corvus

I think it looks like play to them if you get down on the ground, and if you don't do it much it's unsurprising that they get excited. Whenever I lie on the ground to do stretches after a run the dogs think we're cuddling. Kivi lies down practically on my head and Erik licks me. If I lie down to do physio exercises it's the same brief affection storm. I'm one of these people that tends to charge through the house at speeds that are not suited to the terrain and thus end up running into things, tripping over things, staggering, falling, doubling over swearing... Erik will come over to see what I'm rolling around on the ground moaning about because he's a sticky-beak, but Kivi mostly ignores it. I can't remember where I saw this recently. It might have even been on DOL somewhere. There is a study that's been done where owners pretended to have a heart attack to see what their dogs would do. Most of the dogs stood around wagging their tails or just wandered off, so they tried a more realistic scenario where the owners walked into a room and then had a book case fall on them and pin them to the ground and then the owners tried to tell the dogs to go and get help. Most of the dogs seemed to think it was a spot of hilarity from their owners.

It must be a relief to be home and imminent reunion with Barkly to look forward to. Take it easy and perhaps your immune system needs a Talking To about sleeping on the job.

Beagles? Huskies? CKCS, Cocker Spaniel, GSP, Viszla, sheltie, Whippet, Boxer? I probably should have said many common breeds have rated barely a mention. GRs, BCs, Kelpies, large poodle crosses (???). Mostly this thread has ended up being about staffy types, SWFs and GSDs and to a lesser extent labs, dobes, rotties... I don't think poor ownership alone can account for them being singled out over and over again. CleoJ, my little Pem tended to get a lot of surprised "she's a nice dog, isn't she?" sorts of comments as well. I had a lot of people tell me she was the first nice corgi they'd met. OH was one of them and started out quite dubious about Penny, but he grew very attached to her in the end. Maybe I've been lucky, but I've never met a corgi of either kind that was nasty. I guess that they probably went through a period of popularity that I came in on the end of, which might explain it. MrsRB, your girl sounds like an excellent dog park candidate. I know a few like that and they are very popular. Erik has a dog park godmother who he still greets with the enthusiasm of a puppy every time he sees her. She is rough with the dogs that like it rough and gentle with the dogs that like it gentle. A pleasure to watch. Kivi is pretty good, but can get carried away with his contact sometimes. Erik is more sensitive about body contact, but that goes both ways and he really hates being knocked around by large dogs he doesn't know. Kivi is a spaz and loves being bowled over and jumped on. He is so mild mannered and tactile he makes a good playmate for staffies. It's just Erik we look out for.

But there are bad owners in many common breeds, yet not all common breeds have been mentioned in this thread...

Gotta watch those dogs with brittle dendrites. ;) There's no fixing them. :p I found a paper in my library that you and Joe would like. It looks at heritability scores in GSDs and Labs for temperament traits important in working roles. It's worth noting, I think, that heritability of 'nerve' and all traits under that umbrella appears to vary between breeds, and it is not 100%. I think it's an over-generalisation to label behaviour in a dog whose history is unknown as genetic. I think we should be very careful about making bold statements to that effect. Thanks, dandybrush. ;) I don't where this line between accepting breed tendencies and outright breed prejudice apparently lies. We love talking about breed tendencies... until it's a negative one. It's not harmful to anyone IMO to be cautious.

When Erik was about 10 weeks old he was out on the deck with me when my other dog started heading our way. He struck a stiff, threatening pose, growled deep in his chest, and then rushed Kivi. Apparently he was making a point, because he pulled up short and then strutted back to me for all the world like he'd taken care of something. I'm not even sure Kivi noticed. He ignored it. I ignored it. We moved on and he didn't do it again. I've known a couple of puppies that do some spookily adult behaviour at a very young age. This doesn't sound like one of them!

Yes, I am sure this is a very poor outcome for the remaining pup. However, MY point is that if you say the puppies were neglected, yet they don't appear to be because you were feeding them and mum, then that makes a case for seizing the remaining puppy pretty weak. An owner saying they hate dogs is not grounds for seizing their puppy, and nor is a neighbour saying the puppy was previously neglected if the puppy does not currently appear to be neglected. I know it sucks, but we'd be pretty upset if they could take an animal without concrete evidence that the animal is neglected or suffering.

So, you didn't call the RSPCA when the mother and puppies were underweight and then the owners surrendered them voluntarily to the RSPCA after you had been feeding them? How is the RSPCA to know that they were being neglected? Because you said they were? AFAIK there's no law against keeping a 3 week old puppy. If the owners were never under investigation from the RSPCA, is it any of their business if the owners are keeping one puppy?

I find obedience boring. But Kivi doesn't, so I make it interesting for me by breaking it down into little parts and working on little projects like turning heel position into a happy place Kivi doesn't want to leave. He really surprised me when he eventually picked up rear end awareness, and I think his confidence has soared since he learnt some balance and body awareness. That's pretty fun. And learning effective ways to reward keeps me engaged. It's pretty boring with Erik, though. He's so clever and full of energy I just like jamming with him and find that way more fun. Ultimately I just want agility to be another way to jam with him.

