ellz

Puppies can also suffer from a condition called "puppy acne" and this can pretty much appear anywhere, the tummy is quite common. However, that said, I'd be evaluating the environment to see if there are any known allergens visible. Maybe a bath in a PH neutral shampoo (Baby Shampoo was actually recommended by a vet at one stage) and watch it to see if it spreads, appears in more locations or becomes nasty looking. If it isn't gone in a couple of days, I'd be going to the vet about it.

Won't hurt him. Could possibly make him pee a little more though, parsley is a natural diuretic. Will also act as a breath freshener.

Excellent news! And very glad that I wasn't over-reacting and costing you money unneccessarily too!

Just got to ask if you had anyone in mind? I would follow Ellz advice and see an eye specialist instead of your ordinary vet. I missed that......I just get so panicky when I see eyes discussed. One thing I have learned in my time with dogs and one thing I always try to impress upon other people is that you NEVER mess with eyes. Many things can be self-diagnosed and successfully treated, but where eyes are concerned, I'd rather over react than make a potential issue worse with inactivity and wrong treatment. Actually....I'm a bit like that with my skinkids too. Some body parts can be replaced, but you only get one set of eyes.

Try adding some Ironcyclen to his food first. If that doesn't work, then De Nose Nos might. It doesn't work on all of them. A lot depends upon their skin type, normal pigmentation etc. When you apply it, use a stiff paper serviette and fold it like you are going to make cut-out doilies (remember the activity from school days?). Then cut out a small corner and open up the serviette again and apply it over the nose so that the face is covered, but the nose is sticking out of the serviette. You've got a clear field then to use the product on the nose and less chance of the dog licking it whilst still wet OR having it leech into the hair around the nose until it dries.

Kitty, with all due respect to your vet, keep an eye on it and if the weeping doesn't stop, PLEASE see a canine eye specialst vet. It has been my experience over the years that many vets just don't have a clue when it comes to eyes. I had a dog permanently blinded by pigmentation growing over his eye as a result of an uninvestigated corneal ulceration that came from distichiasis that could have been treated. He was one of the first dogs I ever bred (I no longer use those bloodlines due to the eye issues in them) and my local vet diagnosed pretty much what your vet has done. Had I had access to a veterinary opthalmologist with a slit lamp and specific knowledge, things could have been done to prevent the blindness and make the dog a lot more comfortable.

Sowwy. :D

First of all, I would be heading to a veterinary opthalmologist to rule out an eye problem. There can be many things causing tear staining, but if it is one eye only, I'd be very suspicious of a blocked tear duct, distichiasis (extra eyelashes growing inside the lids) or entropion (eyelid folding inwards causing the eyelashes to irritate the eyeball). It is VITAL that it be treated if there is an external problem. Continued irritation on the eyeball can lead to corneal ulceration and ultimately blindness. There are other things that it could be, but this would be my first step in ruling out the problem.

Yep, very similar to what I had, except that mine had the hose and a spigot combined and you just flicked the switch between hose or stream. It was also stainless steel and had a hook so you could hang it on the wall. Kind of like the ones used in some hospital showers. The hook on the wall was handy too, when my skinkids were little, they could stand under the shower head it in the bath and have a shower without me getting saturated as well!

That's the beauty of the one I had. You simply unscrew the actual spigot from the wall and screw the new mixer/shower unit on in its place.

They shouldn't get the runs from the milk if they've had it from an early age. The problem with cows milk and many/most dogs is that they AREN'T given it as puppies so they lose the enzymes that enable them to process the lactose. Dogs which are fed cows milk as babies are rarely lactose intolerant. I routinely feed all puppies born here on cows milk and none (to the best of my knowledge) have had issues with lactose as adults. Certainly those that I've kept have no problems and they quite often get leftover milk, porridge and other foods that have lots of milk in them (one of the advantages/disadvantages of having children - lots of leftover food!). I would say that they are being fed the wrong kind of puppy dry food and definitely too much of it. But that said, it could also just be bad genetics and "one of those things", especially if just one of the puppies is badly affected. Being big in knuckle joints doesn't necessarily mean much, they might just be well-boned substantial puppies.

