Maddy

Compost cages, in the aisle with other composty stuff (usually hidden away on a bottom shelf). I use them to keep the dogs out of certain areas of the front yard when we're trying to regrow grass in the summer or keep the dogs out of the mud in winter. They're not terribly sturdy (I use cable ties as those spiral rings are annoying and useless) so they get used strictly for blocking things that aren't dangerous but I want the dogs away from.

Hydrogen peroxide - food grade 3% - To induce vomiting or to clean wounds. Tweezers - blunt and sharp tipped - For removing foreign bodies and cleaning wounds of debris. Safety scissors - For cutting away fur, etc. Digital thermometer - Ideally, obtain a regular temperature and record it (and keep with the kit) for comparing in the event of hyperthermia, etc. Syringes - At least two (and needles) - For administering medications or injecting fluids Eye dropper - For flushing out eyes/ears/nose or cleaning wounds. Safety pins - For holding temporary dressings in place, securing strappings, etc. Disposable gloves (sterile) – At least two pairs Cotton thread and sewing needle - For stitching wounds that require immediate attention. Adhesive tape - For taping dressings in place, taping tail or injured ears down to prevent further damage, etc. Towelling - To soak up blood/water or to pad dressings. Sterile non-stick pads - For dressing smaller wounds. Eye pads - For eye injuries (to prevent dog rubbing at eyes) Cotton gauze pads - For packing dressings Vetwrap or similar cohesive bandage - For strapping dressings in place or strapping Cotton triangular bandage - For dressing larger wounds. Can also be used for tourniquets. Cotton balls and swabs - For cleaning wounds, applying disinfectants. Prepared F10 solution - For cleaning equipment prior to use and disinfecting after use. Prepared iodine solution - For cleaning wounds. Sterile eye wash - For flushing out eyes or open wounds. Alcohol wipes - For wiping down equipment, cleaning hands and swapping skin (unbroken skin only). Non-alcohol antiseptic wipes - For cleaning hands or around broken skin. Styptic powder - To stem minor bleeding (cut quicks in claws, etc.) Sterile saline solution - For cleaning wounds, flushing out deeper wounds, etc. Tick remover - For removing ticks without destroying the body (needed for identification). Stitch cutter - For removing stitches. Can also be used with tweezers to remove foreign bodies. Dental scaler - For cleaning teeth and to aid in the removal of foreign bodies caught in the gums, etc. (grass seeds, etc.) Yard muzzle - To prevent the dog from biting if injured or scared. Yard muzzles also allow the dog to pant freely or open their mouths widely enough to vomit (unlike nylon muzzles). Short lead - To restrain the dog to prevent further injury. Zip lock bags - For collecting samples to take to vet (vomit, parasites, etc.) Bottled water - For rehydrating dogs suffering heatstroke, etc. Cleaning away larger amounts of vomit or blood. Pawpaw ointment - For treating minor grazes or skin irritation. Paraffin oil - For treating constipation, etc. Small flashlight - For checking inside of ears, inside mouth, etc. Vaseline - To lubricate thermometer or to apply to cracked paws to prevent further damage. Baby wipes (or F10 wipes) - Cleaning fur, cleaning up after wound treatment. Hand sanitiser - Cleaning hands before and after wound treatments. Recharge sachets (or human equivalent) - Add to water to aid in rehydrating overheated or stressed dogs. Nutrigel - High-fat product, can be used short-term in stressed dogs that won’t eat. Instant cool pack - For sprains, etc. Can also be used to assist in the treatment of hyperthermia. Instant heat pack - For sprains, etc. Can also be used to treat dogs suffering hypothermia. Thermal sheet - For preventing further heat loss in case of shock or hypothermia.

Same. Also, on mine, the lining of the waterproof outdoor cover peeled away in the washing machine (it was washed in cold water, not hot ). I guess if you're after a cheap, disposable bed, they're okay but personally, I'd save my money for something of better quality.

He's worth every bit of the effort it took to save him

Yes I was thinking that myself...Shame when an OP can't comment on her own post & go slightly off topic...if that's what it is I must remember that in future...when I start a thread on Coriander for eg I must make a note to myself not to start talking about parsley or mint in case it offends someone :laugh: If you want to discuss the dangers of xylitol, go right ahead. My issue was the spreading of panic about peanut butter without properly reading the article or doing any of your own research to verify the risk of the product. This is not an issue of the thread changing course and I'm sure you are quite aware of that. Or possibly because sensible, knowledgeable people eventually give up trying to keep the tone of this section of the forum balanced and factual? :laugh: Good on you Ouch. I'll have to rub some coconut oil and turmeric on that.

