Sandra777

Does she know anything about managing a mating? Anyone with a bitch they value in any way is not going to allow her to run around the back lawn with the stud dog under the ''supervision'' of someone who knows nothing about the ins-and-outs of mating dogs. Has she got the facilities to look after bitches that visit, sometimes for up to a week if the owners get their dates very wrong

Job well done - hope you got a thank you :D

I know of a number of people which have in the stud contract that only those owned (not even part owned) by the breeder can be on main register, the rest must be limited register. In a way I can understand it as they are allowing YOU to use the stud dog, not every tom dick or harry you might choose to sell a pup to, but on the other side of the coin, if they don't trust you enough to do the right thing by the pups you breed (eg put pet pups on limited register) then why are they allowing you to use the dog at all. As a stud dog owner I have on occasions put conditions like this on some bitches but not usually - but hardly anyone ever wants to use my dogs so it doesn't happen too often As for insisting the pups are (partially) named after the sire - you have got to be kidding! No way, that's crazy stuff.

Brindle is a dominant pattern, so if a Poodle can carry brindle the American wouldn't have to. But how common is the brindle gene in Poodles? Same as the black and tan Rottweiler x Labradors I saw a while ago. The tan pattern gene does happen in Labs but it's extremely rare apparently. I'd put money on there being another breed responsible

Stop the pasta and rice, it won't help. Dogs eat because there's food so yes in a way they are food addicts. Depending on what size she is get her some carrots, and give her either a whole carrot of smaller pieces if she's a smaller dog. Carrot will keep her occupied for a while and satisfy her chewing instincts. Feed whatever she gets in as big a pieces as you can (eg give her a lump of fresh meat instead of the same amount of mince) which will do the same. Mine like whole apples, I think they believe they're edible tennis balls If she is really ravenous add some bran to her food - just the cheap baking bran is fine, but if you do this be prepared for elephant sized poops, it all just comes straight through :D

Holy crap - they're offering a cutting edge breeding tool and don't know the word is conformation and not confirmation?????????????????????

''just'' is a good thing. Chicken frames (carcasses) are excellant dog food - wish they'd sell them whole as cheaply as they sell them minced Please don't cook mince which has bone in it - REALLY BAD IDEA!!!! It's meant to be eaten raw, stop pandering to the dog and teach him to eat what he's given.

This depends very much on the bitch and how many pups she has - with a small bitch with a large litter you would be able to see movement much earlier than a large bitch with a small litter. 5-10 days is normal around here but I don't know about larger breeds Can be up to 5 or 6 days prior to whelping or not until after she has actually started. And it's not at all unusual for there to only be a small amount - new born pups need colostrum (it's not milk you're seeing) and the bitch only produces this in fairly small amounts. A bitch will whelp 63 days from ovulation, the date of mating is not really relevant it's the date she ovulated that you need to know to be 100% sure of when the ''magic'' 63 days is. Get a thermometer and keep track of her temperature OR pay the vet a lot of money for multiple blood tests, these are the only two really reliable ways for a novice to know when a maiden bitch will whelp. Easiest method is to just watch her and wait for things to start happening. If you have to know (work schedule for example) then take her temperature morning and night. No it is not a reliable indication. Nothing about the development of her breast tissue is a reliable indication of anything in a maiden bitch, ignore it. Probably best to leave well alone. If you want to sleep beside her for a couple of days after the birth, set up a camp bed in her room. Normal. Mine look at the whelping box and walk off looking offended, then about 12 hours prior to whelping they move in, have a sniff around and look very smug as if they invented the thing all by themselves Put her in the room where the whelping box is overnight every night from now on - and give her a blanket to sleep on and another blanket in the whelping box, so she has a choice. IMO he shouldn't be anywhere near the pups until they are at least 5 or 6 weeks old. Not because he is likely to kill them (dogs aren't nearly so likely to do this as cats for example) but because the bitch may well try to kill HIM. He doesn't know he's the father (and neither does the bitch) so don't bother with any nonsense about him seeing his cute little puppy-wuppies. If she decides she doesn't want him near the pups and goes for him it could get very nasty very quickly, so don't tempt fate. Whoops, well now you know better. Why didn't you get her injected to prevent the pregnancy, or better yet, spayed?

