I was speaking to a friend recently on her dog eating its own poop.  It's called Coprophagia and dogs do this for a few reasons.  It's easier in some ways if it's their poop only as you can treat the dog. But if its other dogs it's more difficult.  You must teach early on the leave it command. 

Dogs eat poop from habit, but also mostly because the poop is delicious lol. It's got nutrient value. 
Dogs also can end up with parasites.  So it's wise to worm count to make sure theirs no parasite in the gut.  

If it is your own dog you need to firstly look at your dogs gut health. Maybe it's not digesting because the gut biome is out of whack.  Giving some additives which help gut biome is a good idea.  We have lots of products we can advise our owners to try. 

But give foods which digest easily.  Add in seeds for fibre and digestion if your a raw feeder.

I often find dogs who are eating cereals are the poop eaters, but of course it be any dog.

Teaching the leave it command and watching dog like a hawk. The moment it's finished pooping go and collect it up before it has the chance to eat it.  This then stops the habit. But be aware it takes thousands of repetitive commands and pick up before you'll see a difference. 

Some dogs just out grow this.  Others do not and they need a bit of intervention from you.  So always teach the drop it command and stand there with the dog.  

​If this is a Silvestre dog you can always contact me for advice on products to try.   

Well done Silvestre Fit as a Fiddle  with 3rd place in junior class.  
We had wanted to do this show but I booked an eye testing clinic instead.  We do like to support a breed club show if we can do. 

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VIZSLA
​Lovely to get the girls eye tested today and have Glaucoma clear for another 3 years and also annual eye test is clear from all ocular conditions.  Lane, Birdie and Geri.   Next our boys due in a couple of months. 

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For those of you who follow my page on instagram I am putting products on which we use and find help our dogs a lot.  For those that do not follow it I am writing here so you can buy the products.

Ears - This is not quite so simple as to think ears are clean all the time.  

The Hungarian Vizsla really should not have dirty ears.  If they do have black yeasty ears then sadly there are probably allergies at play here.   You see yeast develops when dogs have allergies.

Firstly out rule ear mites.  Your vet should be able to do this for you.  But then if ear mites are not at play there are some things you can do which I will explain further down. 

Bracco italiano are a different kettle of fish. Those long ears, and all that loose skin makes them a breed which can have dirty ears for life. 

Now we have noticed along side other breeders that vaccines are effecting the Bracco italiano more than some other breeds and two weeks after vaccinating the ears go dirty. This is because it affects their immune systems.  As a breed I do not believe in vaccinating them.   Please look into natural immunity and titre testing and keep away from vaccines.  Use holistic nosodes. 

That is a big subject in itself.

But okay we go back to ears.  We use in our puppies from aged 5 weeks thornit powder.  We have a small brush that we dip in powder then put into ear. This gives just the right sprinkling of dust.  It smells a bit like sulphur but it really works keeping those baby ears clean.   I do it every 2 to 3 days with out daily right up to the date they leave me at 8 weeks.  You can continue with thornit powder until the day it stops working which is usually two weeks after first vaccine. 

We have another cleaner we are really raving about and thanks to a dear friend who told me about it Ive always brought it since.  It's called Peake pet ear cleaning solution.  It has natural gentian in it.  Which is a flower known for its natural properties of anti biotic.  I buy their large bottle and a mixing bottle.  As I pour it into the smaller bottle and squirt into ear.  You warm it first by dropping container into a glass of water.  This activates it.  Then I use in ear.   This product can be enough on its own to keep your dogs ears clear.  

I spoke to someone who recommended this product and she said how much its transformed her dogs ears however since she spoke to me she has stopped vaccinating also and she thinks that in itself is helping his over all health. As he no longer has hives on the body also.

I sometimes wish this was not all true but it is, and the specialists in the breed are all in the same position.  Vets unfortunately do not know this breed of dog.  Do not care that vaccines are the cause of so many health problems.  There is nothing we can do about it.  As all they say is you have no proof.  But the proof is in the dogs health, the ears, the skin and sadly too much is pointing to vaccines effecting these in dogs. 

So what do you need to do if you do not vaccinate?  Do a titre test to see if your pet has immunity.  Again vets are cashing in on this test and your finding some charging between £75 to £220 for test.  This is just ridiculous.  Go to dragon labs down load their titre test kit.  Take this to your vet nurse who will take blood and you send it off.  This will cost you approx £39 for kit.  £30 for blood to be taken.   Because why vaccinate to create an antibody when your dog already has them.  it's silly isn't it.  The problem we have is people honestly think we need a yearly vaccine and we do not.  They do not understand that if the vaccine has done what it should have done then your dog will NOT need another..  All your trying to doing its create anti bodies.  But dont take my word for it. Start following Dr Nick Thompson online and you will learn more about vaccines than I can teach you. 

