vrox

with the hot weather lately, we've been getting a lot of flies in the house. these little buggers have been driving me nuts, so to get rid of them I've been using fly spray. and while I've tried to clean them up as much as I can, it's impossible to find all the nooks and crannies where they've dropped dead! so today I've discovered my little puppy has sent herself on a mission to find as many dead flies as possible, and proceed to eat them how harmful is this?

i've been feeding my puppy on advance (puppy large growth) since she was about 3 months (having switched from Hills Science Diet, which made her pretty itchy because of the high corn/grain content), thinking that because it's australian made and marketed as 'super premium' dog food, it was good for her. but having read the reviews about dog food on dogfoodanalysis.com (excellent site!) i'm not so sure anymore. anyway, so i'm thinking of now switching her to orijen which seems to be highly revered by everyone, but the extremely high protein content worries me. orijen has 42% protein, compared with most other premium puppy brands which have only about 29% protein. so, does this mean that although orijen is fantastic, is it not good to feed them to large breed puppies? maybe switch to this when she's an adult? what are your experiences?

sorry guys..this might seem like an utterly stupid question, but is that raw sardines, or canned sardines? (unflavoured, i presume). and tuna as well??

hi everyone, i've read a few threads in this forum about the nasty attacks that can happen when you have two bitches living together, but i've still got a few more questions. you see, my house doesn't have much of a yard at all, and since my puppy is a large breed (golden retriever) and growing quite fast, i was thinking of permantly moving her to my OH's house (which has a much bigger yard and is close to beaches and parks so scout can stretch her legs and frollick like crazy :D ). the only thing is, my OH also shares the house with his brother, who owns a fox terrier x bitch that is about 3yrs old. scout and the fox have had play sessions inside the house before, usually involving scout chasing the fox around and playfully pouncing on her apart from snarling at scout when she's cornered, the fox hasn't shown any other signs of aggression (although she used to bark at scout when scout was smaller than her, and she's also been known to sometimes snap at another fox terrier male who used to live there). so, what do you guys think of these questions: 1. is the aggression between bitches confined to breeds that are usually more aggressive in nature, or does it happen with all breeds and temperament? 2. does size matter? scout is substantially larger than the fox terrier- but will the fox terrier not care and sense that scout is just a pup that is a gentle giant that can be attacked? 3. i've been told that you need to feed the alpha bitch first- how do you know without letting them fight it out? 4. what can i do to make the transition safe for them all? sorry about all the questions, but many thanks if you can help!

yes, while i think the 'age of pup (in months) + 1' rule is a good guide, it might also depend on the breed- i think larger breeds might need to relieve themselves more often during the night than smaller breeds. my cousin's westie could sleep throughout the whole night without needing to be let out once since he was 8 weeks. on the other hand, my golden retriever pup had to be let out 2-3 times a night from around 8-13 weeks. she's now almost 5 months and only gets up once during the night to go potty- she's only ever made it throughout the whole night once or twice!

Good news for you & Sierra Ridgie! :D I think I'll just have to go with the flow and deal with it when it happens...all these 'should've, would've, could've' thoughts are giving me a headache! Let us know how she goes, ok?

Thanks botheration. I know that I shouldn't beat myself up about it, but you know, scout's my first pup with my OH and so you can't help but have this overwhelming motherly concern about everything! :D Obviously you have to weigh all the pros against the cons, and my only regret is that I wasn't more informed when I had to balance these factors up. There was no test of any sort- the vet simply took an xray of her hips and they showed that her hip bones are sitting nice and neat in their sockets, the way they should be. he said that if she showed signs of hd, the xray would reveal this and this would allow them to correct the problem (by breaking the bones at some point or other) which would be much easier to do than if this same procedure was performed at a later age. It's definately worth getting this xray b/c it'll give you hopefully relief in knowing that she has very minimal chance of getting hd if the results are good (although this doesn't guarantee 100% that your dog will never develop hd, it is nonetheless a very good indicator). with scout, I wasn't really too worried about the hd, as her mum has a 0,3 hip score and her dad 0,5 - so both extremely low. as with the sleeping with her legs extended, I think it's all part of sleeping as a puppy gosh, they sleep in bizarre positions sometimes, but I think they'll grow out of it! good luck with your little Martha!

Hrrmmm...not so sure. Our pup's also 18 weeks (pure golden retriever) and she's 17kg and she's about 45cm (at the shoulder). She's by no means overweight- actually she's quite lean. Both her parents aren't huge goldies though, they're more towards the medium end. maybe those people just haven't seen a large breed puppy before :D

From all the replies, I'm getting the feeling that it's not normal practice to desex before before 5-6months of age, and unfortunately scout was. i think the vet might have wanted to save us money by scanning for hd and spaying scout at the same time (while she was aneathesized). what i'm angry about is he never offered us an option to do the procedures separately (I had thought it was normal practice)- I wouldn't have cared about the additional costs if it would have been more beneficial to desex her later. at least I have some comfort in knowing that her joints are fine and she doesn't have hd...for now anyway. i guess it goes to show that you shouldn't always blindly trust 100% in your vet- it's good to do a bit of your own research and go in there armed with some sort of knowledge of your own. thanks guys.

