Janba

I hadn't really thought about the smell - its a bit like owning a billy goat. I do find foxes fascinating animals and great adapters and survivers just not in this country. .

This is ridiculous especially for back dew claws which aren't even properly attached and do cause problems with being injured later in life. I have never seen pup react badly to removing of dew claws. I do believe in leaving front dew claws for working and active dogs as they do use them for turning etc

I remember learning about these foxes when I was studying genetics I don't want to admit how many years ago from the point of view of selective breeding. At that stage they were still being bred for fur not the pet market. It does give an insight into the domestication process.

I know what you mean about really liking your dog. Cole is almost 4 and while I have always loved him and enjoyed training him in the last few months he has really matured and his work is showing it. It also helps thgat I have learnt to shut up and trust him when we are doing things like obstacles because he will put the sheep through obstacles and pen them by himself with very little help from me. It also helps when people like Ann and Colin say he doesn't grip or bite sheep despite the rumours that go round though he can body slam with the best and he to my knowledge he has never pulled wool. Even Colin said that every time I bring the dog out lately he has just gotten better and that we are now really working as a team. Last weekend we did a yard trial, short course and 3 sheep trial. The yard trial was fun as I've never trained it and only had 1 attempt before 3 years ago. He did a lovely job despite my fumbling with gates and having problems working out the draft and scored 80 in the encourage which I though wasn't bad for a dog who definitely isn't a yard dog - we pushed them up the race from the outside as I knew I couldn't have put him in the yard with the sheep to hold them of the gate to the race - it was too small and he has too much prescence on sheep. In the short course and 3 sheep we had young unworked sheep and nobody finished the short course. He was one of the first dogs and did the first obstacle well and no problem getting them through a metre wide race standing 2 metres off the fenceline then fell to pieces at the third a small with a race on the end. He wasn't that from placing in Open. The 3 sheep we had to enter novice to trial on the light sheep as I wanted to see how he would go. Did a very good cast and lift but one sheep took off in the delivery back to the release area and I asked him to "look back" to collect it which we have only started training and he crossed so was diqualified. On hind site I should have sent him to the side and hoped the run away sheep would have come back to the other. He did the collect them and put them away easily. Only 2 people got scores in novice and in 3 sheep you don't have to comlete the course to score. What was really nice was that he read his sheep and worked the edge of the bubble instinctively. So we are off to Wattle flat in January for another unofficial 3 sheep then hopefully some proper 3 sheep trials. ETA He still isn't softening enough atthe top f the cast and is reluctant to stop ther but at least now he is very deep at the top and walks up on his sheep. Did I sy I love working this dog

Isn't this one of the reasons behind a lot of these rules - to get back to dogs being free whelping as they should be able to do. Birth weight or size is inherited and by continuing to breed from large birthweight pups the problem perpetuates itself.

Smiling from what I have been told is a recessive gene so if the dog hasn't inherited the genes you can't teach that grin. My last dally was a big smiler and would smile on command but my present dally doesn't smile but does woo woo on command Google dalmatian smiles - they are the best smilers. ETA the dallies that I have owned that have smiled have started doing it quite young.

The regulation of the number of litters a bitch has is the same throughout the breeds but regulating the number of times a stud dog is used with out having a predominant sire effect or being potentially detrimental to the size of the gene pool is a lot harder. In the case of a GSD who sires 25 litters a year (say 125 pups) or 3% of the GSD pups registered in 2009 is going to have less of an impact than a dog siring 1 litter of 5 pups or over 10% of the pups registered in 2009 Tervueren Vallhund or 1 litter and 25% of the briards born that year etc. While I realise 25 litters may seem a lot in a year it does happen with some new imports. The other problem with regulating the number of times a stud dog can be used is that in the numerically larger brreds it can lead to dogs of lesser quality being used. When I first started in pure bred dogs (in the 70s) there where large scale breders who bred a lot of litters to get there next show dogs and produced as a result a large number of healthy pets. The dogs were well looked and loved. One of these breeders was one of my mentors and still breeds albeit on a smaller scale. Nowadays these breeders would be labled as puppy farmers but they weren't they were reputable respected breeders. With only about 12% of the dogs in Auustralia being ANKC reistered and that number is slowly falling if registered breeders don't breed more litters the future of registered dogs is black. Regulating the number of litters a breeder can breed in a year isn't the answer. I don't know what the answer is. Maybe as well as ensuring that all breeding dogs a kept in a MINIMUM standard of accomodation, excersise, socialisation etc but not regulating to the point where a litter raised in the family home is breaching regulations. I also would like to think that the mandatory recording of DNA test, hips scores etc on pedigreesv or an up to date health certificate for things like heart disease in breeds prone to those conditions was implemented as it has now been for BCs as of 1/1/11 but I am also worried about where else that information may end up.

NSW you can change the dogs registered name up to 3 months old with breeder approval and they do charge an additional fee.

