Following on from the current insurance thread, how much do you think you would need in an emergency bank account before you could not have insurance ?

A woman I know has just had her pup to the vets as she was very ill. Long story short, her own vet opened her up as they thought she had eaten something like a sock. She hadn't and was still deteriorating so she was sent to the referral hospital. Lots of treatment later there was a bill of around £6,000.00. Insurance is paying what the dog was insured up to - £4000.00, and they have to find the rest.
My dog is insured up to £5000 but that doesn't seem enough after this ladies experience. I know that insurance companies will always try to get out of paying with their exclusions so actually having insurance seems like a gamble to me.

For my lot, to be on the safe side, I would want at least £10k but preferably double that.  For me it's not just a case of how much one bill might cost but how many I might get at once as I have a cluster of oldies, who between them just since this summer have had two prolapsed discs, a tumour that came up in 3 days, arthritis in all of them, HD in three (possibly four) and one I am still not convinced that HD is all that is going on.  And then there's the thyroids - 3 diagnosed over the last year, and Remy's ongoing (and not covered).

I'd also want to be thinking about the longer term costs - Remy alone costs me over £100 a month in meds and insurance, as most of what he has isn't covered (those pesky exclusions) but his disc is, so I can't cancel.  And then there's the uncovered testing - full thyroid panels can't be done at my vets so when they need doing (for first time testing or if Remy needs a checkup as his condition is unusual) I have to send them overseas, and I haven't found a company that covers that.

Frankly the whole thing is a gamble, whether you insure or have a savings account - insurance has been a godsend for River this year with her disc, it enabled me to get her MRId to get to the bottom of the pain and discover the problem but conversely, she's only got £2k cover a year and it's almost gone with another 5 months of meds to pay for (it's not going to last that long).  But then next year, the £2k will cover the meds easily as I won't be taking a £1200 chunk out of it for an MRI and she's not going to have surgery.  Swings and roundabouts.

It is a difficult balancing act! :(

I've kept up to 6 dogs at a time for 30 years and not spent more than £1000 in that time at the vet so insurance has never been a decision for me.

My experience is that the first question that vets ask is "Are you insured" and that seems to dictate the treatment that is undertaken.  I've watched many friends dogs go through painful procedures with the obvious outcome just because cost is not a problem.

My daughter has a 7 year old male and a 12 year old bitch that I bred.  The dog has never been to the vet and the bitch only when she was spayed when they had the dog as a puppy.  I suppose that I bred healthy dogs?

A difficult decision to make and one thing that I'm glad that I don't have to make these days.  :(

once you have decided to go it alone its as much as you can afford. My fcr cost the insurance company £6ooo in the last year of her life I wouldn't have been able to afford that. My Burmese whose insurance I cancelled cost almost exactly what I would have paid in the high costs for an elderly cat
 

very difficult question to answer, as who knows what the health of our dogs will be like over the years.
I've always had pet insurance - the 11 years my 1st dog lived...I never claimed until the very end.
my 9yr old dog has diabetes and requires daily insulin jabs, developed cataracts and had surgery to remove them, she also has an under active thyroid - so in her case I'm really pleased that I have her insured  - the renewal is due in January.....goodness only knows what that will be though!!

I am still not convinced that HD is all that is going on.

Do you give 'glucosamine' tablets? they are quite simple to understand in the way my vet put it across, basically, its a lubriant around the joint area of mammals, as often as not the body is not producing enough to lubricate the joints 'adequatly', they get dry'ish' and that can cause discomfort which shows in movement, especialy if there is some HD or other thing going on.

Currently my 11 year old is on 790mg of Asda tabs, shes been on it since appx 5, middle age, her joint movement is as fluid as it ever was, the vid below shows her 11 year old movement quite well & I am satisfied the glucosamine is contributary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MOHAltQxOo
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My experience is that the first question that vets ask is "Are you insured" and that seems to dictate the treatment that is undertaken.  I've watched many friends dogs go through painful procedures with the obvious outcome just because cost is not a problem.

