stormie

I would also be concerned that this is on the joint and that another one has popped up at another site on the leg. Limbs are quite uncommon places for lipoma's and they don't usually occur in dogs so young too. Definitely off to the vet to find out exactly what they are, IMO.

Yep, Holistic Select is the same - they have just dropped the Eagle Pack label from the bag. The packaging has recently changed. Presently, the only Holistic Select Small/Medium Puppy formula in Aus is the Chicken and Rice. If you look at the original packaging, you'll see it clearly states on the packaging 'For Adult dogs and Small and Medium Breed Puppies'. The puppy formula you gave the link for is new and hasn't reached Aus yet, but it's coming. But till then, the Chicken and Rice in the new packaging, whilst it doesn't say on the bag, is 100% suited to Sml/Med pups. this is the old packaging...

Cerenia is the name of the latest drug available for motion sickness. I haven't had any experience with it personally, but I believe it works very well. It's not overly cheap though, but better than dosing with ACP! LINKY

Eagle Pack Holistic Chicken and Rice is also currently their Small/Medium Puppy Formula. Here's a link to their Feeding Guidelines

Sorry, I'm not sure of survival rates. I've not had a lot of experience with it - only a handful of cases. The latest case we saw seems to be going well. Unfortunately some dogs just don't cope well with the medications (they are pretty hardcore doses), and some go into renal failure as a result of the deposition of immune related complexes in the filter parts of the kidneys, causing damage. With regards to specialists, we don't believe they immediately should need a specialist but would vary case by case. The main thing is to be sure the diagnosis is 100% correct and then the treatment is generally the same. We have reffered cases that were a little unusual that still turned out to be IMPA, but were still treated the same way we would have here. I think if your friend is happy with her vet and things are going ok, there would be no need to go to a specialist necessarily. With most cases like this, we regularly consult with out local specialists who have been more than happy to give us all the info they can over the phone and share their knowledge, but yeah, if the animal wasn't responding to treatment we would refer.

Sorry to hear about your friends girl, AIPA is a nasty disease. I have seen it successfully managed under specialists guidance. I have seen some come through it very well, however I have unfortunately seen a lovely boy lose his battle with it. I don't think there's a lot of knowledge out there as to why dogs get this condition, but there is some suggestion it can be linked to vaccination - whether or not it was there all along and the vaccine triggers the disease to flare up, or whether the vaccine is the cause, is unknown. I have also seen it in dogs who had not been recently vaccinated so again, not a lot of knowledge. I don't believe it's a breed specific illness either. May possibly be genetic, but again, I'm not sure whether it's known. With regards to treatment, I have never known much of a miracle cure. Those I have seen come through were all treated via immune suppression, and then slowly eventually weaned off, or down to the lowest manageable dose. Unfortunately the larger/giant breeds have a lower tolerance for these drugs and side effects tend to be seen earlier and on lower doses than smaller dogs. It really does come down whether it looks like the disease is manageable and if/how it will effect quality of life. I would encourage your friend to give the conventional treatment a go, but failing to see any results then obviously trying alternative medicine would not hurt either. Possibly even combining the two may be an option. Many people are very against cortisone, but if the dose can be brought down to a reasonable level eventually, the dog can live a relatively normal life on regular dosing. My dane has quite bad allergic skin disease, and has been on cortisone since he was 4months old. Obviously his dose is not at an immuno suppressive dose, but he is on it regularly, but managed well enough to see very few side effects. His life may be shortened, but at the moment, its about quality of life for him. Without it, he'd have been put to sleep long ago, so if I can give him a shorter but more comfortable life now, I will. Send your friend my well wishes for her girl and her family

That made me LOL. hahaha me too! Agree with the others... try to relax and enjoy your holiday. I admit I was a bit nervous the first time I sent Orbit off for a holiday when I went away, even though I knew he was in good hands (he stays with my boss). But when I went round there to pick him up, I got a very brief 'oh hi, you're back', and off he went to keep playing with his girlfriend. He couldn't care less I was home

I give 1 of the 22-45kg chews with an 11-22kg one. Orbit's about 60kg so that covers him. Novartis will tell you that it's not 100% safe to cut their chews in half as they cannot guarantee that the active ingredients are equally dispersed throughout the chew. I personally found that once the foil seal was broken, the other half of the tab/chew didn't last the month, even if I completely sealed it again, and it would turn to powder. I

Sorry to hear about your pup Agree with Nekhbet - insist that she stay in hospital on fluids until they are certain she is 100%.

I'd be off to the vet too. Antihistamines don't always work well on dogs. Most commonly when you go to the vet for something like this, they give an injection of cortisone which bring the inflammation down much quicker than antihistamines. With the sort of swelling you have described, I wouldn't have be waiting around...

I had it on my stomach recently. Got a bright idea to put some Trigene on it, but alas, forgot to dilute it. So I ended up with a massive patch of skin that was bright red and felt just like sunburn. But that went away in a couple of days and so did the ringworm

Sounds like Wobblers Syndrome....

collies02 - the food does sound great, but with it just coming in a plain white bag, how can people be sure that the ingredients list you posted is what is in the bag? I thought regulations meant that ingredients/feeding guides etc had to be clearly printed on pet foods?

Ok don't quote me on this, but I believe this new strain was mentioned by Jean Dodds and a pathologist from VetPath when they came to Aus. The pathologist confirmed that the new strain was in Australia, but believed that dogs who had adequate immunity to the other more common strain of parvo, should also be ok with this new strain? Someone else might remember more though...

