dancinbcs

If she was a Border Collie I would say she will be back in season at the most inconvenient time for you. They have it down to a fine art. Honestly some bitches are regular as clockwork ranging from 4 to about 10 months and others just the opposite.

Those are perfectly acceptable hip scores and 1:1 elbows are considered ok by many breeders so long as they go to 0:0. My personal preference is for 0:0 elbows but I have a breed that seems much more prone to elbow problems than hips. 0:0 hips to 6:2 is not any sort of risky breeding so it seems that you have just been extremely unlucky with your boy. Sadly it can happen in any breed of dog but especially the large ones. Elbow scores are only graded 1 to 3 for each elbow and it is not advisable to breed with anything with a 2 or 3 on an elbow. Hips are graded from 0 to 53 for each hip so even a score or 6 is considered to be quite low.

What hip scores did his parents have? Of course you can be unlucky and get bad hips from parents with good hips but to get them that bad is unusual. The elbow hygromas are also a very odd thing for a puppy to have and are usually caused by a very heavy dog lying on hard surfaces. I think I would be getting further x-rays of his other joints done before committing to the hip surgery in case he has other joint problems all over.

I could see you in a Caddy Maxi Anne! False floor/drawer for the gear and the greys on top. FHRP made a good point about vans to me a while back - avoid side windows - they add a lot of heat to the vehicle in Summer. I know a trainer with a van without side windows and I've seen him leave dogs inside for quite a while. I was always worried about the heat which is why I was leaning towards a ute where you can open the windows, but maybe a van without windows would be cooler? Vans are great for sign writing too :) I loved the lack of windows in the cargo van I had. It had a window behind the passenger seat in the sliding door, which made for better visibility but the lack of other windows made it much cooler inside. I had a false floor with with 2 dogs crates above it behind the drivers seat and a larger gated area in the back so I could leave the tailgate up.

So long as one parent is normal/clear for TNS the puppies cannot be affected, even if the other parent is a carrier. The same applies to CL, which is also fatal and the eye condition CEA. All Breeders of Border Collies must know the DNA status of their breeding stock to make sure that 2 carriers of any of these three conditions are not bred together. Reputable breeders also hip and elbow score the parents. So this is the minimum testing that should be done.

I don't like utes because the dogs don't get any air con in hot weather and I will not travel a dog without it. Also a canopy provides very little protection if you roll the car unless you add really heavy roll bars. I used to have a Holden cargo van when I had 4 dogs and it was wonderful. If I could afford one, my pick of current vans would be a Hyundai IMax Turbo Diesel or a Kia Grande Carnival. I know people who are very happy with both of these fitted out as dog cars. If Holden or Ford made an equivalent that would be better but they don't.

Another great one on puppy development and training is "The Art Of Raising A Puppy" by the monks of New Skete.

100% effective, Tick, Flea and Snake repellants that aren't toxic to dogs. More research into cancers and autoimmune disorders and what in our modern world causes them.

This is the problem with BYBs. They don't bother to find out what is safe to breed and what isn't. The puppy in that thread should never have been born if the BYB had bothered to do just a little research on the the breed and not mated those two parents together. Some hereditary defects don't show up until a year or 2 or even more so putting puppies down at birth isn't an option. Accidental litters are a different matter and happen far too often but occasionally even knowlegable breeders get caught out if they have more than one breed. If the bitch was destined to be desexed, it should be done as soon as the season is finished or in a breedign bitch the litter can be aborted. If too late to abort and the litter is of a mix that will easily home they should be raised with the same care a purebred litter and sold. If they are a mix that they are unlikely to find good homes for or if an ubknown dog jumps the fence a lot of breeders will abort the litter if possible or put down all but 2 or 3 at birth so they only have a few to home. If BYBs could not sell their puppies and had to hold them while they were pts, rather than dunp them at a shelter, then they wouldn't breed another litter.

I have never had puppies wake early, litters or individual puppies. I give the last full feed 1 hour be I go to bed to give them time to toilet and play before bed than they sleep through the night with a full belly, not needign to poop until 9 hours after the meal. If they need to go out to pee, I don't turn any lights on but use a torch, praise when they toilet them put them straight back to bed. The biggest mistakes most people make is feeding them the last meal too early at night and playing with them or feeding them if they wake early. If you feed or play with the puppy as soon as it wakes you are in fact training it to wake earlier and earlier. Having two puppies together can be an issue because they have someone to play with when they wake. Completely separating them at night in different parts of the house is better for their development anyway and should help with the early rising as well. If you raise two puppies together they need to be separated a lot more than you would with a puppy and an older dog.

Kennel cough tends to be a more gagging cough as if something is stuck in the throat. Any other cough needs investigating as it can indicate congestive heart failure or is often the only sign of lung cancer.

Drontal is a far better intestinal wormer than any of the wormers in the combined drugs so if she has worms, stick to the Drontal tablets for now until you fix the worm problem.

Most dogs never need a vet to clean their teeth. None of my dogs have ever needed one. If they get bones the teeth stay fairly clean and any extra marks can be cleaned by the owner by brushing the teeth with special doggy toothpaste or using a tooth scaler. Older dogs who have been fed mush and not had their teeth cared for may need a vet dental but it is certainly not a routine part of dog care and shouldn't need to be done often unless the dog has really bad teeth. Some dogs have much better teeth than others and it is due to genetics as well as diet. Cost to have dental done on a small dog could be anything from $150 for a basic clean to several hundred if teeth need to be extracted. Again, none of my dogs have ever needed a tooth extracted.

