montall

Let's see, mine are both about 4kg and they get fed twice a day. In the morning they get a 100g pouch of commercial dog food with a small handful of steamed veges mixed in. I divide that between the two of them so 50g plus veges each. Sometimes they aren't all that interested in the morning feeds and other times they are so hungry I also give them a slice of toast with cheese spread between them. At night they each get about 100g of fresh chicken and steak cooked in the microwave. They get a raw chicken neck each in the middle of the day most days (two each if the necks are really small) and I also leave out a small amount of dry food which they graze on if they are still hungry. The amount of dry food they eat varies (probably depending on whether or not they have their cheese toast, and how desperate they are for an extra feed ) but half a cup usually lasts a couple of days. They get the odd snack or two especially if I'm going out (chew sticks) and always a carob drop when they go to bed at night. Gotta have that chockie drop or we won't go to bed Mum. Actually feeding them snacks when I leave the house or want them to go to bed works a treat at getting them where I want them to be but one could get a complex about how happy they seem to be about the fact that I'm leaving them. :D So I suppose if you add all that up they are eating somewhere in the vicinity of 1 to 1.5 cups of food per dog per day.

Twice a day here as well. Mine are small dogs. They usually get a chicken neck in the middle of the day as a treat as well but that's just because I am here then (retired). I would probably give that in the evening if I was still working.

I use osteoeze from the supermarket for my little girl and it seems to help her a lot. My vet suggested it and said it is pretty mild so you don't have to be all that accurate with the dose, not much chance of overdosing. He stipulated "OsteoEze Active" because that is the one with the shark cartilege (sp??). The ingredients read Glucosamine plus Chondroitin. She is a chinese crested weighing about 4kg and I give her a quarter tablet twice a day. I haven't noticed any nasty side effects but she has only been taking it since January this year. You do have to stick with it for a few weeks to see results apparently. My little girl had surgery so the results seemed to be pretty well immediate but I guess if it is an arthritis thing it may take a little longer. I got it from Woolworths but I would guess that Coles probably sell it as well, not sure. It's a Herron product.

Hi Kandi, I had a very similar experience and I approached the breeder for help. I didn't get any. I didn't think it was unreasonable to ask and I don't think you would be wrong to ask either. After all you have a big vet bill now and probably supplements for the rest of the pup's life. I hope you have better luck than me and I am pleased that you are going to look after your dog either way. I have done the same thing. The good news is that my little girl has recovered well from her surgery. She is a little dog, a chinese crested and I guess that they recover a bit quicker than bigger dogs, being lighter, but all in all the outcome for these operations seems to be good. Good luck, my fingers are crossed for you. P.S. I should add that I didn't much care about whether or not I offended the breeder by asking but if you are really worried about that you should be aware that there is a good chance that you may never hear from him or her again.

Aahh you gotta love a dog with spirit. My last dallie bitch was so like that and sorry but she stayed that way all her life. She knew exactly what was expected and would do it perfectly, when SHE was ready to do it. She was the only dog to fail obedience class. The trainer kept on saying it was my fault and he would show me how it should be done. He failed miserably to get her to do anything at all and I have to admit I was happy about that. Mind you, that's probably why she stayed that way all her life, that one episode made me so happy (bloody arrogant trainer) it became her life's work. I didn't care, I loved her anyway.

For those of you who showed interest in the welfare of little Tallulah here is an update. She is back from the vet this morning with her stitches out finally (they weren't healing as well as we hoped and didn't come out last Friday when they were supposed to) and the bucket off her head .. woohoo. She has healed nicely but will need supplements to help with the repaired patella joint. There is a course of injections available but they are pretty expensive and he doesn't think she really needs them at this stage. He suggested that I might get some osteoease active tablets (that people use for arthritis) from the chemist and give her a bit of that every day to help with the joint. The hip doesn't have a joint anymore and it is just a case of getting her to use the leg a bit more, because she hasn't been using it much. Although as soon as she came home and the hated bucket came off she went for a bit of a run with Monty and was using all four legs. That made me happy, and he was so happy he started doing his zoomies. She just sort of trotted behind, way way behind . If you have ever seen these little dogs doing zoomies it is awesome. I once tried to take a video of Monty but he was so fast I couldn't keep him in shot, all I ended up with was a picture of my backyard minus dog. Oh and the other good news is that she is eating a bit better now and has even put on a bit of weight since he saw her last Friday. I was concerned that she wasn't eating properly (that hated bucket again) and had lost a bit of weight. She has now had a bath (she was starting to smell like corn chips ) had her hair washed and combed and is flat out, like a lizard drinking, beside me here after her little run. So hopefully it will be all clear sailing from here on in. Keep your fingers crossed for her that perthes (if that is indeed what it is) doesn't raise it's nasty head again and she gets to live a good life. Thanks to those of you who showed interest and support ... Leonie.

