raineth

ChantelleM, are you sure this is a fight? A lot of Dogs when playing make growling sounds and look quite wild. If you think it is aggressive behaviour it is really important to find yourself a good behaviourist. He is very young to be showing aggression. Have you contacted his breeder and asked them? You could describe what he is doing and say that you are unsure about it. If it really is aggression it is very important for them to know.

yeah agree with the others. When a dog is barking out of aggression, their mouth shortens. when seen from the side, the mouth makes a kind of side ways U. Also you will usually see eye rolling and a crescent-shaped eye whites.

no I haven't heard of them... I'll have to google we were seriously thinking of getting a Regal sulkies one for a while. I just ended up feeling way to guilty about the money. The guy was fantastic though even when we turned out to be tyre kickers

good on Brutus though, what good boy :) I bet you were proud of him :)

I've always loved the idea of having a male bullmastiff named Sheridan :D

You could use a puppy pen or two to create him a safe area for outside, big enough for him to sleep, play and toilet. Obviously you need to make sure it's got shelter. This is what we did with all our puppies. Seeing as it's autumn at the moment, the weather should be pretty good for him to spend the day out in it (depending on where you live ofcourse). It's great that he knows outside is for toileting Personally any sort of toileting inside I would avoid at all costs. Urine leaves trace smells that encourage him to go there again. And it's just very confusing. I know of several people who opted for the use of puppy pads and allowing toileting inside and even as adults these dogs soil the house!

whoa! It is a thorough mis-conception that Great Danes need a huge backyard :) They are very low-energy dogs who are these days bred for companionship. There are many Danes who live in apartments just fine, let alone units. In general Great Danes' exercise needs are very flexible. If you are the type of person who wants to go for several walks a day or go hiking, an adult Great Dane will have no problem keeping up with that. If you instead prefer to go for a leisurely stroll around the neighbourhood they will be happy with that too. I'm guessing you have a small breed minimax? The misconception of Danes needing big backayards usually comes from people imagining that living with one would be like living with their smaller, active, inquisitive dog, enlarged to several times its size, but that's not the case. Living with a small breed is different to living with a giant breed in terms of the energy they give to the house. While many of toy and small breeds are fairly busy little creatures invesitgating all goings on, a Dane is generally a stolid presence in the house. Snoozing the day away in one spot, to maybe occasionally get up and move to another spot to snooze. Ofcourse any puppy is more energetic and mischievous than its older self. To the OP, congrats on your puppy :) Can;t wait for photos ;) I don't think crating him for that period of time would be ideal. Is it at all possible you could get a doggy door installed? Crate training a Great Dane is really no different to crate training any other dog. I really reccommend it. But it can be a big topic. Ultimately you want to take it step by step and make it a very positive and safe place that the pup/dog wants to be in. Definitely not :) I crate trained my two adult rescues (one of which is a Dane) and plenty of other people have too. You can start crate training at any time. Some people teach their dog/puppy to ring a bell, I haven't done that so you would need to ask someone else. But really first of all they need a fairly solid foundation of understanding that toileting is an outside activity before they will attempt to 'ask' or tell you that they need to go outside (usually by waiting patiently at the back door). So take him out regularly, especially after eating, drinking, playing, and napping. Also if you see him sniffing, or circling get him out quick smart. And lots of praise when he gets it right :)

hmm Kja no wonder you are frustrated, that doesn't sound right to me at all Sounds like you are doing all the right things and being assertive and it's getting you nowhere Did the puppy need extra vet work and that is why they are charging so much? Also not sure what that last email means? Is she saying that she thought that dropping the price should be enough to get him a forever home? Fingers crossed that your gorgeous pup will find a forever home soon.

oh wow! I think he looks like a little sleeping polar bear :D and the polar fleece almost looks a bit like snow he is just soooo cute!

