stormie

Can I ask, where do you get your turkey necks from? Orbit's turn! (this is just his food, not including supplements/medication) Breed: Great Dane Age: 2 1/2 Weight: 60kg (bit on the 'Orbese' side so aiming for about 57!!) Food: Raw Daily: about 500g minced turkey meat and 500g-1kg of either lamb flaps, roo tails, turkey wings/necks. I buy in bulk and usually spend around $200 each time, which seems to last about 6 weeks. So about $4-5 per day. Not bad for a giant breed!!

That reminds me, about a month ago, after a dinner meal a bit too fatty, Orbit got pretty sick - vomiting and just generally very flat. He never had a temperature and his liver enzymes were normal, but the way he presented and also with the fatty meal, we put it down to an acute bout of pancreatitis. He was only in hospital for 2 nights and was pretty much back to normal within a few days, but it was still pretty worrying to see him so flat. My housemates dog was up sick the night before, so it could also have been a tummy bug - guess we'll never know! He's chunked on a bit of weight too with his latest meat delivery so he's on a bit of a diet at the moment now too.

I would get a referral to a Dermatologist. They will start you on a process of elimination. Many won't do the allergy testing straight away as it does not diagnose allergies as such - you need to eliminate every other possibility before you can come to that diagnosis. Generally you start off by eliminating contact irritant plants (eg wandering jaw), parasites (fleas, scabies), then bacteria/yeast, and then do a food elimination diet to rule out food allergies. It's not a cheap process and the testing itself is a few hunred dollars, as are the vials of the allergen 'vaccines' you receive afterwards. We haven't had a lot of luck with the injections, but a lot of Orbits problems are contact as well, which I don't believe the desensitising helps with. Goodluck!!

Yep she has some serious flat feet. Pretty sure that's due to a diet with not enough calcium.

ugh stereotyping is one of my pet hates, particularly about dog owners. I've had people tell me that I only got a Dane because I wanted attention - because people only get big dogs to be noticed apparently Walking a dog or dogs offlead down a main road is probably not the safest thing to be doing, but to call the guy a hero based purely on appearances, to me, is a bit harsh. People who put others down, particular complete strangers without knowing who they are or what they're about, based on appearances, are really unattractive to me. Obviously they feel they are better than the person they are putting down, but really, I think they're clearly much lower...

Poor little Eddie... A few years ago at our previous clinic we saw a little Iggy puppy that had jumped off their back verandah and snapped both her front legs. We pinned both her legs and she coped amazingly well - within a few days she was literally walking around on her two hind legs!!! Her owners crated her and just took her outside to toilet on lead and did a really good job with her. Once the pins were out she was pretty much back to normal and as far as I know, had no further difficulties. I had some video somewhere of her walking on her back legs, will see if I can find it...

I have always been of the understanding that generally, a dog would have to eat its own weight of poisoned rats/mice... I'm sure this would vary between dogs though...

Wow Zayder, for such an allergic boy, he looks great! Well done and looks like all your time, effort and money is worth it.

Hi Kate! Re the children thing, personally, I think that so long as the dog is taught respect for the children (and vice versa), they are generally fine, but due to their size and being so uncoordinated, there will always be the possibility of a little one accidently being pushed over or maybe trodden on. My 2 1/2 year old comes to work with me everywhere and my bosses 4yo is a real natural with animals (a vet in the making ) and is constantly taking him for walks around the yard by his collar, or making him sit etc. He thinks its great and has the same respect for her that he does for us!

Sorry to hear of the diagnosis. My advice would be to have both lumps removed and atleast one sent away to pathology to find out exactly what grade/classification they are. Once you know that, you will have a better idea of what you're dealing with. It may be that they are low grade and that complete excision may be a cure. As for cost, well, I guess that can vary. You mention an oncologist as doing the surgery, which means more than likely, the cost will be significant higher than just your regular vet doing the operation. If it was me, yep, I would do the surgery, but I have have my normal vet do it rather than a specialist.

Metrogyl is the same as Flagyl - commonly used in both people and animals for tummy upsets. I've not seen any side effects from it like you've describe, sorry.

It's also the calcium/phosphorus ratio you want to look at, not just the protein and fat. The calcium/phosphorus ratio is more ideal in the Large/Giant Puppy.

