Staranais

Whilst it might be true about finding another vet, some of the people on this board know more about canines than plenty of vets and the combined knowledge is astounding. The challenge of course, with both vets and DOLers, is figuring out which of either group has advice you can safely rely on. Frankly I've read advice here over the years that has been downright unsafe. Exactly.

Agree with this. My first dog was a DA stafford - 5 years old when I adopted him and seriously, seriously DA. He would sometimes attempt to kill other dogs on sight, and had killed cats too. He was never 100% safe with other dogs, but ended up being trustworthy around cats, and good enough around other dogs to win obedience comps. Took a lot of work though. And I do mean a lot. The one thing I wouldn't do is rehome. It's not fair on the new owner, unless they are already used to having a DA bull breed (and to be frank, if you've had one, you usually don't want another).

Which is a little strange, since all of the working GSD I've met (i.e. GSD that are actually actively working in police or SAR) have much more of the traditional square shape. Had a lovely police dog in at our clinic yesterday, huge sable boy, I could have taken him home.

If you trust random people on a message board more than your vet, it's time to find a vet that you trust more.

Speaking as a previous owner of an aggressive dog, no I would not. I'd feel furious that the other owner's negligence had probably put back my dog's training and rehabilitation by weeks if not months.

A heart murmur is a symptom, not a disease. Heart murmurs can be caused by heaps of different things, some serious, some completely benign. They basically just indicate that something is causing some level of turbulent blood flow in the heart. How loud they are, where they are loudest on the chest wall, and where they occur in the cardiac cycle, can sometimes give a clue what's causing the turbulent flow. Possibly the vet guesses it's nothing much to worry about based on those clues. You could always ask for referral for a further work up (probably starting with chest rads) if you were really worried.

The only thing I'd say is I believe if the ranger is going to forward a complaint to you about a barking dog, they should collect and give you as much information as possible about what's going on. I've had one barking dog notification from the council before, when I spoke to the ranger all they told me was that "a neighbour" had complained that my dog barked "too much". They hadn't bothered to ask the complainant what time of day the dog was barking, or what days she barked on, or how long she was barking for, or what type/tone of barking it was, or if it had just suddenly started or had been going on for ages, or whether the neighbour thought she was barking at something in particular, etc... such a vague complaint makes it damn hard for a well meaning owner to figure out what's going on and stop the problem!

At the moment for our scent work, we do one air scent problem a week (i.e. finding a real person), a few article searches (finding dropped items on a paddock or football field), and usually also a few tracks per week. Tracking isn't really our focus at the mo, so we just doing it for fun. If I were only tracking her, I'd probably try to get out every second day.

If you're really interested, you could enter her in a conformation show and get an expert opinion. Not sure how much anyone can really tell you over the internet, without seeing and touching the dog in person.

I think she's beautiful. Her structure and colouring remind me of a Huntaway. If modern GSD looked more like this, I'd be more interested in owning/working one.

I knew someone would say that. Tracking is the same, I guess - you can practice your article indications etc in a small area of space. But the difference I was trying to point out is that I can go through my entire obedience routine in my (tiny!) living room. I can't run an agility course or do a track in there.

I've never done agility, so can't comment on it, except that it looks like lots of fun. What I like about obedience? * It teaches you to be better at training your dog, especially it teaches you to be better at shaping. * It's fun! When it all comes together, heeling is like dancing with your dog. * It makes you better at motivating your dog. One of my favourite trainers is Sylvia Trkman, she says " If you want to learn about motivation, obedience is a way to go. If you can make those long minutes of heeling fun to a dog, then making agility fun for your dog should be a piece of cake". * Spectacular obedience skills really impresses people you meet, and having even a solid down and nice heel on your dog are a great way to relax people who are worried about dogs * You can practice in a few square meters of space if it's crappy weather outside, since you don't need much space. Can't do that with tracking or agility!

