Staranais

To answer your questions, the virus that is injected is a different strain to the wild Parvo strain, the vaccine strain has been altered so it is not as virulent, and should only cause mild disease symptoms. It is possible for the virus vaccine, since it is a live organism, to mutate back to the virulent wild state when it is injected into the dog, however the chance of this happening is vanishingly small (as in, they can sometimes force it to occur in the laboratory so we know it can happen, but the chances of it happening under field conditions are minute and there are only a few reported cases in human or canine medicine). It is also possible, if the pups were already immunocompromised for some reason, that even the mild vaccine form of the virus could have caused unusually severe parvo-like symptoms. Enough to kill the pups? I'm not sure. Another possibility is that the pups were infected with wild parvo from another source which had nothing to do with the vaccine. Someone could have bought the virus in on your clothes or shoes, perhaps from the park or vet clinic, or as you have found it can even be transfered into your yard by things like wild birds which you cannot control... I'm very, very sorry for your loss. Parvo is a horrible disease, and unfortunately there are no guarantees that you will be spared even if you do everything right for your puppies.

Feed as much as you need to to keep your dog at an appropriate body condition. For most adult dogs, that's accomplished by feeding about 2 - 3% of their body weight daily. So for example, your 19kg dog "should" eat between 380 - 570g of raw food per day. But just use that figure as a starting point - if your dogs need more or less than that, then feed them more or less.

OK thanks! Will be interesting.

So... What were the results of the tests, Jeff?

I don't like the idea of kicking any dog, but would do so if necessary to protect myself or my dog (or my other animals) from harm. To me, harm includes physical or emotional trauma. I don't want my little puppy bowled and terrified by a huge, rude, "friendly" dog any more than I want her bitten by an aggressive one. I'd rather cause ten seconds of pain to the other dog than have to potentially deal with 15 years of fear aggression in my puppy. Sorry if that upsets anyone, but I've already had to retrain one very aggressive dog - it's not something I really want to go through again. IMO my job as my dog's pack leader is to protect her. So in the situation you describe, I would definitely kick the mal if I couldn't deter it with an aggressive stance and growling at it. Having said that, if the other dog really wants to have go at you or your dog, kicking it isn't necessarily going to put it off either.

Please be careful with this advice, as I'm sure you probably know chocolate can be toxic to dogs, and different dogs can be more sensitive than others to the effects - so even if you get away with it with one dog, others might not be so lucky. Which is no doubt why I said the dog NEVER had it at any other time and said the dog was bigger than the OP's dog so this probably wasn't a suitable reward for the OP's dog. Incidentally - the rate you have given is actually a fairly large amount of chocolate when given as a reward (as opposed to pinched out of the cupboard). Not sure anyone would give that much of any reward to a dog in a training setting - well I certainly wouldn't I am still concerned that you are discussing feeding chocolate to dogs on a public forum, especially without cautioning about possible toxicity or explaining that you should never feed dark or baking chocolate to a dog. The rate I gave was the rate at which the dogs actually started seizuring. Milder but still very distressing cardiac, CNS and GIT signs can occur at lower doses. No offence intended to you, but I felt it was irresponsible to let your post stand without clarification, in case the OP misinterpreted it and caused harm to her dog.

Please be careful with this advice, as I'm sure you probably know chocolate can be toxic to dogs, and different dogs can be more sensitive than others to the effects - so even if you get away with it with one dog, others might not be so lucky. Please avoid feeding dogs milk chocolate, and on no accounts feed dogs dark chocolate - surprisingly small amounts can be toxic to dogs. According to the Merck Vet Manual some dogs have been reported to start seizuring after being feed 60mg of theobromine/kg, which is only around 11g of dark chocolate/kg dog (e.g, 110g of dark chocolate fed to a 10kg dog). If you must feed chocolate to your dog, please stick to white chocolate, it's not good for their teeth or waistline but isn't toxic.

