dancinbcs

It is all about breeding soundness of structure, good temperament for that breed and healthy dogs, while still adhering to the breed standard that describes how the dog should look. Done well it is a careful blend of art and science with the goal to deliver to future breeders, as good or better examples of the breed than you started with. Breeding good purebred dogs takes a lot of pedigree research to find out what faults and health issues as well a virtues the ancestors possessed, then combining suitable lines to hopefully strengthen the good points while eliminating the bad ones. Most health issues cannot be tested for and this is where research comes in. It also involves not breeding on from dogs that are not as good or better than their parents. One area that breeders sometimes confuse is "if some is good, more is better". This leads to extremes trends as has happened with the progressive flattening of the faces of the brachy breeds or excessive skin folds or coat in some breeds. They are examples of where moderation would have been better and if you read the breed standards a lot would be closer to those standards if they were not so extreme. So in "improving" the breed it is important to not change the essence of the original breed and the purpose it was bred for.

Ignoring white markings, dogs can only have two types of colour pigment - Eumelanin (black) and Phaeomelanin (yellow). With genetics lower case letters are recessive to upper case ones. A dog with one of each appears as the upper case one but "carries" the lower case one. So "BB" is black, "Bb" is black carrying brown, "bb" is brown, etc. All dogs have genes at in the series A (sable/tan point), B(black/brown), D (dilute), E(yellow), K(pattern)and M(merle. Plus some extras for masks, markings, etc. the interaction of all these genes determines what colour/pattern the dog is. Eumelanin - determines the base colour of the dog, so the nose, lips, eye rims and coat, unless a coat pattern is expressed in the coat. The basic eumelanin colour is black "BB", a mutation of black is brown "bb". The dilution gene "dd" turns black to blue and brown to fawn/lilac. If a dog is also "KK" it can only have a solid coat colour of Eumelanin with no yellow hair. The dominant merle gene "Mm" only affects the Eumelanin and only needs one copy to be expressed. So every merle must have one merle parent and two merles should never be bred together. If however the dog is "kk", it can have any of the coat patterns produced by Phaeomelanin (yellow hair), such as yellow coat "ee", tan point or sable. These patterns have lots of different names in different breeds but they are basically all the same and can have any of the 4 base colours for nose, etc. The recessive yellow "ee" overrides all coat colours and patterns so a dog can also be genetically, sable, tan point or merle, but will just look yellow. The dilution gene "dd" does not affect Phaeomelanin. The intensity of the yellow hair, from white through to chestnut is determined by modifying proteins and in the case of pure white breeds like Samoyed and JS, possibly by a chinchilla modifying gene that is yet to be identified.

Wei colour is dilute brown, called fawn in Kelpies and lilac in Border Collies. Dilute black is blue in most breeds but in some it is called slate. Dilute Border Collies do not suffer dilution alopecia, except occasionally on the ear tips as puppies, so are perfectly normal healthy dogs.

Where on earth did you get the idea that anything other than black was killed? There have always been coloured Borders and they are there in the pedigrees, often called different descriptive names, but clearly not black/white. A few breeders used to drown the ee reds at birth but not many. They used to be called sable and were just sold as pets but the colour can be traced in the Aust lines for about 80 years. The original Aust breed standard listed black/white, black/tan and black/white/tan because they were the colours of the dogs they had imported and it distinguished them from the Kelpie infusion. Over the years more colours were added as they turned up and even if they weren't shown they were still registered and bred as working or performance dogs. It was only the introduction of the stupid ANKC rule to only main register listed colours in all breeds that led problems registering Borders as their correct colour. All the overseas standards allow for all colours.

The cough disappeared after that one day - not sure about heartworm. Is there anything I can do to help her with the weeing? Feeding cooked barley with some of the water it is cooked in helps with bladder issues as does giving cranberry juice. I had a girl with bladder crystals and it was an ongoing problem for about 4 or 5 years before we finally got on top of it with Chinese Medicine, so this poor foster may have a problem that is not easily fixed.

Two other useful sites about colour are: Dog Coat Colour Genetics- for basics SINE Insertion - this one for a complex explanation of tan markings.

