For Dog Lovers...Part IV

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Did they aspirate the tumor? To me a tumor is different than inflammation and swelling due to an infection. Usually if a vet suspects a tumor they will aspirate it (take a little bit through a needle) and then examine on the microscope to see what it is. If it really is a tumor it's important to know what kind. Many breeds of dogs commonly get benign fatty tumors that don't require any surgery until they start to interfere with the dog's movement or are so large there wouldn't be enough skin to close the wound. I just fostered and adopted out an 11 year old dog with a fatty tumor the size of an orange on his inner thigh and he will probably never have surgery for it.
 
no, he just had a good look at it and palpated it... yes, it really doesn't look like any infection i've ever seen (although i'm more familiar with horses than dogs tbh as i'm a relatively new dog owner) - the skin is mottled and it doesn't seem tender like an infection would, no oozing or redness or anything, plus it doesn't appear to be painful as she's happy to give us her paw and let us examine it...

she was having antibiotics for something else, so the vet said to wait 2 weeks and if it doesn't clear, he would then want to see her again with a view to treating it as a tumour - he said he would need to operate, but i imagine he would have to do some sort of biopsy beforehand to make sure... it doesn't appear to be bothering her though, guess the worry would be if it were malignant and there was a risk of spreading...
 
Question for you Dog Owners. Have you ever tried or are you doing a Raw Food Diet with you dogs? If so is it better than staying on the kibbles and would you ever go back, does it help with allergy related issues?
 
I don't feed purely raw because I have large dogs and many dogs (2-3 of my own and usually a foster dog) so I don't have freezer space for it, but I do feed it when I can get it. Because we live in one of the most densely populated white tail deer areas in the country I can get lots of free venison that I often feed my dogs. Yes raw is very healthy for dogs, definitely as good if not better than the top quality kibbles as long as you balance the diet correctly as far as bone, muscle meat, organ meat, etc. It can help with allergies but whether you feed raw or kibble usually for allergies you want to use a "limited ingredient diet" meaning one that has only one protein and one carb source that rules out everything the dog is allergic too. Coke gets very itchy on certain foods and he will itch until he is ripping his skin and hair out so I suspect he is allergic to a few things. I use California Natural Lamb and Rice kibble and it keeps him from itching all day or raw, flaking skin.

If I ever find a free or cheap chest freezer I will probably switch to mostly or all raw. Anything cheaper than $1/lb is cheaper than feeding high quality kibble and I think I can get a ton of free venison plus butcher scrap for about $1/lb.
 
Thank you for the info. My dog seems to have an allergic reaction to the kibbles she was eating and it got bad this weekend and switched to a non grain kibble. But I've read that a raw diet is the best. I have a pound of ground beef frozen and some fresh carrots I'm thinking of chopping up and giving it to her
 
For an allergy a dog a grain free kibble is great, try to find one with only one (or just a few) protein sources and something that isn't as common. Allergy dogs often do well on lamb or salmon and not as good on poultry. A friend of mine had a dog with such bad allergies she had to eat ostrich meat and sweet potatoes.
 
well, i'm hoping the vet is completely wrong about it being a nailbed tumour, because the swelling around her claw is actually starting to go down now she's been on antibiotics for the past 5 or so days, and i think i can make out a teeny tiny puncture wound which may have been to blame! fingers crossed it really is just an infection!
 
Does anyone do agility with their dogs? We have two Labradors who love the sport! Emma is 8 and has been competing for a few years and Maise is just about a year old, and has been in classes, but not old enough to do all the elements yet!
 
