Katdogs

Multi-shits are dime-a-dozen in rescue and pounds. Many of them are great little dogs, some have serious health and attitude issues - usually because they've been a popular pet-shop/puppy farm 'product' bought by people with no idea about dogs who dump the pups when they're not cute anymore, and haven't magically toilet and obedience trained themselves. *disclaimer - I fostered one for a long time, and it took a long time because so many unsuitable people rang looking for a cute perfect dog. I'm making generalisations based on one tough little dog (but also lots of stories told to me by other people who'd had a similar SWF pup).

I can bring a clam shell! No problems if it gets trashed, we're getting nice new square ones for Christmas! Is anyone coming from the Centennial Park area with a bit of spare space? There's a lovely DOLer with a nice black lab who would like to come, but I'm not sure about her transport - I think I'd have trouble with time and space getting in to them then out to Erskine Park. Need a tardis. ILTBY would it be helpful if we brought flash drives on the day or will you take it all home and send CDs/email? I can bring a laptop but Vodaphone probably won't connect there, it's pretty crap coverage when I test it.

Count me (and Stevie & Jodie) in! I think it's possibly cooler at midday than 3-4pm though? Depends on shade and breeze, I guess. I haven't been to Erskine Park, but I hope there is shade. My dogs are black and very difficult to photograph - Stevie's too shiny, and Jodie's better at 'flying through the air' action than sitting around looking beautiful. I'm not worried about fencing, because I know it's a huge place - but is there water available or should we bring plenty? THANKS ILTBY!!

Poodlefan is correct, as usual. I've had two occasions (I live in a dodgy area) where my Lab X GR, the sookiest most submissive girl ever, has tried to warn me against dangerous people and drag me away. I now listen to her warning signals carefully. However, I'm the responsible human here - even though she's a big black dog and scary-looking to many people, I'd rather be in control of the situation than rely on a (very good) dog as defence. It helps though that she's big, black, and barks on command with a hand signal! hate typos

to you too nksyd - we really do have to compare shiny black dogs together one day! I might buy a few different bags to trial - will report back in a few weeks!

Please?

Thanks for the replies. I've had a look at the dogfoodanalysis site, but it's mainly a North American site and doesn't take into account the Aussie-made factor - most of the 6 or 5 star foods will never be available in Australia without irradiation (not recommended) or further cooking. My cat suffered horribly after eating Orijen, another reason I'm looking for Aussie-made. It was interesting to read about the way ingredients are listed. Does it make sense that meat might be listed as the first product, but if it's counted as 'wet', then dehydrated, it may not be the highest component of the food at all, but the grains/rice are? I wish I could just get Dr B's BARF in a drier crunchier (less smelly, easier to handle in the early morning) version.

OMG Ruth I've finally caught up with this thread and seen the photos. Was it really that calm happy dog at training that made that mess of himself??? Poor pup, and poor you! Hope Chopper is nice and tired tonight and tomorrow's walk goes well too.

Our local pet food place has just started stocking Uncle Albers, which is apparently an Australian made dry food. They also had a promotion day for Purina Pro Plan last weekend and were handing out samples of their Australian made food - we tried 'large breed' and 'sensitive' types. The dogs ate them but they'll eat anything! Both brands claim to be primarily 'meat' - Pro Plan Sensitive says 'Salmon' as its main ingredient, then brewer's rice. Has anyone studied the ingredients of these, or fed them for any length of time? We try to do mainly raw and Dr B Barf patties, but still seem to go through a lot of dry food (mainly Royal Canin) with three dogs. Stevie used to have ear infections regularly when she was on just dry food, which is why we try to use the 'skin and sensitive' type mixtures.

Stevie's got a long scratch/scrape on her nose. Not deep, no blood, but it's been showing a big pink stripe on what should be a black shiny nose for a week now. No swelling or discharge, but no granulation. Is there anything I should do? I don't want a scar if possible, she's a big black dog so scary enough. However if I put anything on the scratch (will try for photos) I assume she or her carer Jodie will lick it off? Any suggestions please?

I'd be interested to know if this is still happening too! Stevie the therapy dog is a very good girl, even though I stuff up basic footwork for myself, but I'd love to get some advice on Jodie and Terry! ETA when does Hurstville AB start again?

I think that when you get to the end of the bag, big or small, you get the crumbs and that makes the food 'richer' or stronger or something. Upset tummies all round. I haven't found a solution, and I think after the Orijen debacle (sorry if I'm banging on about it) I'll be buying smaller bags of a variety of foods and not having something that sits there for months. It's just for quick and easy breakfasts on weekdays, so even with two or three busy active dogs it can take quite a while to get through a bag.

Our foster dog Terry had very sloppy poos on Orijen until I changed him to Royal Canin Sensible last week, he was good on that almost straight away. This weekend we're low on Orijen and I had to buy something for the other dogs, so I've just been to the pet food place and bought Royal Canin again. We've given the Orijen a good 8-10 week trial, and I think it's just too rich for my dogs. I LOVE the ingredients list, it all sounds wonderful, but the girls just don't seem to be as stable on it - something is just not quite as good about the poo coming out of them (weird thing to study I guess, but it's the best clue I have - they're so healthy otherwise). Stevie is susceptible to ear infections (even though she hadn't had a bad one for a while since mainly changing to raw diet) so I was trying to get away from some of the grains and preservatives in RC and tried Orijen. However she'd already improved so much on mainly raw that the bit of Royal Canin she was having didn't seem to be a problem. I couldn't see enough of an improvement in any way to justify staying with Orijen, just some minor negative effects. So back to Royal Canin as the fill-in around the raw. 'Raw' in our case is varying quantities of chicken frames/necks/wings/marylands, red meat offcuts from the butcher, vegies, sardines, yoghurt, leftover people food, and joint guard and 'health booster'. The BARF and dry is mainly for convenience and to make up for the lack of offal because I just hate handling offal I'm also rethinking the Dr B BARF patties we alternated with, because it feels like the recipe has changed - fattier, smellier - but the dogs were on BARF long before Orijen, so Orijen is first to go off the shopping list. Strange thing is, my cat is refusing to eat her Orijen too - so back to the Iams she was always happy and healthy on.