Very true! Personally, it would not matter to me how much money I had saved as there is NO WAY I'd spend several thousands pounds on treating a dog. I'm sorry but I just would not do it -I'd see it as immoral for so many reasons, and not in the best interest of the dog. My vets are very good and there have been times when I have said that no, I would not want a referral because I would not want to put a dog through x procedure and the vet has turned round , every time, and said "That's exactly how I would reason if it was my own dog".

The biggest emergency with dogs I've had for the past 3 years was a pyometra this year which cost £300. Prior to that (i.e. about 4 years ago) an injured dog which cost £900. In fact that is THE biggest vet expense I have ever had for a dog in 33 years of having them. I'd always want at least £2000 set aside if I have a pregnant bitch as an emergency c-section out of hours can never be totally ruled out, but that is the exception.

My experience is similar to that of West coast, owned 10 dogs in 20+ years (I have 6 of which three are veterans), but all bar the first two I have bred all my dogs myself (and spent the money on health screening) and never had to pay out in most of their lives more than the cost of one years Insurance premium. 

I did have the first Insured, and never claimed more than £50 in her short 3 1/2 year life.

Like Marianne I would not undertake very expensive drawn out procedures though, would opt for palliative care or Put to Sleep.

I have access to approximately £4500 credit in an emergency.

> Personally, it would not matter to me how much money I had saved as there is NO WAY I'd spend several thousands pounds on treating a dog. I'm sorry but I just would >not do it -I'd see it as immoral for so many reasons, and not in the best interest of the dog

Exactly how we feel - in most cases. If it was a young dog requiring surgery for a broken leg and the prognosis was good for the long term, then maybe, but not for other treatments with a questionable outcome. It's not a question of the money (we're lucky to be able to afford any treatment), just, as Marianne says, the best interest of the dog.

I'm one of those that has always insured my dogs, well the last four. I've not had more then two dogs at a time, so it's not exactly onerous for us. The first if the four died at ten and a half, but numbers two and three lived until 14 and 14.5 years and I reckon got a lot of their premiums back. The first major claim for one of those dogs was for a torn crusciate, then both had forms of arthritis, spondylosis with one of them, and then heart problems. The need to be on expensive long term meds soon eats up any money's saved.

I am thinking of cancelling my 8 year old GR's insurance. The renewal has come in at £97 per month. Earlier this year he had a small tumour removed from over his hip area and then had an infection on the site of the wound. He spent nearly four months unable to be walked at all, not even on lead, and became a shadow of his former self. I compete at agility with him and he lived a very active life style and was a fit, healthy, well muscled dog. The change in him during his recovery time was heartbreaking and it has taken 9 months for him to get his sparkle back. I had already decided that I wouldn't put him through that again and would far rather he had a shorter but happier life although losing him would break my heart as he is my once in a lifetime dog. At the moment he is back to full fitness and competing again and enjoying his life.

I have also just spent £1500 on my newest rescue, Spin, who had a blockage caused by bladder stones and would have died if he hadn't received an emergency operation - followed two days later by another emergency op when his wound broke down and his muscle started to appear through the wound at an alarming speed. His insurance had only just come into force and I was lucky in that the insurance company reimbursed me for almost all of the costs incurred. It wasn't so much getting the money back that I was relieved about but the fact that if it was an ongoing condition his treatment would be covered in the future. I am going to continue with his insurance policy for the time being even though the stones were caused by an infection rather than other causes. Spin was 2 at the beginning of December and is now back to full fitness but I am not sure I would put him through that again either if he were ever to need treatment that was anything other than palliative. Although he is a young dog I don't think he would be able to have another operation in the same area as a lot of his inner muscle and flesh layers had to be removed when his wound broke down and they appeared on the outside of his body as they couldn't be put back due to the danger of infection.

I have put aside the money I had back from the insurance company and will add to it so that I can cover treatments in the future but will not be considering any treatments that are invasive or are not palliative ones. I know from personal experience that sometimes there are things worse than death and that quality of life is far more important than quantity.

> I know from personal experience that sometimes there are things worse than death and that quality of life is far more important than quantity. .

Well said, Harley

Yes Harley I agree too

A lot depends on where you live, I think. I really couldn't afford not to be insured around here. As examples, a ripped ear cost me £800+, a pyo spay ermmm £1200 I think, if it was worse I've blocked it out. Would they be cheaper if I wasn't insured? I'm told not, and frankly don't dare find out.

