h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You'll never believe this. I just did you a long reply and lost it. I don't know what I touched. My hand went nowhere near a delete key. And can you believe there's not an undo option? How vexing! Ah well, here goes again.

The toothpaste isn't to improve their breath. It's to clean their teeth. It's a hell of a job. They don't much care for having bundles of bristles shoved into their mouths, so the toothpaste has to taste of something they want in their mouths.

It's worth keeping their choppers clean because if they get problems with them, it means a trip to the vet and an anaesthetic. Anaesthetics can kill dogs (and other animals), especially if they're old. My last dog died shortly after having a tooth removed. Granted he was 17 but he might have lived to 21 - I think he was that sort of dog. He never seemed to get his liveliness back after the op.

I don't clean my current dogs' teeth but they aren't allowed to have anything that might cause tooth decay - no sweets or sweet biscuits - and they get plenty of chewy and munchy food that helps keep their teeth clean.

The next time that happens, Salamander try a "ctrl Z". It works with me anyway!

I more or less do the same as you with regard to my dogs' teeth and my previous dog, which lived to 17 years old, never had any teeth problems. I'm sad to read about your loss though...

Thanks Gwennie. I'll try that next time everything disappears. And thanks for the sympathy about my Tom. I lost him about 4 years ago and still blub my eyes out about him and Karla (who died a couple of years earlier). I think my current dogs probably think I'm a nut, snivelling about they know not what.

I was having a chat with one of my cat mad chums earlier about fleas. It's getting colder here and I haven't turned my central heating on because I want to foil the fleas. The dogs are shivering and I'm wearing several layers of woollies. She said that her next door neighbour who has 2 dogs gives them garlic capsules and they have 2 beneficial effects. 1) It improves their digestion which makes their breath smell much sweeter and 2) fleas don't like garlic flavoured blood so they hop off in a huff.

I'm going to get my girlies some of those garlic capsules. My pal says her neighbour gives the dogs pepperoni (sp?) if she hasn't any capsules and that seems to work just as well. Pepperoni isn't veggie though, so I won't bother with that.

I know how you feel as I lost my cross standard poodle/border collie, Kim three years ago after 17½ years together. I still have Jess (6), Spike (3) and Kim (Mk.2 7 months).

I also share my home with 5 cats and for years have had problems with fleas after trying all sorts of herbal remedies, pills, sprays, and collars. As a last resort, I asked my vet who was an Aussie chap and he recommended a brand that isn't very environmentally friendly, but has done the trick. We've not had a flea in site for the best part of a year now...

I too lost a pet (12 year old cat) recently (December) and blub about him all the time. Guess that's the kind of girly I am.

Also, I have been recommended garlic (this time in powder form) to give my cats against fleas and ticks. A tiny amount mixed in their food, apparently, does the trick. But, and all cat owners will know this one, cats are experts at eating round the tiniest amount of anything they don't want. I have taken to holiding them in an approximation of a half-nelson and forcing the stuff down them. Then I feed them. (and if you're mean like me, you do this when they're really hungry). The garlic is better than a spray or fleacollar if you have small kids.... (who lick the cats, honest, to help them finish their bath so they can play. Yeuchhh!)

That settles it then. Garlic it is! Some of those flea preparations and flea collars use organophosphates - you know, the stuff farmers use to dip sheep. If the farmers get any on themselves it makes them very ill and depressed. Don't want my girls getting ill or depressed. I wonder how it makes the sheep feel.

How do all your dogs and cats get on with each other Gwennie? My brother has one dog and one cat. The cat absolutely despises the dog and gives him a dog's life. My brother says Smudge (cat) watches Ben (dog) through one eye from his vantage point on the sofa then slowly gets up, stretches in a leisurely fashion, jumps down, strolls over to Ben, gives him a biff on the nose then ambles back to his place on the sofa and goes back to sleep. Little devil.

I got one of those pages of jokes that go round and round a couple of months ago about dogs and cats. I expect if I got a copy you all got one too, but just in case you didn't, one of list of quotes was "Cats aren't clean, they're just covered with cat spit". How true. Your children sound like very helpful little souls Sho.

Oh my girls are helpful little souls!!! Eveline likes to pretend she's about to kiss someone, then she licks their face (she did this way before we got the cats). So now she sees licking the cat as an extension of this. Yuk.

I used to have a German Shepherd and an "indoor" rabbit. The rabbit was really mean to the dog, and the dog was pathetically scared of the rabbit, but fell for the same trick hundreds of times. The dog (Spot) always wanted to play. The rabbit (Squonk) would pretend to go along with it (running round the coffee table) for a while, then suddenly turn round and bite Spot right on the end of his nose so it bled. Every time. And Spot fell for it. Every time. Pathetic or what? (he was also scared of sheep)

About the garlic, unfortunately it gives them very unsavoury trumps, but I expect you can live with that. I didn't know about the organophosphates, and wonder how much more depressed farmers can get! (I recently read that they don't shoot themselves as often as in the past - one Yorkshire farmer was quoted as saying that it was because they couldn't afford the bullets!)

