benretriever

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I am having it removed professionally this afternoon... Bad enough having her health on my concious, heaven forbid any other humans being exposed! It's such an evil product. Will spend some time scouring the backyard over the coming days just incase she's hidden some more away.

Hi all, I just discovered that a garden fish pond installed by a previous owner of our house is made from asbestos (moulded concrete/asbestos). One of my retrievers carried a piece of it around in her mouth and chewed it a bit. I've removed as much of it as I can find now. Anyone have any idea if this is likely to cause her issues in the future? Hopefully she didn't inhale any of it... not sure if ingestion is a problem or not. Ben

Yes they are litter mates! And yes we now know that we should have only gotten one at a time, but wouldn't give one up now! Agreed, need to get back to basic recall one dog at a time... Cheers Ben

Hi all, My two 14 month old golden retrievers are very easily distracted by ducks and won't return from a swim when called if they see one. I had them swimming with us in the shallows of the Murray river on the weekend and much to my distress they took off halfway across the river after a duck. The duck eventually flew away (thankfully) and only then did they finally decided to return to the bank for a rest. They are fairly competent swimmers now, but really only just started serious swimming in the past month. Does anyone have recall training methods specifically for swimming? We have used small pieces of chicken necks that they love and getting them to swim for short periods before returning for a treat, and this works for about 5-10 minutes before the water and the ducks are more interesting. Recalls are then just ignored. Do any golden retriever owners have a feeling for how long and far they can swim before getting into trouble?? Thanks Ben

Hi Everyone, I know this ground has been covered to some extent, but I hope I could get some more opinions specifically relating to my context. I have 2 Golden Retrievers, now both about 13 months. Since getting them at around 10 weeks old we have been feeding them Science Diet Puppy Large breed and recently switching to Adult. Science Diet was recommended by our vet. I only just recently started wondering about whether it was really any good after one of the dogs spent some time not eating well and generally being ill (although this seems to have cleared up, and may have been a food allergy to something in the Puppy Science diet according to the vet). Anyway, general internet consensus seems to be that Science Diet is not particularly good (no news to you all, I know), we were naive in selecting it, but we just went along with what the vet said. So now I'm thinking about switching to something else, but given recent media on imported dog foods either including harmful substances or being irradiated to levels which modify the molecules!! I'm a bit unsure which path to follow. Advance is Australian made (according to the website), and I note that the ingredients list doesn't list grains as the primary ingredient in the Adult food... which gives a couple of points to choose it over Science Diet. There also seems to be a lot of talk about EaglePack from the US, but I wonder if this is exposed to radiation on import (which is required if imported foods are not already exposed to 100degC for 30 minutes during manufacture). Finally, of course, there is the option to make their meals myself, following the principles of BARF or similar. This is not out of the question, but given current commitments, finding the time for this will not be easy! Have there been any significant and scientific comparisons of dog food available in Australia, for which the results are available? Having already exposed them less than optimum nutrition for the first year of their lives, I think it's time for a change! Thanks in advance for your thoughts. Ben

Hi everyone, I took my 2 puppies into the vet the other day for their 12 week shots. Initially the vet injected what I thought was a clear fluid (Protech C3) into one pup and then got distracted before injecting a pink fluid into pup 2. Finally the vet gave each pup a pink nasal spray (protech bronchi-shield III). I am dead certain the second pup's actual injection was pink. But started to doubt myself as to whether the first pup's was clear... does anyone out there know what colour the C3 fluid is - especially at the time of injection? For the nasal spray it started clear then the vet mixed it with something else and it turned pink (rehydrating fluid for the vaccine perhaps), so I'm a bit concerned that the vet might have injected the second pup with the nasal spray by accident or did not mix the vaccines correctly for the first pup (said vet seemed over run and over worked and not concentrating)?? I didn't say anything at the time (stupid) because I just figured I was confused - but my partner confirmed the 2nd pups injection was pink... Pups seem fine anyway... Thanks!