TDG

[url]http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/10984387?source=Evening[/url] all i can say is :wallbash: :wallbash: :wallbash: i'm a bit removed from following all that EU idiocy since i moved to the US 5 years ago, but to me it seems that the majority of the laws and regulations they have been coming up with recently are totally idiotic and a huge waste of taxpayer money. :evil: let those poor dogs have their bones and concentrate on more urgent matters.

when i had my dane, i was living on a property too large to be able to afford a regular, sturdy, secure fence. i used the kind of electric fence you'd use for sheep pastures and it worked out just fine. he ran into it twice and then never again for the rest of the time we lived there. personally i would not trust a determined dog with one of those gimmicky wireless fencing systems. i believe that an actual, visual barrier like an electric pasture fence does make a difference. it also doesn't have the same kind of risk as a collar transmitter malfunctioning, or the dogs getting "collar smart". and it's relatively cheap and easy to adjust.

her urine isn't "toxic", it's just very rich in nitrogen - which acts as a fertilizer in moderate amounts, but burns the lawn in spots where it is too concentrated. if you value your dog's health more than your lawn, do [i]not[/i] use any of those silly nutritional supplements that are advertised to keep your lawn green if you feed them to your dog. that stuff changes the PH level of your dog's urine and is basically an open invitation for all kinds of urinary tract problems - and in most cases it doesn't help your lawn either. you basically have two realistic options: (a) take a watering can or a hose and water the spot where she pees each time after she is done, to dilute the urine. this isn't a solution for lazy people tho. (b) train your dog to pee in one specific spot and make it a place where you don't care if the lawn gets damaged.

trhgr2004, hopefully the following site will be of help for you: [url]http://dogsadversereactions.com/moxidectin/moxidectinpage.html[/url] it's all about PH6 and also has a number of links for further reading. let's hope your baby pulls through.

there is no labor. what the dog is basically experiencing is she thinks she is pregnant. there is a change in hormones in the body just like if the pregnancy was real, but there are (of course) no developing puppies or anything. individual dogs react very differently, some don't do much once their due date goes by, others find a stuffie or other toy as a substitute "puppy" to take care of. my own dachshund went through the entire thing several times, from gestation (with slight weight gains from water retention), to nesting and taking care of a "puppy" for about 4 weeks (basically around the time real puppies would start eating solid foods), spending most of her time in her basket or a "nest" in a closet, later on trying to get her "puppy" to move around and so on. i have found that the whole thing goes away easier after the "birth" date if you take away any toys the dog tries to baby and offer lots of distraction and exercise. when it turned out that she [i]would[/i] go through false pregnancies each time, i had the vet give her hormone shots to prevent her from coming into heat altogether. today i would choose to spay her, but at that point it was not an option. if your dog is producing milk she may end up getting mastitis and the whole mental aspect of a false pregnancy is pretty stressful in itself (feeling pregnant and then not having any puppies to take care of, worrying about inanimate, "dead" toys etc.). i am not sure if the risk of pyometra or mammarian cancer is increased if a dog regularly goes through false pregnancies, but the stress on the body surely isn't healthy, just like it isn't healthy to breed a bitch each time she comes into heat.

that is truly sad. when i moved to the US from germany, i had a major problem with all the crap that goes into almost all food products here. the use of hormone in animals farmed for meat is illegal there, and rightly so. also any other drugs are very strictly controlled and animals may not be slaughtered unti a specific time has passed to make sure the drugs have left the body and don't pose any harm. so even tho it's often not easy to afford, i [b]only[/b] buy organic dairy products and eggs and try to stick with at least vegetarian fed poultry and beef, if not organic. the majority of people may still not care, but i don't want to eat (and feed!) stuff that is polluted with all kinds of things.

