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teekay

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Everything posted by teekay

  1. I have just spent the last hour reading about Diesel and just wanted to say what a fantastic job you have done caring for him. You will know when enough is enough. I asked on forums about my beloved Holly, who sadly we had to pts in April, and when is the 'right time'. Many people told me you will just know and when it came to it I suppose I did. It's something about the way they look at you. I dunno, I'm rambling now. Just wanted to say to you and Diesel, you will be in my thoughts and prayers.
  2. Thanks Jed for the link. I have done alot of research on the net about this and alot of reading old posts on DOL. Lots and lots of info out there, most of which still indicates that freezing at -20degreesC should kill the protozoa that causes Neospora. Having said that I still have not fed Jenna raw beef and I'm not sure I will ever be comfortable doing so.
  3. Thanks for the info about freezing the meat first. I didn't know that
  4. Hi Everyone, there appears to be some very knoweledgeable people on here so I was hoping someone could help put my mind at rest about something. I am in the process of introducing raw food into Jenna's diet. She is nearly 5 months old now and I have been giving her a chicken thigh and some veggies/fruit for breakfast and her kibble for lunch and dinner. The chicken thigh is swapped for sardines one day a week and lamb's kidney one other day. So far so good, she has eaten everything and her stomach appears to have tolerated everything well. My slight concern is Neosporosis. My Labrador Holly was pts in April this year suffering from a severe neurological disease. We did not manage to get a definitive diagnosis but one of the tests that came back as "a weak positive" was for Neosporosis. I know this is found in raw meat, especially beef, and wondered if anyone had ever encountered it. It is more prevalent in puppies, so now I am wondering whether I am doing the right thing feeding Jenna raw. I don't give her raw beef and, as you can see, most of her raw diet is chicken with the exception of the Lambs kidneys. I suppose I could give her chicken livers, instead, maybe? Is there a problem only feeding her chicken? Is Neopsporosis definitely not in chicken? Sorry for all the questions Cheers
  5. Interesting that the vet is not sending the xrays away, seeing it is mandatory..... Makes me wonder why??? Taken from the Pennhip website. "Mandatory Film Submission For optimal validity, it is mandatory that all hip radiographs by PennHIP veterinarians be submitted for analysis and inclusion in the PennHIP database. This policy eliminates the practice of "prescreening" radiographs and sending only the best hips for evaluation. This "prescreening" practice has been shown to result in a biased database containing a greater frequency of non-diseased hips than actually exists in the true population. Excluding the worst hips leads to a false impression that genetic progress is being made." I do not know whether the vet is sending the xrays to PennHIP, he didn't say. I do think with the JPS though if you had to wait for results from PennHIP it would cause a delay which we could not afford given Jenna was already 18 weeks.
  6. Although Jenna is only 4 months old our vet has advised us to change to Adult dry food as we are trying to not let her grow too quickly because of her potential hip problems. My question is, will she be missing out on any nutrients with the adult food. She has chicken necks most days (although after reading on here about the potential danger of those I am a little paranoid about them) but I am very unsure about what else to give her. Also if i give her veggies, should they be cooked or raw? Now this is probably an impossible question to answer but if her projected adult weight is approx 25kg (ok, I'm guessing here- she is a Golden Retriever x Samoyed) is there a 'good' amount of weight gain per week or month. At the moment she is just over 10kg and is 19 weeks old. The feeding guidelines on the adult food will obviously be targeted at adult dogs so how much should I give Jenna each day? I know we have to be careful not to over feed her but I don't want to starve her either. I'm probably over thinking all this but I want to give her the best chance at avoiding hip problems. Thanks everyone and sorry if these questions have been asked before.