I think it's a training problem, not a dog problem. Sorry. Discriminating between words can be more difficult for a dog than you'd think. Even when people think the dog has learned a word, often the dog has often learned the body language that the owner performs when giving each distinct command, and won't be able to respond accurately if the owner turns their back or leaves the room. If I had your problem I'd go back to short, happy training sessions where you concentrate on asking for sits and downs quite randomly (including sometimes asking for "sit" when she is already in a sit, etc!) Mark and reward correct responses as soon as she assumes the right position, correct incorrect ones by luring her into the right position. She'll work it out. If you (or everyone else) ever rewards a "wrong" response in daily life then you're undermining the training, too, by teaching the dog that commands can mean anything. So if you are going to give her a command, be prepared to insist on getting the right response. My dog is 2 years old, and I can still keep her entertained doing distance positions (stand, sit, down). She gets them right 95% of the time, but it's still not effortless for her - working out what I want still takes enough concentration to keep her entertained!

Sorry I couldn't help myself, it's my fav. Aw now, you are just destroying my prejudice against people who over-use red faces, by showing a sense of humour! Stop it!

n = 1 is pretty meaningless. He is a nice looking dog, though.

I'd say join a club anyway. Firstly, many will allow you to work around the outside of the grounds if you don't disturb the class. I've done this with a couple of different dogs - just sitting there week after week working on desensitisation, focus etc - and found it really helpful. Secondly, if you join a club, you can get help figuring out what it is you need to learn in order to compete. Obedience has lots of little rules & regulations. Talking to seasoned competitors & watching/helping out with trials is a good way to work out what you need to teach the dog.

That's a bit harsh. I mean, it's fair enough that they fine you for the dog escaping, but it seems a bit mean to also fine you for not having a tag on her when she was off the property (seeing as you didn't know or intend for the dog to be off the property). But, I'm not sure if there's anything you can do except pay up.

My prejudice is against people who overuse the red face icon.

Interesting article, I hadn't seen that yet, thanks for the link. Not sure it tells us anything that veterinarians didn't already know - that dogs of different ages, different body types and different lineages are predisposed to dying from different causes. Quantifies it somewhat though, which is useful. Worth buying? Depends what information you're after. Doesn't survey the entire canine population so just gives the proportion of dogs that were taken to the clinic that died from each cause. i.e. by that I mean this study can tell you that x percentage of Bernese Mountain type dogs that died at the clinic died from cancer - won't tell you what chance the average BMD has of dying from cancer. Not sure if that is of any use to you.

If her dad won't pay for a GSD for her, will he pay for medical care if the dog needs it, and all the other expenses that come with owning a dog? Nothing wrong with free dogs. But the initial cost of purchasing a dog is probably one of the smaller costs associated with having a dog.

I'd walk them separately until you have each dog's individual issue under control. Hard enough training one reactive dog at a time. Trying to wrangle two at once is impossible - it invariably results in good behaviours getting ignored and bad ones getting reinforced when you're focusing on the other dog.

Wow, 64 tracks a week? I'd worry that would turn a dog off tracking, unless it was very drivy, especially once the tracks start getting longer and older. We're advised to do only a few sessions a week. But, I haven't followed his method myself, so it could work excellently for all I know. I'm playing around with some heavily baited off-leash tracking at the moment, trying to learn how to read corners better (and trying to teach her to take some responsibility for paying attention at corners!) Not sure how that will go for us.

One person's "prejudice" is another person's judgement based on experience. :p There are no breeds that I automatically assume are aggressive or dangerous, but it would be silly to assume that different breeds weren't inclined towards different temperaments. On the other hand, I guess I am "prejudiced" towards some breeds on the grounds that I don't like their looks or typical personality or chance of suffering from health issues, so would be unlikely to ever own one.

Oh wow, I think I need to transfer to your school (except that I hopefully only have 5 months of this left!) You're at Massey right? We had Mark Owen give us some guest lectures and he was totally shocked that people brought their pet dogs into lectures! Tee hee, yup.