Sandra777

Lots of good wishes for Murphy.

Bonnie. $40-$45 for 20kg so not the cheapest out there but works better for mine than Black Hawk which made them fat & lose muscle tone (yes I did reduce their food intake thanks :)); Royal Canin didn't go down well here, one fussy miss woulnd't touch it, it made another one vomit quite a lot. Other top end food did agree with them and made them look good too, but frankly no better than Bonnie with meat, eggs, sardines and bones. Used Uncle Albers too and they were fine, except for the young dog who just didn't seem right on it - he's 100% better on Bonnie. I would suggest raw too - only reason I don't feed 100% raw any more is lack of freezer space and it's just too expensive to buy for a lot of dogs unless you can buy in bulk. For one or two dogs, definitely check it out!

So you can see how those of us who do some research before getting a dog can be put off by classifieds. But I think maybe things are changing now as more and more people do their research and shopping on the net and maybe these RSPCA pages should be updated. When people ask me where to get a dog or puppy - I say petrescue.com.au or find the breed club in your state and visit one of their events, or go to a dog show and talk to people. So that would rule out breeders that are not in the breed club or don't show. I got mine from AWL. Farm dog bitsa. Dogs that end up at the pounds, don't usually bring their papers with them. I don't know if the microchip databases link up their pedigrees either. As best I can tell - all sorts of dogs end up at the pound, though there does seem to be a lot of staffy types and bitsas and farm dog bitsas. Well that's excellant - people who believe the SPCA spiel will go looking in other places and hopefully find an ethical breeder there and people who don't will look on trading post & gumtree and hopefully find an ethical breeder there. I have had 4 litters in Australia, 1 was only 2 pups, 1 stayed, 1 already had a home, the other 3 I advertised on gumtree, trading post & DOL. sold more pups through the first 2 than DOL but 2 of the 3 litters I did sell one pup through DOL so all places were worthwhile to me. I don't have a waiting list, I have never (30+ years) had a waiting list. People who phone are told when pups are likely to happen and if they are still interested/keen/looking when pups come along then they start getting sussed out. This is pet pups of course, show potential pups are usually booked 3-5 years ahead because very few of them get pried out of my grasp :laugh: Could well be different with a less common breed.

Donatella, even if it was an advert on the side of the road the OP's partner will still know where he was when he saw it (I assume :-)) and be able to ask the breeder. This is standard advice and always the best. You do realise that the diet of a 10 week old puppy shouldn't be changed in a hurry unless it's something rediculous like weetbix and KFC so of course all us experienced caring people are going to suggest first that someone ask the person who knows what they meant.

Dallas is obsessed with band aids. No, it doesn't matter what's underneath it as we've put one on over perfectly OK skin just to see. He just won't stop sniffing and poking them with his nose. Mind you, he notices ANYTHING that's changed - I got a bunchof flowers from work and he was the only dog that noticed :laugh:

WHY? The OP's BF was told by the person he bought the pup off (I assume this was the breeder not someone else) to feed it "puppy formulation". He didn't get the full story so what's wrong with phoning this person and asking for clarification? The breeder is the person who is responsible for these pups being alive - I don't care if they are ANKC registered or not, ethical or not or the pup is pure bred or not - it still has a breeder! No point educating someone who already has a puppy from a dodgy source about the benefits of an ETHICAL breeder, if we do that we get bashed for being snobby. Can't win.

The people who bred her are breeders whether they are ANKC registered, unregistered, ethical or whatever. "Phone the breeder and ask" just means phone the person who brought this pup into the world :) Ditch the puppy milk. They definitely do not need it and it only takes up room in their stomach that real food could be occupying. Natures Gift would be the best supermarket canned food IMO, but leave that on the shelf and wander over to the meat section and spend the same $$ there - you will get better food for the same money. Pedigree biscuits make me go but if she's used to them then don't change everything at once.

Totally agree. I have had people argue with me that neither of my specialist BIS winning bitches could be pure bred because they were too small. I did offer to fetch the registration papers for one man :laugh:

We're going, hope it's not as hot then as it's been this last week

Denies that your dog has a problem? Surely a vet's report would solve that very quickly! They cannot deny it has a genetic component, however if they can prove that neither parents or other close relatives has this issue then they could easily absolve themselves of blame because nature is nature and as a breeder you can only do your best - but I would be happy to believe they know next to nothing about the true health status of the close relatives and are more interested in getting money in the door. Money does not buy a good vet! The most expensive vets bills I have paid have been for the biggest disasters and the most rediculous diagnosis. It might be a good idea for you to start a new topic and ask for recommendations for vets in your area who are willing to treat the cause of the problem (the immune system) and not the symptoms (the mites). There are some around :)

Ring the breeder and ask them where they source it from. OR search on line. My guess would be they mean the "puppy forumulation" of a specific brand of food - eg Royal Canin Puppy or Bonnie Puppy, but ring the breeder and ask.

