Is the sitter bonded and insured? Do they have excellent reviews? Have you discussed your concerns with them?
Hi, I have a 16 year-old female Chihuahua/Lhasa-Apso who has been prone to seizures for several months and has been taking medication to prevent this. However; several days ago she had a convulsion – and since then, she has had an increase in jitters, seems mostly unresponsive to petting, has lost appetite, her tail is nearly always limp, and she appears lethargic.
On top of this, she also sounds as though she has fluid/mucus in her lungs, as she takes raspy deep-breaths every now and then. Since this morning, she has begun coughing up clear/bubbly + thick fluid every so-often, is refusing to drink/eat/ take seizure medication.
Her last check-in with the vet indicated that cancer was not present (At least, in her organs) and her blood did not indicate high cholesterol or diabetes.
Given the symptoms listed, what do you believe my dog is suffering from, and is there any medication/preventative measures I can treat my dog with to combat this illness?
Thanks 🙂
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I have a dog that is 4 years old and is a pug. We cant afford to have it stay in a kennel for that long and none of my realitives and friends are able to let her stay at their place. So we hired a pet sitter to come to the house to feed the dog in the morning and for dinner, and to let out my dog in the morning afternoon and night. We also hired someone else to come in between those times to come to my house 2-3 a day while im gone to play with my dog and walk it for about 1-2 hours. Do you think my dog will be okay? I’m just so worried and stressed. Also the people we hired are trusted. Also we have cameras in my home and will be able to monitor and my dog has a designated area that is contained.
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Anonymous
I have a pet rat shes about 2 years old. One day she was perfectly fine and the next morning we noticed a big lump on the side of her neck. Its getting bigger and is now taking over the side of her face.
I have a pet grey squirrel that chewed on a lamp cord and got shocked. He eats an drinks some but isn’t moving around a lot. He just seems like he has no energy. What do I need to do? Is there something I can do to help
So lately I’ve been thinking about getting another dog. My current dog is a Chihuahua and possibly Rat terrier mix; he’s about 13 years old. Before I got him he used to have another chihuahua he always hung around with, but that was when he was around five. He only barks when there is someone making noise outside or that get too close to our fence, the same goes with barking dogs or ones that pass by our house. Other than that he is very friendly with strangers, especially when they come into our yard. He does however, have an issue if dogs come onto his territory, like most dogs do. He has never been to a dog park and has gone to a pet store a couple times, either for shopping or to be groomed. Our neighbors have a dog who barks at everyone and everything, even if I open the back door for a second. My dog occasionally fights with him through the fence, and by that maybe every few weeks. My dog doesn’t bite, growl, nip, scratch or anything at strangers when they come over, even if it’s our pest control. I’m not sure how he will react when we bring another puppy home? We’re either thinking of getting a border collie, lab, doberman pinscher or possibly an italian greyhound. Any tips on what to do when they first meet? Do you think he’ll be alright with another puppy? Any advice helps, thank you!!
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Anonymous Has he ever been around a puppy? Are you willing to separate the dogs and rotate which is out, if things go south?
A warning about dobes, because I have one – they are NOT gentle with littles. You’ll have to work very hard on teaching a dobe puppy to be gentle with smaller animals – our girl is nearly three and still occasionally stomps my cat. They’re also tough puppies and are quite literally a full time job until they’re around 2 years of age…I’ll happy talk more about the breed if you want, but I don’t want to flood this particular answer with my babble. 🙂
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PK Dennis This is how my rescue recommends you introduce a new dog to your home (and I do this with all fosters coming to live with my pack of 4 terriers, one of which is a Cairn/Chihuahua mix):
Before the new dog arrives pick a place in the home for him to live most of the time for 3 days. I use my guest bathroom some times, and other times I use my craft room – both have tile floors so it is easy to clean up any accidents that may occur with the new dog. Inside that room I place a dog crate appropriate in size for the new dog/puppy.
For the first 3 days after the new dog arrives, we play musical crates and/or rooms. I do not allow the dogs to see each other, they only smell each other on me, and under the door, etc. When my dogs are loose, the new dog is in the prepared room. When my dogs are crated or in their kennel the new dog is allowed to be out of the room, in the yard, or house with supervision. There is ALWAYS a closed door between my dogs and the new dog.
I spend time playing and training the new dog each day, and will crate my boys for an hour or so in the evening so I can just plop on the sofa with the new dog for cuddles. With a puppy you will need to be spending a lot of time with it as you will not be able to resist! Spend an equal amount of time with the older dog. One of the activities you want to focus on with the puppy is learning to walk on a leash – this is critical for the 4th day.
On the morning of the 4th day, put leashes on both dogs and immediately go out the door for a walk. Don’t give the dogs time to sniff or eyeball each other – the job is to walk together with you for at least 10 mins. If the puppy is older keep walking (5 mins. per month of age is a good rule of thumb – too long a walk puts too much stress on the bones and joints of a puppy).
Once we have finished the walk I take all the dogs into my fenced yard, drop the leashes and allow them to sniff, play, ignore each other as they see fit. Dragging the leashes allows you to step on a leash or pull one dog away from the other if things get hairy.
I have had 99% success with introducing dogs this way. The only exception was a foster that decided my smallest dog was prey – good thing I had that leash to grab! It saved my dog’s life.
We believe the reason it works is that it allows the dogs to smell each other without any misunderstandings of body language. In the wild a lone wolf will spend weeks haunting a new pack’s territory. They stay mostly out of sight, but scent mark in the territory. Then they start showing themselves to the pack from a distance. Finally they approach members of the pack. If the pack wants them they are welcomed (usually by the female members of the pack). So while our dogs are no longer wolves – smell is the first thing they pick up on. First scent, then sight, then hearing. So this 3 day of separation, but crossing each other’s scents helps the dogs get to know each other without confrontation.
