Another new member~

[LongLittleBrittle]

My husband and I just rescued a dachshund this weekend. This is our first dachshund. I'm a saint Bernard gal, my hubby is a pug guy, though we both enjoy French bulldogs. Not our standard fare, but we never turn down a little soul in need of help and love.

So, though we've been sadly dogless for a couple years, we are now the loving family of one standard red dachshund named Brittle. Little Bit is about 10 or 12 years old, graying, with the typical old man sagging paunch and various other standard health issues associated with senior pooches.

Despite that, he is lively, loving, and adoring his new space on all the furniture. (Because in our house, the dogs BELONG on the furniture like the rest of the family.)

This little guy, despite his age, is already best friends with my children, 2 years (a very, very respectful and gentle 2 years) and 8 months. He's met the cats, and they get along swimmingly. My rabbit was the very first he's ever seen, and she's bigger than he is, so he barked at her for the first day, but they get along delightfully now.

So this is us. Stepping in to learn more about the breed and better understand our new, wee, aging hound. Glad to meet you all!

Is there a section for health questions? I looked and couldn't find anything. (Perhaps I'm blind? )

And let me see if I can't recall how to insert photos onto these things... I -think- Little Bit may be alright with cats... but how do you tell for sure??

 

[Penny]

Love the photos!! lol
Congrats on your new addition! Our best wishes for many healthy and happy years together.

Good for you posting photos on your first post!

 

[CaseyKC]

WOW! What a difference between a St. Bernard and a dachshund. The size difference is "huge," even with a standard.

Dachshunds are different than other dogs in that their backs are vulnerable to injury because they are longer in relation to the size of the dog. You don't want him to become overweight because the back has to carry that extra weight. I carry my Libby, (who will be 9yo in March,) up and down stairs to prevent possible injury, and lift her onto furniture. I confess I have not always been able to prevent her from jumping off of furniture, despite trying ramps and a set of movable doggy stairs. She refuses to use them which is a worry to me. I figure the family room sofa is lower to the floor, but my bed is so high she can't jump on it. I have trained myself to automatically lift her to the floor from the bed when I get up in the morning. Often she is not ready to wake up when I do, but she gets placed on the floor anyway. All I have to do is remind her that we are going to go out to potty and have breakfast, and she will forgive me for disturbing her beauty sleep, although she does do a little muttering under her breath to let me know how she feels about having to get up at such an early hour. I have the little round doggy beds placed strategically around the house so she can relax almost anywhere I am. She prefers to be in the same room I am in at all times.

I love that you call your dog "Little Bit!" Way back when my human daughter, whose name is Elizabeth, was learning to talk, she mangled Elizabeth into what sounded like "Little Bit." We called her that until she was in third grade when she announced she was a big girl and her name was Elizabeth.

I don't know how you would discover if your new family member is good with cats, maybe visit friends who have cats and observe? Perhaps, since he is good with your rabbit, he might be good with cats, or at least ignore them? It actually might depend on how the cat in question feels about dachshunds.

Thank you for adopting a rescue and giving a senior a loving home. He will repay you with loving you right back.

 

[LongLittleBrittle]

Haha, my question about cats was making a joke about the pictures I posted of my cat sitting on his head. He's great with cats. And rabbits. And my kids. This little dog is amazing with NO inclination to snip at all, which is unlike every dachshund I've ever met prior to him. (I spend a lot of time at dog shows, I handle giant breeds occasionally in the ring)

As I type, he's snuggled to my side with his head in my lap. He actively seeks out play with my daughter, loving to play tug with his stuffies, or keep away. And my daughter is very gentle with him.

The problems with the spines and knees of dachshunds are well known to me, I'm in the process of building him a step for the sofa and a ramp for the bed. Although, this decrepit old turd thinks he's an agility dog, and he keeps leaping off the arm of the couch, over a 2' gap, onto my desk, to curl up on the heated cat bed. (Even though he has a heated bed of his own) My vet says his back is in excellent shape.

