We Kid You Not Childfree Forums

Today is my Winnie dogs birthday. I can't believe it's been that long since we first brought her home (against my wishes) and I had no clue how to be a dog owner. Now she's 6 today, and it's my understanding it's the last year of her adulthood and next year she is a "senior dog". Kind of makes me sad.... dogs live to be 20 or 25 years, right... (don't worry I know better)

Big hugs and birthday wishes to Winnie!

It's amazing how quickly they grow up, isn't it. Mine is nearly the same age and it's hard to believe that he's nearly a 'senior cat'.

to Winnie Yep time does fly by with your pets so enjoy every minute you have with them!
Boots turns 4 this April.
But We adopted him as a 2 yr old so we sort of got robbed of his kittenhood.
Anyway make sure Winnie gets spoiled today with extra hugs
and biscuits, lol

OT: OK Ziggy at what age is a cat considered a senior?

Winnie when she was a puppy

And now:

She's such a cute puppy! I'm glad that you read my mind as I was going to ask for photos but I decided against it as I wasn't sure if you had them available. She's such a sleek and beautiful dog.

TW: All animals vary as individuals, but cats often become 'older' at 7 or 8 years old, and more officially become 'seniors' in their teens (12+). I wouldn't say that you got robbed of your cat's kitten-hood as it can be a very obnoxious time in their lives. I love fostering tiny kittens - orphans that are too young to be adopted yet - but they drive me crazy when they are about 3 months old and I give them back so that they can be adopted before they get to that age. (I'll admit now that I'm also a bit of a hypocrite, because I want to get a second cat and it will most likely be a kitten, but that's because I only foster orphans (they are more difficult so the Humane Society asks me to do them specifically) and I'd only adopt a feline that I fostered).

Give Winnie a hug for us!

Don't worry about age. Our 14 year old JRT/Beagle is is pefect health. Environment has a LOT to do with how long they live. And many happy returns to Winnie, of course!

Winnie's lovely! My first dog Muppet is roughly 11 and a half years old now, and a cancer survivor, and she's doing just fine. Good food and exercise and lots of love! We've put her on a dehydrated raw food diet lately and she seems to be even more energetic.

Thanks guys! Ziggy I tried to attach photos and I didn't know what I did wrong but it didn't work. So then I used photobucket, I was worried they were too large/annoying but I thought what the heck. Yeah everyone loves her puppy photo. She was such a handful.

Well I probably should get them on a better diet maybe. I talk to the vets and they put my dog Lily on a half light/regular diet but she still gets gassy. So I just use what they give which is I think some kind of science diet but a prescription type. I give Winnie the regular version. Exercise they do get a lot of. I have more worry over Lily who can't seem to lose weight. No people food but baby carrots or a cucumber bite here and there. I don't give treats much anymore unless they are "healthy" type.

Anyway Winnie had a nice day, nothing special but just hanging around the house together. Which, suits her just fine. DH was gone for work but she didn't seem to mind.

Dana Wrote:Thanks guys! Ziggy I tried to attach photos and I didn't know what I did wrong but it didn't work. So then I used photobucket, I was worried they were too large/annoying but I thought what the heck. Yeah everyone loves her puppy photo. She was such a handful.

Well I probably should get them on a better diet maybe. I talk to the vets and they put my dog Lily on a half light/regular diet but she still gets gassy. So I just use what they give which is I think some kind of science diet but a prescription type. I give Winnie the regular version. Exercise they do get a lot of. I have more worry over Lily who can't seem to lose weight. No people food but baby carrots or a cucumber bite here and there. I don't give treats much anymore unless they are "healthy" type.

Anyway Winnie had a nice day, nothing special but just hanging around the house together. Which, suits her just fine. DH was gone for work but she didn't seem to mind.

Based on what I've been studying on canine nutrition, I'd advise checking out healthier alternatives to Science Diet, even the prescription kind is mostly corn and has very little nutritional value. Why do so many vets prescribe/recommend it? Hill's (the company that makes SD) pays them to. They also even have a veterinary program, which will guarantee their corn product gets recommended more than any other food. The two nutritionists who came to give talks at my canine massage practicum (they came on different days) couldn't say enough terrible things about SD. They showed us the ingredients and explained why it's bad for the canine metabolism. I looked it up myself and checked out lots of nutritionists and they all say the same. The bag has more nutritional value than the food inside.

