Mushiemum

Makes perfect sense, thank you :)

Thanks Ams :) There is a beautiful looking Shar Pei in the Warra Lost Dogs Home impound section, been there for a while so I think he may soon move to the Adoption page, he's lovely. So you specifically ask that people do not bring their own dogs for a meet because of their territorial nature?

Thank you to you both, excellent answers :) I would much rather adopt a dog who is being fostered, but how do you know which ones are? On Pet Rescue are some are in pounds or shelters and some are in foster homes? On AWL, they are all in the shelter, is that correct? Same with Lost Dogs Home?

Hello all, I am a regular forum reader but not directly involved in Rescue so don't post much. I have bucketloads of admiration and respect for the work you all do and the passion with which you do it. We have had three rescued Samoyeds over the past 5 years. We lost our beautiful boy to Canine CDS a month ago and I have been thinking about finding a companion for us and our other remaining Samoyed, an almost 9 year old desexed female. Probably not another Samoyed at this point. I have a question for those in Rescue as this would be a situation you'd see a lot. Is it vital that the prospective owner takes their current dog to meet the new dog? Every rescue organisation I have contacted insists on it and I can understand why as a general rule, but I think that if we took Kiska to meet a dog in a pound/kennel situation she'd love them all, she'd be so excited just to see all the new dogs as she's well socialised and loves meeting new dogs on walks. So it would not be an accurate indication of whether she'd get on well with a new dog? The situation would be different though if a new dog came to our home, on her turf. Only because Kiska would feel she was in charge, and it would take some time to establish the boundaries but I feel she'd soon be fine and accept a new dog quite well. My reason for asking is partly because we live in rural QLD and most dogs we'd be interested in are probably going to be in Brisbane or the Sunshine coast, 2.5 to 3 hours away so that's a long car trip for Kiska and if we did adopt the new dog they'd be in the car together all that way home, and we'd have no idea how the new dog would take the car trip etc. so their first experience at being together might not be a great one which may set the tone for their doggy relationship. I read your temp notes about the dogs in the pound situations and often feel the way they behave in the pound would be totally different to how they would behave when in a new home? When we brought home our last 2 Samoyeds (in different years) to meet our existing Samoyed, their first meeting was at our home due to distance constraints, it was not possible for them to meet beforehand as both dogs came to us from interstate, and after the initial brief unsettled period they all became great mates. Is that just luck? Sammys are a placid breed but then again Kiska can be bossy and had never lived with another dog before she came to us but she settled in fine. I guess my question is, if you're taking a dog to meet another in a kennel, that's not a situation where you can accurately judge how well they get on? Or is it? In your opinion is it vital to take the current dog to meet the new one?

I am so, so sorry I lost my Pchelka 18 months ago and I would say it took me a year before I could stop bursting into tears unexpectedly. Sams are so close to us, never more than a couple of feet away at any time (and when you're cooking, literally lying on top of your feet so that's the hardest thing, expecting them to be right there and they're not. Still tearing up typing this, but it does get easier. Always in your heart. ~Nicole

They tend not to chew small items, being big dogs, they gulp them down so that reassures me a bit, they likely didn't chew the bones before swallowing so they probably didn't splinter. So far so good, four hours in. Certainly no sign of choking, they have eaten since and are jumping around as usual so I feel positive. Will keep watching. Thank you for all replies! The nearest Howard's is about 2.5 hours away but there's one near my sister so she's checking out the bins, thanks for the tip.

Thank you! While we're on the same topic, has anyone found a really good dog-proof bin?

