Maddy

Deer antlers seem to be one of those things they either really like them or have zero interest in them. Idiot Dog is not overly excited by them, Shitty Whippet would shank her own mother for one. As an alternate, perhaps try cow hooves? They're entirely dry and clean and they seem to last a decent amount of time.

Idiot Dog has snagged and twisted one of his dew claws twice now and in both cases, it has fallen off within a couple of days. We take dog and nail into the vet anyway just to check that everything is okay and on both occasions, nail has regrown completely normally. Personally, I'd be very reluctant to go with GA for something that really shouldn't need it. Some photos from the last time it happened (excuse the blurriness) The nail still attached. It was twisted around and then upside down. I assume he did it running up the hallway but he didn't seem aware of it at all (not so much as a whimper). First I noticed was the blood he left on my bed :/ On this occasion, the nail fell off the next morning. Interestingly, it wasn't a long nail (I was keeping them very short at the time) so how he managed to twist it is beyond me.

That's what I used on my old girl who liked to sunbake outside. It doesn't repel the flies but it does kill them once they've bitten the ear (I applied a drop to the back of each ear). It can't be applied to broken skin though so any fly bites need to be protected until they've healed up. For that, I used Filta-bac, applied thickly enough to physically stop flies from getting at her ears. Only downside to Filta-bac is that it ends up smeared on everything. Another thing worth trying it QuickBayt to kill the flies before they bother the dogs. I've been using it for a couple of years now and it's incredibly effective stuff. It comes as a powder which you can prepare a few different ways- I add water for a thin paste and then paint it fairly liberally around the back porch, where the dogs liked to sunbake and anywhere else flies seem to like sitting. The new formula is red coloured and attracts flies even better than the original. It's a bit pricey but definitely worth it. Edited for typo

I raw feed and besides very young dogs or dogs who've recently had surgery, my dogs/foster dogs get one meal a day. In all the dogs I've had, we've never had bloat by feeding this way and because everyone gets a limited time to eat, no one is fussy or picks over their food. The dogs are usually fed in the evening and anything left over after one hour is removed.

We replaced the carpet in our front hallway with the laminate flooring from Bunnings as our oldest dog liked to sleep in that hallway and he had some issues with incontinence. It's been down for about three years and still looks almost new (a bit faded, maybe?) without any scratch marks from greyhound toe nails but.. we found it to be very slippery. Because old dog had bladder problems and the floors underneath were Tas oak, we bought the plastic underlay to prevent any urine getting to the floorboards under it. As sturdy and pretty as it is, I'm not sure if I'd want any more of it in the house because in the end, we had to carpet the laminate with a layer of rubber-backed vetbed to keep the old dog from slipping over on it and that sort of defeats the purpose of having laminate.

Yeeeeah.. I'm guessing that bite lower down (the one just above her knee) did not tickle :/

After losing my two senior greyhounds this year, I don't think I'd be getting another as Next Dog. I love the breed (and still have the Idiot Dog, obviously) but I think it'd have to be a really special grey to change my mind (and I can't see it happening, to be honest). The OH and I have talked about Next Dog and once again, we're in disagreement :/ He adores his Shitty Whippet and every other dog is now ugly, according to him. I, on the other hand, would sell a kidney for a borzoi and there's really no middle ground between the two. During some looking around, I found one whippet breeder whose dogs I really liked the style of, found her website and.. two weeks earlier, she'd posted on her site that she was no longer breeding whippets. Because of course. So.. Next Dog will like be purely theoretical for a while, at least until I can figure out a way to disguise a borzoi puppy as a whippet

So the current Adaptil dog pheromones for dogs - is not an "on heat" sex hormone, it's mummy's got milk pheromone... I've not used any of them so I don't know for sure. I do know that the maternity ward of any hospital is not a calm and relaxing place for me - no place with an upset baby is. But I agree with the part about separating the dogs into smaller more compatible groups could help. No one was talking about an old version of the product?

