RuralPug

LOL time for a decent solid wooden chopping board!

I give whole necks to small puppies without qualm they are too big to be swallowed whole. Its the older dogs that I chop the necks up for. And for chewing I prefer chook carcasses, which i give two or three times a week. For smaller breeds I chop the carcasses in half with my trusty cleaver.

With the caveat that it should never be used unsupervised, I think this could be a great device in your kit if you have a determined fence jumper. I have had fosters who I have had to restrict to roofed runs, or indoors when not being out walked, because they leapt the house yard fences and gates. When out working in the garden when I could keep an eye on them, I would clip them to an overhead tether which gave them a little bit of galloping room - I never left them on it unattended in case they attempted to leap something and hang themselves. I could see this harness working better than the overhead tether in that situation.I have book marked the site in case I have a future foster that leaps tall buildings in a single bound...

Perhaps it is just me, but at sixteen weeks old I would not be too worried about thresholds - I would just be doing my best to stay calm and unfrazzled while redirecting the pup with a toy or similar, or training just as you did. It is really important that you don't get overly stressed when puppy is not perfect as they pick up on your body language which tends to inflate things. At the counter your attention is off the pup, and she knows it, so she probably figures that it is play time! You can always put her in her crate in the car before returning to settle the account if it really bothers you. The best way to proof a puppy against the distraction of other dogs is regular attendance at an obedience club - handy if you are in an urban area but can be a bit difficult if you live in a remote area.

Be patient! Give her at least a few days to get used to her new home...once she does start responding then you can start training. In the meantime just keep her on a steady routine. She may or may not respond to treats - some dogs prefer praise or play to treats for rewards. If she doesn't become a bit brighter over the next few weeks, then a vet visit to discuss would be a good idea. Perhaps wait until her next needle and see how she goes, but it is too early to worry yet!

The other dewclaw is unlikely to grow back - the bone is not the actual nail. Normally the entire nail, including the growth bed, is snipped off during dewclaw removal and the nail cannot grow back. If a tiny bit of growth bed is missed, as is happened with her other foot, then the dewclaw will regrow.

When you brush, do one small section at time - part the hair so that you can see right down to the skin and brush from the part to the ends. A good rule is too make sure that each section is no wider then half the bristles of your brush, that way you are brushing all of the coat and not just the top coat. ninety percent of the shed is dead undercoat which is why you need to brush right from the skin out. The comb will be mostly handy for removing the hair from the brush plus it is really handy for the fiddly bits that the brush can't quite reach.

There must have been a stump left for anything to grow back at all. It certainly could be removed during the desexing surgery - it won't regrow after that. If the current regrowth is twisted and will make it difficult for regular dewclaw trimming, then it should be removed - you can discuss this with your vet. Given that poodles need regular coat clipping, I personally would opt for removal during desexing surgery in any case.

If the vet is correct and there are no demodex mites, then it may be a food allergy showing up as a skin complaint. There are many links on this forum to diets and their affect on the skin - have a search. Have you discussed the problem with her breeder?

Both her parent breeds shed heavily twice a year for up to three weeks, usually in spring and autumn. You might like to try a product call Sleekez, a shedding brush based on a cat's tongue which is available from some horse outlets, and which thoroughly removes dead undercoat, dirt and dander. There are many videos available online showing its use. Or a thorough comb through daily with a steel comb will remove much of the dead undercoat during the shedding. If this is her first puppy shed, it may last a little longer than the normal twice yearly sheds.

Very interesting. Was Lefty any particular breed or an unknown mix? Was his other ear a drop ear like a labrador or a prick ear like a kelpie or folded like a shetland sheepdog?

14 weeks old? Will be sold on one of the online sites. Hopefully little Egg was already microchipped and can be traced that way. Not much fun for the poor soul that innocently buys him though.

Provided that your dogs are not grain intolerant, flaxseed (aka linseed) oil adds fatty acids to their diet, although there is divided opinion whether dogs ans cats can actually access the acids in the form that linseed oil has them. Fish oil is also high in Omega 3 and is likely to be more accessible to carnivores As to the expiry date being almost 12 months old I suspect that there is even less chance of it benefiting them but it is not likely to do any harm.

Sorry I can't help. Only thing that I can think of is some sort of ligament contraction. If it doesn't bother her I wouldn't be too worried at this stage. Have you discussed this with your vet?

Just wondering - have you asked the breeder if they know of someone looking?

I've never seen anything like that before. Was she born with it or did i happen later?

Have a look at vebopet.com.au exercise pens. These are great because you can buy extra panels if you wish and build room dividers or odd shaped pens. You can also connect the panels to a crate if you are intending to crate train the puppy, but they don't need one if you would rather just pop a dog bed in the pen. If you are placing the indoor pen on carpet, a vinyl flooring offcut from a flooring supplier is handy to protect the carpet or use a thick rubber-backed picnic rug upside down instead.

