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.

Sorry to hear about Biteydog’s IBD Bitey. My cat had this and I was just a frequent visitor to my vet. Are you able to give his medication in food? My cat was very smart and refused to eat food with a tablet hidden in it so I ended up with lots of holes in my fingers.

I have Bluepuppy back. He did very well with the pet sitter and has put in weight. He seemed to thrive living in a multi dog household so it pretty much confirms that he needs to have another dog for company. It’s just a matter of finding one. Pet sitter has told me of a breeder with a 12 month old whippet boy they decided not to keep so I will contact them and take it from there.

The extra walking has been difficult so far as weather here is still in the mid 30’s with overnight temps of around 23 degrees Getting cooler next week so that should help. I’m jealous of the doggy snow pics I’ve seen from the UK!

Thanks all for the good wishes, he's such a lovely dog and has had such bad luck with health and accidents so really hoping that this will finally be the turning point.

blue he has to take 5 pills in the morning but as he eats wet food with such vigour I just sprinkle them on top and he doesn't even notice he's eating them 😁

Hope you enjoyed your break, certainly sounds like bluepup did. I am so glad the snow went as quickly as it came as it's fun for about a day or two but then it's a pain as everything in the uk stops.

Training has been cancelled this weekend due to the rain. Can't wait for the summer

I have found the downside of BiteyDog travelling on the backseat than in the boot. Despite trying to dry him off with a towel and having the seats covered he loves to do his shaking dry bit so the car roof and stuff is getting showered in dirt . Think I am going to have to put regular valeting car on my list of expenses now as well.

Glad you’ve got a diagnosis @bitey and I hope that Biteypup takes it all in his stride

Teatimetoller is obviously feeling much better, which is a huge relief. He jumped onto the bed to give me a morning cuddle which he hasn’t been able to do for weeks - he’s not supposed to be jumping but he took me by surprise. I think this week is going to feel quite long for both of us ... he’s starting to get a bit bored and his naughtiness is coming out...

I think by end June we shall feel pretty jealous of your weather, blue, when our summer fails to really arrive yet again!
Bitey, have you considered a dog towel robe to put on biteydog after a wet walk. Ours doesn’t do much to dry coco off but does contain the mess until we get home and then it’s only the damage from wet tail and shaking ears😃
Glad teatimedog is feeling better. Cocodog goes out for a wee and then comes back to our bed for a cuddle as a treat before breakfast. Didn’t happen this morning as have got a busy day ahead...I do believe she is sulking🙄

Sounds like Teatimetoller is on the mend. Keeping them still is soooooo hard .

thegirlsallgrowedupnow I do have a robe somewhere for him (which he hated). Might have to dig it out and try it on him again.

Coco only accepts the robe in the car for the journey home, once back she is rolling around trying to dislodge it which actually all helps to dry her.
Sulking even worse now, not only did I disappear all morning but left her important long morning walk to DH who gave her a quick whizz through the woods and then went shopping! Then when I returned I spent an hour furiously hoovering and making beds up and ignored her. Ah well she will cheer up loads later when adult DC arrive and even more when she comes to our local pub this evening and sees her beagle friend😁

It's such a pain as I need to dry him to drive back but then he goes in the bath to shower all the mud off so is wet again

My car looks like a mud murder has occurred .

We had a busy day today visiting in laws before ball play so I now have a slightly damp but totally tired dog lying on me.

Well the steroids are definitely making BiteyDog drink and pee more and we are getting the 'I'm so hungry I will eat you if you don't feed me soon' stare more often but so far no other side effects

D’you think he’s feeling better, Bitey?

One of our trainers has a dog with similar problems - she’s been doing an exclusion diet with him but says it’s just not working.

I really didn't want to do the exclusion diet because it's not even known whether it's food that triggers it and as he has had two different types of white cells invading his stomach it would suggest there are multiple triggers. It just sounded too much work for possibly no gain especially as he perked up instantly when they injected him last year.

I think he is a bit better right now as we haven't had diarrhoea for a few days although some movements have been very soft so fingers crossed it continues to improve.

From what I have read I think they like to offer the exclusion diet as it's cheap and obviously no side effects. But given that the symptoms wax and wane I am not sure how you could tell given that you have to exclude everything other than the special food for weeks/months.

Personally I was happy to trial the drugs (and they aren't even expensive although insurance is covering them) but maybe because he had been so unwell last year and we had a firm positive diagnosis rather than excluded everything else they were happy for me to say no to trialing the diet and go straight to steroids.

An exclusion diet can work only if the trigger is diet and you try a completely new protein and nothing else for a month. If it's environmental etc then it won't work at all.

Biteyshark my cocker (only 5m) has a Pooch Onezee (zip up towelling bag) which my aunt gave me. He's not overly keen on it - but I love it. 10 minutes in it and he's relatively dry and much less muddy.
If we are out via a car journey it contains him and his mud.
I'm actually going to get another one so that I can keep the mess contained in the car and have another one to use if he is so muddy that I have to shower him down when we get home.

Yes I honestly couldn't see how we could stop him having a mouthful of anything else unless I gave up work and we never went out given that he goes to daycare and eats lots of horse/cow poo and anything else he take a fancy too

We have also feed him in the past duck, trout, salmon, cod, rabbit, lamb, beef, chicken, turkey amongst other proteins and I believe you have to pick one that he has never had before or have some hydrolyzed food instead. It seems a hard thing to do well.

Chasingsquirrels I have seen them but I do wonder if I have just left it too late to introduce such things to BiteyDog as he isn't backwards at telling me what he doesn't like and god help me if I attempt to put him in a coat

How cute does your dog look in that

I think that was one of the 1st few times I used it, he was still tiny and it was much too big for him (brought for adult size) and it was all twisted up cos he was trying to hop along in it (like a sack race).
Now he just lies there and looks grumpy - but if it means I don't have to wash the floor all the time he can have 10 grumpy minutes. I'm so fed up of the mud!

Definitely bring on the summer I no longer look at my kitchen floor as it always has muddy paw prints on it

We had a horrible scare last night. BiteyDog kept getting up from his bed and lying on the floor in a daze. He seemed totally out of it. We ended up sleeping together in the spare room so I could keep an eye on him during the night and at 1am he perked up and seemed back to himself. He is ok this morning but seems perhaps a bit more tired than normal so maybe with the drugs daycare was too full on for him yesterday. He brings so much joy but such a lot of worry as well. Think we will have a relatively leisurely day today.

Bitey, is your daycare in a private house or a centre? Either way I am sure they could organise a bit of extra rest for biteydog at the moment. Your description of him reminded me of how cocodog was after her GA when she was spayed.

Chasingsquirrels, like your “ he can have 10 grumpy minutes” 😁
Cocodog seems to prefer her paws being washed in the sink and dried rather than me just rubbing the mud off < bloody princess >

He's in a private house. I think they had his 'girlfriend' around all day yesterday so I suspect he just didn't stop playing and it caught up with him. Gave us a fright . Think some R&R is definitely needed for him and me as didn't sleep much worrying about him

Aww, BiteyDog

I am just sitting here on the sofa looking out at the lovely sunny day outside...or I would be, but all I can see is the inside of the window covered in paw prints and dog dribble.

Haha yes the wet nose prints on the window really add to the view

I'm getting our eye watering expensive artificial grass laid soon which I hope will cut down the muddy paws except he likes to walk through our flower beds as well grrr

@steppemum regarding the group training thread (thought be easier to chat here). Is there any reason why you don't want to use an artificial whistle for the gundog training? I use an acme whistle which isn't that loud.

As for the 'leave it' command we only use it briefly in our training so be interesting to know why that was such a requirement.