Stitch

Mine LOVE Quick Oats (porridge) and Puppy Milk. It may not be what you would feed them on a permanent basis but I have found it is loved by all puppies & dogs. It is very easy on the stomach.

I have an overhead H Bar and I don't want to have to fiddle with it all the time. Thanks for the Black Dog contacts Luke W, I have ordered from VetDirect! Cheers

I have a few grooming nooses but none are exactly what I want. What I would like is one that has the ability to easily adjust for the height of the dog. Anyone know where I can buy one in Brisbane or else on the net? Thanks heaps!!

Herbalists do come up with some ill informed ideas sometimes! Bone contains fat ie. the marrow is fat and fat aggravates colitis. Hills I/D dry dogfood worked for us, then progressed to Hills Sensitive Stomach dry dogfood. You can cook for the dog but it should be bland food like chicken & rice etc.but you would also have to supplement vitamins & minerals. The severity of colitis can vary from dog to dog so it is a matter of seeing what work for you.

I have used Phenyl before. It is very strong and has a smell like the mens toilets in the park!!! It is OK but I have queries about its safety?

Looks like I am going to have to try Delete. Does anyone know where you can buy it in Brisbane (Northside)? I put the disinfectant in a large spray pack and spray it on, then hose it off.....is that the way to apply Delete?

I started off making my own BARF which consisted of minced chicken frames from various butchers plus VAN etc. My dog were getting sick ie vomiting or just off their food frequently. I found that the minced chicken frames often smelt of chlorine and sometimes they just smelt OFF even though they came from a butcher. Because of this I switched over to Dr. B's BARF and then over to Big Dog BARF. Problem solved!!!! I wouldn't make my own BARF ever again ..... it is false economy ..... even though I have quite a few dogs to feed!

I feed Big Dog BARF and have done for several years now. I used to feed Dr. Billinghursts but when Big Dog started their own brand I switched and I much prefer their formula to Dr.B's and so do my dogs. I am not alone in that either as several of my clients also switched because their dogs were putting on too much weight with Dr. B's and their dogs didn't like it much. When they switched over to the Big Dog formula their dogs were delighted!!!

I haven't heard of Delete.....where do you get it?

I have used a kennel & stable disinfectant for years but I was wondering what is the difference between using a normal hospital grade disinfectant and using the one that has a "label" on it that says it is for kennels? It would be much easier and probably the same cost to buy disinfectant from the supermarket........but is it too strong for dogs feet, or is there other problems that I don't know about?? What disinfectant do you use?

Really hard to put cream on the nose as they lick it off as soon as it is applied. Try holding the mouth closed for as long as you can ie. at least 3 minutes When looking at the architecture of a normal dog nose you can see it has that really small 'crazy paving' structure on the surface. With DLE the nose loses that architecture and becomes smooth. If this is the case try to keep the dog indoors as exposure to sunlight really aggrevates DLE.

Could be nothing serious or it could be something like discoid lupus erythematosis which is an immune system disease. Has the nose surface become smooth and lost its 'crazy paving' look?

Tootsie I am sorry to hear about your little guy. I also wondered about kidney problems, a excessive drinking is always an indicator. I hope it isn't my in girls case.

Thanks for that suggestion Trinabean. It makes sense as I was wondering how I would get enough of the vitamins and minerals etc. into the chicken meat. I have my doubts that chicken & vege chunky soup would have enough in it but VAN is a good idean as long as the fibre doesn't upset the gut.

My older girl is now 10 year old. She appears to be in good health now.... but she did suffer from chronic colitis when she was younger. At that time she was put on Hill ID and everything settled down. After a while I switched her over to Hills Sensitive Stomach and luckily she continued to be OK. All my other dogs get BARF but I found my old girl couldn't tolerate that well so I kept her on Hills even though I am not a great fan of it, it was better than the colitis. Now it seems to me as she is getting older she is starting to drink more than she used to so I took her to the vet who did a blood test and said all her levels were within normal range. Warning bells go off for me when I see a dog start to drink more water especially when they are on a dryfood diet so I was thinking that it may be time for me to look at feeding her a different diet.....maybe even starting to cook something like boiled chicken and veges. Does anyone have any suggestions on a good diet for an older dog which won't stir up her colitis again?

We have had two Dobes over a 13 year period, we did our research and purchased from well known breeders. At 7 years old our first Dobe, a girl, deteriorated very suddenly and had to be PTS due to Wobblers. Our second Dobe, a boy, developed heart problems at 5 years of age and had to be PTS. Two different breeders! When I told the breeder of our second Dobe, she came up with many reasons how the heart problems could happen but totally lacked any empathy with the situation at all! We think she was more interested in absolving herself of any blame ........ even though no one had blamed her! Both situations were heartbreaking for us .... ......we will not be getting another Dobe.

Leema can you describe exactly how you organise the problem puppies to go to bed?

Thank you so much for your input Alyosha & Espinay2. I was beginning to think that we were all wasting our money on conditioning our own hair!!LOL Given that my dogs do have a complete and good quality BARF diet I do think that there is always ways to improve coat condition with certain products and my funds don't stretch to trying them all. I can't help but think that conditioning the furnishings has also got to play a part in getting them into the best condition possible.

I am interested to see what everyone thinks is the BEST conditioner to use on furnishings to get them to be long and lush instead of brittle and breaking off. What do you use??? :)

I was told by the vet that human grade eye drops can be used in a dogs eye so you should be able to use the same drops as humans do for this condition. In humans dry eye usually responds to the lubricant eye drops and normally resolves the problem after a few weeks of treatment. As people get older dry eye becomes harder to treat. I would be giving the lubricant type eye drops as Showdog mentioned a go before resorting to more intrusive procedures. Why did they prescribe the Tacrolimus?? Is it an immune mediated condition? If so then that is an entirely different proposition altogether and much more challenging to address.

Don't know the exact physcology of this behaviour but it is only a problem for us humans and doesn't seem to be a problem for the dogs concerned....and it varys between breeds and/or the size of the dog from my experience.....small/medium sized dogs being most common. For my breed the older the dog gets, the more the problem sorts itself out but the majority of mine start off the same. Providing bedding material brings out the need to wee on it....so taking away the bedding material and substituting newspaper often produces the desired result of a dry crate. Of course withholding water from about 5pm also helps. What can I say....don't use the bedding unless you can live with washing it daily. In the cold weather I use polar fleece blankets as they dry very quickly. They eventually grow out of this habit....the less bedding you use the quicker they are dry overnight. They get used to/conditioned to not peeing so they stay dry because by then they are old enough to remember.

As I said, use Advantix!

Advantix will help keep mozzies away.

So what are they eating at the moment? Do you use anything for flea/tick control? Do you use any pesticides in the backyard? So many things and my ESP isn't working that well today!! :)

Allergies can be environmental or caused by insects or food related, etc.....have you eliminated anything from the list of possible causes??