Author Topic: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!  (Read 13660 times)

Offline Kermit

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Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« on: January 14, 2006, 12:50:35 am »
Will brought home a Dane!!! He rescued her. She is wonderful! She just got home last night and already she is with the pack and doing amazingly well. She came from a divorce situation.
Anyhow, to skip the long drawn out story, she is very very thin. She probably has worms, maybe even heartworms. We are going to make a journey to North Carolina so Will's dad (a veterinarian) can take care of her and we can get her back to health. She's 4 1/2 years old, a fawnequin, and she is just so lovely. We want to give her a new name for her new life with us but we haven't thought of one yet.

Everything happened so fast, I am still having a hard time believing we really have her!!! But she is in the room with me right now curled up in a space too small for her, listening to the dog show on animal planet!!!

So... my question to any Dane owners who might be reading... what is a good safe way to encourage a Great Dane to gain some weight??? Obviously with this one there is probably a health condition behind it, but... should we give her puppy food? She was fed Pedigree by her former people and we will be switching her over the next week, but we really aren't sure what to go with.

Help? and... oh my god we have a new dog!!!!!!

chaosndestruction

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2006, 12:57:01 am »
awww!!! She's cute!!!

I hope everything turns out alright and she gets healthy looking againg real soon!!!

Offline Maggie's Mom

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2006, 01:00:17 am »
What a doll.  I think I'd wait to see what's going on health-wise before you start trying to make her gain weight  (As long as you're getting her checked out very soon).  Once you know why she's so skinny, you can start there.   Just my opinion. :)
Stacy, Wes, and Maggie (Great Dane)

Offline Kermit

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2006, 01:10:45 am »
What a doll.  I think I'd wait to see what's going on health-wise before you start trying to make her gain weight  (As long as you're getting her checked out very soon).  Once you know why she's so skinny, you can start there.   Just my opinion. :)

Ah, good point! I guess we are just sitting here looking at her and wanting to help her be less-skinny as soon as possible, you know? She's just so boney! But she has plenty of energy and she is very happy!!! :)

MommyOfSchnauzers

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2006, 01:33:21 am »
Yep, I think Holly is the one with Matilda. 

Congratulation s on your newest addition!

Offline my3dogs

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #5 on: January 14, 2006, 01:42:56 am »
Oh what a sweet pea!  She is so skinny.  How wonderful that she found her forever home and will fatten up AND get to see animal planet !   She's livin' the good life now!!
Hope we get to see lots of pics of her progress.  No doubt they will be dramatic. She sure is a beauty.  Congrats to you and her!!

-Wendy
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Offline mtaig12

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #6 on: January 14, 2006, 01:56:21 am »
We got Star almost two months ago from a rescue. She was being cared for at a foster home, and they did a good job. But she has slowly put on a little weight (the foster mom said she doesn't eat much, but we haven't had that experience with her-she eats everything in sight!). We're watching her food intake carefully to make sure she doesn't lose her girlish (or Danish) figure.

If your Dane does end up being heartworm positive, don't despair. Star is/was heartworm positive, and has finished her treatments and is doing well. In March we'll have a repeat blood test to make sure she's negative. She runs around with her older brother Max just fine. Of course, when we adopted her she had just finished her treatment, so we didn't experience that with her, but to look at her you'd never know she had heartworms!

Good luck!
Tracy and Mike - parents
Alex and Ian - kids
Max and Star - canines
Oscar and Emily - felines
Nibbles - hamster
North Carolina

Offline ZooCrew

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #7 on: January 14, 2006, 02:20:52 am »
Awwwe, she is adorable!!  I love fawnequins!  Can't wait to see more pics.  Glad to hear she is meshing well with the pack.

