Adolescent Dog Survival Thread - Bark the Herald, furry angels sing!

[YorkshireFelix]

New thread to get us through the festive season! Angelic and naughty teenage pups all welcome

Ahh this is brilliant! And also so random. I wonder why he decided today is the day?!

Perhaps Bill's finding it too cold like the rest of us are...? Maybe he needs to dress like Brie as well 😉

Oh wow, that is dire. I wonder about licenses too, @Bupster. But like the XL bully exemption thing, would people just not abide by the law?

And hooray for your poo news! Is it really slippy up by the big building? I can imagine the cobbles are quite treacherous.

I'm told they are - since the temperature really dropped I've cut us down to very local short walks as Bill's an idiot and won't even notice he's cold until his feet fall off. Honestly last time we were on the Common he was breaking the ice to splash around in the puddles.

Also thank you for my favourite sentence of the day. Nobody has ever cheered my poo news before 😄

The fields around my daughter’s school have been impassable for the last few weeks as they are a quagmire. I managed to walk through them today as they were still frozen at 3pm. Midge enjoyed jumping around, but on second thoughts, maybe he was like Bambi because his feet were cold. I feel like a bad dog parent now… I hadn’t thought about his feet getting cold!

Ugh Vinny has worms! He's just done a poo and there was what looks like a roundworm in there 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢

We have the pet plan thing with our vets so he gets wormed monthly but will be due one around now as the last one was start of Dec. Is it just the same tablet they would give for worming or do they need something else to get rid of them/is that more of a preventative thing?

I guess that explains the vomming too!

Oh my gosh @YorkshireFelix . Poor Vinny! Yes, could explain the sickness I guess.
I have no idea if it's just a regular wormer or not but I presume so...

@Nella68 If you’re a bad dog parent, so am I – pupsy went full on ice-skating this evening on what had been a huge bog and which is now an ice rink! She didn’t even seem to notice that it was slippy. I must say it is nice to come in from what was, last week, a filthy muddy field, totally clean.

Nooooo @YorkshireFelix, condolences. I know nothing about this at all as we are also on our vets’ pet plan, but to help it along you could get him some hairy chews – rabbit ears or cow ears etc? Hairy chews in particular are often sold as natural dewormers and if he likes them I can’t see how it would hurt as an extra treatment. Bless him.

It's weird as I assumed the monthly worming would prevent it but who knows! I'll call the vets in the morning and see what the craic is.

@brushingboots I didn't know that about hairy chews. He usually loves them but I've had a fresh cows ear hanging around for a few weeks and he's not interested in it for some reason.

Worming tablets don't prevent worms, they just treat them. A tablet is effectively a treatment so they can pick up worms in between treatments. So it should just be the regular tablet you need.

I don't know whether vets would confirm worms or just treat. If it was me I would want to know for sure as that would influence how often you might keep treating as 3 monthly treatments are more normal as they get older.

We don't treat unless there's an issue, just worm count.

@YorkshireFelix - just had a thought, are you sure it was a worm and not just some rice? I think you said you'd given some recently.

Midge is a scavenger so the vet advised giving the tapeworm treatment (Droncit) every 3 months rather than 6 monthly. I don’t think the monthly tablet he takes covers tapeworms.

Thanks @tizwozliz that's good to know. It was definitely worms - a couple of very long ones that looked like thick noodles. I assume we can just get his usual wormer and it will do the trick but will check with the vets.

Now I'm more properly awake I see you said roundworm.

Tapeworm segments look like rice / rice looks like tapeworm segments. I had a panicked google a couple of years ago 😂

I had to Google image search different types of worms and cross reference against his poo 🤢🤢🤢🤢 So grim!

Ok the vets said he's literally due his worming treatment tomorrow so are sorting it for me to collect today. Nothing extra needed. Phew!

Glad you've got the issue sorted out @YorkshireFelix and hope there will be no ill effects from the worm purge.

Having a dog is so gross!

Must admit I've never heard about the hairy chews worming theory mentioned by @brushingboots but I can't help wondering if rawhide has the same effect... We don't worm ours since one of the boys reacted very badly to Panacur but we've never had a worm issue.

(disclaimer before some random lurker gives the obligatory MN rawhide lecture. Yes, rawhide is dangerous/toxic/nasty and I'm an idiot/irresponsible/unfit owner, guilty as charged - but with a 500psi bite force it's not that easy to find "safe" chews that don't splinter)😩😬😫

Have to say our cats have been much worse than our dogs. Maine Coons are disgusting.

@CoubousAndTourmalet That's the theory anyway, at least the one sold by suppliers – the hair is supposed to catch the eggs on their way out (or something equally grim)! I've no idea how effective it is but admittedly my overall experience with worming is limited to: receive the tablets from the vets and feed to pupsy in some cheese, so I'm definitely not an expert.

@CoubousAndTourmalet
How dare you suggest rawhide you should never own a dog again I banish you
Sorry couldn't help myself 😱

It's a good reminder for me to get some worm kits ordered.

Pup has finally been spayed today, all went smoothly. Picking her up in a couple of hours.

Oh I know @CaptainBeanThief I'll have to advertise her on Pets4homes or Gumtree immediately as a Pigeon Protector. Clearly I'm unfit to own a dog😭

That must be quite a relief after all the delays @tizwozliz
I hope she makes a good recovery.