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Training, walks, food, teeth, and the things dogs eat that they shouldn't.

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DogsPet parentyesterdayDog deathHello, my 13-year-old terrier passed away 6 days ago. The veterinarian told us she was in the terminal stage of a spleen tumor and ascites, and her hind paws were also swollen. In her last days she was immobile, in diapers, and on her last day she was refusing even water. My question for you, since I am very troubled by one moment—a few moments before death (I am not sure exactly, but no more than 1 minute to 2)—I squirted between 5-10 ml of water into the corner of her mouth through closed teeth using a syringe, because the day before she drank a lot of water and that day not at all. Shortly after, she passed away, and it troubles me whether I could have caused her some suffocation or if I caused her death with that amount of water (I am not even sure all of it went into her mouth because it's possible it leaked out the side). I have an OCD and situation is very hard for me. Thank you2 repliesNo vet yet

DogsErikayesterdayMi perrita tiene pulgas como una invasión porque cada vez que me quito le salen más por…Mi perrita tiene pulgas como una invasión porque cada vez que me quito le salen más por esto tiene pequeños granitos en su cabeza y esto le produjo un fuere olor a sarna pero solo en su cabeza, y hace un mes estuvo enferma con fiebre alta fue a un veterinario y me recomendó darle hígado, pero aveces se pone así y el olor a sarna aún sigue y nose como hacer con sus pulgas1 replyNo vet yet

DogsPet parent2d agoShe is a 4 year old blood hound who ate a sock with two magnets in the sock I don’t know…She is a 4 year old blood hound who ate a sock with two magnets in the sock I don’t know what to do my mom knows but not my dad and it’s late at night and I don’t know what to do and all our vets are closed I need to know what to do.1 replyNo vet yet

DogsDesiree4d agoSick ChihuahuaI have a seven-year-old female Chihuahua, and we've taken her to the vet three times, and have yet to find an answer or medicine to take care of what's wrong with her. We have been experiencing events where she acts completely different. She runs around in circles. Seems like she doesn't know where she's at. She lifts her foot up and down, up and down, up and down, moves her head all around, all around, won't eat, whines, doesn't act like her personality at all. It will last for a day to a day and a half, and then she just comes out of it, and she's back to normal again. And then it could last clean for a day, maybe two, three, and then all of a sudden she does it again. There's nothing that triggers her. While she's in this fit, she whines and whines, runs around in circles again, repeats all the same behaviors, and then just comes out of it. A couple days later, or it could even be one day, she does it again. It's been an ongoing event that we don't know how to handle it. We've taken her to three vets. Nobody's been able to diagnose it yet. Please, please help us. Anybody that has had a dog that has acted like this. please get ahold of us1 replyNo vet yet

DogsPet parent11d agoMy dog has developed muscle wasting/atrophy on one side of the face, and that side of the…Dear Doctor, My name is Gayatri, and I am from India\. I am seeking online veterinary guidance and a second opinion regarding my dog’s health condition\. My dog has developed **muscle wasting/atrophy on one side of the face**, and that side of the face appears sunken compared with the other side\. There is also **redness in the affected area**\. A few months ago, my dog also experienced **bleeding from the nose**\. I am concerned about the underlying cause of this one\-sided facial muscle loss\. Could this be related to **Masticatory Muscle Myositis \(MMM\), a neurological condition, an inflammatory/autoimmune disease, an infection, a tick\-borne disease, or another underlying condition?** ### Current medications prescribed by our veterinarian: - Tab\. Freezyme TBR - Tab\. Claupet - Tab\. Doxycycline 300 mg - Tab\. Pred - Inj\. Doxycycline 200 mg - Inj\. Pred 2 ml I would be very grateful for your guidance regarding the following: 1. What are the possible causes of one\-sided facial muscle atrophy in my dog? 2. Is **Masticatory Muscle Myositis \(MMM\)** a possibility in this case? 3. Would a **2M antibody test** be appropriate and useful? 4. Would a **CT scan or MRI** of the head/face be recommended? 5. What additional blood tests or diagnostic investigations should be performed? 6. Does the current treatment require any changes or special precautions? I have photographs of my dog and available medical/blood test reports\. I can share them online if required\. I would sincerely appreciate it if you could review my dog’s case and provide any guidance possible\. An opinion from an experienced **Veterinary Neurologist or Internal Medicine Specialist** would be extremely helpful to us\. Thank you very much for your time and consideration\. I look forward to your guidance\. Kind regards,0 repliesNo vet yet

