Allerzeit

Wow - I can't believe it's been so long since I did an update on the boofy one :p Well - against my wildest hopes when we discovered his tumor, Stewie will be here with us for Christmas Stewie now has an ugly egg sized lump on his leg, but still he shows no other signs of deterioration! In fact in the last couple of weeks he's decided it's time to go through his second puppyhood He's been stealing toys from the girls and playing with them, and generally being more of a clown then he's been in a long time - I thought all that playing stuff was "beneath him", but apparently he's decided to live life to the fullest. I think we have so much to learn from dogs! He's still only on the drops with the ocassional Rimadyl, and his limp has actually reduced over the past month or so, which I'm very greatful for. So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone from us, and most importantly, from Mr Stewie. :p Here's a couple of photos taken today :p You can actually see the swelling just above the wrist in his far leg (right leg) on the first one. Cheers, Trace

Arrghh! Poor Bondi At least her bandage matches her collar Finger crossed this all gets sorted out for her very soon.

Liver Bread! Enya would walk backwards, blindfolded on a tightrope, doing somersaults for Liver Bread There was a recipe for it on the forum on recently, very easy to make - cut it up and freeze it, then just pull out what you need as you need it.

Oh Rozzie RIP Lupi

Thank you for the update! I'm so pleased Scruffy is doing better

Ohhh, interesting. Yeah - Vickie - where are ya? I would love to take Abby across the road and see how she went with the neighbours sheep. Just have to convince the neighbours that they really need Abby to help them LOL!

I have no idea about their suitability over other breeds for training dogs, but there are some sheep breeds that naturally shed their wool, removing some of the hassles involved in keeping sheep (shearing, crutching, flystrike). Some of the shedding breeds are Dorper, White Dorper, Wiltshire Horn and Wiltipoll. Our neighbours across the road have both Dorper and Wiltshire Horn sheep - the Dorper's are gorgeous with their jet black heads and white bodies. We only have silly Merino's and a few South Suffolk. The Suffolk need just as much shearing as a Merino - once a year they get shorn and in between they need to be crutched. They produce less wool than the Merino and the wool is worth next to nothing. I'll stop rambling now I lurve sheep

RIP Jessie - run free over the bridge.

cowanbree has expressed it so well. I don't care if its 1 year or 20 years, there's never enough time with our furry ones - that's the hardest part of being loving pet partners. If we didn't open ourselves to love our pets so much that it hurts to say goodbye, then we would never be able to receive the pure love and joy they offer us. Sending lots of and to your family, and especially to your mum.

Oh pampa - huge and to you. Keeping my fingers crossed that your baby doesn't have Osteo and that it's just a bump from playing. If worst comes to worst and it is Osteosarcoma then one of the most important things you can do is give every ounce of love to your girl and cherish every day - I know it's so hard to be positive when your heart is breaking, but your girl deserves all the love and cuddles you can give. Our Rotty boy, Stewie, was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma just over 4 months ago. We've found that a raw, unprocessed diet and herbal treatments (from http://www.herbal-treatments.com) have been extremely helpful in maintaining his quality of life. Stewie has no other conventional treatment, apart from an occasional Rimadyl tablet when he needs it, and is still very happy and living a normal life. His tumor continues to grow, though slowly, and his time is short, but he's still able to enjoy it fully which is the most important thing to us. In turn, we've learned how to really cherish our relationship with him (not that we didn't before, but you know what I mean). Best of wishes to you and your girl, and give her lots of hugs from us. You'll always get heaps of support from this forum anytime you want advice or need to talk, so take advantage of that as much as you need to Cheers, Trace

Now THAT'S a funny mental image! We don't have cats, so the poor dogs miss out on cat crunchies. Enya makes up for it by getting stuck into the sheep droppings though It's a really nice look this time of year when the sheep are excreting little cow pat type things (because of so much moisture in the grass), and Enya runs around devouring them

Ohhhhhh - that's just revolting!

I can sooo relate to these stories! Ours are the same - I no longer bother giving them whole, uncracked eggs - they'd never get eaten, just carried around and gently put down for a bit of licking every now and then Now I make sure I crack the egg before it goes in their bowls (leaving it still sorta whole, just with a split down the middle), so when they pick it up it opens for them The gentle mouth thing is so amazing for such big animals.