I guess what got us worried was reading a few articles which said something like 1 in 5 dogs develop urinary incontinence as a result of early age neutering (it seems to be more prevalent in bitches than dogs), with the incontinence usually appearing between 3-5 yrs. And whilst there are hormone replacement tablets, not all dogs will respond to this. Also, I've read that neutering at an early age can also reduce the dog's longevity and increased signs of fearfulness. It's so hard to know what's actually fact & fiction- I guess that's why we wanted to hear from the experiences of people who've had their pups desexed at an early age. I know there's nothing that can be done now and there's probably no point in worrying about something that can't be controlled, but it'd be really useful information in the event that we buy another little bub in the future...it's good to learn from past mistakes

Poodlefan - does that mean I can stop wetting the food?? The breeder was doing it, and I wasn't sure when I could stop ROFL! I don't see what's so bad about wetting their dry food (with a little bit of warm water), especially as pups, when they're more inclined to swallow and scoff down their food rather than chew nicely I do it with my pup and I think it certainly helps her to digest easier.

Have you considered that the allergy issues may be food related? Vet told us that Goldies are known to have allergies to beef products (eg mince beef) and corn. Since we've changed the diet for our little Goldie she's improved somewhat. So I'd advise to stay away from foods with high corn/wheat content. Also, agree that garlic is good for immune system too.

I guess it'll just have to be a 'wait and see' situation. Yes, unfortunately it's only in hindsight that you realise things could have been done differently. Will definately look around for another vet though. Thanks all.

It's too late to ask this question now, as our little girl (4.5 months) was spayed yesterday - but we're now questioning whether we did the right thing and the anxiety is killing us! On the vet's advice, we sent our poor little Scout in to get spayed (as she's a golden retriever and proned to hip displasia, he said that 18 weeks was the ideal time to spay her, as they could also scan her for HD at the same time, and if she did have it, they could perform non-invasive surgery to fix it before her bones begin to fuse at 5 months). Despite all the pros with getting her spayed, we've just now realised the very real chance of her developing urinary incontinence. How will this affect her life?Apart from that, we are also worried whether this removal of her hormones at such an early age will affect her development mentally and physically. We know we should have asked the vet all these questions before the operation, but we were probably just too blinded by our trust in the vet. If anyone can share any of their experiences or advice that would be great. Are we being too much of a worry-wart??

That's pretty common. It's just a reaction to the vaccine- my pup's had it every time she's had her vac. Vet suggested continuosly rubbing the lump over several days to help the swelling go down faster.

the food in the bowl stuff does work and if done properly will not make the problem worse. dogs need to learn that regardless of what they are eating their owners are allowed to take the food away and showing any signs of growling/aggression is unnacceptable. dogs live in our world not the other way round and thus are to live by our rules. by allowing a dog to have complete control over their food is asking for problems down track when the pup becomes an adult & is capable of inflicting serious damage. the bigger picture needs to be looked at here; what happens when the dogs owner has no choice but to remove food from the dog for unexpected reasons, if the dog has been allowed to exhibit growling/aggression or instead has never been approached while eating as a puppy the behaviour will most certainly escalate as an adult dog and is much harder and takes a lot longer to rectify. Thanks for all the advice...but they're quite conflicting that I'm probably now more unsure as what to do than before! Feeding her small portions at a time sounds like a good idea missmoo, and I agree with you about the importance of letting my pup know that I'm in charge of her food, but I think I should take settrlvr's advice on board and give her a bit of space to eat her food...maybe me poking my fingers in her food is exacerbating her fear that I'll take away her food? But then again, as was said, there may be times when I need to put my hand in there to remove eg dangerous objects and I need her to be used to me handling her food while she's eating. Oh gosh, I'll try all the different methods offered and let you know how it's coming along. It's a little more assuring to know that this is a common pup problem- thanks guys.

Yesterday I fed my 12 week old golden retriever puppy a chicken neck for the first time. She began to munch on it with much enthusiasm, but when I went to take the chicken neck to move it to a much better position (as it had moved from her rug and onto our carpet), she began to growl at me quite viciously. I was quite taken aback as I had never seen this behaviour in her before. Previously, when I've fed her her meals, I've tried as much as possible to put my hands in her food to show her that I mean no threat by touching it, and that I am her pack leader. When I've done this, she's been fine with my presence and showed no aggression whatsoever. But since yesterday's episode, she has growled at me a second time this morning when I fed her breakfast. I yelled at her sternly, and removed her food bowl (with her trying to scoff it all down as I was doing so) for a few minutes, then replaced it. Now I'm scared of putting my hands anywhere near her food, in fear that she'd bite me! Apart from growling when I'm near her food, I've never seen any other signs of aggression (although she does growl during play time), and she is a rather pleasant little puppy. I thought golden retrievers are meant to have a pleasant and amiable temperement! Please help- what does this behaviour mean and what can I do to prevent this behaviour?