silentchild

I have donated to WSPA numerous times in the past and they often send me newsletters detailing what exactly the money goes to, etc. Of course I can't be 100% sure the money is all being used properly, but every little bit counts I guess. I am a little bit anal about who I donate to because I want to make sure every cent counts. They are more like a global form of RSPCA and they do a lot of good work with horses in bad situations, bear farming etc. I haven't heard bad things about them yet.

Update : Emma is feeling much better, she can move around without much issues now and can bend down to eat her food fine. She still whines a little when trying to lie flat on her side, but she is much more alert and happy. I am SO relieved!! I did end up ringing the vet, but they told me just to wait another 24 hours to see if she improves. Hopefully the meds will start kicking in and she will get better from here! Oh my dog, she will kill me with heart attack and anxiety worrying about her someday! Thanks everyone for the good advice! Isn't that funny.. I was actually thinking the same thing and we did get there early on purpose - about 30 minutes earlier to be exact and the vet was late too, so we waited quite a while. It didn't really work - my dog seems to have the ability to be forever unable to calm down. ;) Thanks so much for the tip, I was actually trying to go see Ray Ferguson this morning, but he's on leave at the moment. I may take her to him in the future, if her soreness persists. Edit// Rereading my post, I should clarify : I wasn't attacking the vet in any way or claiming he/she did a bad job in treating Emma, I am simply concerned that the meds seem to be taking a while to kick in, and was hoping to alleviate her pain somehow. The vet I see is fantastic - I completely understand how it would be hard to diagnose her when she seems perfectly fine.

Thanks for your reply, stormie. The vet didn't seem to think X-rays were necessary, simply because Emma seems 100% sound as soon as she gets really excited. I will definitely be calling the vet again in a few hours if she isn't better by tonight. I don't know if I'm expecting her to magically get better too soon though? It's only been half a day since the vet visit... Just worried that the pain killers are taking so long to kick in .. wonder if they are even having an effect at all! I'd certainly still like any advice from anyone regarding chiro etc, for future use.

I was playing a short game of fetch in my backyard yesterday evening with Emma, my 5 yr old Rottie. When we were done playing I thought I would take her for a short walk to the shops with me to get dinner. (the shops are about a 3-5 mins walk away) She whined a little when I took up the lead and she pulled, but I thought nothing of it. The walk went well, but on the way home, she suddenly started whining a lot more, and limping too. I inspected her paws for anything, but there was nothing. Ran my fingers down her spine, stretched out her legs etc... nothing. I figured maybe she was just sore, or just really tired from her run earlier. (to be clear, she has a history of arthritis and has had surgeries done in the past on her back legs.) Later on that night she got progressively worse... her neck was so sore she couldn't even bend down to eat or drink, we had to hand-feed her. Lying down and getting up was a real struggle too. She was absolutely miserable and cried throughout the night. We monitored her all thru the night and took her straight off to the vet this morning. OF COURSE.. when we are at the vet she acts like she is 100% fine! Tail wagging, prancing around, moving her neck around with no problems whatsoever. Vet checks her out, declares she just has a mild sore neck, just a strain, and prescribes her some Metacam which she is to take daily for a week. He also gave her a shot of painkillers, claiming it will help relieve the pain and she will be fine. Fast forward to us bringing her home and she is fine for a few hours or so... but now she is just doing really badly again. She can't even lower her head to rest it on the bed, we need to help prop it up with a cushion. I'm really worried, shouldn't the painkillers have kicked in by now? I can't stand listening to her cry in pain, I feel so helpless. I'm thinking of taking her to a chiropractor or Bowen therapist... can anyone recommend any good ones in Melbourne, or who will be willing to do house-calls? We are located in South East Melbourne - Carnegie to be exact. Do you think Chiro or Bowen will help at all, and which one is better? Any advice at all would be great! Thank you in advance.

Came across this video, simply amazing and completely puts my dog to shame! Probably the most useful trick my dog knows to do is catch flies for me... Fellow DOLers, what useful tricks do your dogs know how to do?

I do not like his methods, I don't subscribe to his dominance or submission theory, and I find that if you watch a majority of his videos with the sound off and just watch the dogs body language, they are usually in fear or shut down or terrified.... just ugh, I can't even begin to elaborate how distasteful I find him. I'm not great at expressing my views, but this post on another dog forum I read sums it all brilliantly as to reasons why his training methods are terrible.

LOL you just described a normal common phrase often heard at my house.

After reading all the replies in this thread.. I have an incredibly stupid question, please bear with me. It seems there are breeds who have working line and show line (Rotties, Huskies, Dobes, GSDs etc etc), but is there any way to tell a working line dog from a 'pet' dog, besides referring to the breeder? For example if you were out walking and you passed a GSD, would you be able to tell just by looking on it if it was from a working line, show line or pet? Or does 'working line' simply refer to the breed, ie. all Rotties are automatically working dogs etc.?

This video was posted in another dog forum I read and I thought it was absolutely hilarious and adorable, so just wanted to share. :rolleyes: Love it!