Have had very few claims for poor health indeed, but quite a lot for accidents, so healthy breeding not necessarily what it's about.

I have just cancelled the old girl's insurance - they have put it up to £75 a month and at 13.5 years old there is not much I would 'do' for her now from a quality of life basis. Jaysus, she's had her money's worth though, LOL, the insurance company must rue the day they first heard her name. 

My next youngest is 7 and mad as a hatter, I wouldn't consider cancelling hers yet in case of squirrel-deafness induced accidents or the like. It is a holy nightmare though, premiums going up each year.

No amount of 'put aside' money will cover you if your dog causes an accident, RTA, postman tripping over the dog etc.

So you are saying that my 5 year old who goes out working and tanks around enjoying life to the full should have been PTS at 10 months when he dislocated his knee and required £4K worth of surgery??
Money, well insurance money, well spend in my view to see such a healthy active dog doing what he was bred for.

> A lot depends on where you live, I think.

Couldn't agree more and I've posted many a time about the cost of vet fees here in Norfolk, which came as a complete shock when I moved here from what I thought was expensive Hertfordshire last year. I am by no means rich and have found it quite hard trying to establish a new business here, so money is not coming in on a regular basis yet. Along the way so far I have had a bitch have an emergency c-section (£1500+ not covered by insurance obviously), one of the pups I kept swallowed a stone which had to be surgically removed (£1150, covered on insurance), my lovely fit and healthy 10 year old Dobe suffered a slipped disc which just to diagnose with various scans, x-rays etc. cost £1350 (heartbreakingly I opted to have her pts rather than put her through a long and painful treatment programme with no guarantee of recovery - she was also uninsured) and finally Winnie, who has cost a fortune over the years with her ear problems and mast cell tumours, had some lumps removed costing £600 (covered on insurance).

Prior to that last year I lost Hamish, who was still insured despite his monthly premium being £66 a month. His last 5 days cost around £3500 in vet fees.

Out of the 6 dogs I currently own only one is uninsured, and as awful as it sounds, and I won't go into details why, I wouldn't put her through any treatment other than real basics.

As Lily Mc says, accidents do happen, no matter how healthy your dogs are, and as much as I begrudge the money going out each month, I feel happy knowing that the insurance is there to cover any unexpected problem. I do have some money available, but fee's can hit you so rapidly, and in clusters if you have multiple dogs, that I feel not insuring is not an option for me. 

No amount of 'put aside' money will cover you if your dog causes an accident, RTA, postman tripping over the dog etc.

That's true, but you'd need third party insurance for that which you can get for next to nothing without needing to have the dog insured for health or life.

The DogsTrust provide third party insurance for £25 a year.

> which you can get for next to nothing without needing to have the dog insured for health or life

Dogs Trust membership gives third party insurance - membership is £25 per year (half price if you are over 60). Some home insurance policy will cover this too.

My next youngest is 7 and mad as a hatter, I wouldn't consider cancelling hers yet in case of squirrel-deafness induced accidents or the like.

I understand what you say but I can honestly say that I've never had any of mine chase anything and not had any accidents (the odd cut pad etc) that I couldn't fix in 30 years.  When my daughter was young, I'd take 6 on farm holidays and never had any problems.  But then I've never had any black ones!  ;)  That's not quite true - but they didn't stay.  :(

I am currently 2 months into treating my doberman for AIHA. I have the itemised bills from the veterinary clinic that we are attending which is a large centre with a high standard of care. My bill so far is 2000 and I can honestly say that they have never taken advantage of her being insured. I thank every type of god every day that I took out insurance.

> Do you give 'glucosamine' tablets?

I have tried them, ditto green lipped mussel, devil's claw and shark cartilage and none have helped.  Turmeric helps though and I'm currently trying her on DLPA and she gets rimadyl.  But the vet said the HD was so mild as to almost not be there and was surprised at the level of pain she was in pre-meds.

I'm going to try cartrophen for her soon.

