Staranais

I wouldn't use an e collar on a puppy at all. If you post in the training forum, people there might be able to give recommendations for a behaviourist in Perth? I don't know of any to recommend, sorry.

Torture? Oh dear. How on earth did you come to the conclusions that an e-collar stim equals torture? You do know what "torture" means, right? Almost every dog I've seen waking up after a surgical operation was far more miserable looking than any dog I've seen being trained with an e collar. But it's OK to do one to your dog and "torture" to do the other? I don't get the logic there. As an aside, it really makes me laugh when people join a conversation, then immediately say they're "won't be drawn into a debate" when people ask them to back up what they're saying. If you don't want to debate, why on earth would you jump into a conversation to make inflammatory, insulting comments in the first place? And yes, implying that a good few people here are "torturing" their dogs is both inflammatory and bloody insulting.

Only happy with not having flea treatments if the pup does not have fleas. I only deflea my animals when they have fleas. I would always, always vaccinate a pup with the puppy course & one year booster of C3, so if the breeder didn't choose to vaccinate, I would do so when I received the pup. Parvo is not fun. And dogs over 12 weeks old are certainly not immune to it. Virtually all pups are born with roundworms, so if the breeder doesn't worm the pup, the pup will almost certainly have worms. Yes, so long as the breeder knows what they're doing. No vaccinations? After the one year booster, it depends, but probably not. How often I would vacc my dog, and what I would vacc her with, depends on lots of factors - what the prevalence of Parvo is in my neighbourhood & at my clinic, if the dog needs a kennel cough vacc to get boarded when I am away, if my dog ever has an adverse reaction to a vaccine, if my dog decides that she hates doing titres more than injections (she hates having blood taken), where I travel with the dog, etc. It's not as simple as "vaccines good" or "vaccines bad". Raw, probably not. I feed a combination of raw & kibbled. Although I would always feed a dog some raw, there have been periods of my life when raw alone was too inconvenient or too expensive so the dog has had to have a combo. She does very well on it. Edited to add: I'm not sure where you've been doing your research, but: 1) when dogs are on a natural, raw diet fleas and mosquitos are not interested in them so there is no need for flea or heartworm treatments - not true. 2) if dogs are not subjected to chemical intervention, their bodies are able to develop the ability to deal with worms on their own - not true. 3) vaccinations do nothing except poison your dog - not true. 4) pups over 12 weeks of age are safe from Parvo - not true.

Actually now that I think about it, I think perhaps Erny from ProK9 is in Melbourne? Not 100% sure. Hopefully if I'm right she will see this and post.

Posting in the training forum might be a good idea, there are several trainers & behaviourists who post on DOL who might be able to recommend someone good, but not sure if they all come to the health forum?

Yup, that's my feeling about it also. I would be very reluctant to debark any of my own dogs, but sometimes people have exhausted their other options & don't have a choice, & it's far better than PTS or sending the dog to a shelter. Talking to the local ranger is a good idea.

Ooh send them here, my girl will have them! I have fed dried pigs trotters to both my dogs reasonably regularly with no problems at all, touch wood. They don't seem to splinter, have no idea why not since they are clearly a cooked bone, but they seem more chewy/crumbly than brittle. Perhaps they are cooked differently somehow?

Depends where you're importing from, there are many countries from which you are simply not permitted to import a dog into NZ at all, & most other places you need to do quarantine. Between NZ and Aussie is pretty easy, though. I would not go to live overseas without taking my girl with me. But, I don't think it's wrong for you to go & leave your dog, if the dog will be well looked after (and it sounds like he will be). It's just not something I'd be interested doing.

Just those words tell me that you have never actually felt an ecollar on yourself. And that you know nothing about trainign with a remote trainer. Yup.

That's interesting, I wonder if they'll succeed with the lawsuit? The link says it's frontline (fipronel & methoprene) and revolution (selamectin) that are being litigated against. I don't know if any effective insecticide is totally safe for all animals (no matter how natural it is), but being covered in fleas is pretty miserable too. I only do my guys when they actually have fleas.

Oh yeah I got that, sorry if my reply wasn't clear! I also don't think it's possible to eat and not kill something at some point. I more meant that I don't think any vego who eats milk or cheese (including myself) shouldn't get on their high horse and criticise people who buy free range meat products, since the dairy industry is really no better. Hope that is clearer. I do still grump at people that buy factory farm eggs or pork, though - no excuse for that, IMO. That is a great tip about breeding to a vasectomised hob - thanks! I too will file that away for future use.

I'd never thought about this either. It makes me look at vegetarianism with a new perspective. I've heard that argument before, & although it's interesting, I don't really buy it. No one can eat a diet that doesn't involve killing some sentient animals, it's almost impossible to do that, unless you grow all your own veges I suppose & are prepared to lose a lot of them to the bunnies! But, I also wouldn't throw up my hands and say, well, I'm not sure if the farmer has killed some animals while growing or harvesting my vegetables, so I might as well eat meat at every meal since I may already be a killer. I'd personally be more concerned with the cheese & milk that are probably in the vegetarian bake. Dairy products involve the direct and deliberate killing of animals, just as much as meat products do. Baby calves are a byproduct of the dairy industry, and are treated as such. Any vegetarian who lectures people on the cruelty of killing animals for meat, but then buys dairy products for themselves, is a bit of a hypocrit.

Could be any number of things, has the vet had a really good look inside his mouth or only a little peek? Sometimes there is nasty stuff going on back there that you can't always see at a casual glance. If one of my animals developed halitosis I'd strongly consider getting his teeth cleaned if there was even just a little tartar, and seeing if that made a difference, & allowing the vet to have a good thorough look at the whole oral cavity.

