When a new dog I’d taken in went into heat, I had to scramble to come up with something to minimize the mess. I tried the female dog diapers first, which were stocked locally and seemed like the best quick option, but they were expensive and too small. Ordering something online would take days to arrive, and still possibly not work, so as I so often do, I went looking for a better solution that would work and was affordable.
As I read my local newspaper’s abbreviated free version that comes out every week, I’m always drawn to the classifieds. I read in amazement and sadness, the number of people advertising puppies, varying from golden retrievers to chiweiniepoos or whatever combination of breeds someone has come up with that they can apparently sell for hundreds of dollars. Around the holidays, they make sure they include how they’ll be ready for Christmas. I cringe at those ads for several reasons, not just because they are directly across from ads that the only local no-kill shelter runs begging for monetary help with vet bills from the latest sick dogs brought in that someone found dumped or with the vet care of a kitten thrown out of a car window. I cringe because I once got a puppy as a gift, and while my situation is different than most, there are still some things I want to pass on about my experience to help others. Read more
If you have a cat or a dog, an almost certain issue you’ll have to deal with at some point is diarrhea. Whether it’s as simple as a result of eating something they shouldn’t, the result of medication use, or a change in food that suddenly creates havoc in the bathroom department, it’s a good idea to be ready to act when it happens. Luckily, there are three inexpensive and easy diarrhea treatments for cats and dogs that should help resolve the issue quickly.
If you’ve ever considered a wireless pet containment system, also known as a wireless fence, to keep your dog safe, it’s important to go into it knowing that it does have its limitations and faults. Even though my experience with one was from several years ago, my research indicates the same problems that plagued it then, still do. And while my experience was from a while ago, it was still a hard lesson learned that I wanted to share with other dog owners.
Last month, a week after my labrador, Abby, spent a night at the vet’s office following lipoma removal surgery, she developed a cough. I let it go for a little over a day, as I waited to see if it was just a fluke since she was on antibiotics from her surgery and it was a pretty minor and only occasional cough. Listening to her, it just appeared that she had something in her throat. She hadn’t had any bones recently and she’s a grass eater, so I thought maybe she just had a piece of grass stuck in her throat. Unfortunately, by the next day when my scheduled post surgery check-in call with the vet came, the cough had progressed to being more frequent.
Last year, when my dog Roxie was diagnosed with cancer, I immediately came home and spent hours and hours researching things that would help get her better. A lot of the supplements I read about that were recommended, I’d never heard of. There was one that caught my attention though, because of how it is administered in dire cases and what ailments it can help with in both cats and dogs. It was vitamin C. I never realized how many things vitamin C was good for treating in cats and dogs until I researched further.
This was a tough post to find the right wording for the title. I wrote several of them before settling on the final version you see. Part of me wanted the title to read, “If your dog stops eating, PLEASE don’t mess around. Get them to the vet!” Of course, that’s my gut reaction after losing Sadie so soon after she completely stopped eating one night. Then, there are the other titles I came up with like “First they stopped eating, then they died.” And while morbid and dramatic, that’s really kinda how my two experiences with this topic have played out. This post isn’t meant to scare you, but to show you how a dog’s lack of appetite can be a huge red flag that something is very seriously wrong with your dog.
Just like all of my other posts, this one is brought to you from experience. It involves dog eyes. Though I always try to treat my dogs at home and as naturally as possible, injuries or issues with their eyes are one thing I don’t mess around with. Once again, it took a bad experience for me to learn that lesson.
If you follow Saving Cats, Dogs and Cash on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/savingscatsanddogswhilesavingcash/), or have noticed in the pictures I share here on my blog featuring stories about my cats and dogs, you may notice that they don’t wear collars. The reason is that when I was a kid, our dogs did wear them. One incident with a collar has kind of traumatized me for life and is always in the back of my mind with my own pets.
It may or may not apply to you and your situation, but I wanted to share this story, if nothing else, to at least bring attention to the matter to maybe help someone else out there avoid having a similar incident.
“You’re wrong”, I remember telling the vet. “Nobody in my group is allowed to get cancer.” Of course, while there are a lot of things I can control in my crew, apparently keeping cancer out of our vocabulary didn’t turn out to be one of them. Despite not spraying my yard, not vaccinating beyond puppy shots, and using only tick medication and wormer sparingly, this is the diagnosis it had come down to. Somehow, I thought we were immune.
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