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Post by smilesbetter on Dec 3, 2015 15:26:01 GMT
Haha well the title says it all. On our morning walk today Rosa had a musher than normal poop full of seeds (!!!!) because it turns out she's been stealing bird food in the back garden. I can't see where she's getting it from but the bird lady feeds them shocking amounts and somehow Rosa has got them. No more off lead in the back garden then.
Then we had a great walk until towards the end she went into a bush. She was in there a bit too long for my liking so I whistled and she came out with something in her mouth. I said "drop it" and she plonked somethings head in front of me. It was either a rabbit or a very large birds neck and the corner of a head, but I couldn't see what, and I couldn't see the rest of it in the bush either although I could certainly smelling.
The neck had no hair or feathers on it, that might have been Rosa's doing. The meat didn't look rotten but as there wasn't much to see I can't really comment more than that.
Now I'm not sure if I should worm her, whether I should fast her for a night to see if there has been any effect in tomorrow's poop, or what I'm meant to do after that happens? It's our first time, thankfully.
Also after that she managed to scoff a bit of chicken filled vomit.
Oh and if you are wondering why she is such a big scavenger all of a sudden (I certainly was) I have just discovered she has come into season, although I'm actually glad about that as I knew it was approaching and was hoping to get it out of the way before we go to Scotland. Am I right in thinking they last around three weeks? I can't remember from the other two.
She is getting spayed after this one in any case, the last one was in April if I remember correctly so she has them fairly quick (although the the vestibular episode and medications may have affected that) but at least I can work out from that when would be the right time to get her spayed (sure everyone says it should be about halfway, right?).
Anyway so what should I do now she has scoffed something dead that might not have been very fresh (and could have died due to poisoning) other than keeping a close eye on her and inspecting her poops?
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Post by orpheous87 on Dec 3, 2015 20:17:31 GMT
Oh dear! Afraid I can't really offer much advice, but when Pepper ate a dead rabbit that she'd unearthed in a hedge back, I just kept an eye on her. Luckily there were no ill effects. The rabbit was very, very dead, flat as a pancake and quite likely decomposing, so sounds similar to what Rosa's eaten. Why do we have such disgusting dogs??
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Post by gypsy on Dec 3, 2015 21:26:18 GMT
My dog Oscar is always doing this! Just the other day on a walk he found the remains of a dead hare and he stood crunching the bones with total satisfaction on his face. Little sod!! Then today we did the same walk and I forgot about it but clearly he hadn't, because he ran over to the exact same spot and ate the rest of it! He was absolutely fine the other day....no vomiting/diarrhea and fine today (so far) too. In fact he always is fine and because he's on a raw diet anyway, the bones etc don't affect him. Though he can be a little constipated the next day occassionally. He did develop a bit of a bad worm burden beginning of last year and I believe that was caused by eating dead animals on walks, because there always seems to be more dead things lying around in the winter months. I think if Rosa remains bright and alert and doesn't show signs of pain/discomfort....then its likely she'll be fine. Obviously persistent diarrhea/vomiting, pale gums, seizures, salivating etc are all classic symptoms of poisoning, but some dogs may vomit once and then be fine when its out of their system. My dog is such a scavenger I once caught him eating a dead hedgehog and when I got him to drop it and kicked it aside with my foot, it was absolutely covered with maggots!! You'll notice from my posts that Oscar is the dog I own who gives me the most grey hairs!
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Post by orpheous87 on Dec 3, 2015 22:13:53 GMT
From the sounds of it gypsy, I'm quite lucky with Pepper! The only dead things she's interested in are rabbits and birds - luckily we don't see many of either! We see more dead rats and although she'll sniff at them, she's more likely to roll on them than eat them. Like Oscar, I think the fact that Pepper is raw fed helps a lot. It did amuse me the other week when she picked up a rabbit foot and proceeded to eat it though because one of the people I was with panicked and tried to get her to stop eating it whereas I wasn't really bothered - it was only a little foot!