Hi Steve, I'm not even going to bother to answer your points one by one. I get what you are saying. All I have to say is that I couldn't leave the dog in serious pain while I got into a dispute with the breeder. As far as I am concerned the dog comes first. I will cop it sweet that the breeder isn't going to help out and I never really expected anything different. I was just interested in what other people thought, that's all, and you have told me what you think. That's your right. I still say though, that even if she didn't know before that there may be a problem, and I am only saying 'may be', she certainly knows now and I would hope she looks into it further before breeding any more poor little dogs and condemning them to a life of pain. So people it comes down to buyer beware I guess. And finally, I think it is a crying shame that for some people the breeding of dogs has to be looked at in a legal light and insurances taken out as if they were pieces of merchandise rather than living breathing creatures. What the hell is the world coming to.

The breeder has been told that there may be a problem and I would hope that she would not breed her dogs again without having them properly checked out, but I strongly suspect she already knew about this and that is why she sold her. I have no proof of course but one thing is for sure she knows now that there may be a problem with her dogs. Even if it isn't perthes (and I hope like hell it isn't, but the vet is pretty sure it is, and so incidentally is another breeder I talked to) the luxating patella is a problem in itself. So all I can do is tell people to be careful who they buy dogs from and maybe it might be a good idea to check with the Queensland Chinese Crested Club to get further information about reputable breeders. God knows I wish I had listened to them. I thought I was smart buying a cheaper dog but I guess in the end you get what you pay for. I thought she was cheaper because she wasn't a puppy anymore. Lesson learned the hard way.

Thanks wylie, sounds like good advice.

Tallulah had this skipping motion that you mention but I had never heard of Perthes disease so didn't take a lot of notice. Until the fall she seemed fine but obviously I was only observing her for three weeks. The vet felt that there would have been some sign of lameness from time to time just from the patella if not the hip. He is convinced that it was a pre-existing condition or injury just wasn't prepared to swear it is perthes although he was pretty sure that was what it is. He just hadn't seen it in Cresteds before. The x-ray showed that the hip wasn't injured as such, more sort of crumbled. It is even possible the hip just dislocated when she attempted to jump up on the lounge. That was all she was doing incidentally jumping up and somehow fell. I thought she had missed her footing or something. No one was more surprised than me when she ended up so injured. I thought for sure that she would just have bruised her leg or something. It should have been no big deal. My other little guy tumbles all over the place without any problems, although I am paranoid about him falling now as well because his pedigree has much the same prefixes as her and there could be a disaster just waiting to happen there as well.

My little 10 month old Chinese Crested had a fall last week and when I took her to the vet it turned out she had a problem with her hip. She appears to have what is probably Perthes disease which is a crumbling of the hip and she needed surgery. She also has a luxating patella so that was operated on at the same time. The prognosis for this little girl isn't good long term and obviously I shouldn't be thinking about breeding her because both these conditions are probably genetic. She has now been speyed as well. The vet bill was horrendous and I don't even want to go there and it isn't over yet not by a long shot. My question to all of you is this. As I only bought this little girl three weeks previously and the breeder who sold her to me knew that I intended to breed her to my registered male (she is registered herself incidentally), do you think she had some responsibility to help out with the vet costs, or at least refund part of the purchase price. I bought a dog to breed and maybe even show if I chose to, and now have a dog who isn't suitable for either. She is a lovely little dog and I am happy to keep her as a pet for as long as she is reasonably comfortable. We will cross whatever bridges there are to cross when they come up, but I can't help but wonder if the breeder was aware of this and that is why she sold her. She denies that of course, and I have given her the benefit of the doubt for now, but still think that an ethical person would at least have offered some help when I asked for it. My reasoning is that with this condition it was only a matter of time before she incurred this sort of expense herself and now she has avoided that, as well as making some money on what was in effect a defective dog. I know that I have buckley's chance of changing her mind, but I wondered what you all thought. Am I being unreasonable to expect some help given that I only had the dog three weeks before all this happened.