I just learned from Dr Magnifico that little white dogs love their bladder stones.

I have a little white dog. She does not have bladder stones as far as I can tell and I’d like to keep it that way. She’s a maltese, about five or six years old, a puppy mill rescue I adopted about seven months ago. I also have a 13-year-old dorkie and a vet I’ve been seeing for almost 25 years.

I’m lazy and don’t count on myself to brush my dogs’ teeth so I’ve always fed my dogs Hills Science Diet t/d (large size kibble). They also get rawhide chews sold by my vet. The maltese’s stool is very dry compared to the dorkie’s.

Is there anything I should be doing to reduce the risk of bladder stones? Half wet food half kibble, maybe? Flavour their water?

Thank you!
Alison

Hello! What a great site this is. I’m really hoping someone can help us here, as we’re stuck with our dog situation!

We have a 10 year old female Maltese called Yuca. She is the light of our lives but is getting old 🙁
She’s healthy but tends to sleep a lot, and we read that keeping older dogs active is essential to keeping them alive!

We both work, and although she’s totally happy by herself, we decided it might be good to get her a companion for the times we’re not around. We hoped this might keep her entertained and engaged more during the day. As we’re both working from home at the moment, we thought now might be a good time to grow our little pack…

So we got another Maltese female, Coco, who is about 5 months old now. We’ve had her for just over 4 weeks. She’s amazing. A really cute little ball of fluff. But things don’t seem to be improving with regards to their relationship.

Of course, Coco is totally obsessed with Yuca. She will run to her and try to lick and play, but Yuca seems terrified of her. She backs away quickly and hides. Yuca has never been an aggressive dog, never. She doesn’t growl or bark or bite, ever. But she also has never been a dog dog, always avoiding them in public when out for walks.
We thought this was just a matter of them being strangers.
She has never once growled or barked or bitten Coco, she chooses to simply run away from her, even when Coco is trying to bite her playfully.

When Coco is calm, usually in the evenings and midday, Yuca is better. They will sit in the same areas, with Yuca sometimes letting Coco get quite close, but always with a cautious eye on her. The best moments we’ve had have been in bed in the evenings, with both of them sleeping almost touching! But then the day comes around and Yuca goes back to being her timid self again.

We’ve tried a lot of things to get them closer, and to help Yuca get used to her being around. They both have their own beds, food and water, and Yuca has a space she can be alone when she wants it. The problem is, she would choose to stay there the whole time! SHe seems anxious about walking around the house, which is not ok for us. We want her to feel dominant and have no fear of being anywhere at home.

We’ve tried using treats to bring them together, which works well in the moment. Yuca is a greedy lil thing and Coco’s existence doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference when there’s a treat around. She would take the treat from our hand even with Coco being right there next to her. But once the treat has gone, Yuca reverts back to scared mode.

We’re being firm with Coco on the rough play, although she’s tiny and couldn’t hurt a fly if she tried! We’re separating them for periods of time, so Yuca has her space and then trying controlled meet-ups several times a day. Of course, with us both working full time, this has been difficult and we’re very concerned about when we have to go back to the office.

We’ve made sure to give Yuca extra love and attention, always treating her as the alpha and giving her attention and food first. She doesn’t appear jealous at all.

As time goes on, we really hoped they would become close but we’re not seeing much improvement. There’s some improvement for sure, but it’s very slow progress. We really just want them to be friends. That was the whole point in getting Coco in the first place.

I really hope someone can help us. We love them both and just want them to get along.

Thank you for reading.

Tomas and Fernanda. Yuca and Coco.

Our 15lb Chihuahua/Maltese mix has a gurgling belly. You can hear the noise just being in the same room as him. He is super uncomfortable, sits down for a moment- you hear a gurgle and he shoots back up and circles then sits down again. It happens about once a month and lasts for about 12-24hrs. We have taken him into our vet a few times for it but by the time we take him in it has subsided. I believe they typically give him a one time dose of an antiemetic. Most of the time we have him leashed & am outside with him so we do not believe he is eating something. No table food, eats science diet. Has regular, formed, bowel movements. Unsure of what to do or how to make him feel better! We can not afford to keep taking him to the vet & not have answers of why this keeps happening.

