koalathebear

Our dogs having a blast at A Pooch Affair last weekend

Former foster Frida, adopted in 2012 and now living in Victoria

A rather typical pose from our three

Ha! The rescue group actually conducted a poll as a joke, asking if people thought that Takeshi had grown into his ears

Thanks so much all. Takeshi's still doing great. He had a fun play date with some kids of friends Takeshi on the right with Kenny (another 4lyfe foster dog) on the left. Chillaxing I got a dehydrator at Christmas so the dogs have been enjoying the dried home made treats. Here they are waiting for dried beef Very cute puppy Takeshi and turtle

Thank you! He's the only one of our dogs who doesn't mind being dressed up. Some Christmas photos Dan took Dodge to buy a Christmas tree. He took his duties very seriously :D Posing by the tree. Our foster dog Takeshi When Dan put the presents under the tree, he covered up Dodge's favourite spot - but that didn't stop Dodge Takeshi as a Christmas Elf Takeshi as a reindeer A friend of ours makes a lot of gear for rescue dogs so donated some bandannas for our whole crew Takeshi rocking his Christmas bandanna Dodge as Santa Aslan has escaped Narnia... Christmas is exhausting for little puppies

Thank you so much everyone for their kind comments. footprintsinthesand - I'm sorry to hear that your spirits are often sagging but very delighted to hear that you enjoy reading about our fosters. We are sooooooooooooo lucky that all 19 of our adopters still keep in touch with us, some more regularly than others. Former foster Juniper received her Onyx title in Flyball (1300 points) last month Present from her adopting family on her Gotcha Day - she was adopted December 2013 and lives in Murrumbatemen. She's come a long way since being dumped at Gundagai Pound. Photo of Baxter. He was adopted September 2012. He now lives with a cat and a small child who came along well after he had been adopted. He has come a long way since being dumped not once but twice at the pound in Canberra and goes on regular runs with his dad. This is former foster Miller who was adopted September 2013. His family moved to Melbourne a few years back where his dad is now a firefighter. Former foster Smudge who lives in Orange. Smudge was adopted in August 2013. She became a flyball champion but alas had to retire early due to injury. We see her and her owner very regularly when they come to Canberra for flyball competitions. Nutmeg, now Nina. She lives on Phillip Island, Victoria. She was adopted August 2013, slightly before Smudge. It's kind of surreal seeing how far Smudge and Nutmeg have come since their days of being part of the Walgett 6 Litter i.e. the parvo puppies This was Smudge & Nutmeg at the emergency vet after they were diagnosed with parvo. They both almost died and one of their litter did die. Former foster Monkey at the beach With his brother Otso Enjoying a Christmas toy He's come a long way in a short time since being dumped at Gundagai Pound. Here's his unflattering pound photograph Former foster Ollie. He was our first ever foster dog and you can see his photos at the very start of this thread He was adopted August 2012 and lives in Bungendore. He's the fluffer on the left Still snoozy Still has the guyliner Still so handsome Pound photo from Griffith Pound. He was our first foster and had kennel cough - we thought he was dying!!! Former foster Evie. She has come a long way since being found under a bush at Gundagai. She was the only dog we've ever had who has vomited up living, wriggling worms ... ewww. She is now living with her new baby (human) brother and has a 'cousin' named Piglet who is a Cavalier King Charles. Former foster Twiggy who was adopted back in April 2014. She has come a HUGE way ... she was skinny and terrified when she first came into care. Although a little porkier than we'd like, her adopter has trained her well and she's a fully accredited Delta Therapy dog now which is huge given how terrified she was in the beginning. She spends a lot of time on boats as her dad sails recreationally.

Happy Takeshi Cute Takeshi Christmassy Takeshi Playing with former foster Dyson He's going on trial adoption on 10 January 2019 and the adopting family have his crate as he's had the occasional day visit and sleepover. What that means is that he's been upgraded to the 'adult' soft crate at our house which means we've had to make it smaller for him. Here he is enjoying both the 'ground' floor and the 'loft' space Boxing Day Kelpie Gorgeous boy. Sadly he's going to be renamed Jack but that's part of fostering

Of course I don't mind. I hope your dog is ok - it's always very, very upsetting. I'm surprised the vet didn't give you a syringe along with the valium. we also have some but were told that the valium is only needed for a longer seizure eg 15 min. 5 min (feels like forever) but isn't considered long - just try to keep them from hurting themselves. Hoover's last one was a total mess though - he basically urinated, vomited, defecated and drooled heavily so the floor was a complete and utter mess all around him ... and we were a mess as we were trying to keep him from hurting himself. Hope she's ok <3 <3

Hoover's birthday He shares the same birthday as my husband so they have a joint birthday party every year We bought a lion's mane costume when we were in Canada ... Hoover rocked the look the best Elbie was an odd-looking lion Dodge just looked plain strange Especially when he decided to go for a seventies rocker look Dodge. Contemplative in his snood Long-suffering

Two of our former fosters - Juniper and Evie have just welcomed new members to their family. The adopters have been very careful about introductions and supervision and all is going well. Juniper has little Fraser And Evie has little Finley. Meanwhile, former foster Willow likes supervising when her humans are playing