DogsMichael14d agoWhat is your dog's one weird non-negotiable?Not a health question, just a good one. The thing they will not budge on. Won't walk past one particular house, drinks from exactly one bowl, has to be touching a door frame to fall asleep. Go.0 repliesNo vet yet

DogsPawsRx Team14d agoWhat finally worked for your dog's leash pulling?Everyone tries roughly the same four things and one of them eventually sticks. Curious which one, and how long it actually took, because the timeline is the part most advice leaves out. Harness, a specific training method, a trainer, or did they just grow out of it?0 repliesNo vet yet

DogsMichael15d agoLearn what bloat looks like before your dog has itGastric dilatation volvulus, GDV, is the one where every hour counts and where a lot of owners lose the hours that mattered because it looked like an upset stomach. The stomach fills with gas and then rotates on itself. Once it twists, nothing can leave in either direction, blood supply to the stomach and spleen gets cut off, the dog goes into shock. Untreated it kills, and not slowly. The sign to burn into your head is unproductive retching. The dog heaves over and over and nothing comes up. Along with that: a hard swollen belly, especially behind the ribs, pacing and unable to settle or lie down, heavy drooling, standing with the elbows out and the neck stretched, pale gums, collapse. A dog that's vomiting and actually producing vomit is usually a much less frightening situation than a dog heaving up nothing at all. Risk concentrates in deep chested dogs. Great Danes are the extreme case, then standard poodles, weimaraners, german shepherds, dobermans, setters, boxers, akitas, basset hounds. Older dogs are higher risk, and so are dogs with a close relative who has bloated. It does happen to mixed breed and smaller dogs, just a lot less often. If you've got a high risk dog, ask your vet about a prophylactic gastropexy, which tacks the stomach to the body wall so it can't rotate. It's commonly done at the same time as a spay or neuter, which is the cheap way to get it, and for something like a Great Dane it's a reasonable default rather than a paranoid one. The feeding advice you'll run into, smaller meals, slow feeder bowls, not exercising hard right after eating, is worth doing and the evidence behind individual pieces of it is mixed. Worth knowing the raised bowl advice actually reversed in the research, so don't buy an elevated feeder as a bloat measure. Mostly though this comes down to recognition. If your dog is heaving and nothing is coming up, go now. Don't wait to see how it looks in the morning.0 repliesNo vet yet

DogsPawsRx Team15d agoFoxtail season is right now, and they do not come back out on their ownIf you're in California, or anywhere dry and grassy out west, this is the summer problem that turns into a surgery problem faster than people expect. Foxtails are the dried seed heads off certain grasses. The seed is barbed like an arrowhead and the barbs only let it travel one direction, forward. It doesn't work its way back out and it doesn't dissolve. Once it's in, it migrates, and it drags bacteria along with it. UC Davis has case after case of these ending up in a lung or buried in the body wall after going in through a paw or a nostril. Season here runs roughly late April into October and is worst June through September, once the grass has dried out and started dropping seed. Where they get in and what it looks like. Between the toes, and you get a red swollen bump the dog won't leave alone. Up the nose, and it's violent sudden repeated sneezing that starts out of nowhere mid walk, often with discharge from one nostril only. In an ear, and the dog is suddenly shaking its head, tilting it, pawing at that one side. Under an eyelid, squinting and discharge. Anywhere under the skin, a lump that drains and won't heal. None of these get better with time. The only treatment is getting it out, and the further in it's traveled the more that costs and the more invasive it gets. Prevention is mostly avoidance and checking. Stay out of tall dried grass, particularly the brown stuff along trail edges and sidewalks. Check the dog after every walk: feet and between every toe, ears, armpits, groin, face. Trim paw fur on long coated dogs in summer. There are mesh hunting hoods, the OutFox being the common one, if you live somewhere genuinely bad for it. And pull the foxtails out of your own yard while they're still green. If one's sitting on the surface and you can see all of it, tweezers are fine. If it's gone below the skin or into a nostril or an ear canal, stop, because poking at it drives it deeper. That's a vet visit.0 repliesNo vet yet

