General dog chat

[BiteyShark]

Anyone fancy a general dog chat thread?

BiteyDog is now almost 15 months old and it's about time we ditched the puppy survival thread for general chit chat but it's still nice to chat about our doggie dilemmas and days so if anyone wants to join me in wittering on saves BiteyDog having the listen to my incessant talking at him then welcome aboard.

How's all the dogs coping with the snow in the northern parts? I am sick of the rain and I guess fortunate enough that BiteyDog doesn't like it much either so apart from a 20 min ball run we are snuggled up in the house today.

i tend to the reverse psychology approach for tablets with dogs,

make sure dog is about and be very secretive about getting the pill out and be obviously keen to see it, and hold it, set it on a saucer and keep looking at it.

get yourself a cup of tea and then set that next to the saucer, and just generally make out that it is the best treat ever, sit down with your cup of tea and the eyes of every dog in the house upon you and offer them the tablet!

Otherwise the loaded treat in a selection is good!

If you have a greedy thief type dog simply dropping it on the floor in front of them can be enough, providing you pretend to try and get it back

if you have one who is good at catching treats then just throw over a couple, then the pill then a couple more treats

It's a fine line between rousing their suspicions and putting them on alert or getting it in with minimum fuss.

Love the reverse psychology approach Mrs HomeSlice, that would so work with cocodog😁
I accidentally cooked a couple of vegetarian sausages yesterday. We wondered why she wasn’t very enthusiastic about her training treats today. Then DH ate one🙃

I use a bit of Arden Grange Liver paste and both dogs wolf down their Bravecto and Worming tablets - I get it from Amazon or Pet Planet when I'm ordering their food.

Before it was a horrible drawn out job involving loads of ham and breaking up tablets and then picking up bits off the floor.

Am potty training my dc4 and currently the dogs are trying to get to any solid waste before me - they keep eating it

Fortunately BiteyDog thinks his Nexgard spectra tablets are actually treats and happily eats them without hiding them in food. We use the cheese trick with things like antibiotics

When I wormed PestDog I squished some room temperature butter around it and made him sit like it was a treat. Didn't even touch the sides - I felt him swallow.

Mind you, he's not the world's brightest dog - the other day I watched him start running towards a "squirrel" (he only runs like that when he's seen prey) only to discover that the reason his quarry wasn't moving was because it was in fact daffodil shoots poking out of the ground

(PS same person, name changed)

Avocados you reminded me of BiteyDog when he mistook a tree stump for some animal and spent a few mins trying to engage it into playing with him. I laughed a lot that day

We had a trainer come today to help us with our reactive Rescue terrier. I feel so much better having to listened to her. Sometimes you can’t see the. Wood for the trees. She was here for two hours and was so reassuring.

Good news about the trainer Doctor. They can really be a help.

Bluepuppy is good with medication. He’ll eat it just pushed into his soft food. The only issue I’ve had is sometimes he doesn’t really eat breakfast so I just use the cheese method then.

it looks like it’s our turn to join the dodgy tum club. Bluepuppy asked to go outside a couple of times last night. This morning it was obvious why. Yuk. He seems a bit subdued but we’re also in the middle of a heatwave so it’s hard to tell if it’s just the heat or not.

I think I know the cause. Tried to give him some raw mince as part of his diet to boost his weight a bit. He used to eat it when he was younger and he loves it but he had runny poos with it before. Sigh. Back to the drawing board with food.

blue with BiteyDog being so thin and having a sensitive stomach we have tried a variety of things to get him to put on weight. Feeding him a third meal often helps whereas he can't stomach two larger meals. Unfortunately this isn't possible when he's at daycare etc so things like a scrambled egg as a treat seem to be tolerated well.

Doctor glad the trainer helped. Just having someone in RL giving you reassurance can mean such a lot.

Bluepuppy already gets a third meal Bitey. One meal as soon as I get home from work and then another a couple of hours later ( as well as breakfast which he doesn’t always eat if I’m taking him to daycare). Part of the problem is I take too much notice of what other people say about his weight. Still, when in the space of two weeks you get one vet nurse say he’s perfect for his age and breed and another that says he’s verging on too skinny it gets very confusing

This is him at the beach a couple of weeks ago

blue I think he looks like great and like his breed which is skinny. As he gets older he will fill out a bit more (as my vet keeps saying when I query BiteyDogs weight).

