yellowgirl

Sorry to hear about your dog Hollywood. Feeding several small meals a day is a good idea. The Nutro Natural Choice Lite worked well for my girl. It's Australian made and preservative-free. As Nekhbet said, panceatitis is different for each dog and the diet needs to be suited to their own needs, so mine is a suggestion only and one that should also be discussed with your vet :)

VAN, could you send it to me too please? My 11 year old Chinese Crested has kidney disease, she's doing beautifully at the moment but I'd love to have as much info as possible.

Thanks so much for the extra info VAN. I'm supposed to preparing for my role as chief bridesmaid tomorrow! ... instead I went shopping for the ingredients you've listed, and also checked the Complete Mix ingredients and info on the website and have made up my own little recipe! The grain mix has been soaking for several hours already, I can't wait to add everything else and get mixing! I'll be introducing the raw mix to my crew over a two-three week period (most of them are seniors and/or have medical issues) so I'll be taking it slowly and monitoring them carefully. I also got some chicken necks and wings which I'll bag up into portions now and start including them in the next week or so. :)

VAN - can you tell me how much effect dry food/kibble/biscuits has on the PH level of the digestive system. If raw food keeps it acidic and cooked food causes it to become alkaline, does dry food also cause alkalinity?

That's pretty high in fat and protein, not ideal for dogs prone to putting on weight and not burning it off. I believe BH is a good dry food but you might need to consider something a bit lighter. Here's the Nutro link http://www.nutro.com.au/dry-dog-food-light.aspx for comparison. The trouble with having multiple dogs with different needs is that you don't always have the convenience of being able to feed the same thing to each dog...

I found the reason why Shelley and Rascal has put back on the weight they lost its this pet mince. It just looks like I have 2 dogs that can't tolerate high fat foods. I even asked the vets today when I took Missy in to get her sitches taken out, They said if I feed my dogs any less they will not be getting enough nutrience. They reccomend I stop feeding the pet mince and either feed human mince or raw meaty bones or just spilt the kibble in 2 meals. TLC There getting feed a premium kibble unless black hawk isn't considered premium. Missy my whippet is so much easier to maintain weightwise. Pet mince can be quite fatty, it's mainly chicken carcasses without the meat, so you're getting a lot of fat from the marrow in the bones, and a lot of suppliers will throw in the skin as well, so that ups the fat level even more. If the two dogs are putting on weight from it, don't feed it. Rascal is an older dog isn't he? So he won't be burning off fat very quickly. I'd be checking Shelley's hips .. if she's not interested in playing and seems a bit slow for her age, then arthritis or hip dysplasia may be something that needs to be looked into. Bottom line, feed lower fat foods, if needed add vegies to bulk up the meals as others have advised. Does it state on the bag what the fat content is of the Black Hawke dry? I use the Nutro Lite dry for our oldies here.

I hope your poor friend is okay Pawprints, thank god she didnt have her little dog with her! Glad to see that she's reported it and taken photos. Let Leopuppy know the descriptions of the people and their dogs, she can keep an eye out for them too.

Liking this thread :) As mentioned previously, not all diets suit all dogs and as we've had quite a few different ailments with different dogs to deal with here (kidney disease, IBD, pancreatitis, allergies ... as well as rescue dogs coming through in various states of ill health due to bad nutrition), I'm always interested in food/nutrition discussions. I found that putting new rescue dogs straight onto the Tucker Time roll and Nutro dry food has been the gentlest way to start getting them back to good health... it also works great for the dogs with medical issues. This thread has really got me thinking of converting back to raw feeding again. I'll need to factor in a lot of things but I think it's worth giving it another go :) Thanks for the incentive ;)

Picture please

I also prefer donations to go direct to my vet, that's where most of my money goes anyway. My dogs have everything they need in regards to food, toys, bedding, etc and if a kind person donates any of these items I pass them along to another rescue that I know can use them... I also let the person who donated the items know how very much their kindness is appreciated and if the item hasn't been needed here, they can rest assured that another rescue dog has benefited from their generosity

