Eileen

I ought to clarify; by sleeping in I mean 6.30-7am. Bring on daylight savings, Dolly thinks it is morning at 4.45am!

No that makes sense, Ruthless, cos it is usually if I am sleeping longer than usual, thereby delaying her brekkie. Thanks heaps for answering.

Twice a day. When we get up and at about 6pm.

Not every morning, but maybe 2 out of 5, I will wake up to the sound of Dolly retching. It's usually bile, and mostly when I have slept in a little (I joke to my boyfriend that it is her way of making sure I wake up to take her to the park instead of sleeping in till 7am!) I remember when I was a kid my mum said dogs puke a lot and it is not the same as people vomiting .... but this does seem to happen a lot. Is it something I should worry about, or can it wait till the next vet visit?

I haven't tried Eukanuba, but have tried Hills and Royal Canin, and my pup goes nuts for Royal Canin.

Dolly was a dreadful biter, and none of the above worked. We wound up putting her into time out every time she bit one of us. She's so pack oriented that this worked faster than anything, cos she just hated being away from us. I went to work though for about a month with the worst marks on my hands, I'd get so embarrassed in meetings!

Hold on, it IS bad for puppies to have too much raw meat, isn't it?

Not that I've had to do either, but I would choose a kennel over rellies. They would feel terrible if something happened to the pup while in their care.

My 6 month old Stafford pup has started doing something odd in the morning. When we get back from the park she is bouncy and happy as normal. Once I start tidying the kitchen and making my boyfriend a cup of coffee to take upstairs, she gets really dejected, flopping on the couch with droopy head and body, and she won't look at me. After I go upstairs I usually have a shower, get dressed, come back downstairs, do a few more things and put her out for the day with a bone, unless boyfriend is staying home. She ignores me this whole time and her whole demeanour is like she is sick. (The first time she did I did think she was sick, or had a tick). Yesterday my boyfriend stayed home and he told me as soon as the front door closed, she jumped up and ran over to him for pats with her tail wagging. Um, I am trying not to humanise my dog, but talk about emotional blackmail, haha. I usually ignore her for the last 20 mins or so, as I thought that was meant to minimise separation anxiety, but is this making her worse?

Ok apparently it is when the dog's front feet are duckfooted, I think it is also called "east west" feet or front? Also instead of walking on her tippy toes she looked more like she was leaning on her joints. She doesn't have loose poos, just lots of poos. But maybe I could reintroduce bones into her diet? Thanks PW for the idea.

I am not sure if I should have started a new thread or not, but I couldn't work out how to edit the title of the old one, so I have included the old one as a link http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?show...;hl=poo+factory Ok so now my pup will be 6 months tomorrow. We changed her diet to Royal Canin puppy medium breed, and cut out all the raw food cos she went a bit down at pasterns a while ago, and my DOL sources tell me that is a way to fix it. Now she loves Royal Canin, it has made it so much easier to train her, cos she will sit and stay for up to a minute before I say it is ok for her to eat, hooray! And the poos eased up at first, but then they increased in frequency again over the last month or so – and now she is definitely back up to the 4-5 poo a day range – they look fine, well, as fine as poo ever looks. Is this bad for her health? She looks healthy, she is not thin, but everyone thinks she is much younger than she is, so I wonder if she is not absorbing enough nutrients?

Bits of apple work well.

Just had a thought, if you don't rinse out – and I mean really rinse out – the dog shampoo after washing, it looks like dandruff when the puppy is dry.

Our (staffy) breeder also recommends adding a dash of safflower oil. When we brought our pup home she got dry skin and this fixed it straightaway.

Ahahhahahaa, I just spat out my coffee that was so funny

I was militant about Dolly and toilet training, cos we have all carpet and it's a rental property - oh and our lounge room is on the second floor, so it was a bit of a hike to the backyard. So, I raced her outside whenever she woke up, after she had a drink, after a little play, after a big play, after she'd pause during a play and about 15 mins after she ate. Puppies do so many little wees all day, but they all seem to be pretty much after those times. Then whenever she'd do it outside I'd praise her so much (I am sure our neighbours thought I was insane) and say yay, good wees. The vigilence pays off, I swear, it's just that for the first couple of weeks, you just have to presume the puppy will wee after almost everything. Oh, and when I say after she woke up, it would go like: eyes open, stretch, step, step, step, wee. You don't have much time. Lol

Our backyard is paved too, and the odour is not good - it seems to be the smell from the urine soaking into the pavers and then the sun baking it in. Yuck! We scrub it out once a week with Simple Green, it's a biodegradable outside disenfectant that you are legally allowed to flush down the outside drain. It really gets the pong out, too. But you still have to do it once a week.

And your puppy is just GORGEOUS!

I love hearing stories about Charlie, he sounds hilarious and full of character. Our pup doesn't bark outside our gate; I think she thinks it's an inside/backyard thing. She mostly does it at us, when we get home from work, to let us know what a shitty thing we did to leave her at home. Lol. Indignant barking interspersed with staffy squeaks. Both neighbours work from home and apparently she doesn't do it during the day, which is a relief!

Well it turns out you're right - but we also switched kibble brands, and now she champs at the bit to get to her food. Thanks!

Pipe rings are really good, too, you know, those rubber rings? Very staffy-proof! And as someone said, plastic bottles, though I let Dolly shred the label off, she doesn't eat it, just scatters it all around the room. I then have to pick it up, but for an hour's peace, it's sooooo worth it. She also gets all the toilet rolls when they are done; she loves them. We actually had to make a new toilet roll holder that's up quite high, cos it turns out shredding rolls of paper is the best game in the whole world!

She is getting desexed next week, so I will ask the vet to look at her then.

We were at our wits' end with Dolly, boy was she a biter! The only think that worked for us was giving her time out.

OK sure, but how come puppies who are wormed have puppy breath?

I have never been able to describe the smell but you have done it perfectly Freja is just losing that smell now. Yes, Dolly lost hers just a little while ago. It's sort of sad.