Staranais

I'll have to talk to my fellow postgrad student who has been studying laterality in dogs for the last 3 years. My feeling is both dogs default to their preferred side and to override that preference they have to actually stop and think about it. Rather like us, then.

If it's the same as it is over here, it's pretty easy. Basic obedience & good manners around distractions. Even my old stafford boy passed it. Good luck! I'm sure you'll do well.

Yes, I wonder about this too. We have a pet store in this town that sell random x-breed and purebreed dogs without papers for about as much as you'd pay for a registered purebred. So why do people shop there? I think it's mostly simply ignorance - most of the public don't understand the difference between a good registered purebred where the breeder has carefully selected the parents & done all the appropriate health testing, & a "purebred" puppy of completely unknown ancestry that comes with a vet check. I wonder how much the "registered" multigeneration labradoodles tend to sell for?

Hahahaha - that was karma getting you for saying that you don't really like Dobes in that other thread! Yeah, I NEVER should have said that. I take it back! I LOVE dobes. More than I love malinois that give me a face full of aborted lamb & maggot, anyway!

Yeah, as I posted I realise someone would probably ask why the heck I had an aborted lamb in my rubbish. I was post mortem-ing it (aborted lambs - one of the joys of vet school!), and we missed last week's rubbish collection.

I have just realised that my dog has just dug a two week old rotting aborted lamb fetus that is absolutely crawling with maggots out of the garbage and eaten it. She has then jumped on the bed and given me a big sloppy kiss. Ew ew ew! Why do we keep dogs again?

Yup. There's a difference between polite & not challenging anything they say, though. "Hmmm, what lovely puppies! And the dad is a chihuahua, you say! How very interesting. And aren't you lucky she didn't need a caesarian, my goodness, that would have been expensive for you. That's just one of the risks of breeding, of course. Have you thought about desexing fluffy after this litter?"

As a rule, I wouldn't. The texture of the bone changes when it's cooked, it's more brittle, so more likely to splinter into sharp fragments when the dog chews on it.

Well, it's interesting, because that's what I thought. And so I didn't pay much attention to which side I put the "correct" choice on when I started with Kivi, instead alternating them. But a few trials into the session noticed that he was going left every time and I put the correct choice on the right several times in a row and he still tended to go left. When he went right he would tend to go back to left the next one, like a rubber band. So when I taught Erik I knew he was right-pawed so I deliberately put the correct choice on his left several times in a row. He still went right, and as the session progressed he continued to go right probably about 80% of the time. When he went left it was only after he'd stopped to think about it. Interesting! So do you think he has a "preferred" side that he defaults to when he's not sure which way to go? If I'd thought it through, I would have tried to work out my girl's least preferred side & taught that first so it had the stronger reinforcement history, as I think it would be easier to teach the naturally preferred side second.

Nah, dobes don't really do it for me either (ooops, now I'm REALLY in trouble!)

No I won't get over it and yes it is insensitive and I will throw as many tanties as I want to!!! Hmmm, fair enough. Are there any other poodle or lab owners out there who think what I said was terribly insensitive, and that I should never admit to not liking the way any breed looks?

Oh please, get over it Labsrule. Not everyone has to like the way your dog looks - everyone appreciates a different thing in their dogs, or else we would all own labradors. And it's not "insensitive" to say that the look of a particular breed doesn't appeal to you. There's no point throwing a tanty whenever someone says they don't personally find your dog attractive. Heck, if I threw a tanty every time someone had called my stafford ugly or funny looking, I'd have thrown a lot of tanties over the years. You're right, as a vet I will need to be polite to any dog owner and breeder that comes in my door - whether they are breeding mutts, crossbreeds, oodles, or purebreds...

Is it partly just which side you taught first, though? I taught left spin first to my girl, she can do that on voice command alone. But the first few times I lured her for a right spin, she was so awkward she nearly fell over backwards. She was so used to doing it the one way that she couldn't get her head (or body) around the idea of spinning the other way round.

With a title like that, I just had to read it!

I guess you could feed cat food to a dog, but it's richer & will put more weight on the dog. To my knowledge any diet that is suitable for a cat would probably be suitable for a dog. The converse isn't true - cats need several nutrients that dogs don't, and higher levels of protein & fat. There are minor differences in most minerals in AAFCO levels in cat vs dog food, e.g., dog food has a high minimum Zn level than cat food, and a max & min Ca:P ratio are specified for dog food & not for cat food. Although nutrient levels do vary widely between brands of dog food as well, since the AAFCO levels are often fairly vague, and often do not specify an upper safe limit for nutrients. FYI: http://www.scribd.com/doc/27322535/AAFCO-D...trient-Profiles If you think about it, I guess if you are feeding a prey model diet, you'll feed pretty much the same thing to a cat & a small dog. The only difference is that you can get away with more mistakes when you feed raw to dogs compared to cats. However, I don't see any point feeding cat food to a dog, it costs more, and like one poster said, cat food tends to be very palatable (cats are fussy!) so by not feeding cat food now, you have a fall back in case your dog gets ill & won't eat dog kibble. Why not just buy a premium grain free dog kibble if you want to spend the extra $?

Yes.

LOL, it's a good thing everyone's different. I've got to say, I don't find either the labrador or the poodle aesthetically appealing at all. But apparently people exist that don't think staffords are handsome either (!)

Do the breeders want the adult dogs back?

Yes, prey drive doesn't = aggression per se. But the issue is that a very high prey drive dog can decide to try to chase & bite stock, small animals, people on bikes, little kids on scooters, tiny babies that sound like prey, etc etc. Hence the wording in the add pointing out that a high prey drive could manifest as aggression if the dog is not taught to control itself. That bit, at least, was responsible. God knows nothing else about this situation is.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Probably both lovely dogs in the right hands. A PITA at best, a liability at worst, in the wrong ones.

So... what's the real story, then Kristina? These pups are or aren't from working lines? The mum is or isn't a dutchie?

So the dutchie x GSD litter at PP is a different litter to the dutchie x GSD litter, that you talk about in this thread, where you describe the mother as a dutchie? http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?show...95710&st=15 Exactly how many GSD x dutchie litters have you bred?

If everyone is on the wrong track then why not clear it up? Honestly not trying to be smart at all, but if I were you and none of this was true I'd be clearing it all up straight away, if you haven't done anything wrong why leave everyone thinking you have? Just how I'd react I guess. Me too. I think any reasonable person with nothing to hide would explain what was going on. But there are so many contradictions here, I can only conclude that someone's telling porkies.

And if the dutchie they are out of isn't "working line", what is it?

I'm very interested too. My understanding was that the bitch was from KNPV lines. Not show lines.