You will find NO hip and elbow scores of our dogs on any open database.  

Why is this?  This is because during Covid the UK BVA vets were not scoring the elbows and hips.  The waiting list was getting to 24 weeks before they would give you a result.  The whole service became very disappointing.  Now this has changed and they are much faster.  But they are more expensive.  So we use the same scheme which is done in Australia.   But the UK kennel club wont post results online from Australia.  Even though they do recognise the scheme. It's all a bit silly because where ever you have them done countries should publish.

But it is the same scheme, scored in the same way by vets.  But it's cheaper for me to do and the turn around is 2 days and I have results.  

Will this affect the breed average score in the UK now? Yes it does because the majority of dog breeders have gone to Australia.  If they reduced their prices then people would come back.  Everything costs so much in dogs to have done breeders are not going to pay the prices.

So it's that simple we save where we can and our scores are done in Australia.  

One of the other reasons I left them is I emailed them once for them to reply to a question I had and they never even replied.  They should do, and it's a really bad service. How can we learn anything if they are not willing to consult back with their clients.  Where as you can ask a simple question in Australia and get a reply!!  Vets should not be untouchable and ignore the very business's who give them the trade in the first place.  With out dog breeders their would be NO vets. 

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Our Nancy was mated by Eddie and we are going to have her scanned soon.  I will update the website if she is pregnant.  These will be some special puppies for sure. 

​R x

D'Jango went to his first ever show at six months and qualified for Crufts 2026 how fabulous is that.  Well done my little jumping bean.  He is full of the joys of life. 
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I think it's fair to say over the last ten years we see more environmental allergies in dogs than ever before. Its about time their were some more science studies done on the reasons why this is happening.   Because its pedigree or cross breed and pretty much across all dogs as a species.

We are also lucky that my dogs have no allergies, and my owners dogs who have allergies are very few and far between.    Ive always thought its because we are as natural as possible and those who go down this route from the start and do not vaccinate and do not worm or flea treat are ahead of the game where allergies are concerned. But of course we can not control what people do. We can only give some suggestions.  Holistic vets are brilliant and. I advise speaking to one if you have concerns. 

So why are all breeds of dogs now having allergies?  I see it on Frenchie groups, natural groups, vaccine groups, all dog breeds and cross breeds. 

Could it be our atmosphere being more pollutant before?.
Could it be the over use of chemicals in our pets? ie flea and wormer products?
Could it be the food they are being fed is not as natural as it should be and containing drugs?
Could it be our homes and the products we use?
Could it be the over vaccination of our pets?
Is it because we have our pets in the house now where as in the 1960's dogs were outside dogs?

These are all questions being said online in various forums across the board in every breed of dog. 

Now sometimes pets get hives because they have been bitten by an insect. 
Sometimes its because they have come into contact with a plant thats touched the skin.
Sometimes it's because a dog has ingested a plant which is poisonous. 

The sad thing is we can sort out the later when its contact allergy, or food.  But it's very very difficult when environmental allergies. 

I speak to a lot of people across the board with dogs of all breeds and it's not just unique to the dog breeds I own.  It's pretty much everywhere.  Questions do need to be asked and a study does need to be done, and Im going to look up on a science website and start to finds some studies done in case ive missed any, then I can educate everyone here. 

Your veterinary surgeon maybe able to help but I would actually suggest going to a holistic vet first. Because they can really get results faster than. your conventional vet.  Conventional vets will put your dog straight onto steroids or apoquel. 

But what can you do for a dog to help them now?

Food - Finding what suits and what does not.  Avoiding foods which heat the skin and make them itchy.  Chicken is key, beef is another.  For some animals sadly they can even be allergic to most proteins.  Go for more unusual proteins and stick with one protein for 6 weeks to see if you can find it makes a difference.  Go to the Dogs butcher or Durham animal feeds for more unusual proteins.

Organic is better!  Sadly much more expensive but its true that animals grass fed then killed have less histamines in cells than animals fed corn than killed.  Apparently when the dog digests these cells come to light and cause the histamine response in a dog.  So it can be absolutely what they are eating, but what that animal ate before them.  Sadly a lot of animals are forced to grow to put into the food chain and again these chemicals, and antibiotics fed will have an effect on your dog.  
Organic is much better.  If you have tried for example one protein for 6 weeks and it has not worked, you could then try organic protein for 6 weeks and see if their is a difference. 

Then we have some animals which what ever you do no food works.  As much as I hate to say it try then two foods which can help some dogs.  One is made by Purina, it's a dried food and it's hydrolysed food. This means they do something to the protein to make the food.  It can work in some cases.  But the food is rubbish.   It's a last resort food. 