Yep, it's an excellent quality food, especially for one that is at the budget end of the scale. I'm very satisfied with it. If you do a search here, you'll find a few threads that discuss it and there are actually very few people who have tried it who don't like the results.

Actually Nekhbet, if they decide to feed Uncle Albers or Great Barko, combined with more meat, they will probably have exceptional results. Without exception ALL of my dogs (including the greyhound) do EXCEEDINGLY well on UA and/or GB. TOO well in fact to the point where some only get a sniff of it at meal times!

Can tell the difference between the longhaired breed responses and the shorthaired breed responses!! But yes, it is largely breed (and preference) dependent! I found that the rubber hose attachments just weren't suitable for proper saturation and rinsing of the long coated dogs. However, I do use the rubber hose attachment over the laundry trough to bath the puglet. But then, I could use a bucket for her as well. SOOOOOOOO much easier to bath than the Cockers! For a long coat, you need much stronger pressure and this is best obtained by having a very good sprayer plumbed into the wall. I've spent many years on my knees hanging over bathtubs cursing duct tape and hose clamps whilst trying to rinse American Cockers, Lhasas and other long coated dogs and have now learned some very useful labour-saving tricks!

Tyson is 9-10 months old at the moment. maybe there is still time for it to go away and then scan again near breeding age? But you have already said that he has other problems. If he has other issues, and a heart murmur on top of them, why on earth would you want to breed from him? There are many good quality dogs out there WITHOUT those issues?

I found the best way to do it was to get one of the laundry mixers that you can screw onto the wall in place of the "spout" over the bath. Mine has both the long shower and a spout combined. You just flick the switch to use one or the other. I found it in the shower ware section of Mitre 10. There were many similar things there, including the rubber ones that fit over the ends of the taps. These are ok if you use hose clamps to hold them together, otherwise you can't get enough water pressure for proper rinsing.

I have known of longstanding breeders who feed Uncle Albers/Great Barko to puppies once they hit around 6 months of age or thereabouts and apparently they have had no issues with it. The packaging does actually say it is suitable for puppies, but I haven't tried it myself. I do feed it from around 12 months onwards though. I have also heard good things about Bonnie puppy, but as I can't access it easily here, I have never tried it. I tend to stick with Optimum for puppies or have even been known to feed the Coles Select or Woolworths brand Puppy Dry Foods without issues as well. I recommend any of these in my puppy guide.

*whispers* Don't bet on it....many years ago, my parents neutered mini poodle tied with their desexed terrier x bitch. Just because the hormones are removed doesn't mean the machinery won't work!

It did help. :D

I have a classic shot of our old Norwegian Forest Cat in the sink which typically, I can't find at the moment. Anyway this is Smudge, playing cowcat! As you can see, NOTHING is sacred here! :D

Try a naturopath and see if you can get hold of some Aconite. This was recommended to me a few years back by Patricia Hall (Stromhall Rottweilers) for a Staffordshire Bull Terrier with major stress issues.

One of the markets here sells bag of "soup bones" (fish instead of meat or chicken) for a couple of dollars so I usually grab a bag. The cats go berserk and try to steal them from the dogs. I have to put the dogs in their crates to eat or they wouldn't get any. And even then it is amazing how LOOOOOOOOONG a cat can make it's "arms" go when they're sticking them through the bars of a crate!

Just a little warning, if your boy dog has long hair around his digit, make sure that when it finally does retract, it doesn't take any hair inside the shaft with it. Had a dog that did this many, many moons ago and the hair scratched his donger and it got infected. Not pretty and not at ALL fun to treat!

That particular cat is a real attention-whore! If I try and talk on the phone, I often find him trying to stick his head between the phone and my face, purring at the top of his voice! And he likes to come and feed the horses with me. Usually jumps on one of them while their heads are in their feedbuckets. I think he was a dog in a former life.