The videos I've seen of Synalia (Kayce Cover's system) showed her often using the IB in "cycles", i.e not always using continuous marking, but like for example if she's cuing the dog to hold a longer down she gives 8 or 10 marks (one "cycle), then waits a while, then gives 8 or 10 more marks, then another pause, then another cycle, etc. So the idea was that you don't need to IB continuously for 10 minutes to mark a 10 min down, you just intermittently give some cycles to support the dog & tell them they're doing well. So that was how you cease the IB - you gradually move the cycles further and further apart, until you don't have to IB at all for the entire duration of the behaviour. And since the animal is used to the IB coming in "cycles" with pauses in between, they don't fret about the pauses gradually getting a bit longer. Did she show that in the seminar? Or perhaps I have hold of the wrong end of the stick, since I've never actually seen her work in person, and could be totally misleading you.

I use a keep going signal, which the same thing as Kayce Cover's IB as far as I can tell. I think that when I'm teaching a new behaviour, any more information I can give the dog is a good thing. The keep going signal is a way of communicating something along the lines of "you're getting warmer" or "keep doing that for just a bit longer". The terminal bridge I use is always reinforced by the reward (which is the toy, food, play, touch - all of which I consider to be primary reinforcers). The keep going signal is reinforced by the terminal bridge.

The black and tan girl in my avatar is the biggest poo breath around. She eats any kind of poo - dog, sheep , horse etc. In the mornings she is fed Eagle Pack with either (on alternate days) an egg, a tin of sardines. liver or chicken mince as well as yoghurt or cottage cheese, Joint Guard and a Fish Oil tablet each day. In the evenings she gets meaty bones. I doubt that there is anything missing from her diet. She is walked twice a day through my sheep paddocks and has the chance to eat plenty of sheep poo (unless I am close enough to stop her.) She has a lovely shiny coat, plenty of endurance and energy and is healthy. Maybe she needs a study of her own. :p I would love to know what is causing her revolting habit but I suspect she just likes the taste. I agree that looking away is about all I can do. Ah well, there goes my theory! I guess I'm lucky my girl just likes sheep, cow, horse, cat, and bird poo, not dog poo.

I see. Well, since all the publications I've read don't mention this, and you won't reference your statements, I'll just have to not take your word for it. :rolleyes: I can say that none of the veterinary textbooks I've read (quite a few) and none of the peer reviewed papers I've read (quite a few) have mentioned anything to do with the idea that mixing different types of food is "bad" or "inefficient", despite them being very thorough in discussing other areas of canine nutrition and digestion. Rather strange that they'd leave it out if there was any information out there... I have, however, seen many wacky and unsubstantiated websites make similar claims about not mixing food types (for both dogs and humans), but as I'm sure you know, you can't believe everything you read on the web. Ah, so what you meant to say was that vets never used to take canine or feline nutritional classes in their studies, but now they do take them. I don't think it's optimal. I don't think it's suboptimal. I don't think there's any very significant difference, since there's no physiological reason for there to be a significant difference. Until tested, the idea that there is any difference in the dog's efficiency of digestion when you mix foods in dogs, when other species cope with this just fine, and where there is no known physiological mechanism for this inefficiency to occur, is just a hypothesis, and IMO should not be presented as fact.

Vaccinations - my advice would be to follow your own vet's recommendations for the puppy vaccinations, since the recommended number and age of doses can differ depending on which particular vaccine you're using. Each vet could well be giving you the best advice for the brand and type of vaccine they use in their own clinic. IMO it's best not to mix and match these things, so if I were you, I'd pick one vet and stick with them (until puppy vaccinations are complete, anyway). I personally prefer to use only a C3 or C4, not the C7, but which vaccines are appropriate will differ depending on where you live.

Ha, I thought you were teaching her to signal "no" when she didn't want to do anything! One of Kayce Cover's books or articles (which I have lost) talked about teaching a dog to signal "yes" or "no" by bumping different fingers (she asked if the dog wanted to toilet, for example, and it indicated yes by bumping her thumb with its nose, or no by bumping her little finger, depending on whether it wanted to toilet or not). Not sure if I believe the story. Although she seems to be completely honest and a good trainer, sometimes you see what you want to see. Would be cool if she had taught it, though!

