stormie

Thats another reason why I want to see another vet my vet says she doesnt feel that my dog needs a dermatologist, I have asked 2x for a referral. That sucks. And totally unprofessional. I'd go to second vet and just be honest. It will be more helpful to them to know you've already gone down certain paths so they have an idea of where you're at.

Have you seen a Dermatologist? Maybe that could be the best option rather than seeing another general practice vet?

agreed. but the problem is we have all witnessed the lack of quality control with commercial dog food.....so who is to say it couldnt be contaminated again? in commercial raw? I'm sure it's possible, but it could just as easily become contaminated at home due to incorrect handling. I really wouldn't read much into the fact it was a commercial raw that they contaminated themselves because I really don't think its relevant whether they used a commercial product or made up a mix themselves and contaminated it - the outcome was still the same.

Poodlefan I'd say they just used a commercial food in the study to try and keep it constant. They would have contaminated the food with the bacteria themselves, for the study.

for sure - that was the first thing I thought of too! And makes you think, if they know they can shed bacteria, why not just stop the whole program altogether? Because how can they be sure something wasn't consumed from the park or the backyard. Atleast they are ok with cooked food, but yeah, I think it's weird they're partnered with Purina.

I totally agree with you, guess what I'm trying to say is that if they scientifically know that dogs who eat raw can and do shed the bacteria, it would be irresponsible of them to allow the dogs into an environment where this could post a risk. As to how they can police it, and be sure that the dog hasn't a dead bird in the backyard the day before, who knows. But if something went wrong and someone in a hospital situation became ill with a bacteria and it was known that the dog had eaten raw, the Delta society could have the pants sued off them. Sounds like they're just trying to cover their arses. I just used the chemo case as an example. I was under the impression that Delta dogs visited hospitals and nursing homes etc, but as I said I don't really know much about the program. So with that in mind, it can be assumed that the dogs would be coming into contact with people who's health may also be compromised, so coming into contact with the bacteria may be quite harmful.

It has been proven that dogs can shed bacteria, such as salmonella and e.coli, without showing symptoms. Raw poultry is the most common source of such bacteria. So looking at this rationally, it would be irresponsible to allow dogs, who may be shedding such bacteria, into hospitals where for example there are people with cancer undergoing chemo, at this risk of making them ill. I'm not saying I agree with it at all, but I'm just saying, that it is true that they can shed the bacteria and for the common healthy person, its not really a problem - we get sick and get over it. But for people who's health is already quite compromised, it could be potentially very dangerous. I don't know much about the Delta Pet Partners and whether the dogs only do hospital work, but just saying, I can see where they are coming from and it does make sense. eta: here's the results of a study done (found HERE) to determine whether they can shed the bacteria after ingesting it.

What a ridiculous world we live in, if someone can be done for animal cruelty, by having a procedure done under GENERAL ANAESTHETIC by a registered veterinarian. How is it any different to putting a dog under to remove its testicles, so that it can no longer reproduce, yet that is acceptable. What a load of #$%^

what I would want to know is, if you picked bronze, and something happened during surgery and the dog needed fluids, would they then charge you silver? Because they could easily tell you each time that there were 'complications' and whilst you selected no fluids, the pressure dropped and they needed to run them in, so the price is now higher. Thats why I think options like that are crap. We have one price (for out of season, not pregnant bitches). If the bitch is a bit complicated and it takes us 2 hours its still the same cost. If her pressure drops and she needs fluids, its still the same cost, because people are booking in for a simple, every day procedure and expect to have their animals looked after.

yeah pretty sure its just the local Specialist Centres who stock and supply it.

Sorry, can't help you with Orbit, he's on regular medication. But you know your vet can buy blood from a 'blood bank'?

Can someone please explain the last bolded bits to me? Because it kind of sounds like a big contradiction. This is from the Vet Practitioners Board, which I'm guessing is targeting this information at Vets, not owners.

Steve - you should give the Vet Surgeons Board - they are meant to know all the legal elements of veterinary practice so should be able to provide you with the relevant information. The AVA may be of help, but I believe their regulations are tighter and may not give you specific laws, just what they prefer, etc. It strikes me as odd if an owner can be done for cruelty, but the vet wouldn't. As a general rule, vets are not allowed to perform an act of cruelty, but I think if they debarked without the paperwork, they would most likely only be punished at Board Level and not on a criminal level. Also, is the POCTA regulation an actual act that has been passed in parliament etc? The link you posted has 2002, so can we assume that that regulation has been about since atleast 2002? Will see what else we can find out for you...

