Why is my dog a fusser eater?
Q> My 10 month old border collie is a very fussy eater. I have taken her to vet and she is the ideal weight for her height and breed, but every now and again she will just turn her nose up at her food. She is healthy and active in every other way, but obviously I am worried as she is still growing and I don't want her to be losing out on any thing that she may need whilst she is still growing. I have tried all the usual ways to tempt her, such as gravy etc. but to no avail. Any advice and tips would be very much appreciated. Laura

A> If your dog is the ideal height and weight for her breed and age then I think there is unlikely to be too much for you to worry about. Some dogs are very fussy and appear to eat very little – but it is often hard for owners to accurately gauge what is the right amount for a dog to be eating and therefore it is always better to assess your dog’s condition rather than their consumption. In the same way many dogs that are very overweight appear to their owners to be eating very little – but their weight tells a different story, and this is the same with your dog.

If you do get concerned that her weight is dropping below the ideal level, then that would be cause for concern, and if this does happen one thing you could consider is trying some home cooked recipes specifically designed for dogs. This recipe for meaty rice pudding would be ideal as it is very tasty and full of the essential nutrients a growing puppy needs:

Meaty Rice Pudding

To make enough for a several meals you will require:

• 125g rice

• 750ml milk

• 150g beef or lamb mince

• 1 teaspoon Marmite

Simply mix all the ingredients together in a large oven-proof dish. Pop it in a moderate oven (180 C, Gas mark 4) for about 75 minutes. Stir frequently for the 45 minutes and then leave alone for the final 30 minutes.Leave it to cool for at least an hour before serving. I hope that goes down well!


Why does my dog have runny poo?
Q> Our 15-month-old, pedigree English springer spaniel, Ozzie, who we have had from seven-weeks-old had real trouble with his tummy. He constantly has runny stools and goes to the toilet at least four times per day.

We spoke to our vet about this problem and he told us to change his food to a hypoallergenic one, which we did, but it hasn't improved the problem. We have tried him on different flavours of the same make of food, which hasn't seemed to help matters and we are now at the end of our tether with this. Do you have any advice on other foods we could maybe try him on, or, whether there may be something else more sinister going on here?

He is a real scrounger of a dog and the vet did say that if we were to treat him with anything, just do it with his own food, which we are doing. He doesn't have any leftovers of our own food at all. He eats really well, but whenever we walk him he always has very sloppy, hard to pick up poo!

A> This is not an uncommon problem and as your vet has suggested the cause is often diet related. Dietary intolerances, which is where the digestive system struggles to cope with specific ingredients such as certain proteins, are relatively common in dogs and can cause a variety of problems including persistent diarrhoea, weight loss and general ill health.
With this in mind I would suggest persevering with your search for a suitable diet for him as this is likely to provide the best long term solution to the problem. There are many hypoallergenic diets available and it is sometimes just a case of trial and error to see which suits your dog best. My Joe & Jack’s natural chicken and rice food would certainly be worth a try and this is available from http://www.petskitchen.co.uk

The other approach that might help is to use a prebiotic supplement. Prebiotics are undigestible carbohydrates that promote the growth of ‘good’ bacteria in the gut, which can improve the overall health of the digestive system and reduce the impact of conditions such as dietary intolerances. Prebiotics are available from your vet or from good pet shops.

I found a small lump on my dog - what is it?
Q> I have a three-year-old Border Collie. He has never suffered any illnesses previously. However, I have recently discovered a small lump on his back. It is about 1cm long and 1/2cm wide. I found it a month or so ago and it hasn't got any bigger, but it hasn't got any smaller either. I thought perhaps he had been stung or bitten, but I think it would have gone down by now. It is quite firm, but does not appear to be bothering him. We can touch it and feel it and he doesn't seem to be in pain.

A> Without actually seeing this lump it’s hard for me to be 100% sure, but from what you have described I suspect that this could well be nothing more serious than a sebaceous cyst. These lumps are generally quite firm and positioned in the skin itself rather than beneath it, and inside they are full of a thick creamy material which is excreted by the sebaceous gland. They are not in any way dangerous and often resolve themselves by spontaneously bursting and disappearing – so I wouldn’t be too surprised if you found that this lump suddenly vanished one day.

However there are other possibilities, some of which would be a little more concerning, such as skin growths including mast cell tumours and histiocytomas, so I do think it is well worth getting your vet to check this out by your vet to make sure. If your vet is concerned that this might not be a cyst, then they may elect to remove the lump and have it analysed as a precaution.

How can I stop my dog from eating everything, including poo?
Q> We have a new dog, a border terrier, she is now 10-months-old, but she will eat anything she can get hold of - wood, paper, plastic, cloth, any sort of poo she finds in the garden or on her walks. How can we stop her?