My dog has a cartrophen injection once a month but for glucosamine I use Vets Kitchen Active Joints Glucosamine. The improvement was noticeable very quickly and because we don't know what's helping him most we'll just keep doing what we're doing !.

The improvement was noticeable very quickly and because we don't know what's helping him most we'll just keep doing what we're doing

Yes, it seems to start showing improvement in dogs which have been showing discomfort at some level in around 3 weeks, it's an accumulative effect. As regards products such as vets kitchen & a few other similar, they are just sold on a purely commercial basis as if they have individual properties above & beyond plain, simple, glucosmine tablets from any supermarket chain. they are not, glucosamine tabs from any supermarket chain are fine & probably higher in glucosamine content than the more 'pet' products, ASDA tabs are 395g per tab I give mine, at age 11, 2 per day = 790g per day pure glucosamine, Tesco are about the same.
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Sainsbury's glucosamine was the only high street brand which was found to have anything like the usable level of glucosamine claimed in independent tests.

One of mine has recently racked up £2200 worth of vets fees and only has a few hundred left for the condition, fpr use over the next 9 months. After this experience I changed my other dogs over to a policy which allows £7000 per condition with no time limit. Don't think I would feel comfortable with anything less than this put aside, especially with multiple dogs, fees can so quickly mount up and I would hate to have cost influence any decisions over their health.

Sainsbury's glucosamine was the only high street brand which was found to have anything like the usable level of glucosamine claimed in independent tests.

Are you, or were 'they', talking about "usable level" in humans or usable level in dogs? who or what kind of organisation made that finding?

I have an appointment with my doc at 9am I'll show him the Asda mg per tab & see what he says, but, he will be talking about human consumption & not dogs.

I just checked the dosage recommendations on the bottle, it says adults & kids 1-3 per day (humans of course), I think I will up my dog to 3 per day, they have no side or ill effects.
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> glucosamine tabs from any supermarket chain are fine & probably higher in glucosamine content than the more 'pet' products

Supermarket supliments usually contain glucosamine sulphate. Pet products usually contain glucosamine HCL.
Glucosamine HCL is more effective, for example a supliment containing 500mg of Glucosamine HCL will be more effective than a supliment containing 500mg of glcosamine sulphate or just as effective as a suppliment containing 750g of glucosamine sulphate (HCL may be more effective than this, I can't remember the exact comparisons).
You can find human supliments that contain Glucosamine HCL, they just tend not to be the cheapest options on the shelf.

I swear by Glucosamine. It was so effective that I was able to take Buster off of Metacam for elbow displasia. Busters vet was very helpful when asnwering my questions re. supliments (and no, he didn't try to make me buy the vet product, I had one in mind that was for humans & he looked over the ingredients list for me).

Also, anybody giving their dog  human supliments, please check with the vet  first. Some human (and canine) suppliments contain things that are contra-indicated for some conditions and/or with some medications/supplimets. For example white willow bark is contra-indicated in patients on NSAIDS (amongst other things). Always worth checking first.

Oh!, just found something about the effectiveness of Glucosamine HCL vs Glucosamine suplhate, it's not the one I had in mind, but does have some explanation in it,  here.

>I understand what you say but I can honestly say that I've never had any of mine chase anything and not had any accidents (the odd cut pad etc) that I couldn't fix in 30 years.  When my daughter was young, I'd take 6 on farm holidays and never had any problems.  But then I've never had any black ones! 

LOL, the black'uns the least of my worries really (touches wood), don't think have ever had anything major with a tri.

Lil has been very healthy but you name it, she's done it. Probably every penny of her insurance premiums back, and the worst of what she chases really is balls and sticks. I'm not up to fixing lifted growth plates, stick-pierced throats (so gave that up and threw balls instead, after becoming 'that' cautionary tale), next one was jaw broken by said 'safe' ball ...

Daisy was the first squirrel chaser and brought Mabel up the same. Jambo not fussed. Hey ho, luck of the draw I guess, as to whether they are chasers or not, and whether in the huge areas of woodland they run in they manage to run too near a bit of barbed wire or not (ear split in half from base to tip). They are dogs, they live life, and if accidents happen so be it.

