Staranais

Don't worry, I got told that about my current girl too. If the person giving advice to you isn't achieving the kind of results you want, I'd just ignore them.

Agree. Even us people that do use correction collars like to read & learn about other methods without the thread being derailed into the same old pointless positive only vs correction collars debate. It's getting pretty old. ETA: It sounds like you have some expertise in different training methods, so why not start a thread of your own to describe & discuss them? I would be interested in reading about your experiences & thoughts - just not when they're derailing a thread about something completely different.

I'm not a trainer but have owned & trained a very DA dog in the past. So for what it's worth, I don't know if it would be possible to put a specific time frame on when or if the dog should be "fixed" or "cured". But I think it should be possible to put a time frame on when the owner should see some results. If you've been doing something for several sessions and see no improvement at all, I'd question if the technique was doing anything useful. The SMART goals sound like a very good idea to me.

I would like to know this too, please.

Thanks you two, I will try to have the sun in front of her & not behind. Hopefully that will make some difference! That is a pretty shot of your dog (Ivy?) in your signature, Belgian Blue.

Just a question Megan - did you write this post yourself, or did you copy it from an email which does the rounds at various times? Some of your phrases sound rather "fishy" so to speak? I wrote it myself, except for the bits I put in inverted commas, and I included the reference for that too, and added some references to some of my research down the bottom. Sorry if it sounded a bit fishy, I have been writing it all week so it might be a bit fragmented! Haha - fishy! Sorry.

I just stuck it on my girl and went with the one that she seemed most comfortable with. When you're fitting it, it should sit well under the sensitive inner corners of their eyes (its uncomfortable if it's right under their eyes), and be large enough for them to open their mouths somewhat. I got mine probably slightly larger fitting, thinking that I'd rather err on the side of greater ventilation & that I could train her to keep it on. The Jafco supplier (Steve from K9Pro) is a poster here, his company has great customer service in my experience, so I bet he'd help you decide on a size if you gave him a call, also he'd tell you what they considered used. I'd buy from him again with no hesitation.

OK, so this is probably going to be a dumb post, since I know very little about photography. I have a lovely malinois girl with a dark mask and dark eyes. I find it really hard to capture her expressions in photos, her eyes seem to blend into her mask since her whole face is so dark. I'll include some examples to show what I mean: This is the kind of photo I get of her - nice photo, but can't really see her face! Same with these ones! Does anyone have any tips & tricks how to make her face and especially her eyes more visible in photos? I've fiddled round with camera settings but no success so far since I don't really know what I'm doing. I've also tried lightening her face in photoshop, but then she ends up with a grey mask that just looks silly. I only have a point & shoot (canon powershot a470), and access to photoshop elements, so I guess there's only so much I can do - but any advice would be appreciated!

Yeah that's right, the Italian plastic basket muzzle I found was the "Baskerville" brand.

Interesting. I have heard of vit E deficiency causing problems in pet cats (usually in the form of pansteititis), but not dogs. Glad your dog recovered. I do already give my dog a 200IU of vit E every week to go along with her fish body oil, and recommend that other owners give E too if they feed much fish body oil or other PUFA. From what I know, fish oil that has turned rancid/has oxidised is much more of an issue than the fresh stuff, since more E is needed to process it. I wonder if your dog was also low in Se? Se has a sparing effect on vit E demand.

It's worked really well so far Laeral - we did about 12 hours of walking all up over the 2 days, including a smallish mountain, and she didn't have a problem with ventilation at all despite the warm & muggy weather. She was totally OK with wearing it after I spent a day getting her used to it. I liked it so much I think it will be part of her regular bush wear now, even in areas with (supposedly) no 1080. ETA - the Jafco muzzles from K9Pro also looked really good & well ventilated, but would have taken a wee while to get here, so that's why I went with the plastic basket one.

I agree, Cowanbree. I am open to compromises in some ways, but would not have the dog outside the house. Plus my girl is such a big part of my life that anyone who couldn't deal with having a (big, driven, loud, pushy) dog around, just wouldn't make the first cut.

Well done, that's a fantastic grade! I hated parasitology when I studied it, so I bet you're glad it's over.

More like guarding the lunch which was right beside the shoes, I think... You'd be welcome of course Erny, as would Mr M - so long as you don't mind several days hard slog through the bush to get there! Toolz, you're spot on - it's in the Tararuas.

Are you sure? Cos I think most people here would have no intention of rebranding themselves as a KP trainer, even if they attended the course. However, I got the impression from the quoted material that you couldn't do the course at all unless you promised to abide by the principles in all your future dog training, even if you had no intention of advertising yourself as KP trainer. That would be a sticking point for me, and I suspect many other people. Not that I'd do the course at all unless I could persuade my future boss to pay - my student loan is big enough already, believe me!

