Staffyluv

We got Ziggy from the local pound and best guess is he was about 6-7 months old at the time. His testicles had not dropped and his canine teeth were not fully grown at the time. It took heaps to even get him to come out of the kennel to meet us. So we sat on the ground an waited. After about 15-20 minutes of sitting there, talking quietly with the kennel door open, he finally belly crawled out and hid under my sons legs. Then he crawled across to me and onto my lap. His ears were flat against his head, he wouldn't look at anyone and his tail was tucked so far under him... But e was very brave coming out. It took a bit to get the lead on him and it was even worse trying to get him to go with us on lead. He jumped and carried on a treat. However, once we were out of the pound, he walked quite well on lead. He is so much better now, still has a few issues we are working on. He is still avoids men, especially with sunglasses and hats on. At the dog parks and on walks, it is always the younger guys who come up to talk about him and what a great lad he is but he won't say hi to the,. We walk past the fire station and a few of the guys come out to say hi, it has taken a year of these guys saying hi for him to accept it is OK.. I guess he has met them about 7 or 8 times. The women on the other hand, he will say hello to but unless we are at home, he doesn't really spend any time with them. He adores other dogs, he says hello to the vets cat nicely every time we have ever been there, so I think he is cat friendly. He loves the water. He is not scared of storms or fire crackers (it seems to be the other dogs going off that make him react, not the crackers). He loves the water and is more than happy to have a shower or bath. He is not food focused but loves toys. He is not a barky dog, unless there is a noise outside if a night or someone comes to our door of a night. He meets people nicely at home. Gives them space to enter and will come to say hi if someone acknowledges him He tends to avoid things he hasn't seen before. He does seem to be easily scared sometimes.. I have no idea about Ziggy's background but I could speculate that he was probably just a pup in the backyard and had little human contact but did have other dogs to play with..

Thousands of bitches raise pups without any special food or even any extra food. I have never taken a bitch for a vet check after whelping, I can hardly complain if someone else doesn't either - even though it's highly probable they wouldn't know when they actually do need to. A kennel works fine for those same thousands of bitches - or a plastic 'basket' type bed - or a plastic kids paddling pool. Newspaper is free, many pups are raised on bare boards/plastic. How many pups are sold/given away in Australia each year without vaccination, microchipping or even basic worming? Even in Victoria where it's illegal? Now you get in to the arguments that actually hurt the pocket :laugh: The last caesar I paid for was $1100 at 6pm on a Sunday. I was prepared before hand though and got this at a 'regular hours' rate and not at an emergency clinic - AFAIK afterhours and emergency clinic = double this no problem at all. If she won't feed the pups, in this sceanario I would assume the pups would die or OP would be back trying to find a foster mother.... I have had to handraise ONE puppy on one occasion, and that was only for 3 days until we found a foster mum (god bless BYB's and their labradors) - I cannot comprehend the work involved with handraising a whole litter all the way through and am humbled by anyone who has actually done it. The dangers few think about are things such as mastitis which can come up rapidly and can be very expensive to treat, plus often means the pups need to be handraised & fading puppy syndrome which cuts in to the profit something terrible If they pay a $200 stud fee for the neighbour-down-the-road's 'blue healer' :) the bitch has 5 or 6 pups with absolutely no problems at all they could well stand to make a small profit assuming they don't count their own time and effort (no matter how small) 6 pups @ $200 $1,200 Stud Fee $200 3 x 20kg bags of Bonnie for the bitch $120 1 x 20kg bag of Bonnie for the pups $ 40 Vaccination @ $60 per pup (can be more or less) $360 Microchipping @ $60 per pup (can be more or less) $360 Worm Pills - 4 for each pup (over the 8 weeks)@ $3ea $ 72 - 2 for the bitch x 4 doses @ $3 $ 24 Advertise on Gumtree - free Advertise on Trading Post $ 20 ? Total costs $1176 Net Profit $24 :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Even if you assume you were going to feed the bitch one bag of food during that time whether she had pups or not it's still only a $80 'saving' - $104 profit. Without vaccinating or worming or microchipping ------- now then it becomes a bit more profitable! But the question needs to be asked - do they have a suitable enclosure to confine the pups once they get mobile - are they house/garden proud? Do they have any idea how much destruction 5 or 6 puppies can do, to say nothing of the poo.......... Thanks for that Sandra. I was hoping someone would give an indication of what it could cost. I realise not everything I suggested is needed but sometimes you can make it sound like it is needed to some people.. I have convinced someone before with telling them what they could be in for, without suggesting anything other than, imagine if she needed a c-section that cost a couple of grand and you only ended up with two pups to sell.. Just so she can have a litter, it cost you that much! They booked their staffy in to be desexed the next week... Hopefully the OP can scare some sense into their family.

