Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - shangrila

Pages: 1 ... 186 187 [188]
2806
Boy these giants like to sleep alot ;)

At the moment, Zoey is sprawled out in her superman nap pose, with her belly in the air and all four legs stretched out. I call it the superman because it looks like superman flying but upside down. She's not actually asleep though - she keeps peeking over at me to make sure I'm not doing anything cool without her.

2807
Medical Conditions & Diseases / Re: Gas pains or Bloat?????????
« on: June 07, 2005, 06:45:37 pm »
When we got Zoey spayed, we took her to a major vetrinary hospital and they convinced us to do a preventative gastro-pexy so that she could never get bloat. It was a few hundred dollars extra, but her recovery wasn't any worse than if she had just been spayed and now we will never have to worry about bloat. The surgeon said that preventative gastro-pexies are beginging to become more common but still pretty rare - basically, what they do is put a couple tiny little stiches holding their stomach in place, since bloat is caused by a twisting of the stomach (and is cured by surgery that untwists it and stiches it into place).

We've deffinately had our share of stomach issues though - one night a few months ago, I woke up in the middle of the night because Zoey was throwing up next to my side of the bed. When I got up to take clean itup and comfort her, I discovered that my whole house was covered in vomit and diahrea (it was horrible) - we rushed her to the emergency room and they diagnosed it as pancreatitis. We couldnt let her eat for a whole day and then had to give her only handfuls of water and rice at a time for like a week. It was the saddest thing ever because she was so in so much pain she could barely walk around and would cry when her food was gone because she was so hungry and there was nothing we could do about it. She got better after that though. She's one tought puppy.


2808
Saint Bernard General Discussions / Re: Exercising your St.
« on: June 06, 2005, 08:31:26 pm »
Who told you no jumping for Saints?

My Saint has a vet-surgery-specialist that she sees for hip dyplascia. She has made it very clear to us that we should try and prevent Zoey from jumping to limit to impact on her hips. She said jumping up is worse on the hips that jumping down, but that we should try and avoid both. Since saints are so prone to hip problems, I would think you would want to limit jumpingfor all saints, even if they haven't been diagnosed with hip issues.


2809
Saint Bernard General Discussions / Re: trimming hair under paws
« on: June 06, 2005, 08:14:52 pm »
Zoey hates to have her paws messed with, so my trick is to give her a frosty paws (she LOVES them) and then I can groom as much as I need while she is busy focusing on slowly licking up her tasty treat. I use some small clippers that are thin and kind of sort and have little circles on the end so you can't accidentally jab her. So far I have only clipped her paw hair in the winter because the snow would stick in it and I worried that I would miss a peice when I cleaned them out after a walk and she would get some frost-bite-paws. Can anyone tell me why you would need to clean the hair out from under paws in the summer?

2810
Zoey is a year old now and weighs 100. She has gained an average of 10lbs a month (more when she was younger, less now), so at 7 1/2 months, she was probably about 75lbs. We have been trying to get her to grow slowly (by giving her adult formula since the begining, and making sure she isn't eating too much) because of her hips - the way the vet explains it, she will still end up at the same final weight (we expect about 150 based on her mom's weight), but the longer she takes the go there, the better her hips will form and reduce the effects of her hip dysplacia for her whole life...

As for food, I actually just switched her off of Solid Gold. She was on Solid Gold Wolf King from for the past 6 months, and I was really happy with it for a long time (her coat was wonderful and she was healthy and happy) - it's really expensive, but I don't mind spending extra for my baby's health. Anyways, lately I have became less and less happy with it - every time I went to the pet store to buy it, I would have to buy the more expensive smaller bags or special order the large one (obviously you don't want to buy tiny bags of large breed "Wolfking"), and more importantly, Zoey's stool seemed to get softer and softer by the day until it was practically all diahrea. So now I am in the process of transitioning her to a brand called Wellness by a company called Old Mother Hubbard. It has all human-grade ingredients, lots of meat, good grain sources, and plenty of fruits, veggies, vitamins, and minerals. She is still in the adjustment stage so I can't review it yet, but I feel good about it so far.


2811
This is a good warning to people. I feel the same way about the breeder I got Zoey from - after we got her, we found out within the first month that not only had she not been de-wormed like we were told, but also hip dysplacia. When we took her in for her hip check-up, the vet tech asked up where we got her and it turned out that the vet tech had formerly worked for the breeder. She told us horrible stories that make my stomach turn. I love Zoey to death and I wouldn't trade her for anything, but I wish she had a better breeder than hers turned out to be.

2812
Treatment & Preventative Meds / Re: Cost of hearworm prevention
« on: June 02, 2005, 08:49:44 pm »
My vet only charges $10 a month for 101-135lb heartgaurd, so I buy it from them. But they charge an arm and a leg for frontline, so I buy that online from KV vet supply through amazon.

2813
I think my dog is the only one who actually loves going to the vet - she loves to see the dogs in the waiting room and doesn't even mind the prodding (she literally napped through her first checkup) - even after her spay, hip dysplascia x-rays, shots, etc, she still gets excited going there. Of course, she gets excited about pretty much everything

2814
Great Dane Discussions / Re: Dog in the Bed
« on: June 02, 2005, 08:36:04 pm »
I dont seem to have that problem.Spotak iss lays in our bed but he never wants to sleep with us.I wish he did.Maybe its the fact that we have a full size bed and he knows there just isnt room enough for him.Go figure

My Zoey does the same thing - she climbs into bed to cuddle and watch tv, but when it's time to sleep she hops down and sleeps next to the bed. I think it's because it's hotter with us on the bed than it is down on the floor, and she hates the heat.

2815
I almost ordered one last year but didn't end up getting it - now that winter is over, I was thinking about it again. I would deffinately love to see a review too  :)

Pages: 1 ... 186 187 [188]