Abilene

kelpies are generally better on sheep... there really isn't that much difference with BCs or Kelpies, but depending on the lines and the dog you own. We have more cattle herding lines than sheep in our collie lines... because our dogs work every day. I do have sheep now, but our main income is cattle. Occasionally I will get a pup that is softer and I could start on ducks, but generally they are pretty forceful and until the excitement has died down and they start to think more, I generally tend to start most of them on sheep. It will really depend on the dog... some dogs are a little softer, so I start them on dog broke sheep and younger ewes. Some of the grippier pups get the older cranky ewes and rams that will stand their ground a bit more. The softer dogs are usually ok to start on the ducks, but I find it easier to start them on dog broke sheep. Different bloodlines are the biggest difference in all the herding breeds. I have seen some really tough hard biting kelpies over here in the USA that are used on wild cattle. I have seen others that show a lot of eye and "creep" and are more suited to sheep. Same with the BC... we have both sheep and cattle bloodlines but mainly concentrate on cattle bloodlines. I don't want too much eye but I don't like a real lose eyed dog either. The dogs that I really like are the BCs that are allrounders, they are hard biting on cattle and get the job done, they are soft enough and have just enough eye on sheep and ducks. But in theory, most of the time you get one or the other.

I am just going to concur with what others have said, you really need to start on sheep or goats. However it is not impossible, but chooks are rather difficult. I dont' have chooks at all anymore, but my collies used to put the chooks away of an afternoon... but the chooks already knew the routine... go to the chook house. Ducks would be far better and they don't stress as much as chooks... not sure about turkeys. Like others have said, you need a strong stop or down on your dog... doesn't matter what command you use... I use down, but I used to use "stop" in Australia. In the US they tend to use "down" and if I am training someone elses dog, who already has the basic commands, they usually know the "down' command. You want that command to be solid... and immediate. You also need a good recall. So until your puppy is older, concentrate on basic obedience. I do more obedience with my pups than other trainers do with theirs, but if one of my pups doesn't really cut it as a good working dog, then at least they already have the basic obedience behind them in case someone wants an agility dog etc. Once your dog is older, best to start off in a small round pen with the dog on a long leash. I use a long cane as an extension of my arm... shepherds crook/hook thing whatever they call it :laugh: is also used a lot to guide the dog. You need to establish flank commands whilst in the round pen. Everything should be done in a pen to begin with. If you cannot get any sheep, then I would seriously consider ducks. When I did have chooks my working dogs pretty much ignored them, except one... he would separate one chook from the rest and keep it from joining the rest... usually the naked neck chook or the frizzle or the odd coloured one etc... I think that dog was a little prejudiced I start all my collies in a small round yard/pen and then progress to a larger one before going outside. We start on sheep and I usually don't work ducks until they are working sheep well. Often we are out of novice sheep trials before we start on ducks. Some of our collies are also good on cattle and we trial some. Most of ours are still soft enough or disciplined enough to work ducks, but we have had a couple that get a little too grippy on sheep, so they would be no good on ducks... they tend to be better on cattle.

Sorry, have gotten a bit off topic here, but thanks for sharing that Miss Danni. My friends had a number of their broodies all abort due to selenium... they must have had them tested though, had blood work done on them or something. But didn't get any live foals at all... can't remember how many, but I think it was six that aborted. I thought for sure they had Tent Caterpillar in their paddock, but apparently it was selenium poisoning. I had a mare abort due to Caterpillar and a number of friends of mine had the same thing. Interesting that your foal was just deformed in the head. It is actually scary that so many things can happen that you don't think of.