However, as earlier, the main thing seems to be area. I speak to others and they seem to pay £200 for what I pay nearer £1,000 for.

For me, I think that 2K would be a safeguard amount but having used to put money by for illness in the dogs, sadly, I never reached this magic figure.

The irony is that I used to have insurance for both of my then dogs right up until my oldest boy was 8 and then the premiums were eye watering. My bitch was 6 1/2 at that time and I had only had one claim in the 8 years for my boy which was expensive, he has a fused spine and nobody could work out why and he had lots of biopsies done at Glasgow small animal university but we never did get to the bottom of it. That bill came to nearly 4K but was thankfully covered with insurance, the excess was £200. So very good value and I certainly got what I paid for.

He developed heart problems when he was 9, but the scans, heart monitor belt (his condition was very unusual) and medication that he needed all came to around 2K that we had to fund ourselves, I am still paying it off 6 months after his death. Also, I didn't realise just how expensive it was to have a large dog PTS and cremated :-( So this is on top of the original cost of medication etc. Sadly, I my bitch is quite unwell right now and I know that I will be facing this cost again in the near future as I won't put her through invasive procedures at her age. She is happy now and has a good quality of life, when this is no longer the case, then I will let her go peacefully. I would not rob her of her dignity.

As I also rescue small animals and their health is usually quite bad, which is sometimes the reason that they find themselves with me, they need ongoing dentals and meds for infections etc, so my monthly vet bill is always around £250 for them alone, which is why I have taken so long to pay off my dogs bill. I get discounts on treatment from my vet as I am sometimes in there twice a week, but even then, taking all of this into account, I dread to think of what would happen if I could't work anymore to fund all of my animals. Hence I am looking for insurance for my pup to take some of the sting away should I find that he ever needs treatment.

>Are you, or were 'they', talking about "usable level" in humans or usable level in dogs?

Usable levels in dogs; the study was done by the International Centre for Nutritional Excellence.

You need to look for glucosamine HCL, not glucosamine sulphate. The condroitin should be mammalian sourced, not marine sourced.

My oldest (lurcher) having clocked up bills for around £20,000 in 11 years, I am mighty glad that he has always been insured! The money went on stitching him up many times after dogs bit him, after accidents, for hypothyroidism, for cruciate surgery, for rhabdomyolosis (which needed a weekend on the drip to flush him through), for removal of various lumps and various minor bits and pieces... Yet, despite all the treatments, he is a very healthy and fit 12-year old and denying him any of the treatments (none of which deprived him of quality of life for long) would have been very unfair. It was all very worth it.

My other dogs don't have such an impressive medical history - thank god. Though my second oldest (a saluki) has had a few hefty bills for injuries (once a nearly completely severed toe) and diagnostics of degenerative disc disease (x-rays and MRI) too. I think sighthounds in general are more accident prone than many breeds and because of that have often higher bills as they just injure themselves so easily.

I will be able to set up a pot of £10,000 next year which will allow me to stop insuring my dogs or just insure them for the basics. I will also add to that pot on a monthly basis of course. £10,000 makes me feel pretty secure, especially as I am able to cover for most regular and on going stuff myself, it's the big stuff I need a safety cushion for and £10,000 should cover that.

PS. I use liquid glucosamine from Holland and Barratt for people, seems to work lovely and costs less than species specific ones.

Usable levels in dogs; the study was done by the International Centre for Nutritional Excellence.

I have nothing at all on any dog food or additive related items on their site & nothing else on dogs at all!

They ( International Centre for Nutritional Excellence.) have done assesments on the accuracy of advertising of human products of glucosamine quantities, see below, do you have a link to the ref you've written about?

International Centre for Nutritional Excellence (glucosamine advertising)
http://www.icne.co.uk/results2.html
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Glucosamine HCL will be more effective than a supliment containing 500mg of glcosamine sulphate or just as effective as a suppliment containing 750g of glucosamine sulphate

All products selling glucosamine & all the other things in its tabs or capsuals putd the grams of each componant as a seperate mg content on the bottle - the ASDA glucosamine I mentioned has - "500mg glucosamine sulphate" - and below that it says:

"equivilent to Glucosamine 395mg"

Which is this why morning I said I use ASDA tabs at 395mg Glucosamine, my understanding of 'sulphate' is that all it does is hold the tablet together.
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Heathspaw wrote:
I have an appointment with my doc at 9am I'll show him the Asda mg per tab & see what he says,

I did ask my doc how many mg was suggested for humans - he said there are loads of different studies all with disfferent suggestions & non of them agreeing with the others - he then said its the general, non conclusive, opinion that 1.5 (1500) mg is about right for humans.