Dogs which have allergy to the outside environments and plants you can wash your pet down after walks.  Wear a T shirt vest to minimise allergies.  Wear boots on the feet to avoid allergens.   Or just wash down the whole dog every walk. 

House hold products, try to work out if you are cleaning with something thats causing the allergy. 

If all else fails then you can use Apoquel.  Apoquel is a drug thats my last resort ever to think about. It is necessary in some cases.  Or short courses of it and not over long use.  Some dogs can have a 6 weeks course then a break from it.   Your vet will have to either prescribe it for you or they will give you a prescription which is much cheaper then to buy online.  It costs approx £25 for a prescription and its for 3 months of drugs.  Then you can buy online the drugs at more than half the price your vet is selling them for.  I call this the last ditch attempt in helping your pet.  I would not just put a dog onto this stuff from all the side effects please read them before you accept it from your vet.

I feel this is a place I can teach those new comers to the breed Vizsla.  We are seeing big construction faults appearing in the breed, and these dogs are being bred from.  

The top line!  This is the back of the dog, and it should be straight.  We have the dogs withers which slopes to the top line and the top line is flat, straight with no bends in.  It is straight to the pin bones which is where suddenly it curves off to the tail. (Pin bones are the bones of the top of the hips). The curve is called the Croup.  The top line should be flat, and level.  So any variance in the topline is wrong which can cause poor health.  You do not want to see bends in the back, lumps, rises, arches, dips. 

Now what happens when there is a bend in the actual spine?  We see some dogs with slanting top lines, and some dogs have a break in the spine and it is a bulge.   I can not stress enough that you need to address this, because we see in other breeds IVDD, poor spine health which causes great pain to dogs.   Ive noticed on health forums IVDD being seen in some Vizsla and it's no wonder.   When we see dogs being bred from with incorrect spines.    It does not take much knowledge to know that the dogs spine is very important.  With poor spine you have PAIN.  Vet bills, high costs. 

If you own a dog with a broken top line or incorrect top line work to better the spine in your dogs.  It can be done over selective breeding.  Did you know it takes 3 generations to change a breed.  This term is often used when it's changing it for the worst.  But use this term to change it for the better. 


Just remember the body is a perfectly working machine.  I often think how the legs are connected to the skeleton and how everything moves in perfect motion. But when there are faults in the skeleton everything else does not work properly, and then the animal has pain, stiffness, or damage.  Which results in sadly vet bills. 

What do we feed our puppies?

As you may of gathered from pages with in our website we feed raw food for our puppies. But why is that you may ask? Is it raw meat, bone, and if you scroll down. you will see the wide range of nutrients our puppies are getting.  This is why they look so healthy. 

The simple fact is that if dogs eat a good fresh varied diet they will get all the nutrients they require and be much healthier than dogs which eat dried processed foods. Dogs also have better behaviour if they are fed the right diets..  Because they feel better.  They have better energy also.  

Dogs weaned onto raw foods from puppies are said to have less allergies in their lifetime.  

We have to remember we can not feed the same proteins all the time, and a dog does need variety.  I recommend anyone reads Dr Connor O Gradys book Feeding dogs and you can purchase this on Amazon.  Dr Karen Becker wrote a book called Forever dog which is also worth reading.  
Although she believes in fresh foods over artificially formed foods like Kibble. 

We always say the next best diet for your dog is home cooked foods and their are books written dedicated to recipes which gives your dog the best diet.  

​This is an example of the puppy food we give.  It's called Nutriment puppy food and it contains the following ingredients. 
90% fresh meat, offal and bone.
British Chicken with Bone, British Beef Heart, British Beef Green Tripe, British Beef Kidney, British Beef Liver, Fresh Carrots, Fresh Butternut Squash, Fresh Broccoli, Fresh Green Curly Kale, Scottish Cold Water Salmon Oil, Organic Virgin Coconut Oil, Raw Sea Kelp Powder (Laminaria japonica), Bilberry Powder (Vaccinium Mytilus), Spirulina Powder (Spirulina platensis), Whole Milled Sesame Seeds, Wheat Germ Oil (natural vitamin E)

This gives our babies a wide variety of food they need to live. Most importantly they get some Taurine, Cystine, Methionine which are amino acids which help to keep the body working properly including heart development.   

If I wanted to keep price down and buy some cheaper meats then I would be adding in daily other food groups to cover all bases.  Eggs, blue berries, heart meat, seeds, kelp, veg, milk, bone broth, etc. 

A healthy puppy will gain nearly 1 kilo at 8 weeks of age, in a week if fed the right foods. 

​Treats are also just as important because they are part of the diet, but it also gives good entertainment.  

​www.nutriment.co.uk