Or possibly because sensible, knowledgeable people eventually give up trying to keep the tone of this section of the forum balanced and factual?

Launceston, 21st June at Heritage Forest in Invermay The first ever Great British Greyhound Walk in Tasmania will be held in Launceston, hosted by Greyhound Haven Tasmania. All sighthounds and larger dogs are welcome. Small, white and fluffies are probably best left at home as there will be greyhounds attending who may not have been small dog tested. Muzzles and leads are required for all greyhounds. Muzzles will be available to borrow for those who don't have one. Unmuzzled greyhounds will not be able to join the walk. People who don't own a hound but would like to meet some are welcome to attend. Competitions for best dressed hound and most blinged-up muzzle :D FB event page (with all the details) https://www.facebook.com/events/903513826376887/ GBGW Listing http://greatbritishgreyhoundwalk.org.uk/walks/tasmania/

They are required only to meet certain standards and without knowing much about that pound beyond the photos I've seen, I'd guess they'd meet basic welfare standards. The dogs have food, water and shelter from the elements. Obviously above standard would be preferable but they are council holding pens, not a five star boarding kennel. RSPCA facilities (even the old ones) were built by an organisation with very deep pockets. The facilities of Cowra look very much like pounds run by small town councils down here- pretty crappy and not ideal for long term holding but they do the job. The problem with that petition was that it was demanding changes when some of those things are not really the problem. Another example.. "ermagherd there was poop in the runs near the water bowls". First, staff can't really control where the dogs choose to poop within their runs. And some dogs are a bit grotty (the ones who've never been toilet trained and are used to pooping wherever they feel like pooping). This problem could (sort of) be addressed by hosing out kennels more than once a day. But.. in winter, that means concrete stays wet for even longer. And when you have dogs that are a three-times-a-day dog, the run will almost never be dry (and people will complain about dogs sitting in wet runs). The changes need to be in other areas and relate more to management- such as not having any dogs loose outside of pens unless on lead (his kelpie shouldn't have been there at all), keeping kennels free of actual garbage and maintaining very careful records of impounds so that if the condition of a dog is called into question (like the attacking dog's weight), he can supply information. If the ranger struggles to keep up with the increased workload (of picking up empty Chum cans), employ a second one, even if just part time.

But a pound is not a home so there's not really much point comparing the two. As I pointed out to someone on FB, providing optimal conditions to suit the many and varied needs of a holding facility isn't easy. I'll use bedding as an example.. Firstly, soft beds are pretty much out. Confined dogs will rip them into so many tiny pieces. And that brings with it the choking/obstruction risk of bed stuffing/foam or other bed parts. If a dog were to die from such a thing in the pound, people would be outraged again. Then there's the issue of hygiene- soft beds or bedding are, by their very natural, magnets for germs. Bedding that gets damp will grow fungal/mould spores, bodily fluids from unwell dogs soak into the bedding and washing the bedding in boiling water and disinfectant (which would be your only option) will quickly destroy most soft beds anyway. If you have a parvo outbreak, every bed or blanket becomes a potential piece of contaminated material that must be carefully disposed of. And so on and so forth. Obviously there are some solutions- like raised trampoline beds to give the dogs some amount of comfort or having indoor/outdoor kennels that can be climate controlled- but a rinky-dink little country pound is probably not going to be getting the funding needed to make those sorts of changes. As I mentioned above, there are things that could easily be fixed (like not leaving empty food cans around like a filthy bush pig) but others are a lot more complicated than they seem at first glance.

It's not just peanut butter that we need to check for xylitol...it is ANY processed human food that we might give our dogs The thread is titled "peanut butter warning" so..

That sounds pretty implausible. Death by nose scratches? Internal injuries from a fight or attack aren't usually externally obvious and a lack of remaining blood on the other dog means nothing. Dogs lick themselves. While I'd agree that there needs to be changes in how that pound is managed, the cause of the kelpie's death given by the council seems the most plausible to me.