DAP doesn't work for every dog and individual responses vary a lot. A trainer friend of mine used DAP spray in her house (has four dogs, two weren't getting along) and besides having no effect on three out of four, the fourth dog took to marking every single spot she'd sprayed with DAP. End result.. no improvement in the situation and as an added crappy bonus, urine to clean up everywhere. Here's a bit from the actual DAP website.. How those pheromones influence behaviour is questionable. In my experience, I've seen everything from food guarding, marking to excitability as a result of using DAP (interestingly, never seen dogs calmer as a result of using DAP). In a house where inappropriate toileting is already an issue, I think using DAP would be akin to throwing kero-soaked rags at a fire to put it out. I've had a few foster dogs who would mark (mostly with urine) beds, water bowls and even food. It was mostly entire or newly desexed males, seeemed to relate to numbers of dogs around (mo' dogs, mo' marking) and stress caused by badly matched groups or individual personality conflicts definitely made it worse. Reducing numbers, desexing, spreading resources further apart will probably help. To give you an example of how I managed things.. at least two beds available per dog and beds spaced out as far from each other as possible (both inside and out), a variety of "safe" places to go (crates, etc), feeding in crates and removing all food before anyone comes out and in some situations, simply dividing areas entirely to keep certain dogs out of each others' way. I'd also be limiting offenders' access to trampoline beds or couches until their toilet training is back on track.

My old guy was incontinent in his last years, caused by stenosis. It seemed to come and go (slowly getting worse) and nothing helped much. We just tried to make sure he stayed clean and dry and that he went out for regular toilet breaks to minimise the amount lost. In the end, he also had a couple of episodes of fecal incontinence (poor old man didn't even seem aware of it) and once we found out our other oldie had untreatable cancer, we made the decision to give them their wings. That's not to say it's necessarily the same thing but it's worth looking into- even if only to rule it out. The symptoms are unfortunately pretty vague: possibly some amount of knuckling/dragging the back feet, pulling up lame after a walk or other exercise, shaky back end, muscle loss and so on. Edited to add.. links with some general information http://www.vetstreet.com/care/lumbosacral-stenosis-in-dogs http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2084&aid=456

We find the Ruffwear Webmaster harnesses are great for dogs that can houdini out of them :) I'd second this. I mostly use BlackDog stuff but even the harness (balance or regular) connected to a fairly tight martingale couldn't prevent the Shitty Whippet from magicking her way out of it. The Webmaster is not the prettiest harness but it allows me to walk the very slippery whippet without fear of her escaping. The handle on the back is also useful for helping her get into/out of the car.

I own a boy with a bit of a manky penis* (and my vet wasn't keen on surgery to correct when Shitty Whippet is so good at keeping it clean ) and I'll admit I'm not super keen on touching it- but that's more because it's sometimes manky and not just because it's a penis. On the other hand.. Shitty Whippet has a fairly prominent vulva and likes to make sure everyone else has to see it, especially during dinner, and that bothers me more than usually unseen manky penis. I sort of prefer boys because they tend to be affectionate without being needy but for the most part, I've just picked opposite gender to the next eldest dog. Kiff (boy) -> Sally (girl) -> Bosley (boy) -> Penny (girl). I've never noticed much difference in toilet training so many foster dogs but the worst I've ever had was a girl who wouldn't just wee inside, she'd soil inside. *The Idiot Dog, who is scared of his own penis and has been seen recoiling in horror from it.

It's PETA. Enough said. Oh I know they are more than capable but to the average person it does sound far too bizzare to be true. It's bizarre that so many people still believe they're all about saving puppies and bunnies but I suspect (even with things like this coming to light) that you're probably right- lots of people will assume the owner must have been some dog fighting, meat eating monster if PETA had to step in and "free" the dog of its terrible suffering :/

What evidence do you have that breaking laws gets them changed? In other cases (gun laws being a good example), a decrease in compliance tends to lead to increased pressure to even further tighten those laws (increased penalties, greater restrictions, etc) to address that. It was a lack of compliance in Victoria that lead to Ayen Chol's death and the public demand for tighter restricted dog laws. But whatever, the OP had nothing to do with restricted breeds and there is no reason it would impact specifically on restricted breeds, as has already been pointed out several times. Put your axe away, already.

It's PETA. Enough said.

If you won't obey one set of laws because you don't believe them to be fair, how can you be trusted to obey other dog control laws? I have to push this point all the time with new greyhound owners- breaking laws will not help get those laws changed. Breaking laws makes you, as a representative owner of the breed, look irresponsible. Not that this has anything to do with BSL, still.

Don't allow your dog to attack someone and you'll have nothing to worry about? If PB owners are obeying relevant legislation, there's actually less chance their dogs will bite someone (hard to bite with a muzzle on) so it shouldn't be a big deal.

I don't know about other states but in Tasmania, they are a restricted breed, which isn't a dangerous dog unless it does something to get itself declared a dangerous dog.