I would, because one of my dogs doesn't really like the boisterous play style I often see in staffy type dogs, he is prone to 'speaking' too quietly to them, and he is prone to then blowing up in their faces when they don't pay attention to what he's saying, and they are prone to firing up over that. In my mind it's not a prejudice, it's me managing my dog for his safety according to my experiences and risk assessments. Some staffies don't play too rough, some don't fail to notice his back off signals, and some are quite tolerant of outspoken behaviour. But many are not, and it behooves me to err on the side of caution and avoid trouble where it might exist. That's why we can have fun at dog parks. This morning Erik was playing with one of his oldest canine friends, who is a little, entire, BYB female staffy. She was shouldering him and he was wrestling with her and it was very physical and Erik was being pretty obnoxious. I let them play for a good 15 minutes, and that's because they have known each other all their lives. Erik doesn't mind her jostling or biting him and she is tolerant of him barking in her face. It doesn't really matter that she's BYB or that she's a staffy or that her owner is clueless about dog behaviour. It matters that she and E know each other and they trust each other, therefore I am cool with them playing together as long as they like. I am not cool with E playing for extended periods with a dog he dosen't know that well that is likely to push him too far and then explode at him when he snaps. I am cool with him getting to know said dog over a number of short encounters where we move on well before problems may arise. I don't think that's prejudiced. I think that's cautious management, and the reason why I can count the fights Erik has got into on one hand with fingers to spare.

Show me a study that does! These sorts of studies are not expected to give a full picture and I don't know anyone that would interpret them as such. I've always interpreted them as an information gathering exercise. Useful to launch further research or to check results of another study against.

They break down deaths for all breeds and highlight the ones that have unusual trends. Shoot me a PM if you want to have a closer look.

Are you sure it's the bark that he's picking up on? What if it's the sound of the pug's owner's footsteps, for example?

You can't? Surely you can to some extent. Not every time. If I see a dog posturing its easy to assume the worst, but I have also had a quietly sitting dog, showing no overt aggressive signs, quickly lunge & snap at my dog as she has walked past. On more than one occasion when walking onlead on a street. It pays to always be slightly out of reach! Erring on the side of caution. Yeah i agree, ive had a cattle dog run up and barking at me like she was going to bite and she just jumped up to say hello wagging her tail and licking i think the quiet ones you have to be more cautious of :p IME they always show some sign. A bit of whale eye is the most common one I see. Sometimes just a bit of stiffness creeps into their stance. My dogs usually pick it up. I learn what to look for by watching them. Staffies make me wary because IME they can switch damn fast and you often don't get a chance to stop it. Their triggers are predictable, though, I think.

I have access to it.

You can't? Surely you can to some extent.

We have also been planning a weekend at Bimblegumbie with the dogs. Is it easy to get a booking a very short time in advance if it snows?

Maybe it depends on the campus. When I was at ANU I took my dog to uni a few times. There were often dogs on campus, but our building at least had a rule that dogs weren't allowed inside for OHS reasons. Everyone turned a blind eye to the leveret I was raising during honours year, though. ;) He went to seminars, meetings, and spent a lot of time being hare-sat in the honours room. I used to take him out into the courtyard on his shoelace harness so he could run in the grass. The local magpies thought I'd brought him just for them.

Ignoring a crying puppy may work, but it's not the only or the 'best' way to teach a puppy to accept being alone. Every puppy I've ever had anything to do with starts out with the separation distress thing. With Kivi I trained him to begin to cope with it by sitting with him beside his pen until he fell asleep, then making sure I was there when he woke up before he got scared that I'd left him. Seriously, it only took about 4 days of this and he was starting to trust that I wasn't going to abandon him and he could in fact go to sleep in his pen without me. Erik was a bit older when I got him (9 1/2 weeks) and it only took about 2 1/2 days before he was okay about being in his pen without me right by him. Google Karen Overall's Relaxation Protocol. It's a list of exercises to do daily with a dog to help them learn to accept things that happen to them. It's structured so that you gradually introduce them to harder and harder things to accept and as long as they stay calm they get rewarded. It's very adaptable and you can change the exercises to focus on teaching your puppy to accept separation. If nothing else it will give you an idea of how to tackle this in a systematic manner and how to break down what you want into very small steps. ETA Here's a clicker training version of training a puppy to be alone:

Get well soon, Luke.

Best wishes for Alfie and his dad.

Yes. 10kg Pembroke corgi ate about the same amount of dark chocolate. She had bad diarrhea overnight but was otherwise fine.

Sounds like the kind of monologue that goes on in our house.

Haha, I was about to say almost the same thing. We also tend to identify patterns where there are none. Especially related to negative experiences! It's good for our health. ;)

I don't mind SWFs. We know some pretty cool ones that like our dogs and will play with them. The ones that don't are usually just scared of dogs bigger than they are. My boys leave them alone and they leave us alone. A couple of times one of the dogs has had a run in with one that has run at them and tried to bite them. They're kinda like "Arg! Run away!" and that's where it ends. They seem more bewildered than upset by it.