He also emphasised that there are no conclusive scientific studies that glucosamine additives do any good or make any difference at all.
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I am currently 2 months into treating my doberman for AIHA

What is AIHA, is it a Dobe thing? I have had quite a lot of sad & early death posters message me on my youtube site, one poster said her vet suggested to stay away from Dobes because of the health problems they have here, any comment/feedback on that?
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Re Vets Kitchen, it suits me better to my dog because it's in the form of a sort of gravy which just gets squirted on his breakfast. I'd tried tablet form but this is so much easier and worth every penny.

>He also emphasised that there are no conclusive scientific studies that glucosamine additives do any good or make any difference at all.

Curious; my GP told me that there is definitive evidence that glucosamine helps knees (in humans), but no conclusive evidence of benefit for any other joint.

What is AIHA, is it a Dobe thing?

Autoimmune hemolytic anemia

I know of a GSD that died with this

> What is AIHA, is it a Dobe thing? I have had quite a lot of sad & early death posters message me on my youtube site, one poster said her vet suggested to stay away from Dobes because of the health problems they have here, any comment/feedback on that?

I know you weren't asking me but I will comment on that - I agree, to a point.  Dobes are not a healthy breed, far from it and every time I take one on I know I am running a risk of all sorts of trouble.  It's a crying shame, they are such wonderful dogs and I won't ever be without one or two (or three, or four :-P) but no, not healthy.

The biggest problem IMO is DCM - last time I checked, around 60% of the breed were affected by it directly, and that's the known numbers (so not including dogs with occult DCM who haven't been scanned just in case and it discovered).  But that figure is from a few years ago, it may well be higher now - when I got my first dobe 10 years ago it was 40%.  He, thank dog, is clear but I lost my last dobe to it, her brother died of it and my current mostly-dobe (touch of sighthound) is occult.  I'll be honest, I think the breed is now at the point where outcrossing is going to be a necessity to keep it healthy, where the heart is concerned - but at present, to the best of my knowledge, all the causal factors are still not known so right now (something like 85% of cases being caused by identified genes but the other 15% still unknown) it would be a wasted effort.  But, I don't know enough about breeding to go any further with that line of thought!

Beyond the heart problem there's the hypothyroidism - very common, both my dobes and my almost-dobe have/had it.  And vWd, and Wobbler's.  The girls are also a little more prone to incontinence than a lot of breeds, and the breed as a whole is prone to osteosarcoma.

And to take it further, you can look at the colour issues; blues and fawns are extremely prone to colour dilute alopecia, and nothing has been done to rectify that; and albinos have their own problems too although thankfully, they don't seem to have taken off over here as they did in the US.

So honestly, no, not a breed I'd recommend to a lot of people health-wise and I make a point of educating anyone who asks about them every chance I get - including other dobe owners as there is a massive vacuum of knowledge of all the potential problems, at least in my experience.

last time I checked, around 60% of the breed were affected by it directly, and that's the known numbers (so not including dogs with occult DCM who haven't been scanned just in case and it discovered).  But that figure is from a few years ago, it may well be higher now - when I got my first dobe 10 years ago it was 40%.

Good heavens I had no idea they had gone that far with DCM, I feel taken aback that things have got that bad, not far short of shocked, no wonder I get out of the blue messages from nowhere on youtube.

I am not trying to rub anything in but a very high proportion if European breeders have been testing for it as a routine test for at least this past decade - Ive pasted 4 links & maybe if you want you can email for any knowledge they may have on testing precautions - it needs action ASP & info needs to come from people such as those at the links below, I had no idea things had go that bad here.

Rest assured, the people linked are all very, very helpful & highly knowedgable in the breed, hope they may be of some help in some way. I used the google translator with the links below.