4 pages of replies for such a lame troll? :roll: :roll:

my dachshund bitch looked like that when she went through a false pregnancy. it involved basically everything you'd encounter in a "real" pregnancy minus the actual birth. she would start nesting near her "due" date, care for her squeaky porcupine like it was a puppy, and even producing milk. she is very prone to false pregnancies, but at least once in her life she got to care for a real baby, an orphaned kitten she nursed for a few weeks. :)

store people for the most part only know what the pet food manufacturers tell them. of course it's in their best interest (but not your dog's) to stick with one food and never change. gotta keep those $$$ rolling in! if you want to look into a canadian food, check out [url]www.petcurean.com[/url]. there was a scare last year about a supposedly bad batch of food on the west coast that killed a number of dogs, but apparently it turned out they died from completely unrelated causes. petcurean makes excellent products, 3 different lines, one with about 25% meat, one with 30-35% meat and one with 42% meat. if you want a resource for comparing over 600 dry foods, have a look [url=http://www.mordanna.com/boards/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=dogfood]here[/url].

in my opinion, nutro is totally overpriced for the quality it offers. it's better than the garbage you can find at the grocery stores, but it doesn't even come close to wellness or solid gold. where other pet food companies use meat meals with an ash content of around 7-8, nutro uses a product that has 9.5%. this means the product has a fairly high bone content and is less digestible. they also use far less meat and more grains overall compared to real premium foods. if you need some other brands to look at, check out canidae, innova (personal favorite), natural balance, eagle pack holistic select, azmira, artemis, back to basics or holistic blend. there are a number of other good ones, but i can't think of all of them right now. hope this helps! :)

know about this one? :) [url]http://www.lapetcemetery.com[/url] i wouldn't want to let my dead pets go to a landfill or rendering facility either. so far all of them are buried somewhere on family property, but now that i live in L.A. that's not really an option anymore. when my current pets die, i will have them cremated, sealed into an urn and will keep them at home. i know i'm not going to live here forever and it would be sad to leave them behind buried somewhere.

sadly i don't know yet if i can make it. but if i can, i'll drop you a line and we can meet up for lunch or something there.

i know we have some folks from southern california on this forum. :) anyone going to the animal wellness expo on june 5th & 6th? [url]http://www.animalwellnessexpo.com[/url] hopefully i'll be able to go, they have a lot of neat things going on. i'd really like to hear dr. martin goldstein speak on the topics of cancer and vaccinations and talk to some representatives of various companies that make pet food and other stuff. the list of exhibitors is quite impressive: [url]http://www.animalwellnessmagazine.com/expo/exhibitors.htm[/url]

if the puppyy is a large breed and you feed a high-energy formula to your adult dog, i do not recommend feeding the puppy the same food as the adult. it comes back to the same thing: you want a puppy (epsecially large breeds) to grow slowly and evenly to give muscle and bone equal chances to adjust, and not as fast and as much as possible. however if someone is feeding a regular adult maintenance food of a good quality (like canidae, innova, eagle pack etc.) with moderate protein and fat content ( about 22-25% and 12-15% respectively), there is no need to feed a puppy a separate food, [b]if[/b] the adult food is labeled as appropriate for all lifestages. if an adult food is [b]not[/b] labeled as suitable for all lifestages, i personally wouldn't feed it at all, not even to an adult dog. every year the pet food industry is doing a better job to keep pressure on pet owners and make them feel bad if they don't buy the highly specialized product X or Y. the sad thing is that in many cases you can do so much better going with human grade products when it comes to quality, especially when you look at mainstream, mass-market products sold at large chain pet stores and department stores and so on. it's all a big joke.

i have one (cordless tho) and love the little thing. it makes cleaning up messes properly sooooo easy. however, i use the good old nature's miracle for cleanup, not whatever bissell sells, and it works well. :)

here is my take on it: once puppies are weaned from their mother's milk, they do not need a specific type of puppy food anymore, since their digestive system is fully developed by that time. all the extra nutrients puppies require to grow are in the extra amount of food puppies eat. if you compare food intake per pound of body weight, the amount required decreases over time as the puppy grows. if a food does not provide enough nutrients for a puppy, it is of such poor quality that it shouldn't even be fed to an adult dog. foods for different lifestages are an attempt of dog food manufacturers to make their products take up more shelf space, thus become more visible, so more people will buy their brand instead of that of the competitor. there is absolutely no scientific proof that feeding puppy food is required, other than provided by some dog food manufacturers who want to sell you a product. basically the same thing as the old "don't feed your dog table scraps" myth.

