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• #5277
This is what I need to hear!
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• #5278
@jono84 After a year of trial and error Omars been on raw for the last 3 years. Natures menu do free flow minced meat for £8-9 for 2kg so you can add butchers offal and veggies to make it complete and the same nutritionally as their nuggets but with a coarser and potentially more appetising texture and much cheaper. We mostly do this but for convenience we use Betsys and Staffordshire raw complete raw boxes after trying most brands from the raw dog food company but their postage is expensive so only really makes sense to buy in bulk. With a combination those two we can feed omar his 800g per day for under £100 a month which sounds like a lot but it's over 20kg of good quality raw meat for that. I hope you've got a big freezer.
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• #5279
Our setter is about that weight, and gets 600g of the stuff linked below daily. Having discrete patties does make portioning easy, and easy to thaw too.
I probably wouldn't have chosen something with quite that many dubious superfoods in it, but to be fair his digestive health is great so long as we stop him drinking from the Thames or stealing too much cheese.
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• #5280
I'm going to try some of those next order for convenience. I'd never heard of the brand but they look good very similar to what we're buying from Betsys but around 20% cheaper. As soon as I saw the website i thought they were going to be expensive but they're not. He's a fussy fucker but if he likes them I'll switch 👍
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• #5281
Cheers both, some good tips there. Looking at the price of lunaandme this might be a cheaper option than her current wet/kibble mix but my only worry is the lack of bulk as she
hoofs stuff up very quickly. Will look at raw veg options to mix in and bulk it out. -
• #5282
Slow reply-
They are seemingly (though unknown to me) a little more hectic than the other colors!
But Dora’s a heart-stealer, when she stops barking at meeting you for the first time. -
• #5283
I just paid the best part of £400 for a teeth descale and polish, had to be done for the poor little fella.
I can’t believe owners are brushing their pooch’s teeth everyday (are you?) so is this a diet issue which doesn’t exist for you raw foodies? -
• #5284
I put a little bit of plaque off in my dogs breakfast everyday. I also give her something to crunch and munch everyday like a chicken foot. I brush her teeth a couple of times a week at most and they have stayed remarkably clean and she doesn’t have bad breath. She is 9 years old and the vet is always very impressed by her teeth at check ups.
She used to be on raw food but I changed it when she was 3 because of how inconvenient it is to have raw meat hanging around. Now she is on forthglade wet food.
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• #5285
Interesting, thanks. Never heard of Plaque Off so will do some research. I’ve had one of those finger toothbrushes and some meat flavoured paste* for yonks so I guess I’ll try to be a bit more on it, it just feels like it’s not doing much.
*gag reflex
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• #5286
Plaque Off is pretty standard and that's the stuff we give to our eldest Labrador. Both the eldest dog and 6 month old puppy are on a regular toothbrushing regime now.
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• #5287
This dog business is starting to make sense. We're on week 5(?) now and things are a lot more relaxed, we've been adventureus and taken him away to Mrs Jambon's parents for Easter and he's been good as gold. We were most worried about sleeping but he's become attached to his (previously our) duvet so just plonks himself there whichever room it's in. Certainly feels like progress from those first few days when there was a big black horse standing on our dining room table panting in distress. Thanks for all the help and humour. This is what I woke up to this morning.
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• #5288
What a sweet face! I'm glad he's settling in so well.
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• #5289
My dog hurt himself very badly today. He was just chasing a tennis ball and suddenly pulled up yelping and wouldn't put any weight on one leg. He couldn't walk at all and needed to be carried.
He is at the hospital overnight where they are trying to work out if he's broken and/or dislocated it.
He has been in an awful lot of pain although hopefully not any more, with painkillers and sedation. The vet who examined him mentioned amputation - just as one of the possible outcomes rather than saying it was likely - which obviously has us worried.
He is only 5 years old and as a whippet, running is his favourite thing in the world.
No idea what the prognosis is yet and we will probably get a call early in the morning. We are very distressed, especially at the thought of him now going through this alone in an unfamiliar kennel instead of curled up next to us in bed.