And I love Gweck's pic's too.  He is soooo handsome!

enuffpaws

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2006, 02:22:39 am »
What a gorgeous little girl! She is so lucky to have found you for her forever home.
As far as the weight issue goes, we always have issues with Merlin's weight. He can lose weight just by increasing his activity, or during the hotter summer months when he eats less. Satin Balls are a good way to increase weight, and most dogs really like them. I also suppliment Merlin with canned food with his kibble. If I notice he is dropping weight  I just increase the canned and sneak in an extra feeding.
You may want to start fattening her up a bit now, as treatments can tax what little resserves that she has, IMO. I will try and find the recipe for satin balls, it was posted on here somewhere...
Stella and Dale

enuffpaws

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #9 on: January 14, 2006, 02:29:11 am »
Found it. Here is a link to the tread with the satin balls recipe:
http://www.bigpawsonly.com/index.php/topic,6028.msg77160.html#msg77160

Good luck!
Stella and Dale

Offline pyrmom420

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #10 on: January 14, 2006, 03:08:25 am »
Who'd have guessed? I too just rescued a Dane from a divorce situation, and "Marley" too is too skinny. She is 7 months old and only 66#  :o  I have a 3 yr old Great Pyr, and was looking for the right playmate for "Gandalf". She adores her big brother, and although she is not house broken yet, she is the sweetest thing on 4 legs. We went on our first walk today and they were a hit! It is so cold here, that I had to put a sweatshirt and a doggy coat on Marley. She knew she looked adoreable though. I have been feeding Gandalf Wolf King now because he had had trouble keeping on weight, so I feed Marley the Wolf King too. It is natural and higher in the Omegas etc. I work at our local vet clinic and our Dr.s did give her a round of worming meds. Didn't see any signs of parasites, but wanted to cover that base for the weight thing. I too would be glad to hear about anything anyone may have to offer about Danes. I have had Pyrs, Shepards and Huskies in the past so I have a little experience with the BIG guys, but I want to learn more breed specific stuff about Danes too. Thanks.
Hugs from Alaska!
PS I am still trying to figure the photo thing out, I can't get them less than 400KB. When I get it I'll send them!

Offline patrick

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #11 on: January 14, 2006, 08:25:57 am »
ME - I would start putting weight on her right now while I am waiting to see if she has any health problems.    She is alarmingly thin.  Its not likely she has anything life threatening going on like kidney failure or liver failure as she doesn't appear ill - just thin.   When are you going to the vet-as he is out of state - I presume it will be in a few weeks.  I would worm her with Nemex- which you can get at the petstore- a very mild wormer and start her on puppy food plus any additives like cottage cheese, yogurt, canned foods, etc. to encourage her to eat.  Small meals several times a day.    Even if she does have anything going on she needs to be in a healthy weight to have a healthy immune system.

Offline Kermit

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #12 on: January 14, 2006, 10:23:29 am »
WOW- you guys are so awesome!!! (But I knew that before!!) Thank you SO MUCH for all of the recommendation s.

This morning I saw tapeworms in her stool so we can do something about that right away. We are going to go to NC this coming Friday to see Will's dad, and we'll call him today and see what he has to say about things to do in the meantime.

Our local pet supply store has a great selection of foods like Solid Gold Wolf King and all that, we are really anxious to get her eating something high quality, but I know the switch needs to be slow. I am going to try those Satin Balls too and maybe some cottage cheese.

She is so awesome!!!
I hope she doesn't have heartworms, but we are prepared to work with her, no matter what she needs, we are just so happy to be able to take her in! She is already such a joy.
I am so glad I get to share Dane experiences on BPO now!!! Holy cow, there's a purebred in the home!!! :D

Offline Kermit

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #13 on: January 14, 2006, 10:47:02 am »


The first name that popped into my head when I saw her pic was Dolly.


It's funny you should say that because we were thinking of the name "Joline"... ;)

Offline Anky

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Re: Will brought home a Dane!! And she's skinny!!!
« Reply #14 on: January 14, 2006, 11:09:16 am »
First off, SOOOO jealous!  She's adorable and I love the oops puppies! :)  Secondly, the reason Mattie was so thin is she had Mego, and she couldn't digest her food.  Holly has to take special precautions with her for feeding time.  And it's NEVER good to load weight on a dog really fast.  I'd feed her normal (Which I'm sure she hasn't been getting), and after a while (Like 2 weeks) see where you are after that.  I only say that because a friend of mine got an emaciated Dane and started off with Satin balls.  It jarred the poor things system and it did nothing but puke for 3 days.  (Think eating chicken Cordon Blue when you have a tummy ache instead of tost and broth)

Regardless she's adorable.  :) 
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