We sure do!

Thanks Persephone - went with your recommendation as found one in the local store, & it fits really well. Here she is having a paddle in the bush!

Er, except perhaps your own conscience? You will have signed a declaration promising to abide by a set of principals, if you do that without having any intention of abiding by those principles, I'd call that a moral problem. Sure, she probably won't take you to court over it. But if you don't intend to abide by the principles, seems to me the only moral choice is to not do the course.

I'm afraid I do.... Better safe than sorry. If i see a muzzled dog I start heading in the opposite direction, with my dog on lead. Interesting. I've just had my girl out for a 2 day hike in the bush, & every person she met out there was really keen to say hello to her despite her Hannibal Lector face. The only issue we had was with a young hunter who first got muzzle thumped in the groin as the dog scooted over to say hi, then as he bent over in pain he got smacked with the muzzle in the face as she jumped up for a kiss (sorry dude!) Seriously, though, perhaps it depends on the local culture & circumstances? I'd have been far more upset if I'd seen anyone with an unmuzzled dog, due to the fact there had just been 1080 dropped in the area. Also, I wouldn't let my dog run up to yours without asking, muzzled or not - she comes back to my side when we see strangers in the bush, and waits for permission to go say hi. So you'd probably be happier seeing us out and about, than if my girl was zooming round in an uncontrolled fashion with a muzzle on?

Lots of people will have a story about first time owner who took on a difficult breed and did well with them - doesn't mean those breeds are suitable for your average first time owner. There are some first time dog owners that do lots of research & are prepared to put a lot of work into their dog & seek help when necessary - but most first time owners I meet are well meaning but ignorant and tend to just want a friendly, low maintenance dog, and aren't prepared to put a whole lot of work into researching lines or training the dog afterwards. If newbie owners want a dog from the more difficult or more energetic breeds, I'd suggest they look for an adult dog. That way they can pick the individual dog to suit them (even working breeds & lines have low drive dogs pop up sometimes), and if they take the dog on a trial for a few days or weeks they'll know exactly what they're getting into. Otherwise, I tend to recommend greyhounds, goldens, bichons, tibbies, cavies, beagles, bulldogs, or a nice mixed breed rescue, for the average first time owner. Will be interested to see what other breed recommendations pop up in this thread.

Depends why they're muzzled, I'd say. Perhaps they're dangerous to cats or birds but fine with dogs. Or perhaps the walker has muzzled all her dogs "just in case", even if she's never seen them being aggressive? I've started to muzzle my dog out walking if there's any chance of poison bait in the area. But I don't really like dog parks anyway, and would never let my dog be walked by a random person, especially off-leash. Too much to go wrong. If she's off-leash and sees something else she'd rather be doing, she's likely to give anyone else the furry finger and head for the hills. Effective control is another matter, everyone should have it.

That was my first thought too. If the dog was ill, having seizures, did the owners take it to the vet? And if so, what did the vet say? So hard to know if this is a neglectful owner, or just the SPCA being high handed & arbitrary again. I don't like the style of reporting much, either. It's sad the sick little boy lost his only friend, but if they were neglecting the dog, the mother really only has herself to blame for that.

Or worse. Off topic, but veterinarians have a suicide rate about four times as high as the general population.

C3 can be done every 3 years, but if you want to do the other components of C5 they are still annual. The other components are sometimes required by boarding kennels & obedience clubs. All clubs and kennels should accept the C3 component being done every 3rd year if it's signed off by your vet, but I don't know if they all do.

I suspect you will find some desensitisation of the students in any vet degree, WoofnHoof. I know it is similar for human doctors and medics But if you burst into tears every time you saw a suffering sheep or bleeding dog, you also simply couldn't do your job. There are lots of rather nasty things that vet students need to get used to. Some of the routine procedures done on large animals are simply not very kind at all (half asphyxiating a sheep to collect a urine sample, anyone? Castrating baby animals with no anaesthetic? Using an electric probe up the rectum to collect semen?) Coming to terms with the fact that some animals will only get treated up to their monetary value as so many kg of meat or milk can be hard if you (like me) actually rather like cows and sheep. Plus putting down pet animals is always a tear jerker. Dissecting pet animals from the pound and doing post mortems is also something you need to get used to. Doing surgery itself (taking a blade and cutting open the belly of a living, breathing animal) took some adjusting to, believe me. Of the things I've done and seen, non-recovery surgeries haven't been the hardest, not by a long shot. I would also say that the people in my year who are less compassionate towards animals were that way long before doing non-recovery surgeries.