Ice222

That's true :sml1:, but this little fella gets treated like a prince, treat him better than I treat myself. I swear even the bf's a little bit jealous of the dog :oops:.

Just found out my nextdoor neighbour also recently got a puppy around the same age as mine. It's a lab though, so should be much bigger than mine even now :lol:.

Haha he doesn't actually poop inside much. Only had 2 poop accidents total, I'm just glad that it's been pee i've been having to clean. I did just come home to find he had soiled his crate while I was out though, he's stepped all over it, and left me with a horrible mess. Had to give him a bath again, 2nd time today since he'd sat in his pee the first time :facepalm:.

Yup, he's even sticking his tongue out in the pic .

Not bad at all, those dwarf chain loaches looked so cute!

:sml1: I wish! He has learnt to "leave it" and heel though, but that's not much use atm, since it'll still be 3 weeks till he's allowed out for walks. Currently trying to teach him names for his toys, and just solidifying what he already knows since he doesn't always listen when distracted. Cat's much less terrified of him now though, still doens't like him and will hiss and run away if he goes too close, but I swear she kinda tries to taunt him when she knows he can't reach her :roll:. Your comment also reminds me of a funny thing he does with the play dead trick. For some reason, he's taught himself that he needs to jump up at my 'gun' when I say "bang!" before falling on the ground and rolling onto his back. So now when he does it, it looks like an over dramatic movie death. I've never taught him to jump, in fact I normally try to discourage all jumping so I have no idea why he adds it in :dunno:. Oh and here's puppy pics just for fun . First is him shaking hands, then playing dead, and third is him with a badger toy. Since "dachshund" apparently means "badger dog" in German - they used to be for hunting badgers - I thought it would be a bit of a funny toy for him. I know his harness is pink, they didn't have blue in the shop . H'es pretty enough to pass as a girl anyway :love:. Ps - Pheewee! Just noticed puppy farted for the first time, god it's pungent :lol:.

Glad he's doing better. I can't imagine what it'd be like watching your dog suffer from eating . I love watching my dog eat his raw meaty meals, it must be so sad that your dog can't enjoy his meals properly. The one time my pupppy did throw up his meal (I added egg for the first time) I felt my heart break a little just watching it happen and seeing how much it exhausts him to do it and that's not even close to what you guys go through every day. I really wish you and your doggie the best.

It does sound like you've tried a heck ton of stuff, poor dog . I know nothing of the condition till now but let me just make sure I have the info on the condition right: Your dog is not able to swallow food properly and ends up regurgitating it back quite often, leading to basically starving from the inefficient absorption of nutrition. Blending the food to get rid of chunks and seating the dog upright, are ways to help keep the food down, since gravity aids the swallowing. Now my first question is whether your dos is throwing up while he's in the upright position or after you let him down? I'm no vet. I'm not even that experienced with dogs (only just got a puppy last month) but from thinking through the problems, there should be other ways to help your dog. If he's regurgitating after you put him down, it might help just to keep upright for longer? Additionally, it might help is to massage your dog's esophagus after he eats, like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-0Q8_9_07k. I know that's similar to how I force my cat to swallow pills/tablets, so if using that in combination to having your dog seated vertically after meals, might help your dog keep food down? And since starving is a problem, it might be a good idea to try adding some extra nutrients to his diet if he is able to keep food down. For example, you can add a bit of nutrigel to his meals, it's often used for old dogs or those with poor appetite, to mixing a bit in your dog's food may help (http://www.ethicalagents.co.nz/Nutrigel.html). You might also want to try feeding higher protein foods than dog biscuits (ie. raw meat or kibble without grains) it might just give him a little extra substance. I know you said you've tried chicken mince, but have you tried putting that through the blender with some water too? Actually if you freeze the chicken meat, blend it frozen, then add some water, and blend some more, I imagine you could get a smoother consistency since frozen meat blends better than thawed. In fact, rather than just blending with water, you can boil some chicken frames to make chicken broth, and blend the broth with the chicken mince, that way even the liquid will provide some extra sustenance if your dog can keep it down. I can't tell what you have and haven't tried, but those are just some suggestions and since you seem to be running out of options, I thought any suggestions would be better than nothing.

They're in the offtopic section :lol: http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=55688&start=30

Mini longhaied dachshund, he's 1/4 papillion, but you really can't tell. I still like my fishies, but they've taken the back seat .

