gilbertgrape

Yes, some joint supplements have these mixed already. The green lipped muscle has a wide range of substances that naturally occur in it including omega 3s, glucosamines, chondroitin sulphates. Some dogs (or people) find that they need extras of some of these and do better. Biggest tip for you to be able to do is to keep the weight off your dog (i prefer slightly under weight) and as fit and strong as possible - lots of exercise/swimming. This helps reduce excess stress to the joints. Joint guard is probably one of the better ones out there, but i would definitely combine with a green lipped muscle extract - have seen some great and rapid results with this. Thanks so much for your advice! The vet gave me some green lipped muscle, and I'll also order some joint guard. Excellent

great thanks you very much!!!

Hi, thanks for the welcome! I have read some posts on this forum about the best dry food, and it seems like this one might be the best. It's human-grade, and according to a poster on here who did a lot of research on the nutritional information of various brands concluded that Eagle Pack Holistic was at the top of his list. Sorry I can't give you anymore info! But it seems to be a conclusion I came to from reading a bunch of posts on here. heh. I used to live in Canberra..... I'm sure there are online sites though that stock it, it's just a matter of knowing which ones are trustworthy.

Hello everyone, Where is the cheapest place to buy Eagle Pack dog food? I live on the Northside of Brisbane and I don't mind driving to get some or ordering online. Thanks gg.

thanks for the explanation on Bowen therapy - very interesting! Is it ok if I use the lipped mussel capsules and glucosamine together do you know?

I might look into accupuncture.... the lady next door does it on humans... I wonder if she'd do it on a dog!!!

Hi magthedag, what is bowen therapy? It sounds interesting. It sounds like joint guard is a good product. I wish I had looked into his weird gait earlier in the piece, then it could have been diagnosed sooner and it may not have degenerated so far as it has. I guess we live and learn don't we? Thanks for your reply GG.

Thanks for this BostonGirl. I've written the name down and will talk to the vet about it as well. It sounds like its a good idea to stick to the cartrophen injections.

It sounds like the surgery my work well..... although femoral excision is when they cut the ball off the top of the femur and then scar tissue builds up or something! I read it a coupe of nights ago and I can't properly remember now! Thanks for your well wishes GG.

Hi Jed, I emailed the breeder yesterday. So hopefully she'll be pleased that I contacted her about it. My vet recommended that I walk him daily - she didn't mention about building up the muscles, but I suppose this is what it'd do! She said that daily exercise is much, much better than occassional exercise that may cause more harm than good. I need to go back in a week to have the next injection so I'll ask her about controlled exercise as well. Thanks for your reply. GG.

I've used it and was very happy with it. My brother once did quite a bit of research on dog food and he decided that was one of the better dried foods on the market. I also stopped buying it because only 'that store' carried it, but seeing as though its being carried by others now I might go back to it!

Hi poodlewrangler, Thanks so much for your reply. I'll send the breeder an email. I'm definitely not blaming the breeder because I do believe she is an ethical breeder and i've just been unlucky. Unfortunately I didn't know to look into the actual hip scores at the time, I just assumed that because a breeder had gone to the trouble of hipscoring that they wouldn't breed with a dog that had a low score. But as you said, it doesn't make a difference to some. Re surgery, I wouldn't consider the hip replacement (too expensive) but the femoral excision surgery (I think that's what its called) sounds like its somewhat cheaper and quite successful. I guess its a wait and see. It is a bit of shock.

update

I didn't think it was abuse as such, until i saw irish charm's reaction.... maybe it was my use of the word hook that was the problem! All I know is that I don't really like it, so if I have a choice between somewhere that does it and somewhere that doesn't do it, I'll choose the latter. Thanks for your reply clarifying it all!!

Hi Janba, Are you saying that the new vet would have put her on something different than the prednisolone to extend her life ever further? He may have or adjusted the dose to suit the diseases progress as she was on quite a low dose. He did tell me that it was a drug of choice but also that if we had found it earlier that we could have used chemo. I also think that more could have been done in correct management of the disease if she had been diagnosed when the symptoms first appeared and in other holistic treatments to help support her. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for that.

Hi Janba, Are you saying that the new vet would have put her on something different than the prednisolone to extend her life ever further?

WTF? I'm not sure what you actually mean, but I'll answer you 'question' in the way I think it was intended by saying that one place I went to used a hook/frame to keep them from sitting down - they put it around their groin/stomach area. They also put one around their neck instead of a leash. It looked highly uncomfortable and quite cruel so I didn't take them back. Is this something that is very much un-heard of? Should I be complaining to he RSPCA? The swearing in your 'question' makes me think that maybe its not widely done and is considered abuse or something.

Sounds like he's going to be a tough one to fix!! I feel for you because I know how upsetting it is seeing the poor fella scratching and scratching. The poor little buggers are so tortured by it I'm hearing you about not wanting to spend a lot of money if you're not assured of a positive outcome.... but if you've tried everything else it might be your only option.

seems like our dogs react differently - my dog only needed one short course of steriods and it worked out excellently. I don't think there's anything wrong with trying it as the first option because it's cheap and if it works like it did for my dog (one short course) then its fantastic. If I had said not to the steriod then I could still be trying to find something to relieve the symptoms! I agree with everyone else when they say it's definitely not something that should be used over the long-term. It sounds like you've got to now go to plan B - which could involve spending a bit more money than you'd like unfortunately. I'm glad that my dog's problems were pretty much solved with only a small outlay. It's a matter of finding the best combination of treatments for your dog - I'm glad mine didn't take long to find. Good luck with it all!