I leave my dog a treat ball filled with her kibble when I leave for work.. she does give up very easily though, so I always have to put it on the easiest setting for her. It keeps her entertained for about 15 - 30 minutes. Sometimes I also leave a Kong with peanut butter or various other treats / kibble stuffed inside, she loves her Kong, but she gets bored real quickly - as soon as she's licked up all she can near the opening, she can't be stuffed trying to get the leftover bits inside!! She's got a bit of a "Stuff that, too much effort! I'd rather sleep" attitude, hahaha. I have also found that she doesn't like her Kongs frozen (even in summer!). I also leave music on for her and recently have taken to turning on my webcam and stream it, so I can watch her from my computer at work. It is the most boring stream in the world because I find that all she does is sleep all day!! We always joke that she would probably keep sleeping even if a burglar walked right under her nose...

Not much help here, but just wanted to say my dog was trained to do her business on both grass and concrete, so living where there is no turf has never been a problem for us. We just pick it up straightaway. Don't know if you want to do that with your pup tho.

I saw this story on TV last night! When they interviewed Charles Kuntz (they didn't show his name for some reason) I couldn't help thinking I've met him before somewhere.. then I realized he had operated on my dog not too long ago! Hoorah for Dr Kuntz! I agree, to each his own.

My Rottie also had some scabby rashes on her skin recently, I put it down to her maybe having her jacket on too much during winter... Took her to the vet, they said it wasn't anything to worry about, possibly just some minor contact allergy and gave me some Ilium Neocort cream for the rashes. It certainly seemed to help her stop itching a little. Also bath her once a week with some Aloveen shampoo... her scabs are healing up nicely now. Hope that helps!

Thanks for the replies, everyone! Does anyone know if the dosage of the shots would have to be different when switching between brands? Or is it all one standardized dosage..? Thank you!! Exactly the answer I was hoping for. Thanks! I did read your thread but I wasn't completely sure if it was the injection I was thinking of or not.

Emma has been on the Zydax injections every three months for her arthritis, but we recently switched vets and the new vet doesn't offer Zydax, instead they have something else called.. Metacam? Pentacam? Oh god, for the life of me I cannot remember what it's called.. Anyways, just wondering is there a difference between different brands of arthritis injections, so to speak? I always just thought they were all just the same shots of carthrophen, but I could be wrong. Do they work differently, and is it a bad idea to switch shots? Any advice is great, tia!

Reading this absolutely sickens me.. I've been worried about the new laws ever since I heard of them, especially as my dog is a "Rockwheeler". God forbid if for any reason in the future some random ranger suddenly decides she's going to kill babies!

Emma did a similiar thing.. when all the dogs were whining on the show, she sprung up from her sleep and manically started searching the house for mysterious hidden whining dogs..

The entire episode made me facepalm tonight... especially that lady, omg. Yes because your dog will definitely never ever be aggresive as long as there's no APBT in it!!

Lol, I have to admit this.. I work at Crazysales and have seen / handled that agility tunnel as I was interested in it for my dog too. It's certainly decent enough quality for simple backyard play.

My Rotty has been on this for over a year now and she does very well on it. She has quite mild arthritis and it's quite effective for her. I recently switched over to Joint Guard because the Glyde was out of stock, but I do prefer Glyde as it has all 3 ingredients in it and seems to work better for my dog. It smells a bit fishy, but we mix it in with a bit of water into her food - she slurps it all up! I think I will switch back to Glyde once my Joint Guard runs out. ;)

Hi, just wondering what is suitable to give to a dog, raw eggs or cooked eggs? I've always heard that raw eggs are more beneficial, and I've given Emma raw eggs in the past, but in the pinned topic in thie forum it says: I do know that a few people give their dogs raw eggs though. So what's the right answer? What do you give your dogs? Cooked eggs or raw eggs?

How strange, I use a Furminator on my Rottie and I don't know how I lived without it, her coat is much smoother and shinier. I do it for about 15-20 minutes, about once or twice a week, more in summer and I use it along with a rubber curry comb to get the loose hair out. She also sheds much less now.

I had TPLO done on my Rottie by a specialist Dr Charles Kuntz at South Paws Surgery in south east melbourne - he was absolutely fantastic and my Rottie is now fully healed and running around like it had never happened. It was expensive though, almost $4000 due to her size. Still, I was very impressed with South Paws and would highly recommend it to anyone.

I am so so sorry to hear this. Please don't blame yourself. Accidents happen even when people take every precaution to ensure they don't. It's not your fault. She seems like a lovely girl, my condolences to you and your family. *hugs*

My rottie had the surgery about a year ago. She had the TPLO surgery done by a specialist who came very highly reccommended to us. After the surgery she was very tired and we supported her back end with a towel whenever she went toilet as she had difficulty walking & also found it hard to negotiate steps. Her leg was also pretty swollen for a while. We also took her for hydrotherapy sessions and lots of massages to help the recovery. Now she is fully healed and running / jumping like it had never happened! Also, we didn't use a pen or crate, she simply lay in her bed all day. All we had to do was make sure she didn't move around too much, which was easy as she didn't really want to move anyway! You may need a pen or crate tho if she is going to be by herself for periods of time. Anyway, that was my experience - it was worrying, expensive and with a lot of back & forth trips to the vet but it all turns out fine in the end. Good luck to you and do keep us updated!