Our health concerns are actually his skin and teeth. His ears are like leather, losing fur on the tops and edges. I'm thinking ear ear margin seborrhea? Except he's also losing fur straight down his spine in a two inch wide band, and down his tail. He isn't bald, but the fur is visibly thinning. I've dealt with many cases of mange before, and this does not look like mange. I'm not sure what I'm dealing with.

The other issue is his teeth. I finally got a look in his mouth, and it looks like 90% of them will need to be pulled. Some are even turning black, broken in half, or worn away in the middles. So we need to figure out coming up with the money for a nearly $500 extraction job. *wince*

 

[CaseyKC]

Last year my Libby had to have two teeth extracted. She had extreme slab fractures on both of her first upper pre-molars. I discovered this during a weekly brushing session. We think it was from chewing chunks of ice in the driveway. I took her to the veterinarian who said they had to come out. I was horrified at the cost of the estimate to extract two teeth. Vets in our area are very expensive and her vet estimated between $800 and $1200. After paying the fee of $86 for the office visit to receive this depressing news, I took her home and began calling friends for recommendations of other vets. Most of the vet offices I called would either not give an estimate without an office visit or gave me quotes similar to the first vet. I finally found one who would charge between $600 and $800 and had a vet tech certified in canine dental hygiene, While this was still a lot of money, it was a great improvement over the other quotes, so I made an appointment and took her in for the procedure. My bill was around $660 which included blood work before the procedure. You might want to call around to see if there is a vet who would do it for less $. Apparently the major cost of the procedure is the anesthesia which I found out has to be administered and monitored by the vet. After the procedure the vet and dental tech both told me that they were amazed by how clean her teeth were for a (then) 7yo dog. The dental tech did a cleaning anyway as she was already under anesthesia, at no additional charge, but told me to continue with whatever I was doing.

Skin and ears. Libby gets a mild crust on her ear edges several times a year. She was about 3 years old when this started happening. Apparently this is something dachshunds are vulnerable to. I use Head and Shoulders Plus shampoo and a soft human baby hair brush to gently wash her ears and remove the dead hairs. Then I use either vitamin e cream if it is red and angry looking, if not, I use cod liver oil and rub it into the ear edge. It clears up in a few days. About the hair loss elsewhere...since your pup is a rescue with terrible teeth, it is possible that before he came to live with you his nutrition wasn't the best. Perhaps he has allergies to something, or he may need some vitamin or mineral that wasn't present in whatever he was eating before.

Allergies. Libby has or had allergies and would get bumps that would itch and cause hair loss. It progressed to a secondary yeast infection. We had blood panels done, the usual unavoidable culprits, grass and pine pollen, leaf mold, dust, etc. She was on Atopica, a rather expensive pill for nearly a year, and nothing worked. I bathed her in Head and Shoulders Plus every two weeks and it gave her some relief, but did not make the bumps and lesions go away. We tried all kinds of different foods and I finally switched her permanently to Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream formula, (grain free) and within a few weeks new bumps stopped appearing, the skin lesions began to clear up and hair began to re grow. It took months before she didn't look "moth eaten," but we finally got it under control. We still get an occasional mild attack of the bumps, usually in the spring, but a bath with Head and Shoulders Plus, and wiping her down after going outdoors, seems to clear it up before it progresses to the skin yeast infection stage and hair loss. I now believe she was/is allergic to certain foods, including grains as well as the things that showed up on the blood panels.

I tell you all of this because with Libby, I have been there, done that, and hope that something that we have lived through may help your little guy.

 

[babysis]

What type of diet do you have your boy on? Sometimes that can affect the skin. Maybe bathe in an oatmeal type of shampoo. Something that is soft on the skin.

As for teeth, if you can get them pulled or fixed do it! I don't have much to tell you on that!

Glad to hear you adopted an older one! :-D I have been looking into adopting older doxies since I lost my girl a while back!