greentea

I agree the Squirt Pina Colada smells yummy but once the dog is washed in it and dried off I just can't smell it anymore. I find the only thing that holds the nice smell is coat conditioner spray or canine cologne.

I see. Thanks Ellz! I still think if it were my dog I would be at the vet at the first sign of infection... Then again I am pretty over-protective of my dogs esp when it comes to ears!

Thanks for agreeing with me Schnauzer. Like I said, get the cytology done. I truly think this dog needs to go to the vet. Don't know how a wave could cause this? ;) This problem of people not being able to afford veterinary care concerns me greatly. I feel for you if you are doing it tough, I really do. However after some recent vet bills my OH and I were talking about how owning a sick dog can be more costly than a baby. I mean at least with humans we have medicare and public hospitals and other such clinics and services- but for animals you really need a few thousand on hand all the time. I mean for example we spent $2000 last week on tests just to find out the problem is an inability to digest dry-food. Pretty simple solution huh! yet it was important that we made sure everything was checked out.

Online I think. It is pretty cheap from the vet though.

Hmmm I'm no vet but it sounds like maybe he has a yeast infection in his ears. My two suffer with chronic ear problems so I feel I can tell you something about it. I think you need to get him to a vet asap, have some tests done on his ears. Just a simple swab of the ear and put it under a slide so they can see if there is an infection be it yeast, or other bacteria etc... Ear cytology costs about $50 I think. Shaking his head and a smell coming from the ears sounds like medication is needed rather than a simple trip to the groomer... He may have ear mites, this will show up on a slide test as well. Once a diagnosis is made, you will need to get some Epi-Otic and cotton balls or swabs and clean the gunk out of his ears, you might then need to medicate I don't know what your vet will say. Perhaps you need to get some powder and pluck the hair out of his ears as it may be trapping moisture allowing bugs to grow? Also maybe you should treat him with Revolution for the mites. This is what we did: After cytology confirmed mites and yeast. 1. Applied Revolution to back of neck. 2. Powdered ears and plucked out hair. 3. Cleaned with Epi-Otic, massaged & wiped out gunk with swabs. 4. Waited an hour for ears to dry from cleaning. Applied Dermotic for yeast infection. Did the Epi Otic and Dermotic twice a day for 7 days. Retested ears to confirm infection gone. Now as maintainence I clean their ears with EpiOtic twice a week and remove hair every month.

I never go into the Rainbow Bridge forum because I know I'll cry. And cry I did. I really feel for you and your family. All the Green Teas are thinking of you.

Oh no! This is awful, I feel for you. You must be so upset, you were trying to do the right thing by the rescue dog and also your own dog. I can't think of anything more worrying. I thought the vaccination would mean he was safe, didn't it work? I am thinking of your poor little rescue boy. of luck./

Yep sounds like our grooming block too! Only it is big like a brick so I get the OH to break it into smaller pieces for me. Sometimes it can graze the skin on sensitive areas like the head, so I am very gentle there and prefer to finish off with my fingers and a lot of powder. I was taught to keep the coat rolling so it never really blows and needs to be stripped back to bald. Though with the head I have been trying to get it back to bald so the colour can get stronger in that area... I don't know if this approach is possible with your breed though? I tend to the coats every week for a about a couple of hours and daily I give them a little once over. For me it was impossible at first, I had to be shown how. Good luck and let us all know how you go!

I feed tuna in oil because my two are underweight and also tend to have dry coats. Also I feed sashimi tuna and salmon. This is deboned of course. We get it from our local Japanese restauarant to takeaway. Some for me, some for the dogs! They love it and so do I, though I like mine with soy sauce and they have theirs sans sauce.

How could I forget my little terrorist! She is such a clown, honestly! As for her coat, that is another story. She has been clipped (not by me of course) so it will take a fair bit of work to get it up to scratch... We aren't sure if we will be showing her, just waiting on a few things first! Showdog is right though, you shoud contact the club!

Is this coming from the butcher? Or is the pet mince you can get at the supermarket that says not fit for human consumption?? I was under the impression that butchers use the old off cuts for pet mince... Either way, I am like Staffyluv, I choose not to feed that stuff to my dogs. We only eat organic meat at our house, so the same applies for our dogs. While they require different things to us, I make sure the ingredients used are the same standard as ours. It is just a personal thing though...

What is "puppy mince"? If it were cooked, would you eat it? If not, then it is probably pet grade food. I would prefer to buy mince from the butcher and get some veges etc and do it myself. The dog might realise that he is getting substandard food if it is indeed "pet grade"... They are clever critters!

Are you going to show your dog? If not, maybe you could consider what Miranda mentioned - the Mars Coat King. I looked into it originally but because it tends to make a Griffon's coat grow back fluffier and lighter, the other Griffon exhibitors told me not to use it. If you are not going to show, it might be a good alternative to clipping... Certainly don't give up though. I couldn't do the stripping at first because I had a health issue and also I just needed to see in action what had to be done, but now I quite enjoy getting my boy to look more and more beautiful!

Why don't you give the club a call, in VIC. They are usually very willing to give you contacts and advice. Another breeder or exhibitor may be willing to meet you and help you out for a small fee. I found the pumice stone is good on the puppy fluff but not so good on the rough coat, alternatively you can buy a 'grooming block' it is a bit harsher than a pumice and seems to work better on the back and legs etc. You can gret them online I think Petnetwork or they always sell them at shows for about $5. Pulling the old hairs by hand is easy on the back, why don't you start there?