Thanks Asal, it was quite a number of years ago now and I have seemed to have hardened a little after so many years of being in the breeding game and there is an old saying.. if you have livestock, you are going to inevitabley have dead stock at some stage... seems cold and heartless, but it is true and living on a farm, where it is way of life, you do tend to just accept it. Sorry to hear about you friend's foal. It is heartbreaking when you put so much time and effort in... but so rewarding at other times. I have had a dummy foal, despite foaling alarm, I was there straight away, but foal was stuck and regardless of using lots of lubricant and trying to pull the foal out by the time vet got there, the foal was already too oxygen deprived. But we do the best we can. I brought one of my dogs to the US with me and she has only ever had one litter of puppies in Australia. She was a nice bitch in the ring and I wanted just one more puppy from her to show. So I made a 2 day drive to the stud dog... and a two day drive back home again... got home on Xmas eve, thank goodness it wasn't snowing up north... but it was wet and icy, so the whole trip was quite an ordeal... (although I have been here in the US for almost 2 years, driving on the wrong side of the road is still a challenge :laugh: add lots of holiday traffic and rain and ice to the mix and it's a little scary Two weeks before my girl was due to whelp, she aborted the puppies I wasn't too concerned about the puppies, I was just worried about my girl... but she is fine and we are going to try one more time. We have no idea of why she aborted, but in this breed (and other breeds I would imagine)... sometimes if the bitch has not had puppies and the uterus has lied fallow for a period of time.. when they are bred, they sometimes don't carry to term... then next time, they have a healthy litter. It's been 3 1/2 years since her one and only litter... no problems with that litter... she was 3 when I bred the first litter. She will be 7 in April and I am a little dubious about breeding her at this age... though she is only middle aged for a toy breed... canine repro vets here and stud dog owner have said that she is healthy enough, fit enough and uterus is in good enough shape... so no more risk in trying again than if she were half her age. So going to try one more time. But if there is any more risk, to my girl, I certainly wouldn't be breeding her again. I am not wishing for anything except a couple of nice and healthy puppies and healthy mother.... be nice if I got a nice show baby, but just live puppies will be a start. I also have a mare due this time next month... maiden mare, and the only mare I put in foal last year. When there is only one due, I find that the anticipation is even worse :) There is a lot riding on this mare because I had qualified her for the World show and then she injured herself. So to the broodmare band she was sent. But I have come to know not to expect too much, because when you get a good one, then it's so rewarding... but if something goes wrong, it's hard not to be disappointed. But still we continue to try our best.

You're welcome Leema. I still have a problem, just accepting when things go wrong, but I guess most people do... especially when they have such a personal interest and often take things too personally. We all want reasons and explanations... and whilst science can explain many of the reasons "why".... there are still so many invariables... not everything thing is black & white. I have had debates with some veterinarians who just wanted to "blame" something... and yet my equine reproduction veterinarians and very good friends in Australia would sometimes shrug their shoulders and shake their heads and state... there are some things in this world that Mother Nature does that we are just never going to understand. I have seen things happen that you would just never dream about... but nonetheless they have still happened. We imported a stallion from the USA to Australia over 10 years ago. We sucessfully bred him to over 50 outside mares plus about 20 of our own mares in the first season. Of course there were mares that aborted or simply just did not go in foal, which is always going to happen... but it was a sucessful breeding season. The second breeding season I had purchased a little mare with a foal at foot. She was a red roan and we bred her to our stallion. I whispered in her ear that I really would love a bay or chestnut roan filly. Well she blessed me with a gorgeous chestnut roan filly... I apparently forgot to ask for some other specifics.... the foal was born with eye balls the size of match heads The foal was obviously put to sleep... but otherwise this was a stunning foal, with no other defects... it was otherwise normal. My repro vets who only do horses and repro... and work in Australia for the southern hemisphere breeding season and then in the USA or Europe for the northern hemisphere breeding season, stated that in all the years practicing (50 years for him and 35 years for his wife) they had only ever heard of one other foal that was born like this. His first words to me were... Do not tell anyone that the foal was born with no eyes... everyone will immediately blame the stallion and the rumours are bad enough in this industry. AT one stage during the pregnancy the mare did look a little off at one stage and I had called my vet and stated that she looked as if she had lost weight over night. Her temperature was fine, heart rate etc was all normal... she just looked a little hollow... so my vet palpated her and ultrasound scanned her and she was still in foal with a healthy embryo. Everything looked fine. There were other broodmares in the pasture with her and they were all fine. We wondered if she had been bitten by a snake... but all bloodwork came back fine... maybe it was too late for anything to show up in blood work... we were just guessing. We also wondered if she had eaten a toxic weed in the paddock, but I scanned that pasture with a fine tooth comb and came up with nothing. There were other broodmares all in the same paddock as her and they all had perfectly healthy foals. I was worried that it was just a bad mix of genetics... but we re-bred the mare to the same stallion and she produced a healthy colt the following season and she was re-bred to the same stallion again and had no problems... she has since been sold and has had a healthy foal every year since then. I still question as to why these things happen, as there have been a number of incomprehendable things happen in the gamble of breeding animals.

