As said before, regardless of how sweet a dog I believe I have, she would never be left alone with anyone. Human visitors are as unknown in personality as a dog is in various situations. It is wise not to take a chance and sad we are at a point of animal ownership to bring about this caution and fear. Gail, sadly the dog parks have headed downhill. Ours was selected as the Dog Park of the US. Now though, try and find an exact owner to dog. They found that dogs were being left there alone while owners went shopping. How far can ignorance go? And I am cautious about walking too. We have a leash law, but people are all over walking with 2 and sometimes 3 dogs (depending upon size) off leash. It doesn't matter how well they are trained....anything could cause them to get hit by a car, I have to swerve around them on the street driving home...no sidewalks here. And if not looking could drive into dog and owner. They can run up to anyone, bark at nonsense. I just don't appreciate any breed running up to me and freedom does not mean you can do as you please. Mail carriers unite. No mail will be delivered here if a carrier is considered unsafe to do so and shouldn't be expected to. This reminds me of a telephone guy on my property. He told me that they had a significant increase in dog bites and found it was the leather belts they wore. A change to cloth reduced this. There are other service people put in jeopardy too. As a whole, we are exposed to so much irresponsibility... this conversation could go further to texting while driving, walking into me while on the phone and not paying attention to anything else around (I'm too old to fall on the pavement, even children are at risk), etc. "Excuse me, I'm sorry"...oh, they were talking to someone else on the phone, not me. I may also be too old to accept the changes in our world. Cannot fathom the pain the woman must have and the future she will be dealing with. Let us all hope that what is known is a small percentage compared to the wise on this thread.

Okay, I'll say this and duck and cover: We have been looking at Cavalier King Charles Spaniels to adopt from rescue because DH has just about melted anytime he sees one, and behaviorally, they are the dog for us. We are now being considered to adopt one I found at Petfinder that lives locally. So I spent last night going to different sites to learn more about the breed. I knew some of their health problems - heart murmurs (38% seriously when young, 100% by age 10) that can develop into valve disease and require heart surgery, luxating patellas (20 - 30%), hip dysplasia (11%). Heck - I've got all that myself! What I didn't know is that their cute, round little skulls are too small for their brains and they can develop a horridly painful condition that requires brain surgery - and the surgery does not always work. About HALF of CKCS have this! - although not usually to the extreme end. Then there is the problem where the dog will suddenly have paralysis of its hind legs from running or playing too hard. It goes away fairly quickly and the dog resumes its activity (usually). Luckily, this does not seem to be a life-threatening problem very often. They think it is a metabolic muscle problem, but they are not sure. It is unique to Cavs. The list goes on, and the hilarious thing is that I share a good number of the same problems! Like thyroiditis, stenotic nares, cataracts (30% have one eye disorder or another), white blood cell problems (50%). I guess I should be glad that I never reproduced! Then there are the ones I don't have: mucous plugs in the middle ear that are very painful and require surgery; Cushing's disease (prevalent), Diabetes (susceptible); dry eye syndrome (many); epilepsy (prevalent); curly or rough coat syndrome where the dog suffers very painful skin disease and dry eyes that are so bad that many think that the poor dogs should be killed at birth rather than suffer horribly it's whole life (half of all puppies born in Iceland in one recent two-year period had it, prevalence elsewhere is unknown); epilepsy (prevalent), eyelashes that scratch the cornea(very common), inward rolling eyelids (relatively high incidence) fly-catcher's syndrome (prevalent), congenital and progressive deafness...the list goes on. All of these are hereditary diseases - inherited. I just gotta say it - so which one is the Designer Dog? The purebred CKCS or some body's backyard mix? CKCS were created in the 1920s by getting the undesirable longer-nose puppies from the litters of the English Toy Spaniel. The English Toy was the surviving breed that was pictured in a lot of old paintings as a beautiful lapdog. Back when the paintings were done, the breed was not a pug-nosed dog like the English Toy Spaniel is today, though. So some people who wanted to recreate the look of the the dogs in the paintings bought and bred the unwanted longer-nosed English Toys and created a whole new breed and named it the Cavalier (from the name of one of the paintings) King Charles (King Charles II bred and loved the dogs) Spaniel. So, since someone did this in the past, it is now a "breed". I imagine that the dogs were so inbred in order to establish the breed that the genetic disorders just got more and more concentrated. The English Toy Spaniels are known to have a few of these disorders, but not in the same numbers as the Cavaliers do. Interesting factoid: the English Toy was created by MIXING the little spaniels of the paintings with Chinese dogs to get the pug face. Designer Dog, anyone? If it happened a hundred years ago, it is okay, but we can't do it anymore today? Because....why? Think about it. The smushy-faced English Toys that bred true (and consequently had a good mix of genes with the Chinese dogs) have FEWER genetic defects than the CKCS, that was created by breeding only the THROWBACK longer-nosed English Toys that did not meet the English Toy Spaniel's new breed standard. Does that not best explain how dog breeding works? Create a specific breed with a few original parent dogs and end up with concentrations of genetic malformations that seem to come with almost every dog! Look at the breeding chart in the link below. Only the A+ dogs are free of the three main genetic diseases. Yet it is okay to breed them with all but the worst dogs! You can still breed a CKCS who had a dam and sire that may or may not have had a heart valve murmur, who has a little bit of the horrible brain problem, and a skull that is too small with a perfectly healthy dog. Why? Obviously because there are not enough perfectly healthy dogs to use to breed healthy CKCS! Why, o why didn't somebody mix a little Brittany or English Springer Spaniel in there 50 years ago! So, that is my thinking on purebred genetics. It is fine if you are breeding a relatively healthy breed like the Brittany, but when you end up with what the poor CKCS have to endure, is it really worth it?

What ive found out with my 14 yr. Old pug for her dad and Chihuahua for her mom Dog... Is that Her Panting Is like A Body Distress of the lack of hydration. It seems. Bc were freezing out trying to accommodate our dog. Belived friend and family member. When this is Noticed I Offer Water right away and it seems to help her COOL herself better. Also Diet IS A BIG DEAL SO IS WATER REVERSE OSMOSIS , SPRING WATER, DISTILLED ONLY NO TAP. DONT COOK THERE FOOD IN TAP EITHER!! AND THE FOOD- WE HAVE FOUND BOILED CHICKEN BONELESS AND SKINLESS ADD PEAS CARROTS, CALIFLOUR, BROCCOLI, OATS, cranberry s, WHITE RICE... MORE THAN RETURNS # S TO NORMAL WHEN STAYING ON IT OVER LONGER PERIODS OF TIME. SCIENCE DIET RENAL FAILURE DIET HOWEVER THAT DRY FOOD SWITCH IS BASED FEOM A Lack of knowledge about the disease.!! Not A Great idea to Starv a Old dog. Bc then her ability to heal herself and her immune responses Lack Heavily. Which is what is going to happen feeding science DIET RENAL failure only. So I offer it as a side. We have made it nearly 1.5 yr. Since being diagnosed... And our numbers are getting better each time. So far. Hope this helps

low platelets can be caused by an autoimmune disease among other things, so it's just a coincidence. occasionally blood clotting problems might be discovered after grooming when the owner or groomer notices bruising which is not caused by grooming but alerts the owner to a problem because it is abnormal. unless his platelets were tested just before, it's impossible to say if they suddenly dropped or if they were low for some time. what was the diagnosis the vet gave?