Miranda

No one assumed you were spottychick. As poodlefan said, ask away, you won't find a better forum than DOL, there is a wealth of knowledge on here.

I just checked the publication date and it's 1993 LOL, so I expect the later editions are very different. We also have to remember that dry dog foods are generally much better quality now, back in 1993, we had Pal Meaty Bites, Harpers Dog Chow and Winalot and that was about it, compared to what we have now these brands were all pretty ordinary. I have nothing against the guy, but some of his comments were a bit hard to believe back in the early days, for instance he says that he recognises a kibble fed dog as soon as it walks into his surgery because of its thin bones and sickly appearance! That is just way over the top IMO. BTW I feed only a mimimal amount of dry food, the majority of my dogs' food is from fresh animal sources.

or here Am I truely reading this Miranda.. is this the beginning of the end of our synergy of minds?? I think some of his ideas are good, but basically he implies that raw is 100% good and kibble is 100% bad and that's a little too black and white for me. I have an early edition of 'Give Your Dog A Bone' here and I find some of his suggestions a little bizarre, one of them is 'throw your dog a can of baked beans', can you imagine the results of that LOL. I am flicking through the book now and I disagree with quite a lot of it, but as I say it's an early publication and he's probably amended some parts in later editions.

or here

Ahhh the good old days........train wrecks and popcorn, such fond memories

It's just a difference of opinion spottychick, happens on DOL all the time, one person thinks one thing and another person thinks the opposite, it's no big deal. If everyone thought the same DOL would be a very boring place.

My opinion spottychick and it's also my opinion that it was probably the raw diet and the glucosamine supplement that improved the health of your old dog and helped you to raise a healthy puppy, the VAN probably had little to do with it. Many people have seen improvements in dogs with allergies when they've introduced a raw diet and many people have seen improvements in arthritic dogs when a glucosamine supplement is added to their food, many of these people don't use VAN. As I said it's my opinion that VAN is a waste of money, it just doesn't happen agree with yours.

I bought some to try a few years ago even though I didn't like the ingredients and the dogs hated it. I threw it out (couldn't find anyone who wanted it) and certainly wouldn't buy it again, personally I think it's a waste of money.

I'm glad to hear that he's almost back to normal deltron, it's been a stressful time for you

I've had one singleton litter and the puppy grew up to be perfectly normal. However I did have 10+ dogs at the time, if a puppy lived in a single dog household and just had its mother it may need a little more work. The only things I noticed were that his mother had to be restrained from licking him when he was first born (probably because she only had one to clean) and he did get rather fat from having uninterrupted access to the milk bar. Other than that he was no different to any of the other puppies I have had.

Highly likely. I can't feed two of my dogs any product containing corn (maize) because it has the same effect, it goes straight through them. I notice that Royal Canin Large Breed Adult lists corn twice in its first four ingredients and maize gluten appears as number six on the ingredients list, that's a hell of a lot of corn.

You are probably just feeding him too much food, but he may also have sore gums as he's teething as Nekhbet said. Try taking his evening meal and dividing it into two, feed him one half in the morning and one half in the evening, anything he leaves should be picked up and removed. Monitor his weight, you should be able to feel his ribs but not see them and he should have a clearly defined waist, if you feel he's not carrying enough weight and he seems really hungry add a little more food. I would also ditch the puppy milk, it contains sugar and your dog doesn't need it. Try giving him some bones, substitute a chicken wing (if he's a small breed) or a frame for one of his meals, this is also good for his teeth. With the lead training, have you tried encouraging him in happy voice, running backwards calling 'pup, pup, pup, pup, pup' and then rewarding him when he comes? Try tempting him with something special like roast chicken or dog roll, something that he doesn't usually get. You could also take him off your property and allow him to explore the great outdoors at his own speed, just hold onto the lead and let him wander around and sniff until he gets used to it. Never pull the dog, you'll just teach him to resist and dislike the lead. Can't help you with the trees I'm afraid, I suppose it would depend on what they're actually using, I doubt that they'll be using anything deadly because if it was harmful to dogs chances are it would be harmful to humans as well.

It sounds like cold tail. Usually the tail returns to normal within a couple of weeks, sometimes a couple of days. There is no treatment but if he's showing a lot of discomfort NSAIDS can help.

