SoL

Choosing the dogs you socialise your pup with is as important as choosing to socialise your pup at all. As Sandra777 said, you need to select dogs that will play with her "Stafford-stylie" or at least not be offended by her style of play. Or, you need the calmer type of dog that will not get razzed up or riled when confronted with a Stafford in full on play mode. She is at the age where she will start pushing the boundaries as to what she can get away with and any correction done at this time needs to be done correctly and consistently for it to be effective (probably not going to happen straight away if she has 'tude!). If you're not sure then I would definitely suggest getting a professional in to take you through some steps on how best to achieve this. This is completely do-able so don't lose heart!

It's usually on tuesday nights, just turn up. They're pretty good - it's rain, hail or shine

Delete post pls

You are asking for trouble feeding the dogs together. You need to feed them in separate runs with the doors closed. You need to put them in their separate runs when you go out. Just imagine if this fight had kicked off and you weren't there (BTW as you have learnt, not much will stop a fight once it has started other than getting in there and separating them yourself or using a break stick, shouting just gets them more whipped up and hosing doesn't touch them). Unfortunately bitches aren't called bitches for no reason and chances are they will bear a grudge now against each other. You will need to have rotational play. It sounds like the younger could be staking a claim for alpha. Is one bitch due on heat soon? They, like us, get hormonal, but the main contributing factor that I can see is food. Dog aggression does NOT mean a dog will be aggressive towards humans. However, I would put them all through some discipline/obedience training and up the ante on their exercise. I know that if I haven't run my dogs for a day they all get a bit snappy with each other. After I run them ragged they're content to be together. If you want to try a behavouralist then great but to be honest I think you will be having rotational play and isolated feeds from now on.

I don't care how it works. All I know is that my 11yo boy Chester has bad arthritis in his neck, to the point that he couldn't put his head down to eat and it hurt him to get up, get down and even bark. He has been on rosehip every day for the past 6 months and the difference is brilliant - he's like a pup again trying to keep up with the girls. I'm not saying that it's a cure but it's definitely eased his pain and I highly recommend it.

I get mine from an ag supply store.

Chester had this too but his was the dry food was compacting in his stomach. It could be that your boy is scarfing his food down.

A lot of my friends recommend the Biolac coat improver. I haven't tried it - with whities anything with iron/kelp added tends to bring out the ticking.

Rufus & Cocoa - small packets, BIG prices, waste of money. I found out the hard way too :)

Well, haven't we had a trying time of it!! At about the 5wk mark, I came in to find blood over Sunny's run. It seemed she had aborted the litter An u/s showed at least 2 viable pups in there and her prog level was good so we took her home for some TLC. She continued to grow :) and grow and grow ... I think there's more than 2 in there ;) We are due next Tuesday, I think she may go a little early. Anyone for a game of guessing blind how many's in there?

It depends for me ... For me, I don't like to meddle too much and I think that nature tends to be the biggest indicator of when a girl is ready to stand ie the flagging, standing and also the interest of the boy. The fact that she has stood and tied with a male suggests to me that she was at the right time to do so and in that circumstance, prog testing after the fact would be a waste of money. BUT If she stood at a time wayyyyy off her normal cycle then I would prog test OR if I saw evidence to point to an abortion/absorption I would ultrasound to see if there were any viable pups and then prog test to see the levels as she may need prog injections to help contain and grow the litter to full term if the level is low.

OK. Fingers are crossed that we are due 2 October :) She's not showing too much yet, though she seems more wombatty in shape and she's still quite swollen. She's always amazingly sooky so we can't got by that either.

which ones?

I feel your pain - my girl currently has 3 on her head Shaving, betadine (or salt water), Desitin nappy cream (has 40% zinc oxide in it) to dry and heal it, at worst antibiotics. Keep it clean and dry and when you're cleaning it out, make sure you scrub it back to pink skin. Also up the intake of Omegas with oily fish, I also supp with Rosehips (extremely high in Vit C - good for immune system (and also arthritis)). Then keep your fingers crossed that they go away by the next show date