Staranais

The steps I used were similar to Kavik: Teaching her to hold object, & to drop object, on cue Holding object above bin & asking her to take it, then asking her to drop it (clicked when it went into the bin) Holding it a few cm away & shaping her dropping it into the bin (as opposed to just dropping it anywhere) Throwing it away & getting her to put it into the bin

My WL is the same r.e. the backyard. If I keep her with me for the majority of the day and throw in a bunch of training sessions to satisfy her drive, she's quite OK to live with in the evenings. But the weeks I have had to leave her at home in the yard by herself for the whole of every day, she's a twisty foaming nutty ball of energy when I get home (and has generally terrorised the neighbours with her supersonic bark, plus worn tracks into the lawn from her ceaseless pacing). I'm lucky that I'm hopefully going to end up in a job that will let me bring her to work at least some of the time - don't think she'd cope very well with being a yard dog during the entire working week. The showlines I've met have been lower energy, less predatory, less protective, and often nervier.

Owners of small dogs - here's a question. Imagine if your dog somehow escapes your yard - someone breaks a hole in the fence without your knowledge as may have happened here - and your dog goes roaming. He runs into the nextdoor neighbours front garden where the neighbour is feeding their chickens, and grabs and kills one of their pet chickens! Are you OK with the council euthanising your dog as a danger, to make sure it doesn't do this again? Or would you argue that your dog was just being a dog, and shouldn't be punished for your mistake?

Owners are supposed to report to the kennel club any operation that alters the natural conformation of the dog, trouble is, if the owner does that, they know the dog will be banned from being shown. Of course they are supposed to, that doesn't mean they do so. Why on earth would I suggest any such thing?

If you're just after a protective pet, I'd definitely choose GSD over mally. It might be worth investigating some showline belgians too, but I think a WL mally (i.e. bred for bitesports & service work) might be more of a PITA than you want. Just watch the nerves - I've seen some very shy, nervous belgians out there lately.

I reckon. I thought shows were supposed to be about breeding good dogs according to the standard, anyway, not surgically creating dogs that matched the standard. ;)

Yes. Mallies bark (lord, how they bark - your neighbours will hate you if you don't keep your malinois very well occupied). They're very sensitive, some are very nervy. The working lines are extremely high prey drive - as a baby, my girl wanted to bite everything that moved (toys, cats, birds, running children, kids on bikes, people that were silly enough to move their arms quickly)... and she didn't just grow out of it, I had to train her specifically not to bite all of these things. Definitely not a dog for the majority of people, although she can be a lot of fun. If you're looking for a protective pet or competition dog & want a mally, I'd definitely look at the show lines rather than the working lines, as the working lines are a lot of work. ;)

I reckon it's a PR exercise. If they were geniunely interested in making sure their winners were very healthy, they'd do better to check vet records to see what the dogs have been treated for in the past. Many nasty things can have a strong hereditary component yet not show up on a casual vet exam. I'm thinking of things like elongated soft palate (can be surgically resected), eyelid issues (can be surgically fixed), excess skin (same), shoulder OCD (same), predisposition to GDV, etc. Of course, that raises the issue of how much veterinary intervention a dog is allowed before the dog is eliminated. Do you eliminate the dogs that has had to have surgery for a GDV (and risk eliminating the dog that just got a GDV from sheer bad luck), or keep them in (and risk having your champion be strongly predisposed to bloat)? etc, etc. Opens a can of worms.

Good on her for doing something. I did some volunteer work with the Esther Honey foundation in Raro, volunteer vets & vet students travelled there & desexed dogs for free/donations - is there something similar in Fiji?

In some ways I see your point that small dogs are far more fragile than large dogs. I'd certainly be more cautious about putting a small dog in any situation in which it could be injured. I hate seeing my dog in a fight, but at least she's unlikely to get killed with one bite if she does get attacked for any reason. However, your comment does sound a little like you're saying that the owners were "asking for it" by owning such a small dog and walking it down the street, and IMO that's not fair at all. It's not like they did something risky like throwing the tiny dog into an offleash dog park with big strange dogs - they were merely walking it down the street, on a leash, completely legally. It's not their fault that the other dogs were roaming offleash. I don't think the owner of the small dog or the dog walker should bear any blame for this incident at all. I mean, if it's fair to tell small dog owners that they shouldn't own such small, fragile dogs - is it fair to tell me not to own a small malinois bitch when there are huge pig dogs out there that could easily give her a fatal hiding? Or to put it another way, how big must my dog be before it's no longer my fault if she's fatally attacked?

Thanks Kja! Turns out I can make the focus box either just be in the middle or find faces and focus on those - I'm thinking that perhaps it can't identify dog faces very well, perhaps it is really only designed for people faces, so I should use the other setting? I've only got Adobe Photoshop Elements (an older version too). Can't believe there's really a program called GIMP!

I'd like to know these answers too please. Oh duh, sorry, just saw you'd already answered - I'm too slow tonight!