I have a dog that has an allergic reaction to vaccinations... we titer. I routinely vaccinate all puppies and after the first annual vaccination, we titer everything... for rabies as well... since we vaccinate for rabies over here. The dogs I brought with me from Australia, were given rabies vaccinations before leaving Australia. Some states here require rabies vaccination to be administered annually, some require every three years. I live on the border of Oklahoma and Texas and in here in Oklahoma, rabies is considered an annual vaccination, whereas in Texas it is given every three years. I titer for all vaccinations. I treat for heartworm during the warmer months and stop after our first freeze... guided by the weather, will depend on when we reccomence heartworm prevention. We have a heartworm test on all dogs performed at beginning of summer annually. I treat for fleas in the same manner as heartworm. I do my own fecal egg counts on all our animals (dogs, horses, sheep & cattle) and treat according to the results - a number of ranchers in the area bring manure samples for me to perfrom egg fecal counts.... the kids who live up the road from our ranch call me the poop lady All puppies are wormed reguarly until they are six months, then I do fecal egg counts on them also.

I have seen a couple of these videos, they have done one for horse owners who don't have a clue as well... which is especially true at present here in the USA whilst horses are being given away or repeatedly dumped. Ah but that's another story. The oodles are just as popular here, actually probably more popular here than at home (Australia). More popular because it is quite acceptable for "breeders" to have AKC registered puppies but still crossbreed and sell designer dogs :rolleyes: I don't know anything about the Labradoodle as far as ANKC recognition blah blah blah except what some breeders had listed on their websites a few years ago... that the breed will one day be recognised by ANKC because the breeders are taking appropriate steps with so many generations of breeding and health testing and blah blah blah. Maybe they are and if they are doing correct health testing, good on them... but I still don't take an interest in the them. There are, like Jed said, enough breeds that are intelligent and don't shed that are being overlooked. But all too often I have heard over here... "My Labradoodles go back to the Australian Labradoodles, so they are not a mixed breed... they are really a pure bred"..................... What the :rolleyes: Mmmmmmmmm funny how the Australian Silky Terrier is AKC registered here in the USA as the "Silky Terrier"... no mention of the correct name........... but the mixed breeders want to use a name like "Australian" Labradoodle because it is a "marketing tool" .... yeah I know that the Labradoodle was meant to have been created in Australia etc... but geez... the Australian Silky Terrier is a recongised ANKC breed and has been for well over 50 years

They like to keep them a little heavier over there, you're so right. Yes I agree. I too have found this here. But I have also found that the rings are generally so much smaller than our rings in Australia.I also wonder if the dogs are carrying more weight here because Westminster is held in the middle of winter and maybe the dogs don't get as much exercise as they would in summer... I know my show dogs don't...(not saying they don't get exercised at all... but they don't get as much exercise in winter as they do in summer (neither do I :D ) and when it is sub zero temps outside and snow etc.. it is more challenging to get dogs fit and toned for the ring.... I would like to see more emphasis placed on movement here in allbreeds shows (but that is what I am used to in Australia .. generally speaking of course), but otherwise the dogs that set foot into the ring are usually immaculately presented.

They find such unique ways of embarrassing us...

:laugh: So Doof is the thief.... and Kodiak just takes possession of stolen goods..