Thats a very good suggestion, I make all our dogs food by hand health supplements, veg, pasta, and meats, oils. he has dropped several kilo's and was aggressive for a slight time,which is understandable i would to if my skin was like his! He is normally like a giant kitten and plays with our other dogs fine, we have had to seperate him sadly.. STOP feeding him vege & pasta - feed him raw food only. He is old enough for you not to be too concerned about getting the proportions of minerals perfect (unlike feeding a puppy) so even if he can only have - just for example! - chicken carcases for six or eight weeks it won't harm him. I would consult a vet who deals more with solving the problem than masking it - a vet who can help you boost his immune system so his own body can take care of the problem. The vet's at Ormeau, particularly Rowan (sp?) have a good reputation in this regard. Constantly pumping chemicals into this dog will only make more of a mess of his immune system. You are right that he should not be bred from, no dog which has a compromised immune system should be the part of any breeding plan. ALL puppies get the demodex mite from their mother - this is normal and is actually a required part of dogdom. It is the individual's immune system's inability to regulate the mite population which causes the problem and this definitely has a genetic component. Anyone breeding two blues together is not breeding for the right reason so it was a little silly of you to believe you were going to get a quality dog from this mix, and perhaps naive to believe you weren't going to get skin issues from such a shonkily bred animal, but what is done is done and you can only move forward and try to make this dog's life better. As for his breeder - paying more for main registration is frankly a con when you are looing at buying the same puppy on main or limit registration. I wouldn't expect any help from someone who deals like this and breeds blue to blue but you can certainly try. What have they said about it so far - I am assuming that in the past 18 months you have mentioned this problem to them? Oh yes - and I am assuming he is a Staffordshire Bull Terrier?

Get a new vet. Hope you weren't affected to bad with the floods.

Nobody's suggesting not to spayed her at all, just suggesting that it would be better for her to have ONE season if you can cope with it. Then have her spayed

Here's two "staffy crosses" - and people wonder why there's a problem? Both dogs were rehomed out of the same pound, both dogs are registered with the same council as "Staffy cross"

I wouldn't just leave it there - as others have suggested I would be writing a very strong letter of complaint to the surgery owner. IMO this borders on misconduct and is perhaps even a form of fraud in some ways - suggesting surgery for something that doesn't even exist. Please let your bitch have one heat if you can possibly manage it. ETA: I have seen two Staffords with long soft palates, both were closely related and it was VERY obvious from an extremely young age.

How long do entire bitches last for? :laugh: IME false pregnancy generally goes for about the same length of time as a real one but the amount the bitch 'shows' depends a lot on the bitch, some just retain a bit of fluid, some produce milk and appear to go in to labour. When they have been on heat bitches go through virtually all the same hormonal stages whether they have been mated or not (and whether they are pregnant of not) so it's hardly surprising they have false pregnancies really. I understand this is a survival mechanism common to canines (wolves, feral/wild dogs) as all the bitches in a pack tend to cycle together but only one or two are usually permitted to breed, so if they all have the same hormonal changes and the real mum dies then one of the others can step up to the plate. No idea how well this works in "the wild" but I know a lot of dog breeders report other bitches in the household produce milk and help out the mum if allowed.

x2!!!!!

I will just repeat myself - corgi or cocker. Definitely not the home for a terrier by what's been said :)

Smallish, fluffy, for a novice family - Cocker or Sheltie or maybe a Corgi (not fluffy but not smooth either :))

In a word "genetics". It's not common but it can happen. Its not common, but yet we see thousands in pounds and PTS for behavioural issues. And your point is? No one has ever suggested that all "problem" dogs are ones which have been born that way - but you obviously don't understand yet that SOME are. Yep - the majority of screwed up dogs are the fault of their 'early childhood' so to speak, but not all.

I have bred, owned, fostered, bought or otherwise been closely involved with considerably more than 40 dogs and I can assure you that there are some pups out there with behavioural issues. SOME dogs are just born "wrong" - no different to the way some people are. If the government banned Greyhound racing tomorrow, what do people here think is going to happen to the thousands of Greyhounds already alive? Same as if horse racing was banned tomorrow. Without having been there and actually having a long conversation with this woman, how can any of us judge her for having this dog PTS? How do we know what is happening in her life that would make it impossible for her to do anything but what she did?

If the dog still has testicles of course there's still a chance of it getting testicular cancer - why would you think otherwise But you really have to consider the risks of the dog getting testicular cancer to start with - which depends very much on breed and the line within the breed (as well as bad luck of course) and it may be so close to zero in some dogs that castration to prevent testicular cancer is just nonsense. In other dogs of course this may be different. As for prostrate cancer - there is quite a lot of evidence out there now that castrated dogs have a greater chance of getting prostrate cancer than entire dogs - but again this really has to depend on what the risk was like originally, and obviously with more castrated dogs around perhaps this skews the results? I don't know.

Sadly I forget to sign cheques a lot - I write out a lot of cheques at work and someone else signs them, so it's just become habit to write a cheque and not sign it. Started a new job 2 weeks ago where I won't be writing cheques, so hopefully I'll be able to retrain myself :D

+1