Staranais

Sounds like he's getting quite a few chicken necks relative to his dry/wet food? That could cause dry skin in a baby (and other health issues). Like Ososwift says, I'd put him either on either a balanced raw diet (including organs & red meat & skin), a balanced commercial diet, or some combination of the two. Although it's quite OK to give a dog on a commercial diet bones & chunks of meat for dental health, substituting a substantial amount of his commercial diet with chicken necks alone may not be doing him much good. As mentioned, fish oil is good for coat & joints (include vit E with it), flaxseed oil is also good for coats.

Yeah, even if dogs appear to recover from distemper, they can have neuro diseases that only become apparent years later. I'm glad we can vaccinate for it nowadays. It's such a nasty disease. I don't think we'll ever truly eliminate it, though, since it's one of those diseases that is lurking in other species ready to re-infect our dogs if canine herd immunity falls too low. There was a huge outbreak in Finland in the mid 90s when a batch of vaccine failed, about 1500 dogs died.

Your vet is right - you just can't know for sure what it is unless you send it away for histology. There are lots of lumps & tumours that old dogs can get, most are benign but some are malignant, and many can look quite similar. Sometimes the vet may be able to sample some cells from the middle of the lump (fine needle aspirate), which can give them a good guess about what the lump is, & may be a little cheaper than sending a lump away for histo. You're right that a tumour that has adhered to the underlying tissue is more likely to be malignant (as is a tumour that grows really fast, or ulcerates). But those are just general rules of thumb, tumours don't read the textbook so don't always do what they're supposed to do.

Stormie is dead right, you can divide the tab by 4 to get approximately the same dose as is in the small dog tablet. I'm glad you didn't follow the first suggestion. I'd be very cautious about taking drug advice from people you don't know over the internet. Capstar (Nitenpyram) has a high margin of safety, but even so it's just not a smart plan to give it at twice the recommended dosage (as you would have done if you'd given half a tablet).

That's an interesting point, I'm glad someone bought it up. I'm guessing people are more easy going when judging the Queen than they would be on your random old lady. Most people have a soft spot for the queen. Plus, who's going to tell her she's wrong? For myself though, I'm wondering, does the queen ever sell these "Dorgies" at all? If she's kept them all as her own personal dogs, then I think that's less of a problem than someone that crossbreeds puppies to sell, since her dogs presumably won't be getting sold as "hypoallergenic" and won't be getting dumped in the shelter system by impulse buyers when the novelty wears off.

I know it costs a lot! And most dog insurance won't cover it as it's experimental/unproven therapy. There's only one place locally that can do it here. They tell me that there's no published studies showing that it actually works yet, although anecdotally there are some good results & many vets thinks it looks really promising. Can't wait to see some real studies done on it. Meglet, have you tried the injectable Pentosan/Cartrophen? Works really well for some dogs, not so well for others, but very cheap to try compared to stem cell therapy.

I'd say worth getting it assessed. If turns out that it's prey drive or something causing the behaviour, you might not want to bother training at her age. But if it's fear causing the behaviour, then I think it's worth working on either desensitising her to the mower or removing her from the vicinity any time the mower gets used, as getting regularly terrified by machinery can't be very pleasant for her at her age either. JMO.

If you want to use it as an alternative to vaccination certificate for the purposes of dog school/boarding kennels etc, I'd think you'd need to titre test annually after the vaccine period runs out. i.e., if the original vaccine was licensed for 3 years, you'd need to titre test annually after 3 years. But that would depend on the policy of the particular boarding kennel or dog school. If you're just doing it for your own interest, I guess you can do them whenever.

except idiots like me wont break the law so its me an mine who pay for them and theirs. That doesnt stop one dog from suffering. Yeah, that was pretty much my point. The laws will only affect law abiding people - and we're not usually the problem.

Doesn't matter what laws they pass if they don't bother enforcing them. ETA, I mean that in the sense that, I don't think any new laws will do any good anyway. They could pass those laws, but I reckon that 99% of the people who the law should target (the people that don't desex due to apathy or because they might want to have just one litter with an unhealth-tested fluffy) won't be caught. It will be just like the current dog laws - since they don't enforce the dog laws effectively, it's only the responsible, law abiding people that are affected by the laws, and they're not usually the people who are the problem.

I haven't desexed my dog, and don't intend to unless she needs it for health reasons. I'd never desex a working dog that young, unless necessary. I think that's my right to make that decision, unless perhaps I prove to be a hopelessly irresponsible owner.

Wonder why she thinks a biopsy won't tell much? You could possibly get rads sent to a specialist in another town, & get a report sent back.

I'd get a biopsy done too, and/or get the rads sent to be read by a specialist radiologist. If you're worried about the hips you could get them x-rayed too, but like Stormie I've never heard of a sudden ankle (stifle or hock?) swelling as symptom of HD. It's good they think it isn't an osteosarcoma.