Can I not use advantix at all on the dog if I have a cat? Ok will have a look at frontline + I would think it is only an issue if the dog and cat have contact eg. curl up together. If they ignore each other then I can't see how the cat would ingest any and come to any harm.

I remember the Akita case as well. From memory, I think they found the breeder dead in yard with one bite to the back of the knee where it had punctured an artery and they bled out. Two of their bitches, one of whom had a litter, had minor fight wounds. There were no other bites on the owner so the dogs clearly didn't attack but they were unlucky enough to get a bite in the middle of a squabble that proved fatal. Many have been bitten trying to stop a fight before it really starts trying to grab a dog before it makes contact with another, and that is with small/medium dogs. To try it with large powerful dogs, especially when you are on your own is extremely dangerous but it is your first instinct when you see trouble brewing. If there are more than 2 dogs it is even more dangerous.

A fairly new one that teaches tricks, step by step is "Wonderdogs - Tricks and Training" by Katrina Warren and Kelly Gill.

The garage will provide a lot more protection from the elements than a smaller kennel, especially as the weather gets warmer. Ideally a run off the garage with a concrete strip around the bottom to deter digging and a full wire roof should keep her in. Keeping a Shiba in is a bit like keeping a cat in. Good luck with your new baby.

Yes, it may also have had no boundaries and no respect for the owner but they couldn't see it. Whatever happened though, a dog with really strong jaws is always going to do a lot more damage than other breeds when things go wrong. The owner was lucky he wasn't killed.

Having been attacked by one of my own dogs who had brain damage from a previous unknown bout of Meningitis, I know that sudden reaction and glazed look in the eyes. I was just so thankful my dog wasn't bigger than he was and I was strong enough to hold his jaws, so he only got two bites in, unfortunately on my face. It was as if my dog had gone into a trance and when he came out of it, thankfully after a few minutes, seemed puzzled about why I was bleeding everywhere. He was very quiet and subdued after the attack. In hindsight he had been displaying some weird behaviour for some time but it never added up to enough to ring alarm bells. I had him pts a couple of days later because I was convinced he was in pain and made sure I got a full autopsy done to confirm the cause of this disaster. Ther fluid pressure inside his head was enormous and it was compressing his brain out towards his skull so he must have been in a lot of pain but showed only subtle signs that we missed. I also know of 2 dogs who at different times (about 6 months apart) suddenly went into a frenzied attacks on other dogs they lived with. Both had brain damage from fungus they had inhaled from somewhere on the property they were living on at the time. The owner had autopsies done on both and the result was the same. She moved from there and luckily none of her others were affected. Dogs can suffer all manner of brain problems including tumours, just like humans, but dogs can't tell you they have splitting headaches or are confused. Yet so few owners bother with an autopsy to see what happened. I have no idea how they get over it without an answer to why it happened.

It is an old wives tale about not bathing after a mating but maybe stems from the days of submerging the dog in water which is really not done any more. Lots of bitches get mated, bathed and taken to a show within a day or so. I wouldn't be worming a recently mated bitch. It should be done before but with the monthly heartworm/intestinal wormers, sometimes you need to dose them earlier than the usual 6 weeks into the pregnancy, depending on the heartworm risk.

x 2 Also "Think Dog" by John Fisher is a great book that looks at how dogs think. For anyone who breeds, shows, judges, works their dogs or competes in any form of performance events, a must have is "Structure In Action" by Pat Hastings. "Dog Steps" by Rachel Page-Elliot is another excellent book on dog structure and movement.

Very good post. BlackJaq, please make sure you talk to her breeder before you make a final decision to desex her. The breeder may have been counting on her having a litter to breed back to at some time and there is nothing worse than selling a really good breeding bitch and then finding out it has been desexed before you have a chance to discuss plans with the owner. Remember a desexed bitch contributes nothing to the future of the breed. If the breeder wasn't figuring on her her being in their future plans then go ahead and have her desexed. To answer your other question - large breed bitches are usually bred between 2 and 3 years for the first time. Bitches lose fertility with every season so it is best to not leave it too late.

Ms Dani's dog is 13 years old, going blind and deaf with arthritis as well, so hardly a candidate for spinal surgery. In a younger, otherwise healthy dog it would be appropriate but not for a dog this old. I'm sorry you are going through this MsDani but sometimes we have to face the fact with oldies that their body is just wearing out.

No, but the OP was talking about culling merle's not the other colours in a litter. The numbers are declining thou. Actually this whole thread is confusing. While I don't object to breeders culling puppies that are unlikely to sell, what I don't understand is why you would breed with a merle then cull the merle offspring. Merle is dominant so one parent has to be merle for any of the puppies to be that colour. Surely in this case, simply not breeding from merles at all would solve the problem. In Australia we can no longer breed from Merles, it has been like this for maybe 4 years now. All Harlequin puppies will have a patch of merle on them somewhere. But Harlequins are geneticlly merle with modifiers, so breeding them has to produce some merles. Correct, so Harl x Harl is still going to produce some merle puppies. But you only need one merle gene to get a merle. Breeding Harl x Harl would result in some double merles with all the associated problems so hopefully that is not allowed.

No, but the OP was talking about culling merle's not the other colours in a litter. The numbers are declining thou. Actually this whole thread is confusing. While I don't object to breeders culling puppies that are unlikely to sell, what I don't understand is why you would breed with a merle then cull the merle offspring. Merle is dominant so one parent has to be merle for any of the puppies to be that colour. Surely in this case, simply not breeding from merles at all would solve the problem. In Australia we can no longer breed from Merles, it has been like this for maybe 4 years now. All Harlequin puppies will have a patch of merle on them somewhere. But Harlequins are geneticlly merle with modifiers, so breeding them has to produce some merles.