sandgrubber

Licking may be a sign of digestive problems. See: https://thesciencedog.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/mr-licks-a-lot/

It's just cellulose. Annoying, yes. But no real problem. My pups grow out of it.

I've had a couple vets tell me that low birth weight puppies generally had poor attachment in the womb and therefore the embryos didn't grow to full size. I guess this could cause problems, but most often the pups catch up rapidly if given a good seat at the milkbar or a little supplemental feeding. No long term effects.

I've been avoiding checking into this thread. Opinionated stuff I post when I'm a little tipsy often gets me in trouble and I'm embarrassed by having to fess up to the stuff I get flamed for. Good to hear I'm not alone in impressions about dog food marketing.

Just came across a well-referenced article that reviews investigations into what protein source is actually in dog foods. Apparently there's a lot of misrepresentation. . . lot That 'venison' may be mostly chicken, and the 'soy-free' foods often contain soy. It's worth reading the blog post. I'll clip some teaser extracts below. https://thesciencedog.wordpress.com/2015/01/21/whats-in-your-food-2/ Several research studies published in the scientific literature over the past four years have shown that at least some brands of commercial dog foods have ingredient lists that do not always conform to what is actually in the food. Study 1: Four brands of dry dog food that are marketed as novel protein source diets containing venison were tested for the presence of other protein sources ... Study 2: The same team of researchers tested four retail dry dog foods that carried a “No Soy” label claim and seven therapeutic dry foods marketed to veterinarians for use in diagnosing soy allergies in dogs ... Study 3: Eleven limited ingredient diets (LIDs) and one veterinary-prescribed hydrolyzed protein food were tested for the presence of animal origin ingredients not reported on their ingredient label Study 4: Most recently, a comprehensive study published in the journal Food Control examined the content of 52 brands of commercial dog and cat food using DNA analysis. Results: Of the 52 products, 31 (60 %) had no labeling violations, meaning that the protein ingredients that were reported in the ingredient list completely matched the sources that were identified via DNA analysis. However, 21 brands (40 %) contained protein sources that were not listed on the ingredient list or in one case, a protein source that could not be identified. In three of these products, the protein source listed on the ingredient panel was entirely absent from the food. Chicken was the most commonly undeclared protein source in the mislabeled foods.

Do you mean enthusiastic licking of others? or self licking. Paresthesia manifests, typically, as obsessive licking of the paws. My old girl goes into this mode in response to pyretheroid-based flea treatments.

I was told by a vet that it could be paresthesia. Ie., a response to a pins and needles like sensation. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paresthesia

There are bugger all scientific studies on dog feeding. Yah, yah, yah, the dogfood companies do 'feeding trials' lasting a few months, which show that your dog probably won't show any serious signs of malnutrition after feeding their wonderful product for a few months -- at least if your dog is like the small pack of laboratory beagles they tested on. Billinghurst's writings are full of fine yarns, but offer no rigor at all. Wolf experts contradict him on the veggie questions (wolf packs do not make stomach contents a priority). Modern raw stuff is pretty fatty. Wolf diet is mostly lean. etc. etc. etc. DNA work published in the highest profile science journals shows that dogs are better equipped to deal with starch than their wolf (presumed ancestral) counterparts. I think there's solid evidence that there ARE many enterprises seeking to get you to pay more for each kilo of dogfood you buy by making you believe that grain is bad (again, with bugger all scientific evidence). I did a uni course on marketing long ago. This strategy is called "product differentiation" . . . .make your product stand out and you can charge more for it. I admit to being a little drunk when posting this. But in my present state, so much of what I see posted on this versus that kibble and raw vs commercial vs home-cooked looks like a load of opinion with no substance. Am I the only one frustrated by the difficulty of making sense out of all the hype? p.s. I have Labs. They are true to type and will happily eat anything in any quantity and showing no signs of IBS, the runs, excessive fartin, or any other digestive problem. I fed raw when I lived in Oz, cause it was easy and cheap to get chicken frames, and there was lots of stuff around to tell you 'raw' was the way to go. I've moved to kibble since I've moved to the US because raw is far too expensive here. I had trouble keeping my dogs from getting overweight on a raw diet. . .. the frames I bought were very fatty and easy to toss 1.5 per dog per day. High end kibble is cheap in the US relative to Oz. So I gave up raw. My dogs are stying at a good weight but having some itch problems. The weight control is obvious: easier to measure kibble than raw stuff, and probably less fat. It's not obvious whether the itchy problem is a food issue or just the outcome of aggressive local fleas.