Your Daisy knows that Barbie has had work done LOL!!! :laugh: One of my Griffons used to go to the laundry, up-end the laundry basket and chew the crutch out of all the underwear she could get her teeth into... she also chewed the crutch out of my hubbies jeans :D My Anatolian came to greet me just the other night when I got home from grocery shopping... I left the doors to my pickup truck open whilst bringing all the groceries into the house... Didn't realise that he had reached into my truck and grabbed the toilet tissue - the big 36 roll bulk pack..... whilst it is winter here at the moment, and we have only had one snowfall so far... next morning I bleary eyed looked out the window and thought it had snowed... blinked a couple of times and realised that it was the toilet paper, all chewed into little pieces scattered all over our front lawn. I hadn't even realised the night before that the toilet paper was not amongst the groceries My two working border collie pups are tool thieves... I find wrenches, spanners, screw drivers and even the big pipe wrench (which is quite heavy) scattered all over the paddock. Wish they would put those tools to good use and go fix something :D Well they are 'working' BC pups so of course they take the tools Sorry lame joke but I just had to Love it LOL...... must tell my significant other that one, considering they are his tools that they take... :D

Your Daisy knows that Barbie has had work done LOL!!! :laugh: One of my Griffons used to go to the laundry, up-end the laundry basket and chew the crutch out of all the underwear she could get her teeth into... she also chewed the crutch out of my hubbies jeans :D My Anatolian came to greet me just the other night when I got home from grocery shopping... I left the doors to my pickup truck open whilst bringing all the groceries into the house... Didn't realise that he had reached into my truck and grabbed the toilet tissue - the big 36 roll bulk pack..... whilst it is winter here at the moment, and we have only had one snowfall so far... next morning I bleary eyed looked out the window and thought it had snowed... blinked a couple of times and realised that it was the toilet paper, all chewed into little pieces scattered all over our front lawn. I hadn't even realised the night before that the toilet paper was not amongst the groceries My two working border collie pups are tool thieves... I find wrenches, spanners, screw drivers and even the big pipe wrench (which is quite heavy) scattered all over the paddock. Wish they would put those tools to good use and go fix something :D

A number of years ago, I had this happen with a couple different litters. I knew the lines, one of the bitches was a home bred bitch, the other was from another kennel.. One litter we had all dead and half formed puppies, the ones that I could actually see the head, were very overshot like the puppy in the photograph. I rebred that bitch to the same dog and she produced healthy puppies another two times... some of which were kept and shown by me. The other bitch did the same thing, she had a live puppy, a dead puppy and a deformed live puppy which died after me tube feeding it for almost 2 weeks. The live derformed puppy was overshot, but not so severe as the dead puppy. The mother of thes pups went back to the original stud dog and had a litter of perfectly healthy puppies. She also had two more litters to two of my stud dogs and all were fine... some went to Germany and one became a Junior World Champion. We had a very limited gene pool inwhich to work with world wide and puppies were often born with compromised immune sytems, puppies born with gastroschisis (intestines on the outside of their bodies), deformities and bitches aborting.... I put it down to the inbreeding because there was no outcross anywhere in the world... the lines were so closely related. But inbreeding would not explain why one litter would be deformed and the next litter perfectly fine either. I would have given almost anything to be able to get a new bloodline, but you can't get the impossible.... so sometimes I think mother nature does things that we mere mortals will never understand. Sometimes I do believe that there is no rhyme or reason to certain things, sometimes things "just happen".

Oh I am so sorry to hear about your little dog. .. that must be just devastating... whilst I don't have any suggestions for food as you have covered what I have fed mine in the past when they have been sick, I just wanted to to express my sympathy

Yes, I certainly remember the bottles... always had cream on the top and my brother and I would fight over who got the first drink out of the bottle, and got all the cream.... mum would try and shake the bottle so that the cream would mix in... I think they had these thick foil lids from memory... also remember the baker delivering bread and he would bring me a nice warm bread roll with either poppy seeds or sesame seeds.. I was only very young but boy did I love it when the baker came once a week to deliver the bread, those bread rolls were delicious. I have been bitten a couple times, once required stitches and antibiotics and a tetanus shot, but it was a bit nasty and left a bit of a scar... the dog that bit me was a nasty bugger too!!! This pic was taken after I drove myself to the hospital and they cleaned it up... I think it is routine that medical staff give tetanus shots after dog bites, just as a precaution. Funny I can look at the photo but at the time I couldn't look at it, I would have fainted before I got to the hospital if I dared look, I only knew it wasn't good because of all the blood...:laugh: Hope he is ok,,,,, ...........Funnily, despite the wound from the dog bite.. which incidentally didn't hurt... my shoulder after the tetanus shot was more sore than the wound