Last summer that whole nail thing happened to my dog..started with a nail that broke to the quick and then got infected. It was the back/high nail dont know what you call it but its not on the paw itself. Then it went black and the leg area around it looked pretty bad. We were away at a cottage that was only accessible by boat and the nearest vet was over 100 km away. Anyways he kept biting and licking away at it till he got right down to the pink quick and it seemed like he took off a bit of the dead/infected stuff around it. Of course then it bled a good deal but he just kept licking away at it. He wouldnt let us anywhere near him snapped at anyone who tried to help. Of course I pinned him twice and dressed it but hed just bite it off.To me it looked like it was healing up nicely but the sight of the quick freaked my sister out so she gathered him up, took the boat then drove all that way to the vet only to have him say that the dog was fine and that his saliva was natures way of battling the infection and sent him home with no meds no nothing. He swam, ran around in the bush got filthy and every time he got it dirty he'd just lick it clean again. Made a full recovery and the nail eventually grew back again. :shrug:
 
The dewclaw is the higher up nail. Some dogs don't have them, some people remove them permanently when dogs are only a few days old, other breeds are required to have them (some even double).

Infections can be tricky. Nikon has had several instances of splitting a nail and after licking/chewing it, the bleeding stops and it does heal fine on it's own. In his bad case the infection spread into the tissue of his foot. Some infections will clear on their own but others only spread without antibiotic intervention.

Does anyone do agility with their dogs? We have two Labradors who love the sport! Emma is 8 and has been competing for a few years and Maise is just about a year old, and has been in classes, but not old enough to do all the elements yet!

Yep I do!
 
I have a 13 year old full breed JRT who has been so healthy until recently. She has cataracts in both eyes, her hearing is beginning to fade and she's been diagnosed with a heart murmur. I cherish every day with her in her twilight years. She is otherwise healthy, and fairly active. Through the years I've fed her Pedigree (which my veterinarian grandpa always recommended) or making my own dog food with boiled chicken, rice, yams, carrots, potato or/& peas. She's hovered between 10-12lbs, so she doesn't eat much. My vet now recommends a glucosamine supplement. What are thoughts, recommendations, suggestions etc on supplements? My baby dog has been difficult whenever I've had to administer any kind of medication, no matter what trick I've tried hasn't worked. She somehow knows and hides under the bed, just like when it's bath time--she takes cover under the bed!

I love this thread. Thanks for all the sharing & tips. :up:
 
You can get glucosamine tabs that are flavored:
Hip_Flex_Tabs____4fe2430e97a7e.jpg


I would just go to a pet store and ask for help finding a supplement that is flavored. Sometimes they have these flavored tablets, or even things that are more like moist treats. I've used that one in the picture and my dogs think it's a treat. I put it in the bowl with their food and they always eat it first.
 
I love Longevity as a supplement by Springtime inc... Great glucosamine supplement! My labrador with awful hip dysplasia thrived on it! we have the younger ones on it as well as they are agility dogs and put more stress on their joints! I personally would ask your vet which supplement they recommend or carry- many of the ones at the pet stores have very little glucosamine in them... The other thing is that supplements are not regulated by the FDA like most medications, so quality and quantity of the glucosamine in each treat can vary dramatically! Good brands are Cosequin, Dasuquin, and Phycox as those companies police themselves!
 
Liesje, where do your dogs compete? Emma does only AKC agility and is going to the Cluster in Springfield MA over Thanksgiving weekend... My husband runs her and keeps talking about maybe trying CPE but is a bit afraid of changing!
 
Nikon (<< the dog in the pic) did CPE a while back and so did my first shepherd. I chose CPE because it was nearby and so much cheaper. Plus Nikon can't weave (never taught him) so he can do CPE without weaves. I do not understand all the CPE "games" but you can still run standard and jumpers. Full House is the only game I've run because I had someone helping me with my walk-through. I haven't done agility for a few years because we focused on other things (Schutzhund, tracking, SDA protection, and I now compete in dock diving, flyball, and lure coursing as well as two different types of conformation) but I hope to focus more on agility again this coming spring. I love it, but it's just so expensive to compete with entry fees being what they are! I've been doing flyball for almost a year now (Nikon is on a team and has earned three titles already) and it's much more bang for the buck. A flyball tournament costs me $30 for both days and my dog gets to race at minimum 12 times per day. When you factor in false-starts and running best of 5 it's usually more like 20 runs each day. Whereas if I do AKC agility I'm paying what like $19 or more PER run? Nikon really loves agility though. At flyball if I let him he will do the agility courses.