I was only outside for a minute closing the gate after my husband left for work - I thought I'd leave the dogs inside today after they both tried to take off through the open gate yesterday - but during that minute they managed to get the lid off the bin and get into a leftover chicken. It was our new girl who instigated it, which is why it didn't occur to me as a problem as our boy never touches the bin but we have only had our new girl just over a week and are still learning what she gets up to. They are both 6 year old Samoyeds, both very healthy, both big dogs (26 and 37kg). So anyway I know cooked chicken bones are bad but I am unsure what to do after they've already eaten them. It's 6:45 and the supermarket isn't open yet, the two things I have read that are good (pumpkin and sardines in oil) I don't have in the house. Any other ideas to help those sharp little things get through their bellies? They didn't eat the whole thing (I caught them), and what did they did eat was between them both so it's not going to be much but I know it only takes one little bone to do the damage. Our previous Samoyed we rescued after he'd lived for a long time scavenging food on the streets and he used to constantly get into the bin and ate all kinds of horrific things - those meat absorption pads, lots of chicken carcasses, soap, tissues, crayons, entire cakes in plastic wrapping, but he had a cast iron stomach I am sure as he never had a single digestion problem. So I am not panicking, and when the old Sammy would get a feast from the bin our other boy would join him so I now he's had chicken leftovers before too and has been fine. So far I have given them both some bread to try and bind the bones, some fruit to help things get moving quickly and some beaten egg in milk for the same reason. I am home all day so will keep an eye on them but is there anything else I can try? When the supermarket opens I will get the pumpkin. I read somewhere else you can give them 100% cotton balls soaked in milk and they also wrap around bones, cushioning them - is that safe??

I am currently looking at a rescue puppy (5 mths old) who has Demodex Mange, it's being treated but my question is whether having had the mange, is his immunity now compromised? We lost one of our beloved samoyeds in February which devastated us so the thought of taking in another dog and becoming attached to him (and we have young children) then losing him through illness caused by this low immunity is very difficult to contemplate. If he still needs treatment for the condition in the future that's fine, but it's whether this will lead to more serious problems and other illness? Perhaps another way of putting it - the low immunity may cause the mange but does the mange then maintain a low immunity?

My 8 year old Samoyed is on Metacam following a long operation for teeth removal, castration, scrotal ablation and an anal gland infection (poor boy!). He's doing really well and doesn't seem to be in any pain but does anyone know if Metacam causes any other side effects than those already mentioned? It seems to have sent Pchelka really hyper especially at night - at 1am-2am-3am he decides to cavort around the house, literally knocking over furniture, throwing himself against doors etc. He's always really happy when I get up to him and if I let him out thinking he needs a pee he just thinks that's a wonderful opportunity to run madly around the garden, in the middle of the night. Before his operation he was fine, slept peacefully at night. Now he paces the hallway for maybe an hour then settles for a bit, then is up again, he doesn't always want to be let out, he is just really active. It may possibly be that as I can't exercise this him week due to a very large number of internal and external stitches he has excess energy, but he's not a puppy and I wouldn't have thought that would cause him to go mad in the middle of the night! So I wonder if it's the Metacam, has anyone else experienced this?

Well our poor boy is a mess, he's at the vet's as we speak, one anal gland was all pasty which is the stage before infection but the other gland was very infected and filled with blood and pus. And I had no idea, the glands didn't look swollen or infected from the outside and the vet himself when he first looked at him said the glands looked normal and he felt the discharge that I was concerned about was just normal expressing. It wasn't until he was under the anasthetic (he was also castrated today) that he expressed and flushed the sacs and realised how bad they were. I would never have known by Pchelka's behaviour as he seemed completely fine - was eating fine, stools normal, has been walking fine, didn't seem to be in any pain or discomfort, hasn't been scooting at all. At the vet's he was bouncing around the yard, wanting to go for a walk. We were lucky they didn't rupture! So I will speak to the vet shortly when I go to collect him and ask if we need to be expressing the glands ourselves from now on. Argh!

I think it was my post you saw about using the powder, but it was in reply to a specific question about grooming a rescued dog with a terrible coat. I have two rescued Sams and when we got them both they had not been groomed in many months, the talc/baby powder (doesn't matter which) can be used very sparingly as it helps detangle knots. My latest rescue Sam had to have a lot of his coat cut off as it was so matted and felted together and the baby powder helps untangle knots of what's left so it's not pulling them too much when you comb. The thread I replied to was in relation to another girl's rescued Sam, she said his coat was horrible and filthy and smelled and she was considering clipping him but I advised she try the powder first which would help with the smell and help untangle the knots. I've never shown a Samoyed so am clueless about grooming them in that way, you shouldn't need to use the power normally if they are regularly brushed and kept knot-free.

