General Dog Chat Part III

[BiteyShark]

A new shiny thread for general chat.

Old or new, big or small, everyone is welcome to pop in and chat

Yep, I do it because SquirrelDog is very clever and easily bored and I’m trying to discourage his ‘staring through the windows at cats and birds’ habit because it drives me bonkers.

I also sometimes stuff bones with a mixture of natural yoghurt, peanut butter, kibble, tiny bits of cheese and any other random stuff I have lying around, which is good for keeping him busy while I dick around on the internet.

Oh I'm relieved you also go with the "random stuff I have lying around".

I'm not sure how seriously to take the information on the net about what is toxic or bad for dogs - as I said earlier our family dogs lived till they were 14 and - on top of their cheapo tins of dog food - they got a lot of family meal leftovers, chocolate and basically anything they wanted as we were all putty in their paws.

Now Ddog has expensive posh dry food - which I have no qualms about paying for whatsoever - and I'm googling whether I should give her salmon skin and then finding out I shouldn't give her chicken skin - we have roast chicken once a week and neither of us enjoy the skin so she has been benefitting for days after our roast dinner... obviously want to do right by her (not just a pfb pup but also a rescue) but not wanting to be that precious pfb about it all if it's not necessary!

Obvious toxic foods such as chocolate and grapes I avoid at all costs. The only reason our family dog as a child got away with eating chocolate was because it wasn't enough theobromine in it to get to the toxic amount (chocolate toxicity is on weight of dog, type and amount of chocolate consumed). The problem with grapes is that one grape can be toxic for one dog whilst another dog can consume lots without any issues so you just don't know. I went on a canine first aid course run by a vet and it was very interesting to hear why you should avoid certain foods.

I tend to feed non processed human food to BiteyDog mainly because he isn't good with fatty foods or anything that contains spices/pepper etc. Therefore sausages are out as they tend to contain a lot of seasoning from the supermarket but I give scraps of steak, fish, chicken etc which we have cooked simply.

Thanks Bitey - that's really useful to know. If Biteydog could tolerate sausages would you be happy for him to have them?

Sausages are a tricky one because even the supposedly 'all pork' ones are often high in salt and contain pepper so I avoid. I think pepper can be an irritant generally iirc. That's why I tend to stick to unprocessed meat and fish so I know nothing has been added.

I should say whilst I am careful about what I feed him he isn't careful when out and about and will attempt to eat anything he finds on the pavement

I really try to avoid SquirrelDog getting chocolate and grapes/ raisins (he did get some Wispa Bites once. Git.) Have to admit that if he's willing to work for it, he does get pretty much anything else he wants though! (But in tiny amounts - so a bit of cheese less than half the size of my thumb nail, same sized bit of toast, one plain pasta shell this evening that was stuck to the saucepan.) I don't eat meat, so he tends not to get that unless I am specially roasting chicken or liver for him which I do more often than I'd like to admit.

(PS, why not chicken skin? Because it's fatty?)

I'd love to scatter feed steppedog a bot to engage his brain, my problem is

1. he is ALWAYS hungry, and I think would get frustrated. I think there is a link there to being a rescue and not always getting enough to eat. Even when he is fat and stuffed, he would come running if he though there might be a titbit in it for him.
2. I tried a kong full of peanut butter with one of our fosters, and he loved it, but I came home to a house smeared all over with bits of peanut butter, and we have carpets.

I did try it with Ddog last night and this morning - put a 1/3 of her normal food in her bowl and then the other 2/3 in a kong, bound together with some natural yoghurt and some mashed up spinach and broccoli (which she likes but will not touch green beans) as a no calorie filler - had to do two lots of kongs and meant she took 30 minutes to eat her meal rather than 3 minutes so I'm sticking to that from here on! I was worried she might bet frustrated but she enjoys it.

Squirrel - yes couple of sites saying you should give trimmed fat off the steak or chicken skin etc... Ddog has had both and loved them...

So no mashed veg but bigger chunks of broccoli to bung things up a bit and make it harder as well as a bit of natural yoghurt to make the kibble stickier and more difficult to extract - will give her a chance to get used to this before we move onto frozen but loving the fact it takes her half an hour to eat a meal! Thank you so much for recommending it.

drama - ours is a rescue who NEVER turns down food no matter how fat and stuffed she is, and is always on the scavenge, but this really does seem to be working for her. She takes the kong off to one of her beds (has worked out it's easier to control there than on the tiled floor) but it is surprisingly unmessy and have not had to sweep and mop the tiles when she started on them with the kibble and veg mix... can imagine the peanut butter frenzy was a nightmare on your carpets!

@distantdog that's fantastic ! I'm so happy!! :) our dog had his tea in a kong wobbler tonight as DH is away and he can't stand the noise he makes.

