Eliza Jane

I had a rescue who had been left with a broken hip before I got her. Consequently she developed arthritis in middle age. She was on sasha's blend to begin with plus fish oil. As she got older and her arthritis got worse the sasha's blend didn't seem to be working and I switched her to joint guard. Joint guard has msm in it which is an anti-inflamatory - I don't think sasha's blend has that in it. Joint guard plus fish oil plus dried oregano seemed to work well until probably the last 2-3 years of her life (she lived to 15) when we added in metacam.

Izzybee, my old Kelpie/BC mix had dry eye and used optimmune. After some misstarts, she was put on optimmune at, I think, age three. We finally had to give her her wings when she was 15. I kept the optimmune in the fridge as recommended by the vet and they didn't bother the dog at all going in. I found that adding liver/fish/cod liver oil/cooked orange vegetables to her diet for extra vitamin A also seemed to help her a lot but you have to be careful not to overdose. I found that after we had used optimmune for some months we could reduce it to once every second or third day in the winter but she needed it almost daily in summer as the sunlight seemed to dry her eyes out a lot. I also used a small dab of gel each time, say about a half of a grain of rice for each eye. This stretched out a tube for some months. When she was older and wasn't as active she ended up having it about twice a week but that was in the last year or so of her life. I found optimmune worked very well for my dog. Yes it is expensive but if you are careful how you use it you can get away with three or four tubes a year (from memory). Even at the start I don't recall using the whole tube in 6 weeks. Are you using gel in a tube or is it drops? I have used both and the gel is much easier and goes further.

Love the photos as well. I actually came here to post the link - too slow as usual! ;)

My old girl was a border collie/kelpie cross with the double coat, medium long. I found the best thing to wash her with was olive oil soap for humans, available in Safeway/Woolies. It is a bit hard to get going unless you get the coat really wet but it is extremely easy to rinse out and doesn't leave a residue. She always had a shiny soft coat. However with my mini poodle boy I found the olive oil soap was not cleaning his coat and it was looking a bit dull. Before I started looking for a shampoo, my local Safeway started stocking Rufus and Coco normal shampoo and I grabbed a bottle. I have washed him twice with it and it gets an embarassingly large amount of dirt out of his coat and leave hims soft and shiny. I am very impressed with it.

When I was little my aunt told me about a cat - can't remember if it was hers or a friends - who would only eat dog food and died as a result. There isn't enough nutrition in dog food for cats and also I think dog food lacks certain things such as the correct level of taurine for cats. I was told years ago that cat food wasn't good for dogs normally as it has too much protein - I don't know how correct that is. I do know that in my old girl's last year the vet wasn't concerned about her only eating cat food, I think at that stage it was give her whatever she wanted to eat.

I have had feral cats raising litters under a shed but it didn't make any difference in the snake numbers. We have a farm cat that moved in from the next door farm but I don't think she has done anything to the snake numbers either. I have chickens and this year because of the rain we have a lot of frogs so I think this is going to be a bad year for snakes. My boy isn't let outside unless he has someone to go with him and in snake season walks are on lead only. It isn't worth the risk as we get both red bellied black snakes and large brown snakes with a few pythons thrown in. The only break we get from the snakes is when a goanna moves in which over the last few years seems to be for 2-5 weeks in the middle of summer. While the goanna is here there are no snakes at all, goannas eat snakes so I guess they either eat any that are here or chase them away.

Abby (RIP), a BC/Kelpie mix preferred being inside and wasn't a dirty dog so she got a bath a few times a year in the bath. Rafe sleeps on the bed so he gets done every two weeks in summer and once a month in the cold. He fits into our stainless steel laundry tub which is much easier on my back than the bath.

I used Hills TD for my siamese cat (RIP). Her mouth was so small she couldn't manage bones at all, not even the smallest joint of a chicken wing. I don't like the ingredients of the TD at all but only fed her some TD as treats every day, not for her whole diet. The kibble did a great job of cleaning her teeth, far better than I had been able to do with brushing. It worked so well she didn't need a dental. For my boy I have found he throws up raw bones, even when I can get him to chew them (he prefers to swallow whole) so I have switched to air dried bones. I know the dangers of the dried bones splintering so I give him large ones such as roo vertebrae, let him pick the meat off then take them before he starts on the bone itself. So far this is keeping his teeth nice and clean. I would prefer to keep on with this and not to have to use the Hills kibble. I haven't tried any other dental kibble so can't comment on them.

I do what Cowanbree does. The first summer we had my boy we found he wasn't drinking enough so we started mixing water in his food at every meal. He still won't drink enough in summer but it doesn't matter as we can just increase the water in his food if required.

Sorry I have no idea how to get your puppy used to squeeky toys. My old dog (RIP) was absolutely petrified of squeeky toys until she was much older and had lost some of her hearing. She then discovered the joys of ripping toys up to get the squeeky bit out. However that isn't much help to you. I do know that there are some toys that have much quieter squeekers such as the Tuffie brand - maybe try one of those?

My mini poodle does this to his doughnut bed. He puts his front feet in the bed and tries to rake it underneath him through his back legs, jumps backwards and does it again. He can go around part of the room doing this. He doesn't seem to do it to get attention, just for his own amusement.

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I have just started to give my boy dried kangaroo backbone. Raw bones don't agree with him - he either swallows without chewing (chicken wings and frames) and then vomits it all back up or guards it without eating it (lamb). I was at my wits end as his teeth were getting grotty but just one of the backbones has taken most of the plaque off. He only eats the flesh though, and leaves the bones, so as long as I supervise him carefully I don't have a problem with the bones.

My miniature boy's favourite toy is a "chimp ball" - a ball (latex I think) in the shape of a chimp from Safeway/Woolworths. You can get them in the shape of a sheep or a hippo as well. Even when he went through a destructive phase when he was younger and destroyed some other toys this one survived. I think it has lasted as it doesn't really have anything sticking out he can chew on and although he can carry it in his mouth it seems a bit too large for him to really chew on it. It also squeaks when he squishes it which he loves. He likes to hold it and squeak it at you or he puts his foot on it and dribbles it like a pro soccer player! Even though he has lots (and lots and lots!) of toys, this is his favourite. He happily plays with it by himself when we are busy. The other thing I would recommend would be a toy with rope on it - he loves something to chew and also it makes a good handle to fling the toy through the air with! Its a bit alarming watching a tennis ball on a rope sail past you at bench height! These rope toys are usually not expensive, not really toxic and survive some chewing. Once they are well chewed they can be replaced. I did get him a couple of Toughie toys but he doesn't really like them at all. One toy he does like is the Cuz ball - this seems to be quite tough although it has legs that stick out and I am not sure how good it would be with a really destructive dog. It is also smaller and he can fit it in his mouth. Because of the feet it has a weird bounce so it keeps his interest when you throw it.

I used Sasha's Blend for my old BC/Kelpie cross (RIP). It helped her for some years but as her arthritis got worse it didn't do as much for her. I switched to Joint Guard because it has MSM in it which I read was an anti inflamatory. It helped her more than the Sasha's Blend did but we eventually ended up on metacam because nothing else was working.