Stitch

No, I haven't checked re the protein source but I thought I would stop with the VAN as my first port of call. Dobe eats absolutely anything and is a big boy. He hasn't had marrow bones for ages now because of the garden thing so I know that isn't the problem. You are quite right, marrow = fat but like us, they like the fat best. It has to be something he gets regularly that is why I am hoping that the removal of the VAN from the diet will help. He gets minced chicken frames with offal mixed in, sardines, eggs, yoghurt in fact anything that I have at the time plus whole frames (he doesn't bury them) but the basis is the minced frames with offal plus the VAN. I have a vitamin and mineral powder that I can mix in. If he is allergic to chicken then I am going to be in big trouble though!!

IMO it is never too young to start training, after all that is what you are doing when you play with a pup of any age - you are training it. Don't expect much, go slowly, use food treats, be surprised when you achieve results and most important, keep practicing daily. I should take my own advice!!!

Thanks for the reminder - I can't believe I didn't think of feeding him in one of the dog runs. I used to feed all sorts of bones but got into terrible trouble with the OH when Dobe started burying them in the garden for later!! His favourites are the leg bones that have been sawed lengthwise to reveal all the lovely marrow!! It's definitely going to be a 'prey' diet for him now though and hopefully I will see an improvement in his skin. He has just finished the last lot of antibiotics and is looking good but he gets that smell back very quickly. It will be Malaseb bath day for him today!!

That's really interesting, thanks for all the info. One problem I can see though, he doesn't eat bones other than chicken frames. Anything else he burys and my OH gets very annoyed to find big holes in his garden. Do you think it will still be OK with chicken frames + the other stuff minus the VAN?

Following on from the Skin Problems thread I was wondering what you feed if you don't feed veges and grains to ensure that the dog is getting a balanced meal? I feed a mixture of minced chicken frames, minced offal, VAN, eggs, sardines, etc. to our Dobe who has terrible skin problems. I am thinking now that I will take away the VAN but I am wondering if it is going to be balanced enough?? Perhaps I will need to add a vitamin and mineral supplement? What do you think?

I think that I have somehow created a monster with my 5mth old pup. I took her to puppy preschool at 12 weeks and she got so excited she instantly learnt to pull on the lead. Unfortunately, due to illness, I didn't start her on the lead when I should have, which in hindsight should have been about 5-6 weeks. Now, I have a pup that goes forward in surges. I stop when she pulls, she looks around at me and I start again, she pulls, I stop, etc.etc. and the penny never drops!! :p How can I correct it and just have her walking quietly beside me? She doesn't respond well to a correction with a check chain, she takes no notice at all at a correction with a martingale collar and it is way too far down for me to constantly have a treat under her nose whilst bending down walking along (which is what the OB club requires). I am obviously not addressing this problem in a way that this pup will understand. How can I rectify what I have done or not done previously?

Every puppy is different but do you think it is possible to lead train a puppy so that it never learns to pull or need much correction to get it to walk at heal? What do you think is the best age to start lead training?Could it be as early as 5 weeks?I have found that some dogs are almost naturals at lead training and others are hard work. Do you think that this really is the dog or is it that my training methods have been slightly different? My clubs methods are reward/entice with food on a continual basis but I am not sure that this method is the best way to go as when puppies have a lot of distractions, they tend to not want a food reward regardless of how high a value it is. Toys work best but tend to make the pup too excited, not calm and responsive. There just has to be a better way to train them but I just can't seem to get it!

That certainly is a nasty infection and one that is resistant to many antibiotics. I presume the vet has done a culture to see what, if any, antibiotics may help?

