Staranais

I've never liked kelpies much, but now I realise I must have just seen showline ones, since all the ones I've seen are chocolate brown & very stocky. The skinnier bicolours are lovely!

If the jogger didn't have a mark on them, or only a little scratch, I too would be dubious that it was actually an "attack". Some people think they have been attacked if a dog barks at them! But apparently the dog drew blood through clothing. That's hard to argue with.

I have had both of my dogs called "ugly" to my face! The first was my handsome dark brindle stafford boy, the second is my lovely malinois girl. I don't care - I think it's quite funny. Neither of the people were trying to be offensive, just saying what was on their minds. There are lots of breeds I find unattractive, and though I don't usually tell the owners that, I also think they'd be silly to take mortal offence if I did. If you get a dog that is very unusual looking, I think you just have to be prepared that some people will find them unattractive, and some people will tell you so. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the "best" dog isn't necessarily the prettiest one anyway. If you love your dog, he will be handsome to you.

I read (somewhere!) that so long as the dog is consistently doing the same style the whole way through the weaves, you shouldn't try to change it. If the dog is skipping between different styles while weaving, then you might want to change it. But I have no idea how you'd go about changing a dog's weaving style!

Yes. Dogs are already banned from so many places. Every incident like this is a nail in the coffin for the rights of responsible owners and their dogs. It doesn't matter if the jogger startled the dog, biting someone is not an appropriate response to being startled. People should be able to run down the street without being bitten.

That's the problem, I think. One of our local petshops is pretty good - I've even trained all the staff how to interact with my dog when I bring her in. But the others in town are clearly mostly staffed by teenage kids that get little training, and less pay.

Yup. Most of the staffords I've met can be pretty full on when they're playing, but are happy to chill out & lie about the house when they're not. That's what I meant just couldn't explain myself better LOL. OT, but I've spend the day sitting down studying, and the malinois has been pacing, whining and fussing at me that we're not doing anything. It's days like this I really miss my stafford... he really knew how to chill out!

Yup. Most of the staffords I've met can be pretty full on when they're playing, but are happy to chill out & lie about the house when they're not.

I would think a heated bed would be good, perhaps a coat if you can't do that? I don't know if the magnetic things really work, but keeping them warm & cosy sure does.

Oh good god, that's ridiculous. If someone's really scared of dogs, then me walking my girl past them on a leash could "cause fear". That's their problem, it shouldn't be made into ours.

Thanks again, you two! That sort of makes sense. LOL, no, I have no agility DVDs, I'm very much a newbie at this. I'm just doing some "backyard" agility with my girl as a way to gradually get her strength & agility back after her op, and a way to exercise her when she's on heat & can't leave the property. So at the moment my technique involves pointing to the weave poles, target plate, or wrap around pole, and saying "that one!" Very unsophisticated.

I thought the thread was fine until someone started suggesting the OP was a "troll". I do admit though, most of the responses to the OP were very restrained compared to some I've seen in previous threads when a newbie shows up and asks about breeding.

Thanks very much, you two! I will take a look at your blog, Kelpiechick. Can I please ask, what would be an example of a positional cue, and a motion cue? I don't quite get what they are.

The way they explained it to me was as follows: There are several challenge studies that show that the vast majority of dogs are immune for C3 for at least 3 years after puppy vaccinations + a one year booster, but no challenge studies that show that vaccinating a puppy set alone is as protective. (Challenge studies are the studies that actually challenge the dog with the virus and see if the dog is protected, as opposed to serology studies that just titre test). Vaccinating with only the baby shots may work just as well as giving the baby shots and the 1 year booster, but we don't know - it hasn't been tested. Some reasons that giving the baby shots alone may not work as well are: 1. Some people think that a puppy has an immature immune system, that might not function as well or quite the same as the immune system on a mature dog. 2. Current immunological thinking suggests exposing the animal twice to the vaccine is better than just once. Immunity isn't a binary thing, it's not that you're either totally immune or not immune at all. Repeated exposures to the virus can create a better B cell response towards the antigen (somatic hypermutation is the fancy term). So there is a theoretical reason why exposing the pup to the vaccine twice might work better than just once. For some animals, that might be achieved via two puppy vaccinations. For other puppies with longer lasting maternal titre, they'll need the one year booster to get that second exposure. The WSAVA has therefore recommended a complete initial set of vaccinations (2 or 3 baby vaccinations, and a vaccination at one year after). Any vet that chooses to only do the baby vaccinations and skip the one year booster could get in the sh*t should their protocol not work and a client complain, since they're going against the recommendations of the WSAVA experts (and they're even ignoring the advice of minimalist vaccine promoters like Dr Jean Dodds). I think it's quite possible in future they'll find out that for C3, puppy shots alone are just as good as the puppy shots and the one year booster. And then I guess we'll get away with recommending only the initial baby set of shots. But for now, we can't.

