fainty_girl

I'd prefer it if vets had an extra outdoor waiting area...one of my dogs gets super nervous at the vet and I think she would be a bit more settled if she were waiting outside.

Thanks Purdie, I've taken Rusty off of the sardines, fish oil and seaweed extract to see if that helps... The flakiness is nearly all gone and I think it has improved slightly...it will be interesting to see if his fur can grow back. When my brother gets back, I will still be pestering him to take him to the vet though... This is what the back patch is looking like now...just took this a couple of minutes ago:

I recommend Advantix over Frontline :)

That's very funny Simply Grand :laugh: . I have a couple of manipulators here :laugh: ... Tilly has my dad totally wrapped around her little paw, he lets her get away with a lot. He lets her beg for his food and lets her jump on his bed for a cuddle. If Tilly is scared of something she goes straight to my dad and wants to jump into his lap for a cuddle, he loves it! Tilly manipulates you to turn on the gas heater for her too...she will walk ahead and keep turning back to make sure you are still there, then she goes and "dances" in front of the heater, moving her front paws up and down, one at a time until you turn the heater on. If you tell her "no, you're not getting the heater on" she does a little "aroooo" sound. My brother's Kelpie, Rusty is very manipulative, if he wants something then he communicates this by staring at what he wants and then he looks at you. Eg, he will look at where the dog leads are hung up or at the front door and then stare at my brother. If he wants a dog toy, he goes and looks at the cupboard where they are kept and then he looks at me. He also picks up on keywords in conversations when he's not even in the room...the other day he overheard me saying that I was going to "play ball" with him and give them dinner after, and that was it, he immediately wanted to go out for a run!

You would be better off staying with the natures gift because it is higher fat than roo. Roo is very lean and wont help dry skin. Natures gift is a good food. Thanks Greytmate, I am still giving Rusty his Nature's gift food too, just a little bit less...normally he has 3/4 of a tin each night, and the past couple of nights i've given him about 1/2 a tin with some mince (it is actually pet mince, but roo mince is the main ingredient with some other raw meats, vitamins and a preservative). Should I keep him on the same amount of tinned food (3/4 of a tin) and then just add the pet mince in as extra food, because it is lean? So today he had: - An egg in the morning - A couple of meaty bones in the afternoon Dinner: - 1/2 tin Nature's gift - pet mince - 1 tin of sardines in oil - half of a grated raw zucchini - fish oil, seaweed extract & glucosamine His skin is still pretty flaky where the patches are, so I've been brushing his coat really gently in the mornings to get rid of the flakes that have already fallen off. I just took these photos a moment ago, so this is what the patches look like about 14 hours after his coat was brushed: On his back near his tail On his back near his front shoulder blade:

As far as I know, he is purebred. His previous owner has a relative who is a kelpie breeder, so he came from there. I think he was the biggest puppy in his litter too, I hadn't actually seen a kelpie as big as Rusty until I saw him. The first two photos were taken last year, but just to show what he looks like and what his coat was like without the patches. The third photo is what he looked like around the time when my brother was first given Rusty, to give you an idea of how dull his coat was. Initially my brother was only meant to be looking after him temporarily in the evenings, so his previous owner provided his food for a couple of weeks I guess, until my brother was stuck with Rusty all the time. Rusty was fed dry food by his previous owner. 2011 2009 - his coat was dull and quite coarse, it wasn't silky at all.

I bought some roo mince tonight for Rusty, so I gave him a bit less of the canned food and fed him about 1 cup of the roo mince, along with his usual sardines and fish oil capsules and I put a raw egg in too. I'll try to slowly reduce the amount of canned food and see how he goes. My brother is going to be away for a few days but he said to me he'll take him to the vet in the new year, so I hope he does (otherwise I will continue to nag). Thanks mixeduppup :), Rusty isn't vaccinated (neither are my dogs), so it can't be over-vaccinating.

That's interesting, nope I haven't actually tried Advocate on him. Have tried Advantix and most recently, Frontline, both of those get seem to work on Rusty, but don't seem to help with the patches. I thought advantix didn't seem to be lasting all that long one of my dogs, so I bought Frontline instead to try and it didn't work at all for her, yet it worked on Rusty. Trying Advocate is a good suggestion, thank you :) .

Thanks persephone :) I give Rusty a raw egg with his dinner about once a week too, forgot to mention that, but I can increase that.