A> This is a potentially serious problem as your dog sounds like a prime candidate for ending up with a ‘foreign body’ – this is the veterinary term for something that shouldn’t be there getting stuck inside the dog’s digestive system, and it can be a very serious and even fatal complication.
It’s worth having your dog checked over physically by your vet as it could be that some underlying condition such as hypothyroidism or a malabsorbtion condition leaving him continually hungry is the main problem rather than it being purely behavioural in nature (although this is less likely in such a young dog).

If a scavenging habit or pica as it is technically known turns out to have no medical cause, then you need to consider the behavioural and psychological factors that have led to the problem if it is going to be solved. Some dogs scavenge because they are anxious, have compulsive tendencies or simply because they have a naturally high appetite, while others will do so out of hyperactive curiosity; there are many reasons and each case needs to be considered individually if it is going to be successfully treated. For example, a dog with a compulsive or anxiety based scavenging habit will need a more subtle and careful approach than a dog whose only problem is controlling a high appetite or simple curiosity.

The basic tools at your disposal for tacking a scavenging habit include distraction with positive stimuli such as treats, and negative reinforcement using intimidating stimuli such as sounds and odours associated with sounds. Again, distraction is usually the best and ‘nicest’ option to use, and is generally  effective – the typical example would be offering a food treat to entice the dog to drop something less appropriate such as something scavenged from a bin. This is far better, and safer, than trying to forcibly remove an object form your dog’s mouth, and has the secondary benefit of rewarding the action of dropping the inappropriate object, so if you combine the treat with a command such as ‘drop it!’ you should find that in time your dog will become conditioned to the command and no longer need the treat.

Negative reinforcement techniques such as those used to prevent inappropriate destructive behaviours in the house can be useful, particularly in cases where more positive techniques have been tried and not succeeded, but again I would urge caution. It is all too easy to see a negative deterrent as an easy option, but in 9 cases out of 10, the positive approach is just as or more effective and has a much better long term effect on your relationship with your dog.

Why is my castrated dog chased by other dogs?
Q> With the advice of our vet, we got our Cocker Spaniel Sam castrated at the age of eight months. Sam is fine and it doesn't seem to have affected him at all. He is now 10 months.
We are having problems with other dogs (usually large breeds) trying to mount Sam and getting him on his back to sniff him. One dog on our walks actually picks up Sams smell and runs away from his owner to get to Sam. Even though we could be 1/2 a mile or so away from them. It is like he thinks Sam is female and in heat! What can we do about this?

A> I suspect that you will find this problem subsides over the next few months as the effects of the castration take effect. It can take up to six months for the full impact of the operation to be felt as the body takes a while to adjust to the hormonal changes that castration causes so I would just give him a little time and I would expect things to improve.

What can I do to resolve my dog's anal gland problem?
Q> My 11-month-old Cavalier has had continual anal gland problems. I was wondering if changing his diet to one that would perhaps produce more bulky stools would help him? any suggestions on this would be very welcome. Every time my vet emptys his glands there is a little in them.

A> Adding some fibre such as all bran to his diet may well help as this tends to bulk up the stools which helps the anal glands empty themselves as the stool passes through the anus. However, in some cases where the dog appears to be very irritated by the glands despite there not being a significant amount of material in the glands, measures like this won’t help and the only option for long term resolution is to surgically remove the glands. The operation to do this is fairly routine for most vets, but there is a very slight risk of complications of which the most severe is faecal incontinence caused by damage to the anal sphincter itself. For this reason most vets would tend to view surgery as a last resort measure and try measures such as bran in the diet and regular expressing of the glands before considering the operation. As you dog is still very young, I would recommend trying a few different diets and the all bran approach before considering surgery as it may well be that these measures could help and also there is a chance he will grow out of the problem given time.

How can I stop my dog from chewing the post?

Q> Can you advise how I can stop my lovable King Charles from turning into  a loud, aggressive sounding dog when the post man put letters through the letter box. When I am not here she ignores the post, but when I am she goes mad and grabs any letters she can and chews them. I think it is attention seeking, so I try not to make too much fuss when it happens, but I would love to stop it as we run a business from home and I worry she may chew up a cheque!

A> This is a very common problem and is down to territorial aggression rather than attention seeking. The reason she is only doing it while you are there is because she sees protecting you and the house as her role in the family pack.

The best approaches to deal with this are desensitisation and distraction. Desensitisation involves gradually getting her used to things coming through the post box when you are there so it becomes less of a big event and more routine for her, and distraction involves taking her attention away with something more interesting when the postman comes – so think about feeding her or playing a game and completely ignoring the post until she is nice and calm and the postman has gone.

About Joe Inglis: Having qualified as a vet in 1996, Joe's appeared on a variety of TV programmes including Vet School, Vets in Practice and Blue Peter, where he was the on-screen vet. Currently a vet for BBC's The One Show, and for The Wright Stuff on Five, Joe is MORE TH>N's official pet expert.

MORE TH>N offers pet insurance by phone and via the Internet. MORE TH>N's pet insurance product includes vetfone, a free phone service, open 24 hours a day, where qualified veterinary nurses are on-hand to answer customer queries about their dog or cat.