Staranais

Congratulations to you and your dog! That is a great acheivement. I, too, however, wish that judges and stewards would prevent this type of interaction between dogs during the stay exercises. I just don't like it - I feel like it's unfair to my dog to put her in a position where she might feel forced to choose between disobeying my cue or putting up with a strange dog being uncomfortably close. I just feel it's my job as pack leader to monitor my dog's interaction with other dogs and step in to control things if she gets uncomfortable, rather than leaving her alone to deal with it herself. So I would really prefer obedience to move to an honour-down system like in schutzhund (where each dog does a long stay while the next dog does its exercises), or have stewards collect stray dogs as soon as they break and before they can reach the other dogs who are on the stay. JMO, and certainly not intending to take away from the pride you must be feeling at your girl's achievement, you must be very happy with her.

There are also lots of good articles available on the internet. I started my last dog tracking with the run away method, which worked well for him. My current girl is starting with the scent pad method, which was recommended to me in order to teach her to run a more accurate track wherever possible (instead of just always trailing as my last dog did). I don't think it matters what method you use, as long as the dog is "getting it" and having fun.

Vets still do. A haematoma isn't a tumour, sorry. In veterinary medicine, a tumour is a swelling caused by abnormal growth of cells. Whereas a haematoma is a collection of blood outside blood vessels. Even though yes, the suffix -oma generally does denote a tumour (or more accurately, it generally denotes a benign tumour derived from non glandular epithelium), this is an exception. Whether or not it's still strictly accurate to call a collection of serum from clotted blood a haematoma, I'm not sure.

Yes, a visit to an orthopaedic vet would be a very good idea. Like Poodlefan says, these types of things are often caused by trauma to the open growth plates. But a specialist vet is the best option to work out what's really going on. Let us know how you go! Also, what are you feeding? I'm all for raw feeding generally, but I'd personally be playing it safe and putting a pup with this type of issues onto a commercial balanced large breed puppy food until his issues are resolved/diagnosed or until he stops growing.

Don't they hate bodyless heads poking over the fence, it's true that most dogs will go ape!!!. These type of incidents like in my mothers case is what I believe some determine as their dog "stepping up to the plate" in protection. Yes, it is really hard to know if your dog really will step up to the plate without even being in that situation, which I truly hope noone on this forum ever is. Any dog might bark or growl to scare someone away if they get a bit spooked. But that same dog isn't necessarily going to fight to the death to protect an owner, it might put up a good show when it is initially threatened, but then back down rather quickly if the assailant doesn't appear intimidated by the threat or carries on advancing on the dog. Will be interested to hear the results of Jeff's test, but I also wonder if it really replicates the scenrio being discussed. If the dog doesn't react in Jeff's test, does that mean that it won't ever defend, or does it just indicate that the dog doesn't perceive a genuine threat from the tester? I would never count on my girl to defend me instinctively without training. However, I am sure when she gets a little older she would instinctively put up an intimidating display if called for, whether or not I choose to train any bitework. I think that socialisation/neutralisation is the one of the most important things for working breed puppies, it allows them to learn to distinguish normal human behaviour from threatening behaviour, so they are more likely to react appropriately to innocent roughhousing etc. A dog that bites non-threatening strangers, or that is not under command, is more of a liability than an asset to most homes, IMO.

Is that all you're feeding? If it were me, I'd personally like to see much more red muscle meat or heart in that diet, as well as some green tripe or vegetable matter, maybe even throw in some fish and eggs. RMB are good, but you really do need muscle meat as well, preferably red meat, especially for puppies. As for how much to feed raw, a good estimate is 2 - 3% of the dog's expected mature weight.

Sounds great but can I can make one suggestion? Could you suggest they intro beef or lamb muscle or heart meat next after the chicken bone (unless they have a good reason to intro chicken meat next instead)? Puppies need more iron and zinc than you'd think, and there's bugger all of either in chicken meat. Hope it all works out for them! True! Good point Star! Will do. Great, good luck to them.

Sounds great but can I can make one suggestion? Could you suggest they intro beef or lamb muscle or heart meat next after the chicken bone (unless they have a good reason to intro chicken meat next instead)? Puppies need more iron and zinc than you'd think, and there's bugger all of either in chicken meat. Hope it all works out for them!

