Diva

That's a scary thing to happen p-m, could so easily have ended in tragedy. I don't know about Oberon but I am sure my 'zoi have no traffic sense. My gates are padlocked, and I have a double gate system so someone has to open 2 gates, and leave one open behind them, before there is any chance of the dogs escaping.

Fresh meat is high in moisture. As a mostly raw feeder that isn't a downside for me, it's good for the dogs. It is also the reason why some people's concern that fresh meat is too high in protein is incorrect.But it does mean that when a kibble lists a meat source, say chicken, as a first ingredient then lists several grains, you are in reality mostly buying grain. Because at dry weight the meat would then be well down the list. So in that sense a meat meal, say 'chicken meal' as first ingredient means you are getting more meat in the kibble. The quality of the meat meal is something else again, and you'd always want the species of meat animal listed, not just generic 'meat meal'. Of course you also have to watch for the splitting up of grains - for example listing white rice, brown rice and rice bran each separately lowers them down the ingedient list, and makes meat seem like a more significant ingredient then it may well be. That seems to happen a lot. Personally, even though I mostly feed raw, I don't get evangalical about dog food any more than I do about people's own diets. I just do my research and feed what works best for me and mine.

Thanks Sway. I hope the weather wasn't to bad today for everyone, when we left yesterday it looked like it was building up.

I love the name of the place - very lyrical place names in Tas.

I've noticed when stewarding that a good 75% around here are choosing the change of postion. I enjoy having one less jump to set, lol.

I was just thinking what a small world it was - I have a close friend who now lives in Allen's Rivulet, and it's one of the few places in Tas I've visited - and then I saw your post too Cairo. Not a big place to have so many connections

I'm not at all sure that's true, at least as far as growth plate closure goes. Do you have a reference?

The GSD 'teabag' made me laugh. One of mine gets her tail trodden on from time to time when she is going down steps and it draps across the two steps behind her. It's a long tail with lots of long fringy coat. The first time I accidently stepped on it she shot forward in shock down the stairs, which just made things worse. Luckily she forgives me - oops just saw Pers said they don't forgive....

CW EW I very much doubt the age you get her desexed now is going to affect Emmy at all, she is already past the very early desexing ages and the kind of breeds that I'd be concerned about doing before a season would be four times Emmy's size at maturity. Just have fun!

That is true of course and the reason I'd never bag early desexing. I do still think it's better to leave the very large breeds a bit later if it's safe to do so and especially if it's a sport dog. Not always possible for other reasons and that's fair enough. But it would take a lot of very compelling reasons for me to desex at an early age a bitch of my very tall, disproportionately predisposed to osteosarcoma, breed

Well my large/tall breed typically doesn't come into a first season until 12 months anyway. They can come in earlier of course but of the 2 I have now one was 13 months for her first season and the second was 22 months for her first. The 22 months while at the extreme of the nomal range is still not that unusual for the breed. As a rule of thumb I'd leave desexing to 18 months for a very large breed bitch I intended to train for sport, if it's safe to do so (safe in terms of no unplanned matings), but it does depend a bit on the individual. I also figure Chrisitine Zink knows her stuff.

Oh I'll love being there to see that. I am a Lochie fan. He almost makes me want an Affie

I had a dog paralyse himself from the neck down with a compression injury to his neck rec'd running full pelt into a closed weldmesh gate that he expected to be open. He had to be stretchered away by the vet but recovered after some days. Of course your dog's injuries may not be from running at all, but if they do zoom into things they can do themselves a lot of damge.

Ditto to this. If you don't know where to find a specialist orthopaedic vet /small animal surgeon ring a few of the local vet surgeries and ask, or just look in the yellow pages under the vet listings - specialists usually list their specialties in their listing - or even try googling 'specialist vet Brisbane' (if that is where you are). Or you could just tell your own vet you'd like to see a specialist at this point for a second opinion and get a referral, she can't really say no. But above all do try to calm down, it's awful Bindie has to go through this but she needs you to stay calm so you can make good decisions on her behalf.

This sounds lots of alarm bells for me too. Sounds like he wants to use the papers somehow.

I have only ever formally trained two breds in obedience exercises, but a couple of dogs in each breed. Consistently I have found individuals from the herding breed to be more sensitive to hand signals than those from the sighthound breed.

I wondered if you'd weaken . I've been thinking of flying up just for the day (sans dogs) but it seems a bit excessive.

Thank you for the update Toohey, but so sorry to hear it is not all good news.

Strong views on diet or vaccination I can kind of understand, but the condition about the breeder taking the puppy back if it turns out to be show quality is disgusting to me.

Well done Miller!!

I'm also very sorry for your loss. RIP Bobby.

Mine walk next to me on the left side when on footpaths or the road, and anywhere they like as long as they aren't pulling in the parks and open areas. It's just logistics for me, two Borzoi in front on a footpath I find too hard to manage, they are too big for me to get comfortable with it. They have no trouble understanding the different expectations at different parts of the walk.

I don't know anything about this particular case, but I wouldn't assume it didn't. One of mine arrived on a plane with fleas, and yes from a reg breeder. Possible it picked them all up on a short haul flight I guess but I don't really think so. Hope you can get to the bottom of it nickojoy. Good of you to help.

That's so sad, trying to be safe under Mum's bed. RIP.

That was an interesting article CP*, thanks for posting it.