Exactly. Advantage and Advantix are exactly the same, except for the addition of Permethrin in Advantix for the ticks. There shouldn't be any reason why Advantage would work and Advantix doesn't. I'd be actually looking to see whether the dog actually has fleas.

Agreed - the date of the last vacc should have been on their records - its not hard to count 12months from that date. The nurse should have picked up on it when you came in, and if he/she didn't, then the vet should have

what about making some sort of elbow pad? we've got some at our clinic that a previous nurse made, that are just foam with velcow. I think one of them has a bit of bandage attached too, so it can be wrapped around to help keep it in place

I could have told you that just by looking at him

Just curious to know whether you ended up actually getting a positive diagnosis for a hygroma? I'm just going to play devils advocate here for a sec. I'm not disagreeing with anything anyone has said, but just offering a different way to look at it. The vet saw the dog for an elbow swelling. It's not incompetent to consider ED - it is a possiblity. It might not be common in the breed and may never have been seen, but its not something you can completely rule out because of this. It might make it unlikely, but not 100% impossible. Same with the hips. The vet thought there was pain in the hips, so suggested x-rays. I didn't read anywhere that the vet diagnosed ED and HD, but merely suggested it as something to rule out? It seems to be the new ways of a lot of the newer grads, to want to "rule out" every possiblity. Perhaps this vet thought they were just being thorough, wanting to make sure it wasn't that? What if by some freak chance, it had of been that, but the vet disregarded the idea simply based on the breed? They would be done for incompetence then, for not suggesting as a possiblity and catching it early. I personally wouldn't have thought a hygroma would be all that common in such a young dog, even if it is a larger breed puppy. Having a go at the vet nurse for not being able to spell the dogs breed is a little unfair. I have often had to look up the correct spelling for a breed of dog or cat that I haven't encountered before. I'm a nurse - not a spelling bee champion! Anyways, like I said, just a different point of view

Erny I completely get where you're coming from, but often, allergic dogs can be allergic to both environmental allergens as well as food. I agree with getting the dog on the best possible diet, but I think it's important for people to follow path to diagnosing the cause first, and once that's achieved, then look at changing the diet. The sooner people get to the cause of the allergies, the sooner they can start making as many changes as possible to improve the situation. Simply suggesting a change to a raw diet is completely pointless if what the owner is still feeding, the dog is reacting to. I'm all for a raw diet, and feed Orbit a completely raw diet, but I have to be careful what he eats, because he is allergic to many different meat proteins. He's allergic to everything - food, the environment and also contact issues. But by keeping his diet as strict as I can, means I can help minimise his discomfort. It might only reduce his itching by 5%, but when you're dealing with such an allergic dog, it makes all the difference. Like I said, I completely agree with keeping the dog as healthy as possible to help with the issues, but I think simply suggesting owners switch to raw first, without doing a proper strict elimination diet, is poor advice, as its only going to prolong a diagnosis. p.s I want to get hold of some calendular tea and hope it helps gives us some relief through the awful summer months - where's the best place to get it? Can you get it in bags or is it better to get it and strain it yourself etc?

Sweet thanks - might go have a raid during lunch tomorrow!!

Doesn't really seem to fit that well in this case. Those symptoms are all pretty characteristic of atopy too. Go walk a dog through wandering jew and it will exhibit those symptoms. The key factor here is the fact you said it's worse during spring/summer - also known as the allergy season. Pollens are out and they are both absorbed and inhaled. The dog then releases histamines, which in humans, would cause hay fever symptoms, but in dogs, the inflammation etc causes them to be itchy. The more they itch, the more the skin gets inflammed and the barriers are disrupted and you end up with secondary skin infections (staph and malassezia). Unfortunately with these types of allergies, its not even a simple case of chopping down all the plants/trees in your yard too. As our derm said, pollens can travel from hours away and are just in the air, settling on the surfaces etc. Rinsing them after they've been outside can help reduce them being absorbed. Antihistamines can help a little too, though it's a matter of trialing them to find one that helps. Omega oils can help the efficacy of antihistamines and can also give an anti inflammatory response. But again, I'd be on to food elimination diets before you start adding supplements, in case some of the stuff you are giving, she is allergic to. I spent a fortune on lotions, potions, shampoos, supplements etc when Orbit was a pup, trying to find something that would give us some relief. As it turns out, he is allergic to fish, so all those fish oils I was buying him, was only making it worse. I put him on a raw diet, which of course had chicken, but after doing a proper elimination diet, realised he was very allergic to chicken, so again, I was only making things worse. Even shampoos - he's allergic to oatmeal (both internally and externally) so all those special allergy shampoos and conditioners which contain oatmeal to sooth the skin, were actually making him worse.

Honestly, I wouldn't go fiddling with diet until you've seen a specialist. You need to deal with allergies properly, otherwise you'll end up spending hundreds. No point switchting to a raw diet, if the meats you are feeding are meats she is allergic to. You should do a strict elimination diet first to work out whether food is an issue, but with it being mostly seasonal, then its most likely going to be environmental allergens. You are lucky you have insurance - definitely make the most of it and get a referral!!!

There are lots of threads here about dogs with allergies. The best advice would be to go and see a dermatologist. Lots of people will talk diet with you and tell you to get her onto a raw diet etc, but IMO, you're best to go and see a specialist who can help you along the path of working out what she's allergic to and doing it the right way. I'm speaking from experience, too. You can spend a fortune trying to do it yourself, buying lotions and potions, but really, the only way you're going to make progress with any type of allergies is to pinpoint exactly what she's allergic to, and working out whether its food, contact, or atopic (or a combination of all three) so you can best manage it.

True that the company says its safe to give the injection from 6months. But, I wouldn't touch the injection if you paid me.