Salukifan

With the poodles, as they are used to clippers around their feet, mine didn't bat an eyelid when the Dremel was used. :) I have one with a cord and use the sanding belts to do nails - medium grade.

It is one of the downsides of this forum too - dogs that are forum favourites have gone to the bridge.

Is there a particular breed you are interested in Oso? I'd say the individual breed databases like the Whippet Archives will be all there is. Those databases do exist for a range of breeds.

Where do I start? Aggression is NOT a drive. It is the EXPRESSION of a drive .. dominance, prey, food, pack, sexual etc etc If you think you can't make prey drive out of a couch potato, you clearly have had very little to do with sighthounds :laugh: Similarly, if you think you can't "make" a dog aggressive, check out the seedier side of the security dog training industry. I have never said that breed doesn't matter - but it's not everything either. There are two reasons for that: 1. The levels of drive within a breed will vary. Not all Border Collies will herd. Not all sighthounds will course. And, most importantly for this thread, not all bull breeds are dog or human aggressive. Do you watch the rescue shows on Animal Planet? Quite a few times they've used an APBT as the "Friendly test dog" for character assessments at the ASPCA. 2. How quickly a dog will trigger into a particular drive can be modified - by socialisation, by training (no police dog does its work simply due to "drive"). That expression can also be controlled. We have created breeds with various levels of particular drive but anyone with good breed knowledge will tell you that doesn't make them a universal attribute. Furthermore, any trainer will tell you we can modify our dogs behaviour. THIS is what is wrong with BSL. It assumes that all behaviour can be simply attributed to breed and that there is no way some dogs of a particular breed can be safe (or dangerous for that matter). And there is no research in the world that supports that assumption. Not anywhere.

Reason why vets should be shamed for refusing to remove dewclaws on neonatal pups. See pic above My dogs were done last Sunday! No cutting here - I use a Dremmel.

To a pet person, first and foremost the pedigree is a guarantee that they are getting what they paid for. That is a purebred pup of identifiable parentage. Some who chose to buy a pup without papers are not so lucky. I've seen a few BYb "Whippets" that clearly aren't.

Merrirose in Sydney breeds them and they crop up occasionally in other litters. website says 'last litter indefinitely' after announcing the ones born in May. I'll get one from NZ if I have to :D There's a possibility of some from another breeder next year :cool:

Merrirose in Sydney breeds them and they crop up occasionally in other litters.

You can crunch the numbers for Whippets on The Whippet Archives Statistics Section It certainly isn't that high a percentage of fawn - but it used to be!

Can't see any bite stats from restricted breeds other than Pitbulls, so a bit hard to say that bite stats wouldn't be higher again with no BSL when your irresponsible owner has Fila or Dogo as they please. All breeds can present danger I agree, but some breeds don't have the genetic make up to present the level of danger that other breeds have, that is, try and train a Labrador in front line civil defence then try a GSD or Belgian Malinois and tell me there is no difference in a dog's fighting capabilities from genetic (breed) foundation? Try and rehabilitate a Bull breed with serious dog aggression, a dog that has poor handler focus, and a high pain threshold, then try the same with a Rottweiler of similar dog aggression level and tell me the training result will be the same? Tell a Greyhound racer to switch breeds to Cocker Spaniels as breed doesn't matter, train em right they can still win.........need we go on?? Of course with responsible ownership a tiger in the backyard is safe no question on that, but when the tiger or aggressive dog gets out is when the problem begins and the breed having genetic predisposition to aggression and fight in the individual dog is a great factor in the outcome. Probably because the other restricted breeds have virtually no representation in this country. Your argument above suggests that I should look to the breeds you name with "fighting capabililities" to be at the top of the bite stats and yet... shock, horror .. they aren't there!! And then you've made the rather ridiculous suggestion that a small gundog can win a race against a large sighthound.. OF COURSE breed matters in terms of conformation and drives - but it's not as simple as "some breeds are safe and some are dangerous" which is the basis of BSL. I'm sorry, but you are making absolutely no sense at all. You're rattling on about serious dog aggression in bull breeds when anyone can tell you that it is rare to find both serious DA and HA in the same dog. What's your point other than you dislike bull breeds and want them eradicated?? I don't own a bull breed and I have no desire to. But I'm not going to let my breed preferences condemn to death a great many dogs that never hurt anyone. No half way sensible dog lover would.

Go over the contents of that garage with a fine tooth comb and remove all potential poison and choke risks. You can pretty much guarantee that at some stage he'll make it out of the pen. In one of my pup's cases, it took less than 5 minutes.

Closest shows to you in the next few months will probably be Cooma, Canberra and Wollongong. I think theres a weekend full at Nowra at the end of September too.

Jean Dodds (vaccinatinon guru) recommends the booster one year after the puppy shots and then titre testing after that. I would get the booster or at least titre test the dog.