Undesexed male dogs don't neccessarily hump, escape to find bitches etc etc, it depends on the dog and how you have trained and reared him. They will mark their territory as will desexed males but an entire male's urine smells a lot worse. Hormones do play a part in normal growth and early desexing can lead to things like elongation of the long bones in the legs ect. He will be mature at 12-18 months when he finishes growing - an ACD person will know better than me on the time frame.

There is an Australian website and they are listed in Sway's prefix search. It is spely Regalborne.

Cole Get a reliable stop at the top of the cast. Finish his HXBs title Get the last 3 passes, HIT and 1st place in A course for his herding championship. Get the passes etc for his VHCH. Moss Start trialling tracking with him Have a go at dances with dogs Mishka I think she is basically retired now as I haven't done anything with her for the lawt 2 years.

When I was breeding I taped a small coin over the hernia when it was first noticeable and you could reduce it. This seemed to work in very young pups but don't know how it would go in an 8 week old pup. Otherwise as Rappie (who as a vet I would listen too) says repair when the pup is desexed.

Mishka says she doesn't mind if Dylan doesn't share her birthday but has Valentines Day. Actually she said woo woo but I got the meaning :D

Must be a dally thing. My Mishka can do farts that sound like fire crackers but no smell. Mishka was born on the Ides of March - 15th. That is 8 months ago so maybe a good birthday. I am glad he is staying. ETA You could use Valentines Day as his birthday.

I am so sorry for your loss - it is mnever easy. I went through something similar with one of my dallies(my heart dog) a few years ago. Diagnosed with lymphatic cancer on fIRIDAY - pts on Sunday morning. While it ripped me tp pieces at the time in hindsight I am very glad she didn't suffer fo weeks and months while I kept her alive for jusst one more day.' These things are never easy but never doubt you did the right thing for Sophie and she will be waiting at the Brdige for you.

Compounding the problem is apparently there's a 'code of silence' i.e. a “shoot, shovel and shut-up attitude”: Interestingly, the key isn't to PTS the carriers. Apparently the solution is to develop a DNA test so that carriers could be desexed and still used as working dogs and non-carriers of a litter could be bred and the positive traits of those lines passed on. What I find puzzling is that the Wilton lab has been able to develop tests for at least two different fatal diseases in Border collies. The Working Kelpie Council approached the lab to help them develop a DNA test for CA in Kelpies so that they could detect the carriers and avoid matings that would produce animals with ataxia, and eventually allow them to eliminate the problem from the breed altogether but this was way back in 2007. Reading the literature, the Wilton lab seemed to think that because they had already done so much of the hard work with the Border Collies, it shouldn't take them so long to find a DNA test for Kelpies - one item even said maybe just six months. We're nearing the end of 2010 and from what I can see, there isn't a DNA test for ataxia in Kelpies yet - or is there? There isn't a test yet as far as I know. You can safely breed carriers to clear but should test the pups you intend to breed from before you breed to determine iff they are clear or carriers. For pets carriers aren't a problem as tey will never develop the disease. If you cull the carriers you stand the risk of limiting the size of the gene pool and then there are chances of other genetic problems becoming prevelent. My tri BC is a result of a CEA clear mating to a CEA carrier and the black and white boy in my avatar I am sure had a litter sister who had TNS (pre DNA testing for it) but he isn't affected and will never be bred from so it doesn't matter if he tested a carrier. I have a lovely true story somewhere on the computer of the memories of a working kelpie perosn whose dog was affected. I will try to find it.

Don't give up on his ears just yet. This is a picture of Cole at about 8 months and as an adult both ears are erect.

http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/i...l-victoria-1919 It is worth doing a search through their archives for historical sheepdog trials etc.

What the ANKC calls red and tan and chocolate are genetically the same colour. I asssume the red is also genetically bb as it is not ee red as they can express tan points. Fawn seems to be the dilute gene acting on the bb genotype giving bb dd. Genetically there appears to be no difference between red and tan just differences in the phenotype giving the different shades. Whether or not the ANKC standard accepts ee reds as allowable in the kelpie standard they do exist, at least in the working kelpies and the ee had to come from somewhere.

I have 3 dogs all about the same size and all fed the same, 2 of them including a 9 year old have really good teeth and the 3rd has a lot of tartar build up. I don't know that I would vaccinate against it but he will need a clean and scale soon. He doesn't have worse than usual dog breath.

I did some searching on her through old newspapers last night and she is listed in trial results as a kelpie/BC cross. You can't tell much from that photo of her. Its seems she and others like her are the basis for ee red in BCs but it still doesn't answer where it came from in kelpies.

Any photos of this lemon border collie? Lemon is just a vey pale red like the pale golden retrievers - the same genes control it.

:D Lucky red and tan is an extremely common colour among the working lines so I wasn't looked upon too frownfully ... I have often wondered where the ee red (cream in kelpies) in kelpies and border collies comes from. It is almost unknown (maybe non existent) in the British working dogs our working dogs were bred from but not that uncommon in the Aus working dogs.

You can give up herding for other dog activities I have to when I am an instructor These days I'm lucky - the only place I instruct now is at herding training.

You can give up herding for other dog activities :D