They love a bit of him (Podlife)

[HangingOver]

Hello my fabulous Podsquad, here is Podcast Thread III.

For anyone that is new to this thread, it's about my rescue dog, known as Pod.

Here is thread No. 2 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_doghouse/5197068-the-pod-cast?page=39&reply=141216881

And thread No 1 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_doghouse/5177112-oh-my-giddy-god?page=1

for if anyone would like to go back and see how astonishingly naïve and traumatised I was by taking on a fully grown, teenaged pointy dog who seemed determined to destroy me and everything I love.

Theatrics over, here is the Pod in question (obviously I've edited the lead out - I'm not mental).

If anyone doesn't have is Insta handle and wants it, just DM me. A video of me and Pod doing yoga together will appear at some point soon.

Famous last words haha. I just hissed at him "SHUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP YOU HORRIBLE DOG!!" after a full hour of bark to go out, bark outside, be brought in, REPREAT REPEAT REPEAT.

I haven't even showered today, he screams at me if I go upstairs.

Bloody pig dog.

Take him with you to shower - he'll soon realise its boring and not very comfy up there!!

(i would shut all the other doors so that upstairs really is seriously boring though, I would not give him a hint of an idea about bedrooms...!!!)

I have said a very similar thing to the Stick Dog whilst I was working the other day and she was playing the same game 'I wanna go out, no wait i wanna come in, no I wanna sit here with the door open whilst you freeze'.. and her ask is to growl, then move to a high pitched howly whiney thing.

SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU WEIRDO..

Stunned little face on it 'Oh MUMMY!... You could have just asked me nicely' and she stalked off to her bed to sulk! Like IM the arsehole here?!

Solidarity.

If I shower with the door open downstairs he barks at me. It's quite sweet though, I think because he's scared of the shower he feels the need to continually warn me while I'm showering that I'm in terrible danger.

Oh and Pod didn't win a single rosette in the online show! I think I'm being punished for submitting that picture of him shagging his buddy into 'best bond' category. Bunch of homophobes.

Yeah that might have been a step too far for the humourless pencil pushers at the online dog shows. Rotters!

No rosette????

A pox on their, er, whatever (?) ....

Didn't you tell them he's been poorly!!! Mean. Just mean.😠

Disgraceful!

This reminds me of when my baby came last in a beautiful baby competition.

30 yeas ago and I’m still livid! she was definitely the best baby there.

This thread has become my routine to start the day with a smile. I'm sorry for everyone's struggles with their KnobDogs but I applaud your ability to rise above it. Hope things improve today.

I SLEPT ALL NIGHT. POD SLEPT ALL NIGHT. No poops on the floor. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaas.

YAY great news.

He's finally on the mend! 😀

Sleep blessed sleep! And no cleaning up!

Brilliant news 🎉

I retested his poop this morning. I know they don't shed in every poop but it was negative. YAY, he's getting better.

So I'm having a look on www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk...

I've realised the food they had Pod on at the rescue is the Pets at Home basic range, called Step Up. It only scores 55% which I'm guessing is really bad. He really likes it though and other than occasionally soft poops, which seems to happen when he has more of the canned meat, it doesn't cause him any issues.

I entered his weight and age and a comparable breed (lurcher) and it's returned 20 PAGES of options. How the heck do people choose? 😂

Their top rated food would cost me £191.98 per month to feed Pod

Be careful, Hanging.

We have basically tried every top rated food on that site, and each seemed to be "the one", so we'd spend £££ getting them a good variety of flavours...
Never to be eaten again 😫

Now I am cooking for the fussy pair 🙄 Total pita 😟(they're worth it, obviously!)

So pleased for you!

I've become boringly evangelical about raw food since Doggo developed kidney problems as well as her lifelong arthritis. There's no treatment for kidney problems in dogs and heavy duty painkillers for her arthritis stopped being effective. I now have her on raw mince from Nurturing by Nature, unbelievably small quantities as advised by their vet nurse but it must be enough as she no longer lets me know when dinner time is coming up and her weight is stable. She's in better condition and more active than she's been for years (though I do give her supplements as well, I think it's down to a combination of no longer feeding processed food/ fillers and supplementing the good stuff). It' s also much cheaper than the food she was previously getting. If you think you might be able to cope with the freezer space needed then I would definitely include it in your comparisons.