I've given up on breeding fish. Still having troubles with one of my tanks in terms of sick fish, and I've got my hands full with my new puppy .

Lol oops, well mods can delete this then. Haven't been browsing the forums as much as I used to lately

Thought I'd share since it's so cute/funny.

Call me crazy, but I think the pic of it nibbling on carrot is adorable!

Must be crypt melting season. I barely keep crypts since crypts regularly melt for me, but even my one nice strong crypt has melted in the last few days.

I must be lucky then. My cat either eats them whole (if they are small enough) or leaves them completely intact (except feathers). Only ever had to clean up blood once and it was 1 drop.

Thanks, it's comforting to know that it'll probably get better with time. I've always read not to use those pads though, cause they get used to peeing on that kind of texture and it will confuse them from where they normally pee?

Lol they do, but I hear that once you start using them your dog will pretty much never learn to housebreak properly.Well he's peed twice inside today so far and twice outside. So not as bad as yesterday's toll yet .

Okay, he's been so good the last 2 days but today he's driving me crazy! he's had 10+ accidents today and I can't figure why. Puppy = toilet problems, I expected that, but I have the feeling I must be doing something very wrong for him to have gotten so bad all of a sudden. The first day he was here, he'd bark to go outside and only peed and pooed outside, he went peed/poo about 6 times, all correctly. The 2nd day I had work but kept tray of soil for him toilet on, he pooed on the tray but peed on the newspaper I laid out, didn't toilet in the evening while I was home. Today we stared off on the wrong foot, he had woken me up 3 times during the night and I'd taken him out but he didn't go, so the 4 time, I was a bit slow and he ended up peeing the carpet. After that now he won't ask me to go out, and just pees on the carpet. He's had 10+ accidents today I've cleaned every peed spot with animal odor/stain remover, but still only had 1 successful pee and 1 successful poo outside. Thing is, I've caught him peeing almost every time, I stop him, pick him up, and put him outside in his toilet area but instead of doing his business, he just starts playing with twigs and ripping up my plants. basically he's clearly too distracted to go toilet properly (when he does go outside it's always been within 30secs of being out). It always looks like really small puddles when he does it inside, I hope he's not thinking "pee inside and I get to play outside" or anything like that . It's just frustrating not knowing how to get the idea that toileting outside is good. I give him treat,s he eats them, but he's not as fascinated by food as most dogs seem to be. I could try some other food/treats. but so far I have 4 different kinds, one he won't touch, 1 he'll eat 1 piece of and get bored, and the other two he'll readily eat, but they're not strong enough when he's in a distracted mode. Anyway recommendations are welcome, but it's really more of a rant than anything. I just got him to play for the last hour to tire him out for bed and he's finally settled. I'm gonna get ready for b e now (nice and early) since no doubt he'd wake me tonight.

I haven't had any really weird pets, the weirdest was probably rats, and really if you've ever seen a pet rat (not the wild ones), you prob wouldn't think they're a weird pet. The weirdest pets I want to keep are snakes though, always wanted a snake, but since I've lived in nz all the time, I've never been able to have one .

Anti-raw people tend to be against it mostly because it's ingrained in them that dogs should eat dog food and anything else is wrong. Proper arguments against raw tend to talk about the bacteria on raw meat and dogs choking on bones. Pro-raw people say that dogs are carnivores, so they should be eating meat with only <10% of other foods, whereas commercial food is mostly grains with very little actual meat, or what meat they do have tend to be made from meat that's not fit for human consumption. Their counter argument against the bacteria thing is that only a very rare few will have problems if you are feeding human grade meat and prepare it with the basic hygiene you would for your own meals. Since dogs digestive tracts are heaps shorter than ours, any bacteria in the food tends to come out the other end before they can take hold in the stomach. They also say that raw bones almost never cause any problems, only cooked ones, and raw feeding cleans teeth like nothing else. Since I had my cat tried it, and she did really well. I think the raw would be good for the dog . BTW the cat is scared of the puppy, who is half her size . She's getting a little braver though and actually coming inside a bit, unlike in the morning. The puppy on the other hand just seems to want to play with the cat. I don't think he really recognizes that the cat's not a dog. I'm hoping they'll get to be the best of friends.