It's always very reassuring to read these threads when you have a worrying question! We have an 8 year old rescued Samoyed who has been with us a month now (this is his permanent home) and yesterday he had this foul smell about him, I couldn't figure out what it was as he didn't seem to have any poo on him but it wasn't that smell. Later in the day I had another look at his rear and to my horror I thought he was bleeding. His teeth are a bit dodgy and I had given both dogs a couple of brisket bones the day before and my first panicky thought was that a splintered piece of bone had made him bleed. That would have been unusual as they normally consume the brisket bones entirely and there's no sharp bits. I cleaned him up but noticed the liquid on the paper towel was brown and not red and really foul smelling. I know brown can be old blood. So I watched him closely for the next little while and he seemed completely fine, ravenously hungry as usual, keen to go on his walk, bounding strongly along on the walk, I brushed him later and he was loving it, not in any pain, yet there still seemed to be some of this brown liquid leaking. We rescued him from a pound and before that he was on the streets, I just received a copy of his microchip history and this poor dog has been lost several times, once for over a year so heaven knows where he was all that time, possibly living on the streets and scrounging for food so his diet has been dreadful and going by the state of his teeth he rarely if ever got bones. Sometimes he will still try and knock the lid off the bin out of habit, it will take a while before he learns that he's going to get every meal served to him every day and trusts me. I have been wondering about his anal sacs as he also chews his legs dreadfully, but I didn't know if that was due to previous neglect and being tied up in a backyard. We know he was tied up or confined somehow by various other behaviours like having no back leg muscle tone or strength at all and the way he sits down, as if he's in a little box, and only being happy when he's squashed up against some furniture to sleep (but he's getting better with that) so here's the theory - due to his poor treatment and poor diet he did have an anal sac fluid buildup, but in the month that he's been here I have fed him properly, he's putting on weight and gaining strength, having regular bones & chicken wings and I just started adding pumpkin to his food (which I make myself, mince and vegies and rice/pasta, + eggs) as I suspected the anal gland problem due to the leg chewing. So is it a good thing that his anal glands seem to have just emptied themselves everywhere, maybe they were impacted before but the good diet has done the job? I saw a video online which demonstrated emptying them but the liquid was a light brown colour, this liquid in Pchelka is a reddy brown but I am reasonably sure there's no blood in it. I have carefully inspected his stools and they seem fine, no blood, normal smell and he's still happily bounding about the house today. The other thing is he's been eating or licking little pieces of gravel from the driveway which mystified us, but maybe that was instinctive to try and empty his glands too? Due to his back leg weakness he would have been physically unable to scoot his backside along the ground as I have read and I don't think he would have been able to reach around to lick his own backside due to his legs and hips. Sorry to rave on but it's been concerning me and Easter weekend I have Buckley's of finding a vet open unless it's an emergency (I live out in the country) and I don't think this is. He's due to be desexed shortly so I will definitely be consulting them about the anal glands but in the meantime do you think that sounds right, that he'd suddenly empty the glands due to the improved diet and is the reddy brown colour normal, I have read it can be several colours like black, grey, tan, brown? It certainly smells revolting! Thanks in anticipation, this poor boy has been through so much in his life that I want to make sure he's happy and comfortable.

Can I ask another worming question - if you know they have worms and give them the treatment, then does that kill them straight away? When do I need to give him another treatment - is it in a month or is it sooner because I know he's had them? This is a dog we rescued that was dumped and at the pound and when he came to me I was told he had worms. I didn't see any in his poo at first but I gave him the worm treatment as soon as I picked him up. On the second day I think I saw worms in the poo - not moving, which is a good thing? I don't think I saw any in today's poo. Sorry to be so graphic but this is all completely new to me and I want to make sure I get rid of these horrible things. I have been picking up all his poos and immediately disposing of them so my other dog doesn't go near them and the new boy can't reinfect himself.

A big thanks to all on this thread, we have a new rescue dog so I don't know anything about his history other than he's been abused and neglected, dumped and ended up at the pound. We also got another dog about 6 months ago and we were not totally sure about his history, we took the owner's word for it that he was okay and the vet went ahead and gave him Heartgard. Until I read this thread I might have gone ahead with it in my new dog too but I won't, will wait until we see the vet on Monday and I'll insist on a test for heartworm.