BigDaz

It is proabbly best to assume the new ear problem is not related to the old problem, go to the Vets again, even a different Vet for another opinion. My girl had an ear infection and the drops the Vet gave me worked well, later she had an allergy problem which was not related. Dont assume BARF means not a cause, as I have Staffy's Ive had numerous Vets tell me not to feed my girls raw meat because it can cause allergy's. I still do feed them a mixture of BARF and kibble.

You really need to see a specialist, not just a second opinion. One of my Staffy's had a limp which was treated with anti-inflammatory’s for a while, when the Vet finally sent us to see the specialist he diagnosed OCD in the elbow.

So your dogs diet is purely meat and bones? No vegtables or additives that could be considered healthy for the dog.

I think 2 weeks is too long to wait, I would be off to the vets very soon. It is not life threatening, but imagine if you were scratching constantly for 2 weeks. With scratching I usually give my Staffy's 2 days, if they are still doing it I am off to the vet as there are creams and the like they can give you to reduce the scratching. Edit: I have heard, as mentioned earlier, beef can not be good for Staffy's. My girls seem to do fine on Kangaroo but then they seemed fine on beef as well.

My Vet suggests basic meals of Chicken and Rice, very plain, no spices, nothing to upset the tummy. Not long term though, only for a night or two and if it persists I am back at the vets.

One of my Girls had an operation for coronoid process in her right elbow, she is only a 17KG ESBT so the cost was around the $1500 mark and she was around 8 months old when this was done. I posted a You Tube link here a month of so ago which shows what was done, it was actual video of the operation and clearly shows the bone fragment being removed. I have no idea about the pelvis operation, but I suspect that could be more expensive than the elbow and I am hoping this is something I wont have to experience. My girl also now has arthritis in her elbow, for which we have monthly Pentosan shots and daily Joint Guard. At the moment she seems fine, no limping at all, but being warm that may be helping so we will have to see how she goes for the next few months.

I refuse to feed wings, the shape just looks like something that could get wedged in the throat. I am a bit precious with my two girls though!

I feed Great Barko, it is about the only dry food my two will eat (same manufacturer as Uncle Albers). We were feeding Eagle Pack but it was a struggle to get them to eat it. We do feed BARF for dinner, the dry food is just a filler when required, but it hasn't done them any harm, their coats actually looked shinier after being on it for a couple of weeks.

Im too lazy to make it myself, so I buy it pre made from Pet Love in Coburg. To feed my two Staffys it costs about $10-12 per week each.

Having done this just over 12 months ago with two Staffy Sisters, I would say don’t do it, it is really hard. There are good points, no separation anxiety when you go to work as they have each other, no night time crying. You will have double the vet bills, one of our girls has had lots of issues, she made the top 10 customers at the vets last year. Luckily the other has not had the same issues. Training is really hard, you need to make a conscious effort to separate them for training, and separate them for long periods at other times as well. One of our girls will not leave the house without the other, I have to carry her to the car to go to the vet (it the sickly one), which is at least once a month. Luckily the loves the Vet's so when we get there she is fine. We could also have issues with aggression, having two females; we have not so far so hopefully it stays that way. I was also reading another thread earlier about two non-siblings having aggression issues, so I don’t think this is solely sibling related. Some people will reply that the dogs wont bond with you, we haven’t found this to be an issue. Everything is a contest, walking both at the same time; each wants to be in front. At training, separated, they are angels, get them out together they forget everything. Although it has been a struggle, we do have two slightly mal adjusted but extremely friendly loving Staffy's, hopefully it stays that way.

Listen to your Vet to start with. I am no expert but if you are trying to find the source of the skin problem I think the Vet is probably going back to basics as often different types of food's can be a source of an allergy. If we have any food related problems we buy chicken, cut it into small pieces and feed it with rice, as suggested by our vet as well. I dont really like using mince. I don’t agree at all with Puggy Puggy's suggestion, with that diet you would be introducing so many different types of foods and food groups you would never work out the culprit, if it does end up being a food allergy. You need to take the advice BARF advocates on this site with a certain amount of scepticism, a lot of the information is very useful, you just need to weigh up the good from the bad.

Regardless, most people know Grapes are a definite hazard to dogs, so one would assume sultanas are as well, which possibly calls in to question other aspects of Billinghurst's products and suggestions.