Oh goodness jesomil - I'm so sorry Listen, I'm going to PM you my email address - email me if you need to talk or compare notes, ok? As for Mr Boofie Stewie Man - 6 weeks on... The tumor HAS grown, I think it would have been miraculous if it hadn't though. However - he still requires no conventional pain relief (he's had maybe 3 Rimadyl tablets in the past 5 weeks - just when he's been a silly boy and overdone it). Appetite - normal Weight - normal Quality of life - absolutely normal ;) Honestly - you wouldn't know there was anything wrong with him at all. jesomil - we've found the Osteo/Bone Cancer Support and Maritime Pine Extract to be brilliant. Difficult to administer, because they STINK. We actually inject his dosage into chicken necks to get him to eat it. What we DID find is that when we dropped back the dosage after two weeks (because you start on a double dosage to boost the immune system) is that he started limping again. So I got in touch with "Uncle Robert" and asked if it was OK to keep Stewie on the double dosage, and Robert said it certainly wouldn't do any harm. We now have Stewie on the double dosage of the Osteo/BC support (20 drops, twice a day) and normal dosage of the Maritime Pine Extract (10 drops, twice a day) which seems to be managing everything nicely. I'm sure his health is also improved by being on BARF - he wasn't on the BARF diet before being diagnosed. Two days ago Stewie turned 7 (there's some photos in the photos section somewhere to celebrate his birthday - if you have a look, you will see that he still looks really great)!! I honestly didn't think he would reach this birthday, so I'm thrilled with how he's going. Many, many hugs to you jesomil - cause I know exactly how devastated you feel right now. Big Stewie licks to you all, too! Cheers, Trace

Oh Brigantia, I'm so very sorry to hear about Nelson :laugh: You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers. Run free Nelson ;)

;)

Hee Hee - definitely a lucky dip, griff Enya got the first lucky dip prize yesterday morning - down it went, beak and all.

Oh lordy, kelpiecuddles

We've been feeding BARF for around a month now - finally getting into the routine after making the switch from kibble and dog stew. Every Saturday morning OH drives into town to do the chores, which includes picking up a 10 kilo box from the local chicken butcher shop. Once he gets home I have the task of dividing all the necks up into their portions for the week. This is normally one of those "pleasantly" dull jobs - you know the ones where you can just let the mind drift while automatically continuing on with the task? So here I am happily daydreaming while packing the necks - until I reach into the box and grab a neck - BY IT'S HEAD! Normally I don't associate the necks to the actual chickens too much - but this freaked me out. I kept going, oh so delicately after that, only to find a second neck with head attached See - life's never dull when you BARF (or maybe I just need to get one of those "life" things ) I'm going to be oh so cautious with the necks in future... Cheers, Trace

Oh Geez Dogbesotted :D I'm so sorry to hear of Jake passing - particularly so close to the Divine Miss Sophie. I really do wonder how much our hearts are meant to bear at times :D Huge and :D from us to you RIP Jake

:rolleyes: :cool: Will the recipe be OK if I omit the cat though, or is that an essential ingredient? Just been visiting the Rainbow Bridge section - so I needed the laugh Poodlefan, good on ya Thanks for the recipe too!

Ohhhh dogbesotted :cool: Run swiftly, free from pain Divine one :rolleyes:

Yes, please poodlefan - I would love to know your vege recipe

Hi Mel, I had the same concern for AGES on how much to feed! I eventually found the recommendation to start with between 2 - 3% of body weight per day, so that's where we've begun and they all look good so far (only about 1 week into it). We will stick with this for now, and then adjust if necessary. We also break ours up into two meals - just what we've always done, even before BARF. Veges - ahhh. I went out a purchased a blender too - and then spent about 3 hours blending vegetables (we are talking about weeks worth of food for 5 adult Rottweilers and one hyperactive puppy BC x Kelpie - so it was a LOT of vegetables). I'm still having a lot of trouble getting one of our dogs to eat his veges, just doesn't like them (sigh), but the rest have been fine. I'm hoping the blending gets easier! I think (??) our blender is around 450 - 500 watts (don't quote me though) and in hindsight I would have purchased a stronger/heavier duty blender - although it may just be that I completely SUCK at blending stuff! From a very novice point of view, I think your diet plan sounds good - but I'm sure there are people with far more experience who will be able to offer you better advice than me in that area Cheers, Trace

A week on and I thought I'd post a quick little update I'm very pleased to say that Stewie is still going well and seems pretty stable. He's still not needing Rimadyl - any pain seems to be managed by his herbal meds. There has been no noticable increase in the growth at all, and certainly his quality of life seems to be improving rather than decaying at the moment. I think BARF is doing him the world of good, and his herbal meds are meant to contain lots of anti-oxidants as well which I'm sure are making him feel pretty good. The only thing I've found is that we need to be very conscious that he keeps relatively quiet. There have been two occasions of limping in the past week and both seemed to be directly connected to him being too boisterous (jumping down the stairs, galloping along the verandah, etc). So lots of sloppy Stewie kisses to everyone - and please give all of your furbabies a big hug from us too. Cheers, Trace