With my dogs it works so well, they don’t even sniff each other’s butts once we are done the walk.
Since your dog is used to fighting through a fence I caution you to make sure that he and the new pup never see each other through a fence or crate during those 3 days. Keep that solid, shut, door between them.
Your 13 year old dog may never want to play with the puppy – but the puppy will want to play with him! Be sure your older dog has a place he can escape the puppy – such as a dog bed or crate, maybe in a different room. When your Chi is getting too much attention from the pup, tell the puppy to “leave it” and ask him/her to play with you. This will help the puppy learn to leave the older dog alone when he is in his quite place.
An Italian greyhound is a better size for your current dog, and they generally are ‘softer’ dogs. The other 3 breeds you mention will be a real challenge for you, and will overwhelm the Chi. It is a giant leap going from living with a Chi to living with these 3 other breeds. They all are high energy, need WAY more exercise, and a lot of training to become good canine citizens. The Border especially, will need a job. Borders are scary intelligent.
All that being said – give your dog a month with the new pup before you decide if it is going to work or not. Good luck!
My kitten is around 10-12 weeks old now (last measured weight a few days ago is 2.6 lbs).
She usually eats a mix of dry and wet kitten food.
Two days ago, we introduced only dry food for her to nibble around and also giving her the wet and dry mix. But she’s eating very less of the wet and dry food (but I know she’s occasionally nibbling on the dry because we leave it out). I’m a new pet owner and concerned that maybe she’s not fulfilling the daily quota of calories. Also, the weather has suddenly been very rainy in the previous 2 days so she has been sleeping a lot but very active after she’s woken up. I’ve called the vet but he says as long as she’s active and eating a spoonful of dry at a time, she’s fine. Need help.
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Rimzim Basu Hi Krista,
Thanks for replying. She’s going to have her 3rd vaccine on Wednesday. She doesn’t look starved. I wish I could attach a picture of her here. She’s wrestling and running around as usual. But I can’t see her eating so often 🙁
Also the dry food that we are using says that we should feed a 10-12 weeks old kitten around 90 gms of dry per day. She’s not even going to half of it for the past two days after she’s eating only dry. The vet said dry food can be high in calories and heavy, so she could be just full.
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Rimzim Basu Hi Krista,
This is our April- https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1Ol_9Dq0IAZLWMzUU5uMFQwQm8/view?usp=sharing
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Rimzim Basu Thanks a lot Krista. Cats are weird! Her appetite is coming back slowly, I think! 🙂 Let’s hope it stays that way!
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Rimzim Basu Also, I wanted to ask why my kitten jumps on my lap and then she’ll bite my clothes off. I mean, she’ll bite my tummy bulge a little too along with that. When I try to ger her off, she’ll bring out her claws and try to bite, all the while on my lap. At other times, she sleeps on my lap peacefully. This is really strange.
My pet is being found a lump on the lymphatic area, so we go to a vet and make a biopsy, after the biopsy, i found that the area is swelling, it is normal? or anything happened? Seek for help
Are foods containing baking soda harmful to pet rats?
i tried twce today and the first time i understood cause it was drizzling and he doesn’t like to get wet anymore, but the second time it clears up kinda cloudy but good and he refused to go down the stoop steps and when he finally did he didn’t want to walk just stand there but when i went to sit down he decided to sit next to me and enjoy the weather and get some good love and petting, i know its probably just him wanting more time with me and he does like to enjoy weather sometimes stopping on walks for along time but today was odd he just refused and when i finally said lets go upstairs he rushed ( well as best as he could) to go back up, i know lots of people are home today and he loves to be home with everyone but i was worried and didn’t understand why he wouldn’t want to walk he’s decided on his usual indoor potty today
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Dawn Ferara, DVM I would take him to the vet to be sure everything else is okay. Likely he has pain secondary to arthritis which is the reason he has slowed down. Your vet can evaluate this and prescribe therapies that can help.
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Angelica Sori So until I can get him to a vet woukd it be wise to let him just lay in his cushioned bed to rest and ease some pain and not bother him ? I’m also giveinf him a hip and joint treat supplement I’m wondering if that helps any for now.
Hi, my dog has yeasty paws n chin. A pet recommended topigen for tropical use. However she prescribe the mec to us without looking at our dog. Is it safe to use? Or should I just discard it.
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PK Dennis How do you know it is yeast? It could be something else if a culture has not been done, and if the vet didn’t look at your dog, she sure didn’t do a culture. I wouldn’t try to treat this condition in a hit or miss manner, I would find a vet that will really look at my dog, do a culture to discover if it is yeast, a skin scrape to make sure it isn’t mange, and then make a proper diagnosis.
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PK Dennis Oh, in the mean time, get your dog onto a grain-free diet – if it is yeast the grain-free diet may help greatly!
Dog has almost made a full recovery over the last few day. After discussing with my vet, this can occur if she doesn’t take her medication or vomits it up, as well as if she had eaten food that is high in protein. I think that she must have vomited her pill up, and as such we’ve been increasing her dosage until we’re certain she’s completely well again. On top of that, we’ve changed her diet slightly by removing kangaroo meat from her food and only using white meat. The food we give her is always home-made and has been approved by the vet. Sadly, due to my dog’s conditions and already prescribed medication, if this were to occur again, the best they could prescribe is either antibiotics or, if it gets very bad, we may have to have her put down.
However, like I said earlier, she is back to her normal and happy self, demanding food and is playing madly with our other dog. Thanks for your comment 🙂