Staranais

I have read something about these foxes (if they're the same ones) they have been deliberately selectively bred for generations to be brave & friendly (i.e., they've been domesticated, not just tamed), so they would probably be lovely pets. But like people say, you couldn't import them into Aussie or NZ.

Giving the z/d a go before surgery is a good idea, IMO. Make sure you feed the z/d, and only the z/d, for 6 weeks.

Pretty sure Pseudomonas doesn't normally live in a healthy dog's ear, so she has to be catching it from somewhere. But I'd think you were right that it's a possibility that it simply wasn't cleared between treatments. I'd also wonder if there are some factors predisposing her to infection by Pseudomonas - hypothyroid, allergies, atopy, diet problems, poor ear conformation, foreign body?

Seems like a waste of money, but I can understand the sentiment behind it. People who leave dog crap behind in the streets are responsible for everyone else's dogs being banned from places.

I have not seen these done, but we've talked about them in class. Hopefully someone with practical experience can help you more. But if it's a total ear canal ablation/bulla osteotomy you're talking about, I have been told they are a very good final option for dogs with uncontrollable ear canal disease. Our lecturer (specialist surgeon) said he had seen it give many dogs a new lease on life, as they were no longer living in constant misery, and that owners were generally very satisfied with the surgery. But they are also an expensive, and sometimes risky, piece of surgery. I would definitely do one for my dog if the other option was PTS, but only when we had exhausted all the medical options. If it's a lateral wall resection or vertical ear canal ablation, my lecturer didn't like those as much, and didn't think they helped much for most dogs, especially if the horizontal ear canal was damaged (which is often the case with chronic ear infections). He said they made it easier for owners to put medicine into the ear, but rarely solved the problem by themselves. He said he would only consider doing them if the horizontal canal was completely normal still. Hopefully someone with practical experience of these surgeries can help you more, since mine is only theoretical. ETA a picture, in case you're not sure what I'm going on about with the vertical & horizontal parts of the canal:

I'm sorry about your dog.

Vets are like just about any other product or service you might want to buy. If your plumber or your mechanic is charging you through the nose (or doing a bad job), then you might want to vote with your feet and get another one. Same with your vet. Some vets only get away with charging higher fees because their clients are willing to pay. Having said that, a lot of central urban practices do charge a lot more than rural ones due to rent being much higher. And some vet clinics have better equipment or more highly trained staff than others, which is again reflected in the price. Although the most expensive vets aren't always the best, if they've got a flashy new piece of diagnostic equipment, someone has to pay for it. When I graduate, I'll be suggesting all my new puppy buyers get insurance. If the vet has a heart it's no fun for them to be putting dogs down that could be saved if the owner had sufficient funds. But they can't give credit or give discounts to everyone that walks in the door, or else they'd go out of business (or have to pass the costs onto their regular customers). As for the OP, I have previously spent around $2000 on my girl fixing her shoulder OCD. I'd do it again in a heartbeat (although I'm still paying the money back), since the results were really good for her. I now have dog insurance, so I hopefully won't need to think about whether I can afford to fix my girl if she breaks again. But like other posters, if she wasn't going to have a good quality of life after the surgery, I probably wouldn't do it (no matter the cost).

That is true. Kudos to you if you have found a home that is genuinely responsible & experienced enough to handle a dog like this. There aren't many suitable homes that will put their hands up to take a predatory, possibly DA stafford, no matter how sweet he is with people. So if you have found one, good on you. But if they're not prepared for exactly what owning this dog entails, then it will be quite shocking for them the first time they see their dog kill a cat in front of them or take a big chunk out of someone else's dog. I know, I've been there. So, I hope you've found the right home.

Have you tried a good behaviourist to get the prey drive under control? Can be a good option if you have the time & commitment to do the work. It sounds like you're describing my old stafford boy (except he also liked to munch on other dogs). He was always a high drive dog, and always dog aggressive, but he was also very, very well controlled & well behaved by the end of his days. And safe with cats, despite having killed one before I adopted him. Took a lot of work, though. ETA: no flaming from me, there were days when I almost wanted to drop my old dog off a bridge! Learnt a heck of a lot from him, though.

Thanks Steve!

I've got to say there were a few animal dissections early in our course which I got little value from (doing physiology experiments with fresh rabbit intestine, for example, taught me nothing I couldn't have gotten from the text book). I could have learned that stuff just as easily from a text book. I'd rather see those dropped from the course before our non recovery surgeries got dropped.

What happened to him?

Great photos, thanks!