I haven't had the problem in any of my dogs, but have just spent a few days trailing an eye surgeon specialist around, so will be really interested to hear how the operation goes for you. Please let us know how it goes! I have heard of lens removal in cataract surgery, but not lens replacement, it sounds like an amazing advancement. Also, many genetic health issues can manifest in middle age or old age. Genes switch on and off at the body at different times depending on the age of the animal & the environment it is exposed to. Think of things like male pattern baldness, osteoarthritis, type 2 diabetes, bloat in dogs - there is definitely a genetic component to all of these things, even though they may not manifest until middle age or later. Late onset cataracts are the same. My understanding is that there's often a primary eye problem such as glaucoma that triggers the development of late-onset cataracts in dogs, but that the genetic predisposition is inherited (so in other words, a dog without the inherited predisposition would not have produced cataracts as a result of the primary eye problem). I hope it all works out well for you!

Bad rap have an amazing website! http://www.badrap.org/rescue/owning.html

I think it could be done on a fairly conservative budget - and also, I reckon that if everyone that fed raw and wants to see research gave like $5 to the cause, there could easily be a doctoral scholarship funded for a postgrad vet or biologist. But bags not organising it, that would be a headache. ETA - and bags not doing it, I already have some other pHD projects in mind if I feel like more time in academia! But I bet someone would be interested in doing it, if the funds could be found.

Sort of, except that it's not just a choice between filthy teeth or feeding bones. There are other options to keep dog's teeth clean - you could brushing your dogs teeth, works brilliantly so long as you do it at least every 36 hours or so, and no side effects whatsoever. So if you did a study and found that the risks of eating bones were higher than expected (or higher than expected in certain types of dogs, or in dogs with certain health conditions, or whatever), there are other options for those dogs.

I don't. Sure, numbers help. Sure, the more spays & neuters I do by myself, the more confident I feel about doing desexings, and the more confident I feel about doing surgery in general. But doing a routine neuter where nothing goes wrong is IMO different for a student surgeon than doing a GIT or orthopaedic surgery, or a surgery where something goes wrong & your patient has a huge bleeder or is crashing on the table (all of which are simulated in our non-recoveries). Like I said, I am completely sure you could design a really good course that was recovery-only. But it would take a bit of thought. I would not like to see these experiences taken out of our course without replacing them with something similar (not just more routine recovery castrates). After going through the course, I feel I really benefited from them.

You could learn to squeeze them yourself, then you won't need to go to the vets to get it done. It's really easy, the vet can show you how in about 5 minutes. Some people find that adding bones, or lots of fibre, to the diet helps the dog express them by themselves. Although it doesn't seem to do anything for other dogs. I'm not sure I'd go for surgery unless they were inflammed & sore & getting constantly reinfected, but it's your call.

I'd love to see studies on the incidence of the various serious problems that can be caused by raw bones. I had a look once, and couldn't find anything investigating it. It would be good to be able to work out the stats, e.g. to calculate things like, out of every 10,000 bones eaten, how many dogs have a gut perforation that requires surgery. And then we would know for sure how risky eating bones is, compared to other things our dogs do. As it is, everyone's just guessing. Vets who see all the local gut perforations and who have not necessarily researched raw feeding probably greatly over-estimate the risk of eating bones (and dog food companies like that message since they can't corner the market on raw bones!) But on the other hand, there's no doubt that some dogs do die or need surgery as a result of eating bones.

That sucks. If possible, I'd be driving pup a little way away to a nicer/safer area, then walking her there. If you're worried about reporting them in case they guess who you are, you could wait a week or two to do it so they forget all about you?

Oh dear, that's a pity! I was hoping the crate rest would have done the trick for you. If he needs the surgery, you can still give the supplements to help the joint heal & to protect the cartilage. My understanding is that there's very little concrete evidence that these oral supplements help significantly to prevent arthritis (with the possible exception of Pentosan), but they may help and they're not thought to do any harm. Since her shoulder OCD surgery my girl has been filled with so many pills she nearly rattled, poor thing, not to mention the injectable chondroprotectants she is periodically given. What we're on, if it helps, is glucosamine, fish oil (+ vit E), green lipped mussels (she likes them whole, but you can get powder!), and injectable Pentosan. She also sometimes gets chondroitin & MSM.

If it's from fighting lines, it's more likely to be DA than your average dog. That's what fighting lines means - it will have been bred specifically to fight other dogs, sometimes to the death. But as Poodlefan says, DA doesn't translate into HA - I've met many pitbulls that were lovely and extremely stable around people. I'd call the council if I were you, and enquire about the laws surrounding pitbulls in your area. You don't need to tell them who you are, or why you're calling.

Will the council demand it be PTS, or does it just have to be muzzled in public/neutered etc? I'm not sure of the laws in your area, hopefully someone local could help you out. If the pup would otherwise be seized or PTS, you could consider registering it with the council and at the vets as a crossbreed stafford dog. After all, so far as he knows, it is a crossbreed stafford dog. He possibly doesn't need to say what it's crossbred with unless the specifically ask? If he keeps it he should make very damn sure it does nothing to come to the attention of the authorities - i.e., be a very responsible and conscientious dog owner, and make sure the pup is both very well socialised, and very well trained.

Well, to be fair they're perfectly right that these things can happen. I know dogs that all of those things have happened to. But I'm not sure that they're being realistic about how often it happens. Most dogs eat soft, raw bones with no problems at all, let alone dangerous problems like bowel perforations.