Chocolate

Can I ask a dumb question? I assume that hand stripping is pinching the hair between your fingers and pulling to get dead hair out of the coat - is this right? So you are left with the strong healthy hair.

Even fleas can cause bald patches like this as the dog itches and scratches so I'd get rid of the fleas by giving a treatment. The hair will grow back. It's not necessarily anything to do with the soap you washed with.

Two thoughts come to mind. One is that dogs sense if another dog is in anyway different, especially after surgery. I don't mean the desexing itself but just the general aura of change in a dog from scent and confidence. The slightest weakness is picked upon. They've been at the vet so have different smells on them and have had a somewhat unsettling experience so their own confidence has to recover. The other is two dogs that have been parted even if just for the shortest of times have to re-establish pack position. This is normally so subtle humans don't even notice it going on from day to day but after a trip to the vet's it's going to be far more indepth. So even if they went to the vet together at the same time, the fact that they were in separate cages and parted for some hours is enough under these circumstances. These two things go hand in hand with the change. I would certainly be looking at Rescue Remedy and perhaps a homeopathic remedy for settling them after upheavel. The alpha bitch may have just taken things a tad harder than the beta bitch and the beta bitch has picked up on it so challenging.

Ruby is lovely. It looks like the main pink area is that bit at the top left side. The good news is she has a bit of black right up in that corner and then black below the pink area. What happens is the black pigementation grows in size so you'll find that top spot will come down to meet up with that below. The best thing you can do at the moment is allow her to get lots of time outside in the sun as that really does bring the pigmentation out, natural sunlight.

Hehe schnauzer_luv. I know what you mean. Angee adores them too and nearly turns herself inside out with excitement when she sees them. In regards to the poo department. I've already noticed a big difference in how many times Angee goes a day (much less) and she's only been on Orijen since last Friday. Interesting as I've found the opposite. My dogs poos are much larger and very black I notice.

Hi, I recently purchased some Biolac Coat Improver for the first time. What I'm confused about is that it looks and smells just like milk powder. They have another product which is a milk replacer so I'm worried the wrong stuff has been put in the container. So I'd like to ask all those who regularly or often use the Biolac Coat Improver, please tell me does it normally look and smell like powdered milk?? Many thanks.

When do you think I should worry? At what age should all the pigment have come through? Pigmentation filling in can continue for a good few months so I certainly wouln't worry until your pup is more like 5-6 months old. It depends on how big a pink area it is. Do you have a pic?

I wouldn't be using Colormax on a 10 week old pup. At 10 weeks old your puppy is still developing pigmentation and pink areas on a nose are still filling over. Give it more time.

Harald, There is very little mark up in pet food. A product like Orijen has no more margin than say a bag of Supercoat would percentage wise. Buy supercoat you get a cheap product at a cheap price. Buy Origen get a quality product and pay more accordingly. Don't forget products like Orijen are being imported which adds to the wholeslae cost. If a bag of Supercoat wholesales $30 and retails $40 but a bag of Orijen wholesales $95 and retails $110 you can see that it is simple economics a retailer just can't retail Orijen at anything less.

Botheration. If you are going to get snooza bedding then spend the extra and get the D1000, you can lie it on a pallet. It isn't complety indestructable as my small dogs have chewed a couple of corners, however, they are extremely strong, will give some comfort and mine have been through sun and rain and are still going strong unlike many of the other Snooza beds I purchased. It's worth spending a bit extra or you'll find false economy.

Does anyone know who the WA distributor is for Orijen? or even the Australian one.

I don't have a dog with a problem as such it was more that I wanted to get the dogs checked over prior to some big shows coming up later in the year. So it will be like a maintenance check to make sure everything is in alignment and as it should be. If I took along 4 dogs $400 would be pretty steep I suppose.

I had a dog that ripped the nail out and it bled and looked pretty raw for a few days and she would knock it and it would start bleeding again but after about a week it was well on the mend. I think that it is the blood clot that gets knocked and makes it start bleeding again. You should be right in a week. Every dog is different I had another that lost a nail no problem with bleeding but a mini nail grew back after a loooong time and it is noticably about half the thickness of the others and doesn't look the same at all.

