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Thanks everyone, I don't think she has a double coat as she has quite a thin coat. It looks nothing like the coat of a Pom or Maltese and not as thick as a Cav. Another peril of owning a cross breed I guess. Trust me I have learnt my lesson on that! I will try warm soap free baths with a good blowdry and brush after and see how we go. I dont think it will hurt if we don't use soap too often and she loves a good blowdry. I do expect her to shed hair but I just didn't expect the magnitude she loses and I forgot the pitfalls of owning a white animal lol. I am still hopeful it is worse this year because of her age (8 months) and the two operations she has had in the last few months.

redarachnid I am starting to think she may be like this lol. Yes settrlvr she is the cav x maltese/pom. She has a medium-ish length coat (although as crazy as it sounds I swear it is shorter than before the groomers) with long hair on her tail and short hair on her head and tummy. It is 'normal' straight hair too and isn't very thick either. Sounds terribly ugly I know but it works for her I have to say I am not upset by the job the groomer did, I had just hoped to see an improvement. Hopefully it has loosened the hair so that I can brush a lot of it out over the next few days and it might ease off a bit then. Fingers crossed anyway

The groomer didn't explain anything at all, just seemed apologetic that they didn't get out much hair from her. I had to ask what to brush her with in the future and even then she didn't really seem too sure because they don't use normal brushes to 'dehair', they use the furminator one (if that makes sense). redarachnid - its not just that when we touch her we get a bit of hair on us, it's that we (and everything else) get covered in hair! I can't believe so much hair can come from one little dog that isn't really that hairy to begin with Hopefully the shedding will settle down in a day or two because it is now starting to send me up the wall too.

Well Daisy went to the groomer today and has come home losing as much hair as when she went They said they used a furminator(???) on her but didn't get much hair out. I could see straight away she was still losing heaps of hair because as soon as I picked her up to give her a cuddle I was wearing a fair few white hairs. When I got her home I gave her half a dozen swipes of her rubber brush and there was hair falling out everywhere. I did ask what brush I should use and they sold me a wire brush that seems to hurt her and didn't actually remove any hair lol. So it's back to the drawing board *sigh*

Thanks everyone. Daisy is booked in for the groomer on Thursday, she did say she had noticed a lot of dogs shedding early this winter too. Maybe it's the Melbourne weather! She is only eight months old so this is her first winter and we didn't know what to expect but will be prepared from now on to follow the advice of the groomer puggy and espinay2 yes she was desexed in her fifth month and is fed Advance puppy and some fresh meat/chicken wings. Since having leg surgery in her sixth month she is indoors a lot more than she used to be, prefering to laze in the warmth inside and make quick forays outside to potty and have little plays. Before her surgery she used to play and 'sun' herself outside a lot more. I don't know if that would make any difference though. I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I chose her because I have had a white cat and horses before and swore never again lol ozjen I understand what you mean about clothing fabrics. My favourite house/cleaning jumper is a navy polar fleece. Total white dog hair magnet. Not a good look when you race to the shops to grab something and forget to change before you leave home! I will take the rubber glove and gaffa tape advice on board :D

LOL dogbesotted it feels that way here too with just one dog. We do have laminate flooring and minimal carpet so easy to vaccuum up but its things like the bean bags in the kids playroom that I find impossible to clean. Would love to invest in some vinyl ones I can just wipe over but the peanut gallery would complain about the comfort level. Also the fact that Daisy just doesnt 'do' floors when she can sit on anything or anyone else doesn't help.

Oooh she loves a good blow dry poodle fan but it is a bit of a game to her that I'm sure a groomer would not appreciate. She is a bit of a grott so is bathed at least once a month, sometimes once a week! Although OH started the trend of her sleeping with us I find that now I enjoy it and would prefer her to stay There is a grooming shop in town so will give them a call. If you read a vent from a groomer about a SWF playing funny buggers while being blow dried that will be my dog.

Nekhbet, we noticed some hair loss but nothing too drastic until about a month ago when the hair loss exploded so I would guess seasonally. I have to trim her foot hair every 3-4 weeks and recently took 1.5 inches off the back of her legs because the hair touched the ground when she squatted to pee She also has long tail hair but other than that she has a normal medium length coat everywhere else except her head which is short and smooth. Should I just book her in to the groomer and/or get a different comb to remove the hair. How much should I expect to pay (roughly) and what should I ask to be done?

Our SWF is shedding so much hair that it is driving my OH insane. She sleeps in our bed so that is full of hair and every time you look at her let alone touch her you get covered by white hair. I have a black moulded plastic brush that gets out oodles of hair but it just doesn’t seem to make a dent in the never ending hair supply. Aside from brushing her daily and changing the bedding daily (that just aint gonna happen lol) what can I do to help minimise hair loss in the ‘wrong’ places? She is supposed to have a Cav dad and a Maltese x Pom mum. All breeds which require brushing but is there something else I could be doing? Would taking her to a professional dog groomer help in any way? Both kids and OH have either black or navy uniforms and it is such a bad look covered in white dog hair *blerk* Any help / advice would be appreciated as OH is about to ban Daisy from the bedroom

Thanks everyone. I will ask the butcher for those lamb pieces and try one of the powders instead of Hills J/D. I did see there was a Joint Guard treat so if I have difficulties for whatever reason with the powder I suppose I can try that.

I will look further into the BARF idea but meanwhile will replace the beef bones with lamb ones. If I rock up to the butcher and ask for non weight bearing lamb bones will he look at me like I'm insane or will he know what I need lol? What exactly are non weight bearing lamb bones? Also will Sashas Blend do the same thing as Joint Guard?

