Akay

Thanks Rappie, invaluable advice

Hi everyone I have a cavalier with a high-grade heart murmer. He has had it for a while but he is comfortable and he is breathing well when he is sleeping and sitting. He does cough, and can't exert himself because he coughs even more and pants quite heavily. He has had a high level heart murmer for a long time. Because he has had it for so long we have always thought that he wouldn't have long to live, but at this rate, he looks like he probably has another 18 months left in him. He also have bad teeth that need a clean and some need to be removed. I spoke to the vet about it and she basically said that there's definitely a risk of putting him under for the procedure, but she would still be willing to do it. What are people's opinions? I know that bad teeth are very bad for a dog's health and under normal circumstances I would have had them cleaned already BUT I'm worried about him not coming out alive. What would you do? edit: forgot to say that he's 12 years old

Cripes! I can understand why you'd be so distressed! Fortunately it has never happened to me and I hope it never does, it sounds horrible. How painful is it for the dog? Kudos to your neighbour for being so neighbourly!

Thanks for the advice Michelle With allergic dogs it can take a while to find the source of the allergy, therefore it is useful to have something that relieves the symptoms in the meantime

My dogs loved the taste of it, but their stools were very soft. They drank heaps of water compared to the raw diet they were on, and the dog with the heart condition (mitral valve) coughed and coughed and coughed from it. I think it was bloating him because of the excess water consumption, which put pressure on his enlarged heart, which put pressure on his trachea. Once I took him off the food he stopped coughing. I honestly thought he was on the way out, it was pretty distressing. I'm back to the raw diet and everything is going fine. Sorry I couldn't give you all positive feedback on the product. I had the dogs on the grain-free mix and they did love the taste.

I used to use joint guard and thought it was a good product but expensive. I did some research and found the vets all natural joint formula and it is A LOT cheaper. It includes condroiton & glucosamine like joint guard but also has green lipped muscle and shark cartilage. I was buying joint guard and green-lipped muscle capsules so buying the VAN product is much, much cheaper. Joint guard is over $60 (nearly $70) for 400 grams and and VAN joint powder is just under $45 for 500grams. The VAN product looks less processed, don't know if that's a good or bad thing, I think it's good, but your dog might not like it. I'm as happy with it as I was with the joint guard.

We must big big worriers because I wouldn't have left my dog either. I hope it all works out ok OP, but I don't think it's been handled real well. I would hope that if I had taken my dog to the vet (with those symptoms) that they'd have kept him there for the day/night for observation.

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wow. I'm glad your doggy pulled through. I'm just hoping that I got him to the vets early enough so it hasn't turned into a major problem. Constipation seems to progress so quickly though. I had decided to stop giving him bones because I did a bit of reading about how they get caught etc. So I was just finishing off the last of the lamb flaps and look what happened! I just wasn't feeling very comfortable with the way he was eating bones in general because he wasn't chewing them properly and I thought he was an accident waiting to happen. I should have just thrown the last lot away, it's funny how we get these feelings (I should listen to my own feelings more!). Thanks for the recommendation of the fluid, I'll get some to have on hand. Hopefully there won't be a next time though!

Hi everyone A bit of an update - the vet has kept him there for a while and has administered a small enema and tried to break up some of the mass. After the enema he only did a small plop (which was probably what the vet broke off earlier). They've kept him in so they can keep trying to break it up and will give him a bigger enema a little bit later. The vet said that he does have quite a large compacted mass. At this stage he believes it's just a big hard mass causing constipation rather than any intestinal obstruction. It was my fault, I changed his diet and included a lot of bone two days in a row without giving him any of his normal food. I just took them out of the freezer and wanted to use them up. It's something I've never done before and something I definitely won't be doing again! Hopefully by this afternoon everything will be find again and he'll be able to do a big poo!!

Hi Yellowgirl and Puggy, no nothing exciting unfortunately, despite my encouragement. He just drank some water, which is good. Normal diet is the vets all natural meal for pets, which contains raw roo meat and vegetable matter.... it's very moist. It'll be the bones I gave him, but you're right, I'll avoid anything dry that might contribute to the problem further. The poor pumpkin has livened up a bit and showing some signs of his normal self. I'll take him to the vet tonight to be safe rather than sorry as like you puggy, I am very worried and doubt I'll sleep much tonight. Thank you for your help, I'll let everyone know how I get on.