Where are Southdale located? Thanks.

Thanks for the responses. Now I'm confused a review fee with needles - what do they use needles for?

I've seen this before. The incisor instead of coming straight down juts out forwards at an angle. It is due to the pups mouth being to cramped for all the teeth to erupt straight so your pups have a small jaw. Although the the top incisors are affected it tends to be the bottom teeth which cause the problem as they are cramped in and the top incisor has no where to go other than outwards at an angle. Are these pups for pet or show? There is a way to help alleviate the situation which isn't too invasive or expensive. Sooner the better though.

A few years ago when I was visiting a different state for a Specialty with my dogs I went with a friend I was staying with to a doggy chiro. I was really impressed at how well this guy new the muscles, etc. He was able to tell me that my young pup had had a leg injury due to thickening of something and right enough she had been limping a while back on that leg. Anyway the reason for my writing is that this chap was in Victoria and I'm just wondering if we have a good doggy chiro or similar in Perth that it would be worthwhile paying to check my dogs over. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Would love an update on what your whippets lump turned out to be.

With the size and squishness it almost sounds like a hematoma - a bleed under the skin, perhaps from a neck blood vessel. If it is then it will go down on it's own.

Hi Tiggy, As you've not had a response yet on your question, I thought I'd give an opinion. Commercial food - dog biscuits - even one of the better ones such as Eagle Pack is cooked. It has some dehydrated meat product in it. On the other hand if you feed Vet's All Natural then you are adding fresh unprocessed meat as the main part of the meal. The Eagle Pack is dehydrated and so the dog needs to drink lots of water whereas the Vet's All Natural is rehydrated prior to feeding and the meat naturally has a high water content hence your dog won't need to drink anywhere near as much water. I feel feeding dehydrated food all the time surely places stress on the kidneys. If you are trying to work out what is most like natures option of feeding then certainly raw meat with Vet's All Natural mimics the wild more that commercial cooked food. A dogs digestive systgem is not designed for cooked food but certainly is for raw. So the choice is yours. If you put down a bowl of Eagle Pack and next to it a bowl of raw meat mixed with some Vet's All Natural which do you think your dog would eat first? Regarding BARF patties causing pancreatitis this seems unlikely, your dog was perhaps predisposed to getting it or it was perhaps from something else with very high fat content. If your dog gets pancreatitis you can feed the BARF kangaroo variety which is low in fat and a lot lower in calories than the other meat varieties.

I agree Hills Science Diet which Vet's are recommending to their clients because they sell it is YELLOW CRAP! Sadly some Vet's are not doing the right thing by their clients saying they need to put their dogs on HSD.

Just reminding me of the time I had a Yorky in for wash and dry. Owner didn't like any hair being cut off him, not even essentials that I suggested he have done. I hydrobathed him and then drying him he poops. Back to hydrobathing him and then drying he poops again! Another hydrobath and this time got him dry and his coat groomed out beatifully. Popped him outside and the first thing he did was find a corner stoop for a poo which promptly landed on his lovely long grey silky veil of hair that hangs below his bum. It wasn't firm either no it was soft and ucky but no I was not going to hydrobath him yet again! I reiterated to his owner the need to scissor essentials for hygene reasons.

It's amazing how people will pick up, cuddle and snuggle into their fluffy dogs even kissing the fur but if when a client came back to collect their dog I asked them to kiss and cuddle the dirty pile of fluff swept up off the floor full of poo, eye gunk, dry skin/scabs, dried urine, puss they wouldn't dream of it. On their pet it is okay but as soon a clipper separates it from the dog no way, it looks like the pile of muck it really is!!

Gashmir thanks for that tip, it went on doing that:-)

I bought a new 5f the other day. An Oster make. Today I tried to put it on the Wahl KMSS clipper and it wouldn't click in. So my questions is are Oster blades not compatible with Wahl clippers, I thought they were universal?