You sound like you really want to do the right thing by your new puppy and are absolutely ready to shower him with love and affection however being stressed and worried and probably guilty because you have to go to work and can't spend enough time with him is having the opposite effect on you and the stress seems to be passing on to your puppy. Small as he is, he is picking up on your stress. The best way you can show your love is to help him to become calm and well adjusted.....so take a deep breath and try to relax! Puppy can start at this early age to learn acceptable behaviour. Start teaching him to do basic training like sit, come, wait, etc. At 12 weeks you can take him along to Puppy Preschool to socialise with other pups. Take him for little walks around your property. Teach him to walk on a lead. Help your pup to learn what is acceptable behaviour by teaching it to have confidence in itself. Cute as it is, don't pick it up and cuddle it so much. You don't have to play with it all the time in order to be a good 'mum', you have to teach it that being quiet and being by itself is good behaviour too. It is important to remember to use the reward of affection after the pup has done something to earn the reward. Pass your calm and relaxed attitude on to your pup and that will be a good start. Remember it can take up to 2 weeks for a new puppy to settle in to his new environment.

It is a shame that a common perception for people that want a purebred dog think that it is best not to get one with 'papers'. Perhaps they think that 'papers' are only something you need if you want to show or breed? In fact, they could not be further from the truth!

As a breeder I have had experience with many different types of eaters and totally agree that in this case food should not be left out all day. If the dog is healthy, and it seems that he is, then strange as it may seem, these dogs do better if they are kept a little on the hungry side to start with and then fed just enough to keep them a bit hungry until a good eating pattern can be established. In fact I would be inclined to withhold food for 24hours initially and then start on the new feeding regime, however most pet owners do not like to do this because they feel sorry for the dog. IMO it is better to address the problem now and get the dog eating well rather than let it go on like it is. Time for some tough love I think! And also, dogs will eat better after a bit of exercise, so start taking it for a daily walk!

Absolutely! Little known fact - you can get a script from your vet and have it filled at the chemist - usually at less than 1/2 the vets price!

Eukanuba and Hills I/D Prescription diets provide all the nutrition they need however they aren't very exciting. My girl who gets colitis is on this diet at the moment but just to make it interesting for her I boil chicken (on the bone) in lots of water then pull the meat off the bone and cut it up into small pieces. I then put the chicken pieces (without bone) back in the broth and refrigerate it. (Of course don't feed dogs cooked bones) When it cools I can then scrape any fat off the surface. I feed her the required amount of dry with a generous amount of the chicken broth with some chicken pieces in it (warmed of course). She loves it & licks the bowl clean! It makes the diet a bit interesting and gives the extra water that they need when eating only dry food. When I was only feeding the dry food she wasn't that keen on it but with chicken and chicken juices on it, it is highly desireable. You could always add some cut up veges to the broth if you wish but it isn't really necessary when you are feeding a complete dry dogfood. It is OK to feed rice, that is why the vet said chicken & rice, but again it isn't really necessary after the dogs organs settle down and can tolerate dry dog food. Also, rice tends to soak up all the nice chicken water which sort of defeats the purpose when you are feeding dry. I know that the boredom of feeding the same thing day after day isn't what humans like but dogs really don't worry if they have the same thing every day, as long as what you feed is nutritious and balanced. If you want to see what other foods you could feed just Google Pancreatitis and see what humans can eat when they have this problem. You can then make up your own diet if you wish, however IMO it is easier and more nutritious to feed the I/D diets. Also, I know that if I deviate from this diet for my girl she will get bloated and painful so I keep her on it for her own good. She is happier now than she has been for ages!! No sore tummy!!

Usually around 8 to 12 weeks depending on how the litter is progressing. As long as the puppies are still being socialised IMO it doesn't matter if the pup is 6 months or older when they go to their forever home. If I have puppies that are 12 weeks old I always take them to puppy preschool at 12wks. If I have older pups that I have run on and then decided not to keep IMO they are probably better socialised than most pups already in a pet home and also probably easier to train on.

