a booster foam cushion so she could see out. I also desensitized her to the car - see my post in the other thread - it works :)

Westie - low shedding, adore people, don't stress if they don't get walked, love lounging around, good small-medium size, need some grooming and have a bit of spunk and personality - so a brilliant pure breed dog - so why would you buy a genetically risky oodle?

While not good news at least you know now and know what you are dealing with. Please keep us updated on how the old boy is doing. Mac will be 13 in mid- August . :)

Yep black dogs I'll post a pic or two when I'm on my main laptop in the next day or so (on the IPad tonight). :)

Thanks for your description mixeduppup. There seems to e so little-around on dogs that it's always good to get other descriptions of their behavior. And what you describe is very typical of canine dementia - and might help someone else. It's also gives me hope that I might have some good quality years left with my gorgeous old boy - so thank you again. :)

Fantastic. And did you say she's only 17? Amazing.... :)

K have you had a look at my post on the first page? A number of people with sick dogs have done really well with it in the past and it worked really well with me. The trick is to take really small baby and repeat them often enough. If it is anxiety related then it should work fairly quickly and you won't have to constantly medicate which is a pain for you and often not very pleasant for the dog. Hope it helps and good luck. :)

Yes and two studies I know of - one here and one in the UK - shows suicide rates amongst vets are four times higher than the general population and twice as high as dentists and doctors ( who are already considered at very high risk). Stress and depression are mentioned as primary causes - so mental health issues in the animal and vet industries are of serious concern. While not mentioned, I wondered if the euthanasia parts of the job in general ( not just in pounds) contribute...

I have hard that if it is nausea related that there are really good success rates. And the desensitisation if it is anxiety related happens much faster because the feeling that causes the anxiety is gone. Yep J that's my understanding too. Im wondering why people in this thread with dogs with apparent primary or secondary anxiety car sickness are using nausea/vestibular medications ? Desensitization, while requiring some effort, consistency and baby steps works well in my experience for anxiety based car sickness and for me has been a permanent solution rather than medicating for the wrong reasons? Why would you medicate a dog when there are good non-drug solutions for anxiety car sickness?

You completely miss the point. As I've intimated in my post above, rescue is not free. Who do you think pays for all the vet, and grooming work for example?? The vets don't dish it out for free (they can't afford to) and neither can rescuers. And in some cases its damn expensive - I've been lucky that my most expensive westie was 'only' a bit more expensive than $1000.00 - others have spent much more. Where do you get the idea that people have God-given rights to dogs at their price when a rescuer is potentially thousands of dollars out of pocket? And if someone can't afford an adoption fee then I'm sorry but they can't afford a dog. And I'm not about to put a dog back into a position where they potentially may not get the vet care they need - which is often precisely what landed them into rescue in the first place. End of story (rant).

Grrr threads like this pee me off. Like every rescuer I know I'm thousands and thousands of dollars out of pocket. And to rescue and rehome the next westie I need to recoup a reasonable amount of my costs for the one before. I generally try and recover 50% of the direct costs like vet, grooming bills etc - not all the incidentals like food, fuel, phone costs for the westies I rehome. I always keep the receipts and these go with the westie to their new owners - and once they see them I've never once had a complaint. The most expensive westie we rehomed we asked $500.00 for which was less than 50% of his grooming and vet bills etc of well over $1000.00. And once the new owners saw the receipts they gave us an extra 100 dollars which was very kind of them! Others have been cheaper depending on what we've spent. And quite frankly I'm wary of people who want a 'freebie' or a bargain just because a dog is a rescue. I worry that that attitude will carry over into the care they give the dog.

Tea Tree Gully Boarding Kennels and Cattery has recently changed hands. Might be worth considering. It's on acreage.

Interesting thread. I bulk mine up with Black and Gold frozen veggies. I also use human grade food for them - Woolies cans of mackerel are reasonably priced and mixed with the veggies provide a filling but low cal meal. - they also have an RMB day a week. I find the moment I start supplementing them on commercial dried food, doesn't seem to matter what sort or brand, their weight balloons.

Could you foster a rotti as a 'trial run' for your family? Just a thought... :)

How are you getting on GG? :)

Thanks everyone - that's what I thought. So will skip the ham and pork bones and go back to the beef bones! My guys adore bones so apart from beef and marrow bones, what other types of bones do people recommend? TIA :)

I usually buy beef soup bones but this morning I saw some really meaty ham bones in the supermarket - almost bought some but then hesitated as I wasn't sure if they were cooked and might splinter? Can someone enlighten me? Do you feed ham bones at all? TIA :)