Reverse Sneezing!!

Brie has always had random episodes of struggling to breath. I felt a bit helpless as to what to do so we looked it up on the net and it is called “Reverse Sneezing”. It occurs in some small breeds of dog when the soft palate is irritated, they have trouble breathing in from the nose. The concern is that it may result in the dog panicing, but this can be solved by encouraging breathing from the mouth. And this can be achieved by stroking the throat.

And this worked so well that the panic stops instantaneously and I am very happy to be able to help. If the dog was to have reverse sneezing when by themselves it's not a problem because they can sort it out by themselves. The down side is that Brie loves getting her throat stroked so much that she is demanding it all the time. Another cat like behaviour she has acquired.

Pork Chop

I have been looking around for Brie's staying at home treats, and Phoebe's mum recommended we give pork chop raw hide chews a go. The small pork chops come in a pack of something like eight and we gave one to Brie today. After a long time sniffing and trying to bite it, she gave up and decided to throw it around. She hasn't figured out that it isn't a toy yet.

Emergency preparation

I was flicking through this season's pet magazine and they had a little article on disaster preparation. With last weeks incident I thought I should make an evacuation kit for Brie. The stuff that goes into the kit is pretty simple; pet food and water for three days, towel/blanket and plastic bags. Also, a carry case and vaccination record is recommended. Hmm, this is definitely not going to go into your small pack Brie. We'll have to put your stuff in our pack.

You can find out more about evacuating with dogs here.

Bunny like.

Brie loves veggies, but not in big doses. So when I give her lettuce or cabbage I chop it into strips. I don't want to give her too many doggie treats per day, so Brie gets bit of a apple and veggies for treats sometimes. I have told this to other dog owners but they all seemed very surprised. I knew she has little bit of cat in her, but she may have little bit of bunny too.

Salad with Kibble

The bag that Brie's kibble comes in is rather big, and as she doesn't eat very much the bag never gets finished. I think this is because a bag which has been opened for a while looses freshness. So anyway, her kibble needed some spicing up. Brie loves veggies so I add whatever we using for dinner (apart from onions, potatoes etc..). This method sometimes works as she is sometimes encouraged to finish the veggies and the kibble, or she might just finish the veggies and leave all the kibble. She has a special talent of avoiding all the kibble in her bowl. Oh Brie its not that much, I'm sure you can finish it if you put your mind to it.

Pad progress

Well to my surprise, the pad gel works pretty well. Brie only needed to use it a couple of times and on each application it only required a little amount. The reason her gel is mostly gone is that each time it is applied she decides to have a little taste. Her pads feel like little gummy bears, soft and squishy.

Soft as puppy pads

This pad moisturiser was recommended by my mother, who also has a toy poodle. I had to get it as the description said that by using this cream, pads will go as soft as puppy pads (I assumed this is just like a me buying moisturiser expecting to get skin as soft as a baby's bum). Recently I have noticed that Brie's paws are getting bit rough around the edges, which I think must be from walking on our hot deck around the house, so I thought 'how perfect!!' Also, it is safe for dogs to lick, which is excellent as Brie loves licking her pads. I have to start using it, and hopefully we will get some results (fingers crossed Brie is going to be a paw model some day with the smoothest, softest pads).

New Bowls

I have been noticing these doggie tables around when I look for new items for Brie. They are made to raise bowls off the ground to reduce strain on her back, or so I have heard. Lately I have been trying to get my husband to create some doggie tables for her bowls to go on, but when it comes to DIY he tends to take a long time before he makes a start. So instead of waiting forever I decided to buy these new ice-cream bowls for Brie. They are made of plastic, but they aren't too light, and they also have little legs to keep them off the ground. Brie has two matching ones - sky-blue for water and pink for kibble. So far, they have worked well, and I'm very proud of my ingenious idea if I do say so myself.

Spotting the Fake

There is this product which helps keeps teeth clean called Greenies. Brie loves these little green coloured chews, she will often hide hers and chew it for a long time. At the start we didn't know what it was so we picked up what seemed like a Greenie from a pet shop. To our horror, bits of wet chew stuck on Brie's fur and what ever surface Brie decided to it chew on. Which included our jeans and skirts. Considering how popular this product is, I thought this can't be right. So I looked them up on the Internet, and what we picked up wasn't a Greenies branded chew. Enough with the knock off Greenies, we picked a proper one up from the vet, and it was quite different, one side was toothbrush shaped and other was bone shaped, the colour was lot lighter and the material was a lot more solid. And the most important part was that Brie loved it, they are a bit pricey and a bit too big for everyday consumption, so we give Brie one on special occasions.

