Big Paws Only Dog Forums

Sorry...forgot to respond to the panting.

Panting should not be ignored and "can" be a serious sign of a problem....or not.

Heat is the obvious factor and heat in Berners is metabolic - has nothing to do with the amount of coat they have.  My current Berner has less coat than any other and she is my "hottest" dog.

Panting can also be a respiratory issue - summer allergies causing nasal congestion will necessitate breathing through the mouth harder to get air, if the dog can't breath the nose.  You should be able to ascertain this however to determine if this is the issue.  I see this as the issue most often.

Panting is often a sign of stomach distress - GI Tract issues including gas, bloating, cramping will cause a dog to pant heavily and fast.  Diet is the issue here, and you should evaluate patterns of the panting to see if this is the issue - after meals, later at night etc. You can try giving Gasalia (Boiron) or Bio 92 (Reckeweg) and see if that helps as well.  This is also very common and overlooked by owners.

Panting is a sign of stress of course - owners can determine this on their own.

Finally, panting is also a symptom of other internal discomfort - for a variety of reasons from muscle/tendon injury to cancer/lymphoma.

So please don't disregard....d etermine the cause.

Holly has said it all as well as it can be stated.....gra in free is critical here, and adding a probiotic invaluable.  These two steps can readily be tried without ever having to head to a new vet.

And heading to vets with this question will likely just cause you more frustration.  Given how bad the advice is that you have already received from your vet (holy crap that is an awful food and that fact that he doesn't know about yeast = diet connection - scary!) you can appreciate how little vets know about nutrition.  They only know the little they do from the ONE nutrition class they took, from Hills so it is truly like asking a car dealer about your transmission.  In the car business yes - but knowledgeable about how to repair your transmission - no!  Vets can't discuss nutrition because in their defense, never trained in the subject at all.

So, if you want opinion beyond layman here, then please consider contacting a vet nutritionist or vet with added nutrition training.

Or, just try a grain free food and add a broad based probiotic without dairy or soy, such as Primal Defense (Garden of Life).  As Holly said, you really need to replenish the beneficial flora in the system (antibiotics strip the entire system) and re-balance it - a probiotic is key.

There is usually a second growth spurt at about 9-10 months of age in the breed - so you're far from done, rest assured.

it is impossible to judge your pup without seeing her, but keep in mind that females are to be 23" - 26" in height at the withers - when full grown.  So even if she is on the low end of the standard, that will likely feel quite short to you given what you are accustomed to (giant breed).

I see these ear infections all the time in my foster dogs. My golden rescue also came home to me with the yeastiest ears I had ever seen and vets just wanted to keep putting her under to flush them.  This isn't the best place to start since you want to address the cause FIRST, otherwise, you will be flushing all the time and chasing it - you want to get in front of it.  And putting a dog under is not a benign event - it takes a health toll each time so not to be done lightly.

Ear infections - especially the just one ear, recurring thing is allergy. It frustrates me when vets don't test the ear material since it can be either yeast, or bacteria or even both.  They are treated very differently and many vets just presume and send customers home with solutions that then never cure (an antibiotic will do nothing on yeast for example). 

One foster boy I had was 2 years old and his owners had been buying these solutions and antibiotics for his entire life....all I had to do was test, see it was both yeast and bacteria and realize that to cure the yeast, I had to find the cause first (bacteria can be treated, but yeast must be prevented first).  Usually the allergy is diet related so I put him on a homemade elimination diet and immediately found the allergy - chicken - once I rid his diet of the offending food, his ears cleared up and have been completely clean since (over a year).

In the case of my golden, I had her on a raw diet from the start so I started evaluating the diet one ingredient at a time, starting with starches (sugars can exacerbate yeast). It turned out that the starches were her problem, specifically carrots, and just removing these from her diet and her ears cleared and have been squeaky clean for the past 7 years.

What sets up the yeast imbalance in the system is another issue - I believe over-stimulating the immune system is the root cause.

So I encourage you to find the root of the ear problem - the medications are just symptom suppressive and will keep you in a "chasing" mode - you will rather prevent these infections in the first place.

Berners can vary greatly in size.  Given that I am in Rescue and see a lot of backyard bred dogs, I see many that are no where near the breed standard and have no bone, looking more like Golden Retrievers.  In this breed, it comes down to how much "bone" they have - if they are slight in build, they will weigh less.  Heavy structure, more.  And then again, if they are simply long on leg (leggy) they can weigh more as well.

So the easiest way to determine is to know her parents' size.  How big is mom and dad? 

If you don't know them, then go back to 8 weeks of age (if you had her then) and tell us what she weighed.  At 8 weeks of age, a good average weight for a Berner  pup within the breed standard is 15 lbs for a female. So if a pup starts here, then at 12 weeks she'll be 23-24 lbs.  Usually there is a growth spurt at about 4-5 months, so it is hard to say. My girl, who is large for a female, weighed 40 lbs. at 16 weeks and I see this as the high end - a girl should never be bigger than mine   As a grown adult, my girl weighs 94-95 lbs.  Her mom weighs the same, and her dad was 120 lbs.

Hope that helps....

I live in Orange County and this is the land of the dog walker, doggies daycares etc.  You definitely need to research these resources so feel free to write me privately for some recommendation s.  Hourly dog walker rates here are typically $15 an hour.  Even if not every day, it is still worth it, so don't think all or nothing - even 2-3x per week would help.


Nine hours a day is too long to be in a crate.  Why cant she be in the apartment loose if you address her health problems (she clearly has an infection or something worse so please get to a vet asap).  If this isn't feasible, then an x-pen is more appropriate to give her room to move around.

If you need a vet recommendation, then also let me know. Depending on the diagnosis, look at http://www.caninekidneyhealth.com/ if it fits the bill.

Buzz Away Extreme

http://www.quantumhealth.com/productgroups/itchandbite.html