Chinese Crested Xoloitzcuintle Saluki Greyhound Great Dane

Looks like we have more adorable votes! :D Appreciate your input Arcane How funny that I was just getting your opinion the other day about whether or not to clip Marvan, and then the next thing you see is Henry shorn like a little sheep! It will be interesting to see how it grows out. Thanks for joining in everyone... different opinions make the world go round.. and seriously, if my biggest issue at the moment is how my dog's hair looks, Ive got a hell of a lot to be grateful for! :D Now, he wasn't clipped to look like a crestie , and I didn't think the gang could love him any more than they already do ... but ... I think dear old Pepper is a little bit in love with him now :D xxx

Hey you know Im a 'do now, think later' kind of gal . I actually had the clippers ready to do Marvan, his back and tail area are pretty stained from the infections he had when he came and I was going to do a 'start over' clip. But I realised some of the sores on his back haven't healed completely and I didn't want to nick them, also he's still very bony and clipping might have been uncomfortable for him. And there was little Henry with his silly half hair cut and it's 39 degress outside ... and he came right over as I was holding the clippers!

Thanks for your input guys Norty Snook spoiled the surprise, I was going to show the before shots once people had given their opinions on the current 'do' :p Dogmad, this is little Henry, one of my palliative care boys. He's around 14 and has a high grade heart murmer. He's a darling little chap I agree HonBun! It's almost as though he knows how gorgeous he looks, he's been prancing around and showing off to the other dogs, tail wagging a mile a minute. He's acting more like 4 than 14 ... maybe all that fur was weighing him down? As Snook mentioned, Henry had had all of his bottom half clipped as he had developed some environmental allergies when we moved house several weeks ago (now, that looked ridiculous .. lol!). I was going to clip him completely once the weather got warmer. I do think that Henry looks super cute but maybe that's my creative/artistic side talking, if he looks funny to other people and he might get laughed at then I can clip his ears back to match the rest of him. Personally I think he looks totally gorgeous and I can't stop kissing him... he looks like a little puppy I thought his tail and ears were quirky and brought out some of the fun that's still in this dear old chap... but I don't want people to laugh at him or think that I clipped him that way to make fun of him. There's some more before shots on my facebook page (sig below). There's also some pics of our new boy Marvan ... who Im not going to clip ... yet... :p

Firstly, happy new year everyone! :D My friend said that the haircut I gave this little guy is ridiculous and is threatening to have a clipper intervention ;) I honestly think he looks totally adorable. What's your first thought when you see him? This isn't a question about professional grooming (obviously ..lol) just your thoughts on the haircut. xxx

Thank you friends. Most of my rescues are seniors or palliative care, so to lose my youngest girl was a hell of a shock. She had bi lateral Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the tonsils. Very rare, very aggressive, no treatment. When she went off her food I thought maybe it was her pancreatitis, but we had that well under control so it didnt seem right. Straight off to the vets and three days later it was confirmed she had cancer in both tonsils. By the time they confirmed it, she couldnt even eat without coughing up blood poor darling and the only option I had was to let her go We had a beautiful half hour together beforehand, on the lawn at the vets, just being together with lots of cuddles and her snoozing in my arms. I tried not to let her know anything was wrong and I sang our Banshee Girl song to her as she was going to sleep. I picked up her ashes last week and will be buying something special for her to rest in when Im up to it. Here's the beautiful portrait that Rose from Deefer Dogs Designs did of her a couple of months ago. What a beautiful memory of my gorgeous, loving, cheeky, happy, special girl. And a few more memories of my angel ...

Glad to hear that he's on the mend

Thinking of you today Earl

Oh Katie, this is just awful! Poor Earl, that big gorgeous boofer just can't seem to catch a break . I will have everything crossed for you and will light a candle for him each night until he's out of the woods. He's a strong, healthy boy, he has everything going for him and so many DOL vibes around him, he MUST get better. Please call or message me anytime if you need anything. Big hugs to you all xxx

:D

Hoped it would bring some smiles Persephone, if you want some more peanuts, here's about 80 of them Enjoy! xxx

Banshee, Pepper & Madeline ... my yellowgirls Just wanted to share a bit of silliness xxx

Poor lady, hope she has some good news soon..

Sorry Tam I've had one of those weeks too (just to top it off broke a tooth last night.. currently doped up on pain killers, trying not to look too stoned in front of customers and have the dentist before work tomorrow) and I was looking forward to it as well. That park gets really cold and really windy and Banshee was too cold at the last meet when the weather was about the same. Sorry you've had a bit of a crap week, feel free to pm or email me any time if you need to vent xx