Some more photos of Takeshi Takeshi and Hoover Dodge & Takeshi Takeshi with Dodge & Hoover Visit from fellow DOLer chequeredblackdog and two of her dogs Takeshi & Reggie Takeshi's first Christmas He's doing well in training. He started puppy classes last week and is doing great. He is also going on trial adoption on 10 January

Thanks all, I feel much better now. Vet, husband and part of me thinks: "Seizures are not frequent enough to warrant medication." The other part of me thinks: "What if the medication could prevent him going through this at all? What if the next seizure kills him?" For a couple of the seizures, it's been hard to tell if it's been two seizures in a row or if it's one seizure but he has a momentary pause in the middle of the one seizure - and so I have a fellow dog owner who is making me feel quite guilty (in a very well meaning way of course) about not medicating him yet. Comments include: "If he’s had one after the other, that counts as a cluster and you should probably consider meds" When I told her: "Our vets aren't keen at all to medicate unless it's very necessary eg. seizures on a weekly basis b/c once he's on the meds, it's for good. We let them know every time he has had a seizure and they have been monitoring him." she said: "That’s too conservative on the meds and not what the latest vet advice is. Every seizure primes the brain for another. " and "More recent opinion is that any seizures are too many and you should medicate earlier rather than later. " As mentioned, our vet is willing to medicate if that's what we want - but they've made it clear that the frequency does not yet warrant them actively recommending meds. But yeah .. it's so awful to watch ... his eyes when he has the seizures ... and how confused and frightened he is when he comes out of it. It's just so sad - and he's normally just the sweetest, most affectionate and lovely dog ever. Re the questions above - he's had a lot of blood work and tests done. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

Hi, one of my dogs Hoover is an 8 year old Kelpie. Generally healthy - not on any medication and does not have any other health issues. Over the last three years, he has suffered a number of seizures as follows: 15 May 2016: confirmed seizure 5 January 2017: suspected seizure 1 April 2017: confirmed seizure: 7 Sept 2017: confirmed seizure 10 October 2017: suspected seizure 8 February 2018: confirmed seizure 10 April 2018: confirmed seizure 13 December 2018: confirmed seizure * Until yesterday, each seizure was of relatively short duration. The pattern is usually as follows: hunger spew/stress spew followed by seizure empties bowels, bladder, very heavy thick saliva comes pouring out of his mouth. Yesterday's seizure lasted about a minute so was one of the longer ones. When he comes out of it, he's confused, disoriented and afraid of us. Then he returns to normal within an hour or so. What it means is that we generally do not leave him alone, we minimise stressful situations for him and give him snacks to avoid hunger spews. If we see him licking his lips a lot, we apply an ice pack to his back. We've also removed rosemary from his diet as we know that has triggered seizures in some dogs. Yesterday was a relatively late dinner and I can't help thinking that if we'd given him a snack, we might have been able to avert the seizure. Based on the symptoms, the vets are pretty sure he has epilepsy although there is not a definitive test. They've conducted blood tests and a variety of other tests on him and he seems otherwise healthy. So we have two choices. - we start medicating him now, but he will be on the meds permanently - we wait until the seizures become more frequent. Hopefully they won't but it would be a gamble and we know each seizure causes damage and could kill him ... The vets have said typically they would not recommend medication until the seizures were more frequent but understand how worried we are. They've suggested, if we do want to medicate, pexion, as apparently there are less side effects with this medication than others - but it still means meds twice a day for the rest of his life. So my question for others who have dogs with seizures - at what point did you decide to medicate? Thanks very much in advance.

Thank you and thanks so much for your help and support. It was very stressful there for a time. He was so thin and tiny when he first came into care.

He loved his first Halloween. Pumpkin Kelpie Although was very tired by the end of the night.

He's doing very well and his ears are very much on the rise

Very alert little puppy Alas, the 'car sickness' that his previous owners had told us about, turned out to be a fairly severe gastro issue that required treatment, taking him back and forth between emergency vet and day vet for a few days. He was pretty wretched for a few days He got some lovely support from everyone, including the children of friends and people who had adopted previous dogs from us Finally he came home!

Resident dogs are enduring him He also hung out with former foster Jerry

Monkey's doing well in his new home with Otso his brother and Zin the cat Coming into care with us today is Takeshi the Kelpie puppy who is a little bit cute

This is former foster Monkey. Foster dog #19. From Gundagai pound

Gosh it's been a while between updates. This is former foster Willow doing well in her new home.

Couple of recent photos Here joined by friend Ruby.

Willow's been growing like a weed but she's still very cute. This was her a few weeks back with the turtles With Hoover With a bow tie With Max the bull mastiff At an event last week at Best Friends petstore in Fyshwick With our gang about a week ago: More recently: Picture of Willow drawn by the 10 year old daughter of one of her applicants Long-suffering Hoover With Pandemic Legacy; Season 2 Snoozing with our dogs She'll go her new home in less than two weeks.

Willow's doing really well. Sleeping through the night. Eating nicely around the other dogs. She's had a few toilet training accidents but not many given that she's still just 8 weeks old. She is sitting and dropping and has a very nice off-switch. Travelling well in crate or harness. "Pay attention to meeeeeeee!!!" She got some donated mats from a friend Updates on former fosters. Dyson is doing really well. His owners take him jogging with them when they jog or cycle And he's so happy Evie's owners totally adore here and she's having a great time.