It isn't so much this, as each gene only encodes for one protein or RNA, but that the genes are grouped together as chromosomes and inherited as a block. Plus genes that are close together on a chromosome are less likely to get separated if a 'reshuffling' event occurs (what we call 'tightly linked') - therefore offspring are very unlikely to inherit one without the other. For example if a gene for 'black' and a gene/genes that regulates dopamine or serotonin production are right next to each other on a chromosome it would be almost impossible to inherit one without the other and colour may well be linked to temperament. Since the dog genome has been mapped we could find this out fairly easily, but I'm just not sure how well the brain biochemistry genes that we understand actually correlate to a complicated thing like temperament. It could be studied though, by creating a panel of all the candidate genes and seeing which ones are more or less active in dogs with a certain temperament. I suspect though since it's likely to be a combination of genes, and then environment plays such a big part, it would be a tough one to nut out the statistics on. thanks Weasels that's a very easy to understand description :)

I believe thought that it's not so much coat colour, as skin colour that can affect temperament. There are dogs with light or white couloured coats that have darker skin underneath, which I think applies to the white LGD's? This may also be the case with the whote swiss shepherds? From what I remember it is because the idea of a specific gene for a specific trait isn't accurate, so when you change a gene that affects colour, it also probably affects quite a few other things as well. As Jigsaw said take a look at the fox experiments and the hormones and melanin link everyone :) Temple Grandin's discussion on white chickens is also very compelling.

how do you know this is what happened?

vey cute! Love the facial expressions especially :)

Puppies can insight prey drive in some dogs. The fact that the dog shook the puppy makes me think it saw the puppy as prey.

Here is a map of san isidore, The training club is on the green patch on Benedict Ave. http://maps.google.com.au/maps?hl=en&rlz=&q=map+of+San+Isidore&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x6b18a1f738624dd5:0x50609b4904426a0,San+Isidore+NSW&gl=au&ei=83ZhT8OZGcaSiAfVkPjqBQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CCIQ8gEwAA so yeah it's pretty simple, coming from the highway, turn left and then take the second right :)

how about 3 o'clock? I noticd I put the 19th, but it's actually the 18th. Do you know whereabouts the dog club is at San Isidore?

Oh my! He's just so precious :D I've had foster puppies before KJA (two at the same time) and I got nothing done, nothing! :laugh:

They were originally hunting dogs, primarily hunting boar. ETA: good on the Newfie need a better photo of him though! :)

What do you think about next Sunday afternoon (19th)? Would you be free then?

Mr Darcy, pedigree Great Dane, 1 year and 3 months. Was pts after he suffered a stroke during surgery to fix cervical vertebral malformations. He was expected to only have about 6 months left without the surgery.

Digby is four years old, not really sure what is in him, maybe some mastiff, he is pretty big boy. We adopted him when he was 2.5 years old. He has played with a Bernese before and he really liked her. He does a lot of growling when he plays, which does freak some people out :laugh: but he doesn't play very often. He's often more comfortable hanging out than playing. Delta is 3 years old, acts like she's about 9 months old :p She is a rescue also, we adopted her when she was 15 months old. We are always working on self-control with her it's an ongoing project :laugh:. She's very sweet though :) and just adores everybody. In a nutshell, Digby and Delta are complete opposites. I love the name Bruno :D What's he like? I was thinking if you would like to meet up sometime that the dog park where Kyeamba Training is would be a good place to go. I would just bring along either Digby or Delta (not both).

I'm at Forest Hill, so we were ok here thanks :) I'm guessing you were ok being at Kooringal? How old is your boy and what's his name?

phew! I'm glad she's ok! Its incredible she wasn't hurt. Makes you wonder whether its her size, her fulffy-ness, whether she was clever about the landing... or whether she was just really lucky!

Hello oh what a lovely dog you have! I'm in Wagga, where abouts are you? I have a Dane and a very big mutt.

I thought she implied that the previous one she had owned came from Southern Star. oh yes could be... I'm not entirely sure :)