sandgrubber

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360650519/thousands-auckland-dog-owners-hit-fines Registering dogs is only a first step, but it's a good first step. I only wish they'd do the same for cats. Having moved from Oz to NZ, I generally find Kiwis are more sensible with dog legislation.

My hackles went up at the first sentence. Dogs are omnivores, NOT carnivores. As compared to wolves, dog DNA shows they are far better endowed to digest starch. They evolved eating refuse and probably feces from primitive and early agricultural people. The next oops came in saying cooking "destroys" the nutrients. So we humans get no nutrition from eating cooked meat? I couldn't listen to the rest. Veterinarian or not, the guy is NOT a scientist. I bought Give Your Dog a Bone when it first came out. I remember recipes that included raisins. I have fed raw when I have had good sources, and, yes, most dogs love it, and if you stick to soft bones of an appropriate size to avoid choking, without too much fat, they do well with bones added to their daily fare. But no need to make a religion out of it.

Of course rule out medical causes first, but... It might just be a staffie thing. When I had a boarding kennel we got an occasional staffie that had to be kept well separate from some other dog, or all dogs. Generally this set in at around 3 years. If you have $ and time you can try a behaviorist, but it's not the easiest problem to fix.

More enforcement. Not more laws!

But look what it did for Standard Poodles. Maybe they did a careful analysis of problematic recessive genes that a half sibling mating might bring out, but I doubt it.

Is she really a Border Collie? Yccch! Line breeding in hope of big $.

Buy mini paint rollers from AliExpress or Timu. They're great for a small destructive dog and very cheap. Don't make a big mess, either.

All the fools ain't dead yet! Interesting dog, nice Romantic vibes, but who knows when it comes to temperament. Absurd price.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing here is that this happened 3+ years ago. I'm in New Zealand and heard nothing of it. Nor has there been any obvious followup. Nothing on Google.

The article says nothing about what happened to the attacking dogs' owner. They deserve a hefty fine and/or jail time and should be forbidden to own dogs.

Living among mixed sheep/cattle grazing county in New Zealand, my vote goes to none of the above. Mongrel heading dogs and huntaways do best in our steep hill country. It's awesome watching them coerce a hundred plus cattle or a few hundred sheep onto livestock trailers. Lots of pet border collies. I've never seen one in the field. Heelers are rare both as working dogs and as pets.

Go to the referenced article for methods https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.241703 "3.1. Subjects Fifty-four dogs, 30 females (24 neutered, 6 intact) and 24 males (10 neutered, 14 intact), aged between 1 and 12 years (mean = 6.06) were tested in a within-subject design study (electronic supplementary material, table S1). Medium to large size (small sizes were not included due to the Polar WearLink® strap minimum length), purebred as well as mix-breed dogs were recruited. Only mesocephalic dogs were included, to control for the influence of morphology on the facial expressions exhibited. Subjects were recruited from the database of our laboratory and adverts on social media and none of them was familiar with the dog actors. The inclusion criteria for the subjects required that dogs had to be awake, with eyes open and maintain head orientation towards the stimulus for at least 4 s within the video projection." Breeds are mentioned for the pilot study.

https://www.science.org/content/article/dogs-people-may-use-blinking-bond?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=650f7314e1-nature-briefing-daily-20250219&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b27a691814-650f7314e1-50644548 Another subtle behavior to watch for.

A flying tackle worked for me. I've only hit that situation once, though . I'd be afraid for my hands if I went for the balls. If you have netting handy, it's the safest way to go. I recently helped a neighbor whose two Staffies were trying to kill each other by tossing her a big wad of grape netting. The netted dog didn't know what to do and was easily pulled off.

I've been in retirement as an Australian breeder (Labradors). Now advising a young girl who wants to breed a pedigree JRT in NZ. I'm going through the health testing checklist. It makes sense to do DNA first cause it's relatively cheap and easy and good for a lifetime. Which company is in favour these days?

The article expresses an urban/infilled-suburban viewpoint. Getting to the nearest vet school would be at minimum an 8 hour drive. And if someone wanted dead pets for research, I'm sure a few notices to local vets would do the trick. The post office wouldn't be happy transporting a dead dog. I've never had any remains resurface. If you bury high on a gentle slope and cover with 600mm+ it's very unlikely. Ok the hole is deeper, but the legs stick up.

https://skeptvet.com/2018/11/hair-and-saliva-test-for-allergies-are-worthless-pseudoscience/ Don't know if this has been revised, but there's reason for skepticism

The New York Times Sunday Read podcast this week was about animals, mostly dogs, learning language. (If you use a different app, ignore the link and just pull up the Daily). [The Daily] The Sunday Read: ‘Do Our Dogs Have Something to Tell the World?’ #theDaily https://podcastaddict.com/the-daily/episode/190928686 via @PodcastAddict

No. I think it's strictly a modern human thing.

"To begin with..." I credited that to poor breeding, due to the high demand and price for chocolate pups back when Chocos were rare. Back in those days I had an accidental Choco girl come out of a black and Yellow mating. She was typical Lab and when bred to a chocolate with good credentials, produced pups with solid Lab temperament. Thus I came to discount the negative views of Chocos. The work on redheads makes me admit to the possibility that there is a biological basis....that a single gene can affect temperament as well as colour.

I've always poopoo-ed the notion that colour is linked to temperament. Specifically that chocolate Labs have different temperament than blacks or yellows. Recent studies with mice and humans show that pain tolerance and sensitivity to opioids are linked to a gene associated with red hair (and some types of blonde hair). https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/study-finds-link-between-red-hair-pain-threshold Or podcast (more complete) http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss/proto/http/vpid/p0kkfjts.mp3 I wonder if any such studies have been done on dogs.

How was COI calculated? It's possible that a 5 generation COI looks good but a 16 generation COI is a disaster. I don't know if line breeding was fashionable for Staffies in past decades. DNA testing is preferred if a pedigree that goes back many many generations can't be found.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00133-z?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=790d82fcd4-nature-briefing-daily-20250116&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b27a691814-790d82fcd4-50644548 The article is not intended to be about dogs, or Australia, but if it comes through Anti-Venom is going to be both cheaper and easier to store.

I bought a cheap (under $25) dog grooming kit (scissors and comb) from AliExpress to shorten coat and remove dags on my Springers. Have been happy with the result. My dogs don't tolerate clippers without restraints, and many don't recommend clipping for their coat type. Scissors get it done.

Many years ago used phenobarbital. Mild seizures only once or twice a month. It worked. I reduced dose and eventually stopped giving it over a few years.