Sounds like you're doing a great job caring for a dog going through normal old age problems. Deafness is common in older dogs. Worst problem is loss of recall . . . but that's not so much of a problem in a slower moving, low energy dog. I doubt it bothers her much. Good luck on the lump. Probably nothing, but better safe than malignant. I'm 66. Have to admit to taking the occasional afternoon nap these days. I'm pretty energetic compared to others of my age. Gracie's symptoms sound very familiar. She's a lucky dog if she doesn't have arthritic aches and pains to boot.

The US isn't as into Tall Poppy Syndrome as Oz . . . .but CM has done a good job of setting himself up as a tall poppy. He may or may not get out of this one, but my guess is he'll eventually get zapped bigtime. Sad. There is much to admire about the guy. But there's also a lot of snake oil salesman. Miraculous cures are not common in dog training. Uncured aggression is dangerous.

Sometimes collection is free. Experienced breeders may collect as part of the stud fee. If you know what you're doing and have the equipment on hand, it's less hassle than having the bitch come over and supervising the mating. I've heard of vets charging a few hundred dollars to come out for collection. You can probably find vets that charge more.

I wouldn't worry about any of the behaviors you have described. I would worry about a baby puppy on stairs. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22620698 Pugs often have bacly constructed hips (see OFA statistics). You don't want to push it.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-cesar-milan-pit-bull-lawsuit-20150204-story.html Cesar Millan, the star of television’s "The Dog Whisperer," is being sued by a woman who claims she was attacked by a vicious pit bull that had been prematurely released by Millan's dog training center. The woman, a critical care nurse in Florida, claims she suffered "disfiguring open wounds, deep muscle and tendon lacerations" and bone fractures in the Sept. 23, 2014, attack, just six days after the dog had been released by Millan's Dog Psychology Center. Attorneys for Alison Bitney said in the complaint that she permanently lost feeling and function in her left hand after the attack at the dog owner's home in Santa Clarita. She is seeking punitive damages. Jen Woodard, the director of the Dog Psychology Center, said in a statement that Millan never had contact with the dog and never trained the animal. She said the dog's owner had removed the pit bull "against the strong advice and objection of his trainer." After the attack, the pit bull was returned to this center where it was placed in quarantine, Woodard said. This is not the first time the training facility has been at the center of a lawsuit against Millan. In 2006, a television producer sued Millan and claimed his dog was injured after being suffocated by a choke collar and forced to run on a treadmill at the training facility. But this time Millan and his center is being accused of negligence for prematurely releasing a pit bull with a known history of attacking people and other animals. The canine, named Gus, was seized and impounded in Texas in 2013 and was found to be a danger to the public and ordered destroyed, according to the complaint. Thereafter, Cesar Millan and his Dog Psychology Center, agreed to take over custody and control of the pit bull and not to release it until it was "fully deemed a safe member of society," the complaint said. "When the dog's owner fell behind on monthly payments to keep it housed at the Dog Psychology Center, the center prematurely released the known vicious and dangerous pit bull back into the public domain and entrusted it to someone with no training or experience in the handling of vicious and dangerous dogs," the complaint said. Attorneys also contend that the director and head trainer at the Dog Psychology Center acknowledged that the pit bull was "not ready to be released to a home environment" and needed an additional 18 months of rehabilitation.

