Miranda

I'm a keen bird watcher, it's one of my hobbies :rolleyes:

Fan-tailed cuckoo.

In my experience this is pretty unusual. Very few if any vets (other than emergency centres) are staffed overnight anyway so I really can't see the point of it for a routine surgery. If it were my dog I'd be going elsewhere.

A few of my dogs do this regularly, it's nothing to worry about. Don't wake her up.

I would just like to point out that a correctly trained entire dog will not suddenly begin marking inside when it reaches puberty. I have entire males here and none of them ever mark inside. To the OP it sounds to me as if this dog was never completely toilet trained to begin with, I would go right back to basics and start again as if the dog was an 8 week old puppy. I'd also get rid of the newspaper and pee pads, IMO this just confuses the dog. Train the dog to go outside ONLY, this will entail a little extra work and vigilance, but it will be worth it.

I must say that I'm surprised that a dog with grade 2 elbows shows such extreme symptoms. I have bred a bitch who had one elbow graded 2 and she is completely asymptomatic. The swollen hocks also have me a little puzzled. I also cannot understand how a dog with 'balls not such a good shape' scored 10 or 11, or do you mean 10 or 11 for each hip? Were the x-rays sent away for scoring or is this your vet's assessment? Regarding your question on management and 'how long did they last' I know of a bitch with UAP in both elbows who had surgery and lived happily for 11 1/2 years and my very first dog had severe HD and lived until he was 13. Keeping the dog lean, regular cartrophen injections, fish oil and a supplement such as Joint Guard can help a lot. ETA that when I say I bred a bitch with a grade 2 elbow score I mean that she was of my breeding I don't mean that I bred FROM her. I've just realised that what I wrote is a little ambiguous and could easily be misconstrued. I would not breed from a bitch that had a grade 2 elbow score.

Same here, it's also tasteless so is readily accepted by most dogs.

Seconded

Dogs vomit very easily, they are scavengers by nature so vomiting is a survival mechanism to ensure that anything harmful is ejected from the stomach before it can do any harm. They will also regurgitate anything that's too large to be digested and will often eat it again, chewing it into smaller pieces. This is perfectly normal dog behaviour and nothing to worry about.

I'd bring him home, he will be stressed at the vet and there'll be no one there for him. I never leave my dogs at the vets overnight unless it's absolutely necessary.

We had a smoker come round one night and even though he didn't smoke inside our house a couple of my dogs wouldn't go near him. I've also had a dog back away from a judge who was a heavy smoker and absolutely reeked of tobacco, he wasn't the only one either, lots of normally rock solid dogs were very wary of this particular judge. So yes, that could be a reason, I know that smokers generally don't realise just how much they pong to a non-smoker (no offence) so imagine what it must be like for a dog whose sense of smell is so much better than ours.

I also agree.

Maybe it's because I have large dogs, but I don't understand why people always want to be picking their dogs up and cuddling them. I stroke my dogs and rub their ears when I feel like it, but I certainly don't cuddle them as in hugging and carrying them around. They are dogs after all, not babies or soft toys and just because they're small enough to be picked up doesn't mean that they automatically like it. I know from reading posts on DOL that some dogs love this sort of attention, but maybe your puppy is one that doesn't.

As poodlefan says feed him separately, but bear in mind that his aggressiveness over food may not be related to missing out on food earlier in life, he may simply be a very dominant, strong minded puppy.

1. Nutro Lamb and Rice 2. Raw meat, chicken wings/carcasses, canned mackerel, cooked liver, raw eggs, yoghurt, brisket bones, leftovers. 3. Advantage if I have a problem with fleas which is rare, I haven't had fleas for a long time. We don't have ticks here. 4. Kong Wubba, Cuz Ball 5. Ball games mostly, fetch or football 6. Research, research before you get your puppy and make sure you get a breed that is going to fit into your lifestyle. Don't allow a puppy to get away with behaviours that you wouldn't want in an adult dog. Train your dog and make sure that it gets an appropriate amount of exercise and mental stimulation for its breed. Sorry that's three things.

I agree, I gave SB to one of my older girls and she wouldn't touch it. I changed to Joint Guard.

Don't worry about it, he'll start to eat again as soon as she's gone out. My dogs normally don't eat for 3/4 days, it's perfectly normal.

Don't be silly, I'm a dog showing person remember, I don't do sensitive I think I misunderstood your post, when you said that the dog had bronzed in the sun and now looks chocolate instead of black I assumed that he had a reddish tint all over his body. Now you say that he is bronze only on his face and tail which is a huge difference to what you implied in your first post. I have black and tan dogs and I'm afraid that if one of my dogs looked chocolate instead of black he'd be pulled from the ring so when I read that I thought :D My dogs do sometimes have a few reddish hairs even though I take a great deal of care of their coats, the red hair is usually dead so I pull it out, it's usually on the elbows and the top of the head. Have you tried pulling it out with your fingers against the lay of the hair?

Isn't it a great job :D I find that PP Seabreeze Oil is excellent for pee and fanny feathers although a lot of people prefer Reviva Coat.

And talking of maintaining coats between shows has just reminded me that I need to get off DOL and go and wash some pee feathers

Wouldn't it be better to do your trimming well in advance of the show so that it has a chance to blend in? As for the red tint the colour enhancing shampoos will help a bit, but you'll still be able to see it especially in the sun. It sounds as if you need to put a lot more work into your coats between shows. Unfortunately with long coated dogs you have to look after their coats all the time, leaving the dogs in the yard and then giving them a bath and a trim the day before a show just isn't enough.

I don't think that Cosmolo meant you should confine him to a kennel, the dog needs fresh air and room to play and explore, boxers are very active, boisterous pups with a real zest for life. ETA put the crate next to your bed at night and once he's used to it and settled move it somewhere else if that's what you want.

If you're out all day the puppy would be better off outside. Confining a young boxer puppy to a small room and a crate for most of the day isn't a good idea, he'll start tearing the place apart out of sheer boredom and frustration.

I've seen a stafford pup that looked similar to yours at puppy pre-school, it was small and fine and had the same sort of head, definitely off type for the breed. It looked like a cross to me, but they swore it was purebred as they'd seen both the parents, it didn't have papers so who knows. I just assumed it was a badly bred stafford. The puppy in the photo appears to have an apple head, hence the similarity to a chihuahua. ETA that I'm not trying to be rude or upset you, I'm simply giving my opinion.

I ordered a heap from Ebay and the dogs like them, but they're not crazy about them, they much prefer pigs ears. Venison ears are much drier and obviously contain minimum fat. I will buy them again.