I checked the ingredients of every single peanut butter sold by Coles and Woolworths and not a single one contained xylitol. If you actually read the article you posted, you'll notice that it was one US brand in particular, it's not even a common issue in the country where it was written.

I have two greys, down from four after saying goodbye to our two oldies last year. I honestly couldn't imagine not having at least a couple of greys around. You get so used to how easy they are to have in the house and everything else just seems.. too chunky or active or loud or hairy. I think some people have difficulty dealing with the reality of prey drive but personally, it doesn't bother me. All dogs are predators, greys just have a more developed drive (or more natural drive, it could be argued, given prey drive was heavily modified or bred out of many breeds) and like other breed traits, it needs to be managed appropriately.

I totally agree. It's normal for people to baby a rescue dog because they believe it has suffered so much that they are doing the right thing by being kind and sympathetic. This has to stop immediately before he bites a child. All the warning signs are there. Don't accept having to make excuses for awful behaviour because when it sinks in that there's 12+ years of awful ahead, people eventually crack, then move the dog on. And that dog will keep bouncing around homes for the rest of it's short life. That's when they land at the pound, unable to be rescued or rehomed because human aggressive dogs are not allowed out. It doesn't matter that he has 3 legs and sad eyes, he could have 2 legs & one eye & been born starving and mangey at the dump, he's still a large teenage dog who needs intervention immediately. There's some good advice and help on Dol. Or they need to send the dog back ...... If it's from a group who takes their dogs back. Some do have a behaviourist on board to help. Did the group desex him? Offer advice? All of this. Edited to add.. the whole "my dog reacts to X because it reminds him of the abuse".. probably no. More likely, the dog reacts to X because of a lack of socialisation/exposure to whatever that thing is. As Powerlegs points out, excusing problems doesn't fix them.

Ugh, just wrote up a long reply and then accidentally refreshed the page and lost it all. Long story short- my guy was having daily seizures and first started having seizures at 5 and a half months of age. Bromide stopped that but had severe side effects for him so we're weaning back off to just PB. The rest of what I'd written was in relation to natural remedies, dietary advice and supplements. Basically, don't waste your money. Feed a sensible, quality diet (kibble or raw, whatever works for your girl), and use whatever medication your vet gives you (try to give on time and don't miss doses). I don't have time to re-type all the information I'd provided but any herbal remedy that contains dangerous herbs like tansy or comfrey should be looked at with a healthy dose of skepticism.

I have a dog with epilepsy and although it can be challenging to manage at times (especially when starting a new medication or adjusting dose), most dogs will be able to live a relatively normal life with it. A few suggestions.. Watch her weight. My greyhound has put on 2kgs over almost 3 years of medicating. Phenobarb can make them hungry but also less inclined to exercise. From my experience, potassium bromide is even worse for this issue and when used in combination with PB, also greatly increases risk of pancreatitis. There are a few other side effects you'll probably notice (rear end may get a bit wobbly, they may get a bit dopey) but usually these things settle over time. Once again, KBr is worse for these issues. Personally, I found PB to be a really good drug and although we do get breakthrough seizures on mono therapy, the side effects are now almost unnoticeable. That said.. some dogs are more sensitive to certain drugs than others so it's just trial and error to see what drug/how much works for them.

My dilute whippet (whose name is also Penny :D ) has dark eyes. As has been mentioned before- I think it was in a thread about greyhounds- a dilute dog can't have a brown eye (they all have amber eyes) but as with everything, you do get variation in shades. I've had dilute dogs with pale, yellow amber eyes and other dilute dogs with eyes so darkly amber that they appeared brown. Equally, I've had non dilutes with fairly poor pigment in their eyes, making them appear paler than some amber eyes. In the case of breed standards that mention eye colour in terms of pigment strength (rather than actual colour), an amber eye should be fine as long as it is richly pigmented The way I see it, "dark" and "brown only" are not the same thing. Excuse the derpy photo, had to find one taken in bright light so that pupil wouldn't obscure iris colour so much.

While some greyhounds are okay with cats, finding one of those greys isn't easy and many groups will claim their dogs are cat safe when they are anything but. The other issue is that while some greys are okay with "their" cat, strange cats in the yard may be seen as something to chase. I've never had a purebred greyhound that could jump a fence but odds are, they could beat the cat to the fence anyway so.. yeah.. same outcome for the cat. They are also far from being a small or medium dog. They may look fairly light on paper (the average is around 30kgs) but they are very tall dogs. They don't actually need much space (mine spend almost all of their time inside, in their beds) but they also aren't the sort of dog you can just pick up and tuck under your arm- not unless you're the Hulk, anyway. A whippet might be more suitable but fencing could be an issue there.