Ask in the breeders section for a quick run down on costs involved letting a bitch have a litter. Or hopefully someone who knows the costs might see your post and tell you how much each thing costs so you can show your family how much they could lose in breeding their little girl. There may be supplements required for the girl, extra food and vet check. Whelping box and extra blankets or bedding for the girl and pups once born. C-section, as already suggested is possible. Vaccinations and microchipping of each pup and or supplemtn feeding. How bad would it be if their girl didn't want to mother the pups and they had to do it... The cost of the time to care, clean up. The cost to advertise the post in the paper. If she only ends up having one or two pups, they are going to be losing quite a bit of money...

I am so sorry for your loss.. Could he have had a stroke? I know of a dog that stressed out because it lost its best friend and had a stroke - walking into things was one of the symptoms because he had lost his balance. Poor little guy, I hope he is feeling better soon.

Just because a dog is dog (cat/bird/animal) aggressive DOES NOT mean it is human aggressive.. Why do people continue to do the OMG it attacked a dog, what if it was a kid???

Not silly at all. I have always put myself between my dogs and oncoming dogs that I am concerned about.. I also use a loud and rough sounding no.. I once picked up my 20+ kg Stafford to protect him from a loose dog much bigger and running at us very fast... Turns out I was worried over nothi g he was just a big boof head but still scary when that much dog is running directly at you..

Love your crew... Ziggy likes (in no particular order): Tennis balls Dog toys Other dogs Sleeping Playing Digging Stealing fruit from the fruit bowl Farting Training Snoring Hiding hid chicken carcass under my pillow Walks Runs Did I mention how much he loves other dogs! Me

It seems a lot think it is normal dog behaviour to bark and charge a fence when someone walks by (with or without another dog)... Is it 'normal' for dogs to do this? My dogs don't bark or charge the fence when someone comes near it. (note when I say dogs, this includes the fosters we have had here as well as Ziggy now, also my gate is just near the front door, so they see people coming and going all the time) The only time they have barked at the front door is of a night time, when someone knocks on the door.. Perhaps it is because I have my office at home - it is supposed to be by appointment but I still have clients turn up out of the blue to drop something off, so my dogs don't see people coming and going of a day as an issue?? I have quite a few tradies as clients, they all have dogs on/in their cars and often those dogs will come to the gate or a few come in and my dog still doesn't bark and charge the fence/gate... Even my old boy never barked and carried on when someone walked past and he didn't really like other dogs. Surely mine are not the only dogs that behave this way. The 2 dogs next door to me are terrible for it and the guy doesn't have a closed gate - so we cross the road at his house and then come back across and into our yard once we pass his house...

I know. It was so funny. While we were tossing the ball, playing look at that and other stuff he was great. As soon as I made him sit like that his whole demeanour changed.

From our backyard shenanigans today IMG_0804 by Jodie Moore Photos, on Flickr And another IMG_0796 by Jodie Moore Photos, on Flickr A non smiling one - we are practicing him sitting for the camera so I can get a Santa pic soon. IMG_0783 by Jodie Moore Photos, on Flickr None to happy about it either..

Our trainer was the one who noticed it in him.. She has a BC with the same issue. She said she can run him 10km and he will get back to the house and still run amok.. Zig is the same, it's like he just gets to a certain level of excitement and he stops listening to me, he won't come when called.. The only way, I can get hi. When he gets like that is to say, let's go, like I am leaving him.. But that is not a good way to end a good time. It's better if he leaves after playing on a high, but not to high... We don't get out of the car until he chills out, then he gets wound up again when he sees other dogs, so we don't enter until I see him calm a bit.. He doesn't get off lead until he is happy to just run and play either.. We have been to the park and he has spent the whole time in lead because his level of excitement is to high for my liking. Don't get me wrong, he still runs and plays once there but I watch him to make sure he doesn't bother the other dogs. He tries to lick under their chins and some dogs don't care but others don't like it. If he does it, he gets the leash and that is the end of play. Thankfully, he hasn't done this in quite a while now..