Here I am! Yep, Porp has been on regular pred since he was about 4 months old. It's quite ironic, because before I even bought him home, I always told my Vet how he would never be over medicated/vaccinated and would never get cortisone unless he had to. I think I well and truly jinxed us I was something I really didn't want to do, but the extent of his itching was pretty bad, and getting worse every day, to the point he barely slept and was doing a lot of damage to himself. We started with a normal tapering course, but once that stopped the itching started up again and we then started on working towards a diagnosis, but he still needed pred to keep him comfortable. In fact, probably the longest he's managed to go since that time (he's now 2 1/2) is about 4-5 days of no pred. His dose has generally always been maintained at the lowest dose possible, every second day. He's about 55-60kg and we get by on about 20mg eod. I recently started him on Cyclosporin and find that with a combination of that and pred, we can sometimes get by on 10mg pred every 3 days or so, but still have flare ups where he needs more. In terms of side effects, I have to say I think we've been lucky in a lot of ways. I'm lucky in that I've been able to take him to work with me every day so have always had vets keeping an eye on him for the more serious side effects. One of the major things we've seen is that he is much lighter in frame than his brothers. Whether he would be any different without it I guess we can't know 100%, but for a dog that was kept entire until 18months of age, he is still relatively small and never really 'chunked up'. Otherwise, that's pretty much it. His coat has always been a little finer, but since getting him on the cyclosporin and reducing the pred even more, it's gotten a bit thicker and generally looks well. When he was castrated and gastropexied, we had no problems at all with wound healing and all went as normal. His skin is maybe a tiny little thinner than normal, but he's never had the pot bellied 'cushinoid' look to him that I've seen on other dogs on constant cortisone. On his 'pill days', mainly I just see the increase in thirst and urination and not much else. I can't say I've ever noticed a change in his temperament or anything. But, I do believe it can be a side effect in some dogs for sure. Again, I think we're lucky. My understanding is that when using pred for the first time, side effects are often greater, (and your 25mg dose is relatively high so I'm not surprised hearing those side effects), but after a couple of days and probably also over long term, they seem to fade off a bit. It's probably because it remains in their systems perhaps, hence probably why I see results with using a dose as low as 0.2-0.4mg/kg, which normally wouldn't really touch the sides if given as a once off dose. Overall, I think we manage him very well. According to the specialists, giant breeds generally don't tolerate pred as well as smaller dogs and tend to show side effects at lower doses, sooner. So with that in mind, I think we do very well. I don't think many people would know he was a 'cortisone kid'. He gets daily antihistamines, oils etc which I think help to keep the dose down to a minimum, along with regular bathing and keeping him indoors where possible. Cortisone is so often poo poo'd on dol and I do understand that it's not always a nasty drug, but I know that we've tried everything we can and it's now our last resort. Sometimes a simple course can fix a bad bout of contact irritant, breaking the cycle and fixing the problem. The way I see it, is that Orbit isnt worried about being on it, or that his life might be shortened. All he cares about it being comfortable and wanting the itching/pain etc to go away. Yes, it cuts me that he may very well die sooner than the average life span, but I'm not going to put my worries onto him by holding back a drug that provides him with total quality of life NOW. I have said this many times - I would rather he lead a 'normal' life, like most other dogs, by taking cortisone and only life till he's 5, than have him live suffering and uncomfortable until he's 12, just to make sure he's around longer for me.

We were told by our rep, that the packaging was made that size to keep it seen on the shelves, to match other products like Advantage, Revolution etc. It's a joke really. I would say 80% of our clients have complained not only about the packet sizing but also about the change to the chew, as most of them find their dogs won't eat either, and the tablets were much easier to put down their throats. eta I notice on the boxes they mention the email/sms reminder service - I wonder if not including stickers is a push to try get people to use that service?

Sounds like a good plan.. sending lots of good vibes for a positive result!

Unfortunately you can't test a dog for allergies. The only real way to get a positive diagnosis for atopy is by eliminating all other possibilities. I believe that you could intradermally or blood screen a perfectly normal dog with the allergy tests and still get positive results, its just that that particular dog doesn't show any symptoms of being allergic. That's why it's important to rule everything else out before you do the final allergen test, to make sure that the results you get are true.

That's a pretty significant price difference I got a price difference from our wholesaler recently on the same company's annual and triennial, but I can't remember what the difference was, but I'm thinking it may have been something like $10 more per single vacc? Obviously then there's the mark up too, which is done as a percentage, so say for example the annual cost the vet $10, they might put a 100% mark up on it, making it $20 (plus then the consult fee). If the triennial was $20 per vacc, the same mark up would then make it $40 - so the customer doesn't just pay the extra $10 in most cases. Sucks, but it's a business and that is how things have to be run in most cases. We have found most of our clients have been really great with the changeover. The previous vet who ran the practice had most people on a C4, so we've changed a lot of them over to just a 3 yearly C3, but an annual KC and most are very happy with that. We are happier to recommend the KC now that is is mostly being given on its own, rather than hitting them with 5 different things all at once.

