Leema

My friends are interested in the samoyed breed. What health tests should prospective samoyed mums and dads have passed?

I was going to make the exact same comments. I don't think Dakota is too skinny.

I have a bowl with sloped sides inside which Clover was thoroughly discrouaged from digging in. She now only digs in it to tell me it's empty! Any other bowl with straight sides she digs in, particularly if it's outside... Along with the clam shell idea, we actually have a wheelbarrow outside that Clover jumps up in to play in... Perhaps this is a 'sturdier' solution to the clam if the clam is likely to be destroyed.

I like the training levels. Fantastic foundation behaviours for life and every dog sport. http://www.dragonflyllama.com/%20DOGS/%20Dog1/levels.html

I think it's important to remember that it's irresponsible breeding that is the problem, not 'not desexing'. Animals which are 'not desexed' don't just contribute to population problems by default- they contribute when they're not properly managed.

I find dogs take a while to get used to seatbelts/harnesses. I would go with a crate as trying to untangle dog and harness while driving is unsafe, to say the least.

I really like these two articles for considering the health effects of desexing: http://www.caninesports.com/SpayNeuter.html PDF file - "Long Term Health Effects of Spay/Neuter in Dogs" If you have the facilities to stop an entire bitch getting knocked up, then I would never have her desexed. If you do not have these facilities, get her desexed before her first season. EDIT: Fix link

Taken from the levels site:

If you can catch them mid-pee, take advantage of it! I had the problem of Clover being 'too quick', too, so I just made sure I took her out periodically (every hour or so) instead of waiting for any sniffing and circling.

My dogs get tuna. Don't think they've ever had sardines, but salmon didn't go well for them (boney).

Okay, my experience... Get something to hide them in - fritz or cheese is good. You need quite a few pieces,more than the number of tablets you have. Probably about 6 pieces for two tablets. Squish the tablets in some how. Wash you hands. Have all the pieces of fritz/cheese/whatever in your hand. You are going to deliver them all in quick succession. Give one piece without tab. Give another piece without tab. Give one with a tab. Quickly follow by one without a tab. Give the next tab. Quickly follow with a without a tab. I've found that dogs are so busy watching the next bit of fritz/cheese/whatever, they just woof it down to get the next bit. I work in boarding kennels and haven't had a dog yet that would not consume tabs with this method, except for those that didn't want to eat in the first place.

I would be reluctant to use shampoo often, but I don't think rinses with water would do damage. Shampoo strips hair (dog and human!) of natural oils which makes it produce more oils to compensate. So shampoo can create a cyclic problem with grease and smell. For example, I wash my hair about once every two months. It doesn't get 'greasy' in the first month because its not used to me stripping it of oils daily or weekly, as some people do.

Ditto.

http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?showtopic=145084 This is a similar thread a little while ago.

I looked up agitation collars and I'm not quite sure what you mean... Could you post a picture? One type of collar I saw is a collar with the ring you snap onto attached to the end of the collar. You then thread the collar through the ring to buckle up. Effectively the ring you snap onto spans across the two layers of the collar. Dorrie has a Rogz collar that attaches in this fashion. However, I don't know how this would stop slipping out of a collar. I would suggest a martingale collar to stop slipping out.

Some people have trained their dog that a tight leash means good things coming... Which may you have inadvertently done. This is my only suggestion.

Congrats!! Ness, I'm surprised you haven't explained the big wee Ness produced in Open last year. :rolleyes:

I feed my dogs whenever. It's normally in the evening but I try to switch things up to keep things interesting. They also have meals as training. They rarely get lunch so I didn't vote for lunch.

I have not read "The Perfect Puppy" but bought it a few weeks ago. From my flicking through, it's fantastic. It actually goes through dog body language which lots of books fail to do. Of course, this is just me looking at pictures. Also, there is a border terrier featured throughout, which isn't a bad selling point.

I would suggest getting a front attach harness, and also having a slip on the dog. If you clip your lead to the harness and the slip, if your dog gets out of the harness, the slip is still attached and the dog can't 'escape'. You don't have to use the slip collar as anything more than a safety net. However, I would be interested in why your dog does not want to go up hill in the first place. :/

Mac has a bad heart murmur (never remember what it was graded as), but you can feel the irregularities to its beat when you put your hand to his chest. It's never caused him problems, as far as we can see. He's never not had a murmur so we only know what is normal for him. He's going to be 7yrs in January with no inclining of problems. We do keep him at a lean weight and never force an exercise regime.

If you're feeding dry food, it's easy to cut back. I'd immediate cut her dry food in half, and substitute the other half with veggies if you feel the need.

For those that are interested (as I'm unsure if my friend is going to reply), they took Tess to a different vet. This vet found a tumor/growth in her throat that is inoperable. She is on pain relief and can only eat 'soft foods'. He has given her 3 months to live but it may be less than this is she is in too much pain.

Update: I don't want to shove her in a crate and let her bark/scratch it out. We've tried that with outside and it hasn't worked. We've tried it with the kennel yard and it hasn't worked. So we're going about introducing the crate slowly. I have contacted a trainer who hopefully will be coming to see us on Saturday. I don't know what I am doing wrong at all, so I'm looking forward to being told.

Here is some instructions on teaching a dog not to pull which I like. http://www.dragonflyllama.com/%20DOGS/Leve.../TL15Leash.html As for collar or harness... I teach my dogs that they can do 'whatever they want' (pulling included) on a harness, but are required to walk on a loose lead on a collar. My dogs are only little dogs so pulling isn't problematic for control on a harness. Also, when my dogs are pups, they have a flexi attached to their harness at parks, but never have a flexi attached to their collar.