Rachelpirate

Ria licking Wilbur dry, as she does whenever he gets wet. Sorry for the photo quality, but you get the idea. Ok, I can explain the pants. Her skin had split open after walking past a gate. That wasn't even sharp in any way. She's tough. Trying to sleep in the airing cupboard for some reason. Possibly hiding from lions?

Here is my evidence to support my claim. This one bearing in mind Ria had only met Roxy hours before this was taken. As you can see they are allowed on the furniture, causing behavioural problems. Let's examine your evidence please!

The RR's we have now, as pets are very far removed from the lion hunting dogs they were. Like many breeds I don't think those traits RR's were bred for years and years ago are very prevelant now. Similarly to Staffie's, who have not been bred to fight for a long time. Secondly I'm a great beleiver in nurture over nature - if you take a Lab and abuse it, it may become aggressive. If you take a Ridgie and treat it well, socialise and train it, it will be a lovely dog. I definatley can't buy into the idea that a dog can be born aggressive based on breed. Can a person be born aggressive based on race? Mainly I suppose I'd like to ask if summersun has ever owned a Ridgeback. If she had I wonder if she'd be able to make these claims. Having lived with Ria for just year or so (yes, she is a cross - but then Staffie's are supposedly aggressive too) I can say that I've never had a softer, sillier or wimpier dog than my Ridgeback cross. I'm sure the other RR owners on here would agree with me on that.

I'd like to apologise to summersun, I didn't mean to come across as being rude in my reply to you - it's just that I do tend to get defensive when I hear negative comments about breeds that I own and love, so I probably jumped down your throat a bit. It's just something I strongly disagree with, and I'm sure you'd agree we'd all defend our own pets to the death.

So do they mean certain breeds, or do they just mean any dog that fights? Seems a bit wierd to me... and if they won't tell you the definition, how are you supposed to know whether you have a fighting dog or not? I have emailed too, maybe if they get enough queries on it they'll be a bit more clear.

Have never used one, but looking at it I can just imagine one of my brutes either bursting out of it or just rolling of after something whilst still inside it!

Well done, it's lovely to hear you are willing to work with her to get through this, rather than sending her back. I know from experience it's not easy when things like this happen with a new rescue dog, and must be even more difficult being a first time owner. So many people give up after even the smallest hiccup so I wish we had more people like you adopting dogs, who care enough about them to stick with them even through bigger issues. Good luck with her!

Sounds like Trallwm farm might be onto it, perhaps your son has been playing with her with the lead? Might be worth asking her. Off topic I know, but I'd still love to hear why summersun thinks RR's can't communicate as well as other dogs? My thoughts exactly, which just goes to show that with these prejudices people always focus on the breed they think they know is aggressive.

Fenella - as others have said, see the vet and talk to the rescue, and preferably a behaviourist. Definatley if you don't feel comfortable taking the dog out until you know why this happened, don't do anymore than you feel you can be safe doing.

I would like to know what evidence you have which leads you to beleive this. In my experience it is dogs with docked tails or cropped ears that find it harder to communicate with other dogs, even in some cases solid black dogs such as black Labs. However this doesn't tend to lead directly to agression from the dog, rather aggression towards it from other dogs who misread the signals.

Also this could very well be play (albeit unsuitably rough play which needs to be addressed quickly). We have a similar sounding case in the Dogs Trust centre I work at currently - a Boxer cross who has been taught by her previous owner to play very roughly by jumping and ragging on the handlers arms and clothing. She is in no way being aggressive although it can be very painful when she does this, however we have now substituted the grabbing onto a toy and she is making great progress. Obviously I can't assume what is causing this behaviour in Pushka myself without ever having met her, and neither should you.

A lot of times, as others have said, behavior issues that the dog might have don't show in rescue. It's likely that the rescue had never seen this behaviour. Having just read this I'm offended and shocked that someone who considers themselves "experienced in rescue and behaviour" could beleive such nonsense. I am also experienced in dog rescue, and can tell you that of all the Ridgebacks and hundereds of other "aggressive breeds" I have cared for I have never seen agression towards humans from any of them. Not to mention my own Ridgeback/Staffie cross - I would never bring a dog into a home with my young siblings if it was naturally agressive.

More good news, she's now on an older treatment (what they used before they had aludex) which can be given as drops in her food. I decided the baths had to stop as apparently it could damage her liver too. She's lost all the scabs on her face already, all healed up and the skin looks normal, not inflamed or even red.

This was The Piglet earlier today (or is it a roast chicken?) - And this is her right now - And if you really want to soil your eyes I may as well show you what Ria's doing right now And what Wilbur's doing Connie is hiding outside in the dog house for some reason, I think she saw a mop earlier.

I found out what it is! The Hertfordshire County show, so not London as such, but close enough. Thanks for your suggestions!

Roxy's always kind of shivering at the shoulders (not sure if it's a similar thing) but apparently it's just old age.