Asking others in the breed will soon turn up who is legit and not. If the same thing comes up over 5-10 different breeders, you know there is some truth to it. True, but telling your average novice dog owner that they should call 5 or 10 different breeders and then try to sort the backstabbing crap from the good advice might just cause them to give up in disgust or frustration and go to the petstore instead (after all, they "only want a pet!" and those dogs all have hybrid vigour and vet health checks don't you know...)

Who gets to officially orchestrate and decide who is "bad" and who is not? I'm not keen on the "bag out the ones we don't like". It's not really the way I am, how I've been brought up nor what I believe in. I think I would hold more esteem for a person or organisation that sets up a criteria and supports those who meet that criteria by accepting membership and the way I see it that's what MDBA are doing. Agree.

I agree, I used this word as it was how breeder's websites were being referred to in the thread that prompted me to start the polls. Any website with music is a HUGE turn off, I hate it! I think I was the one who referred to some breeder's websites as flashy - perhaps I should have said "polished" or "professional looking" instead, as that's what I meant, in the sense that I think these things are likely to attract novice dog owners (definitely was not meaning twinkly tacky music type flashy!)

All of these factors would be a consideration for me, but none would be a deciding factor, so I answered no for all.

yes and those sort of breeders are everywhere yes they are but the question i asked was how do puppy buyers find out and i was told by sway to research. i did this and only after almost putting a deposit down i found the breeder was dodgy. this breeder told lies and misinformed me. so research will not always result in a good breeder so again i ask how can we help puppy buyers pick a good breeder given ankc registration isn't always a good indication Yes. It's a pity you can't just tell a novice dog owner "go to an ANKC breeder, they're carefully screened so they're almost without exception ethical & helpful", but sadly you just can't.

I don't care if a website is "flashy", but when choosing a breeder I do need details of their dogs' achievements, pedigrees & health tests, and a good website is one way of me getting that information easily. I also quite like seeing what my dog's siblings and parents are up to on my breeder's website. Although that wouldn't sway my decision to buy from a breeder, I do appreciate it. I expect that a novice dog owner would be more attracted to a flashy ("professional") website, than someone that already knew exactly what they wanted in a dog & breeder.

not everyone with a flash website is unscrupulous, lots of very fine breeders like having very nice websites. Nothing wrong with that. If I had the skills and the time mine would be a lot flashier ;) Of course they do. The breeder I got my current girl from has a lovely website. I think novice puppy breeders are often disproportionately impressed by such things, however. ;)

My dog has 3 types of walking; I'll list them: 1. Walking without pulling me along, she can be in front of me and sniff if she likes 2. Walking by my side in a very rough heel position 3. Walking in a precise attention heel for competition (Well, she also has a 4th type of walking - pull like a maniac! But we try to discourage that one. ;) ) I'd never expect her to do either type 2 or 3 "heeling" walking the whole walk. It takes too much brain power & is boring for her. I do ask her to do type 2 walking for short bursts when we're going past other people or we are in a busy place (whether she's on or offleash I still ask her to come back & walk by my side), then I usually reward her by releasing her to do type 1 walking again. Hope that makes sense! ;)

The first part is happening now with the updates for the website - someone is working on it as I type. The second Sounds good but some of our members dont want to have their names and prefixes listed and if you have a bit of a look at the snide remarks and accusation which abound knowing that it makes people have to defend themselves some dont want the grief ,the ANKC wouldnt consider it and in reality neither can we. the third part is also being done now. Great! That's a pity about the second part. Makes it easier for new people to find a breeder if they're all listed on line. I figure lots of people get suckered in by flash websites from puppy farmers & unscrupulous breeders, such websites are marketing tools that make these breeders look professional & friendly & make them seem really approachable - pity you can't fight fire with fire by doing the same thing.

I do think it's a good idea, Steve. I don't want to try to tell you your business. But I wonder if it would be a good idea to have a page on the MDBA website that: 1. Explains the COE really quickly & simply & why this is good for puppy buyers 2. Lists all MDBA breeders prefixes & if possible gives links to websites (even if doesn't give direct contact details of breeders) 3. Is really easy for people to find & understand if they know nothing about dogs

Thanks Kja! I have a canon powershot a470. Fairly budget unfortunately! I'll try to stick the little box over the part I want to shoot, with high contrast - thanks for the tip! I think possibly this camera tries to find a face to focus on? Not sure if it can recognise a dog face or not, perhaps that is the issue. I loved what you did with the sharpening - how did you do that? And what does shooting RAW mean? I only know about feeding raw! ;)

LOL, Huga - the set up was an old hunters hut we just happened to tramp to the other day! Not sure if it's worth a couple of hours to walk back there, but it did turn out to be a cool background for a candid dog shot. ;) Persephone, trying to focus on the eyes sounds like great advice, thanks - I'm not sure how to go about it yet though, it's autofocus & perhaps I haven't quite got the hang of the settings yet - I just pointed it towards her face & hoped!

Me neither, not for dogs.