Desenitise them first. Before their meal time, get them one at a time somewhere they feel comfortable and where there is room for the dog to lie down and you sit on the ground/floor too. Have a pocketful of treats and a whatever you plan on using to trim their nails - clippers, dremel, whatever. It depends on what the dog reacts to. If the sight of the clippers upset it, Put the clippers/whatever on a table or chair about 2 or 3 feet away from you (depends on how far you can reach really!), make the dog lie down (or sit if they don't do down on command without stressing) beside you. Dog will have probably noticed clippers, so if it sits/lies without an argument, give a treat. Repeat until the dog is totally relaxed about you having the clippers in it's sight, then move them on to the ground, repeat until the dog is OK with that (Can take a number of days) If the dog is OK with the clippers being there but not with you holding them, put the clippers on the ground, move your hand towards the clippers, then straight back to the dog, treat dog, keep doing this until you can touch the clippers and the dog doesn't react. Build up to picking up the clippers while your hand is still 2-3 feet from the dog, then a bit closer, then closer again, etc etc etc. (Can take a number of days) If the dog is OK with you holding the clippers but just not with the clippers touching him, it's quite likely he's actually touchy about his feet being handled too - so don't worry about the clippers to start with and just get him used to you touching his feet - quick touch, treat, firmer touch, treat, pick up foot, treat, manipulate individual toes, treat etc etc etc. When the dog is OK with you doing that, have the clippers in one hand while touching his feet with the other, then bring the clippers towards the foot but don't touch, then just touch and remove immediately, then pretend to clip the nail so the noise is there but no sensation, then close the clippers on the nail but don't actually cut, etc etc etc. With big dogs and big toe nails I think you might find a dremel easier - but that needs the same sort of care to get them used to the noise and you have to be careful not to over grind in your enthusiasm to get the nails short.

I think a Pekingese would be suitable for this situation. They really don't want to go that far, have zero prey drive and can be encouraged to bark like crazy if a stranger turns up. I suspect that's not quite the look KC Blue is after though

yep, all pups were sold before they were a week old Well there's one more idiot out there than I thought there was. Bet the dog is bred from anyway. ;)

I notice you say ''is asking'' - has she SOLD the puppy for this price?

Up to the breeder and the buyer in the end - but being charged way over the top dollar for a specific colour which is neither rare nor special, when the pups are not show/obedience/trial/agility/working or breeding quality is a huge no-no to me. Charging more for pups from exceptional bloodlines (imported, multiple specialist winning dam, repeat of a hugely successful mating for example) would be OK in my book - you should pay extra for quality ;)

I wouldn't say completely abnormal if she is generally a bit of a spoilt darling perhaps ;) First heat some sulk terribly, second heat usually OK, third heat it is sometimes as if it's finally very real to them, their hormones are going full bore and the precious ones can sometimes get a bit prima-donna-ish. Very swollen vulva, unless you are meaning freakishly abnormal as if she's got an allergic reaction to something, is often a sign their fertile period is fast approaching and this is when any of mine that are going to act weird start doing so. Obviously monitor her, temp, colour, water intake, food etc but I wouldn't pamper or pander to her any more than usual.

