Great thread. As a 40 yr SFer, I have battled the 'best roses for colder climate' game for some time. I always thought the balling problem was from lighter colored roses, not from petal density but it makes sense I guess. What I see are roses whose petals are practically GLUED together once the nuclear winter of San Francisco (west side to boot) summer strikes. And not to throw a damper on the whole idea of petal count but in the old days of Sloat Garden Ctr when roses came in boxes, they always listed petal counts. I tended to favor the 20-30 counts but the downside is even if they open, they last only days before the wind and fog blow them apart. So it's like you can't win - get a 50 count rose and it won't open in July and August but looks great in May and Sept. or get a 22 count and watch it bloom and be gone within 2 days. Sloat has now cut back severely on their rose inventory but I noticed that they are now stocking more that say 'good in cold weather' and it is because of the fog presence (they told me). So far, I have had great luck with them even if they are 35-40 count roses.

I agree... ask your doctor. A lot depends on your age, gender (are you having heavy periods?) diet, just about anything you could name. this is not something that you want posters that don't know you guessing about.

Well, first of all, that platelet count is not that worrisome (or worriesome at all, actually). Most platelet counts result from a machine doing automated tests and do not alert a path review unless that platelet count is indeed what I would call low (less than 50,000)... or dangerously low (less than 25,000). I have even gotten platelet counts back at 15,000 with a comment about clumping platelets that did not warrant an alert. Platelets like to clump and that makes their numbers impossbile to count in automated systems. So those counts wouldn't even be worth mentioning normally and I would not lose sleep over them. You can always have a CBC with platelet count along with a specific path review done if you are still unconvinced. You certainly would not ever see symptoms of bleeding with platelet counts that high... even with counts as low as 20,000 the incidence of bleeding is probably rare, though it could occur more easily with trauma than it would with a normal count. Below that you would probably see problems. If his true count (non-automated) consistently registered below 50,000 to 75,000, then I would persue other diagnostics to see if there is some other disease causing a problem (poisoning, blood parasites, drug reaction, cancer etc.). Lower numbers would be more worrisome and associated with immune diseases, overwhelming infection, inflammation etc. But your dog's counts are no where near these levels. If you still want to follow up on your dog's lab work, an internal medicine specialist is where you would want to go (very commonly available around here, but rare in some areas of the country). Secondly, bladder infections are NOT common in laboradors (or any dogs for that matter at a young age, though they do occur). As a veterianrian for over 26 years now, I think I have seen 2 bladder infections in male lab puppies... one with a ton of bladder stones, too. Female puppies get bladder infections a lot more often (less distance to bladder from the outside world) but still, I would not say it is common, and certainly not more common in labs than other breeds. I asked the vets I worked with (I work at a large hospital in California) and few can think of any lab puppies they have seen with bladder infections (most had never seen a male lab puppy with a bladder infection). But it does happen sometimes (obviously). The diarrhea problems (not spelled diharrhea by the way) have many potential causes, but it sounds like you are on the right tract to having them worked out. They can be very frustrating as there are so many reasons for diarrhea and many require different treatments and not all treatments work. As they mature, most dogs eventually settle down and get over it as long as there is not some glaring problem that has been missed.

low platelets can be caused by an autoimmune disease among other things, so it's just a coincidence. occasionally blood clotting problems might be discovered after grooming when the owner or groomer notices bruising which is not caused by grooming but alerts the owner to a problem because it is abnormal. unless his platelets were tested just before, it's impossible to say if they suddenly dropped or if they were low for some time. what was the diagnosis the vet gave?