This is what I use https://www.nurturingbynature.co.uk/product/raw-dog-food-variety-box-2. I think the recommendation is between 1 and 2 % of their bodyweight daily so you can get an idea of the likely cost.

Hi @HangingOver - did your vet accept the at home kit results and just issue the meds or did they want to do their own tests?

Yep they did thank goodness because their one STILL isn't back!

On the food thing, while you guys know I am absolutely not worried about spending all my money on Pod, my skincare collection is a testament to how suspectable I am to marketing bollocks. And whole I'm sure there is such a thing as good food and bad food I'm also positive there's an enormous amount of bollocks as well.

I go for something in the 80% ish bracket, that has more meat than anything else (and watch out for the tricksy labelling... if you break down the cereal content into lots of different types you can then, via the 'largest single ingredient first' rule, make it appear that meat is the single largest ingredient, when it is absolutely not!)...

Then try for a food that has few ingredients and what there are are very specifically named, as then to alter the recipe they must alter the label - ie 'fresh lamb breast' will always be just that - 'meat and poultry meal' - that could be 90% goose feet one week and 90% cow arses the next - now both of those are nutritious things but if your dog is sensitive or allergic to cow arses that's a bit of an issue and its why some dogs seem fine on a food for a few months, year, then not fine!!

I also don't feed the same food every day/week - we base their diet on a raw frozen complete, then chuck in various bits and bobs, dry food, cooked frozen, whatevers decent, on offer or I can get a freebie of. Plus suitable home left overs.

Thats taken a long time to build up a variety that they're ok with and I know won't cause issues and I'd not start on that until he is well clear of the giardia of course, but it does result in a dog who isn't fussy because they've no need to be!

I can't believe Pod didn't get a rosette, we actually make rosettes and would love to make him a very special one to start his collection

Hurray for Pod being better. And for the sleep.

The food talk interests and baffles me. When my dog was young seven people gave her treats in one day and she wasn't well. One Christmas I let her have a new treat which was too big and she wasn't well. I changed her food from the breeders and she's been on it for years as I assumed she had a sensitive tummy. Vet has advised I don't move her to a raw diet so she's on her dried biscuits. I'd love to treat her to nice wet food like the cats have but I'm unsure. Seeing people give different stuff and change it has me wondering if I'm being too cautious. My dog is 8.8.

Dog food has so much stuff in it that whilst you can take a guess that 'something' in a food is causing an issue, you can't then assume its everything other than this exact food I am currently feeding...

And a dog can be unable to tolerate a complete food containing say, chicken, but be absolutely fine with a relatively unprocessed raw chicken mince or block.

The only way to really truly know is to do an exclusion diet, which many vets don't recommend because they know most people won't do it properly and its a total pain in the backside to do - it involves finding a novel protein and carb, and then feeding nothing but that for a good month or six weeks then slowly adding in new ingredients, giving each one a couple of weeks to show up whether it causes an issue... and repeating that process over and over until you have a good range of foods... Then you can decide if you're going to stick with a raw or home cooked diet with those ingredients or do you take a further leap of faith and try a quality complete dry or wet dog food that contains those ingredients.

Lengthy process that not many people want to bother with and therefore unless your dog ends up allergic to damn near every complete food in existance... most people don't bother - and I totally understand why!

My dog is on a dry food that suits her very well so I'm not changing it. The boarding kennel people even commented on how well it suited her!
She is very greedy though and not at all fussy so if I had to change it for any reason she would scoff whatever she was given.

A previous lurcher couldn't eat kibble at all, or at least none that I gave her. It all went straight through her.😒 It's such a slow business too, gradually introducing a new food.
Eventually I took her back to chicken and rice and nothing else and it was as if I'd flicked a switch.
From that she went on to Naturediet wet food and that was perfect for her.

I'm not sure that the 'all about dog food' lists are very helpful. Their recommended foods don't necessarily suit all dogs.