Staranais

I'd personally be investigating a good trainer, and building a good secure run for when she's not with you (on leash or contained in the house). I've heard Jane Harper recommended before, think she's in Queensland. My last dog killed a cat before I adopted him, he also killed birds and small fluffies. It is possible to get that level of prey drive under control. It will be a lot of work to get this sorted out, though. A lot. That kind of thing doesn't turn around overnight. As someone else pointed out, if you can't put the work in, or can't contain the dog, it might be fairer for the dog (and your community) to consider PTS.

Poor babies.

Um...speaking of which, how do you pronounce it? :D LOL. Mal-in-wah.

Try owning a malinois. ETA, Among many other variations I've heard both mali-nut and mali-noise, and couldn't decide which was most appropriate!

He looks like Hairy Maclary! Gorgeous.

Do we know for sure that the dog concerned isn't from the SPCA? Because if it's been rehomed via the SPCA at any point in it's life, I'd say they were well within their rights to use it in their advertising, no matter who had originally been bred by or whether it had papers. If it's a purebred dog that has never been through the SPCA, I see people's point - although I still think it's a clever advert.

Hill's science diet is OK. I don't feed it - I think it's pretty expensive for what you get (high in grains), but many dogs do well on it. It's certainly better than most of the stuff you can buy at the supermarket. If you want to know what's in Hills, read the label, it's all listed on there. With all dog foods, ingredients are listed in order of amount (closer to the beginning = there's more of it in the food). However, remember to beware of ingredient splitting, and remember that ingredients are listed by weight when added. Ingredient splitting is where manufacturers use several types of carbohydrate, e.g. they'll list "corn gluten" "corn meal" and "corn grits" separately on the label instead of just saying "corn". This means that meat appears to be the #1 ingredient, although there is more corn in the food than meat. The fact that food is listed by weight when added means that if the list says "beef, chicken, soy protein, rice", there will actually be a hell of a lot more soy & rice than meat in the final product, as beef/chicken are added fresh, and soy/rice are added dry (then they blow up to 5 x the size during processing, just like when you cook rice at home). Hope that makes sense. The prescription diets are pretty useful for many dogs with medical issues, they tend to have a lot of science behind them, more like a drug than a food.

I like the Ivan Balabanov DVDs. I've heard the Michael Ellis heeling one is very good too, but haven't seen it. I do lots of drive work, focus work, & doodling.

Then how can they advertise a zero euthanase policy/rate? Zero euthanasia of dogs that are deemed adoptable (no health or behavioural issues), I presume. Do AWL automatically euth pitbulls, or are they eligible for rehoming too?

Oh, Megan, I was told they have a chihuahua in Chch at the moment with the Japanese rescue team, I'm assuming it's this one: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20101120a6.html

I can't speak for all groups but here, yes, 5.5 is too old. It will take you at least 18 months to get the dog trained to operational status (probably longer for a novice handler), and they usually retire by about 10 years old. So no one will want to invest that much time & money into training a dog which will have an operational lifespan of only a few years. Civilian search dogs where I come from live with and belong to their handlers.

No reason at all why they couldn't be. One of the best SARdogs I know is a spaniel x labrador. I have also seen GSD, border collies, GSP, labradors, blue heelers working well in SAR roles. And of course, many many crossbreeds too. Within certain limits (size, etc), it's got a lot more to do with the individual dog than the breed. A SARdog needs good nerves, physical fitness, but most of all insane toy drive and a very committed owner. Depends on the venue too, of course. The Chihuahuas being used in USAR would not be at all suitable in a wilderness tracking/trailing role, they would be physically incapable of following scent for miles in very rough country, but seem to be great in their own particular niche.

Chronic renal failure means that a certain proportion of the kidney cells have died - and once they're dead, you can't bring them back with any sort of drug. Fortekor is Benazepril, an ACE inhibitor, it's usually used for heart problems in dogs (it reduces blood pressure & therefore reduces stress on the heart). I haven't heard of it used for chronic renal failure in dogs, but that's not to say that it can't be I guess. Or perhaps Rubiton's dog also had hypertension (high blood pressure), and the Fortekor was being used to treat that?