Would be interesting to know if these dogs had dew claws. I was very impressed by the following video . . . but really don't know the extent to which dew claws can get a dog out of trouble when it has fallen through the ice: My mother and I both had Labs in Pennsylvania back in the 1980s. They went on a frozen river pretty often and we worried about cracks in the spring when the ice broke up. The dogs never had a problem. Both had dew claws.

I have a 10 yr old epileptic who gets mild focal seizures. This started about four years ago. She does fine on a very very low dose of phenobarbitol. She has always tested clean for everything, but she will seize if I take her off her meds. 'Seizures' covers a lot of ground. Everything from a fixed stare that lasts a minute or so to a full grand mal seizure complete with snapping and incontenence; and from once in a lifetime to clusters that become more and more frequent and end up happening several times a day. Cause is generally hard to diagnose unless it's an obvious poisoning case. If it's epilepsy, blood tests won't show anything. If the problem isn't immediately critical (some seizures are so severe they can kill) the first thing to do is observe closely. Time the seizure and note dates. Take video. Note anything that may have happened to cause seizure (flea treatment, eating odd stuff, etc.) If seizures are infrequent (less than once a month) and not so severe that you're really freaked out, many vets end out recommending doing nothing but observe. Usually the seizure has passed by the time you get to the vet, so all they can do is run tests. The more info you can provide them and the more experience they have had with neorological problems the better. You can do tests up the yin yang and find nothing. Epilepsy is often called ideopathic epilepsy . . . meaning cause unknown.

Staffies and Labradors? My Labbies are totally unfit for fighting, or training a dog to fight. They have been attacked a few times. Reaction: look confused, if it's a big dog, run. I understand that in some places there's a problem with hunt-trained Labs getting stolen. That makes sense. Training a dog is a big investment and a well trained dog is a valuable thing . . . plus Labs transplant well. But if fighters do actually use bait dogs (I'm not convinced this is common if it happens at all), I'd think they'd do better with dogs that are likely to put up a good fight . .. specially terriers.

Good reason to do a tubal. She's on the table after the second C-section. You believe in free whelping. A tubal is just two snips and the vet is happy to do it. A full spay would be messy and the vet won't do it without giving her months to get her hormonal balance back to neutral . . . at which point she'll have to get opened up again. My father did tubals because he figured dogs probably enjoy sex and didn't want to deprive them of the opportunity :) . But he didn't want puppies.

Hysterectomies can cause incontinence in women. This is not hormonal, but rather weakening of the pelvic floor muscles. Women can reverse this problem, at least partially, by doing pelvic floor exercises (Kegel). Unfortunately, there's no way to teach dogs these exercises.

My father, who was a medical doctor, always did tubal ligations on his girls (dogs, that is). This was in the 70's and 80's. He just felt it was more natural, and didn't much mind them coming on season. It's a simple operation compared to a spay. He never seemed to have trouble convincing his vet to do it. Maybe you just need to talk with a few vets.

If a great puppy happened my way and it happened to be fox red, I'd jump at the opportunity. But I wouldn't go out of my way looking for the color. It's pretty rare, and I would be suspicious of breeders who specialize in one shade of yellow (btw., if you want to be picky, the Australian standard calls it red fox, not fox red). In my book, fox red is different from dark yellow. It's a rusty shade. Quite attractive. Used to be quite common in golden retrievers but has almost been bred out of them now.

The nominal purpose: "protect, promote and preserve" a breed is horribly subjective. One person may protect by keeping bloodlines pure and inbreeding. Another may protect by promoting diversity and outcrossing. Etc. No surprise. The pedigree dog world includes people with strong opinions. In my limited experience, a breed club is a group of people who work with the same breed and have worked together for a long time. The work is done in committees, which may or may not be transparent. A handful of people tend to dominate, and to have dominated for years. They tend to have like attitudes.. . except for places where they have agreed to disagree. A newcomer with particular interests, eg., health or agility, may not going to find it easy to get involved without a lot of schmoozing.