We recently relocated to a new area and I wanted to get my senior dog (13 y/o maltese) checked out by a vet, as his hips seemed to have started to bother him. They wanted to do an x-ray and bloodwork. His x-ray showed a slightly enlarged liver and his bloodwork showed his ALT levels at 86, ALK Phosphatase levels at 470, and platelet count at 559. They suggested we do an ultrasound to investigate further. They also started him on galliprant for his hips, which seems to be helping wonderfully! We will be doing an ultrasound to check, but I just wanted to know what I can realistically expect from these results/what they might mean.

So Stella just pooped a red gelatinous blob and I have no idea what this is. Could it be anal glands or diarrhea from maybe finding our fruit snacks on the floor? She’s been pooping a bit more than usual.. Maybe 4-5 times per day. She seems totally fine otherwise except for wiping her butt on the floor (sorry so gross). Her poop just before this happened seemed like diarrhea.. PS Stella is a Morkie (yorkshire terrier mixed with maltese) and 3 years old.

I have a 5 year old male Maltese and all he does is bark we have tried everything I have done training with him I have tried anxiety meds for dogs I have tried bark collars thunder vest and even leaving a tv on with dog music a blanket with my scent toys bones and nothing at all works and my neighbors get really upset and complain about his barking and have even threatened to call animal control but I don’t know what to do any more please help

My 10 yr old Maltese was laying on my bed. When I took her off of it the area she was laying on was very wet. Not urine wet. There was no odor. But I could feel the wetness and see where it stained. Although it was very light. Her body wasn’t wet. I know that it wasn’t from anything else. She was showing signs of being nervous when I first put her there. It’s very confusing.

So Stella, our almost 3 year old Morkie has some possession aggression issues. Particularly with things like socks or things that don’t have a firm middle when she bites in (like soft stuffed animals). We have tried bribing her with treats and bones, distracting her with play and love, forcefully taking these items from her (that didn’t work well), and finally today we did something that worked! We asked her if she wanted to go “out” to take a “walk” and though he ears perked up she still didn’t drop this stuffed Aflac duck she found in my office. However, once she had her leash on and saw the great outside at the bottom of the stairs she dropped it and never looked back. Do you think this trick will continue to work? Is there anything else we can do when she’s decided something she has a bite on is something she’ll get aggressive about? Thank you all for your insight and help!

My cat is an approximately 7 years old, 13lbs, tuxedo male who has always been an indoor cat. He was popping a lot this summer but every time I called the vet they brushed me off till I brought him in. Then they were shocked and said they’ve never seen this in a cat before, and only in one dog besides. They said he’s subluxating in both of his shoulders and there was nothing they could do. I took him to another vet who also practiced animal chiropractic care hoping they would help, but now one shoulder is fully luxated and they could only suggest a type of glucosamine injection. I did what research I could on feline subluxation and know surgery is the only real fix, so I’d really like advice on a) if injections would be helpful or if I should go ahead with the surgery ASAP before he gets any older and b) if ANYONE knows a feline orthopedic surgeon who has experience with this. I’ve inquired around my state but no luck and I want someone knowledgeable since this is such a rare condition.

Hello, a couple months ago my home became a multi-dog household, with the newest addition being a now 10 month old GS/lab mix, and our resident dog, a 3 year old beagle/rottie mix, both males. They are both very well behaved and have never fought. However, they were not socialized properly as puppies—or at least we did not adequately socialize our beagle mix when he was a puppy, and GS mix was already 6 months old when we got him and we don’t know if or how his previous owners socialized him.

The results of their poor socialization: resident dog does not seem to recognize playful behavior from new dog and thus becomes uncomfortable, clearly cares for new dog (acts to protect new dog if anyone is playing rough with him) but won’t play with new dog, and seems to sometimes even avoid new dog.

New dog is a little better with socialization, but his main fault is that it seems he doesn’t know how to recognize resident dog’s “corrections” to him and to back off (even if most of the time he simply wants to play with resident dog), and he also has some bullying tendencies, some intentional and others not (wants to play with whoever resident dog is playing with, sometimes bugs resident dog to move if new dog wants to lay down in that spot, etc; though never has shown any physical aggression).

Resident dog is, personally, my dog, and I love him dearly, though I love new dog too, and would love to see them bond and play together, only I don’t know the best course of action to achieve that.

I would greatly appreciate any help with ideas on how to adjust these behaviors of theirs, as well as weigh in on the idea of setting up a doggie-play-date with a friend (with a stable and model dog, of course) so that maybe visitor dog can teach them how they should behave.