I don't know what kind of high-end foods you can get in the UK, but here I use Canidae in the morning and The Honest Kitchen in the evening. After doing some research, apparently Burns is a very good holistic food in the UK, but you should investigate that further. Knowing what I know now, I could never recommend foods like Iams, SD, or similar brands.

You can also check into raw food diets. Every dog I met at the practicum that was on the raw food diet had perfect white teeth and no odor to their breath at all, no matter how old they were, and their coats were healthy, their weights were great. You can mix a raw food diet yourself, but it's very serious and you have to know what you're doing (there are sources on the internet), my dog sitter took 2 years of adjusting to sort out the best raw food diet mix for her Golden Retriever.

There are also raw diets that are ready made, frozen, or dehydrated, so there are alternatives. Unfortunately, it's been a long time since I lived in the UK, so I have no idea where you'd go for high end foods. Just get rid of that Science Diet, I wouldn't feed it to anyone I love.

Thanks, I am in the countryside here, the local pet shops are small and their food is obviously no better. There's a bigger store I can check out, but otherwise I have no idea where to start. Mixing it myself I don't think I would try that - if it took your pet sitter 2 years to get it right, I'd be afraid I'd mess it up. Canidae sounds familiar, I will look for that and check into Burns.

My other problem is, we will move next year to God only knows where. So then I would most likely have to change their diet AGAIN. I thought that would be bad. See next year we could go to Germany, Italy, or Turkey, or Spain, or the Azores, or Japan... well you get the idea. Then I have to find something all over again.

Woohoo I just found Burns locally. Canidae and Honest Kitchen seem to be out... ugh I did hear bad things about Iams and I don't do that or any of the Purina, etc either. I heard here at our base the best food is Nutro but they ran out or only came in really small bags so I passed.

Happy birthday to Winnie!!! She is so cute!! I could kiss her pwetty-fuzzy-widdle head!

Dana Wrote:Woohoo I just found Burns locally. Canidae and Honest Kitchen seem to be out... ugh I did hear bad things about Iams and I don't do that or any of the Purina, etc either. I heard here at our base the best food is Nutro but they ran out or only came in really small bags so I passed.

I'm glad you found Burns. The Nutritionist wasn't terribly happy about Nutro and wouldn't recommend it, but at least it's not SD. You can do research on the net and find out how to read the labels so you can know what foods are crap and filler and what foods are just food.

Purina actually uses things like roadkill and euthanized animals from shelters, leather collars, flea collars, and the euthanasia drugs in their systems and all. It all goes into a giant industrial vat with a million by-products. That's why it's best to stay away from industrial foods. Iams is worthless and they do horrific experiments on animals to see how their foods effect them.

I understand not knowing where you're moving next (I have no idea when we're moving again or where we're going), so you have no idea what food will be available. You'll have to do some serious research. But keeping your dogs on SD just because you don't want to adjust their diets again when you move next year just isn't a good idea since SD isn't really nutritious food at all. I hope Burns works out for you, I just saw that you can get it in Spain, so if you move there, you're set!

Lucky you, with all those cool possibilities to move to. We get places like Tulsa. Next time, DH wants to try to be a CO of a Naval Reserve Center again, so we could end up anywhere, like Kansas or Texas or Iowa or any place horrific like that. It sucks ass. I hate that I don't live in Europe, that was my life plan.

Winnie is a cutie, what breed is she and about how big?
We had two dogs that looked similar and they lived to be 16 and 17 years old.

Here's to her happy birthday and many more!!!!

Happy belated birthday, Winnie! What a cutie! I wish they lived as long as we did.

Anastasia - we hope to stay in Europe. I'd be more open to Japan but moving the dogs there sounds like a nightmare. We are REALLY hoping for Germany. England itself is nice but his job has become horrible.

Lindsay - supposedly a cross between lab and austrailan shep but I don't see it! I watched a show about Basnejis and she has a lot of those traits. I'd be interested to know her genetic make-up. My other dog is her sister by the same parents and looks totally different Mom was all black, dad all yellow. She's around 40 to 45 pounds. She's a light eater, eats really slow too. She doesn't bark but howl and whines quite a bit.

CFS - me too, or even if not as long, just longer. I would hate to die before them, I'm all they've ever known but still a good 20 to 25 years would make me quite happy.

Dana Winnie is adorable, thanks for the pix.

Awww!

Those pictures are so cute!! What an adorable puppy she was and a beautiful girl now!