Staff'n'Toller

What did he inject into the tears in his muscles????

Treat your cats!!!!! Use Advantage for cats or Frontline or one of the other adulticides from the Vet. Cats will generally carry the flea population around but you never see them as they groom the adults out, and are rarely allergic. Mel.

Better late than never Geordie NSDTR - perfect front! BTW Ptolomy you guys are in the Vic dog gazette- those pics we were taking outside after awards...not my pic though I don't think....mysterious. Mel.

Down at the park - 9.1 seconds. ETA: He is having an off with the pixies day...

Yeh I am about to take him out for a run so will get an answer for you. Mel.

Ptolomy do you ever play that game with your dogs where you hold a treat in each hand with arms outstretched and pay for looking at you and not the food? Mel.

Royal Canin currently have the only food out for Atopic dogs, skin support. Not sure if the Derm Vets have started trialling it yet but I am finding it's working really well for Gypsy. Info here.

If you want to PM me the name I can cross reference with a few Lab breeders I know of....if they are a registered breeder we should be able to get to the bottom of it. Conversely you should be able to ring the Vet on the Vaccination card and explain that you have adopted this pup and you're trying to locate the breeder. Mel.

Excel-Erated Learning by Pamela Reid is another that discusses learning theory in a succinct manner. How Dogs Learn by Burch and Bailey is also good and I found that an easier read than the above book. They are both fairly well priced on Amazon.com. You may also be able to find them on abebooks.com.au. Mel.

Apparently they are abandoning the Veterinary Labrador and it will only be available in retail type. Not sure at this stage if they are doing it with any of the others. Mel.

Hot water bottles or heat packs are sometimes used to warm patients up after anaesthetic. Mel.

Have fun you guys. Pity I can't make it- I'm more ready this time!

Just beware with the amount of 4x2's you give, we had a client with 2 greyhounds both got GVD at different times and I *think* at least one of their meals was 4x2's with milk- I'm sure that's what came out the stomach tube of one of them anyway.

Is she on Anti-biotics? Sounds as though she should be seeing a Specialist. That's where we send our Meningitis/AIHA/IMHA cases for stabilisation...as Charles Kuntz would attest to! Mel.

My cats are on RC too and I found they dropped weight but put on more muscle, so there must be something good in it! Mel.

That's true about the real barf patties, I know now that they are in mass production there is less control over the quality of meats and one can only hope it is ground rmb's and frames, not legs/head etc etc. For anyone in SE Melbourne the Pet Chow shop at the end of Springvale Rd where it meets Princes Hwy is doing his own barf now in 1kg tubs. I have to ring and ask about meat quality and what omega 3/6 he uses but we had a quick chat and he was helpful with info about them. There is a tick sheet on the tub so you know exactly what vegies have been put in each batch. They work out ALOT cheaper than the Billinghurst patties. My Toller boy needs 400-450gm of barf to maintain a nice weight. Mel.

I guess it's all about the type/quality of meats used... ETA: The ingredients look ok.

I use Jean Dodds' info and generally advise 3-4 days after the 12 week Vacc the dog is 95%+ covered. We use Virbac Vaccines though, and need to do a third as they don't have 2 Vacc claim on theirs yet. Mel.

Rappie may also be able to tell us more about the costs of having medications approved for animals, and what sort of recourse there is if say...your dog is on a human medication from the chemist and they have an adverse reaction?? My bet is that if you were to ring the manufacturers they wouldn't want anything to do with it because chemist meds are not approved for animal use. I think there's a huge minefield there, especially if your dog has a serious adverse reaction and dies...

I'm not sure, mum to emma, why you have such a huge chip on your shoulder, but nothing I wrote suggests that we over-medicate animals. What I said was that in the future Vets won't stock medicines AT ALL and you may have to go to the chemist for everything. Kindly refrain from putting words into my mouth. Your insinuations that Vets put out medications unnecessarily "just because they can" or "just because they want to boost profits" is complete and utter hogwash. If you were aiming those accusations at a Vet in particular you would be taken for defamation...think about what type before you type it. What most lay-people such as yourself don't understand is the real cost of medications because all of yours are probably on the PBS. No-one would believe that we keep $15000.00 worth of meds on the shelf FOR EACH VET IN THE PRACTICE at any one time, most people wouldn't believe that either, I do the stocktake though, I can tell you it's absolutely true. It sounds as though you are quite upset that a) you had to pay to see a specialist and b) you are also upset that your dog needs to be on life long medications. Neither of which is my problem.

My GP certainly does charge me for scripts and has for several years. If you see a bulk billing doctor for yourself then you cannot compare the two- it's called medicare- and you are paying a certain amount of tax to keep it going. Chemist Warehouses buy drugs in huge bulk amounts and distribute those between all of their franchised stores. It's a little bit like Bunnings and then your little hardware store down the road having entirely different prices. The small fries just cannot compete with the bulk buyers because we can't negotiate huge discounts like they can. It's pretty simple to understand. You're paying $120 for the Specialist Vet's expertise, they do many years of extra study. When your Vet refers you to one it is because your dogs' issues are out of their area of expertise. If everyone starts demanding scripts, then down the track we might end up like the UK, you see the Vet (for double what you're paying now b/c they will need to cover overheads to make up for loss of income from drugs) and they don't stock meds at all anymore. Mel.

If the nose piece is going off centre then it's possible that you have it too loose. Depending on which side you walk the dog, the martingale does drift slightly and this hasn't seemed to be a problem. If you're not sure you can always email Warren and check that your fittings are right etc.

Definitely a float coat. I also found that getting them to hold a ball or some other floatable toy mean they put their heads down lower and stopped splashing.

Are they still holding the residentials? Mel.

Of course it can, I certainly wouldn't disagree with that. I took exception to the statement that a low level stim causes no harm. :D Mel.