Salukifan

Dogs get banned from public places due to the behaviour of irresponsible dog owners who fail to control or pick up after them. IMO it would be irresponsible NOT to caution the owner of a tiny breed baby puppy about dog parks. Not much "enjoyment" to be had when your pup is scared witless, injured or dead. When people don't give a toss about the enjoyment of anyone's dogs but their own, you have to caution those whose dogs will bear the brunt of any trouble.

In a nutshell? Because you place the safety of your dog in the hands of others ability to read and control their dogs. If the pup is monstered, flattened or attacked, chances are your friend will be the only person who will act to protect it. How good is she at wrangling other people's dogs? How good will she be at extracting that pup from the middle of a bunch of dogs? Big dogs running at speed and small puppies don't mix well. there doesn't even have to be any bad intent for her dog to be injured. And I don't call a baby puppy constantly on its back submitting to larger dogs very good socialization. I hope the park has large and small dog sections at least.

I ordered and received an SP4 this year. No issues with it at all

Friendly male whippet pups from registered breeders aren't difficult to find. Contact the Whippet club of Victoria or take a look at litters advertised here. Beauroi and Taejaan would be ones I'd recommend :)

Airedaler: Agree. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to raise a pup well. A bit of effort is all thats required :)

Yep, he could be be but I suspect he's as much a Scotty cross as I am. It's a numerically quite rare breed. Odds are that this boy is a genuine bitsa rather than an F1 crossbred. Why he cant be chipped as "unknown" for breed beats me as that's the reality of the situation.

Some breed standards specify that "honourable scars" are not to be penalized. This tends to be the case for working and hunting breeds. Much will depend on how distracting the scar or disfigurement is and what side of the dog it is on.

I find this the most extraordinary response in the thread. Not only does it fly in the face of scientific research, anyone who's familiar with more than a few dogs in more than a few breeds would refute it. The idea that all dogs are basically alike and the differences between them are largely cosmetic has probably accounted for more dogs dumped than any other. Terriers, herding dogs, sighthounds - raised in the same environment and by the same methods you do NOT get the same temperament in the dog. By your reasoning, I could raise any pup with livestock and get a livestock guardian. Sorry but you don't get a blank slate with a pup. Some aspects of temperament are hard wired and dog aggression can be one example. You can socialise the pants of some dogs of fighting ancestry but come maturity, you can still end up with a dog that takes no prisoners if provoked.

You might want to rethink that. Unless the ears are really heavy, they shouldn't need a lot of cleaning. Indeed, swamping the ear in chemicals affects its balance and can create more issues than it solves. My vets view is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and I have to say my poodles have very rarely ever had an ear issue. If they are yeasty, you may have more success with a change of diet than with cleaning them.

I think it helps a bit to consider the character of the dog you want to live with and the lifestyle you'll lead with the dog. Do you want a dog that's affectionate and follows you from room to room or do you want a dog that's more independent? Do you mind a dog that's always going to need firm boundaries or do you want a 'softer' dog. Do you want a dog that's protective or aloof with strangers or do you want a dog that thinks everyone is their friend? Do you want a dog that's always looking for something to do or a more laid back dog? What size dog do you want? How house proud are you? Is hair and slobber a complete turn off? Will this dog be allowed inside or be an 'outside only' dog? Will you take the dog to training? I don't think there's a "great dog" that suits all first time dog owners because owners are so different!!

Temperament is part genetic, part environment and part socialisation. Would I buy a pup from a timid or aggressive parent? No way. I think it's often easier to integrate a pup into your home because you get to start with a relatively blank slate. But pups are a LOT more work early on.

Another Payless fan - the elastic lace flat "runners" come in a range of colours and look fine with skirts. If your ankles ache after showing, it may well have more to do with the condition of the show ring than your shoes. Uneven or hard rings make most folks' ankles ache.