When increasing the amount of raw food, should that only be done gradually? And how do you know that you're giving them enough nutrients, etc ??? Years ago when I only had one dog, I increased the amount of raw food that she was having (eg. more raw beef mince or roo mince along with her canned food), but it gave her an upset stomach, so when I reduced the raw food again she was back to normal. Rusty is a big dog (was 29.5kg when I took him to the vet) and like any dog he absolutely loves raw meat and meaty bones, he has always been less enthusiastic about eating canned or dry food, in comparison to my other two dogs who will inhale any food that is put in their bowls.

Thanks everyone :) I should mention too, there wasn't any skin flaking off before, the flakiness was there the day after he had a bath. I did use shampoo & conditioner that is meant for dogs with sensitive skin, and it was a brand that I had used on Rusty a while ago.

Thanks for your replies... He's on the same diet as my other two dogs... Natures gift canned food sardines in oil (1 tin every night) In addition to that... Chicken drumsticks (once a week) Raw beef mince (once a week) Raw grated vegies a couple times a week (carrot/zucchini) Meaty bones 1-2 times a week. Occasionally he will get a handful of dry food with his dinner. He has fish oil capsules, seaweed extract and glucosamine every-night with his dinner. Rusty's coat was very dull when my brother first had him (he was given Rusty a couple of years ago), but when I started feeding him his coat actually improved.

Hi everyone, I'm after a bit of advice...quite a long time ago, my brother's dog (Kelpie, 8 years old, intact) developed a missing patch of fur on his back. We kept an eye on it, but when it wasn't clearing up, I took him to the vet (my brother was overseas at the time). The vet did a skin scraping and checked that he didn't have mites and she thought he had a flea allergy and recommended a flea treatment (eg. advantix). Rusty hasn't had any fleas for a long while and getting treated with advantix, frontline or flea powder has not helped the patch of fur. Now if he was my dog, I wouldn't hesitate to take him to the vet (a different one), but if I do that I will just be footing the bill again and won't be paid back, so I have been nagging my brother to take him to the vet. When I was ordering some supplies for my dogs online, I came across 'Vetex skin lotion' and I ordered some to treat Rusty with. After about a week of being treated with the skin lotion, I thought the patches were looking a bit better. But after washing Rusty the other day and treating him once with the skin lotion later on in the evening, the next day Rusty had patches of flaky skin that had fallen off of his patches. This afternoon I gently brushed away the flaky bits of skin that were hanging off his coat and put some curash powder on him. So obviously the powder in the photos is the curash powder and you can still see quite a lot of flaky skin left behind. Has anybody got any idea how I should be treating this? Or what it could be? Initially Rusty just had one patch on his back near his tail, but a few weeks ago he developed a small patch near his front shoulder-blade and you can also see it has spread to his tail too . I would really appreciate any advice/suggestions that anyone may have!

I use Fido's shampoo on my dogs, either the everyday shampoo or the one for fleas. I started using it because that was what one of my dogs had been washed in by the lady who fostered her. Jessie's coat was lovely and soft and she smelt nice, so I found out what she had used on Jessie (back then it was called "Fido's flea free shampoo").

My dog Jessie used to be afraid of cats, then years ago when our neighbour got a confident little kitten, Jessie went from being afraid, to seeing red when she saw it through the screen-door. Gradually Jessie got better with the cat and I think she even liked him a little bit. Back when she was still getting used to him, one day the cat came into my backyard and strolled into the house when I was in the kitchen , fortunately they were absolutely fine. Sadly, the cat didn't live for long as he was hit by a car, but I think Jessie would have gotten even more comfortable with him had he been around longer. She even remembered the cat's name for quite a while afterwards and would look for him out the front door.

- Tinned food (Natures gift) - Sardines in oil (1 of them has sardines every night, his coat improved when he came to live here after eating them), my other two dogs get them twice a week. - Raw chicken drumsticks (once a week) - Raw beef mince (once a week) - Meaty bones (a couple of times a week) - Grated raw vegies (carrot or zucchini) a couple of times a week - 1 raw egg each (once a week) - A small amount of dry biscuits (coles brand) maybe once a week or less often Then each night they all have fish oil capsules, glucosamine and seaweed extract in their dinner too. Each night I alternate what they are eating, so they will always have a bit of canned food, but then one night they will have chicken drumsticks with it, the next night they'll have raw mince, etc. When I just had one dog, I did alter her diet a bit to include more meat like roo mince, but that didn't agree with her, so I wouldn't change their diet without getting advice in the future.