Corvus from what I've gathered you allowed one of your two dogs to attack the other on more than one occasion which makes me think that you are actually ill informed regarding dog interaction. If the other dog was 'really messed up' you should have either consulted a professional, kept the dogs permanently separated or had the aggressor euthanased. Allowing the situation to continue was totally unacceptable IMO. Regarding dog fights, if you are prepared to 'break them up if they are still going by the time I get there' or you 'step between the dogs if I think one is about to start in front of me' you have obviously never witnessed or been involved in a serious full on fight between two large, determined dogs. Dogs are capable of inflicting massive damage or even killing each other and some dogs just can't be separated, you can receive terrible injuries trying to break up two fighting dogs. Quite frankly I find the way you deal with dogs reckless and foolhardy and I wouldn't be at all surprised if a dog you own ends up seriously injured or incurs a dangerous dog declaration. Some of the things you come out with leave me speechless so I have nothing more to say.

Even a stout stick won't stop a determined dog corvus. This dog took absolutely no notice of its owner who was trying to call it back, it just kept going. I've got pretty strong nerves and I don't scare easily, but I admit that I was terrified, I saw the dog flatten mine and I thought my boy was dead I really did. When I got him back there was a lot of saliva round his neck, a rip on his collar and one tooth mark, he was very lucky, if the other dog had been slimmer and fitter he'd have been in bad trouble. You must have nerves of steel if you're prepared to allow dogs to work things out on their own, sure it might work most of the time, but if it doesn't there could be tragic consequences and personally I won't put my dogs at risk under any circumstances.

Yes twice. I was walking one of my bitches off leash and came around a corner and met a dog I didn't know. The dogs sniffed each other as per normal and when my girl went to move off the other dog attacked her. My girl ran and the other dog gave up and ran back to his owner. Very strange because the dog that attacked was a male. The other time was quite recent, I was playing ball with one of my boys at the park and a person approached with two dogs on lead, when they saw my dog they started barking and growling. Before I could call my boy the larger of the two dogs lunged, pulled his owner flat on his face and raced straight over to my dog knocking him over and pinning him by the throat. Somehow my boy got out from under him and ran for his life with the other dog hot on his heels. Luckily my dog is a running breed and he simply outran the other dog, he was chased out of the park and along the road before the other dog gave up, had he been caught I dread to think what would have happened as my dog's no fighter and this dog was extremely aggressive. I was also lucky that it was quite warm and the other dog being much more solid just ran out of breath and energy. At home I've had very few fights and all were caused by my carelessness and temporary lack of supervision, once between two males over a bitch in season and the others were between pre-season bitches over food that had been left out.

No you're not making yourself clear to me, but then I manage my dogs very differently. I don't know how long you've had dogs, but you appear to have had many, many more fights and 'near misses' than I have in over 30 years of owning multiple dogs, up to 11 at any one time. I disagree with the way you do things, but I don't think what I or anyone else says will make any difference to what you think, actually I wonder why you bothered starting this topic.

I'm not a dog trainer but IMO you are living very dangerously and may be putting your dogs in harms way. I don't know if you've ever been involved in a full blown dog fight, but I have and I will do everything I can to avoid them, this includes controlling my dogs' interactions with other dogs, especially dogs I don't know.

Agreed. This could be a dangerous thing to do IMO.

I don't think any of those products are available here, you could try importing (I think Mirra Coat also comes in powder form), but you run the risk of having it confiscated by AQIS. There are similar products available in Australia, Megaderm is one that comes to mind.

I suppose you may have to resign yourself to the fact that you may never know exactly what happened

I have just had a 7 year old 35kg bitch desexed and it cost $215.00, I think that $350.00 for a young male of that weight is pretty expensive.

My dogs are on Orijen and they also have inconsistent and smelly poo and more gas, I'm not 100% happy with it, but the dogs certainly look happy and well and as others have said their coats are excellent. I have also tried Artemis Fresh Mix and it didn't suit my dogs at all, sloppy, smelly poo and LOTS of gas. The Artemis Power Formula was slightly better, but not much. I used to feed Nutro and didn't have any of these problems even though according to its ingredients it's an inferior product to both Orijen and Artemis.

A friend of mine had a dog bitten in Queensland earlier this year, she knew it was a brown because the dog had killed the snake. She rushed the dog straight to the vet and she received antivenin within 20 minutes of being bitten, she stayed overnight at the vet and went home the next morning and has made a complete recovery. However she was warned that a dog can appear to recover and then relapse, luckily this dog didn't and was ok. So a dog can recover from a brown snake bite although it can depend on how much venom is injected and the size of the dog can also be a factor. Monash are excellent vets and your dog couldn't be in a better place. Fingers crossed that your little man is ok.

Storm my dogs had something like this last year, one dog came down with very similar symptoms plus vomiting and it rapidly spread to two of the others although the rest didn't get it. My vet diagnosed a bacterial infection and gave them (I think) Trisoprim tablets and it cleared up in a couple of days. The dogs weren't hospitalised and I kept them hydrated by syringing Gastrolyte down their throats.