  7. Hi Okay, I will try to answer your questions. Firstly, yes, this procedure was first mentioned when I took Jenna in for her vaccinations at 12 weeks but there was no pressure and I had decided not to go ahead with any further hip investigations or JPS. They did talk about the time limit for such a procedure and actually told me it had to be done by 16 weeks. No they did not want to book me in there and then and it was left as a open invitation if I wanted to proceed. As I said, I decided not to bother. THEN I had a bombshell dropped on me on 15 Sept. On another forum someone posted about a dog (same crossbreed as mine) they had bought from a pet shop in Melbourne which had been diagnosed with HD at 7.5 months. They also believe another dog of the same breed from the same pet shop had had a complete hip replacement at 1.5 years. Given the relative rarity of my crossbreed I made enquiries about where her pup could originally have come from. There is no conclusive evidence but it is looking highly likely they came from the same place. Jenna, at this point was 17 weeks old. I thought she was too old for the JPS at this point but I did some research on the internet and most places said you could do it up to 20 weeks, after which the benefits were negligible. Sadly I lost my adorable Labrador in April of this year but still had the business card of the specialist vet that was treating her so I gave them a call and Richard Mitchell told me he would see us (with a referral from our original vet). The rest is pretty much history. DI not good and probable genetic history resulting in recommendation to go ahead and do the JPS. I think the problem I faced was not being able to find ANYONE who had had this done to their pup so I couldn't talk to anyone about how their pup faired. From the internet research I did, the results seemed promising but obviously it is early days. I still look at Jenna and ask myself if I have done the right thing. She was fine and might have continued that way. OR she may have been diagnosed a few months down the track and I would feel awful that I didn't take the opportunity when I had it. I did read your earlier thread with great interest and have had some lovely replies on here. As I said I really hope by posting our story it can help somebody in the future. JPS is still a relatively new procedure and I don't believe owner's should be pressurised into it if there is no other evidence of a problem. Thanks for your reply and sorry if I have repeated myself on here. I didn't check what I had written in previous posts. I have been writing about this to a number of people and I can't remember what I have written where
  8. So far Jenna was not showing any symptoms which is what made it so difficult to make the decision. I still agonize over whether it was the right thing to do but you can't 'wait and see' with this proceedure as it's too late once they get to 22 weeks.
  9. I was told 2 short walks, ie 10 mins twice a day was better than one longer one?. Is this not right?
  10. Although officially the results are supposed to come from America, a good orthopeadic surgeon can work them out for himself. I am trusting that Richard knows what he is doing and am following his recommendation. JPS is a 'relatively' minimaley invasive surgery, compared to TPO and given Jenna's probable genetic disposition to HD AND her DI we made the decision to go ahead. This is taken from one of the many websites I found: A cooperative clinical trial is under way with several surgeons around the country. Longest follow-up to date is three years, and the results continue to be encouraging; however, more information regarding the ultimate outcome of dogs undergoing JPS must be collected As I said we will probably never know if we made the right decision (If only we all had a crystal ball) but I would hate to have got a year down the track and regretted not taking the opportunity when we could. This is why I wanted to document our experience on here for anyone who might want to see how Jenna fairs over the years.
  11. Thanks for your reply Rottifan. Where abouts is Dr Jamieson? I would love to have the opportunity to see him if Jenna does deteriorate when she is older. I'm on the Sunny Coast in QLD
  12. Thanks for your reply Missymoo, I will definitely be in touch with the breeder if Jenna does get HD, at the moment I don't think there is much I can do as the DI is only an indication of future problems and not a definite diagnosis. The other person I know got her dog from a pet shop but we strongly suspect it is the same breeder as there are not many places crossing these 2 breeds and they both came from Melbourne. The pet shop refuses to tell her, or me, who the breeder is. Not suprisingly