Yep, they all have random nicknames and they do respond to them too: Jessie: - J - Jessie-May - J-May - May-May Matilda: - Tilly (she is always called this) - Noo-Noos / Noonie Rusty: - Russell Crowe (he's a very annoying dog, so this suits him :laugh: ) - Rascal

You're lucky! I wish my dog was like that! Only one of my dogs needs her nails clipped and she is very difficult about it...many years ago we took her to the vet and when they saw how difficult she was going to be, suddenly they said that she didn't need them done (they were very long!). Then years later when I knew that she could go under reversible sedation, she had it done a few times like that, but it cost about $120 each time, so it was very pricy. Then we tried her at a different vet because a friend recommended them and they offered a better price for sedating her, but when she went there the vet was able to clip them without sedating her, I couldn't believe it when I heard, apparently it is the vet's specialty :) . I've taken her a few times and the vet muzzles her, and covers her eyes with a towel and that really seems to help her. It still takes the vet and another 2 people to hold her though, but she just squirms around a whole lot, and because she is such a ball of muscle a few extra pairs of hands are always needed. It's a whole lot better than sedating her and only takes a few minutes, so I'll continue to leave it to the professionals, they do a great job.

With the fascination about drinking tea, my dogs know that tea can possibly mean that there will be biscuits around, because sometimes they are given a small piece of a biscuit from my folks (who always give in to begging, they don't try it with me!). :)

I think it is normal to be curious about your rescue dog's past. I wish that I knew who owned them before, I would have loved to have seen puppy photos of them and I wish I knew what Tilly's name was before (she was a stray without a microchip). That might sound silly, but I love them and it would be nice to know what their previous lives were like. I was told a little bit about Jessie, but to be honest I don't believe it...physically she looked great, but she had a lot of issues and obviously did not have a good start to her life. Tilly has always been a very happy and friendly dog and didn't come with any fears that I knew of. She wasn't housetrained when she came here (she was about 8 months old) and was clueless about being inside a house. She was and continues to be hard work to walk on a lead (can't blame the previous owner for that now!). She came with a scar on her back leg and some kind of scar on her ear, so perhaps she lived with another dog or got into a fight with a dog at some point .

Love all the photos!

We have two dogs here that are afraid of storms...when there was a particularly bad storm the other night, Jessie wanted to hide in the bathroom, but normally they will both look for somewhere to hide. They are not scared to the point of hurting themselves, but they just get very nervous, so I try not to take too much notice of them, because patting them only makes them more afraid. My dog Tilly isn't afraid of storms at all, in fact, the other night when she heard thunder she looked out the front window and wagged her tail.

Tilly (Kelpie X): - loves having her paw held and stoked when she's going to sleep. If you don't do it correctly she takes her paw away and gives it back to you repeatedly until you get it right :laugh: . - wants the gas heater put on in the mornings, even when it is around 22 degrees. She makes sure you are following her down the hallway, then she moves her front paws up and down as if she is dancing until you turn on the heater. - is not a morning dog...she is always sleepy and very mellow in the mornings and doesn't really "wake up" until about 10am-ish. At all other times she is very active and alert, but never in the mornings. Jessie (Stumpy tail cattle dog X) -I joke that there are "two Jessies"...she is a completely different dog (not in a good way) when she is around my mum. I find that pretty weird! Rusty (Kelpie): - loves pushing against the back of one of the lounges. He is so strong that he actually shifts the lounge, so quite often when you come home the lounge will be on an angle.

If your dog isn't anxious and there isn't a problem then I wouldn't bother with spending money on doggy day care. If you are worried about her being bored, could you possibly take her for a short walk before you leave for work? That might give you a chance to relax too. You don't want her to pick up on your anxiety, and then have to deal with a dog who has separation anxiety for the next 15 years!

My girl Matilda is called "Tilly". She was a stray at the pound so I didn't know what her old name was, but by the second day of owning her she knew the name Tilly. I don't think a 3 syllable name for a dog is too long, my dogs have several nicknames that they also respond to. If you want to call them together they respond to being called "girls".