Thanks . I'm just amazed how many people are against on principle when they've never even heard of it. Actually I'm amazed that more people don't know of it. I mean when you get a dog, you'd think you'd do some research to see what's best for it, and the top result I always got, just from goggling "best dog food" was either raw, or Innovo (which I haven't even seen in nz). When I mentioned I'll be feeding raw to one of my friends, and said that I've found a local vet who is pro-raw diet too, he looked at me all skeptically and said "So you just found 1 vet that supports it, that's not much of a basis to go on". I dismissed the idea trying to convince him, he clearly was not going to change his mind, and based on what? Nothing at all, before even knowing anything about it he had already made up his mind that raw is bad and anything I said was not going to convince him otherwise. Considering that he's a fellow dog owner and is in his last year or med (and generally a smart guy) I was actually quite offended. But then I remembered that his dog is the prime example of a badly trained, overweight, unhealthy pom with behavioral issues. So in the end I just shrugged it off, I rather know what I'm feeding and do the best I can personally do than to rely on assuming that the pet food companies actually have our best interests at heart.

He's not just looks either, he's been perfectly well behave so far. It's still hard to understand what his crying means sometimes, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. He had his first prey model raw meal today, diced chicken breast and one tiny piece of chicken neck, took him a little while to get it - flesh tearing and bone crunching are new to him - but he seemed to love the food. Immediately after eating he actually DEMANDED to go outside for toilet! He didn't toilet when he first woke up and I let him out, so he must really be busting after his lunch. I'm just completely amazed that he TOLD me when he needed to go. I've always heard that dachshunds are stubborn, and hard to train, especially when it comes to housebreaking, but it looks like might not be quite as difficult as I expected for this wee one. He also learnt to use his somewhat unusual water bowl, so he's really coped with a lot of newness and done amazingly well even though he's only been here for hte lst 6 hours. Only thing that hasn't been perfected is that he nips pretty hard when playing, but I think I'm doing the bite inhibitation training right, even if it's not working yet. I yelp "ouch! that hurt!" stand up straight like a tree and stop playing for 15 secs before starting again. He hasn't stopped biting hard yet but at least he seems to understand that me turning my back means I'm stopping play, so eventually he should learn the connection and learn to play nice. So proud of Sherlock, such a good puppy!

Just arrived around 10 this morning. He's even cuter than i imagined I instantly fell in love :love: He's well behaved so far. Went loo outside when he arrived like a good boy, and follows me around wherever I go. He can't stand being alone atm, but I am slowly weening him to stand being further from me. At first he'd cry as soon as I stopped carrying him or letting him sleep on my lap. The i dunked the sleepy lil guy in his crate, and he started sleeping there but would cry as soon as i moved my hand off of him or can't see my face, then i shut the door and kept the top hatch open so that my hand was still inside and put the whole crate on my lap. Now I've taken my hand out, he can't see my face and he's still sleeping like baby. Think we're doing pretty well so far. Might try get the bf to come over tomorrow and look after him while i'm at work. Even tho my tenant doesn't mind helping out taking the pup on toilet break while i'm out, the puppy doesn't seem interested enough with the toys to keep himself busy while i'm out. Oh yea, and I decided on Sherlock (aka locki). I was still undecided between Sherlock and Louis (French pronunciation) but turns out one of his brothers has been named that, so that makes the decision simple :sml2:

The algae won't harm the fish, it's just not very nice to look at, but the flourish excel can. It's not that the product is bad, I use it myself, but when you add CO2, it changes some of the water chemistry (particularly the PH) and that can put the fish in shock when things change too suddenly. You might want to try the normal dose first and see if that helps, and slowly add more, up to double the does if needed later if the fish seem okay. Or get a PH testing kit (more on that below). Also, your teacher might have already went to buy the excel, but diy CO2 can be a great science project since it is cheap and easy to do (search for "DIY CO2" in the DIY section and you'll get heaps of info). Most of the necessarily Items can be found at home and the ingredients are all very safe. The only thing is you might have to make the mixture again if you want to keep the algae away, and like the Flourish Excel, you want to make sure you are not adding too much at once. Another good science project related to the CO2 is PH testing, it's related because if you test the water before and after using any CO2, you can see whether the PH has dropped too much. It's quite fun since many different liquids will come up with different coloured results using the test, and you can try it with things like lemon juice or baking soda added to water.