Big Paws Only Dog Forums

I know that when changing types of food it is supposed to be done slowly mixing the two foods at varying amounts untill you're at 100% of the new food.  But my question is, what if you're staying within the same brand but just switching flavors?   I have been feeding Eagle Pack Hollistic for Large Breeds, and thought about switching possibly to either the Duck or Chicken formula, simply because the store is out of the Large breed formula.  Since i'm staying within the same company would it be ok to switch "flavors" for say one bag, since i have no clue how long it'll be before they get the large breed back in and since i have maybe 2 days worth of food left in my existing bag?  Thanks

last week i had Kodiak at the vet for this mystery rash on his chest.  The vet thought it might possibly be ringworm ... not sure i agree with that but she wanted to see him back in a week (which is today).  well monday night i notice he has something on the left side of his snout.  I grab his face and it looks like a big scab, hadn't noticed anything before, but i though, ok he's going to the vet wednesday, i'll just have her look at that as well,  well the next day i get home from work and he's got the scab partly off and now it's an open sore.  The only thing i can think of is when he's trying to break out of his kennel, he's sticking his nose through to pry the door open and he's rubbed it raw.  Well last night i call him in from the kitchen and he's LIMPING!!!  he limps into the living room and stands there holding his left front paw off the ground and doesnt really want to put weight on it.  i'm just thinking what the heck is going on!!! i had him outside playing yesterday afternoon and he was fine, i dont know at all what would've hurt his paw/leg. I checked to make sure he didnt have anything stuck in his paw, didnt find anything, and i could move all his joints without him protesting, but if i reach for his paw, he pulls it away.  WELL, looks like i'll be getting my money's worth out of this vet visit!!!   Thanks for listening, just had to vent a bit,  sometimes it feels like you're fighting a loosing battle

Winter is approaching fast and they are calling for snow this weekend for us.  This got me to thinking, that it's a pain for me to have to get all dressed up to take Kodiak out in 3 feet of snow for a batheroom break.  We live in an apartment a busy corner.  Our back hard is not fenced in so I have a chain around the tree in the back yard and that's what i use to tie Kodiak out.  The tree is about 35 feet from the back porch and when we get all that snow I can already tell it's going to be a pain to dig up the chain to let him out.  I was thinking about putting in a runner that would go from the back porch to the tree so Kodiak would be able to play in the snow and get his "outside time" without a: me being worried that he'll try to investigate the road, and b: i can hook him up at the back door and he can come back to the door when it's time to come back inside.  I've tried looking online for some runners with limited success.  Does anyone here use one? could you reccommend one for me to try?   Kodiak is about 65 pounds now, and he's been holding pretty steady there for about a month so i'm not expecting him to grow too much more at this poing  (being 14 mos old).  Any suggestions would be great.  Thanks!

When i was at Pet Supplies plus the other day, i was talking with one of the employees who mentioned that he did some training on the side.  He didnt have alot of time to talk as his boss was down this throat about unloading a shipment they just got in.  Anyway, i had been thinking about doing some training with Kodiak for walking on a lead, and just some basics.  He does very well with sit, down, and shake.  He is horrible about Sit and Stay however.  I quickly asked him about his price.  He said $150 for 5 weeks  = $30 per hour, and he gaurentees everything out of the dog.   He said teaching him to walk on a lead is 20 mins tops .... he said it's just directing the attention of the dog to the handler and not the surrounding environment.    i really dont know much about trainers, but how does his price sound?  i thought teaching him to walk on a lead would take a bit longer than that

I feel horrible about leaving Kodiak in his crate when we are not at home.  About a month ago, I tried leaving him out of his crate since at that point he had gotten to the point where I was sure that he would not "go" in the apartment.  So I decided to let him roam free, but limited him to the Kitchen, (which happens to be the biggest room in the apartment, and has tile floor so messes would be easy).  Well there are 4 Doors in the kitchen, the outside door was obviously locked, the bathroom door was shut, the doorway to the living room (no door) and the door to the bedroom, (which doesnt latch, just friction shuts).  I put Kodiak's kennel in the doorway to the living room to block that off, but left the door open so he could enter his kennel, and put a couple of chairs in front of the bedroom door to discourage him from going into the bedroom.  The first couple of days went real well .. no problems, no trouble, he wasnt all riled up when we got home like he usually is when he's crated.  Then the trouble began.  The first time he got into the garbage ... probably my fault for not thinking to put that in the bathroom with the door closed, but there wasnt much in there so no biggie.  Second day,  the guys came to mow the yard, and Kodiak just HAD to see whatever that noise was that he was hearing, knocked the chairs to the bedroom over, got in and chomped the blinds about halfway up all the way down in half and had them all over the bedroom floor when i got home. My girlfriend said that it looked like an alligator chomped them right downt he middle.  Strike 3 was when he got into the cupboard below the sink, where he got into a box of 250 garbage bags, which were all over my kitchen floor ... luckily he didnt get into the cleaning supplies which are stored under there, i never would've forgiven myself. 

So after strike 3 he's back in the kennel and doing ok, but when it's time to go in, he mopes around and avoids the kennel, and i feel terrible about putting him in there.  Anybody have any suggestions about a way to let him run free when he's home alone and keep him occupied enough that he doesnt get bored and get into trouble?  Usually i leave a TV or radio on for him for some noise and obviously some lights if its going to be dark when i get home. Would he have gotten less bored if i would've left the whole apartment for him to roam around?  Obviously i'd have to leave the blinds up a little for him to look out so we dont loose anymore of those.  Thanks for any help!

Hi,  my name is Chris and i just stumbled upon this forum and thought i'd check it out a bit more.  Over the summer I adopted a "puppy" which we named Kodiak from the local humaine society, an Akita/Bullmastiff mix.  He's been great, and turns 1 year old this month.  We've had him for about 4 months now.  I really wanted an Akita for a while and did alot of research on them.  Then I saw Kodiak up for adoption right in my town, and a couple of days later I adopted him.   

I tried to put up a profile picture, but havent been successful at it yet but i'll keep trying.