stormie

Not sure you have to wear gloves for this - I use a liquid and have never had gloves mentioned. Possibly cyclophosphamide

How frightening for you. Fingers crossed they come through ok. I'm assuming they're still at the Emergency Clinic? Perhaps you could ask if they could be transferred to your regular vet for the remainder of their fluid therapy? We very frequently have patients come to us after the initial emergency treatment for hospitalisation, monitoring, recovery etc as obviously our hospitalisation costs are significantly less than the Emergency Clinic's.

C3 - Distemper, Hepatitis and Parvovirus C4 - The above plus one strain of Kennel Cough (parainfluenza, the viral strain) C5 - the above plus two strains of Kennel Cough (parainfluenza and Bordatella Br. (which is the bacterial strain). You cannot board a dog unless it has a C5. C4 is not enough. Kennel Cough is not a deadly disease and the vaccine is not 100%. But it can reduce the chances of infection and also the severity if infected. Perhaps give your vet a call and ask them to explain the differences to you and what they now recommend in your circumstances :)

You're right, Sorks. There are plenty of registered breeders who have terrible ethics and poor breeding practices. And I've seen plenty of dogs in my breed of choice with Champion titles who really shouldn't. But at the end of the day, what makes someone a good breeder is a personal decision. For me, any breeder who sells to a pet shop, regardless of how 'good' they might be, is not a good one. Placing puppies in that sort of situation and not having control over the home those puppies go to? Not cool in my eyes. Perhaps there are some pets shops out there who screen homes and ensure all their puppies have had the relevant health testing. But to me, selling animals in a shop like situation isn't something I agree with, on both a professional and emotional level. That's my informed opinion and nothing can be said to change my mind.

They did, from memory. I think their case has actually been discussed on DOL before - I think the couple either got of lighter or won an appeal based on the fact they were breeding to get out of hardship or something? Therefore what they were doing was based out of 'need and not greed'. Pretty sure this is the case HERE

I once saw Great Dane puppies in a PP store

Perhaps ask your vet is they could get you a generic? There are a couple of generic options, regular Carprofen without flavouring and also one that is flavoured. I remember when I was using the unflavoured generic, it was close to half the cost of Rimadyl. That was a few years ago though so things might have changed.

Are you sure he can't scratch there? My allergic boy often gets itchy around his elbows, armpits and other less covered areas and he's a pro and scratching his armpits! He just uses his back leg and gets right up in there.

I would probably personally just get an exploratory done. They could open him up, have a good physical look around inside and if they come across any masses, enlarged lymph nodes etc, then biopsies can be taken then and there and sent off for testing. I hope you get some answers soon :)

Are you sure he's actually constipated? Sometimes when they have diarrhoea they feel the urgency to go but their bowels are empty so they strain but nothing comes out.

Really? How do you come up with that figure? How can you know of the people who try the product who gets results? How does one treat atopy through diet? Is it really atopy then? Are these dogs actually diagnosed as atopy? Exactly. If the change in diet fixed it then it's clearly not Atopic Dermatitis but more likely a food allergy.

Ham bones are often the reason we see so many pancreatitis cases over Christmas

She's amazing isn't she!

Not my pack, but the workplace pack :)

I'm well aware of that, but MTS hasn't done any sort of elim diet though, her dog farts on a certain brand of food so she's decided the dog allergic to a protein, when it probably isn't. Fair enough, but if a dog gets GIT symptoms from a particular protein, it could be safe to say the dog is a bit intolerant to that and lots of people tend to misuse the word allergy unintentionally.

I've known a few dogs who get gassy on lamb. It can also be quite fatty and upset tummies too. But there's a difference between an allergy (which would usually make them itchy) and an intolerance (which would generally upset the tummy), but I'm sure you just meant intolerance :) Minimax food allergies can and do happen. My atopic boy is allergic to chicken, fish and duck - determined by doing food elimination diets.

The actual pork meat isn't generally a problem for dogs, it's the pork fat they tend to find too rich. So if the pork mince was lean, there shouldn't really be any problem with it. I don't see too much wrong with that diet and think it sounds pretty similar to most of the BARF recipes I've seen. There's nothing wrong with feeding lots of smaller amounts of each thing in each meal rather than a larger amount once a week. My boy gets awful diarhhoea from hearts, liver, kidneys etc so can only eat small amounts at a time. In saying that though, I feed raw and my boys diet consists of between 500g and 1kg raw muscle meat for breakfast with some Livamol and then brisket bones and tails of the same animal for dinner. Pretty basic diet but he's been on this for years and is very healthy :)

I don't vaccinate Orbit against KC. He's never stepped foot inside a boarding kennel and is unlikely to. I also don't do dog parks with him or regularly socialise him with dogs I don't know. Also he has allergies so I choose to limit the amount of immune stimulation he gets.

To go OT - This is disconcerting. My dog has a warm home, gets fed regularly and yes in some ways treated like a child. Additionally I walk him twice a day. I certainly hope he isn't stressed! You've got me thinking about this now. I was more referring to extremes - dogs who are so fussed over that they have terrible anxieties 99% of the time. Dogs where owners actually cannot leave the house cause the dog gets so stressed it destroys everything. Or ones who's owners cannot touch them without being bitten cause they're treated so much like top dogs they're on edge all the time struggling to be leaders. Or dogs who go mental because they're never walked and kept in backyards with no stimulation. I don't imagine your dog is like that Sam :)

Someone once said (I can't remember who) that dogs belonging to homeless people can be the most happy, balanced dogs because they're essentially living how they were designed - constantly traveling with their 'leader', scavenging for food etc. I am sure there are plenty of dogs living in warm homes, being fed regularly, who are mentally broken and constantly stressed due to being treated too much like childred. I donated blankets to a group called The Footpath Library last year - could look into them and see if they take donations for street dogs too?

Yeah I don't know much about FIP - I just asked the Boss man what illnesses can cause neuro signs and FIP was one so thought I'd mention it :)

If Cookie had FIP, wouldn't she continue to go down hill rather than showing signs of recovery of her movement, Stormie? From what I've read it's a pretty quick decline... Crossing fingers she's just been shaken and bruised by some other animal, and that now she's in loving hands with access to lots of good food, she will come good to live a long and comfortable life as someone's treasured lap cat. T. Yeah, but just thought it's possible that the neurological symptoms were worsened by weakness. The dry version isn't as rapid as the wet version so isn't always a fast decline. But yeah, if she's improving and eating better then the chances of FIP reduce. Also if she's been malnourished she might have Rickets which can result in collapsed vertebrae/vertebral fractures - an xray would determine this too.

The dosage varies, but my boy is on 5mg/kg every day, so that's 300mg every day (he weighs 60kg). I think they recommend starting on the 5mg/kg dose. Cyclosporin needs to be given on an empty stomach, so usually about 2 hours either side of a meal. Why don't you ask your Vet to look into a compounding pharmacy for you? If the Vet is nice and doesn't charge you a mark-up on top of the pharmacy price, then you could buy what I buy, for about $550-600 which would last you 4 months even if you used it every day (though quite a few cases are able to get down to using it only a couple of times a week, in which case it would last you much longer than that!).

Did the Vet mention FIP at all? I believe that the dry version can cause neurological symptoms. Such a wonderful thing you've done so far :)

Are they that much cheaper though? I get mine from a compounding pharmacy (and I don't think it works as well as Atopica does, but it still helps) and the prices would be very similar. I pay $550 for a 200mg/ml liquid in a 100ml bottle. This site sells 100mg/ml liquid in a 50ml bottle for $240. I'd need to buy 4 of those to get the same amount of doses as I currently get here.