A cooked turkey neck? Sorry should have been a bit clearer, the turkey neck isn't cooked. If I give him more raw than that even a full turkey neck he will bring it all up within a few min. Have tried building him up to more raw slowly over the years but it just didn't work. He is now 10 years old. Thanks for the clarification. A cooked turkey neck isn't something I'd want to see - they're bad enough raw

A cooked turkey neck?

thats what ive also done... bought regular mince when its cheap or marked down, use it straight away or freeze it if its about to go out of date. This is human-consumption mince? If so, it is pure meat, not the meat and bone mince Lenard's does. IMO - not the right food for a dog and certainly not a puppy, but it does depend on what you feed with it. Go in to the butcher and ask them what's in the mince. A local one here has a chicken shop as part of their business and their pet mince is minced frames or minced red meat from the butcher part - they bag them separately. I asked a few pointed questions about the amount of fat (not that I mind that - I prefer my dogs to have a good amount of fat) and if they chucked the left overs at the end of the day into it (rissoles etc). They said no, I said let me smell it, there was nothing but meat in there that I could detect (so maybe one or two rissoles but nothing I personally worried about). I got one bad batch from them just before Christmas, it had obviously been kept too long. I ditched it except for a small sample, and took it back after they reopened. Replaced it with nice fresh stuff and added a couple of bags of lovely meaty bones and a carton of chicken frames for nothing. Just go and ask them, they don't bite and if you buy your own meat at the same time they're usually even more helpful ETA: snap Diva!

Could possibly be the excitement of the vet trip upsetting his training but that wouldn't account for the blood in the poo. Is it possible he's eaten something he shouldn't have (stupid question, he's a Lab ) which might be causing him a little problem trying to pass it - plastic can have this effect. How long ago did you change his food (''a little while'') and did you do it gradually? Personally I've not had much problems with puppies and changing food from one good brand to another. I have had a serious vaccine reaction in one dog (the dog died) so always suspect vaccination for everything but it could well be a reaction to the vaccination. Problem with pups is if they are sick they can go down very very quickly. Can you monitor his temperature?

Shoulder injuries can be really difficult to solve. How long before you could realistically get him to a vet without making special trip? I would confine the pup and not allow any running, no more activity than is required for toileting. Keep him occupied by teaching him some tricks which don't require him to use his shoulder (eg not down or roll over). If he improves in 1-2 days of confinement then I'd be less concerned but continue the confinement, if he doesn't improve then I'd be having him to a vet. That said though, unless there's an actual break that needs pinning there's probably not a lot a vet can do except advise crate rest and provide anti inflamatories, so not going to a vet if you are absolutely sure there's no break isn't the end of the world in the short term. A crack in the shoulder blade would be virtually undetectable except by x-ray.

They're all black brindle. Some black brindles are blacker than others though Hope she's prepared for it to change colour - the black brindle ones often become surprisingly stripy as they age.

No - which is the problem. Accreditation is very wide spread through lots of things now that the ability/desire to think for yourself and figure out for yourself what is good and what is not is being hijacked. In fact the ability to use good common sense seems to have perished some time in the mid 1990's The Breeders do need to do something about something if they are going to have any chance of separating the flowers from the weeds. But that is up to the breeders. From what I have read of their comments/objections nothing offered or proposed has been good enough to suit them. What part of leading the way do you have a problem with? I don't think anyone here is saying they won't help out, get behind or support something which makes sense, but when the people who manage to get their way into positions which means they should be leading and supporting don't do it, then it's a bit hard to get behind them, or even to make sensible suggestions when the idiotic seems to gain more attention.

How much of the area where you trail ride would be land where dogs are not allowed would be another consideration. It would be a great thing to aim for with a truly fit, well constructed dog.

Actually I think the problem will lie with Joe Public who believe accredited = good and end up finding out this is not always automatically true. I see very bad things ahead for the dog world with the very organisations which should be leading the way in defending our hobby folding up at the first sign of an animal rights nutter.

OK So given that some of those already accredited are ''bad'' - if everyone who wishes to continue as CCCQ breeders can and does become accredited it will be a case of everyone being accredited regardless if they're good or bad. The acceptance that accreditation = good is simply bizarre to me, especially given the apparent emphasis on self-testing/self-grading which seems so common in many of these accreditation schemes. Must be a cultural thing

So what you are saying is accreditation achieves nothing because everyone who is in the ''business'', good or bad, eventually becomes accredited.