Staranais

Clean run article on Iliopsoas strain Hope this helps

A sloped back is supposed to be more efficient for trotting? I wonder if it is. Most other herding dogs have straight backs, I think? But it would be pretty easy to test to a rough degree of accuracy, I suppose, if we got a whole bunch of dogs with straight backs & a bunch with sloped backs & took them all for a long bike ride, & saw who could trot the longest. I also wonder, even if a sloped back is more efficient for trotting all day, is there a correspondent sacrifice in other gaits due to the slope? e.g., less endurance at a gallop, or less explosive power when jumping in a sloped back dog?

I thought it was that if the dog was heavily affected with mature heartworm & you give it an adulticide, the adult worm are killed & get washed out of the pulmonary vessels & can cause embolisms in the lungs? Only speaking from theory though cos we don't have heartworm where I live.

She's usually critiqued as 'medium strong' so I think she's pretty standard - the 2nd photo was after a bath so she's a bit puffier than usual. She's about 25/26kg LOL, perhaps she was more puffy than chunky then - hard to tell from a photo I guess! Thanks for sharing the picture. ;)

Ooh he's pretty. Ish's dog is pretty too, but slightly chunkier looking than the posted WL photos (no offence, Ish!), is that normal for a showline? I think I prefer the slightly slenderer looking ones since they look a lot more agile, although perhaps that's just because I'm used to looking at a skinny mally. :rolleyes:

Thanks, but I don't want to read 128 pages! And I don't want to start an argument either. :rolleyes: I'm just interested in what health & structural flaws people see in the WL shepherds, that they don't see in the SL.

They got some at one of the zoos here in NZ. Nice looking puppies, but I kind of expected something more exotic - honestly, it looked like they'd nicked over the road to the SPCA & adopted a pair of little yellow pups. :rolleyes: Interestingly, they've apparently both got nasty hip dysplasia, poor things.

Could you please post a photo of an over exaggerated WL, if you have one, so I know what you're talking about? Thanks.

That is a great explanation.

GSD puppies are done at 7 weeks with no anaesthetic - just a quick cry and they're fine. They have a sleep and by the time they wake up, its a distance memory Oooh ouch, really? Poor babies!

Has she had a proper dental? I don't like sticking my pets under anaesthetic unnecessarily, but sometimes if tartar has already built up, I think it's better to get a dental done & then it's much easier to start from scratch to keep the teeth properly clean. Needs to be under a GA to get under the gumline, since this is what is causing the gingivitis.

I've tattooed ears before in dogs & cats that were under a GA, and it looked ouch, I'm sure they must have had a sore ear when they woke up. I think it's a good idea, though. I'd probably get my girl done if she was under GA at any point. I've never seen puppies get done before, though I know some pups are sold with tattoos - does anyone know how they do it, they get local anaesthetic for it?

I use bones and brush teeth.

Can't help with the saliva stains, but why is he licking his paws - are they itchy?

That isn't good - have you considered reporting it to the council for being offleah & uncontrolled in a public place? I too have had several nasty incidents at dog training schools, including one very nasty incident with an instructor's dogs (and you'd really think that they'd know better!) I think the problem is that even at obedience school, some people don't understand that their "friendly" dog is actually quite rude, or they forget that shy or aggressive dogs also come to dog school and that these dogs might not appreciate their dog charging up to say hi.

I suspect this is probably the case.

Yes, do - I would be genuinely interested to know if his dog (and other police dogs) would engage a child if ordered to do so while working, or if they would refuse the command due to not regarding the child as a threat. ETA and if the answer is that the dog would refuse the command, then I'd be interested to learn if they specifically train that behaviour, or if they just rely on the dog not thinking to bite a child since it has only ever been agitated by an adult decoy?

What do you base your opinion on? Do you believe that police dogs are trained to only bite people they perceive as a threat? This is not my understanding of the training. My understanding is that the dog can be commanded to enter an area to find & guard and/or bite someone. The dog isn't expected to decide whether the person they are sent to bite is a threat and to refuse to bite someone who seems nice - deciding who to bite is the handler's job. Otherwise what happens if there is a genuine threat, but the dog doesn't believe that the person is threatening - you don't want the dog refusing to bite! If the dog had been taught only to bite people who were scary and it bit the child, or if the owner had told the dog not to bite and it still bit the child, then those would be issues I agree.

Thanks for the reply, it is interesting to see where you are coming from. I would never say that all the SL I have seen have had no working drive, but the difference in temperament between SL and WL from what I have personally seen to date have been pronounced. What are the conformation flaws & health flaws you see in WL and not in SL, though? & do you think any flaws in the WL could be removed by breeding WL dogs, or in your opinion is an infusion of SL blood necessary to fix these issues? I'll try to get a hang of it, thanks - do you have the name of the author? Why isn't that the case in Aus & NZ, though? Why don't we have the german system here, that a dog must be Sch titled before it can be shown in conformation? The way it is, doesn't that mean that a SL dog does not need to show any working talent at all in order to be bred? And more importantly, doesn't it mean that a breeder can breed GSD without knowing what good nerves & good drive actually are, since they've never trained a GSD in schutz or any working discipline (perhaps never even watched a schutz trial)? Thanks for your answers, & hope the dentist isn't too vicious towards you...

I will start by saying that I am not a GSD person - they were one of the breeds I considered when I got my current WL, but I went with another shepherd breed for several reasons. But my question is, what does the SL GSD have to offer the WL, that can't be found within WL dogs? That is a genuine question, by the way. When I was breeder hunting a few years back, I just didn't see a single SL GSD (or SL belgian for that matter) that I was interested in owning or working. Even SL dogs that were claimed to be good working dogs tended to only be agility dogs, or perhaps obedience dogs - they & their progeny didn't have full schutzhund titles, were not working in the police or as MWD or operational in SAR, etc - so they weren't what I'd call impressive workers. So, I guess I am asking what would the WL GSD gain from an infusion of SL blood? I just don't understand what problems that would solve.

Sorry I disagree. Though I don't believe the dog should be put down nor that we know the whole story of the incident, I do have to question the strength of nerve and clarity in a working dog that would see a child as a threat. I very much doubt the dog saw the child as a threat. I rather suspect the dog was have been sent into the area by the police officer to find and bite a person - he finds a person and bites them - he's done his job! That's not fear or the dog feeling "threatened", at most, it's a dog that hasn't been trained to distinguish between children and adults. I'm not even sure if the police actively teach manwork dogs to distinguish between adults and children & to never bite children, since I suppose there may conceivably be rare sad circumstances in which a bite on a child may be necessary - children with weapons, bombs or such like.

Don't agree, sorry. The journo wasn't there, didn't see the incident, and may have no knowledge of dog training or working dogs, so s/he would have no idea if the dog was surprised or startled when he bit the child or simply very predatory and aroused. I would be very surprised if a dog that had passed all the temperament & manwork requirements to become a police dog had such poor nerves it could be scared by a child. They're pretty rigorous with what they'll accept & what gets washed out.

Yes, I don't see how anyone could conclude it was a fear bite either. Dog is sent into area to find and bite a person - dog finds a person and bites them - how is the dog to know that the kid is the "wrong" person?

I think people are more concerned for him than trying to make any kind of political point - i.e., concerned that he might shell out a lot of hours & money training the dog, then discover that the dog isn't eligible to work as a guide dog anyway due to him perhaps not having gone through the proper/usual channels to get a guide dog.

I give fish oil with vit E, glucosamine, chondroitin. Don't see any issues giving any of those things to growing pups. Like Nekhbet says, keeping the pup lean is one of the best things you can do for its joints.