If you show on manicured grounds and easy paths and want to put one Chihuahua and a chair in it? Aluminium. If you want to put 90kg of dog food (yes, product won by a bunch of us) and haul it up and over a goat track with two Golden Retrievers attached to the front pulling it? Steel - in fact Ccrates Steel. My Ccrates trolley has taken an amazing amount of abuse and is still sound. A lot of aluminium ones warp. That can lead to problems with door catches closing properly. I don't find the extra weight makes all that much difference but if you had a dodgy back, I'd probably choose a aluminium one.

Fit him with a bellyband for a while while he's inside.

Join a dog training club. There are usually opportunities for controlled socialization there.

Got that - it was that you perpetrated a pretty common myth to do it that I took issue with.

Sighthounds can be trained to recall. You just have to make it worth their while.

As an anti-vivisectionist I find the whole suggestion extremely disturbing. Not discounting the fact, that dogs are sentient beings. Whether or not a Vet is 'chopping' neatly, the intimation that education proceeds through the indirect suffering of innocent and defenceless animals is simply astounding. Good old Tralee, taking the thread way off in a direction it was never intended to go. You never fail to disappoint. What's the link between a philosophical objection to surgery for experimental purposes and a C section Tralee? You're the semantics freak - you tell me. And while you're at it, tell me how a bitch failing to whelp a pup normally deserves any LESS than an emergency C-section. Sure beats dying in whelp for both mother AND pup.

Given that for many dogs, their pasts will never be known, I think its better to deal with the animal as you observe it and not to wonder or worry about what may have happened. Two dogs with the same genetic make up and the same history can still be quite different in many ways so I think its best to base any behaviour modification on what you see.

Seems to me you equate an emergency c-section with "a horrible death". I think you've taken one large step beyond what Pav was saying. Given that PL was over her fence just recently in the early hours of the morning to assist a little crossbred pup who's idiot owner gave it access to large fishing hooks and then wanted to tear them out like you would on a fish, can I politely suggest you have absolutely no idea who you are talking about. And she rescues and rehomes Whippets without pedigree papers. *gasp*

A rash on the belly only suggests a contact allergy. Does she lie on the grass a lot? Putting a T-Shirt on her to prevent her skin coming into contact with the grass might be worth a go to see if it makes a difference. I have to ask - is she blue?

It seems your sense of right and wrong has become extremely warped if you're wishing ill on a dog. Never seem to occur to some bitch owners that when they breed their very young or very old, not health tested bitch to an inappropriate sire, they are bringing ill on their dog AND its pups AND on the families who take them on. It's all a matter of perspective from where I sit.

why? Is it hurting them? It can certainly hurt the "getting on with life" part. I'd not mind $10 for every time "he's a rescue" got trotted out in class as an excuse for poor behaviour or lack of progress in training. A fair bit of the time the training issue is at the other end of the leash. Feeling sorry for your dog shouldn't be a convenient cop out or an excuse for not dealing with issues. I think there are quite a few issues caused by lack of socialisation or timidity that get written off as "abused dog". Headshyness is one.

Or a 12 hour whelping during the night, breech births & a trip to an emergency Vet at 2am to get puppy formula to feed the puppies, because the mother doesn't want to know the puppies she's had, while she is still pushing out the others. Then the 2 hour feeds for the runts of the litter, who are too small to compete with the bigger stronger pups. I would have thought that a good whack to the hip pocket would have been sufficient but what they heck, they can have the lot Wow, you just get even better with successive post... The mind boggles. Dear lord, if it does happen, here's hoping everything goes as right as it possibly can in this kind of situation with no hardship inflicted upon the poor dog. At least if it's a complicated, expensive birth, it only happens once. And no successive litters of little ACD X pups are likely to find their way to the pound and end up PTS before their first birthday because "they nip the kids". And I don't have to watch rescuers rip their hair out because such dogs aren't a piece of cake to find homes for either. Agree that BYBs aren't going to be discouraged from doing it again if it all goes tickety boo. The best way to ensure that bitch doesn't suffer is to remove her uterus. Failing that, how do you do it?

My next dog is 3-4 years away and I'm already thinking about it.