Lots of dogs travel a lot for shows with no issues at all but a breeder would want to know where you might be moving to overseas in the future. Nth America, Europe and a few other countries should all be fine but a lot of breeders would seriously object to many Asian countries where there are no dog welfare laws. There is also the issue of being able to find suitable accomodation with a dog overseas. Keep in mind that if you want to bring the dog back to Aust it may have to go through expensive quarantine and also consider how old the dog will be by then. As to breed size, too small will not be suitable to jog with and too big will cost a fortune in flights as well as needing bigger than average crates. I suggest you stick to the 8kg-20kg range of mid sized dogs. Long whispy coats or curly ones would need to be clipped for the lifestyle you describe but longish double coats would still be ok as a lot of dogs don't grow much coat when exercised a lot. Go to shows, look at the dogs and talk to the breeders, after they have been in the ring.

I didn't notice that you said canned food. I agree with Bisart Dobes that they need a lot more than canned stuff at 4 weeks. Either all raw as outlined or if you are going to be using dry dog food they should already be eating this soaked to soften it a little along with some raw mince, chicken necks/wings, etc to chew on. By 5 weeks they should be on 4 meals a day. Canned food is ok to add flavour to other food but it is basically a very expensive way to buy water. If the rest of the litter continue to well and the little one keeps dropping behind, I would pts as finding out exactly what is wrong can be very expensive and rarely is the outcome anything you can do anything about. Failure to thrive at this age is usually a sign that the puppy has some sort of serious congenital defect. Edited to add that those puppies look wormy. They should have already been wormed twice by now and the worming syrup, if you used that, will not be enough. Get some Drontal tablets and worm them to see if that improves them.

Don't forget to keep massaging the teats where the mastitis is. The antibiotics will stop it getting infected but won't break up the lumps.

What about a female Border Collie. Their weight range is usually 14kg-19kg, they have less coat than males, and cope better left on their own at home than males do. I normally would not suggest a Border for a new puppy owner but if you have an experienced friend to act as mentor and with the right contacts, there could be the perfect dog waiting for you. Temperaments and activity levels vary a lot even within the same litter so it is a matter of finding the right puppy, that suits you. You asked earlier about Terriers digging. The word Terrier comes from "terra" meaning earth, as in "what they dig in' to hunt their quarry. So yes Terriers dig. No matter what breed you get, remember that serious exercise cannot really start until after they are 12 months old.

Yes, Buscopan can help to reduce the pain as the uterus contracts and usually settles them down. They dig because it still feels like labour pains in badly affected bitches. Our vets are repro vets and recommend using it.

Puppies with heart defects tend to stop growing like that for days or even weeks at a time. The defect is often not detectable at that age.

In my experience dogs are happy to toilet in a garden area, especially under bushes but bitches always prefer grass, so good luck with that.

I would follow what the breeder tells you so long as it is working for their dogs. This is especially important with a large breed. If you want to go all raw, make it yourself but first buy the books "Give Your Dog a Bone" and Grow You Pups with Bones". So called BARF patties do not follow the original idea of a raw diet at all. If you need to add a grain, use a small amount of cooked barley to the vege mix. Most dogs digest it very well and it balances the "coldness" of a raw diet according the principals of Chinese Medicine.

With any Border Collies you should be DNA testing and giving a guarantee against CL, TNS and CEA. The only things you can give an absolute guarantee against are those that have DNA tests that make it possible.

If it doesn't need to be portable I would look at getting a heavy duty weldmesh solid crate. Ordinary crates are no challenge for a Bully to escape from if they want to. They can chew their way out even easier than they chew through chainwire.

Thanks, dancinbcs I'm going to make an appointment with my usual vet (who is lovely and treats me like an equal). She will be back next week. No I definitely won't be seeing the male vet again. She can refer me to a specialist if necessary. I should have mentioned that these things happen when the jaws grow at different rates, just like the front and back legs can. It have seen quite a few puppies around 4 months were the top jaw is suddenly longer than the bottom and then the bottom catches up a month or so later. With Base Narrow, the top jaw has widened first and the bottom jaw will then hopefully follow. Mouths are one thing that can be difficult to predict, are more of a problem in some breeds than others but any breed or crossbreed can be affected. It is pretty much impossible to guarantee that every puppy with a perfect bite at 8 weeks, will still have one as an adult and many a breeder has run on a show prospect for themselves, only to have the mouth go wrong.