Herr & Frau Manfred Lerner (Germans living in Croatia)
http://bit.ly/19EcFyA

Andrea Leman
http://bit.ly/1jsyojb

Christine Schaumann -Von Gerdautal
http://bit.ly/1hti9xV

vom Aurachgrund
http://bit.ly/18EvDGV
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The biggest problem IMO is DCM

A friend of mine had two Dobermanns. She recently lost her husband and on the day of the funeral this week she lost her Dobermann bitch as well -aged just 4, and it was the heart. :( She was a rescue so goodness knows the background, but it couldn't really have happened at a worse time. I actually had no idea they were prone to DCM. The others she has had have had normal lifespans. Is there no DNA test?

Ive just remembered something relevant - Someone came to me for training help in autumn 2003, they had a brown Dobe, around 2 or 3 years later I got an unexpected tearful phone call about their dog being diagnosed with DCM, I think they were just phoning round anyone to relieve stress - I'd forgotten about that - well I know the name of the line & breeder that dog was from, it was a Roanoak dog bred by someone called Richardson, apparently he had around 60 dogs, I know Akitas were another breed he supposed to have had. lol & they talk about puppy farms as if
KC had no puppy farmers, all I actualy know is that the Dobe they had was KC registered.
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JG, I'm having trouble finding any actual studies, but have found a petition to the FDA re the health benefits of glucosamine, it talks of the benefits found in human and animal studies.

I hope the link works (I'm on my iPod and struggle linking on here).

ETA, Yes, the link works.
I think most human studies have been carried out on knee problems, rather than glucosamine only working on knee problems.

My friend has had 7 Dobes.  Her first two with god pedigrees but pet parentage both lived to 13+, both had cancerous growths, with one it metastasised to the bones, the other had organ failure before the tumours (extensive external) got her.

Her current 13+ European lines predominantly has had skin cancer for the majority of her life.  Two operations left a poorly healed wound that she kept chewing.  She is now full of tumours but my friend opted after second op to go with only palliative care.  She has lots of again external tumours, and a stroke recently rom which she recovered.

All the others never made 9 years, One died of Haemolytic anaemia.  One had immune arthritis as a youngster, and was PTS at 8.  Most recent, (Euro lines) youngest one was PTS at 3 or 4 because of dangerous temperament, he attacked her toddler right in front of her, the child was simply walking past, and fortunately froze when the dog had him on the floor.

The other one simply  died, so probably heart.

Her current 13+ European lines predominantly has had skin cancer for the majority of her life

Were both parents both in Europe and selected by European breeders as suitable, do you know which countries both were from & the country if the breeding.

Most recent, (Euro lines) youngest one was PTS at 3 or 4 because of dangerous temperament, he attacked her toddler right in front of her, the child was simply walking past

This is interesting in a different way. Euro dogs do tend to vary depending on where they are from but in general I do not think they make good pets for those who want a pet type dog, the working side is very much still significant in some of them & if their whole upbringing has not taken this into account expect trouble.

I do note your friend has had Euro dogs for at least 13 years she should know that, I simply do not accept the above attack as being totally unpredictable by the owner. I note that particular dog was only 4, was it bred with another Euro dog which was resident here in UK at the time? There have been 2 at least imported here that I know of & should not be considered as suitable for reproducing here, theres not enough people genuinly interested in those kinds of Dobes, I am not saying your friend bred from either of them, though its possible.
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Heathspaw wrote:
I simply do not accept the above attack as being totally unpredictable by the owner

My dog is Euro lines, she would not be safe near noisy, running around young kids, I did not have any opportunities other than take her, as a pup, close to different school gates at playtimes & park opposite in the car as they came out & are milling around, beyond that she has not been enriched enough  to be classed as safe with kids.

Its not an issue for the simple reason I have no dealings with kids, not so sure I would not bite some of them myself as it happens.
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My friend never bred any of her dogs but did show.  the dog PTS was born about 10 years ago.

At that point she had already owned the breed and 6 previous dogs for 15+ years.

My friend never bred any of her dogs but did show

Were they bred here from imports?
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