Miranda

No, definitely not. Baby teeth fall out on their own without any need of surgical intervention, in some breeds you may get a retained canine tooth and if this is the case you can ask a vet to remove it, but at 5 months your puppy hasn't even finished teething so I would suggest that you tell the vet to leave her teeth alone. If your dog has hind dew claws by all means have them removed, but if she's like most dogs and only has them on her front legs then leave them, she is unlikely to have problems with them and removal isn't necessary. Some breeders remove dew claws a day or so after birth when it is easily done, but it's a far bigger procedure to have them taken off at 5 months. Just have your dog desexed, the other procedures are totally unnecessary and it sounds like a money making exercise to me, if it were me I would be finding another vet.

I had a few 'disagreements' with him so I remember him very well

Erny I think there used to be someone with the user name Anthony79 who was trying to train a stafford to be a protection dog.

Me too and I'm not even involved in this thread I think you wrote that you used to have an ACD, but you wanted a challenge so you bought a breed that's never used for security or protection and you're trying to train it for bitework? Do tell us which breed, I'm really curious now

Are you absolutely certain that she doesn't have fleas? Just because you haven't seen any doesn't mean that she is free of fleas. Do you have her on any form of flea treatment such as Advantage? It takes only one bite to produce a reaction in a susceptible dog, flea saliva causes intense itching in some dogs and the subsequent scratching and biting can injure the skin and cause secondary infections. If you are 100% certain that she has no fleas but the itching continues you may have to go to the vet and get a course of cortisone, it's a drug that you want to avoid if you can, but if you've tried all other options sometimes it's necessary to break the cycle.

Old dogs sometimes become intolerant of other dogs and just want to be left alone, obviously she no longer wants to play with the male and the growling is a warning which he is obviously ignoring, hence the fighting. The hormone treatment may have something to do with your girl's altered behaviour, perhaps your vet may be able to help you in this regard.

Have a look at the Triangle of Temptation, I used this to train my dogs to stay and it is highly effective, probably because you are training in drive. My dogs will now stay indefinitely, even when I am out of sight.

At exactly the age your puppy is now, about 4 months of age

As I said in another thread try Delete, it's a deodorant and disinfectant and works wonders.

Running the dog long distances on hard, unnatural surfaces such as roads and pavements would have put a great deal of stress on his ligaments and joints, especially if your boyfriend started running him at an early age. Although the OES is a working breed they were not designed to run several kilometres at a sustained speed on concrete. The dog would have been travelling fairly fast for long periods of time and if this occurred on a daily basis, it would have been pretty hard on the dog. I don't agree that overexercising causes HD, but if a dog has a predisposition to the disease it will certainly exacerbate the condition. In this case I'd say that yes, Rocky is paying for it now.

I highly recommend Ray Ferguson and Mark Foley at Monash Veterinary Clinic, I can't say they're the best vets in Melbourne because of course I haven't been to them all, but I can say that I've been going there for years and I am very, very happy with them. I have to travel nearly an hour to get there, but it's well worth it, they really are excellent

I have had a number of dogs develop tonsillitis over the years and three of them eventually had their tonsils removed, it's something that isn't uncommon in my breed. I found that antibiotics were very effective, but a few weeks after the course was finished the symptoms would return, one of my dogs battled infected tonsils for over a year or so, he lacked condition, never ate properly and was always a little flat and he improved 100% once they were removed. In some cases one or two courses of antibiotics will clear it up, but if the tonsillitis keeps recurring it is better to have them removed. It's a simple procedure and recovery time is about 48 hours.

Weimlover I suggest that you PM nynka, she is a breeder/exhibitor of keeshonden and will be able to help you.

Definitely a C3 for their first vaccination.

You are expecting an awful lot of an 8 week old puppy who has little control over his bladder. He will be at least 4 or 5 months old before he is reliably toilet trained and the fact that you live in an apartment does make it harder. If possible I would leave the fly screen to the balcony opened, put in a doggy door and train him to go outside. As persephone suggests you will probably find it easier if you crate train the puppy. Regarding chewing, puppies will chew anything they have access to and this is another reason to crate your puppy when you can't supervise him. Please show a little tolerance, as others have said this puppy is a tiny baby and you can't expect puppies of this age to be trained in a week.

If you can't solve the problem any other way ask the landlady if she will allow you to crate the dogs inside overnight. We have a lot of possums here and I can't stand barking at night, crating them inside means that I don't hear a peep out of them.

I've had long coated breeds for over 30 years and I've never found a way to make coat grow faster, if the dog is receiving a less than optimum diet then yes supplements will improve the quality of the coat, but they won't make it grow faster. IMO coat length and density depends on the genes the dog has inherited from its sire and dam, I have found that some dogs just have more coat than others and it doesn't always follow that heavily coated parents produce heavily coated pups, at least not in my breed. Hair does grow quicker in summer than winter, that applies to humans as well as dogs, but as for giving a dog some substance that increases the speed of hair growth...........I wish!

Yes I have black dogs and they overheat very easily, if the temperature is in the 20's, the sun's shining and there's a bit of humidity they don't want to do much of anything, let alone go for a long walk. High humidity knocks them around badly. Try walking her either early in the morning or in the evening after the sun's gone down. And I agree with persephone, keep your dog on the leash.

I have an anti-stat brush from Plush Puppy and no it doesn't seem to make much difference. Is this what you mean? Static electricity is often present when humidity levels are low, Chris Christensen have a product called After Bath which when used as a final rinse definitely helps to eliminate the flyaway coat associated with static electricity. Or am I speaking about something totally different?

Definitely feed them separately, all dogs should be able to eat their food in peace without being hassled by another dog.

thanks dogmad - yep someone said to me you will definitely know when your dogs are fighting. Yes you certainly will, dog fights are horrible, I've had a couple and they're very frightening at the time, I hate them.

For the first time ever I vaccinated my pups with C5 vaccine last year and they both contracted canine cough three months later. One of them was ok, but the other was quite sick for a few days, so I don't subscribe to the theory that vaccinated dogs have milder symptoms or recover more quickly. In the past I have only ever vaccinated with C3 and this is what I'll be doing in the future.

Most dogs prefer to urinate on something absorbent, no help I know, but that's usually why they prefer carpet to tiles.

black_dog I'm not trying to be smart, but I'd be more worried about the dog escaping than about the throwing up. Anyway in answer to your query, all my dogs eat grass and throw up occasionally, sometimes the grass goes all the way through and comes out the other end and sometimes it's vomited up. Once a week is a little often, but it's probably not a cause for concern.

Dogs do not need to chew their food, they are designed to rip and tear at their prey and then swallow it in large chunks, the meat and bone is then broken down in the stomach which is highly acidic and quite capable of dissolving bone. Gulping food is a survival mechanism, if you're a wild dog you have to get your food down quickly before you lose it to another pack member. A dog's saliva acts purely as a lubricant, it doesn't contain any digestive enzymes so chewing food is of no benefit to the dog. Human and herbivore saliva contains ptyalin which predigests starch by turning it into sugar, as dogs are carnivores and do not naturally eat carbohydrate of any kind they have no need of this enzyme. Actually a dog's digestive tract is very different to that of a human, they are a totally different species.