Hi ArtyFarty, thanks for your reply. With his recent improvement (see my edit) I'm feeling a bit more comfortable now.... maybe the metamucil and olive oil are having a positive impact. He has also stopped panting. He tried again to go to the loo but nothing came out.

Thank you for the kind people that posted on this thread, your support has been wonderful. I've deleted the post because someone decided to give me a "mad" face for what I have done and I'm too upset at the moment to read other insensitive replies if they come in.

No worries and he is actually in line with what other dermatologist charge as I was going to see one on the southside but there was only about $30 odd dollars difference! ah ok.... that's good to know!! Thankyou :-)

FirstTimePuppyOwner ~ Thanks so much for the recommendation of specialist, I have heard of him (he works at QVS at West Chermside) so I thought he may be a bit more expensive than others as QVS do charge a lot. But if he is good then I'm willing to pay the money! Mika~ That's what I thought too, I have to go back to the vet with his skin and all they do is give antibiotics etc, which only make a difference for a couple of weeks. I'm better off paying a little bit extra initially and having the problem solved for good. It works out much cheaper in the long-run. Hopefully I can get the problem resolved like you did. Thanks for your help!

Hi there I'm looking for recommendations for a good dermatologist in Brisbane. I think it's about time I take my little fella to one to get to the bottom of his skin allergies. Do you have to get a referral from a vet or can you just make an appointment directly? Can anyone give me a brief account of the costs involved.... just a ballpark figure is ok :-) It would also be great to hear about people's good and bad experiences with dermatologists. Thanks everyone!

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On the Vets All Natural website, Dr Bruce Syme goes into a lot of detail about natural diets and how it can help with certain things. I just briefly read it, but it looks like there might be some scientific evidence in the paper (on the right of the page) that's titled "A Raw deal" at this address: http://www.vetsallnatural.net/members.html There's another paper that's named "The use of Grains in Petfood". In that one he says that grains are important because dogs eat grains when they eat the stomach of prey (which, interestingly, he says they eat first). But these grains have been fermented in the stomach and crushed, so that's why he ferments and crushes them in the food he makes. I was reading this the other day when I was considering moving to a prey model diet, but the argument he makes in this paper is too compelling to change from BARF. It all makes a hell of a lot of sense to me.

I was wondering what was happening! good on your for realising it was the avatar, I wouldn't have had a clue. No harm done, so no need to apologise

Thank you very much for this information. I've been to a vet with my dog and it is a bacterial problem and he's been on the steroids and antibiotics before and it just seems now that he seems to have a consistent skin allergy rather than a seasonal one, which got me thinking it could be a food problem.. I actually feed VAN and noticed that they have oats in the food and I was wondering whether my dog could have an allergy to that because I remember when I used aloveen oatmeal shampoo on his skin it made him very, very itchy. I think someone above said that this summer in brisbane has been really bad so maybe it just seems like a constant allergy because it has been a long summer :-( I just seem to be washing him in melaseb all the time and I would like to give him a break from it as someone told me it was harsh on the coat. I think that a trip to a skin specialist might be in order as he has scabs all over his body. I was thinking I might do a food elimination diet as well just in case it is food related. I'll feed him on a meet he's never had and put some potato with it and then see if that makes a diffference. Then I'll start adding stuff. His allergy seemed to coincide with moving to a new house and a change to the VAN, so that confuses the situation even further as to whether it's environmental or food related. Thanks for your advice :-)

Hi there, How you get to the point of knowing that bones and fat are causing the problems? Did you go through a process of elimination of sorts? My dog has allergies as well and I have no idea of what could be causing them :-(

I have the problem now and my dog has conjuncitivitis, which I'm treating.

Hi Becks, I'm clueless - slide what apart? The doggies didn't have any mats and they were clean.... so at the moment it's looking like a tension problem or a blunt blade

A very well-considered post Tatelina