I've desexed a large breed puppy before he was fully mature (the Idiot Dog, at 9 months old) and even though 9 months is hardly a baby puppy, it's caused some issues*. Personally, I wouldn't buy a puppy from a breeder who desexes at 8 weeks and I wouldn't desex one of my own until at least 12 months. *The most worrying being a lack of muscle development despite all efforts to get him fit. A weedy dog doesn't seem like a big deal but from what I've seen, of the various foster dogs I've had, weedy dogs are more prone to hurting themselves because they lack that muscle strength and control.

The vegos that have posted on this thread do feed their dogs meat. The person is question is NOT a vego. So lets not be slagging off vegos. Even the Vegans that I know feed their dogs meat. I didn't make any reference to the vegans/vegetarians who feed their dogs meat so I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that I'm "slagging them off". I've bolded the bit so you can re-read it. The majority of my friends are vegans/vegos and all of them feed their dogs meat. You said you can't understand vegos not feeding their dogs meat but the person in question is not a vego. Because the topic was raised? Why single out my comment as an attack on vegos (which it wasn't, but whatever, misread my comments however you please) when several others had already raised the issue?

The vegos that have posted on this thread do feed their dogs meat. The person is question is NOT a vego. So lets not be slagging off vegos. Even the Vegans that I know feed their dogs meat. I didn't make any reference to the vegans/vegetarians who feed their dogs meat so I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that I'm "slagging them off". I've bolded the bit so you can re-read it. The majority of my friends are vegans/vegos and all of them feed their dogs meat.

When it comes to kibble, that's more or less how I see it. I tried BH as a backup food, it didn't work for us. Tried Ziwipeak and even though they LOVE it, it's just too rich and gives them sticky, black poo (we do use it for treats though). Ended up going back to TotW for emergency food/food for stuffing treat toys. If there was an Australian product with the same ingredients, I'd probably buy it but similar is not the same as "the same".

There were studies done on numerous aspects of dog nutrition that suggest dogs are carnivores, not omnivores. L. David Mech's study of wolves found they actually shook stomach contents out of the stomach before eating the stomach itself- disproving the theory that wild canids ingested substantial amounts of plant matter from herbivore stomachs. Then there was the study of Australian wild canids that found less than 5% of their intake was plant-based and what was there was likely incidental (probably from eating whole small prey). And finally, the study done on street dogs that found the dogs (who were eating almost exclusively vegetable scraps/waste) were able to survive on a plant-based diet for a couple of years but the cause of death (usually around two years of age) was almost always malnutrition. Canids can survive for short periods of time on plant-based foods (it's a considerable survival advantage over other predators) but ability to survive short-term on plants doesn't make something an omnivore. As an aside, deer occasionally eat rabbits, fish or birds. Not because they're omnivores but because sometimes, eating outside of their normal diet serves a short-term purpose. In the case of stags, increasing calcium intake for antler growth. Anyways.. I have to admit, I can't understand vegans/vegetarians owning carnivores as pets if they are unable/unwilling to provide them with a species-appropriate diet. Rabbits make perfectly good pets

And then there are the sighthound issues with recall, small pets and being a bit more sensitive, generally. Regardless of the breed, if the first time owner doesn't take the time to educate themselves, they're likely going to run into problems. What's easy for one person to manage could be a terrible choice for another so I don't think any particular breed is "best" for first time owners.

I have to admit, I'm really not a fan of leather- don't like the way it feels, don't like the maintenance, don't like the smell on my hands. I think it's also a style thing, don't like chunky/studs/brass hardware everywhere. I have sighthounds but the medieval cart-horse look doesn't do it for me. I've been using BlackDog strong leads for a few years now and I'm really happy with them. They're soft, very flexible and I've never had one break. Having said that.. I'd second what Kirislin said about homemade leads. I've recently started making leads and not only is it surprisingly easy to make a decent, strong lead if you can find quality parts, you can customise the hell out of them :D This is a lead I made recently for the Idiot Dog (with a matching collar) The anodised coloured snaphook came from strapworks.com and the fox ribbon is from Etsy. The rest came from Adelaide Saddlery. I make mine with a double box stitch for the snaphook and handle and use the handle stitching to secure in an accessory D ring (I've never actually used an accessory D ring but that's hardly the point ). Hardest part was finding my tape measure so I could measure out the webbing/ribbon properly. That's just a really simple lead but with a bit of imagination, you could design something suited to your personal needs and tastes.