cali

I'd say MOST dogs have genetic problems. Would I breed a Lab with EIC? Sure. It's not a good thing, and I'd prefer not to have it, but most affected dogs go through their entire lives without showing it. Would you breed a dog with allergies? Personally, I wouldn't, but many many pedigree dog breeders do. They just choose not to recognize that many allergies are hereditary, and no one is offering genetic testing....so the problem is ignored. How about a compromised immune system due to high homozygosity in the MHC/DLA? This is extremely widespread in breeds that descent from a very small founder population, and consequentially a high degree of inbreeding if you go back many generations. In some breeds, like Flatcoats and BMDs (both genetically predisposed to horrid cancers) it's hard to find dogs who are free from heritable genetic disease. As for breeding the 'nice girl' .... I wish more pedigree dog owners bred for temperament as strongly as they breed for looks. I'm not saying its ok to breed willy nilly. But this image of us, the pedigree crowd, as 'educated' and the rest of the world as 'ignorant' is pretty arrogant. I read quite a bit of genetics, and Im coming to understand about SNPs, microsattelites, etc. The more I learn, the more ignorant I feel. We have a way of paying attention to some genetic problems and kicking others under the rug. With the tide of popular opinion running against pedigree breeders, I don't think it's a good time to ride a high horse. oh I know that, these were not people well versed in genetics thinking in detail these were people going "just because a dog as severe hip dysplasia doesn't mean it doesn't DESERVE to have puppies" lol

I have seriously listened to people having breeding conversations that were PRO breeding dogs with genetic problems..seriously the argument being that its "elitist" to only breed dogs free of genetic issues! the most recent case of this started at a family reunion last year, my uncle was telling us about his sons dog, a Shiba Inu that was neutered and "petted out" by the breeder because he has a bad overbite..this resulted head shaking and looks of disgust around the circle..how dare the breeder not breed this dog just because he has an overbite followed by rants about breeders who refuse to breed animals that have genetic health issues

I prefere 6-8 months, that has to do with what I see at the kennel/daycare I work at. the behavioral tendencies that I always see dismissed on these threads I see in reality in full force, and I see all these "training issues" go poof as soon as the dog is neutered if done around 8 months and lesson but not disappear if not done till 18 months +. nope I have seen enough that i will never ever recommend waiting or not at all ever again (and yes I was at one time an advocate of late/no)

there is a dog at the kennel I work at right now, she had gotten the end of her tail slammed in a door, to allow it to heal without damaging it further by wagging, the vet stitched a syringe tube to the end of her tail. I'v never heard of that before, but it seems to work, so I thought I'd throw it out there lol

http://www.tenset.co.uk/ I don't breed dogs, but we use this for our Gerbils and love it, keeps accurate records, easy to use, we can customize our pedigree's, easy to use for tracking health, sales, matings, inbreeding, genetics, we can do trial matings, print out labels, receipts etc.. I am rather computer illiterate and even I have no problems using it :p

lol depends on where in canada different citys have entirely different laws. there is a lot of places in canada where I could not live like I do. for example I was looking up Vancouver's pet laws, there is a 3 dog limit without a kennel licence, a 6 small pet (combined total) limit with no exceptions etc..

wow, this thread makes me REALLY glad to live where I do! I would hate having my animals limited with someone able to revoke my right to keep them at any moment! I have 8 dogs, 2 Rabbits, 2 Birds, 1 hamster, 150 gerbils, 2 snakes and a bunch of fish....and so long as the dogs are licensed with the city and my animal have food, water and clean housing I don't have to apply for anything, or get inspected, and nobody can revoke anything.

depending on the situation I dont bother with the first 2, I just keep my pups under lock and key, with socialization being carried or on a blanket from home, remove my shoes outside my yard, carry my other dogs from the driveway to the tub to scrub their feet if they have been out etc.. then at 16 weeks I do the booster and carry on with this for 10 days following the booster. currently however I work at a boarding kennel/daycare, so I just do all 3 since the lock and key thing is a whole lot more difficult lol

for front clip harness, the sensible harness has a "brother" called a sensation harness, its exactly the same, but the under-arm part is a different softer material to prevent chafing, the ezdog is not a front clip, but it does work well for lack of chafing, Gypsy wears her's 100% of the time and its never so much as rubbed fur off, even rolling through water with it on and leaving it on while drying etc..

depends... the mothers antibodies render vaccines usless as long as they are still protecting the pup, if the antibodies wore off earlier and the first vaccines "took" then the 3rd is not needed, but if the mothers antibodies had NOT worn off earlier then by 16 weeks your pup will have zero protection without that 3rd shot. personally, I will NEVER not do the 3rd set, its the most important. .I am happy to skip the first 2 sets, but I will never ever skip the 16 week shot! !

UKC Ch titles are easier to get because of the point system. however its not like AKC and CKC(canada) are all great either. just because judges CAN withhold doesn't mean they WILL(and they wont because they will stop getting judging assignments if they withhold), and plenty of stacking goes on finish a dog of low quality.