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Post by gypsy on Dec 3, 2015 22:30:01 GMT
From the sounds of it gypsy , I'm quite lucky with Pepper! The only dead things she's interested in are rabbits and birds - luckily we don't see many of either! We see more dead rats and although she'll sniff at them, she's more likely to roll on them than eat them. Like Oscar, I think the fact that Pepper is raw fed helps a lot. It did amuse me the other week when she picked up a rabbit foot and proceeded to eat it though because one of the people I was with panicked and tried to get her to stop eating it whereas I wasn't really bothered - it was only a little foot! Thankfully Oscar doesn't seem to like eating rats either, he also rolls on them and loves to throw them around in the air! He also eats dead birds and he has on occasion caught and eaten live rabbits as well as dead ones (much to my disapproval of course!) He also catches voles/mice and paddles in the river with his face in the water trying to catch fish! Honestly this dog could live in the wild! He'd probably turn feral in no time and source his own food. He's hard work at times but full of character and very clever.
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Post by orpheous87 on Dec 3, 2015 22:44:55 GMT
Oh I've got no worry of Pepper catching live rabbits. She's far too clumsy and slow lol. Ellie on the other hand... I'm probably lucky that the fish in our little burn are only sticklebacks - not very appealing to dogs lol.
Oscar certainly sounds much cleverer than Pepper to be honest!
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Post by migsy on Dec 4, 2015 0:35:50 GMT
I once read you should throw salt in the dogs mouth to make it sick...don't bother smilesbetter,it doesn't work!ha ha.Then I worried the salt might cause harm.Skip is a terrible scavenger,and seems to know the places to find disgusting stuff.I used to wonder if it was a throwback to his days as a stray when very young,but suppose some dogs are just natural scavengers.yuk!
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Post by smilesbetter on Dec 4, 2015 8:59:18 GMT
Haha wow, Oscar sounds like Rosa's dream man. She also does that paddling thing, although so far not for fish. Yesterday she was doing it for ages hilariously as there was a bright yellow frisbee in the canal and it's at a relatively shallow bit, plus super clear water recently. Another dog came along for a look and Rosa started paddling even more furiously trying to get the frisbee before it did (not that it even saw it). Rosa seems to have had no ill effects so far of yesterday's feasting but she's not due a poop today yet haha so only time will tell! As for her supposed season, I could have sworn there was blood on her ladybits yesterday but today there is no sign, and there was none on the pad in her pants but then they could have been sitting wrong for all I know. Now I'm not sure if I've not noticed she's been bleeding recently (we have red floors!) or if I was just going mad yesterday, I checked after I had washed her so maybe it wasn't blood?! I would normally wipe her with a piece of loo roll to check, I wish I had done that yesterday now! I have been expecting her to come into season recently, I even had a dream about it the night before last. I think I might be going completely mad! We'll have a relatively boring day today with lots of plays in the back garden (I'll check for bird food first!) instead of our usual walk, and I'll see how she's acting. Don't wanna risk letting her off the lead in the park and coming home with a pregnant Rosa, although I'm sure my man would be chuffed, everyone keeps asking me for puppies for goodness sake. It would be wonderful I'm sure but I could never actually go through with it, mainly because there's only about three people I know I'd deem suitable to take a puppy. Someone keeps asking me when Rosa's breeders are having the next "batch" and offering to take Rosa off our hands to breed her and give her back when she's done, arghhhh there is no way I'm giving her Rosa's breeders information, she should not have a dog haha! She's completely insane too. Sorry for the mini rant haha! Anyway the longer it has been since Rosa ate that dead thing, the less I am grossed out by it. I think if it had been too old she'd have just rolled in it (astoundingly yesterday she didn't roll in a single thing, although she went swimming three times so she was smelly anyway) and the meat on the bit I saw was still very pink and fresh (probably coz she'd been halfway through eating it and might have eaten the gross stuff already haha!). I now think it was a rabbit, there are loads in that area and it's likely it was hit by a car and ran into the bush for cover before dying. We walk that way nearly every day and she hadn't been interested in that bush before so it can't have been there that long. Thankfully there is two ways into that park from the supermarket we always go to first (the organic one, she gets a big bowl of water and I get some sort of fruit, that's basically why we do that walk and don't go in another direction haha) which are the same distance from each other. So we can avoid that bit for a while or she will start to roll in the dead thing too, urgh. Glad I'm not the only one with a mink of a dog and thanks for the advice! Hahaha migsy I think we only have chilli salt in our house ATM so definitely won't be trying that one haha. Pretty much nothing makes Rosa vomit though, I've only seen her do it once after eating too fast and she scoffed it right up immediately. In fact I think she was trying to eat the stuff on the floor at the same time as vomiting it up. She does love a bit of vomit.
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