We taught our newest dog where to toilet inside if she had to and it's made life much easier She won't go anywhere except the two spots we picked out and if the towels aren't there, she won't go. Because she only goes where we want her to, cleaning up is easier and we don't have to worry about the carpet getting stained. I'm actually regretting not having thought to have done that with the Idiot Dog because this time of year, it rains constantly and even if he's physically put outside, he'll just huddle in the back porch until he's let in again- and then will wee on the lounge room floor anyway. If we'd thought to train him the same as we trained Shitty Whippet, I wouldn't have spent two hours yesterday cleaning wee out of my carpet :/

Now that I think about it.. We have a whippet one of theirs and this month is a male whippet and I remember looking at it a few days ago and wondering.. where is the end of its penis? Must be REALLY high up its belly or something.. Edited to add.. This month's photo.

Pretty disappointing, hey? Even more so because they tried to hijack the GBGW* for political reasons and dragged in groups who actually disagree with them and how they operate. Even after I posted on their** event page asking to be removed from their list of "awareness walks", they not only didn't remove my group name, they also deleted my request so that other people couldn't see that I didn't want to be associated with them. *Which is supposed to be just a fun walk to promote greyhounds as pets, not an anti racing protest. **It was being "organised" by The Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds in associated with the Animal Justice Party.

Or Alabama rot, which can't even be vaccinated against.

Powerlegs is my spirit animal :p

I'm loving the Karma collars. Before I buy one (at some distant point in the future) can you or anyone explain: What is a D ring collar and why would I use it? And is a Marringale similar to a choke collar? And how do I take care of a beautiful collar like these if my dog swims a lot? Don't buy one? Thanks. A D ring is the D-shaped ring on a collar that you attach tags or the lead to. Pretty much all collars have a D ring, nothing special. A martingale collar is different to a slip or choke collar/chain in that it only closes a certain amount. When adjusting, you want the two D (or O) rings that attach the slipping loop to almost be touching when the collar is pulled tight, so that the dog can't back out of the collar but also so that if the dog pulls very hard, it won't actually be choked. The downside is that martingales aren't the safest of collars to leave on a dog and a leather one is even more risk because in an emergency, it'd be very difficult to cut off (compared to fabric or spun poly webbing, anyway). I wouldn't know much about care of these sorts of collars, I'm really not a fan of leather.

Aren't the words "liver" and "chocolate" just two different words to describe the same colour? For instance in GSPs brown is referred to as Liver and with Labs brown is referred to as chocolate, but ultimately they are just two different names to refer to dark brown? You could be right, I'm not so sure what passes for "liver" these days... We had a "Liver" GSP and I too believe that she was in fact very close to the "Chocolate" of say a Labrador. Our Flatties were/are Chocolate, which is not an accepted colour. My first Flattie's Dam was Liver, there was much more Red in it, almost plum like. Now, I don't show my dogs, so its possible that judgement on this topic may have eased. I have certainly seen photos of "Liver Flatcoats" that appear to be chocolate not Liver. I know that in the past there were certainly those who viewed Chocolate Flatties as the equivalent of say "Silver Labs." But perhaps opinion has changed on this. Which is another interesting point. If the judges and breeders are now going to accept what is effectively a (gradual?) change in the colour, why insist on the colour in the first place? (And why get so shitty when I point out that my Flatties are in fact Chocolate Brown and not "Liver.") It's not just the issue of Breeding and/or Showing (although that is clearly what drives it.) I know of a case in which it was strongly rumoured that a Golden Flattie pup in a large litter, rather than being celebrated as a rare occurrence, was PTS. Chocolate is not a separate colour from liver. Liver (or chocolate or brown or whatever you want to call it) is a recessive that dilutes black to brown. A chocolate dog is a liver dog is a brown dog. If the dog has a brown/liver nose, it's bb. Liver can vary somewhat in shade but as it's genetically all the same thing. This dog is liver (called dun in greyhounds) And this dog is liver. It's no different from the normal shade variations in other colours, such as fawn.