Staranais

Are you sure it's the food? Some dogs lick their lips when they are nervous. It's a type of displacement or calming behaviour.

I haven't seen this study - do you have a link? I would really like one too.

Mine does too, but the KNPV titles are not listed on her AnKC pedigree - I assumed the AnKC had already deleted KNPV titles from our pedigrees, or that they had never been on there? And, if the breed clubs don't stop sniping at each other & start working together, I'd say the AnKC has already practically won.

Do you mean, how do we know that raisins can cause renal failure? Basically, when a dog comes in with acute kidney failure, it's got to be caused by something. Kidneys don't up and die all of a sudden for no reason. If you've ruled out all the other common causes (usually certain toxins or infectious diseases), and the owner mentions the dog pigged out on raisins or grape pulp a few hours before, that's strong cause for suspicion that the raisins had something to do with it. Some people have suggested it's something on the grapes (some type of mould, some type of pesticide, perhaps?) and not the grapes themselves, & I don't think anyone really knows if that's true yet. I've found a good article about it here, with references to 5 case reports from the UK and USA, you have to register to read but it's free to register: http://vetlearn.com/ArticleDetails/tabid/1...84/Default.aspx No idea about passionfruit.

Clicker training won't solve the issues of every aggressive dog, especially not when used by a novice or unskilled trainer. I took my old dog (dangerously dog aggressive) to community obedience classes & used clicker with him when I first got him, on the advice of some volunteer trainers, and it made his aggressive outbursts worse. Neither will any book have the solution for every aggressive dog, especially when the advice is applied by a novice or unskilled trainer. I would really recommend that you see a good behaviourist who is experienced at dealing with aggression - hopefully someone here can recommend one they have used successfully. Seeing a bad behaviourist is a waste of money. I have wasted lots of money on behaviourists over the years. Get personal recommendations when choosing your behaviourist. Don't just go with the first behaviourist who claims to have the solution to aggression, or who has a flashy website with lots of testimonials, since they will quite possibly take your money & not fix your problem. It doesn't really matter what techniques they use, as long as they have a history of happy customers & good results with aggressive dogs. & please listen to K9Pro, he knows what he's talking about.

I would be more than happy to register my dog with an alternative FCI registered body rather than the AnKC if I travel to Aussie in the next few years. Seems to me that AnKC is not really interested in working dogs, so I don't need to give them my money. However, there would be logistical issues, I think. Would the new body run obedience & tracking & agility trials as well as recognising pedigrees? Or would people need to register with AnKC and with the new body if they wished to compete in & earn titles in these other dogsports?

I don't know if there have been any case reports of raisin toxicosis published in non-American peer reviewed journals. But there was a case report describing two incidents of raisin & grape must poisoning in NZ published in a Gribbles Veterinary Pathology newsletter a few years back. I have never talked to a vet who has seen grape poisoning (as opposed to raisin or grape must poisoning), and imagine most dogs would need to eat an enormous quantity of raw grapes to show signs? I personally would imagine that the odd grape or raisin would not be an issue for the vast majority of dogs, just like most dogs can eat the occasional piece of chocolate and get away with it just fine. But that's different to saying that chocolate (or raisins) are safe for dogs.

Oh that is terrible! But funny! I remember once I went fishing for my cat, and she refused to touch it.

No offence to you, kat99, but if an aussie is too big (and I think the OP said it was), then a belgian will definitely be too big. If you get a belgian, please do get an adult so you know what it will be like. Some belgians are probably sweet and calm and suitable for children to own - but some are boisterous, predatory, can drag a grown man down the street, come with a supersonic bark, and are basically complete raving lunatics (I love my dog, honest I do!)

I don't eat meat myself, but would love to do this for my dog & cats - but I just don't have the space or the time at the moment. Perhaps in the future. Let us know how you go if you do it. I think it's a great idea. Not sure how you'd go about killing them, though?

They've actually found that pups under 12wks recover faster, have an almost zero risk of infection, it is very rare for them to pull at stitches, they heal A LOT faster (stitches can often be removed after 5days). Can you please post the link to the study, Cordelia? (I should clarify that a "major anaesthetic complication" is something that goes majorly wrong while the animal is under or recovering from anaesthetic. It doesn't include the recovery period for the days & weeks after the operation).

The incontinence thing is an issue. They recommend at my uni that we don't desex female dogs before 4 months old, except in a shelter situation where they want or need to get animals adopted out as soon as possible, due to the increased risk of spay incontinence with younger desexing. Contrary to what you might suspect though, studies haven't found a greater risk of serious anaesthetic complications in the younger animals. Cats are a little different, spay incontinence isn't a problem with them as it is with dogs. Nor is it an issue with male dogs. Even then though, we don't desex those guys before 8 weeks old. If these pups are ready to go by 7 weeks, that really is very young.

That's a pretty good small space. But watch that she doesn't jump up & down & hurt it that way. That's one reason a crate is better than a room - little head room for jumping.