[quote name='pei obssessed'] Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you mean that the meat has more phosphorus than calcium, and calcium is the one that should be supplemented. At least that's what I understood from some of your earlier posts, TDG :D[/quote] of course, that was a typo. :( sorry about that. :oops:

you can stick with the bland diet if you like, but if you plan on feeding it for a while, it needs to be balanced for a proper calcium-phosphorus ratio because meat without bone has by far more phosphorus than calcium. if you want to stick with feeding a home made diet (which you might as well do if dry food isn't an option, since canned food is pound for pound more expensive than homemade food and you never really knoww hat's in it), dr. pitcairn's "complete guide to natural health for dogs and cats" is an excellent reference. it has properly balanced recipes which you can adjust for your dog's individual needs. i would not put a dog on a raw diet until health issues are resolved and the immune system is strong enough to deal with it. it's better to build up to a reasonable level of health before attempting to introduce a greater variety of food items, especially in a raw state. post edited for a mental typo. :oops:

don't discount the determination of dogs when they want to mate. i don't really see the point of crossing a dane with a chi tho. you'd get a medium sized animal with few characteristics of either breed.

courtnek, no problem. i just figured you'd want more information, after your second post, [quote]true. I hadnt thought of that. thanks. However, if anesthetized, what would you need sedation for then? ot is this for sedatin afterwards?[/quote] :)

courtnek, sedation may be used before or after the surgery. before for calming the pet down to make everything else less stressful and scary (especially when x-rays are necessary for some reason), and afterward as needed to keep them quiet for a while. drjeffrock, as far as i know, spayUSA is a separate organization that works with a network of veterinarians. not sure how much it has to do with cities or states. the site says: [i]Spay/neuter prices can vary by region. If your prices are average (or higher) for your area, a reduction of 30% to 50% is considered reasonable for participation in the network. Some veterinarians already give discounted spay/neuter vaccination services for low-income clients, shelter animals, or strays. If you are one of these wonderful veterinarians, your prices are probably already in line with our average participating veterinarian prices. Clients pay for services at the time of their visit.[/i] when i adopted my dog from the LA west valley shelter (chatsworth), the neutering surgery was included in the adoption fee and performed at porter pet hospital. when i had a litter of kittens that needed to be done, i took them to animal birth control on pico. not necessarily the places i'd pick for other things, but for spay & neuter surgery i really prefer places that do a high volume so for them it's really a routine thing. i like to think they'd pick up any signs of complication very early. i do agree with you tho, if i ever had a vet talk to me like that, i'd tell him to shove it too. :evil:

sedation is not the same as anesthesia.

buy some [b]food grade[/b] (this is important!) diatomaceous earth and feed each dog some every day, according to size. also apply it to the environment. [url]http://www.safesolutionsinc.com/de/livestock.htm[/url] [url]http://www.safesolutionsinc.com/de/househd.htm[/url]

[url]http://www.spayusa.org[/url] fill in the request form or call 1-800-248-SPAY

while natural balance is a good food, i'd certainly not go as far as calling it "the best". in a nutshell - there is [b]no such thing[/b] as a "best food". why? simple: every dog is different. for example: foods with different sources of animal protein are nice - until you get to a dog who can't tolerate one or the other and needs a food with a single specific meat protein, or one that does not include a particular one. the same thing goes for grains. a variety of different ones is not a bad thing as long as the dog doesn't have intolerances or allergies to a particular one. due to different nutrient contents in the different types, they often complement each other very well - but that isn't worth a dime if your dog can't tolerate one or more of them. next: nutrient concentration - some dogs do better on a less concentrated food while others can barely eat enough of it to keep weight on. for these you need a food that supplies more nutrients in a smaller amount. some need more fat than others, some can't tolerate high fat levels due to absorption problems and diseases. what is much more important than finding the elusive, hypothetical "best food" is to learn about your dog's individual needs and feed accordingly. if you feed a lamb and rice based food and never try something different, you might not ever find out that your dog would do a lot better on a different formulation. on the flip side, if you are feeding a food that has multiple protein sources (canidae, chicken soup etc.) you might not realize that your dog would do better if one of the many things in those formulations were left out. looking into such individual requirements i found out that my dog does much better on protein sources like beef, lamb and turkey but not that great on chicken or pork. i also know that he does better on a higher fat content than most commercial formulations have. last but not least, he prefers potatoes and oatmeal to rice, which i happily support. the best thing you can do is research ingredient quality and safety to see what [b]you[/b] are comfortable with, and learn how to [b][url=http://www.mordanna.com/dogfood/]identify a better product[/url][/b] when you have to make a decision.