Dear Miss Fritz, My Griffons need to be hand stripped as well. It is difficult to find groomers willing to do it for you, though I suspect within the Schnauzer community there will be someone. Actually I am quite sure there is someone. If you contact your club, they should be able to tell you sho it is. They can demonstrate it for you. It can be quite tricky, if you are stripping your dog for show, it really is an art. An art I still haven't been able to master ha ha! Anyway, it isn't painful. If you get your thumb and index finger and hold a few bits of hair and pull in the direction of the growth, you will see the hair should come straight out and it doesn't hurt the dog. It usually only hurts in the sensitive areas like the ears and face. You can use a chalk or a powder first as this makes it easy to grip. Then you could wear some rubber gloves or those thumble rubber things on your fingers all of these make it really easy to grip the hair. Just keep pulling and you will see it comes out nicely and there is a new rough coat growing underneath. You can also buy a stripping knife, but be careful you use it to pull rather than cut. I find it a bit hard to use still, I tend to cut and this is very bad for the coat, so I don't use that much. With my breed, there are bits we don't remove and bits that must be bald (i.e ears and head) so it is really important you find out which bits you have to remove on your breed. We got a little map that shows where and how much to pull and I just follow that. For the first strip I took a bit off the back and sides, but left the rest as I wasn't too confident. I took Henry to an excellent groomer who happens to be on DOL and if you are in luck, she might see this thread and post some more advice to you... (bump! You know who your are!) After that I could see what to do and now I am getting quite ok at it. It takes time, I think the most important thing is to get someone to demonstrate it for you first time, then you will be confident to take it from there. Is there anyone like the breeder who coould show you?

The only dry food Henry likes is Eukanuba puppy. We have tried all the rest. I am going to try Eaglepack though because I prefer the sound of that one.

Hmm this was a good question, made me calculate! I have been told Henry's diet is over the top before, so if anyone wants to tell me that again, please refrain from doing so as I have heard it all before! It took a while to work out what was best for him, and I feel this is it. He is happy and helathy so I think I am doing ok. Umm well we have only had Beatrice a couple of days so I won't count her in for this one. Henry is a toy breed. Very tiny! However I'd say I spend more than $60 a week feeding the little gremlin. He eats 3 times a day. Breakfast is either one handful of Eukanuba biscuits with cooked organic chicken breast and raw silverbeet. Or handful of Eukanuba biscuits and tinned tuna in oil. Lunch is either raw organic lamb mince and 2 raw organic chicken necks smashed up because he has been injured by gobbling bones. Or salmon sashimi and cabbage chopped with parsely. Dinner is passionfruit and orange chopped up followed by rice cooked with steak and brocoli. Sometimes he has chopped up boiled eggs with raw aparagus. Throughout the day he has puppy milk and water to drink. I also give him the skin off smoked pork hocks. He likes to chew the skin and drag it's oily residue all through the house! We go for 2 or three walks a day. He is only little so each walk lasts about 25 mins. He still sleeps a lot during the day and plays with me the rest of the time. He goes to doggy day care twice a week all day and comes home buggered. Now Beatrice is here, costs will go up I'm sure, even though she weighs only 1kg she eats a lot more than Henry!

Hmm well I'm not sure about my little stinker because he does when I brush him and he likes that but he also does it when I strip him and he hates that... It can't be position because I brush him on my lap in front of the tele, but I strip him on the table. Maybe he is just a 'groom-farter'?

He bites sometimes too!! Guess I get trouble from him at both ends ha ha

As shameful as this is, I have to share... Henry has a problem. Whenever I groom him, whether it be brushing him, stripping his coat, trimming his feet or cleaning under his eyes ... HE FARTS UP A STORM. It has become quite an issue. In fact last night, all I did was get the grooming block out and hold it near him and POOF! The farting began. For such a little dog it is quite stinky. I don't remember him doing it when we went to visit Auntie Warley for grooming, but he certainly does it when I groom him, without fail. Does anyone else have a dog that does this? Do you think it is a silent but deadly protest on his part?

We try not to overbathe our boy, probably aiming for once a month. It ends up being much more frequent for the following reasons: 1. After doggy day care he comes back smelling really stinky and I don't want stinkiness in our bed! 2. He often barges into the bathroom when I'm in the shower and often comes charging in to lick the water and ends up soaked so I just wash him while he is there! 3. When he does a poo sometimes it gets caught in the hair on his backside and before I can get to it with some 'Wet Ones' he drags his pooey bottom along the pavers, thereby making himself really pooey and so I have to bathe him again! Lucky he isn't a Dane or any other large breed, in fact we just pop him into the bathroom sink and wash him there. It is so easy. Takes a few mins and a few more mins to blow dry! His skin is a bit dry, I have upped his intake of oily fish but I wish I could just wash him less, hopefully he will stop what we have called 'the poo parade' (rubbing his pooey bum on the pavers)

Thanks everyone, sorry to hear about all the other sick doggies from Drontal! Horrible stuff, I have decided.

Nope it was definitely drontal for small dogs. The vet was quite certain about having to give the drontal as well, he said that I have to give him both until he is 16 weeks and then just the advocate. Hmmf I will try Droncit then. Thanks!

Thanks Persephone, I will have a better read of all that info this evening. I wish they could just have the treatment once a year. I am going to look into alternatives to Drontal, because as a couple of you have said, tapeworm is quite a real threat. Many thanks to everyone!

Thanks everyone!