Join the Group "Australian Dog Show Breed Entry Numbers" on FB. It's got most of the NSW regional entry numbers on it the week before the shows. Bassets are generally represented at most shows in the region.

You'd probably be gobsmacked at the number of people who do. WreckitWhippet can tell you about Whippets coming into rescue for killing chickens and cats... more than once.

Whilst it's true that probably few dogs involved in attacks labelled as Pitbulls are actually Pitbulls or have Pitbull ancestry, but they are in that breed type.......that is, they are not reporting attacks from GSD's or Standard Poodles claimimg they are Pitbulls........the point I am making is people getting up in arms over a dog labelled a Pitbull which is an Amstaff X or an American Bulldog, the media hype is targeting a certain type of dog which I haven't seen a misrepresentation in that regard whether they are Pitbulls or not, they are of Bull breed origin being the more relative point. Personally I think the Bull breed supporters have bought a lot of the problems on themselves with too much defence of "that's not a Pitbull"......who cares if they think it's a Pitbull, they are a restricted breed anyway, it's not going to change anything by highlighting that an attacking dog is X breed as all that did was provide the foundation for Victoria to target and seize crossbreeds too. In hindsight it would have been a better scenario to agree that these attacking dogs are Pitbulls and the nice dogs the Bull breed supporters own are not Pitbulls and everyone is happy. This continual defence of Pitbulls which are done and dusted with a likelihood of BSL release at zero is IMHO what is bringing the crossbreeds and anything else Bull breed related into the spotlight?? Most of the dogs ARE crossbred.. your point??? What makes a dangerous dog is a LOT more than breed. Even a cursory examination of the background on most of these dogs finds OWNER failure... failure to socialise, failure to train, failure to supervise and failure to control. Don't kid yourself for a minute that a "nice" breed in the wrong hands can't be a danger to the community. And that is why focus on breeds is so dangerous. The myth that some breeds are "safe" and some are "dangerous" is probably the most dangerous aspect in all of this. Any cursory study of dog attacks on children shows that failure to SUPERVISE is what leads to most bites. Because what doesn't sell papers is that most dog bites are inflicted by the family dog. BSL is knee jerk, poorly researched and totally ineffective legislation and that should be screamingly obvious to anyone reading the bite stats at the start of this thread. If BSL is the answer, then how come bite stats are RISING???

I would discuss this with your vet but something like Permoxin (in a rinse or spray) which is not absorbed into the skin, might be the go.

I think your logic is flawed. The pedigree is proof of ancestry. It's not a window onto breeding practices - which is why finding the right pup should be a two step process: 1. Select the breed you're interested in. 2. Find a knowledgeable, responsible breeder.

As i said.... further down.... it's the use to which the pedigree, as a record of descent.... is used in making breeding decisions. Those decisions rest on information that's not directly written in that chart. Information about health. temperament, conformation characteristics of individual dogs.... which is kept in breeders' heads or in their written records. Which is why my emphasis is on breeder knowledge & behaviour.... in any education or public relations about purebred dogs & the possible benefits in owning them. Except that we're trying to market to people who will probably never make breeding decisions - so the value of the pedigree must be in what pet owners will get from it.

Herding instinct is modified prey drive. I'd assume no such thing. I don't care what breed we're talking about, I would never trust the safety of small animals to socialisation or breed. I'd trust it ONLY to separation. That said, I think the Collie would be a 'safer' breed in this regard than the SP. I think the OP needs to consider what level of trainability, intelligence, biddability etc she's looking for in a dog before identifying breeds. Coliies and Standard Poodles are both bright and trainable but I think its their level of people focus and energy that are qite different. Standard Poodle males can be a bit full of themselves as adolescents and IMO they need firmer boundaries than Collies do.

Herding instinct is modified prey drive. I'd assume no such thing. I don't care what breed we're talking about, I would never trust the safety of small animals to socialisation or breed. I'd trust it ONLY to separation. I think the OP needs to consider what level of trainability, intelligence, biddability etc she's looking for in a dog before identifying breeds. Coliies and Standard Poodles are both bright and trainable but I think its their level of people focus and energy that are qite different. Standard Poodle males can be a bit full of themselves as adolescents and IMO they need firmer boundaries than Collies do.

And racehorses, and purebred horse, cattle, sheep etc, and cats ..... it is a record of lineage. Inanimate objects do not have pedigrees, they have provenance. Teaching the value of a pedigree is all about the other qualities we've listed - without knowledge of descent, all preditcability and inheritance factors go out the window.

I'd probably go that way too. At least then you know for sure.

There is a ton of really useful information in the drop down menus on The Dogstar Daily website. Good that you don't want to rub the pups nose in it - if you're going to put any nose in it it should be the persons who was supposed to be supervising but failed to do it :laugh: Ditto on hitting with a rolled up newspaper. That stuff is definitely best consigned to the Dark Ages of dog training. The trick to successful toilet training is to set the pup up for success and reward the right behaviour. You'll find lots of training advise on that website.

Proheart is OK! :)