Gorgeous pooch.. Love the way she is kissing up to the sheep. Edited to correct, he for she..

I got excited today when I picked up an Ozpets package from the post office with some new stuff for Ziggy.. His new sporn harness, a kong wubba and his new bungee thing for Xmas.

He has turkey as well (it is just all in the chicken container, so sometimes he gets that instead of chook).. Where do you get roo tail from? Doesn't oxtail have a lot of smaller bones? He would probably try to swallow these if it does.. I have to watch him and make sure he chews it all up - he is pretty good..

He is still a bit flat this afternoon, not his usual playing, digging, me me self.. He doesn't have fleas, thankfully. I stopped giving him marrow bones ages ago but he did have one for his gotcha day - he had about half and I took it off him (it is in the freezer).. He is sensitive to fats and it does seem to make him vomit if he gets to much, so I make sure he doesn't have it often. I cut any thick fat off a brisket bone. He is fed chicken carcasses, roo steaks and mince (human grade) and some beef. He also gets sardines in oil (which seem to be OK for him). He loves eggs but he only gets a whole one each week. His cottage cheese is low fat to. So I might try to find some other form of bone that he could eat as it may be that the brisket bone had a bit much (they are fatty sometimes).. Any suggestions? I would assume lamb is out and I know pork is out (we gave him some cold roast pork once and he bought it back up in minutes). He seems fine on roo, chicken and beef thus far.. He gets mainly roo these days.

Isn't heartguard a heart worm tablet? I honestly don't think Zig has worms - there is never anything in his poo and I pick it up each day or every second day at the very least..

Thanks Pav.. I won't worry about it unless he needs it.

Snook did Mr J win a big prize with that caterpillar smile pic? I am sure I have seen that in a Facebook comp or something?

I have been up with Ziggy since 2:45 this morning. He vomited then and has been restless for the remainder of the night. He just got up and vomited again. The only thing he had out of the ordinary yesterday was a Eurogard worming tablet last night about an hour after dinner (which he only ate about half of (100g roo mince). He did have a brisket bone yesterday but I cut most of the fat layer off, just leaving the bone and meaty part because he does have an issue with fat on meat (it tends to make him vomit). The same thing happened when I gave him a comfortis tablet, so we abandoned the idea of giving him that and now use Advantix in tick season only. He is finally asleep, across my lap. Does anyone else have dogs that vomit from worming tablets? Maybe he just picked up a bug at the park and it was just a coincidence?

Look at all these great smiles...

Ziggy always looks so serious, it's hard to get a smiley one.. Probably because he always looks like a total dork when he smiles Ziggy smiling by Jodie Moore Photos, on Flickr Smiley boy by Jodie Moore Photos, on Flickr One of my fave smile pics was our little foster guy Gussy.. He had the best smile... Gussy smiling by Jodie Moore Photos, on Flickr

I still have one of Ollie's canines... I get excited when I discover I have left my bedroom door open and there ar no chicken carcasses or chunks of roo in my bed... When Ziggy does something that I have been trying to teach him and it honestly feels like he has known how to do it all along and has just been playing games with me. I love how excited he gets when he realises we are going for a walk, play at the park or even just some backyard training. I love the way he always rolls over so he is looking at me upside down when he wakes up every morning.. I also love how excited he get when he goes a new toy..

I love this thread.. I am so buying nyself a macro lens for Christmas...

There is a couple of other places we can take them here but they are not fenced... The park at the Scar is dirt and burrs.. It is hot up there, you have to go early or late to miss the hot sun. The one at yarralumla is the best I have been to... It is just like they have fenced off a wooded area..

The video quality wasn't good, but it looked like the dog ran past the woman, perhaps one the little dogs was lagging behind, then video appeared to stop and restart at the scuffle.....I didn't hear about injuries to people like the lady had her ear torn off or anything that effect??. Without watching it again and I really don't want to see that poor little dog with those injuries again. From memory one of the witnesses and her husband say she was attacked defending her dogs... I don't recall seeing any massive injuries on her in the video but one would think the trauma of defending your two little dogs against an attacking dog, in th end losing one tomhis injuries would be damaging to ones emotional state.. It's hard enough losing a dog under natural circumstances, this would be terrible...