We went to the vet today and he's got some vet strength yumove so that's good :) starting hydrotherapy tomorrow. The things we do for our furrys!

I scattered Cocodogs breakfast in the garden a while back and she really got upset...I worked out that she is very keen to have her breakfast and didn’t want to work for it. She now has most of her breakfast in her bowl but I either hide a handful around the house for her to seek out ( rainy days) or scatter the handful in the garden. She loves this!
She often has the smaller puzzle food toys at lunchtime to keep her occupied and a frozen Kong/raw marrowbone when I am super occupied with something or bad weather when she hasn’t been able to be out in the garden very much.

BiteyDog has mostly wet food so no food to scatter but we have really tiny treats that are dried turkey which he loves. His favourite game is where I have hidden 2-3 pieces of them in piles around the house and he has to find them. His spaniel nose gets all excited and I love the way he looks to me to guide him.

Oh yes, I do the hiding tiny treats too. Sometimes it helps to get SquirrelDog started on eating his scattered kibble too.

It’s interesting how they are all so different. SquirrelDog was also a rescue, but at home it’s always been quite hard to get him interested in eating. He is though, incredibly determined about scavenging discarded human food on the street - I wonder if he survived on that and doesn’t really recognise his kibble as ‘food’?

SquirrelDog probably thinks what is this strange food my master leaves me. Don't they know I prefer a kebab

Bitey

DH is back after nearly a week away and Ddog was unequivocally pleased to see him which was both lovely to see and a huge relief as she's so clingy to me and has had me all to herself so we were worried but, no, there's definitely an attachment bond there!

He was a bit about the broccoli and yoghurt kong for a dog but after she took one hour to eat her breakfast - the final 15 minutes of which being a very determined effort to get one last stubborn piece of broccoli which she was visibly so delighted to finally extract - he is a convert.

There is no rubbish/food on the ground round here at all so we don't have that problem but I think she had at least a bit of a lick (possibly worse) on a cow pat yesterday before I could catch her up and shoo her away from it... Thing is there are so many cow pats here that she has totally ignored so I don't know what was special about this one... Hoping it's not going to be a habit! I know a friend's dog had to have medicine to stop it eating poo

Does any one else have 🤦‍♀️ moments with their dogs? Our dog had a sore neck and headache last night (holding his head funny) so I duly popped him up the vets and he's got a sprained neck, steroids galore. Took him back this morning for bloods to rule out meningitis and as the vet was talking to me about trying to keep him calm the dog chewed off the end of the vets laces and ate it 🤦‍♀️ just staring at him like wtf?! You're 11! Not 8 weeks!!

Oops posted too soon. Anyway it doesn't look like meningitis but have to keep him quiet. So that's difficult! Also he had his photo taken for 'rogue of the week' for the vets Facebook page for eating the shoe laces. He had to have a vomiting injection for that. Then as we were leaving the vet gave him a toy duck and he took that on a walk with him. Would not put it down at all, the looks and cooing from random people he looked please as punch!

Hope he gets better Newyoiker. I guess it was good that it was only shoe laces .

We have given BiteyDog his 6 monthly drontal wormer this morning. Don't really like this one as it sometimes gives him runny poos and has made him vomit in the past. What is new though today is manic hyperactivity. He is like a dog possessed

BastardPup is now 20 weeks and is a big bugger. He is curled up next to me because we have had a big old walk and he is shattered. I should be doing some work but bugger it...

I might need some sedation to get BiteyDog to curl up next to me tonight. Must ask vets if we can try a different wormer next time (or maybe I do a worm count just for this one as it's only every 6 months) as I dread this one but his monthly one is fine. We have already started with diarrhoea and he is making nasty smells [boak].

Ooh what is with 6 monthly and monthly wormers? Can you over worm? I have only ever wormed our dogs every three months with drontal. Never had any problems, never had any worms! Quite prepared to be told why but I would need a lot of convincing.

Our vets recommend the additional drontal every 6 months for the worms that nexgard spectra doesn't cover but it's that one that we always have something with. Diarrhoea I can live with, the manic hyper dog who can't relax is too much and as it's only 6 months I might look for alternatives.

Fortunately the monthly nextgard spectra is fine which covers the more important stuff such as fleas, ticks and lungworms.

Jeez he is on off the sofa every two minutes, staring at me, gesturing to the door then back on the sofa. It's going to be a looong night.

DH has just gone out to get as we need some substance

Oh right, we do a different regime. Bravecto, every three months,
, which she was poorly with but deals with fleas, ticks etc. I looked at the dosage which is for us up to a 20 kg dog and is chewable. But, you shouldn’t break them up, well a dog chews...so I looked at her 14kg weight and give her three quarters of a tablet. No problems, asked my vet who was happy with this. Then I do a three monthly drontal tablet for worms. Should always go with your vets advice of course but of three dogs over thirty years have only had one outbreak of worms.