I'm just glad I was telling you right, LOL.

Vet behaviourists usually earn quite a decent salary Chran, but remember also that they will spend at least 7 or so years at uni before they start to earn. So you'd take a big salary hit for those years. Not exactly a way to get rich quick.

If the person (of any size) can't physically control the dog they are walking if it were to decide to drag them after something, then I wouldn't call that foolproof control? In that case it's no difference to being off leash, really. The dog might be under verbal control, but there's no guarantee it won't chase something if it decides to ignore the owner.

LOL you'd probably have a heart attack if you came to one of my classes, I love to demonstrate the difference between being boring and having a party with your dog to our poor first nighters hehe! Don't worry about what other people think - do what works best for your dog. I am CONSTANTLY making an idiot out of myself and my dog loves it! ;) Hell yes! I'm known to squeal and roll around on the ground with my dog when she's been exceptionally good, or turn into a "monster" and chase her around (she loves that). Even when you tug, you have to put effort in & look like you're having a great time. Boring is bad! It's nothing to do with how you hold your hands. Be exciting! If you don't look excited, why would your dog be excited? Lot more of reinforcement, and often. If the dog's not excited for the reward, don't progress until it is - or you won't get the results you want. Make her hungry before training, get a super tasty reward food, & deliver it with animation & prey movements & excited praise. When you have excitement for the reward, I'd be getting the dog to sit in heel position, or just do one step with me, and then release & reward. If you can't get the level of animation you're after simply sitting at heel, you won't get it while you're walking either. The suggestion to train with more experienced people is also a great one. Perhaps attending a class in clicker training would help you? & thanks, OSoSwift! ;)

Can you do so? You can't report NZKC breeders for crossbreeding dogs, I don't think. Or can you report them for not registering all their litters? Just interested. As for your question, I've no idea sorry.

The death toll has apparently reached 65. SAR people such as myself are on call to go down, but probably won't be called upon - my thoughts are with the Urban SAR teams & rescue services who will be doing a pretty upsetting job & seeing some pretty horrible things tonight.

If it doesn't say no dogs inside on the actual lease (that you signed), and it wasn't discussed prior to you signing, then you're not technically breaking any legal agreement or contract, so far as I can tell. Although if they find you have the dogs inside contrary to their request, I assume they could still give you notice & ask you to move out.

I think Nekhbet hunts? Feeding raw costs me about the same as buying medium-high quality dry food, but only if I shop in pet food meat stores (not from the supermarket - meat is expensive there!)

Yeah, thanks Erny - we barely felt it up here. I've heard from most my mates down there & they're are all safe, pity not everyone in Chch was as lucky. Do we have any Chch DOLers?

Yup Aussielover, she is like that most of the time. Very fun to work - not always so fun to live with (but I love her anyway!) To teach, I broke it into concepts & use food/praise & markers to teach the basic concepts. Concepts include - finding & staying in heel position, focus on my face, back end awareness. Then when she has the concepts down I've introduced toys so she's now working in prey drive - the animation you see is all adrenaline & anticipation for the bite she knows she is going to get. Other people can get similar effects using food alone, but you do need a reward that the dog goes crazy for. For my girl, that is definitely the chance to bite something. She's actually supposed to be more glued to my leg if I ever wanted to compete in obedience trials in NZ - over here, there's no such thing as crowding, although the dog isn't allowed to impede your movement in any way. But I believe she would be too close for ideal for Australian ANKC heeling? Just depends which venue you want to trial in. There are some good DVDs out there about teaching competition heeling, Ivan Balabanov does a good one, I'm sure there are many more though. Sorry for going OT.

Aw, thanks everyone who made nice comments.

Damn, that's a bummer, I hoped you'd found the entire solution. I wonder if cooked chicken is OK with him and raw not perhaps? Just a thought. Dogs can generally cope with the greeblies in raw chicken OK, but if he already has some gut damage it might sometimes be a little too much for his immune system to handle? Hmmm, Mr M certainly is an enigma.