Dutch Shepherd Forum

Abby's blown out knee and her working up a hotspot during recovery.

Now Cino is working on a hotspot. 2011 can just go ahead and slip on by for me with the dogs...

Last night I remember waking up and hearing a dog licking way too much. When I woke up this morning found Cino was well on his way. Good sized patch of fur was missing and the skin was looking raw.

Threw the cone of shame on him and went to work. The vet was able to get us in this afternoon. Antibiotics, oral steroids and a topical steroid/antibiotic ... with some more time with the cone and hopefully all will be well soon.

I am one of those holistic pain in the a.. people..................

I always disliked the antibiotic, steroid, etc. approach. It's just masking the problem and doesn't get to the bottom of the problem. Since both of the dogs seem to have it, there might be a common source to the problem, i.e. food , house cleaner, dog shampoo, flea bite, etc.

These three books and my holistic vet have kept my dogs pretty healthy (after I ditched the conventional vet):

Wendy Volhard's Holistic Guide for a Healthy Dog
Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats
Juliette de Bairacli Levy's The Complete Herbal Handbook for the Dog and Cat

Just as an example: My Jerry had about 10 years ago little hotspots on his belly, the conventional vet made skin scrapes, no parasites, no bacteria, wanted to do allergy test. When I asked what happened if we find what he is allergic to, he said, injections with antigens for the rest of his life = big $$$$$. No thank you! I eliminated a lot of the common allergy causing ingredients from his food, no improvement. We were walking at that point of time at a park with a pine mulch trail. The pine mulch must have been treated with some kind of pestizide to keep ticks and such away. When we stopped walking on that trail, no new spots developed and the existing ones healed up nicely.

My big lab Ben, when he was about 4, collapsed one day at a park and had seizures. Knowing by now that the vet would go the seizure medication route for sure, I did some internet search and found that the heartworm pills (Sentinel) and flea drops (Frontline) could cause it. Sure enough, when I took him off that stuff, he never had a seizure episode in his whole life.

We also kept the vaccs to a minimum, used tithers. Result, immune 'til eternity and back. They don't need that stuff every year.

May be you can think of something that could be a possible source of the hot spots and eliminate it.

Poor Eric. If you stress about a hot spot, you shoud be glad that you don't have more than 2 dogs. You'd stay in a mild state of panic. I would say that the blown knee is bad news though.
Wishing you, Abby and Cino a speedy recovery.

Bummer, Eric. (Afraid I"m with Eva, tho...<G>)

Sorry to hear Eric. (another one with EVA )

I'm confident that I know what caused Abby to develop hers. It was within days of having her knee surgery.

Cino every winter starts his itching. It used to be worst. Ran through a bunch of foods until I settled in on a food that both dog's tolerated. Got rid of the grains in the food and his itching went down dramatically.

Second when he starts into his itching/scratching in the winter it's my reminder to turn on the humidifier. That generally puts a stop to things. Plus I start throwing fish oil onto his food and things like that.

Glad to hear you know whats going on. Im sure they will be happy once the humidifier goes on, I know I am in my house, it gets very dry too.

Just another thought......With the air so dry and heat on, the whole atmosphere in the house is probably electrostatic. I remember my time in Boston, just putting a sweater on and my hair was "electric". Most pet beds and blankets are of some sort of synthetic material. I got my guys two real lamb skins (for christmas in 2006). When they figured out it was something to lay on rather then to rip, they absolutely loved it, even in the hot humid weather here in Florida. Besides the regular vacuum, I put it with some Woolite in cold water delicate washing cycle, then just a bit in cold dryer to fluff it up and let it dry spread out. Afterwards some combing with the dog brush and they are as good as new. And it is all natural, no electrostatic.

Well... let's throw another log onto the "i'm unhappy with 2011 for the dogs" conversation.

Cino broke a canine last night.

Sh**!!! That stuff I DO stress about. How?

yikes!

It all started when he was much younger and I was using a wire crate...

He never did it in front of me, but he used to gnaw on the metal. He wore grooves into the back of all four canines. My guess is that in the middle of the night he was chewing on a bone and bit wrong. Stressing the tooth and it snapped. It's right on the spot where it was worn...

OWWWW!!!!! Sorry

Geeze, Eric! That truly sucks!

Poor pup

Ouch! This is definetly too much for one year! Please tell your guys to give you a break!

Does it have to be pulled now? Ouch. Hang in there Eric only 6 more weeks to go.

I have had/seen the same kind of sabotage on canines. They 'file' it down on wire, which is why I dearly detest chain link fences, or anthing else that they can get their muzzle through to do this to themselves.
I never had a dogs canine pulled. One dog got a new titanium tooth, the rest was either left alone, or filled, (depending on the break surface itself) but never pulled. If you go that route, you will almost certainly lose the opposite canine as well.
It sucks though and I am sorry that it happened Eric.

He is doing fine with the broken tooth. I have a vet visit already scheduled for something else so I'm waiting until that visit.

The break appears to be "clean" and he isn't showing any kind of discomfort.

ouch... Poor Cino, poor Eric (Cino probabely couldn't care less??) Hope the rest (?!?) of 2011 will be smooth...