I know of a breeder of another breed, who has just gone through this with two show puppies she kept. The mouths were normal at 8 weeks and when I saw them at 9 weeks the bottom canines were actually inside the top ones, rather than outside, and sticking into the top gum. I had never seen it before. After consulting several vets she decided to wait it out as the consensus was that it is growth stage and most dogs grow out of it and a couple of months later that is what has happened and they are fine. If you are really worried go and see a canine dental specialist for an opinion. Also find a less pushy vet. Ask the breeder fro recommended vets in your area.

While a lot of smaller dogs may have less than perfect hips, the lower weight means it often has little or no impact on their lives and this is why most breeders do not consider it a problem. If their small breed is active well into very old age with no sign of hip problems, then they are probably not going to be worried about hip scores. The heavier the dog, the greater faulty joints will affect movement and their quality of life and this is why so many bigger breeds have problems. Also dogs that vary greatly from "normal generic dog shape" tend to have abnormal joints. You cannot change a skeleton like in Pugs, Bulldog breeds and dwarf breeds and expect all the resulting dogs to have normal joints. One of the vets I use has also commented to me that the invention of commercial dog food marked the start of HD problems across all breeds. Something to think about.

As a general rule, once a dog decides it is going to kill another member of the pack it will not stop but that doesn't always mean that the dog cannot be rehomed as sometimes they are fine with other dogs. It often happens with entire bitches and where one decides they will not tolerate a particular bitch in the family pack but have been rehomed successfully. Definitely get a professional in to assess the dog and make a decision from there but I don't believe that keeping the dog is an option or you will end up with a disaster on your hands. It will be rehome or pts.

If you have a pet passport done, then there is NO quarantine to come into the UK Brits whinge no more then australians - going from what i have seen over the years on this board!! I would say aussies whinge about the weather more too! The UK doesn't have 30 day quarantine anymore, does it? Never did have, I think the poster was refering to the 30 days coming back to Aus. UK quarantine from Aust used to be 3 months before they had the pet passport scheme. While there are no guarantees with flying any animal most cope well and would rather be with their owners. A bitch I bred went to Newfoundland for a year with her owners who were posted there for work, then came back through the 30 day quarantine with no issues. The husband, who had initially not even wanted a dog, rang to ask me if I thought it would be ok for them to take her. They had family who could have minded her for the year but the couple who owned her were not prepared to live without her for that long and would have rather given up the wonderful work opportunities they had been offered. I advised them to go and take the dog with them and they all had a wonderful year with the dog sent home first and the owners travelling for the extra month before they came home and collected their dog.

Is there any way to allow her free access to both litters? I know of someone who did this with two BC litters born a week apart. The dam of the second litter was ill and had no milk so the first bitch had two litters in different whelping boxes in the same shed and she worked out how to feed and mother both litters by herself.

Basically all dogs should be under effective control on or off leash and you should be able to keep them from approaching any other dogs or humans without an invitation to do so. Off lead areas were designed to allow dogs to have much needed off lead exercise, so they could have a run, fetch a ball, etc. Somewhere along the line people started assuming that off lead meant a whole lot of dogs have a free for all and that was never the original intention at all. Before there were any specific off lead parks I used to let my trained dogs off lead in safe parks to have a sniff and a run, but recall them and put them back on lead as soon as any person or dog approached. Now they are only supposed to be off lead in designated off lead parks and I have no intention of letting my dog anywhere near off lead dogs I don't know.

Just carefully measure the car and see what fits where.

I would add that a guarantee of any type where a refund is offered should only be up to the purchase price of the puppy and should specify that you will not cover any vet fees incurred without your written approval. The puppy may have something your vet could treat for a couple of hundred dollars or have something fatal that no amount of money will fix but the buyer may opt for a specialist centre and run up thousands in testing and expect you to pay for it.