Quotes from a pet food company don't count as a real reference as far as I'm concerned. However there is a lot of good information available on basic physiology, the mechanics of digestion, etc, out there in peer reviewed literature and veterinary or medical textbooks. These are not sponsored by any pet food company. So since you are discussing physiology and digestion, it should be easy for you to provide references to back up what you are saying. Strange, because I'm at vet school now, and I distinctly remember the lectures, exams, and field trip we had for canine & feline nutrition last year... you can't believe everything people tell you. Vets certainly do attend nutritional classes. Not to mention the fact we also attend several years worth of physiology classes, in which we learn about things like digestion, and we also take biochemistry classes, where we learn about what happens to the food once it is digested. We don't graduate as specialists in canine nutrition by any stretch, but whoever told you we don't attend nutrition classes at all is lying to you. Can you please provide a reference for that, since it sounds like hokum to me. People survive in an artificial environment and on a processed food diet, but I have never seen evidence that we thrive in one, let alone that we thrive better than other animals. Our species has simply not had long enough to significantly evolve to suit a diet based on processed foods, any more than dogs have. That's why people whose lifestyle mimicks our ancestral lifestyle (lots of exercise, lots of fresh vegetables and fruit, little sugar, few processed foods) tend to have lower death rates from cancer, heart disease, etc than people with a "modern" lifestyle who don't exercise much and eat eat a diet comprised mainly of processed, fatty, artificial foods.

I have a theory about that - I think that dogs are designed to suppliment their diet by eating the poo of prey animals, especially large ruminants. Most dogs I know love eating cow and sheep poo, and apparently wolves have been observed snacking on the poo of large ruminants too. It does have some nutritional content in it (energy semi digested vege, protein from bacteria, vitamin K), though not as much as eating the actual prey animal, obviously. So in suburbia, where dogs typcially have no access to lamb or sheep or cow poo, my theory is that dogs still feel the urge to eat poo, and all they have to eat is each others' poo. I'll be the first to admit that that's totally a theory, I have absolutely no evidence to back it up, it is just a hunch. But I'd love to do a study to see if dogs that were raised with daily access to sheep or cow poo were less likely to eat dog poo than dogs raised without access to farm animal poo. Wonder if I could get funding for the study?

He's an adult dog, right? If there's no blood in the diarrhoea, and he looks bright and healthy otherwise, I'd give him a day or two before seeing the vet. Make sure he's drinking plenty of fluids (bait the water with meat broth to get him to drink if necessary), keep him warm, and like you say, feed bland foods.

Well, if there was actually any good evidence in favour of the information, they'd probably be more likely to teach it to vets... Neither humans nor dogs have had time to evolve to thrive on a diet of processed foods. Both humans and dogs can generally live on processed foods, but it's not optimal for humans any more than it is for dogs. Dogs (and people, and other animals) do develop slightly different microflora in their guts when fed different diets, but I have seen no reputable evidence to indicate that dogs can't adapt to efficiently digesting a mixed diet, just like we do. Feeding one food only for a long time then making a sudden switch to another can sometimes cause temportary digestive upsets (in dogs and in people), but regularly rotating foods is different. It's not like you only have one type of bacteria growing in your guts, or can make only one type of digestive enzyme at once! As for animals getting "fussy" when they are fed different foods, I personally give my dogs and cats different foods on a regular basis, and they seem to enjoy the variety, and are all very healthy and happy. However if giving variety was making them fussy, I wouldn't do it. They might enjoy the variety, but they don't need it. And I doubt they'd miss it too much once they got used to eating the same thing every day.

If I had to feed canned, and if price was no object? Probably Ziwipeak. The ingredients are good, and it's NZ made - unfortunately both of these things are reflected in the price tag! Canned food is shocking for teeth, so if you can't get any bones or meat chunks into them, I recommend you brush their teeth every day or two if at all possible.