Hi Agatha, One of my dogs has lymphoma too. He was diagnosed in February with it, and the vet gave him 6-8 weeks because it is an aggressive cancer. She put him on Prednisilone (a wonder drug! At one point my mother was on it for very bad asthma, my other dog was on it for skin problems and then bronte had it for his cancer). Anyway, as I said he was diagnosed in February and 6 months later on the Prednisilone he's still alive and kicking. He's outside at the moment running around barking (I just had to tell him to shutup ). He is showing no signs of dying anytime soon - he has soooo much energy. We can't work it out - we're beginning to think he has been misdiagnosed!! My brother is going to speak to the vet about it on Wednesday. Two months ago I spoke to the vet about him and she was so surprised that he was still alive! Part of me also thinks his food could be helping with his longevity as well - meal for pets (vets all natural). We decided not to go through with the full-on chemotherapy because it was going to cost a fortune and only add 6 months to his life - and at 10 we thought that he's had a fairly good innings anyway. He also has mitral valve disease and that also influenced our decision. Your dog is quite a bit younger, so that complicated things a lot further. The side-effects of Prednisolone that I've seen are hair loss, increased hunger and more energy. His back leg shakes as well, but I'm not sure what has caused this. I'm sure the long-term effects of the steroid are obviously much worse (I think weak bones is one of them), however, he's been 6 months on the drug and is still going strong. anyway, good luck with it. It's a terrible thing to have happen - and while we're so happy that he's living for this long, it is still quite draining considering he was only given 6-8 weeks in the first place. All the best.

My dog's skin got very bad a few months ago - he was losing hair on his sides and he had hotspots and scabs all over his tummy, groin and under his front legs (his armpits! ). I took him to the vet who took a skin scraping and said that it was an allergy and I think she said it was bacterial rather than yeast. Anyway, she put him on a low-dose of prednisilone for a week and a course of antibiotics and advised that I bathe him in Malaseb. The combination worked a treat. His scratching was relieved within 24 hours, and his skin cleared up. The malaseb worked very well on the little fella and I bathe him in it once a week now. His skin is not perfect, he has a couple of scabs here and there, but it's nowhere near like it was, it used to upset me so much. when I see him starting to scratch again I give him a bath in malaseb, and I also keep his hair short. I wouldn't put him on the prednisilone (steroid) in the long-term, but he was only on it a week and combined with the antiobiotics it treated the symptoms brilliantly. I was a little worried about the steroid, but after I saw the relief it gave him I was so happy. Now that the emergency is out of the way, and he's back to being comfortable, I'm going to look at changing his diet to see if that helps him even more, and then I'll change the laundry powder to a natural one. Allergies are a real problem and it looks like different things work for different dogs. I've heard others say that aloveen works a treat, and also stop itch, but neither of them worked for me and I think the aloveen actually made him itchier. If the aloveen doesn't seem to be working very well, try stop itch or malaseb. Give malaseb a go first and see if that helps.

Hi, I definitely recommend Animal House on Webster Road in Stafford. We've tried a couple of groomers in the area and have found that when our dogs have been with other groomers they seem really unhappy and docile, whereas when they've been at animal house they are happy and full of energy. It might be because Animal House don't string the dogs up on grooming hooks or grooming frames. The last time I was there they were going to be moving soon to Bridgeman Downs - I'm not sure if they have yet. Their phone number is 38562547 if you want to gve them a call. They get pretty booked up, so you may have to wait a couple of weeks for an appointment because they are popular. All the best.

Thanks Jed.... I'll start with the usual vet and then consider all of those options during the consultation. It does look like a structural deformity though which seems to be causing the limping

Thanks for info poodle wrangler! One of our other Cavaliers had a luxating Patella and he had an operation and all is fine now (he had it at 3 years and he's 10 now). I made sure that when I bought my little Cav that his parents had been hip and knee scored, heart clear etc but this thing with the hips seems to be something that the breeder wouldn't have been able to check for or know about because it seemed to develop after I had him for a little while. The thighbone isn't bowed actually... I had a look at it earlier today and when he stands he's like a dancer/ballerina. His feet aren't forward facing and he stands with his back legs quite a long way apart... much further apart than his front legs. I'm sure the whole hip and leg misalignment is pulling on his patella and making it pop out. He doesn't yelp, but he limps for a while afterwards and is always right by the next morning. I think he'll definitely need x-rays because of the extra stuff that is happening in the hip region. It's definitely best I get onto it sooner rather than later, to avoid arthritis (like you said).

Thanks Sivaro. I've been going through the site looking at old threads and just spent 4 hours reading about Leo - crying every 20 minutes or so! What a story, and what a dog!! Was there any media interest in the story in the end?