Grateful to hear if anyone has any experience of recovery from similar situations.
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• #5290
One of my parent’s schnauzers has a trapped nerve in one rear leg as a result of twisting around while chasing a ball - caused him a lot of pain when he did it, now he just has a funny skip thing that he does with that leg when it’s bothering him but he’s still pretty active. Can’t run for as long as he used to, though.
May not be the same thing but either way I hope your dog makes a full recovery.
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• #5291
One of our old greyhounds broke her leg whilst out running in a field (we think her foot went down a rabbit hole at 40mph...)
She was operated on and had an external fixator to hold the bone together whilst it knitted back together and removed when healed.
It was just as strong as before once she had healed and she had no lingering effects - she lived till she was 14 (was 5 when she broke it)
I would warn you that it was very expensive - much more than the max that she was insured for. I think we were insured for 4k and it cost something like £12k total.
Fingers crossed it's not as bad as it seems for you and he heals up well :)
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• #5292
We use rawtdoor complete menu, they deliver boxes of frozen pouches to our home. We have a 28kg boy and 25kg girl. It’s got everything for a balanced diet (meat, offal, bone and other stuff)
They split a 500g pouch for breakfast and for tea split another 500g pouch and get a chicken wing/thigh or drumstick each.
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• #5293
Thank you both. My sister has a greyhound who broke his leg young, and while he has a bad limp and can't run, he is still a very happy dog so that gives us some comfort. Encouraging to hear they can make better recoveries than that too. Of course we are really hoping it won't need to be amputated, and a limp would not be the end of the world, but a full recovery would be incredible.
We are thankfully insured up to £10k so assuming they don't try and fuck us over, we should be ok on that. Been given an estimate of £2.5k for the hospital stay, x rays, sedation etc before any possible surgery costs so I can see how it would quickly get huge. We had been about to buy a new (old) car, which we can make do without if necessary, so between that and the insurance, we are lucky that I think we can be confident the cost won't stop him getting whatever he needs.
I think it might also have been a rabbit hole or something similar. He was certainly running at full pelt which as a fit and quite large whippet is very, very fast. He was a hundred meters away so I didn't see exactly what happened but he pulled up very very suddenly and begun screaming. Feeling extremely guilty as the one who threw the ball and told him to fetch it.
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• #5294
Feeling extremely guilty
Try not to, I worry about similar every time my dog runs around like a twat, they'll miss out on more by avoiding any chance of those situations though.
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• #5295
I was chatting to a woman at the vets recently with a whippet greyhound cross who had completely snapped a leg tendon and was six weeks into post surgery physio. The vet was telling her how hard it is to rehabilitate the breed because they are so all or nothing with their running. It was off for a hydro therapy session so I guess if the money can be found there are ways and means to repair even the most broken hound. Wishing you all the good vibes, it’s a tough time for owners as well as dogs when the one thing they love more than anything is cruelly taken away.
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• #5296
We know a whippet who had a nasty leg break who couldn't go on walks for 6 months. Fine now.
Our boy lurcher took half his toe off the other week and the other one turned herself into linguine after we assume she got tangled in some barbed wire, they do seem to adjust to no walks / only lead walks quite well.
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• #5297
Well we have had some good news this morning. No break, tendons are torn and it was a bad dislocation but they managed to relocate it under general anaesthetic. They will have to see how the recovery goes, he will be in a sling for weeks or possibly months, but may not need any surgery at all.
We are picking him up this afternoon, he will get lots of love and fuss while he recuperates
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• #5298
Great news!!
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• #5299
They had really freaked us out by mentioning amputation, but I guess it's better to be prepared for the worst possible outcome. They have made no promises about him being able to run again, and I don't think I'll ever want to throw him another tennis ball, but it's looking much, much better than it could have been
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• #5300
Cannot wait to get this guy home and give him cuddles
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The human ones I assume! That's pretty wild, how sad for them and weird.