GA = General Anaesthetic. Agree- those packages are a rort and it shouldn't be up to the client to chose what is best. That's what you're paying for when you go to the vet - their professional opinion. In saying this, we don't do bloods and fluids. It will probably be something that we will eventually do, but for the moment, we don't. Everything has a catheter put in and is monitored on a top of line monitor that checks blood pressure so if there is a sudden drop, fluids can be run in straight away. Our giant girls are put on fluids, but that's all so far. Just be aware when shopping around for prices, what you are getting. For example, we spoke to a nurse from a clinic in the western suburbs the other day, whose desexings were considerably cheaper than ours, but on discussing their protocols, it was pretty amazing to hear how things were done there. For example, our patients are all given a pre anaesthetic generally of a sedative with a heavy pain reliever. They are then catheterised and induced with the anaesthetic agent, placed on a hand held monitor, intubated, clipped etc etc, taken to theatre where they're put on a heated soft mat, breathing gas, attached to our awesome monitor (can you tell I love our monitor , operated on, cleaned up, back to cage, more pain relief. At the other clinic, neither their girls or boys received any form of pain relief. They were occasionally sedated prior to induction. Once induced, they apparently only occasionally put the animals on gas, more often just having a nurse on hand to top up the IV anaesthetic if they started to wake up, with the animal just breathing normal air. No heating and not a lot happened in the way of monitors, just basic breathing and oxygen saturation alerts. Animals went back to cage after surgery and again received no pain relief. Now obviously the second clinic gets by and don't have problems doing it this way. But it just shows you why you would be paying the extra $100-150 to have your animal desexed in our clinic compared to theirs.

you know, I've seen a lot of dogs with bad skin over my 5 years in clinic, and obviously I'm not around them 24/7 but I talk to a lot of people and I think I can honestly say without a doubt, that Orbit is the worst case of atopy I have ever seen in a dog. It really sucks. I would give anything to be able to say I have things 'under control' without medication but I think I have to resign myself to the fact it's never going to be and he's just really unfortunately. But, he's also fortunate he has no bad side effects to the pred, so I guess we're lucky that we can use that to get by. But oh what I wouldn't give for just one whole day that wasn't spent having to think about Orbit's skin.

I think that by having that dog available at stud to so many breeders, has potentially been detrimental to the breed because the gene pool has been reduced, because he's being used by so many breeders who want to make another him! It's a whole other topic really, but it has been proven apparently, that with semen being accessible all round the world now, gene pools have been reduced because people see an awesome dog overseas, and they all start using his semen trying to recreate his awesomeness. A stud, IMO, is really only as good as the bitch he's bred to and the breeder who bred them.

I don't scrub the pustule bits, but you know when they get the flaky circular bits? forgot what they're officially called. Should say I dont scrub really hard or anything, but just rub it in. I just know that when we get the scabby pussy hot spots at work, the best thing for them is to clip them and rub the shampoo firmly into the area to lift off all the dried scabs to expose the fresh skin underneath. So I do a similar thing with the flaky crusty bits Porp gets, just to get that layer off. Thankfully we haven't had a pustule issue for a while, touch wood! Our hydrobath has a few different settings - I just use the standard shower steam. He's a really sensitive dog in general. I spray him with a mist setting on a spray bottle and he goes mental rubbing himself all over the floor/bed then gets himself itchy. But as I said, it's usually only a temporary thing for half an hour or so until the skin settles down again.

well said Whippets, Black Bronson YOU can learn a lot from the experienced breeders on here, that are here to help and advise newbies and people that have NO idea, we ALL never stop learning in the Dog Game it is only those that choose to absorb that become truly respected. Newbies need to be advised with the truth about main and limited register as I mentioned before, many newbie purebreed owners think that "ALL" pet puppies have to be on limited register like it's an ANKC standard requirement because that's how some breeders put it across.........pets go on limited. But what they don't explain properly is that pets from their kennel go on limited because they have chosen to do so, not because of any official requirement. So the newbie purebreed owner has just accepted the breeders terms after being given a conjob.............that's what I am talking about Some breeders forget to even mention the limited register and the newbie owner thinks that the papers coming in the post are the real deal which isn't fair is it???. I do not believe that there are many breeders out there who would not explain the difference between main and limited, if it cameup... but if they from the start insisted that all they want is a companion dog, why on earth would anyone happily put it on the main register, particularly if at the time of assessment, it is not up to "mains" registration? the way i see it, it is almost an official requirement that we assess and place puppies on the specific registers... if I was to place all puppies from a litter on main registration, but 8/10 of them went to "pet" homes, and then they went ahead and bred with them, we are inadvertantly breeding dogs that are not for the betterment of the breed. It doesn't matter if someone else breeds.......they can't use the original breeders prefix anyway, nothing to do with the original breeder really???. Not everyone's interpretation of improving the breed is the same either???. But it does when a breeder is producing terrible quality pups. For example.. 'BlackDog Danes' breed beautiful quality black danes. They are a very well respected kennel and known for quite possibly having the best blacks in Australia. Then there's 'JohnSmith Danes' who are quite new and have no idea what they are doing with breeding, with little knowledge of the breed standard etc. They manage to get a dog who is of 'BlackDog' lines that's in the main register. So JohnSmith breed their BlackDog male to a female they had. The resulting puppies are pretty bad examples of the breed. When JohnSmith Danes advertise their puppies, they title the ad with 'Quality puppies - BlackDog lines'. So people see these puppies who really aren't they great and think because they are of BlackDog lines, this must be a similar quality to BlackDog danes and what BlackDog danes produce. But in actual fact, it's a far cry from what BlackDog Danes produce, because they, unlike JohnSmith, actually know what they're doing. So, no, JohnSmith didn't breed under the BlackDog prefix, but they have essentially used their name to promote their poorly conformed Danes who are terrible examples of the breed, which can reflect poorly on the BlackDog lines.