That's wonderful of your sister. I'll bet she finds Oz a great change from (Brrrr!) Canada. She should have no trouble getting recognized as a reputable -- and excellent -- breeder from what I saw in the 15 yrs I lived in Oz. Show people care a lot about showing. She should get the right boxes ticked there. Pet people care a lot about the home situation in which the pups are raised. Also should be no problem. If Westies have health problems for which there are tests . . . she probably already does them and just needs to provide documentation. I wish more puppy buyers asked for health test results. Both my parents did terminal cancer (pancreatic and esophageal/stomach) with hospice. Both they, and we (the children) found the care helpful. I wish you well and hope you can find joy in the time you have remaining. Having dogs around helps a lot.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/pictured-doberman-shocks-new-owner-5037275 Zara Hayes paid £450 for two-year-old mother Keela after seeing an advert saying she was 'possibly pregnant'. A newly bought pet Doberman left her owner speechless when she gave birth to 14 puppies – despite vets saying she was expecting just six. The cute pooches are thought to have broken the British record for a Doberman litter. Zara Hayes paid £450 for two-year-old mother Keela after seeing an advert saying she was "possibly pregnant". She was worried Keela would be exploited because doberman pups are often sold for more than £1,000 each. Zara, who runs dog rescue centre Yappy Ever After, rehomed the pregnant pet with "foster parent" Cat Davis, 33, in Cardiff Vets thought Keela was expecting just five or six pups so they were stunned when she gave birth to 14 – appropriately on December 14. The lively pups have now taken over Cat's terraced house and eat an 11lb bag of food between them every day. Cat, who will keep new mum Keela, said: "They've taken over my house and my life. "There isn't much space not taken up by dogs. "But it is worth it to make sure they are safe." GREAT PICTURES in the original article

This 'mass' was not on the incision line. It seemed well below the incision and smooth, not lumpy like the incision line lumps I've felt in previous spays. It seemed to be oriented not along, but about 15-20 degrees askew of the midline. It has completely disappeared and Bonza is acting normal. No unusual urination. Full energy. I'll be taking her in on Monday for a re-examination. This is more to satisfy the vet's curiosity than because I think anything is wrong. Kind of sorry they didn't do an ultrasound because it would be interesting to know more about what was going on. Strange things sometimes happen. Just glad it was an apparent problem that turned out to be nothing than an apparent nothing that turned out to be a big problem. Thanks for input.

It is hard to design, and extremely expensive to conduct meaningful tests of what to feed a dog. For each diet you test, you'd need to have a dozen or more (preferably ~30) dogs from several breeds, selected so as to represent a variety of bloodlines within the breed. You'd need to keep dogs on the same food from youth through old age and monitor many aspects of health throughout the lifetime. They would all have to be kept in similar conditions to avoid differences in environment, which pretty much means they need to be kenneled. The only study I know of that begins to satisfy these requirements was done with Labradors only . . . it looked at the effects of feeding more vs. feeding 25% less of a standard commercial diet. This conclusively showed that the dogs who were fed less lived longer and had fewer health problems. Effects of diet restriction on life span and age-related changes in dogs https://www.avma.org/News/Journals/Collections/Documents/javma_220_9_1315.pdf "Dogs were paired, and 1 dog in each pair was fed 25% less food than its pair-mate from 8 weeks of age until death. Serum biochemical analyses were performed, body condition was scored, and body composition was measured annually until 12 years of age. Age at onset of chronic disease and median (age when 50% of the dogs were deceased) and maximum (age when 90% of the dogs were deceased) life spans were evaluated." LOTS of people and companies are putting forward strong opinions (or sales pitches) about what is healthy. These are often contradictory, and the scientific basis behind most is weak. As I read it, canned food is to be avoided on economic grounds: it's an expensive way to buy water. It may also cause tooth decay or gum rot. I don't see any evidence based results in the raw vs. dry or grain included vs. grain free. Some dogs do have allergies, and this may call for avoidance of some foods. In my experience ProPlan is a good food. If your dog is not getting very skinny when he goes "off' his food, he may just be telling you you're feeding him too much.