No problem.

Yep I think you're right about the immune system, I must remember to ask about vitamen E supplements for her.

Poor boy! It's like some people can have a dog for so long and not get attached to him, I don't get it. He might be better off without owners like that...

I work at the Dogs Trust and I've been asked to go in the Dogmobile unit (big yellow van that dogs can go in for the day) to some kind of show in the London area in place of someone who had to cancel. It's between this Friday and Sunday, I haven't had any details yet. I can find out more tomorrow but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas what show it might be? I've searched on google but not having any luck.

Just a quick update - Roxy's swelling has gone down completely today, and lo and behold, npw it's gone down her skin looks 100% better than it did before she had the bath. It's obviously helped loads already with the mange; before the bath/swelling her face was covered in open sores and very red/sore looking, now it looks a normal colour and the sores are almost healed! I wasn't expecting such a quick result, so the aludex obviously has done a good job in the end. Spoke to our regular vet again today (she has been on holiday whilst all this went on and was horrified to hear about Roxy when she came back, rang me straight away) who knows her and is IMO much more help and much better than the bloke we were seeing while she was away. She said that Roxy's biopsies had been absolutely swimming with demodex mites, whereas normally you're lucky to see one or two in a demodectic mange case. She thinks that what may have caused such a bad reaction was a sort of mass mite death - as they die they secrete nasty stuff, and as there were so many it may have caused the reaction. It seems worth trying to contimue with the baths as it's worked like magic already. She's going to keep up the piriton and do a little patch test of aludex on Roxy's face, as with less mites this time round she may not have the reaction. If that goes ok they'll give her very dilute baths, or maybe just bath her body and leave the head. Other than that there's advocate, but she said that with cases as severe as Roxy's it doesn't tend to do very well. So we'll see anyway, but for now Roxy seems much more comfortable, more so even than before she had the bath.

Hi, what a gorgrous dog! I also have a Ridgeback cross Staffie/Greyhound/maybe Great Dane, among other dogs...

Thanks again for the support everyone I'll try to answer some of the questions - She has had her thyroid tested and it was normal, which is why they tested for Cushings. She had an ACTH test last month, and the Cushings was all under control so they kept her dose the same. She's looking much less puffy today, but not quite normal. She's still itching at it though so I have to keep stopping her. I'm going to ask about vitamin E on wednesday when I take her in, I'm also going to take the photo of her swollen face in (as my regular vet didn't get to see her in full puffiness) so she can see how bad it was.

Thanks for the support everyone Yes, thankyou so much that would be lovely. Sounds like a good idea, I'll ask my vet about it first (seeing as Roxy seems to be allergic to everything! ) but I don't see why not, and to be honest I'll try everything possible if it might help. Hehe, me too. She just seems to go through one problem after another... and it's a shame because she's such a happy, loving little girl who gets on with everyone. I think she must just have really sensitive skin, the vet suggested we put sun cream on when it was hot as she's so nekkid so we got some very sensitive skin baby stuff... she came out in a huge red rash so we can't even let her sunbathe. I'm calling her the Phantom of the opera at the moment as the one side of her face seems to be worse... Uke - that sounds interesting too, I'm making up a list of ideas I can harass the vet with next time I see her.

I adopted Roxy from work about 7 weeks ago, she's at least 10, and she has Cushings disease. When we first got her she looked pretty rough, but with medicating the Cushings got under control. She looked like this - Then a few weeks ago she started getting a little patch on her face, between her eyes. You can see the start of it above. It got bigger and bigger and started getting sores on it, so we had biopsies taken at the vets, meaning she spent ages with stitches all over the place. The lab had a backlog from the bank holiday weekend so it took ages for her results to come back, meaning by the time we found out what she had her whole face was bald and covered in sores, which was bad enough. It turned out to be Demodectic mange, but the vet said it was easily treatable and she went in for an Aludex (sp?) bath last Friday. Saturday morning her entire face and body had swollen up and gone purple/red, her sores were all bleeding and oozing and she was really depressed. :mecry: The vets have given her piriton tablets (an anti histemene, again sp?), she's already on anti biotics and she has fuciderm cream to put on. It's a little better, but hardly at all and today she looks like this - You can't really tell how swollen her face is there, but basically she can hardly open her eyes. I can't stand seeing her like this, in so much discomfort and I can't do anything for her. :mecry: She's such a brave little girl but you can still tell it's hurting her. I don't regret taking her on at all but I somtimes wonder why she's gone so backwards since I've had her, maybe I've done something wrong. She's just lying there in her bed, and everytime I have to put the cream on it must sting becasue she run away and tries to hide her face in the corner, it makes me feel horrible but I have to do it. And now she's had this reaction I don't know how they're going to treat the mange, obviously she can't continue having the baths, but she can't just be left with the mange either as it's getting worse and spreading all the time. Can you spare some good thoughts for my baby please, I don't know what we're going to do next.