Puppies need to be exposed to noise and mildly stressful situations from about 4-5 weeks onward. I always have their playpen in the kitchen/family room and bang pots, clap hands, stomp around etc. so they learn that noises etc. are OK. It is also important to get them out to see cars and hear other loud noises. Also, every litter is different and have their own personalities but I find that as a breeder, puppies that I am attracted to at an early age are usually still the puppies that I like when they are older or adult but then breeders see the puppies every day and are usually very observant of their puppies behaviours. They still seem to retain basic personality traits although other behaviours will change. Pushy pups still retain some pushy traits but don't necessarily turn out to be aggressive or dominant. If I am chosing a pup to run on I prefer to keep the one that is not dominant, usually the second in line but I also have to take into consideration the confirmation of the pup. I am currently running on two sisters, one was the biggest and pushiest and the other was quieter but more determined. Now the biggest one is still pushy but the other one is much more determined and not frightened of anything - a much more resilient individual. The biggest one although pushy has a much softer temperament. All pups in the litter took turns to be dominant - first time I have had that.

Have a look at this website, it may be help to explain somethings but not everything. http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=protein_myth

I had a problem years ago with overnutrition in a pup. The specialist vet said to me that it was fairly common to see overnutrition and subsequent bone/growth problems because of the type of dry food which was available to be fed to pups. He said they rarely saw these kind of problems before the proliferation of 'premium' dogfoods was available and that if you wanted to feed dry food to go for the one that had the lowest protein level. Since then I rarely feed dry food except in certain well controlled circumstances, I prefer to feed raw all natural but even that has its problems but in a different area. I do realise however that the source/quality of the protein is important as well as what it is mixed with.

I presume you have him on a lead? What happens when you correct the unwanted behaviour?

What are you feeding your puppy? If there is an undigested element to his poos, then he might be just scavenging as he can smell it. This is usually associated with feeding processed dog food.

As Flaves said, too high nutritional intake can cause rapid growth and weight gain. Some processed foods have a large breed puppy food to try to address that problem. It can also cause growth deformities and contribute to some problems like Legge Perthes disease.

Thats one of the really noticeable things about feeding real meat, grains, vegs, bones, etc. as opposed to processed dogfoods is that the poos are not 'preserved', they break down in about 4 days and they tend to be less smelly and sometimes smaller depending on the time they spend in the gut. I am in the process of researching a low residue diet for one of my dogs who gets colitis. A low residue diet includes food that can be more easily absorbed in the gut ie. processed food and it doesn't pass right through quickly, therefore I have to avoid feeding food such as bones, vegs, grains, everything that I would normally feed in a raw all natural diet. Fat is to be avoided and there is a lot of fat in bones ie. marrow.

Yes, so do I, but I have been told that it is cartilage.

Do you consider chicken frames, wings, necks to be bone??

If you feed your own raw all natural mixture, what do you feed and in what ratios? If you have noticed an improvement in your dogs health when you switched from commercial dogfoods to raw all natural, what did you notice? It would be really interesting to see what everyones overall experiences have been, considering the amount of discussion there has been on this subject. I used to feed a combination of raw and dry commercial dogfood then I switched over to raw all natural. Recently I am thinking that perhaps my dogs are getting a bit too much fibre so I will be adjusting their diet accordingly. I wonder if anyone has a dog that has had a ailment or disease improve or worsen because of diet? Love to read your experiences!!

I had a long, in-depth conversation with the animal behaviouralist at the Uni Vet Clinic about this topic several years ago & I agree pretty much with her philosophy which was that this was a trade off between the health of the puppy vs social development and that it is sooooo very important to socialise the puppy as early as possible that it almost precludes worrying about the possibility of the pup picking up parvo. or the like. What I have opted for with any puppies that I breed and run on is that after their first immunisation at 6wks I start to take them out to see the world at 8weeks but do not allow them to walk on the ground. They have another immunisation at 12 weeks and I then take them to Puppy Preschool and on walks in areas that are not heavily visited by other dogs that may not be immunised. At 16 weeks after their final C5 immunisation they can walk anywhere. It is worth noting that I start socialising my litters from 4wks of age to get them used to various loud noises and kitchen sounds. They travel in the car & walk with me around our property from about 5-6 wks.