Scottsmum

Owners located :)

He's soooo cute!

:)

they're great :)

I started making Tumeric golden paste for this reason. Ive been taking it too - costs less than $10 for a month supply - I think it works on me - I assume its working on Scottie. http://www.turmericlife.com.au/turmeric-recipes-golden-paste/

wowza

Happy gotcha day, you lucky man!

Thank you for putting me out of my misery. Ive been wondering what the dog was. She's very cute.

Those eyes! Can you ever resist?

I'm meh. I find if I take my own they're annoying to me & it can be stressful for them /him & me.

Quick update - he seems to have really perked up. We were chatting about it at home tonight - lots happier in himself, looking to go for his two (or more walks) a day & so on. What ever was brewing away seems to have settled on the ABs. Well, I hope I'm not imagining it :) but another human adult agrees with me - so that's great.

'Side burns' aka his face - where the tan turns black. Or belly/chest.

Poor, sad, neglected Donny. Tell him if it all gets too hard he can move in with Aunty Scottsmum. ... but Unfortunately we dont have any real bunnies

hadn't heard of them before. Off for a google. I love DOL (but my bank account doesn't)

Nope - we've tried antlers and hooves too...He's just not a chewer. He's not food driven at all - It's a struggle to get him to eat as a rule. Looks like brushing it is.

Background So Scottie has been a bit down recently. He's (well, we have) actually had a really huge year in terms of upset but in the last 4 weeks he's been very happy & settled, until this last week where he's just been the slightest bit down. He had a tumble at the park last week so I put it down to that, but over the last week he's been turning us around at the top of the street on our evening walks & has started putting him self to bed - which is usually a ritual of me calling him, him wagging his tail but ignoring me, and me heading off down the yard to carry him back up to his crate - this week I've been going out to find him in his crate ready for me to shut the door. Still very active, playing tug, asking for morning walks, eating, pooing normally - so really 99.9% normal - just something a touch off. I'd been tossing up weather I'd take him to the vet or not, then last night he yelped twice while I was giving him good night snuggles - so that was that. He got carted off for a full poke and prod today. (To my family vet who hasn't seen Scottie since I adopted him as I was living in Marrickville but am now back out in the Hills District of Sydney). She agreed that he's got very basic arthritis - which I knew. We discussed options and what I'm currently doing for that - agreed we might try stepping it up a bit. Otherwise, eyes, ears, temp OK. So she was happy to chalk it up to him just feeling the cold and being a bit more creaky with his arthritis at the moment. But... we also did a simple in house blood panel. His ALT is slightly elevated. It's 296 U/L (normal is 10-125 U/L). Everything else is well within normal range. The Vet decided not to start any arthritis meds but rather send him home on 2 weeks of antibiotics to see if that helps the ALT levels. But in my usualy neurotic dog mum style - I'm freaking out a bit here. Liver disease was what ultimately killed my last dog, Guin, and I still feel bad we didn't really catch it in time or make serious enough changes to her lifestyle (hence, part of the reason to drag him off to the vet when he's just a touch off). We just chalked her early stages of liver disease up to "old age". Annoyingly enough I only chucked her old vet records out the other day so I can't flick back through them to see what her first elevated reading was. I swore then if this every happened again I'd become the uber-mum who purees organic vegetables picked by virgins if that was what it took to slow the progression. His current diet is a grain free kibble (Natures goodness / VIP from the supermarket), and Ziwipeak, but he's gone off the Ziwi a bit in the last 6 months, and beef mince. Occasionally he gets a grain free can. He will eat chicken and turkey - beef is just what's on offer at the moment. It's human grade meat from the supermarket. I have tried a number of other grain free dry foods - as is well documented on the forum. He's very fussy and strictly grain free. He's on endep for separation anxiety he's been up as high as 20mg twice a day (full dose) but is currently down on a maintenance dose of 10mg once a day. I can probably get him down to 10mg every other day. I could wean him off it all together - but it makes him a much happier dog and easier to live with. He tends to be feral off it - so I don't think his being down is linked to his lower endep dose. Here are my questions I) What can or should I be doing re: elevated ALP? Any easy changes to diet. Good books, websites, scientific papers where I can have a good read? (I did look through the forum - links to appropriate threads appreciated) OR should I just sit back and see what his bloods are like after the antibiotics? before I go into full nut-job uber-mum mode. and II) He's got quite a bit of build up on his teeth and it was suggested he was due for a dental but he only had one in November. He cant have TD as he's grain free (and burgh - yuck - Hills) and he wont chew bones- he buries them. He will eat carrots. What are my best dental care options for a non-chewing, grain free Senior? Brushing? More carrot? Any ideas welcome - Yes I know I'm panicking and its super early - a pretty low elevation. thanks everyone

Thanks Aussie. I'll absolutely have a good read of that. The great news is he's really settled and happy at the moment. We've had a really unsettled year, but we're currently living with my retired parents, so he has someone around the house most of the time. He's not allowed in the house, which has been been hard on him, but he's still settled and happy. No signs of destructive behavior, one of the "kids" in the street (he'd be 25 these days) walks him 2-4 times a week for me, I do an additional AM walk and some off leash pottering in the evenings & he spends the rest of the day on his trampoline bed in the sun. One of the folks takes his jumper off around 10 and puts it back on around 4 & he gets a few sneaky treats when ever they feed the Maggies and Kookas - so even though he's terribly poorly done by - the whole no couch thing is terribly sad - he's really settled and relaxed now that there is a lot less external pressure on him, and me. :)

*sigh* I've always thought Wiz was a lovely girl - from the second I saw a photo of her. Blaze is just as lovely.

Ah. Sweet words for a sweet girl. Hugs to you.

One of Dee's favourite treats. I would also love to help out in the Pooh hunt. Baylee had a Tigger teddy that was her favourite toy. She slept with it every night for 11 and 1/2 years. We tried to replace it when it started getting little fleaing holes in it, but could never find the right one. We eventually gave up, and only gently hand washed him instead of machine washing. Adorable.

How are you getting on? Would love an update.

I had no idea dogs got corns!

Sorry to hear

Mine (11ish year old) is crated overnight at the moment, we have no other real choice. He's in there from 9pm-ish til 6am-ish. He takes his teddy or a ball with him & i pull the covers. I dudnt always feel this way, but its such a good resource / solution to have on hand. :) hope Steve helped

Poor Don. Lucky you were around