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Love&Frustration--need advice on several issues

2K views 14 replies 7 participants last post by  wyoung2153 
#1 · (Edited)
Let me start by saying I'm without a doubt in love with my boy. I'm only voicing frustration because I feel sure some of you have gone through this before and I just need a little guidance and advice for how to make things a little smoother in my house.

The love--I have the most calm well behaved pup around my house. He's wonderful for pushing 6 months old. He's calm at home and whenever we go places, it's great! The vet has even complimented his behavior. He is absolutely my little shadow, goes everywhere with me. He is pretty much house trained except if he has an upset stomach, or if hubby accidentally falls asleep when I'm not home and doesn't take him out soon enough(that's only happened once). He hasn't chewed anything he isn't supposed to except the tip of a flip flop and its still quite wearable. He prefers his toys and cardboard and paper when he can find it, so glad he doesn't have expensive taste!

The frustration--He had health issues when we got him, ok that's been sorted out. He is exceptionally small. He's not the big, athletic boy I was anticipating and hoping for. That's ok, I'm good with one that turns out smaller than expected. Easier on hips and other joints right? Wrong. He wont jump on anything(not into the car and not on the couch unless highly motivated) and he has an odd gait. Like I notice it all the time and when I've taken him to my in-laws house they commented that he looked like he had trouble with his hips, and I had never mentioned anything to them about it. (I would like to take a video of his movement and see what yall think here before I go skipping off to the vet--again.) He's lazy...like extremely low drive. The only time we had the 'zoomies' was when he was on meds from the vet. But I digress....

So now he's gotten itchy. He doesnt have fleas and vet and I don't think it's his food. Vet said he had dry skin and to put him on fish oil. He's been on fish oil a couple weeks now and no change. And I wouldn't be worried about it not working very fast if it weren't for all his scratching at night and keeping hubs and I awake all flipping night. That combined with waking us up to get water several times a night. We solved the water problem and just put the bowl in the bedroom(against all puppy advice) and we've been letting him sleep out in the room instead of crating him. That way he can get water when he needs it and he knows not to potty in there. Back to the itching, he'll lay against the door, or the wall or the bedframe and scratches and it of course is loud and wakes us up. *Cue exhaustion the next morning* So last night, I gave him a tiny bit of benedryl before bed to relieve the itching and hopefully help the humans to get a full nights sleep and put him in a crate-with water bowl. So he got sick and at 2am i was cleaning up diarrhea from his bed and blankets and him and the floor where he stepped when he got out.

So now I'm exhausted and thinking about my lazy, small(32lbs tops), itchy, hot, thirsty, odd gaited, potentially hip displaced 6 month old GSD that I, for some strange reason, love to death... Boy did I win the puppy lottery. I just wanted a healthy playful puppy. That's it. I didn't care about perfect conformation or whatnot.

P.s. He's also got and odd, almost perfectly round patch of hair missing on his hip. He's got the undercoat but no long hair over it. It's been that way a while now and it's not cute.
 
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#2 ·
I know all dogs are different, and have different energy levels, but small size, itchy skin and missing hair, and not a lot of energy concerns me a bit. Sorry to hear you are frustrated! I would love to see a picture of him.

Did the Benedryl help? My dog had a few times when he was itchy after going to the farm and putting him on Benedryl for a few days really helped. What kind of food is he on?
 
#3 ·
Chevelle is almost 7 months, also very very itchy (she leans against the wall or door or furnace and scratches hard, bonk Bonk BONK! haha! I have changed her to a corn free food but she is still itchy. I think it's a shedding thing. She is shedding a LOT. Since it is spring, and puppies are very itchy anyway, hopefully it will pass soon. Try brushing him more, maybe?
 
#4 ·
How many fish oil pills are you giving? My GSD itched bad and had a "hot spot" which resulted in hair loss in that are. We started off with 2pills hidden in her food and once the itching stopped, we dropped it down to 1pill a day for Maintenence. If you are only giving one pill, I would increase it
 
#5 ·
The Benadryl helped the itchiness but gave him diarrhea. I'm guessing that's what did it--nothing else was different with different with his dinner last night. It would have been a golden night had he not gotten sick.

I can definitely try brushing him more, I'll cross my fingers it helps. He's already on corn free food so that base is covered.

I'm only giving him one now, I can definitely up it though. How many milligrams is what your giving? I don't want to overdo it.

I'll work on pictures tonight, I've never loaded any on here so I may struggle.
 
#7 ·
I'm so sorry about your pup's health issues. Our previous dog had low thyroid and then cancer. Our current dog had lots of health issues as a pup, GI and itchy skin, and now as an adult some orthopedic.The constant health issues an be so stressful over such a long period of time.

Without going into a lot of our own history, I just want to say switching foods helped a lot. We went off kibble and switched to The Honest Kitchen brand. Actually we did 1/2 kibble and 1/2 this for about 4 months, saw impressive improvement and thought, why not just get off the kibble. So now we use 1/2 THK and 1/2 a prepared frozen raw food by Natures' Variety. Skin is great, sometime our dog still get GI issues but recovers in a day and we don't need to go to the vet for treatment.
 
#9 ·
Sunrise products sound like they may help. we have the Garlic tabs they make. Teana coat looks awesome I must say. but after reading one of their catalogs I see they have several things that may help you.
its wonderful how much you love him, ill bet everything works out just fine.
 
#10 ·
Thank you for the encouragement. I really appreciate it. I definitely don't have a bad dog, this is not the normal frustrations I see from others on here. I guess I'm just in shock a little bit at the health problems. I've never had an unhealthy dog so this is all brand new. And now this paranoia about his hips--quite honestly it sucks. I got a video of him walking around at lunch, I'll try to get that posted soon, would love some input. I'll post that in the hips section too. I knew hips would/could be an issue but I certainly didn't expect it at 6 months.

Would you mind posting a link to the Sunrise products? A quick google search didn't turn up the right thing.
 
#11 ·
How sure are you that it's not the food that's causing him to itch? Titan has itched a lot almost all his life.. only to realize now that he's been allergic to everything I have been feeding him. It may be worth a shot to look into :) Also, Coconut Oil. Ton of people on here feed it and I have started too.

Also, have you taken him to the vet for his small size and lack of energy?
 
#12 ·
I guess I can't really say I'm 100% it's not the food. I had him on TOTW starting out and about a month-a month and a half ago he got itchy and shortly after that I switched him to 4health. I told the vet all this. asked him about the food, and he thought it was just dry skin and recommended fish oil. I will definitely dig a little deeper on the food thing and see if I can do a process of elimination.

I told the vet right off the bat I was concerned about his size and he has told me the whole time he is fine and dont worry. But I can't be convinced of that. Not when he's as small as he is. His actual weight,32#,isn't the concern as much as how raily and lean he is. I know lean is good but he's a little too lean and narrow. Like I don't expect him to be bulky or bulk up any time soon, but everything is small. Shoulder width, hip width, and waist area. It's all little. I have an issue when I try to explain that on here, people just think that he a normal lean etc. We had a GSD when I was a kid that was lean til the day he died so I totally get it. This is much smaller than lean. "Lean" still has the growing bone structure. When I fan my hand out and put it over his hips, I have about and inch to inch and a half of fingers beyond his hips.
 
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