How old is Candy? Does look like a histio, but could also look like a Mast Cell, so I would er on the side of going sooner rather than later... Fingers crossed it's nothing to worry about!

That's fabulous news! Do you have any more info on it, I'd love to look into it a bit more? Nah I don't - I just remember researching Atopy and Genetic and found a uni who was planning it!! Found it!! LINKY

The Dermatologists know that allergies are genetic. The problem is, what a lot of people don't realise, is that any form of allergy, even if mild, has the potential to be carried on into something major. I've heard lots of people say that their dog was fine, so long as it never ate lamb, and then bred that dog. Or the dog was fine, but just got a bit itchy when it lay on a certain type of grass. What they don't realise is that in most of those cases, the dog was allergic. Obviously there are plants like Wandering Jew where the reaction is more irritant (and Centitout it sounds more like the tree you have may be more chemical irritant rather than true allergy), and not allergic (like how stinging nettle stings us), but those dogs who 'get a bit itchy' from a tree or grass, are quite possibly allergic, and therefore have the potential to make very allergic babies. Research is currently being done to try and find a marker to enable breeders to screen for the gene, but problem is, atopy can take years to present itself, in which case a dog may have had already been bred several times before then anyway. From what I know and saw, none of Orbit's relatives were allergic like him, so maybe he just got the wrong combination of genes to give him such an over reactive immune system? Who knows... I find it sad to still here of dogs being bred that the breeder knows to have produced many allergic dogs already. It's a shocking life for the dogs, and very difficult both mentally and financially on owners. eta: Good post, Zayder - you explained it much better than me!!!

Going from what has been posted, I think that is right, Rommi. It's a shame your vet won't do it, but I do understand. I'm not sure many boarding kennels will accept it as yet, hence why we have to discuss it with everyone that comes. The AVA said in their statement that the new regime would mean giving off label doses (ie using vaccines that were reg'd for annual use, triennially), but I'm not sure if we would have support from them or the vaccine company should a dog get parvo that we said didn't need annuals! It's a tough one! The thing is, I have no idea what that number of particles means. The difference in between the 100,000 and 10,000,000 might be quite insignificant in particle talk? And it's a different strain of parvo, so again, there might be a reason there's so many more and maybe the 10,000,000 of the new one equates to 100,000 of the previous one?

I guess we're different then. All ours get pre meds which we give about 10-15mins prior to induction. Induction, intubation, clipping etc is another 5mins then getting them set up in theatre, monitors/pressure cuffs on, area prepping etc is another 5 or so and then surgery begins. We like ours to be conscious when taken from theatre to recovery, but much prefer a slow calm wake-up form the pre med - all of which was taught to all of us by the specialists. And all our castrations are done under gas, NEVER just with heavy sedation.... If people trust their vets and have enough faith in themselves to know straight away if something wasn't right (which I'm sure many people on here would), then fine, but it's not the norm and most vets would prefer to keep them in for atleast a few hours after surgery, where drugs, fluids etc are nearby in the unlikely event something went wrong.

Relatively, yes.. When we first spoke to the Derm, she asked what breed of dog Orbit was and when we said Dane, her reaction was 'ohh noooo why on earth did you get a dane - I'm seeing them all the time'.

yep that's true - one of the things on the allergy panels. Though hopefully unlikely in Baloo's case because it's a sudden acute attack - plus the hives came first, and most cases of hives turn into staph from all the irritation and inflammation etc. Fingers crossed you have no recurrence after the pred!!

I've put this up a few times but here it is again.. this is from Intervet and compares their Triennial with their Annual. Look at the 'to the power of' number... Comparison_Companion_and_Nobivac_virus_strains.doc in their annual, there's 100,000 parvo particles, where as in their triennial, there's 10,000,000. As to vaccinating dogs triennially with the annual, well it's done on a case by case basis and we discuss it with every client coming in as to whether they board and where etc. I have spoken to a couple of boarding kennels and one was happy to accept the new protocol so long as the KC was up to date. The AVA have issued the data telling us the core vaccines that were previously annuals, have been shown to last 3 years plus. The AVA also said that boarding kennels should be following vets advice, not their own, but we all know that won't happen and kennels can and will still refuse people. eta: those 104.0 numbers would mean 10 to the power of 4.