BTW: you have girls? Did you already enter your details on the world register of Vegetarians give birth to Girls???

Just a quick one to stop that little misunderstanding in its tracks: my girlies are doggy girlies. I decided a long time ago that the world would be better off without my progeny. I suspect if the world was aware of my decision, it would be very grateful - and so it should be.

You're right about dogs (most of them) they're wimps. Never met one that a cat couldn't sort out but I didn't know bunnies were also up to the job. That's one of the reasons I love 'em: very affectionate and mostly harmless.

That thing about vegetarians having mainly girls: I understood that it was only one little study and the evidence was far from conclusive. Also I was under the impression that younger mums tend to have a higher proportion of boys and older mums have more girls. My ma was 42 when she had me (accidentally). She had my brothers when she was younger (deliberately). It's what the statistics point to as well. Hmmm, interesting.

You're better off with dogs, they don't have the human child's ability to suck all your money out of the bank (and sanity out of your head) without even knowing what a bank is! A very girly skill, I might add!

It's all rubbish, btw, about who has girls & when. Overall it's about 52% boys (because, for some reason, nature decided that death in young males should be more common than death in young females). And sperm determine the sex. Typical men, just want to have it all their own way!!!

Let us know how you get on with the garlic, because I haven't tried it on my kittens yet, but soon they will be allowed outside.... to gather fleas and sheep ticks to their heart's content....

Yeah that was a consideration too. Dogs never say "NO!", they never drive you mad for a skiing holiday in Austria, a pair of new Nike trainers or a Pringle t-shirt and they don't run up huge telephone bills. In defence of human girlies though, I know more males with bad over-spending habits than females.

I heard 2% more boys were born than girls and that infant mortality was higher for boys but that was countered to some extent by the very much higher female infanticide. All puzzling stuff.

It's getting quite cold now. The end of the flea season should be just about here and my girls haven't been scratching or chewing at themselves so much. I bought some tea tree oil to apply to their itchy bits a week or so ago and that might also be working. This is really the wrong time of year to give any of the remedies a fair trial. I'll get some of those garlic capsules when I'm next in a chemist shop but I would guess the real test will come with the warmer weather. As soon as there's a sign, I'll let you know. By the way, I cut up garlic and put it in my plant pots last year because I heard greenfly dislike it. It seemed to help. And all the little bits (chopped up cloves) grew.

I put tea-tree oil on my girlies (the human ones) when they get bitten, or scratched etc. It is brilliant stuff. I bout a pot which is mixed wit Vaseline, even better (easier to put on)
I sprinkle it in my plants to keep insects (and Pesky & Minxy) away
And I have been known to put it in my incense burner when we're all starting a cold.
Brilliant!
Perhaps if you put it in your grils' bath (how often do you bathe them?) that would help against fleas too.

Tea tree oil's great. I had an ear infection for months and months. My doc kept giving me 5 day courses of antibiotics and succeeded only in getting the infection resistant to every antibiotic I took. He would never let me have more than a 5 day course or anything stronger. In the end I went to a herbalist who gave me a course of tea tree oil (in vegetable capsules to take orally) and the infection cleared up within a week. I haven't had the problem since. Magic stuff!

I don't bath my girls very often or regularly. It tends to wash the natural oils out of their coats which leaves them vulnerable to skin problems and penetration by rain in the winter. I bath them if they roll in something unsavoury, with eucalyptus flea repellent shampoo, but it doesn't seem to work very well at repelling fleas. I'll try a few drops of the tea tree oil in the bath next time they need a dip.

Hi ladies! Sorry about my absence...RL caught up with me!

My menagerie gets along fine and the dogs all know that the cats are boss! The felines get the best food, the best snoozing spots and are allowed upstairs on the beds where as the dogs...Well, they have the floor or their respective beds!

Oscar, my huge fluffy moggie who was a stray is the boss and he's a feline version of Victor Meldrew. He'll deliberately block a doorway, gateway, stairway; etc to make the dogs squeeze past him, where upon he'll take a swipe at them! He's harmless really, but very, very grumpy!

Cats on the BED??!! Not in my universe (although, since I'm actually allergic to them, it's not really that surprising). My girls go mad if the cats come in their bedrooms after they have gone to bed. During the day, of course, when they're playing, they push the cats around in their dolls' pushchairs! And the cats go along with it, which I find plain silly!
And as for the best food, they get Mr. Aldi's best like the rest of us