Is that the one year booster after the puppy vacc? That's actually part of the initial puppy vaccination set that you have to do to ensure immunity. Even if you choose to never vaccinate your dog again after that, it's important to complete the entire first set of vaccinations for C3. After my girl's one year booster, I'll be boosting C3 only every 3 years, or titering only after 3 years, without a good reason to do otherwise. Will do KC yearly if I require it for kennels.

No, you don't feed the shell, the goodies are all in the meat. I'd be feeding human quality frozen, Tapferhund, same as they use in restaurants, so no risk of food poisoning. I don't know if it's more economical to feed mussels fresh, or to get the powder, since I don't know how many mussels go into making one tsp of powder or capsule. I'd rather feed fresh, if it's economic. But the information is pretty hard to get. The best I can do is work out that there's about 65g protein in the powder, and 25g protein per 100g mussel meat, so you could assume that the powder is 2.5 times as concentrated as the meat, so one mussel (10g) would equal about 4g of powder? And you're supposed to feed about 2000mg of powder per day, so one mussel every 1 - 2 days should be a good amount? There's a lot of assumptions in those calculations, though, so I was hoping someone had more accurate info!

Probably a dumb question, sorry: I hear a lot of agility people talking about their handling system. What is a handling system? Is it just what hand you point the dog with, how you move to the other side of the dog, etc, or is there much more to it? How do handling systems differ? What is the Greg Derrett handling system? I hear that one talked about a lot. Please feel free to point me towards a link if no one wants to explain it.

They look great, SecretKei, but I can't find them in Aussie or NZ. I've had a friend offer to splice me a frisbee sized circle from thick heavy duty jute rope, should hopefully be malligator proof, but I'm not sure how well it will fly! If that doesn't work, I reckon I'll try out Tony's suggestion.

agreed. The study I was told about used pressure pads, so impact was actually measured. The person who told us about i. Is coming back to aust in march. I will be sure to ask more about it & hopefully get a link to something published Thanks! I'd be fascinated if you could.

Does anyone know how much chondroitin, omega oil, etc is actually in a fresh green lipped mussel? I've looked but can't find the information anywhere on the internet. Hoping someone here may know. I can buy these at the supermarket for about 20c each, am wondering if it's more economical to simply give the dog a mussel each day, than buy the powder.

Oh weird, she is really freaked about it then. Not sure if I'd want to try to lure her right onto the grass if she was totally freaked, it might devalue your reward as much as making her happier about the grass, if you know what I mean. How about just desensitising? i.e., go out with a bag of delicious things, sit far away enough from the grass that she's noticed it but isn't freaked, & stuff her little mouth with yums. When she's engaged with you & relaxed, move a bit closer. But never taking it so far that she's jittery and unengaged with you. Or do same thing with TID, just do sessions as close as you can to the grass while you're still getting maximal engagement & drive from her, and then just gradually work closer. I'm not a trainer, but that's what I'd try first if my girl was really genuinely freaked about something.

How weird. Is she in the yard when you're not home - could she have had a bad experience out there somehow? Dogs can make the strangest associations when something scary happens. Will she TID on the lawn if you ask her to work?

Why does the dog need a senior food? I don't know much about it since I've never had a dog that's truly elderly, but as far as I know there's not much difference between an adult maintenance and a senior food except less calories & protein, and more fillers, plus perhaps some added glucosamine and other joint food. So I'm thinking, why can't you just feed a premium adult food and supplement with glucosamine/MSM & fish oil?

Unless you're bought up in a doggy family, then everyone starts off knowing nothing! When I got my first dog I had no idea what registration meant or what "papers" were - was the dog born with them, or did I sent photos to the kennel club to prove he was a stafford and he'd get them that way, or perhaps the dog won papers if he won a show or something?