I know a dog with a no dogs one, the writing is huge and pretty hard to miss lol

lol in my defence ny older incontinent dogs are NOT allowed on my bed, Happy and Misty have there own beds and the puppies sleep on my bed...but the puppies like the dog beds better and I have watched them kick the older ladies onto my bed and take over their beds..I can stop it when I'm awake, but now they just wait till I'm asleep :laugh: I have been told I should just get myself a smaller bed so that I have room for more dog beds lol

the other night Happy hopped onto my bed, curled up on my pillow around my head...and proceeded to pee herself, then she got up and went back to her own bed. meanwhile I rolled over half asleep and did a face plant in pee. yup..I have a nice dog huh? lol

yup, check chains are very dangerous to leave on all the time. I always keep regular collars on my dogs in my home, but that I risk I am willing to take, I have have more problems when my dogs did NOT wear collars, including an almost strangulation(Happy got her neck caught in the tarp that covered the firewood) as well as escapes..mostly because my brother doesn't pay attention, my dogs once followed him 8 blocks to the grocery store and back without him noticing till he was halfway home..how do you not notice 6 dogs following you? after that my mom insisted that all the dogs wear collars and tags at all times lol however at the daycare/kennel I work at, we do not allow regular collars at all, every dog that walks through the door is fitted with a break-a-way collar for the safety reasons everyone else already mentioned.

Gem's kibble is $79 for 29 lbs, and that lasts about 1 month, Baby dogs kibble is $20 for 10 lbs and that lasts about 1 month, plus about 2 cans of wet a week, at $1.50/can. the raw for everyone else..the chicken is $30 for a 32 lbs box that lasts 2 weeks, but that is mixed with veggies, yogurt, fruit, eggs, organs etc.. plus other meats, but I cant calculate that as it varies, we base what we buy and when on price. overall I probably spend about $200 a month feeding 8 medium/large dogs, which I think is pretty good really lol I tend to splurge so I am not the one to ask about average cost of other things lol

the smallest dog on the team set the jump height, which can equate to a faster team, this means that many teams consist of a bunch of medium to big dogs and 1 height dog to drop the jump height for the whole team. so for example if you have a team of 4 border collies, you have a jump height of 14-16", this can slow the whole team down, so if you take away one of those BCs and replace it with a JRT suddenly the whole team is jumping 8" shaving precious seconds off the teams time. "only small dogs can play" is just a bunch of malarkey lol, fast small dogs are sought after but hardly required lol

I don't know if this is the case elsewhere but I always find it funny that we have Dachshunds in the hound group...they were bred to go to ground after badger, rabbits etc.. IOW..they are terriers... from what I understand its because name was originally mis-translated as "badger hound" but the correct translation is "badger DOG"..and they didn't bother to fix the mistake, which strikes me a silly... how hard can it be to put the breed into the proper grouping? like really? as for the poodle clip...the show clip is a VERY extreme version of the hunting clip..so extreme it would be utterly useless as a hunting clip lol, poodles used for hunting are just shaved down. there are a few people that use them in north america as hunting dogs but not many. no idea about elsewhere.

http://www.thedogoutdoors.com/dublin-dog-no-stink-waterproof-dog-collars-solid.html this is what I usually see on dogs for "no stink" collars.

my dogs don't have odd names but I work in a kennel and get some odd ones... just recently we had a dog named "Cornfed" :laugh: we have a dog named "Mugwai" and a pair of dogs called "Klynk" and "Spankee", we have a Shepherd x called "Dax"(Dax Shepherd lol) and an Am Eskimo called "Quinn" (Quinn the Eskimo-a popular local store). how about an oddly popular name? "Tosca" everyone's ego's get so deflated when my response to their dogs name is "seriously? ANOTHER one?" lol they think they are so original but I know more dogs named Tosca then dogs named lucy

working is a doggy daycare helps too lol, I don't think I could do it if I worked a "normal" job! I take 4 at a time to work and people look at me all wide eyed when they see me leave with 4 dogs, they are always like "OMG are they ALL yours??!!" and I'm like "yup, -2" :laugh:

no, because I don't lol. my dogs each have their own "niche" that they fit into that I suppose counts as "me and them" time but nothing is divided up or "fair". I mean ignoring my dogs ages as they do NOT act their age (my 10 and 12 year old BC's are just as limber and demanding as my 1.5 years old Heeler/Shepherds, if not more so.) I have 2 Cattle dog X GSDs, 2 BCs, 1 Toller and 1 JRT x..not exactly a group of undemanding breeds :laugh: but we just do everything all together, we walk all together, we cuddle all together, we play all together, and they all come to work with me at doggy daycare everyday.

I have 8 in my house, but 2 are not mine and exept to feed I have nothing to do with them. mine are 12.5 year old BC 10.5 year old BC 7 year old Toller 10 year old JRT x 1.5 year old GSD x Heeler 1.5 year old GSD x Heeler and also in my house 13 year old terrier mutt 11 year old schipperke x boston terrier

see now in that context a trial makes more sense lol your descrip. of a "normal" kennel sounds nice, here a normal kennel means the dogs are alone in a small run the whole stay unless you pay an extra $5 or so for a "15 minute" walk thats usually closer to a 3 minute walk around the outbuildings and popped right back in the kennel. hence social kennels have become quite popular.

lol sorry that was my bad I got my posters mixed up! I was refering to ososwifts description of a "normal" kennel! whoops. I am in Canada, I think our kennels must be different and wires are getting crossed. all trials here are short, what on earth is a trial to you? as for time to settle, likely again a kennel difference, the kennel I work at is huge, like 200 dogs and 40 some staff plus 120 daycare dogs on average huge. it can be very overwhelming and generally requires a day or 2 for new dogs to get their bearings, but once they do they love it and often dont wanna leave. perhaps this is different in a smaller kennel. I think you misunderstood the tour part. ..I said I talk to through everything on the phone then invite them for a tour for a detailed face to face in person physical tour. 4 years and never had a person leave unhappy yet after one of my tours, everyone gives me the tours for that reason lol