MRJ

Thanks very much for your suggestions and congratulations everyone! I will definitely get my hands on a copy of that book and the idea about the play rug is especially good: as you would all be aware pugs shed quite badly so this will be invaluable in time no doubt. Thanks again!

We are soon expanding our family to include a skin baby. We have two fur baby pugs - who are great with children but haven't been around new babies before. We have some time up our sleeve (about 5 or so months) so I'm wondering if anyone has any 'tips' on possible things to teach the fur babies for once the skin baby comes along?? They already are aware of 'leave it' and 'off' and of course the regular sit, drop, stay etc. We don't yet have any equipment in the house and I don't envisage the dogs being averse or scared of anything (they haven't been so far). I don't think that there will be too many jealousy issues (everyone seems to be worried but me and my husband!), and I'm planning that the baby will spend a fair bit of time on the floor of course as it grows, and of course fully supervised. I think the dogs will enjoy having someone aroung most of the time (we work currently), and will probably appreciate the break when we go out! So - does anyone have any ideas or 'wishes' they'd done prior to their skin kid arriving??

My cat has haemorrhoids primarily because the little bugger doesn't drink enough water. Dry food with lots of fibre plus not enough water = cement poos = straining = haemorrhoids. ??Maybe back off on the psylliam as it may be too much?

Our pugs are prone to their anal glands being quite a problem...we now feed them royal canin which has helped heaps with this problem. Of course they also get chicken wings at least once a week and egg/yoghurt/veggies on top of their kibble. I am too worried about doing their full diet and ensuring I meet all their daily nutritional needs. They no longer need their anal glands expressed whereas it used to be at least a fortnightly expedition, and they had leakage a lot which wasn't very nice! Good luck with it - it sounds as though your/may as well be yours might be a bit harder to control with diet considering they have abscessed etc.

Where do I get one? We have a sneaky little bugger who doesn't like to get her paws wet in winter - and our carpets are cream so we can't see it unless we put our foot in it!

And just a piece more of info: murmors are usually due to something not quite right with the valves and valves can't be seen on xray. Definitely go for the ulrasound as then you will know where the problem is and not just 'she has an enlarged heart suggestive of....' or similar.

pet plan also do a major illness/accident cover for $16.70 per month, and they cover up to $15000 each year - with Bow Wow Meow they only cover 8000 each year for 13/month (that's quotes for my pug anyway). I think that like always you need to do your research and make sure you're comparing apples with apples!

I haven't experienced yet however have heard that applecross vet is a good surgery to go to - am taking mine there for vacc's and to check it out

My pugs tend to hate it as well...they've never been hurt by it or anything they just hate it. Usually my OH holds them under his arm and paw in one hand and clippers in the other whilst I hold a few treats for distraction - that normally works for us, but it has to be a team effort and it is quite a struggle! I don't want our vet to do it as I don't want them to associate going to the vets with 'something bad is going to happen' so we usually fight it out at home.

Positive, strong, tumour killing thoughts coming your way!

Washed with water, and no signs of chemical burn: no redness, she's not licking at them, she's walking completely normally. I can't believe she was the only dog down there with a problem: there must have been 20 there at least!

It sounds as though he is just unwell himself to me......BUT I'll tell you about my pug just to horrify you.... She has been quite difficult to toilet train to say the least.....for some reason when we moved house she just got it....BUT If it is raining: she will not go outside to do her business (will do it by the sleep out door as the extra 10 steps or so to get outside are beyond her when it is wet) If she hasn't had a walk/much attention/is just a wanting attention etc: she will pee on our stuff. Her favourite things are clothes my husband has left lying around, however this has on several occasions extended to our BED much to our disgust, and she goes in there completely on the sneak. We keep our bedroom door closed due to this. She has other minor 'issues' though relating to dominance so I think that is where it comes from and if she is exercised it all disappears and she's back to her lovely self. Several times as a young dog at about 8 months old when I would get up and start getting ready for work she would look me dead in the eye and pee on the carpet, despite me going outside with her for at least 20 minutes of a morning. AND the pee would be enormous. 2 things I learnt from this: 1. you always always always have to be more stubborn than them, and wait outside for 40 minutes if required, especially if they haven't gone all night you know they MUST need to go. The other thing was to never clean it up in their presence. I used to get all upset: put her where she was supposed to wee, then run and get a towel, carpet spray etc etc and clean the whole lot up - and she would still be watching me. When I ignored her when she did it, distracted her with something else while I cleaned it up and I got REALLY stubborn it finally worked. Our other lovely pug is an absolute dream when it comes to toiletting: she goes outside all the time, and we got her at 5 months not toilet trained. Our methods must have worked with her learning style! Of course it seems easier with the second one! Good luck....I hope you both feel well again soon

Hi Guys This evening we went to our local oval where heaps of people walk their dogs each night. Tonight is the second time we've taken the girls there - last night was a 'dry run' just before dark as they haven't been off lead for awhile we were wanting to test their recall before we let them go nuts with heaps of other dogs (there weren't any other dogs there at the time). Tonight we got home from work, got changed and took the girls to the oval. Noticed nothing abnormal about the 2 of them, they were fine. Within 10 minutes Zara started drooling a bit and I've never seen her drool - thought hmmm weird, but she hasn't been around this many dogs for ages. Then about 5 minutes after that she kept picking up her front paws like they'd been stung....went over them, she didn't pull away at all, checked between toes etc and nothing seemed to be the problem - she just wanted to lick them (and the drooling had stopped). 5 minutes later when we got back to the car she was holding her paws really stiff (just the paws), and it was obvious they were really annoying her. SO I washed them down and soaked one paw at a time in a cup full of water (and she knocked the cup over in my lap so it looked like I'd wet my pants ) THEN she had a reverse sneezing fit in which I thought she was having a severe allergic reaction and was having bronchospasm (I'm not a dramatist at all - I know I know). Thanks to what's been written on here about the reverse sneezing thing I tried blowing on her nose: didn't work, gently massaging over tongue/oesophagus: didn't work, so I blocked her nose: bingo - worked, much to my relief!!! And now an hour later: she is completely fine. One of the other owner's told me they'd fertilised the oval today - is it most likely that? She also told me that quite a few dogs got cancer from the oval there a few years ago: from the soil, and that it was all the dogs that were diggers: has anyone heard of this type of thing happening? I don't think we'll be running there again - which stinks but I don't want her allergic to the fertiliser and this to happen when we go there. Our other pug was completely fine.