She had surgery on her front legs and the vet recommends either the food or powder supplement to help ease any stress her elbow joints may be under so I think she needs it. What can I put the powder on/in to get her to eat it? I would be happy to continue feeding Advance but wasnt really sure how to deliver the powder because she eats the dry kibble, chicken wings and meaty beef bones. None of which would be good to use with the powder.

Hi, Following Daisy's surgery we have to put her on Hills Joint Diet or a powder supplement. I think feeding Hills J/D might be the easiest and most effective method (although the added cost may change my mind towards powder supplement lol) but was wondering how big the food pieces were. Daisy is a little dog still (4.7kg at 7 months) and usually eats Advance Small puppy food which has nice size pieces of kibble for her. Will the Hills J/Dkibble pieces be too big for her? I told you it was a bit of a silly question so thanks if anyone here can help.

Thanks puggy and persephone. She doesn't have a cast because she only had the ulna operation (thankfully) and has been a handful since the second I picked her up! She is meant to be quiet for the first week and then have no forced playing or excercise the second week. Naturally the first thing she did when we got home was run into the bedroom and jump onto the bed I popped her into her pen with her elizabethan collar on so I could go out for 20 minutes on Friday night and came home to find her on my bed again lol. She had climbed out of her pen and trashed her collar within 20 minutes She is very good with her bandages and stitches though and after a couple of stern "No's" has not touched them since and is being lovely to take her medication. Thankfully training has kicked in for that! I put her tablet on the ground with the "leave it" command so she gobbles it up when I tell her to "take it". I think she knows what I'm up to now but she still humours me

Thought I would update since I initially asked questions and recieved help from some posters here. Daisy my little 6 month old Cav cross Maltese/Pom puppy had surgery for her 'wonky' front legs last Thursday. Her Ulna had prematurely stopped growing but her Radius bone still was which caused her to look a little knuckled and knobbly and also pigeon toed. She had an Ulnar Ostectomy where the vet removed a section of her Ulna in each leg. There was talk of her potentially needing a corrective radial osteotomy to straighten her leg/s further when she was a little older but the vet is very confident she will not need this now. Thank the lord for that because I think that operation was going to be pretty expensive! If we had left her til she had finished growing her problems would have been much worse and way more painful and expensive to fix. I do have to look into either changing her diet to Hills Joint Diet or using something like joint guard to help ease any potential problems with her elbow joint but basically her life expectancy/quality of life was doubled by the surgery and although my OH is grumbling about the cost he is happy she is well.

I think the vet thought one (maybe both) of her growth plates had closed already or there was another anomally to do with that spot because he said he wanted to look at more current texts and pictures. Her right leg was growing crooked too if that makes sense. It was really hard to take in everything he said because besides being a tad devastated my almost 6yo autistic daughter kept butting into the conversation as she has recently turned into a chatterbox and doesn't yet know about social niceties, politeness and waiting your turn to speak lol. The vet also had a slight accent and my lack of dog knowledge made things even worse! Am hoping to find out more when I take her to get her stitches removed. She is 5 calender months now so I guess it's a bit worrying she may have 7-8 months of growing still to go.

Gees Erny thats a huge difference, especially for just a couple of months! Can I ask what sort of diet he was put on? Puggy_puggy your description of the operation was what the vet said, you just put it WAY better than I could here is a couple of pics taken tonight so forgive Daisy if she isnt looking her best. side on front on

OK the vet said Daisy has Valgus Deformity in both her front legs. After looking at the xrays and talking to the vet I think the gist of it was one bone stops growing before the other and the bone that continues growing then starts to bow. There may have been another area of concern so he is going to send the xrays away to a specialist to get their opinion.

HMMM maybe Kelly Louise, if I can figure it out.... Daisy just a couple of weeks ago curled up on pillow mountain. Daisy at 7 weeks. and with Flea her favourite toy:)

sas I think her legs do look a bit like the 5-7 week old puppy pictured in level 1 although she is quite a bit older at 23 weeks (and hairier ).

Erny I have umpteen photos of her laying down but none of her standing or sitting with a clear shot of her legs. Now that she knows the 'stay' command I will get some when she is feeling up to it. Knew that dog training would come in handy one day lol

puggy_puggy To me her what I thought were knees (but are actually her pastern joints) looked too big, knobbly and not quite squarely set and the lower part of her legs were not quite straight. I had asked about her large "knees" (pastern joint) at our dog training club but was told that she would grow into the knobbly looking "knees" so I didn't worry too much about it. She is so darn short that unless you get right on the ground you cant see her legs squarely, and if you do that then odds are she is on your lap and not sitting where you can see her legs lol. I thought I was feeding her a reasonable diet. She gets Advance small puppy food and also gets either a chicken neck, chicken wing or meaty beef bone each day. Table scraps are kept to a minimum. Miranda no she isn't lame and shows no sign of pain at all. She runs riot around the house as much as possible and loves training, playing or going for walks.

puggy_puggy after looking at a picture of dog anatomy it is her pastern joints on her front legs that look to be 'wonky'. Powerlegs I was thinking of buying her some steps for the lounge and our bed but didn't when she grew just that bit more and managed the jump fine. Will definately have to get some now though I think.

Thanks everyone. Daisy is 23 weeks now and a mixed breed, dad is a Cav mum is supposedly a Maltese x Pom (hope her cross breeding doesn't offend anyone). She is a great little dog who fits into our family well and is the first dog I've been around who could measure up to and steal my affections like my childhood dog if that at all makes sense. I will post more info when I speak to the vet later. Thanks again

Yep greytdog the vet said he thought it was probably teething related but that he would have a good look while she is asleep