Hahaha I always joke about Orbit needing a bubble. Thanks Zayder, I did rub/massage this shampoo in - if he's got a bit of flaky staph I like to rub that off to get to the stuff underneath, but normally, for a usual anti stink bath, he's in the hydrobath where the shampoo just comes out with the water so there's no rubbing happening. Still gets itchy after that too. I should say, that like most other dogs, he's a nutcase after a bath and does the whole sliding and rubbing, which flares up the itchies too. Good skin didnt last very long. Hivies are up and he's itchy as anything. Left him without his coat on for 20mins and came back to red raw scratchy patches. Stupid stupid dog. The amount of times I've told him that scratching only makes the itchies worse but he just won't listen....

That is how you end up p!ssing off a lot of breeders. Yes, of course we all want to better the breed, but there is a right and wrong way to go about it. I personally wouldn't do that unless the breeder (lets call them Joe) had given me permission to do so. If I ever wanted another dog off 'Joe' again I doubt they would sell to me because I had done the wrong thing by them. Then beacuse I had done the wrong thing 'Joe' tells another breeder about me, then they tell another breeder, and another. Very soon I would have a very limited choice in what kennels I can buy from. Agreed. If I was a breeder, I'd be pretty annoyed to know one of the dogs I had bred and trusted with someone on the main register, was studding him out to other breeders if I hadn't approved. I'm all for breed improvement naturally, but I don't believe that putting all the quality pups on main to be bred by whoever because you'd very soon see the type that you'd put a lot of work in to create, go down the drain. Why would the type "go down the drain", that's not the standard result by any means. Often the original breeders placing their dogs on limited to "protect their lines", are not overly experienced anyway, neither are the lines their creations. Breeders like to think they know what they are doing, but many a time a breeder has shown me show results on a stud for the reason to sire a litter. When asking what the dog brings to the table in terms of traits........they don't know Exactly, BB! There are, from what I have seen in my breed, many registered breeders out there who have no idea what they're doing. They have no idea about genetics, conformation and seem to breed because they have a male and a female. These same breeders are ones who see a well bred dog and assume that by breeding it to anything, they'll get nice looking puppies. But I'm sure you would know, that just because a dog is of really high quality, it doesn't mean it's going to produce the same quality puppies, even if it is bred to a high quality bitch. So, this is why I think it's a good thing to not just put anything that's good on the main register, and also what I mean about the type 'going down the drain'. Because you'll see lovely, well bred dogs who really fit the standard, end up in the hands of people who have no idea what they're doing and breed it to all their dogs/bitches, regardless of what they look like. The breeder can then tell their puppy buyers how awesome their pups are, because 'look who mum/dad is!' when in actual fact, the type and quality of the puppies will most likely take many steps backwards and the lovely well bred dog would have been a complete waste, because it's not able to contribute its quality to the breed to its full potential.

You just need to buy another smaller pack and give her two chews each month. For Orbit, I get the 22-45kg plus the 11-22kg which covers him, being 60kg

Not a whole lot of difference yet, but I must say, I think it's possible he's a little less itchy than what I expected him to be? He was pretty itchy yesterday morning, enough that I was going to pred him, but I forgot so he should have been itchier again today, but I don't think he is. Coat feels really nice after the bath too. He usually gets itchy directly after a bath, only because I've just stirred up his skin though. It settles back down after half an hour or so. If I've used something on him that is going to react, then it's usually that night when he gets really itchy and is just beside himself. Now that the weather has cooled down a bit I do have his coat on most of the time, but of course he's still able to inhale everything.

Ok so we just had our first Sogeval bath - went with the Chlorhex Shampoo for all round coverage. Overall, good shampoo and not full of fragrance. Also applied 3 x top spots. No smell at all other than just an oily smell. Orbit still had a mental spaz after, rolling around and digging but that's cause he's a girl. Also did a light spray of the Calm spray after - again not much of a smell and just feels like an oil. He's itchy today and quite itchy now after his bath so will see how he goes in a few days...

The Megaderm does have safflower or sunflower in it doesn't it? If its at a high enough level, that might actually give you your answer to if its helping Orbit or not... We're having a bad time with Zayda atm, fix one and the other breaks But we have mould allergies too and are getting mould + pollens atm... and she got a bit of food she shouldn't <sigh> no mould allergies at your end?? oooh good point I didn't think of mould! Pretty sure we did which could easily explain things!! Champion Zayder, thanks!! Will go back and check our results

Might give it a go again after I finish the current bottle of megaderm. We're having a crapola time with his allergies at the moment which sucks because I usually look forward to the cooler months because his symptoms usually reduce, but not this time! Time to do another food elimination diet soon I think too. But hey, maybe our Sogeval range will be miracle cure success!