Who diagnosed the arthritis, was it the vet taking x-rays or a specialist? The reason I ask is we went through a similar thing with one of my Staffy's. From about 3-4 months I could swear she was limping, but it was hard to tell. Had her x-rayed at the vets and they could see nothing wrong, so took her home and kept an eye on her. This went on for months from the first time we noticed something until we finally got a diagnosis. When she was about 6-7 months I had had enough and asked what more could be done. I was told I could go to a specialist to have further xrays done, which I chose to do. The specialist was excellent, had modern xray machines and right away noticed she had OCD, fragmented coronoid process (or something close to that), basically a Bone or calcium growth in the front right knee. She was operated on to remove the problem growth, but because we left it too long she also now has arthritis as a result of the initial problem. She is so much better at the moment, with monthly Pentosan injections and Joint Guard daily. Sorry for the long post, but wanted to point out that my local vet did not pick it up and we went to a specialist before it was properly diagnosed. Here is the operation if you want to have a look, you can see them getting i there with tweezer type things and getting the fragment out.

you must have much better self control then me...i'd have been verbally bashing both times if that happened to me ;) i love your "erm, ok, I didnt realise dogs learned to cook in the wild" quote...can i borrow it? I'm pretty sure dogs did not wear Elizabethan collars in the wild either, but you chose to put one on to protect your dog........times change and people change their way of thinking to help their dogs do better, even dogs change with evolution. The old argument that they did not do it in the wild really does wear a bit thin. I feed my dogs a mixture of raw and kibble, but until I can see scientific evidence or a discussion between suitable qualified professionals, I am not sure which is correct.

My Vet usually says feed chicken and rice until they seem better, which is usually a couple of days. I am not an expert, but I think chicken and rice would have next to no nutritional value. Personally I only feed chicken and rice when required, I would not make it part of their regular diet, even though my girls love it as well. I have noticed some trainers offer chicken as a special training treat, regular feeding may negate the effect during training, if you were to get professional training. Edit: We had trouble feeding kibble, they wouldn't eat any of the top brands, we ended up going barf for dinner and Great Barko for breakfast, we buy our barf mixture from Pet Love in Coburg, works out a lot cheaper than chicken and they love it.

I mentioned in another post that we changed over my two Staffies to Great Barko and have no regrets so far. They seem to be doing well on it although we do feed raw as their main meal, Great Barko is more of a breakfast thing. We still have Eagle Pack left over so still serve up half of each sometimes, then they pick out the Barko and leave the Eagle Pack.

We started changing our girls over to Great Barko (same company) just before I went away for 2 weeks, when I got back I noticed their coats were nice and shiny. This was a good sign to me as we were feeding Eagle Pack prior to this and I was wondering if they would lose condition. We still have some Eagle Pack left so sometimes feed them half and half, they mostly just pick out the Barko and leave the Eagle Pack.

You say he needs to poop twice a day, this seems too few to me, my girls usd to go at 3-5, may have been what I was feeding them. What do you do when he does do it outside? We used to get really excited and tell them what good girls they were, making a bit of a fuss, so they always knew it was a good thing to do it in front of us.

Is there a way to check the information supplied by the importer or there signed documents from the importer stating what they said? The information in this post needs to be 100% accurate, it may sound over the top but I would hate for someones animal to get sick because they took this list as gospel.

I had my two Staffy's done at the same time, but I also took two weeks off work to make sure they didnt rip each other's stitches out. They were quiete for probably 48 hours, after that it was back to full on, I had to either keep them seperate or watch them very closely.

One of my girls has had it 3 times in her 12 months. Doesn’t seem to bother her and it goes away within 24hours. If it becomes more prevalent I will get it surgically fixed.

Sorry, cant answer your question, just agreeing with you, I hate moths. My two Staffies love to catch them and I havent seen any bad effects so far.

I picked up one of these, plus a lid for under $20. Metal Container (Scroll all the way down to the last item)

There will be hair on the furniture, just get a Staffy the same colour as the lounge so you don't notice how much! My two girls do shed a bit, it is not excessive but ideally a weekly vacuum is in order. We have two couches, one for guests and one for pooches and us.

Sounds right to me. One of my girls got stung, her head swelled like a baloon so we rang Essendon Emergency, took her in and got a shot. The next day our normal Vet rang to see how she was and to advise to look out for and itching as it tends to happen with an insect bite.