DogPaddle

Poor puppy. I'm glad you are taking care of him. At one week I would definately be feeding every 2 hours or so. If you can get to a vet I'm sure they'd have lots of good suggestions for you. You will also need to keep him warm so that hot water bottle is a good idea - keep it just a bit above body temperature and wrap it in a towel. Good luck. :D

Try these places: Aunt Vi's Garden 861 S Hudson Ave Los Angeles CA 90005 310-289-7869 Kid Chiropractic 1445 N. Gardner St. Los Angeles CA 90046-4101 323-436-2735 Healing Waters-LA 136 N. Orlando Ave Los Angeles CA 90048 323-651-4656 Apothecary Pharmacy 11700 National Blvd Los Angeles CA 90064 310-473-5003 Or go to there site and contact them to see if they can help or order online: [url]http://www.feelbach.com[/url] Or go to one of these specialty pet stores in your area as they may carry it or a similar product: Animal Crackers (323) 658-1919 8023 Beverly Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90048 Casey's Pet Depot (310) 441-4122 1278 Westwood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90024 Catt's & Dogg's (323) 953-8383 2833 1/2 Hyperion Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90027 Centinela Feed & Pet Supplies (310) 473-5099 11055 W. Pico Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90064 Centinela Feed & Pet Supplies (310) 216-9261 7600 Sepulveda Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90045 Centinela Feed & Pet Supplies (310) 398-2134 3860 Centinela Ave Los Angeles, CA 90066 Dogromat (310) 306-8885 12926 Venice Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90066 Eco-Pet (310) 645-8892 6955 La Tijera Blvd. #A Los Angeles, CA 90045 For Pets Only (323) 664-4211 1903 Hillhurst Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90027 For Pets Only (323) 934-8303 310 South La Brea Los Angeles, CA 90036 Helen Pet Depot (310) 478-8266 10531 W. Pico Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90064 Katie's Pet Depot 310-313-1801 12112 Venice Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90066 Kirby's Pet Depot (310) 313-1801 12112 Venice Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90066 Pet Express (310) 657-4PET 1262 S. La Cienaga Los Angeles, CA 90035 Pet Spot (310) 471-8169 11720 Barrington Ct. Los Angeles, CA 90049 Pets of Belair (310) 475-7977 2924 Beverly Glen Circle Los Angeles, CA 90077 Collar & Leash Pet Food & Supply (323) 665-2215 1836 Hyperion Ave. Los Angeles , CA 90027 Westside Pet Stop (310) 202-1076 10588 Pico Blvd West Los Angeles, CA 90064 Call ahead.

If your worried about keeping your schedule I'd go with the ball in bowl method. Some dogs have no trouble with free feed and house training reliability. You may just have to pick up the food bowl an hour before you go out or go to bed etc.

Go to the vet. Until you can go to the vet, dope him up on Rescue Remedy.

Thanks. Excellent points.

Thanks TDG. Zaphod was a little distended and panting last night but in no discomfort - he frisked a fair bit. No change in diet, however he did eat while stressed. I was giving treats while introducing the dremel. Perhaps this triggered something. I will have to avoid that in future and keep some gas-x on hand. I think Zaphod may be slightly prone to it as he has behaved this way before.

Thanks Goo. That was very helpful. My dremel came with a bunch of sandpaper type bits so that should work great. As for the toe fur - I plan to trim that back first but good thing to mention. Mei - Don't buy a pet store dremel they cost 2x as much as a regular dremel and don't seem to be any better. I'd go to a hardware store.

Nice catch Kendalyn.

How young is the puppy? Why do you need to feed the puppy? What about its mother? You may need to feed as often as every two hours. You could heat the puppy formula or food to body temperature using hot water or microwave.

What are the exact symptoms of bloat? How does it differ from the symptoms of regular gassiness? How long does it take to become deadly? What are the reliable preventatives? What are the treatments?

I'm confused. You can't free feed until the ground thaws because you have to go out with him? The younger dog spends 80% of [i]the[/i] time in his crate? I presume that is not 80% of all time but just 80% of some portion of his day like when you are not home, right? Free feed works well for some dogs. I tried this with Zaphod but when he was a puppy he ate so much that he was constantly dangerously bloated. I had to go with controlled feeding. Tyr (a foster we had once) did eventually adapt quite well to free feed and he was originally a gulper and food agressive. With free feed, along with other training, this improved. If you are transitioning from crating or limited access to full access I would go in stages. First of all make sure the bathrooms are closed, all paper food and garbage are doggyproofed and all laundry is out of reach too. Start with one or two accesable rooms and short periods of time and work up from there if things go well, if they don't go back and try again after a few weeks.