Whichever breed you choose, remember you may be the one ending up looking after it if she decides to go flatting when she's a teenager. I don't know much about shelties, but the ones I have met have all been very dignified and sensitive! But if she really wants one, maybe wait until one comes up in rescue & then you can deliberately pick a confident adult, rather than gambling that a puppy will grow into something that suits your family?

I don't know what the toxin is either - I don't think anyone knows yet. We do know that what the toxin does is cause acute renal failure (kidney cells swell & die, the kidneys shut down, and the dog's toxic wastes accumulate in its bloodstream & poison it). Expensive to treat, & they can't always save them. Raisins are worse, since they're more concentrated & the dogs tend to eat more of them. I'm not sure if it's that some dogs aren't affected, or just that some dogs need to eat more than other dogs to be affected. The kidneys can also take quite a hammering before the dog starts to display symptoms - so just because you don't see the damage that the raisins are doing, doesn't mean they aren't doing some damage. To the OP, clinical signs to watch out for with AKD are depression, dehydration, vomiting or having diarrhoea, and not peeing. May also have stinky breath or mouth ulcers from the ammonia in their systems. If you're suspicious, get them to the vet quick since starting them on fluids early will increase their chance of making it through.

My parents have a rental property where the rental payments don't cover the mortgage, let alone repairs to the house. The rent covers part of the mortgage, and they put some of their own money to cover the rest of the mortgage. It's still worth it financially since at the end of the day they'll end up owning a house (or at least part of one) that they couldn't afford to have bought on their own salaries. Since houses tend to increase in value over the long term, it's a good investment for them to make. They will sell the house at some point in the future, and (hopefully) get back much more than they originally paid towards the mortgage. It doesn't make them loaded, they're merely investing their spare cash into a house instead of the bank, or shares, or bonds, or retirement funds, like other people (including many tenants) do. I investigated buying a house last time I was working, and the mortgage payments were going to be nearly twice what I was paying to rent for a similar property. Like Snopaws says, the point of a rental property is that it increases in capital value.

I don't know about customs dogs, but with SAR airscenting & tracking/trailing dogs, handlers definitely do set up a find if they dog has been unsuccessful at locating the real victim. We want the dogs believing that they will always find the subject & earn the reward if only they work hard enough. Since most days they won't find the person (due to the huge search area compared to area assigned to one dog team), setting up a situation on a search where they can "win" at the end of the day is imperative.

Perhaps it depends what police dog training methods actually are? I only have knowledge of how the cops here train their dogs for scent work. I have no idea how they train their dogs for obedience. Perhaps "police methods" even varies with the police department, and with the individual dog? Does anyone know for sure that police methods are harsh/would crush a normal dog, or are we all just assuming that this is the case?

Thanks v much!

from GSDCV Can you please link that, Nekhbet? I'd like to quote it in my email to the FCI. And although I could probably find it eventually if I googled, I'm lazy.

Hope your right, 'cause I was pretty freaking horrified by that! wouldn't the dog have died if it was 80% of the body weight? unless it was hugely obese to start with, even then there are liver complications that occur... LOL, yes it would. But perhaps Corvus meant reducing their body weight to 80% of the original (i.e., losing 20%)? I see a lot of dogs in our clinic that could stand to lose 20% of their body weight.

Actually, many members of this forum (including myself) also train working dogs of various types. Just letting you know. I'm interested in this, can you share more? Are you talking about extreme levels of deprivation? Most SAR tracking & scenting dogs that I have worked with & seen trained are taught their jobs almost entirely positively, since a dog without a huge drive to earn the reward is simply not worth the time to train it (the same is not always true of how these dogs are taught basic manners, how they are kiwi proofed, or stock proofed, of course, aversives are used here). Some of these dogs are deprived during certain stages of training (only get toys on the track, for example), but I have never seen this taken to an unkind or unfair level of deprivation. If you had to do so, I'd question whether the dog had the goods to do the job.

Interesting. So as far as we know the ANKC "should" abide by FCI regulations regarding IPO/schutzhund titles & not altering pedigrees. So I guess the question is, do the FCI have the balls to stop the ANKC doing this, or will they just turn a blind eye & let the ANKC get away with it?

If you look on the FCI website, it lists countries as "Organismes fédérés" or "Organismes associés" or " Partenaires sous contrat". I don't know the difference, but both Aussie and NZ are associated organisations (organismes associes), not federated organisations (organismes federes). http://www.fci.be/membres.aspx

No offence, but anyone who claimed to be able to reliably read borderline hip dysplasia on such low resolution radiographs would be telling you a tall one! :p Not to mention that reading rads reliably requires lots of regular practice. We've only started reading rads last year at uni, and although some things are easy to spot, it's surprising how often the entire class manages to miss little things that the specialist can see or has noticed (mind you, she's amazing, but even so). Best to send them off to a vet who does it all the time and has their eye in.