I've heard that the females commonly get a type of fatal aplastic anaemia due to bone marrow suppression from estrogen if they come on heat & aren't allowed to breed? Don't know much about it though since we don't keep ferrets as pets over here. :p

Putting down animals? Sheesh. I do a few every day at work. Looks like I'll need to find myself another job. Vets (most often) are not the ones administering anaesthetics to patients. You are kidding, right? Moselle this isn't the first time your posts have been offensive to members here. I put animals to sleep as well as administering drugs and anaesthetic to our patients and I am not a qualified veterinarian. What part of being a woman means that I am unable to calculate a dose rate and insert a needle into a vein and push. It's my job to know about all that so that our vet can concentrate on the surgery. Perhaps you should go spend a day in one of the big referral hospitals too. Their anaesthetic nurses are incredible and probably know more about anaesthesia than many (male :p ) vets out there! I have no issues with female vets and/or nurses administering drugs/anaesthetics to animals....I thought I made that clear. It is totally amazing to me how one comment is twisted and turned to suit yourselves. How does my distaste in women killing/hunting their own meat connected to female vets/nurses? God knows I have seen female vets in order to put my dogs to sleep when there was no other option!!! Because vets don't only use drugs to PTS different animals, we will use captive bolts & firearms when appropriate too. Yes, even us girls.

My mally was the same when she had her weeks of cage rest after her shoulder operation at about a year old. She was OK the first few days since she was feeling kind of miserable after the operation, then she bounced back and wanted OUT of the box! It was a highly frustrating few weeks for both of us. I second the shaping idea. There are lots of tricks you can teach with a clicker that aren't very strenuous. Getting that brain working. Big bones helped get us through it too, those big cannon bones can keep them going for hours, especially if you freeze them first. And don't worry about feeling frustrated, everyone gets frustrated at times with puppies. So long as you don't take it out on the puppy, it won't hurt. I swear there were times when I just simply had to put my mally puppy in her crate and leave the house for a few hours so I didn't do or say something to her that I would really have regretted! And she has grown up very well adjusted, despite her cranky impatient owner.

Hopefully Becs (can't remember her DOL name right now!) will come and post. She's doing amazing things with her beagle Daisy.

I don't normally read most of the topics here as I find them rather depressing. I don't see why you'd want to read such horrible things. But, I think it's good to have the headline reposted as the title so I can tell which things I want to read, & which I really don't. If you don't like hearing about it, I guess don't read the news section? Or, post more positive news articles.

I think getting a puppy that you know you will probably outlive is a little selfish. But I think you could get an elderly dog for her, from a breeder or a rescue. Old person + old dog sounds like a good match to me. Older dogs often find it hard to get homes, since most people want a young dog or a puppy. And a good breeder or rescue may be happy to take the dog back in future if needed, if you explain the situation - that the dog will have a brilliant life, but that your nan may pass away before the dog does.

You always do two lots of baking - a big batch with the chocolate chips & cocoa in for the humans, and a smaller batch without for the dog. Yes, my dog is hideously spoiled. In my defense, her stuff is never iced, and she always works for it!

Unless you're doing Kosher killing. They still do that here, not sure if they do it in Aussie? They slit the throat, then stun the animal "within 10 seconds". Definitely not very humane. On the other hand, I've seen sheep killed with the captive bolt/throat cut method before (eta, actually, I've done it myself to get a sheep), and it looked pretty humane to me. Our sheep wasn't aware of anything after we captive bolted it. I've got to say, it's not only the actual killing that worries me though, it's what they go through to arrive at the works. I've seen some nasty things on farms, but to this day, one of the worst was an old dairy cow being loaded into a double decker truck for transport to the works. I've honestly never seen such a panicked & terrified animal in my life. The bobby calves & induced babies really get to me too, although that's more of an issue with the dairy rather than the meat industry.

No idea - ring and ask, I guess? Not sure if they'd let you? Apparently I have to spend a week in an abattoir as part of my vet course later this year (learning how to inspect meat to ensure it's fit for human consumption - ew), so if they don't swear me to secrecy, I can report back if you like. Though from what I've seen of the pig industry, I'd be more concerned about how the piggies are treated during life - free range bacon is so much fairer to the sows than cage pork! I've already had to do that and it is not good I got a sheep one though which was bad enough, but apparently the cattle and pig ones are way worse. Ugh, what have I got to look forward to?

No idea - ring and ask, I guess? Not sure if they'd let you? Apparently I have to spend a week in an abattoir as part of my vet course later this year (learning how to inspect meat to ensure it's fit for human consumption - ew), so if they don't swear me to secrecy, I can report back if you like. Though from what I've seen of the pig industry, I'd be more concerned about how the piggies are treated during life - free range bacon is so much fairer to the sows than cage pork!

No it wont change any time soon because people continue to support it by forking out $$ at the supermarket so that their conscious is clear or because they have no alternative. Yes, you are right. Homekill and hunting are generally much kinder than what goes on on many commercial farms and slaughterhouses. I do not understand people who purchase supermarket meat but get upset at hunting or homekill. Just because you pay someone else to do your dirty work for you, doesn't mean the animal's suffering doesn't occur. All I can imagine is that anyone who eats commercial meat but hates homekill or hunting, must just not have firsthand experience of these things in order to compare them.

Is it outside standard? I'm not sure. The OP said it was a "tall Pomeranian", but I'm not sure if she meant taller than the standard, or at the tall end of the standard, if you see what I mean.