Tara8430

Great that the bloods were clear - hope he remains feeling better and enjoys having his normal diet back :)

Poor Zig, I hope you get some answers soon.

Wow really well trained, you can see how much he loves to do his tricks - well done

My lab sits up on the bench with me at the park if the ground is wet, she doesn't like her paws wet most of the time anyway.... the other day lab instincts must have got her an she jumped in every puddle out on our walk.

Congrats to all the winners!

Ha ha that gives you a laugh doesn't it - I love the oldies and their mischievous ways

When Max was little I could set my watch by her puking, and it was always 3am. Luckily she grew out of it! What is it with pups and 3am puking

I also use coconut oil with Abbey, ran out a couple of weeks ago and hadn't got around to getting any, anyways her coat when very dry and brittle so back onto the coconut oil and she is nice and shinny again, dropping hair for unknown reasons at this time of the year but otherwise her skin and coat is much better when on the coconut oil.

Yeah I check the ingredients in everything now, Abbey was getting a small bit of crust from the toast I was having of a morning (soy and linseed bread) stupid me didn't realise linseed IS flaxseed and couldn't work out what was going on, then googled linseed and went damn it. At one stage when it was really bad I had been giving Abs flaxseed oil that's when I realised it was a big no no, and a lot of the kibbles have it in it too which is why I don't feed kibble. Try it Minimax and see allow a couple of weeks and just see.

I used to give my ol girl fish oil and it worked well she got very stiff coming into the cold weather in her senior years, she also used to have carprofen injections in may, they used to make her like a puppy again was so nice to see.

Thanks VAN no I haven't purely because I think she has some intolerance to anything with flaxseed, she itches like mad when she has anything with flax in it and unfortunately most of your products have flaxseed in them. On a positive note after a couple of days of putting on dermaid cream all the redness has gone out of the skin and she seems a lot more relaxed. Maybe it was mozzie bites or something....

Just over it Pers had the same problem last year vet just kept pushing food allergy and elimination diet, I switched her to raw and gave supplements previously mentioned and it all came good, im so devastated that its happened again, but at least this time the hair looks like its still growing last time it just looked dead and it needed to fall out. Oh I know young dogs can still have pain, she is sensitive in the spot but only when you move the hair you can run your hand down her back and she's fine, and she runs around jumps about like any normal dog, my vet said she wouldn't be jumping up etc.. if it was a pain thing.

Ok so Pers she is 18 months no its not a pain thing the vet checked her out for any signs of pain. There's lots of pollens and things that blow around in autumn that's why I was leaning towards an environmental irritant, I know my car was covered the past few weeks. daninbcs - only treatments she has had in past few months was frontline before we went on holidays. Putting dermaid on the affected area's twice yesterday seemed to take the redness out of her skin from what I could see this morning and she wasn't too itchy, ill see how she is when I sit her in the sun at lunch to be able to see properly.

Only stopped pro biotic last week cause I ran out, didn't think that would affect the skin issue.... Tried some dermaid cream on the spots today seems to have eased it off a bit and taken out some of the redness. Any recommendations on anti fungal cream?

No, no chewing at legs or feet. Honestly appart from this area on her back again there is no other problems.

Yeah forgot to mention, tested last year thyroid, full bloods and skin scraping. No redness on feet, around eyes or on tummy only on her back - and yes the vet also thinks its strange but that hasn't helped....

Hi All, I'm after some feedback as I'm not sure which way to go with Abbey's skin issues. Last year around April Abbey had the itches and biting isolated to her back basically from her shoulders (basically where a dogs back leg will scratch their back), the hair went dull stopped growing and just generally looked not brittle and yuck. We thought it was kibble that she was allergic to (or at least something in kibble) as I changed her kibble in February. After a long long few months I finally convinced my vet that she needed a good dose of cephalexin to treat the bacterial infection she spread on herself and changed to raw diet with zinc, vitamin E and a probiotic he fur started to grow back and she eventually came good. Unfortunately....very unfortunately April has just pasted and Abbey's skin issues have returned and she is itching and biting just like before, which is making me think it is some type of environmental allergy. What puzzles me is that again it is isolated to the same spots the skin is again very dry red and sore, she has hard little like pimply bumps in the area. Her hair on the rest of her body is beautiful and thick and shinny. She is still on raw diet, with zinc, vitamin E and coconut oil plus sardines a couple of times a week. My question is should I get her allergy tested for environmental allergy irritants and what does that involve? Also can that be done without having done a food elimination diet? Im to the point where ill take her back to the vets today but not sure what to do... Did I mention I hate skin allergies oh my god so frustrating... and I hate getting angry at her for scratching as I know its annoying her but its doing my head in and im sick to death of having hair everywhere. Abbeys a 18 month old black lab too.

I've wondered about beets as well.... I add spinach, carrot, sweet potato, zucchini, pumpkin and small amounts of cabbage to the raw patties I make up.

I've thought about this too when I lost my old girl (black lab) Sheba, I lost Sheba in July last year and everything just seemed to fall into place for me to get my new girl (black lab) abbey, I brought her home in November. I missed having a dog to come home to terribly but I know I needed that time to grieve for Sheba. I just couldn't believe it when I emailed a breeder who actually imported Sheba grandfather all those years ago and she told me she was just about to do a mating which would give her black babies. And honestly Abbey is soooo much like Sheba it's not funny, she didn't cry when she came home, she never looked back, it's all felt like it was meant to be. So yes Lisa I'm sure Sam is up there working on sending you the most beautiful new pup who is going to make you feel better again.

Fisher & paykel aqua smart..... Worst machine ever! No agitator so yes you can fit the dog beds in well but when you do your own washing it ties everything up on a ball gets stuck and starts beeping so you can't do any washing when your not home, no going out to do a few things come back and its done. Only good point about it is you can stuff the dog bed in but it doesn't wash it well enough to get the hair out.

I took my girl down the south coast a couple of weeks ago shes a 18 month old lab who has pretty good recall but i wasnt 100% confident so i got a 33ft longline from K9 Pro which worked really well, even if i didnt have hold of the long line at least i stood a chance at catching up to the leash not just the dog. One thing i found on the off leash beaches people with dogs off leash tended to get irritated that i had my dog on leash cause their dog got caught up in my long line, but hay if i think my dog my bolt when another dog is heading out way id prefer to have the longline on her than not.

Any pictures from friday?

My girl had that as a pup turned out to be a bladder infection, she had high pH in her samples.

My lab gets 1 of these each night i just break the capsule open and stir though her food, they have been really good for her, she had ongoing tummy troubles and skin issues these combined with a change in diet she is much much much better. She has had them since maybe October last year and still on them now ive only purchased two bottles, possibly will see how she goes without them once this bottle finishes. http://www.blackmores.com.au/products/acidophilus-bifidus

I tried that once, then i got yelled they were saying you shouldnt have a dangerous dog out (shes not but i wanted the other dogs to go away) mind you the other idiots had their dogs off leash and wouldnt call them back but apparently i was in the wrong go figure