I used glucosamine/chondroit. on Tyr. Tyr was a gsd cross and had 4th grade hip displasia and the beginnings of oesteoarthritis at 8 months. With the glucosamine/chondroit and an occaisional aspirin he was pretty much normal. Apparently using yucca may have reduced the aspirin use as well. Additionally some dog's symptoms of HD reduce greatly after 18 months and can easily be managed with a bit of glucosamine/chondroit until they are seniors.

Too many dogs, too many hormones and scents. Definately spay and neuter the lot of them. It will solve a myriad of problems. There could be dominant male/female issues, issues with a dominant male/female sensing a pup is not theirs and seeking to get rid of it to propagate own genetics and bring females into heat faster, problems with extra hormones causing animals to be be testy regardless of other animals. Further spaying/neutering will protect your pets health and save you money in the long run. I know you have quite a few but you could do them one at a time over a period of time. Do your dogs live inside?

What is wrong with his back? I would suggest glucosamine/chondroitin/yucca until the dog gets better. It will reduce discomfort and will reduce any damage that might be caused do to activity. It will also reduce inflamation. Also maybe let them have more but breif periods of play throughout the day. And in between practice down and stay or sitting on the couch snuggling. Even using the crate/xpen/dogrun depending on the seriousness of the back problem.

Bought a dremel with lots of bits and attatchments and thingies. Having good success getting the boys used to it. They will now tolerate short periods of lowish rpm "grinding" with a softish grinding/polishing bit. It doesn't really take off much of their nail at this point. Does wonders on grinding down people nails - I tested on me. On Kavik's pail nails it makes some progress. On Zaphod's super hard black nails it does next to nothing. The dremel I got goes from 8000 to 33000 rpms. It has two stonelike grinding materials. One is for hard metal, one is for other stuff. Anyone have any suggestions for rpms and grinding bits/materials?

:D Hope you find the puppy you will be perfect for.

Feeding seperately is a good idea. You can also put them in seperate crates and feed them in there. Helps with crate training too. You can also put a hard rubber ball, sized too large for the dog to swallow in the bowl after you put in the kibble. The dog has to slow down because it has to eat around the ball. You can also spread the kibble out on a large cookie sheet and feed that way - takes the dog longer to hoover up a meal spread over the cookie sheet.

The BSL in Canada does not preclude people from keeping their current dogs. The have to have them muzzled in public, carry extra liability insurance and get them desexed. The loving responsible, owners will not likely ship their pets off unless they feel that their dogs would be very adversly affected by muzzling. The people getting rid of their pits because of this law are often (but not always) doing it because they can't be bothered or because they can't afford it. This being said - getting someone to drive halfway to Texas from Ontario with a pit they no longer want might be tricky. However contacting the rescue groups up here who are absolutely swamped trying to work on this issue might work well.

I had the same sort of scare once. I came home. Fiddled with my keys. Fiddled with the lock. Opened the door. Was completely able to put down my purse, hang up my coat AND take off my shoes! There was NO chorus of barking. There was NO moshpit of dogbutts, fuzzy tails and hard little dog heads. Naturally I assumed they were dead. :lol: :roll:

Low sodium chicken broth? Enfalac? (gruelly baby food)

Presa? Get the shaker can or something, don't wait to see if he'll outgrow it. Oh and offer alternatives to chewing on you. Kongs are awsome. I spent a fair amount of time with my boys taking things out of their mouth and saying "NO" sternly, waiting a second or two, and then replacing whatever they had with a kong - worked well.

What an adventure. I'm not sure how Kavik or Zaphod would respond to that. Zaphod watches birds intently outside, even ones very high up, it seems like he just likes watching them. Kavik will chase anything that moves fast but its hard to predict what will spook him. My brother's c@t would be oblivious. My c@t would have fun or lunch - she used to bring live bats up from the crawlspace in our old old old house and then let them loose so she could catch them again.

I would suggest a full crate training starting slow. Look at the training sticky in the training section. There are headings related to crate training. Some dogs always shred their bedding, some outgrow it. I would watch to see what he does with a sheet. Mine would slowly work the sheet (or anything else within reach) into the crate and shred it too. Other things you could try are; leaving the radio on (soothing music) or leaving the tv on (mine like animal planet or anything with running gazelles :D )

Gah! It snowed . . . AGAIN! @#$% :evil:

I started the spring cleanup 3x this year because of the wonky thaw/blizzard cycle we've been going through.