Nah she's great, all part of the training process. She always works for a bite when we do SAR training, it's just supposed to be on the tug as a reward for giving the indication, not directly on the victim when she finds them. She's been going through a phase of experimenting to see if she'll get away with cutting out the middle man, so to speak, and chomping the victim directly... very cunning puppy! But she is slowly learning that coming back to indicate then tug with me is far more rewarding than chewing away on an unresponsive victim who just holds completely still and totally ignores her. So we have it all under control over here, but thanks for the advice.

I have a question for those who have owned both Amstaffs and staffordshire bull terriers - how do these breeds differ in temperament? I have heard the Amstaff tends to be slightly more protective and more suspicious of strangers than the SBT, is that generally true? Also one more question, are there any breeders in Australia breeding Amstaffs for working purposes, or who have titled their dogs to a high level in dogsports such as obedience/agility/tracking etc? Thanks!

you going to do bitework? be a shame not to? Well, don't laugh, but we actually inadvertantly do bitework all the time already. We're training up for SAR, and she's just decided to start rewarding herself with a bite on the victim once she's found them. Luckily I have very patient victims! It's something we're really going to have to sort out before she gets much bigger. When her SAR stuff is nailed though, we'll see how much time and energy we both have left. It would be cool to give schutzhund a go if it's not going to muck up her SAR stuff. Sorry everyone else, off topic!

Sounds like a plan.

Lots of Aussie post-grads go working in the UK for the better pay. They come back to Oz and find work with higher salary as they are then more experienced. Yes, kiwi ones do this too. I will probably do it myself, in a few years, since you can earn lots more in America or the UK as a new grad than you can in NZ or Australia. Will help pay off my student loan faster!

I don't see anything wrong with removing Erik's food promptly if he loses interest in eating it. But I probably wouldn't let him see Kivi eating his left overs, and I certainly wouldn't let them both share the left overs together. Letting them share leftovers might work out just fine in the longterm, but when Erik gets a little older and loses his "puppy license" it could also lead to fights over the leftovers. So I'd personally be laying down the law before there are any problems, and start proactively teaching both dogs to stick to their own bowls at dinner times. JMO.

Whoops! That is too funny Yeah it is, especially if you're not the one pretending to be the victim! It's just frustration, and I'm hoping she'll stop doing it when she fully understands that it's way more fun to come back and collect me & take me to the victim for the tug game, than to attempt to satisfy her drive by chomping on the victim himself. We're getting there slowly. In the meantime, I have to ask my long-suffering training partners to do their best to ignore the enthusiastic malligator puppy chomping on their legs when they get "found". :D

That's the same as a 1.2:1 Ca:P ratio. So that sounds just fine to me.

Just a thought, but could you make permission to go sniff things contingent on performing obedience for you? Kind of like training in drive, but you're rewarding focus on you by allowing the dog to go sniffing round for a treat (or just sniffing round), rather than getting food or a tug? Agree with you, definitely. I also believe that a dog that has the genetic desire to do the work you're requiring is far easier to train using "praise" alone, than a dog which has no inherent drive to do what you're asking. This is because you're not really just using praise to motivate the dog - you're rewarding the dog by letting it work, and punishing it by denying it the chance to work. So people that rely on training dogs with just praise, or expect the dog to work for the joy of working alone, often have to pick and choose the dogs they work with - they can only train dogs that already have the inclination to do the work. You can still train the dogs that don't find the work itself rewarding, but you do need to provide an extrinsic reward to make it worth their while, since they don't see being given the chance to work as a reward. As an example, my current girl has just started SAR training, and if I let her she would probably search for hours with little reward, since she loves to do so (well, she tends to self reward by chomping the victim when she gets too excited, but that's another story!) Whereas my previous boy was a staffy, definitely not bred for tracking or scenting, I needed to keep the rate of reinforcement much much higher for him when I was training him in scent work, and increase the difficulty of the problems much more slowly, since the activity itself wasn't fun for him. Both could learn to do the work adequately. But my mally would probably do it just for the sake of it. The staffy wouldn't. Personally though, I believe that even with dogs that find the work rewarding in itself, getting them working for an external reward still improves reliability and makes the dog more controllable when it is working. So I still try to get my mally to focus on the tug reward, even though she enjoys the search activity itself. JMO.