Yes, I always use NRM. I find them very useful. I like communicating with my dog, and the more tools we have to communicate the better, as far as I'm concerned. For me, the way I view teaching my dog has gradually become less about punishers and reinforcers and getting the "right" behaviour from an animal, and has become more about finding a common language to communicate with another creature. I like to talk my pup through problems, to verbally guide her and help her solve them, not just stand back and watch her flounder around by herself trying to work out what I want. So to me, being able to say "that's not right, try again" is just as valuable to me as saying "yup, that's on the lines of what I want, keep going" and "yes, perfect, come get the reward!" I don't like my dog having to guess why I haven't marked her (did I just not see it? Am I trying to wean her off the reward? Am I wanting a longer duration? Or was it just not what I wanted at all?) And I feel that using a NRM and a keep going signal, as well as a positive marker, avoids that confusion. I suppose that the NRM technically is a "punisher", as it decreases the likelyhood my dog will offer the same behaviour again. But that's not the same as an aversive. If the NRM becomes aversive to the dog, then I think it's an issue with how you're using the tool, not with the tool itself. In fact, I think although the NRM should "punish" the particular behaviour, correctly used a NRM should be reinforcing for the teaching session as a whole, as it aids communication and reduces frustration for both the handler and dog. JMO.

Excessive drinking & urinating can be caused by lots and lots of things, some quite normal and innocent (as in the examples Nekhbet has given you), some much nastier. Good on you for getting the blood tests done. If you do want to measure the water he's drinking, I believe 20 - 70 ml/kg/24 hour period is considered to be the "normal" range for dogs and cats.

First you really do need to find something that gets your dog to bark (preferably something you can control or at least predict). For my girl, I used the windscreen wipers going in the car - for some reason they create a barking frenzy. More conventional ideas are tying the dog up and teasing with a toy until it gives a whine or bark from frustration (used that with my last dog), or playing the sound of other dogs barking on TV to set your dog off, ringing the doorbell, etc. You can use just about anything that will make your dog bark. Then you want to get your dog's attention and give the "bark" command just before the thing occurs. Mark and reward when the dog barks (I reward by joining in the barking. You can also give the toy that the dog is barking for, or give praise and food, run to the door to see who is ringing it, etc). After a few sessions of this, the dog should be anticipating and barking on the command alone, before the original stimulus occurs. If the dog isn't a natural barker, you may need to initially to excitedly reward the first little hint of noise, even if it's just a whine. When you're getting that level of noise reliably, you can shape a true bark by witholding the reward until you get louder and louder barks. I teach "quiet" after "speak", since I believe it's easier for the dog to understand the contrast between bark and quiet, than to just understand quiet. When my girl was barking, I'd lean in and very quietly tell her "quiet". She'd tend to shut up to listen to me, so I could then praise and reward the nice quiet. It only took her a few sessions to work out what I wanted, and I could then use the "quiet" command in circumstances when I hadn't originally told her to bark. If the dog won't shut up to listen to you when you ask her to "quiet", you can distract her for a second with a food treat to create the quiet. Make sure you praise calmly, if you use energetic/excited praise for being quiet, it will razz some dogs up and they'll start to bark again. In contrast, my praise for a bark is always really exuberant and excited, to encourage her to keep barking.

Actually, I kind of like it. I must be crazy. She is getting a little calmer as she grows, though. And we are attempting to designate inside the house a calm-mally zone! And luckily she does sleep a lot of the time. I currently have 16kg of fluffy baby malligator cuteness curled up on my feet as I type. Everyone say awwwwww...

Wow, the only time mine stops is when she's asleep. Lucky for her she's so cute.

Yes, I can't imagine any personal protection scenario that would require my dog to drag someone out of a car windows! I guess it all depends what you want in a dog? I'm very happy with my pocket rocket mally. But I also suspect she would be a terrible PP dog for the average family, even if trained appropriately. Most people who want PP dogs seem to want a nice, calm, safe pet who can just fire up and defend when necessary. Not a dog who is on the go all day, looking for something to do and something to bite!

Congratulations!