  13. I discovered an old thread on Juvenile Pubic Symphysiodesis (JPS) on the Breeders Forum here, so I thought I would document our recent experience. We got Jenna from what I now realise was probably a puppy farm . She is Golden Retriever x Samoyed and I know that I should not have bought her. I was ignorant of the whole problems with designer cross breeds and made the fatal mistake of 'falling in love' with her on the internet. I am now VERY much aware of the problems of designer cross breeds/puppy farms/pet shops etc., thanks to this and other forums. I cannot turn the clock back and I am doing everything I can to help Jenna now. I discovered, thanks to a posting by another person on a different forum, that there was a very strong likelihood of Jenna developing Hip Dysplasia. Her dog of the same crossbreed was bought in Melbourne, where Jenna came from, and at 7.5 months has been diagnosed with Hip dysplasia in both hips. She has reason to believe her dog is not the only one from this place that is having problems with their hips. I sought the advise of Richard Mitchell up here on the Sunshine Coast who, a number of you DOLers seem to hold in high esteem, so I have put my trust in him. Jenna had her PenHipp x-rays done yesterday and the results were not good. Her distraction index was 0.6/0.7. On Richard's advice we went straight ahead and had the JPS proceedure done and she was de-sexed at the same time. She is exactly 18 weeks old so hopefully in time for the JPS to be beneficial. Over the last week I have been searching the internet for someone who has had this JPS done on their dog and have not been able to find any so I really wanted to post on here and continue to do so with Jenna's progress over the years so people can see how she developes. This proceedure is in it's infancy so it is hard to know if we have done the right thing. We will probably never know for sure, but the studies so far seem to be encouraging. We are also making sure she doesn't grow too fast and are limiting her exercise til she is 12 months old. It is hard, as all I really want to do is take her for a good run on the Beach like I used to with our Labrador who sadly died in April, but I know it will be worth it in the long run if her hips develop normally. If anyone is interested in further reading the following link is quite informative http://www.vetcontact.com/en/art.php?a=297&t= Bye for now and here's a picture of my baby
  14. Tilly, I really hope your dog gets better. I just wanted to mention Neoporosis. This is pretty rare especially in adult dogs but it was something they tested my Holly for when she was ill earlier this year. She started with rubbing her head on the ground or anyone's legs. I didn't think much of it but after a week or so she developed a cough and I took her to the vets. She diagnosed an ear infection and Holly also had a high temp. We treated that but then the symptoms appeared in her hind legs. She just started to lose control of them. She could just about walk but had great difficulty and I had to support her while she went toilet otherwise her legs would collapse. She had numerous tests including and ACTH test for Addison's and a blood test for Neospora. The Neospora test came back as a 'weak positive' and we put her on a long course of the appropriate antibiotics. Unfortunately they didn't work. Whether we were too late treating the Neopspora or not we will never know. She never had a definitive diagnosis, the 'weak positive' could have been nothing the vet said. We decided with heavy hearts to put her out of her misery in April of this year. I still miss her every single day. If you want any other info just let me know, there were other symptoms but I've mentioned the main ones. Take care, I will be thinking of you
  15. Thanks Chiara, your posts are so helpful and informative. I really hope Hugo improves. Jenna and I saw Richard Mitchell yesterday and he said he could see nothing wrong observing her walking, and on manipulation of her hips every thing also seems fine but to get a better indication he is doing the PenHipp xrays on Tuesday and if they do not look good he will give me a call but aim to go ahead and do the JPS and also de-sex her while she is still under the anaesthetic. That way at least it gets everything over in one operation. I intended to have her desexed anyway and I'm told it's ok to do this at 4 months although I would usually wait til 6 months ideally. Thankfully I did get pet insurance as soon as I got Jenna having lost my labrador Holly earlier this year after various expensive tests to find out what was wrong with her. She was also insured and I am so glad finances did not get in the way of deciding what was best for her.
  16. Hi Everyone, I've had an interesting morning reading all your posts. I have just found out that my dog may have a genetic disposition to HD. Another person who got a dog from the same place has now had their dog diagnosed with HD at 7.5 months. Jenna is 4 months old and we are going to see Richard Mitchell (glad I'm seeing him after everyone's comments about him :D ) this morning with a view to doing PennHip xrays and possibly Juvenile Pubic Symphysiodesis. Has anyone any experience of this proceedure, I know it's pretty new and don't like to use Jenna as a guinea pig but if it could prevent problems it would be worth it. She isn't showing any signs at the moment but she is still a young puppy. If only we all had a crystal ball. I will let you all know what Richard says and will be following the posts on here avidly. So glad i found this place. I feel better already just reading about peoples experiences.
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