ETA: I live in Grand Rapids, MI. There's a local agility club that has CPE and AKC trials, plus there's a huge AKC cluster in GR in the fall (including agility and all the other AKC events) and an AKC cluster about an hour south over Memorial Day weekend. There are a lot of UKC events here too but their agility is kind of weird and I've never tried it.
 
It's so true- agility is crazy expensive! Emma has her excellent jumpers title and is one Q away from her excellent standard...Her sister just got a MACH- impressive as she is a lab! Maise our youngest has yet to start trials, but will be crazy good... Her brother does dock diving and is going to nationals next week (on their first birthday!) We want to try it with Maise, but haven't had any events close enough to try! She is a much faster swimmer than her brother, and leaps like a crazy dog, so I think she'd be great!
 
I love dock diving! Nikon does Ultimate Air Dogs. He's not good at all (best jump is like 12", he jumps really flat, trying to get him to pop up more without a prop on the dock) but he LOVES it. There are a lot of families and little kids that come watch UAD events here and Nikon is a crowd pleaser. He barks like crazy and then I have him do a few silly tricks like a leg weave on the dock.
 
Maise's brother did something crazy like 20 feet at 9 months old! He's better at speed retrieve! I would love to try it with Maise, but would need to start her with Trey- for some reason, she's a bit hesitant to try certain things but gets really competitive with him, then is hooked! He lives about an hour and a half from us, so we see him occasionally for play dates! It's hilarious to watch them together- no fear! She is not like that at all with Emma, our older dog, who is actually her great aunt... Both are obviously from the same breeder, and he has been breeding them for athleticism! All five pups from Maise's litter are going to be working dogs, mostly agility, one dock diver and another one will do agility and field trials. It's great to see dogs doing stuff and having fun!
 
You can get glucosamine tabs that are flavored:
Hip_Flex_Tabs____4fe2430e97a7e.jpg


I would just go to a pet store and ask for help finding a supplement that is flavored. Sometimes they have these flavored tablets, or even things that are more like moist treats. I've used that one in the picture and my dogs think it's a treat. I put it in the bowl with their food and they always eat it first.

I love Longevity as a supplement by Springtime inc... Great glucosamine supplement! My labrador with awful hip dysplasia thrived on it! we have the younger ones on it as well as they are agility dogs and put more stress on their joints! I personally would ask your vet which supplement they recommend or carry- many of the ones at the pet stores have very little glucosamine in them... The other thing is that supplements are not regulated by the FDA like most medications, so quality and quantity of the glucosamine in each treat can vary dramatically! Good brands are Cosequin, Dasuquin, and Phycox as those companies police themselves!


Thank you!!
 
INCREASE in a Danger for Smaller Dogs

hi dogsters....

i imagine this has been discussed but just in case not reccently- my
areas local TV news just ran a story on a sudden increase in dogs
(mostly smaller breeds or puppies of bigger breeds) chocking on chips bags and and a few others (not sure if all mentioned are the foil-lined type)- reaching in to get the enticingly smelled goodies.

Increase in this type of packaging combinded with the now colder weather season for many areas? They didn't say....

SOLUTION: REMEBER to CUT a HOLE in bottom of the bag(s) before tossing out.


I don't think I have the amount of responsiblity needed to have a pet. Simple kinds of plant-care are about my speed; i have also inherated at least half-a-Green Thumb for my mom's mom! :D Animals are amazing beings and wouldn't want anyone's fur-bud to have an early demise, esp something easy to counter.
 
My dogs are loving the snow! We have about two and a half feet outside and they are wrestling and leaping into it! They were even sliding down the hill on their backs yesterday!
 
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