Sorry, I got my numbers wrong. He's a poundie. C6 on 22 June at Renbury, then C5 on 15 July after release to rescue. Desexed a week later, then he came to me for fostering. He's about 11 months old now, so we won't worry about yearly vaccs for another full year. I just wasn't aware that it could take six weeks for the reaction lump to come up? I thought it was faster than that.

How long does a needle reaction lump take to come up, then go away again, in a small dog? Terry was vaccinated C3 about 7 weeks ago, then C6 about 5 weeks ago. He also probably had antibiotics etc for desexing and kennel cough at the same time. I've been brushing him, stroking him, checking him over for injuries because he plays with the big dogs, so if there was a lump previously I'm sure it would have been noticed. Just in the last two days I've noticed a lump about marble-sized on top of one shoulder, about the place a needle would go in. Vet tried last night to get suck a sample out of it but not successful - he squealed and wriggled (and w ee'd!) so much even with three people in the room we didn't want to stress him any more. So we're giving the lump a couple of weeks to see what happens. The only needle reaction I've seen was in a cat, where the lump came up within two days and stayed for a long time, months I think, and I rarely had him vaccinated after his first two adult needles. Does anyone have experience with these sorts of lumps?

We had just one of the !@$# trees in our backyard, and Stevie was always rolling the fruit around in her mouth. The fruit also attracted bees and the branches were huge and fell from a great height when they finally fell. Our council is one of the few left in Sydney that needs approval to cut down a Cocos Palm but the guy didn't even come out and check, I filled in the form and also attached some stuff I found on Google re noxious weed, dangerous to flying-foxes etc. Also it was starting to lift a path that was also a stormwater flow path for about three houses down to a canal. It didn't take long for the professional tree people to chop down. The expense is more in the stump-grinding and rubbish removal, they have to pay a fee at the tip to dump Cocos Palm. Also the guy that climbed up was so well built professional, it was worth the money just to watch him at work!

Thanks for all the tips. I've used the cleaning stuff just in the reachable area of his ear, not going any deeper than I can see, wiping a little with a tissue. The redness is not getting worse but not really getting better, and there's still gunk. He seems a bit off-colour and acting a little 'sensitive' - even growled and snapped at a visitor to the house last night, first time I've seen anything like that from him. So we're going to the vet tonight.

My big dog Stevie is the only dog I've had that's had ear trouble, until now. Terry my foster boy is only 7kg and his ears are tiny. With Stevie I can just about fit my fist into her ear, so this is a new problem for me! When Terry first arrived his fur had been shaved off and he'd been 'vetted' and his ears looked dirty, but not a problem. Now I've noticed that one of them is pink and clean and neat, just a little tiny bit of wax on the outer hair, but his other ear has bright red patches, and has gunky matted fur (worse than before). I can't see very far because his ear is so small. I've got some of the proper Ilium Oticlean stuff, but how deep can I delve to clean out his ear, and if it's already got bright red bits should I just go to the vet anyway? It doesn't seem to hurt him when I rub the base of his ear - I can hear squelchy noises, but that might have been the Oticlean getting through. Vet or just keep cleaning bit at a time? Can I use a cotton-bud? He's (probably) a multi-shit Maltese x Shih Tsu, so are his ears like to be the type that need 'plucking'? If so, how do I do that? ETA his ear doesn't smell bad, his breath is ok too

I agree, a sticky is needed! I've been through the same thing with foster dog Tommy - he was so swollen and bruised, I really thought the vet might have got it wrong!

Stevie ripped her nail out completely on 2 May. No bleeding after the first day. We went through many socks in a week, and she reacted a bit to the betadine, but she seemed to be pretty well 'healed' after week, and I just noticed last night how neatly her nail is growing back - it's still short, but her other nails are quite long and need clipping.

Sorry I haven't got any suggestion, but like any petshop, checkout the links of any website you find, because some of the online stores are also fronts for puppy factories and BYB. I was buying food quite happily from one site before I did that and found they are also one of the worst bulk puppy breeders in Sydney.

Our local Pet Food Plus now has Orijen. We bought a small pack to try. It's very expensive to buy the huge pack - $120!! I'm trying to decipher the labels, but I'm not good at ingredients lists. Can anyone please tell me what 'preservatives' are in it? How does it compare with Royal Canin Lab, which seemed to have a lot of preservatives and grain? We use dry food as a back-up and supplement to many other foods, not as the only diet.

Oh bugger I knew that, but couldn't stop my fingers from typing the wrong one! Sorry.

Thank you so much Monica! Stevie and I have been promoted to 4th class for our local dog training group. We get to play with the equipment now! Stevie's had one little go over the ramp, tunnel, table etc, she didn't like the ramp first time but had a second go with no problems. Now I have to get good enough with my commands to justify having such a smart beautiful dog. How much time should I spend each day going over the same commands with her? She gets bored pretty easily. I want to practice so that she doesn't expect food, and so that she looks at me instead of my pocket. I didn't really didn't enjoy the first few lessons we went to, and have been pretty slack at turning up. We had to keep sitting and waiting for slightly psycho dogs to stop bounding around (Monica knows what I mean!), and Stevie would get bored or spend all her time trying to find other people's dropped food. However now that we're going to be moving to the next level, it's going to be lots more fun!