Working out

It has come to our attention that Brie might have gained some Christmas weight, sure its understandable for people, because we eat Christmas roast followed by heavy Christmas pudding. Plus the Christmas cookies and the pie and the ham and lots more. Brie didn't feast out on a Christmas meal, but lately we've noticed that Brie might be getting a little tummy. To be on the safe side, today we encouraged her to work out little with her new Brie size soccer ball.

Brushing teeth.

Another doggie teeth issue, keeping those teeth clean so they don't get cavities. As Brie has just acquired her new adult teeth we want to keep them clean, and also by keeping her teeth clean it gives her fresh breath (so I heard). I decide to go to the pet store to buy her tooth paste, in I go and asking for dog toothbrush and dog toothpaste, I get a puzzled gaze with a hint of a crazy woman look from the shop assistant. Since I did my research I knew such a thing existed, so despite the ignorance of this shop assistance I kindly explained and off he went to find another shop assistant. She was very helpful and explained that dogs love the poultry flavoured toothpaste. Poultry flavour??? Does that mean chicken flavour? Hmmm that sounded OK and I gave it a sniff thinking it would probably smell like chicken chips. Well it just wasn't. It smelled like yeasty chicken oxo gone bad, and since Brie likes stinky stuff I figured this will do. Unfortunately they didn't sell a toothbrush there so we picked one from the vet and we had a try. The doggie tooth brush type that was rated easy to use on web was the finger toothbrush type.

Although keeping it playful and fun to make her like her teeth being brushed, the result was more licking off the toothpaste and less brushing the teeth. My husband is in charge of this duty, and Brie now gets excited when he puts on the toothbrush and she waits for it sitting down, she is slowly getting used to the side of her canines being brushed, but she still licks the toothpaste off afterwards. And as for the fresh breath, well it's full of a rich poultry aroma. She is currently waiting for a recruiting agent to contact her to get into a toothpaste ad for dogs.

Bi-Canined Dog

There are so many products out there to make the life of puppy's and their owners a little bit easier during teething, but what Brie has is TOO MANY TEETH at one time. When her adult teeth starting to come out and replace the baby teeth I was thinking "oh Brie is going up so fast" with some tears in my eyes. But then the adult canines came through, but baby canines seemed to just stay put. She spent a good two months being an eight canined dog. She had a little bit of a problem getting food stuck between two canines, as well as shock you get when she yawns exposing eight canines.

So I did what any hypochondriac parent would do - consult a vet. And she recommended to wait a while because they may come out by them self, or if it doesn't they have to removed them. As I'm not a big fan of the dentist, I figured I'd go with first option. So we decided to wait a month, then two, thinking that we may need to get them pulled out. However, a couple days later, my husband spotted her chewing something small, and despite Brie's lack of co-operation he got it off her and there it was, her FIRST baby canine. I was so ecstatic that I decided to congratulate Brie and even thought she had no clue what she did right, she demanded a treat as she got praised. I was so sure this would open the flood gates, but despite my hopes the next one came out month later, then another a month later again. Yes she still has one more to go, but I guess the thought of having one canine pulled out is lot less scary then four. Despite my concerns Brie is having a lazy day today.

Eye Lotion

When we decided to get a lighter coloured poodle we knew that tear staining would be a concern. And being a hypochondriac doggie parent I consulted the vet, she said that it's purely an aesthetic issue rather then a health concern, so we left it there thinking it wouldn't bother us. Plus it 'contours' her face, adding depth and character.

Then, a couple months ago, Brie finally made her first poodle friend. This was a huge joy for me (I'm convinced that she has an identity crisis) and her friend's parents use an eye lotion to get rid of those tear stains. It was working well for her so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Who knew there were so many products out there for removing tear stains. There are the cotton bud type, the cotton pad type which are pre-soaked in lotion which seemed useful but a bit over priced, and the bottled lotion type which all looked the same. As I was weighing up the pros and cons of each product and having an indecisive pondering session, my husband decided to speed up the process by picking one that sad "Treats and controls tear staining in POODLES and other breeds" purely because it mentioned poodles. The product was "Bright eye- EYE LOTION- for cats and dogs" for $7.50.

After the first couple of uses we weren't sure it was working, but after a week or so the stained area seemed to lighten up. This doesn't mean its completely gone but its definitely a lot better then before (I think).