Rc Maxi Junior

[Salukifan]

I've asked the owner of the pup here what she's feeding and will report back. He's a male. Is your pup from Skyehaven?

But littermates can be different!

Problem with black dogs is any amount of scurf is obvious but it could be the heating.

There are plenty of good brands of food and frankly, if your dog doesn't mind, I dont' think it hurts to change it up a bit. Proplan is another popular brand amongst folk I know. Don't let the vet talk you into Hills Science - its rubbish.

I've got one dog who won't eat anything BUT Royal Canin. I raised my youngest on RC and have dogs ranging up to nearly 16 years old on it.

He is! I thought a little girl went to canberra, dare I ask the puppy's name? ;)

There are TWO pups in Canberra! My friend's pup's name is Blaze.

That's it, and I am hoping it is just heating. We turned his laundry duct off and replaced it with a hot water bottle, I've enforced lunch time outside for an hour or so (puppy and boyfriend could use their vitamin d) and told Brooke to put a dang jumper on instead of putting the heater on. Haha. There's no lose there even if it isn't the cause. The power bills will thank him.

Blaze is doing fine on the Royal Canin. His owner says she hasn't heard of any issues with the other pup. :)

If you have any concerns, just pick up the phone to Gus's breeder. From everything I've seen and heard, she is one of the good ones! :)

[Steph M]

Ohhhh yesssssss! The little show prospect! I have spoken to his mum on Facebook a few times, small world!

She's lovely, and so is Blaze. Just as intrepid and troublesome as Gus I hear. Haha.

That is my plan, it's not a huge issue yet, just was hoping I wasn't doing anything wrong.

Will sit down to pen her an email later tonight. I often forget of a day, as like Aliawake said, it's a nocturnal activity. Haha.

She is pretty fab. I wouldn't hesitate to reccommend her to anyone ever.

[Dogsfevr]

Your breeder should be your first port of call,always nicer to get to give advice than read it on DOL which they are on .

They now there breed the best & what works or doesn't work.

We won't feed any beef as that is awful for scratching/over heating .

The heater could also be an issue .

We haven't had issues with it but we also use other products that suit each dog .

[Nekhbet]

HOw old is the pup? Usually a change of coat at a young age is enough to give them dandruff and cause itching which goes away naturally.

[Steph M]

He's 11 weeks on Friday, hope that's it. None of us are enjoying it terribly, haha.

[Steph M]

Your breeder should be your first port of call,always nicer to get to give advice than read it on DOL which they are on .

They now there breed the best & what works or doesn't work.

We won't feed any beef as that is awful for scratching/over heating .

The heater could also be an issue .

We haven't had issues with it but we also use other products that suit each dog .

I agree, and I've popped her an email. Her suggestion was to try some different bedding, see if that might be it.

She's always V helpful, just trying to rule things out as I go and getting info from everywhere I can.

I haven't had trouble with Beef as yet, but can't hurt to chop it out for the week too. He can be a chicken and lamb pup for a while.

Thanks for all your help, everyone!

Sure we'll get on top of it, big adjustment for all of us!

[aliwake]

Just thought I'd let you know I was closer to the end of the Eukanuba than I thought, so I started transitioning Nixon to the RC Labrador yesterday. So far he LOVES it (even mixed with Eukanuba). It's lucky we taught him to wait with food he didn't like, cos it would have been much harder if we were feeding RC all along :) Definitely no stuffing around - he goes straight for the bowl now and eats it all immediately. None of his old 'I'm going to take each piece of kibble out of the bowl 1 by 1 and play with it before I eat it...'

I really like the smell and feel of it too, so hopefully if it agrees with him in the long term we'll be onto a winner. It smells like vegemite :)

Will be interesting to see if it changes his scratching habits - I'll let you know. My gut feeling is he's just a dog that likes grooming a lot. We'll see.

[Steph M]

I'm pleased it's working out well!

We've swapped food and he's a whole new dog, skin wise. No more itching, which has also resulted in him sleeping through the night with no pee breaks, so he's graduated to a big boy bed in our room. Haha.

He has his bed in a corner and is now a free range flattie.

I even woke up today to the cat who couldn't stand him in bed with him, great success everywhere!

He's just the most fab little guy. If you were closer I'd be scouting for a Nixon playdate!

He sounds like fun too.

[aliwake]

That's great Gus's skin has improved already! Did you go with the Artemis?

Sleeping through the night at that age sounds brilliant - I'm suffering from severe jealousy now... It took us a month to give in and let Nixon sleep in our room, and it was a month of absolute hell.

Gus sounds gorgeous - it is definitely a pity a playdate isn't really do-able - I'm sure they'd get up to a lot of mischief together :)

[Steph M]

As long as neither has a bowel movement....Hahaha.

Yeah. only been about 4 days now and whether it's changing the food/bedding/heating/grass i don't know, but something has made a positive change, we don't know what it was but at least it's gone?

We did go with the Artemis. The vet said the Artemis puppy would be fine. It isn't grain free and the protein levels are good. Plus it's playing a decreasing part in his diet, so she thinks it's fine and dandy!

He's been an absolute a**hole of a night, if I'm honest. He will sleep like an angel, but getting him to GO to bed and settle was so hard. This seems to be the answer though, he's happier if he's near us and I feel relatively confident I won't step in any sad little pee puddles when I wake up. We all win!

[aliwake]

Yeah, getting Nixon to go to bed if he doesn't feel like it sux too - if he doesn't want to settle he'll jump up on the bed with his front paws and claw you until you get up... Or start stealing tissues out of my rubbish bin. Or make a nest on top of my clothes pile. Or try to eat the socks off my feet!

He sleeps in a crate, but I can't really say he's crate trained given he chewed the front wall of the (soft) crate off within the first few weeks he had it... Not ideal! So it doesn't actually confine him, but at least being in there does help him settle sometimes.

He finally seems to be sleeping through the night too now, but having said that there's still days where he thinks 5am is morning, and is up and at 'em! A sleep-in sometime soon would be really nice!

[Sagittarian]

Just to add that not all grain free dry foods are high protein. The percentage of many available are in the 20's, not 40's. This includes Artemis grain frees and some Canidae grain frees, to mention only two brands.

Personally, if I was raising a pup today, I wouldn't hesitate to use a grain free food, even the so called high protein varieties. A pup on a lower quality food needing more cups per day of food may very well be getting more protein than one on a better balanced food. It should always come down to doing proper research and working the formulas out for yourself, and then testing the waters for palatability and condition over time.

Sags

:)