You need to break the scent trail ants leave when they have discovered food. Firstly kill all ants in and around the bowl by with spray-on cooking oil which is harmless to you and your pets but suffocates insects instantly. Then clean the area for at least a metre around the bowl with your favourite enzyme cleaner or 50% solution of white vinegar. If you can backtrack the ant trail to where they are entering the house you may be able to block it or apply a blob of dishwashing detergent straight from the bottle as a barrier they won't cross.

If the issue is them plunging their muzzle into the bowl and splashing, then maybe a water dispenser like this one could keep the spillage to a minimum because it is shallow but automatically refills, If the issue is just water dripping back out of their mouths immediately after they have had a drink (mastiffs and other drooly dogs are really really good at this LOL) there is not a lot that you can do - try putting the water bowl inside a kitty tray or other large shallow plastic container or placing it on a disposable absorbent surface like a large puppy pee pad or one of those oil spill mats that some mechanics use. Not much you can do about the three metre trail of drips away from the bowl though!

It is not unlike the old debate of donating to an international agency to assist education of underpriveleged children in a third world country when there are underpriveleged children in your own country in dire need of assistance who are overlooked. Does charity begin at home? In all likelihood there is a need for both, and in this country at least we know before we donate whether our charity dollars are focused on assisting local or international children. I agree with @PossumCorner that what an individual spends their money on is their own business. But when rescue organisations accept public donations that the public assume are helping local dogs in need, then import the cute and popular for rehoming while local dogs are euthanised for lack of interest seems to me less about rescue than about meeting a perceived market demand. Nothing wrong with that as a business, but it really shouldn't claim itself as "rescue" unless the organisation is completely transparent about it and doesn't mislead people into thinking they are helping their own population of unwanted dogs when they are only helping certain cute and popular unwanted dogs from somewhere else. To me, one of the most important things about companion animal rescue is taking an unwanted pet and rehabilitating it and/or remarketing it into a wanted pet.

Stormy I see you are in NSW but please PM ish on this forum. She is in Victoria but In my view all her dogs are the type you seek from stock she health scores and health tests and DNA's almost to destruction before breeding, She does endurance, obedience, specialty shows (and the odd all-breed show I think). Her dogs also have some sort of breed scoring that I don't pretend to understand but is apparently a good thing. I vaguely recall that she has a litter planned in the next few months, but I may be wrong. Even if she does not have a litter planned soon, she should be able to recommend a breeder to breeding the same type. I am hoping that will she will share here a couple of videos I have seen recently of her dogs in training for endurance trials (hint hint please @ish.)

@juice ooooh have you found your stag?? A baby? You must have seen photos! Can you please share some pics so that we can drool?? Please please please

This blog article may help. It gives some strategies for training your toddler and your puppy to be gentle with each other. "Help! My puppy is biting my toddler!"

To To answer your question in general, it is because in some breeds (SBT in Australia is currently a good example) the dilute colour genetics are frequently linked with more severe health problems. It might just be a case of the genes for dilute colour being on the same physical chromosome as the genes for low immune health/organ malfunctions etc. in that breed OR it may be the case that breeders of "fad" colours go not generally breed for health but nevertheless there is a definite and easily proven link. In the case of the Wei, there is no such link which may or may not be due to high culling rates as the breed was being developed. Other breeds also have blue as a possibility (e.g. Great Danes, Greyhounds) and it has not been a problem in those breeds. If dilute colours are historically found within a breed but are not included in or are specifically undesirable or not permitted then I would imagine that there is a reason and the reason may be that the colour carries problems in that breed, whether alopecia or more.

You are not permitted to buy or sell live vaccines online in Australia, so if you want C5 you are going to have to get it from a vet, which normally means a consult fee is included. I'm not sure about other states, but in Victoria sometimes a vet will give up their day off to offer vaccinations and microchipping without a heath check, usually at a site outside of a clinic (greyhound tracks and relative's rural front yards are a couple I've seen LOL). This means their only overheads are the purchase cost of the vaccine/chips and their own time and generally means that will only be paying between 50% - 75% of the average vaccination cost. You WON'T get a health check or be able to ask about any other concerns, you WILL stand in line for hours and hours. Some of these maverick vets do this regularly, some only annually, but you won't find them advertised anywhere. Word of mouth is spread in rural communities or by people in the greyhound industry. You could choose to titre test instead, but that often costs more than the vacc and if the test comes back low on antibodies, you will need to vacc anyway. My suggestion is to carefully space out the due dates so that each dog being due once every three years is due in a different year, so you only need to meet the cost for one dog each year. You are taking a risk by not vaccinating in the exact month/year due, but it is better than not vaccinating at all.