Commercial foods will have different Ca:P ratios, check the bag for information, they should all have this information available. I believe 1:1 to 2:1 is the minimum and maximum recommended Ca:P ratio for pregnant bitches and growing dogs, and keeping it closer to 1.2:1 to 1.6:1 is advisable. Remember that the absolute amount of calcium is also important, not just the Ca:P ratio. If you're already feeding a well balanced raw diet, then IMO feeding more of the same should probably be quite sufficient for a pregnant bitch. But if your diet is already borderline deficient in any nutrient, then pregnancy can be one life stage where that deficiency shows up in problems during conception, whelping, or in the pups themselves.

Why is there a common misconception that vets are rolling in dough? Most vets I know (especially juniors) do it pretty hard! Prolly because we have paid thousands of dollars to vets! Very little of which ends up in the pocket of the Vet. Yes, people forget how much medical supplies and medical equipment actually cost when you have to pay for it all yourself, and therefore get shocked when they are presented with a bill for these things, and assume that most of it must be going to the vet themselves. Most people would probably be surprised how little of the money they pay at the clinic actually ends up in the pocket of the vet who attended their animal. It's an OK salary, but not a great financial return when you consider the time and money you need to invest in order to train as a vet.

I'm not terribly convinced by this, Corvus. My last boy was capable of using his mouth very very gently on people, no matter how hurt or aroused he became, but like your rescue girl, he also attacked other dogs by biting so hard that we had to prise him off them with a stick. I think it's good for dogs to learn and practice bite inhibition, either from other puppies, or from people. But when push comes to shove, I think even dogs with bite inhibition can choose to bite as hard as they please. Bite inhibition may give the dog the option of biting softly (which is of course a good thing), but in my experience the dog doesn't necessarily choose to use that option if it doesn't want to. My current girl is a handful. She has lovely bite inhibition, and since I have had her she's given me a couple of beautifully inhibited bites that were as fast as a striking snake but too soft to actually hurt. But I have no doubt that she could really nail me with her teeth if she chose.

Yup, very true. ;)

I don't really like them either. They're sometimes useful when talking to other trainers, but I don't for a minute think they reflect how dogs actually think about things. I'm pretty sure my pup just rates consequences on a single sliding scale of nice to nasty. Whether we're removing or adding reinforcers or punishers to the situation is something I doubt ever enters her little head. That's why I get a little annoyed when people (no one here) claim that aversives or punishments (P+) are somehow worse than removing access to rewards from a dog (P-). I can think of multiple P- that I could give my dog that would be more frustrating or upsetting to her than many P+ I could give. So by refusing to use P+, I'm not necessarily being any kinder to my dog than a trainer who uses all four quadrants. JMO.

Take from this what you will, but this sort of thing gets up people's nose. Don't forget that there are behaviourists that go to uni as well. Maybe they are right and you are wrong, just sayin :D Well, I don't trust most behaviourists either, having had some bad experiences with people who talked the talk but had no idea what to do with my dog (not that they were willing to admit as much!) I do admire some of the behaviourists who post here, most trainers and behaviourists on DOL really seem to have their heads screwed on correctly and are very generous about giving out free advice to people who need help. But off DOL, I would never assume that someone was competent at reading or handling dogs simply because they called themselves a behaviourist. So I guess what I'm saying is I can see where Corvus is coming from, though I agree that it may have been a bit combative for her to say so on a forum populated by behaviourists! I enjoy Corvus's posts for the most part, although they can get a bit rambling and tediously argumentative (sorry Corvus), they also add a different viewpoint to the forum and she has some interesting thoughts and brings up some interesting topics. :D

How old is he? And are you sure he really understands what "leave it" means? If so, I think it's probably better to tell him to "leave it" before he picks something up, and reward him if he does so, rather than waiting for him to grab something then trying to trade with him for it. I'd be keeping him on a leash or long line for the time being anywhere there was a chance he'd eat something weird. You can give the "leave it" command whenever he goes to pick something nasty up, and have the ability to enforce the command using the long line if he ignored you (prevent him reaching the item). You can call him over to you to reward him with something tasty if he leaves the item on command. When he's 100% at leaving things on command on the long line, I'd try him offline then. Others may have different suggestions, but that's what I'd be doing if it were my pup.

Yes, thanks!