We were down to 11.5kg with his illness. He's now 13-13.5kg and he has a nice waist and we can no longer see his ribs which for a spaniel isn't something we should see. The vet says we are now at that sweet spot so trying to make sure he stays the same but it's hard because if he has a more active week it falls off him.

Looks great Blue. I think part of the issue is people are so used to seeing waddling fat labs (other breeds too!) that they have forgotten what's normal.

AMAZING NEWS re PestDog

Friend approached me last night and told me that having realised the logistics of emigrating with a dog and other factors he thinks it might be best if he stays with me permanently.

I can't quite bring myself to believe it until it's all gone through, microchip changed and so on, but it's certainly been a rollercoaster week and I still feel slightly shaky with it all

Now comes the realisation that I've just made an expensive 10-15 year commitment to a toddler that will never grow up 😂

BRILLIANT NEWS about pestdog! :D well done to your friend to seeing sense! :o :o

Congratulations Avocados, good news for you and Pestdog😁

Awww just lost my post. So pleased for you and PestDog . Thank god common sense prevailed but yes make sure you get the change of ownership official.

Oh and now we can hope to see you on here for a long time to come with PestDogs antics

I feel bad that I’ve missed the Pastdog backstory. What sort of dog is Pestdog? Welcome to our crazy dog club

Thanks for the kind words Bitey and Wolfie. You’re right about the fat dogs. I even know some fat whippets

Bluedog sounds like BiteyDog in that he runs around all the time, especially in daycare. Being on the lean side is going to be a good thing for his joints etc. BiteyDog's favourite treat right now is raw carrot, he goes crazy for them.

Oh I am so pleased about pestdog!!

Can anyone help me with this?
How quickly do you run to the vet if something is wrong?
With my kids, we rarely go to the GP, most things clear up happily after a few days, it has to be genuinely a problem or serious really. But of course the kids can tell me.

Steppedog chased a fox last night and is now limping.
He isn't limping all the time, more when he gets up from sleeping, but when I let him out this morning he shot down the garden like a bullet (normal for him first thing, he is always hopeful that a chicken might be on his side of the fence) no sign of the limp, running round no limp, then circled to poo and he was holding his back leg off the ground.

Took him out for a short walk, which is small park, then cross a road, then small park, so he is on the lead for roads and off lead in the park. At one crossing he crossed on three legs, but as soon as he was off the lead he was running full speed after birds etc.

We only did a short walk, and again at home, one minute he is fine, and then limping.
Last night and this morning I have given him a thorough check. He is very amenable, so able to really feel well, and both legs are the same, nothing out of place, everything moving properly, no marks, no redness, no swelling, no pain to the touch, nowhere where he flinched as I touched, or pulled away. Pads fine, paw fine, nothing between his toes etc. Absolutely nothing, except the limp. He doesn't appear to be in pain, more uncomfortable at certain angles.

My instinct is that he has pulled/strained a muscle when he went after the fox. That the vet will say take is easy for a while, and come back, that without an x-ray/scan there is nothing to be seen anyway.
If it was my ds saying his muscle hurt, I would say you over stretched it at football, have a hot bath and an early night, you'll feel better tomorrow.

So, after that LONG essay, at what point do you go to the vet? I have an appointment for Tues anyway, do I see how he is over the weekend and then ask the vet on Tuesday, or do I need to do something sooner? Sorry, this is just inexperience with dogs, the irony is I would feel quite confident with what to do with my cat, somehow with the dog, I haven't a clue.

blimey that was an essay

Personally given that our vet visits don't cost much I tend to take him much earlier then I would do myself. So if a limp isn't better after rest overnight I have taken him to the vets and incidentally we actually found he had fractured a claw so they trimmed it right down to avoid him catching it.

The vet gave him a good exam and checked that pulling and flexing his leg wasn't a problem and mentioned that with spaniels they can often get issues which need looking at otherwise they tend to put more strain on it and make it much worse in the long term. For that reason I would go again if he wasn't showing any progress after a good overnights rest. However, I realise lots of people would wait much longer before they considered it vet worthy.