Can you please share where you got that data Steve, because I've never found anything concrete to show that crossbreed dogs are on average less healthy than the average purebred. Thanks. Padgett - I didnt say one was more or less healthy over all than the other I said that here is less genetic diseases in purebreds than in mixed breeds. Less, as in fewer types of genetic disease, or lower incidence? Will have a look at Padgett, thanks - do you have first initials or name of book/article?

Can you please share where you got that data Steve, because I've never found anything concrete to show that crossbreed dogs are on average less healthy than the average purebred. Thanks. i cant vouch for averages, one family at our pony club bought a delightful samoyed x labrador, being a crossbred with hybrid vigour its guaranteed to be healthier than either parent breed, her brother bought a litter mate. That is right? isnt it? by 9 months they both were diagnosed with hip displacia. maybe without hybrid vigor they would have been born without any hip's maybe Yes, I've heard lots of anecdotes from people who swear that purebreds are healthier, but also heard lots from people who swear that crossbred dogs are healthier. I am hoping that perhaps Steve has some concrete evidence either way, if so that would be really interesting.

I'd advise you to take up Nekhbet's offer, and to crate or otherwise securely isolate the dog from kids in the meantime. Some dogs just don't like (or are reactive to) kids. I expected to have to manage my girl carefully around children when I got her, having to be careful around kids is just part and parcel of having some types of dog. I guess you don't expect it when you get a poodle. But I see no reason why you can't modify the behaviour and/or manage the situation so everyone is safe, so long as you take it seriously & seek all the help you can get.

Can you please share where you got that data Steve, because I've never found anything concrete to show that crossbreed dogs are on average less healthy than the average purebred. Thanks.

I haven't read all the posts, so possibly someone has already suggested this. But if you want to help the neighbour, I would offer that you and the neighbour could take the dogs for onleash walks together. Keep your dogs far enough away that your dogs look comfortable and the other dog doesn't do his nut at them. Benefits of this - your dogs are safe as the other dog is under physical control. Leash walking the dogs together will let the dogs get used to each other without the pressure of having to actually interact. & most aggressive dogs are far less likely to be aggressive to a dog when being leash walked beside it off the property (even when my previous, very very DA boy was at his worst, he was generally quite OK when being leash walked next to other dogs in a strange place). Or, you could just say no, that you don't want your dog having anything to do with their dog. That's a fair enough response. I certainly would not let them play together, or interact off leash. The risks are too great.

I'm the same - I'm pretty lucky. I've run into one clueless small white fluffy owner that didn't get that their dog couldn't just roam the pavement, and there are a few clueless owners of various types of dog at my local dog/bike trail that let their dog run up and jump on mine when she's clearly being trained or walking at heel. But most people round here are pretty good. Rather than getting lower council fees for "good" owners, I've always really wished that there was an advanced certificate you could sit with your dog that would give you additional privileges for that dog - perhaps you'd get a card to carry or a button to put on your dog's collar to identify it, and then be allowed to take your dog on the bus (muzzled), or have your dog allowed off leash in more areas, or have your dog allowed to go places regular dogs aren't (like the city centre), etc. I'd want them to make it very hard to pass, requiring a very, very good level of offleash obedience under major distractions. I guess that's a little OT from the thread, but I'm just sick of responsible owners & well trained dogs being barred from areas & places due to the majority of dogs being untrained and ill behaved. If an owner is willing to put the work in to make their dog a very well behaved & very obedient citizen, they should be recognised for that. But I guess there is little chance of that when they can't even police the current laws.

Oh yeah, that's what I mean - it's easy to sneak in to read the journals even if you're not a student. But you didn't hear it from me!

If you have a uni library near you, you can often get access to many journals even if you're not a student - you can just walk in off the street & look at the hardcopy journals, & sometimes even use the computer database access to online journals. Even if there is an immune response involved, it wouldn't be an autoimmune response, since it's an immune response to a foreign body.

That's great news! You explained it just fine, & I'm happy for you. It's hard to keep them confined, but it will be worth it if it avoids the surgery. Did he see the incongruity at the elbow joint in the rads, or are they just guessing it might be there? Hopefully you can avoid surgery, but if he does need it, far better to get it than not get it.

And that's even more interesting. Thanks for ferreting that out, Luke W!

Hmmm, may have solved this, not sure yet. She understood "watch that" within 3 reps (looking the big red boomer ball to earn the tug chucked in front of her), and she transfered that to watching the poles within another couple of reps. So hopefully with a little bit of work she will generalise it to watching anything I want, wherever we are. She really is a rather clever cookie. Would still love to see your video though, Vickie!

Oh that's really interesting, thanks for sharing that. I wonder if any of the older style implants are still in use?