DogsPawsRx TeamJul 20It's July. Do the asphalt check before walks, pleaseQuick seasonal one because we're in peak heat. Pavement gets way hotter than the air. On an 87 degree day, asphalt in direct sun can be over 140 degrees. That's burn-your-dog's-paws territory. The test: press the back of your hand on the pavement for 7 seconds. If you can't hold it there, it's too hot for paws. Walk early morning or after sunset, stick to grass when you can. Heatstroke signs to know cold: heavy relentless panting, thick drool, bright red gums, wobbly walking, vomiting, collapse. Flat-faced breeds (frenchies, pugs, bulldogs, boston terriers) overheat much faster than other dogs because they physically can't move enough air to cool themselves. Same for seniors and overweight dogs. If you suspect heatstroke: get them into shade or AC, pour cool (not ice) water over them especially belly and paws, and go to a vet immediately even if they seem to bounce back. The dangerous damage is internal. And the car thing, because every summer it happens: the AVMA's numbers show a car interior climbs about 20 degrees in 10 minutes, cracked windows barely help. There is no safe amount of time in a parked car in summer. Just don't. Stay cool out there.0 repliesNo vet yet

DogsMichaelJul 19What the research actually says about separation anxiety in dogsWent down a rabbit hole on this because it's one of the most common behavior problems and also one of the most misunderstood. The biggest thing veterinary behaviorists agree on: the destruction is panic, not spite. Your dog isn't punishing you for leaving. Which is why punishment doesn't just fail, it actively makes it worse. You come home, yell about the shredded couch, and now the dog is anxious about you leaving AND about you coming back. What has actual evidence behind it: Graduated departures. Leave for 30 seconds. Come back before the panic starts. Slowly stretch it. The dog learns that departures end with you returning, at a pace their brain can handle. Boring exits and arrivals. No big dramatic goodbyes, no excited greeting party. The calmer the transitions, the smaller the emotional cliff. A food puzzle or stuffed kong that ONLY appears when you leave. Turns the scary event into a predictor of something good. Exercise before you go. A tired dog has less fuel for panic. And for moderate to severe cases, medication plus behavior work together beats either alone. Fluoxetine is well studied for this in dogs. It's not "drugging your dog," it's lowering the panic floor enough that the training can actually land. If your dog is injuring themselves, breaking teeth on crates, or destroying doors, that's a talk-to-a-vet situation, not a try-harder situation.0 repliesNo vet yet

DogsNateJul 16The cheapest thing you can do for your dog's long term health is brush their teethNot glamorous but the numbers are wild. The AVMA says most dogs and cats show signs of dental disease by age 3. Most. And a proper dental cleaning has to be done under anesthesia, which usually runs a few hundred bucks minimum and can go over a thousand if they need extractions. Meanwhile a toothbrush costs like 4 dollars. Couple things I learned the hard way: Use pet toothpaste, never human toothpaste. Human stuff can contain fluoride and sometimes xylitol, both bad news for dogs. The pet ones come in chicken and beef flavors so most dogs actually tolerate it fine. Start slow. First few days just let them lick the paste off your finger. Then a finger along the gums. Then the brush for literally 30 seconds. If you go straight to full scrubbing you'll lose the war on day one. Daily is ideal, but even a few times a week beats nothing. If your dog absolutely will not accept brushing, look up the VOHC (Veterinary Oral Health Council) accepted product list. Those are the chews and additives that actually have evidence behind them. A lot of the stuff at the pet store does basically nothing, the VOHC seal is the filter. Bad breath in dogs isn't "just dog breath" btw. It's usually the first sign of dental disease.0 repliesNo vet yet

What this forum is

A free pet health forum, open to read without an account and free to post in. It is split by animal rather than run as one room, because a rabbit question and a labrador question have almost nothing to do with each other and the exotic ones get buried everywhere else.

Veterinarians answer here, and their replies are labelled. A reply marked as coming from a veterinarian means PawsRx checked an active license against the issuing state board before that badge appeared, and the whole check is written down. Everyone else posts as a pet owner and is shown as one. That distinction is the point: the usual problem with pet advice online is not that it is wrong, it is that you cannot tell who is talking.

A veterinarian answering a thread is giving general information, not diagnosing your animal, and says so on every reply. PawsRx does not review or endorse what anyone posts, and nothing here replaces examining a pet. Asking a vet privately is the other half of this, free as well, if your question is not one you want to post in public.

New to all this?

Nobody minds a beginner question, and the ones that get the best answers are specific: the animal, how long it has been going on, and what you have already tried. The guides cover the questions that come up most, including finding a vet who treats exotics and what to ask when you call a clinic.