sandgrubber

Quality pedigree breeders don't produce enough pups to satisfy market demand. I don't know what percent of pups come from BYB's but I'd guess it's 10-20%. Remove that fraction and the market would compensate: - Pedigree dog prices would rise and low income people would be less able to afford the investment. - More people would end up with cross-bred oops puppies, or puppy-farm bred DD's. - Many BYB's would convert to being registered breeders . . . and continue on their way, but producing pups with pedigrees. The BYB vs. registered breeder dichotomy is an oversimplification. There are some people who the show world would call back-yarders who pay proper attention to health. Say I wanted to breed a non-brachy line of pugs or old-style GSD's, and I found my best prospective breeding stock among non-registered dogs. The quest for improved health would force me to join the ranks of those who get called BYB's. On the other hand, the pedigree dog world is not without disreputable breeders. The Balfours (http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/239070-breeders-sentenced-in-cruelty-case/) were pedigree breeders, and he was a show judge! Many of the large puppy farms in the USA (I use the word to mean places that raise dogs in cages and keep hundreds of dogs, producing puppies on a highly commercial basis) produce pedigree pups, with the blessing of the AKC.

Reasons for not going to training 1) It's a long drive 2) I have yet to find a training group that didn't have some serious problem . . . too big so you can't hear what the instructor is saying . . . trainer who uses the check chain in a harsh manner . . . so slow and repetitive that I get bored out of my mind . . . problems with aggressive dogs. 3) the training that's most important to me, recall at distance under distraction (ie, being able to call the dogs off when they find an animal to chase or something really stinky to eat and or roll in), is rarely covered while things I'm not interested in (stylish heelwork) get lots of time. 4) I have a fenced 13 acre property and my dogs behaviour is fine for the environment they live in. They are biddible, and have picked up the things that matter to me without formal training. 5) for some in training the activity seems to be a social event for the people. I'm not very social.

You can't change other people's reactions. You can change your own reactions to other people's reactions. So unless you enjoy being offended, I'd recommend trying to take such comments sympathetically.

Sure. No need to pts a Labrador that won't fetch and doesn't like water. Such a dog may well make a great pet. But breeding from such a dog -- or allowing one to become a much used stud -- harms the breed. As for breeding from dogs with "shite conformation" . . . I see no harm to this if the dog is exceptionally gifted in working characteristics, or the breed standard is being interpreted to encourage extreme conformation and the dog looks 'old fashioned' by modern standards (eg., a pug or pom whose nose isn't particularly flat, or an old style GSD). It is more important to preserve diversity in our breeds than to have all dogs look like the show standard of the day.

It's amazing that the dog wasn't killed. Maybe the police deserve credit for shooting to disable rather than to kill? Drugs are abundant in the East Village, street life is 'colorful', and it's a place where squatters are being forced out by gentrification. A guy out cold on the concrete with backpack spilling could be epileptic, but that's not the first thought that comes to mind . . . especially as the guy is motionless in the video clip. Having a guard dog stand over you when you seize is not a conventional, or recommended, way to deal with epilepsy.

My impression of this very sad story is that we're talking about the particular aggression that a pack will show to outsiders, or perhaps toward prey. Something like territoriality, but a little different. It's a dangerous form of aggression because multiple dogs act together in attack.

Ugly, but is there a realistic alternative? It's sad that a loyal companion ends out getting killed for doing its duty. RIP, unnamed guardian. That doesn't look like a great neighborhood. Police are probably under-resourced. If the average police person ends out confronting a dog only once every couple years, it's not realistic to expect them to carry special equipment or take special training to learn to handle aggressive/protective dogs. Police are generally allowed to use a gun against a person who actively attacks. Dogs don't have civil rights. Street people using dogs for personal protection is not a good direction for a bad neighborhood.

It makes sense, but it's not the only way to read history. Using dogs to pull carts has been banned for almost as long as dog-fighting, and, unlike bans on dog fighting, this ban has been successfully enforced. I would be surprised if you didn't find some breeds are more inclined to pull than others. Without active selection, it takes a long time for a trait to drop out of a breeding population. As for frequency of DA, ask anyone who runs a kennel or rescue if they find bull breeds more inclined to require veterinary treatment for puncture wounds than other breeds. In my kennel days we had a couple of regular clients who had more than one staffy x and required that their two dogs be kenneled separately. We did supervised play groups. While there were individuals bull breed dogs who were goodl in play groups, there were as many who just weren't reliable with other dogs. I'm not saying bull breeds should be banned. But I think people need to be realistic if they buy a bull breed dog, and I'd love to see more breeders actively screening dogs with DA tendencies out of their breeding programs . . . or even better, actively selecting for dog-sooks.

Whoa! You guys are talking past one another. Lo Pan states: "Suppose I had 10 lollies in a jar, 7 were blue, 3 were green. Suppose I were to stick my hand in the jar and retrieve 1 lolly at random, my chance of selecting a blue one is 7/10. After having selected the lolly and describing it, it could be said that I have a 1/1 chance of having a lolly with the characteristics particular to it." The point is that each breed is its own bag of lollies. If blue is DA and green is dog friendly, some breeds will be 7 blue to 3 green, while other breeds are the reverse. Someone breeding for fighting dogs in a breed that's 7:3 in favor of DA might end out with, say, a 9:1 distribution in their pups. Someone trying to breed out aggression may get the distribution down below 5:5. "As such, whether or not someone else's APBT plays the harmonica while jumping through hoops of fire and juggling has no bearing on my particular dogs particular characteristics, even if selecting a dog from the breed with the aforementioned characteristics is more probable than not." You don't tabulate the odds after the lotto draw. As you state, after you draw, your chances are 1/1 of having what you have.

I have a low opinion of breeders who put conformation above temperament. They exist, and some of them win trophies.

See the reference in the post by SkySoaring Magpie in 'Studies about Dogs' above (reposted below). Scientific work seems to show that pups that get a lot of exercise are likely to end out with better hips. . . . though stairs weren't good. The study was based on questionaires to owners of 500 dogs and followed their histories over 10 years. http://www.scienceda...20326112842.htm Quoting from the article: "Puppies born in the spring or summer [in Norway, where winter-born pups stay indoors] and at breeders who lived on a farm or small holding, had a lower risk of developing HD. After about eight weeks, the puppies began life with their new owner. The opportunity to exercise daily in parks up until the age of three months reduced the risk of HD, whereas the daily use of steps during the same period increased the risk. Overall, it would appear that daily exercise out in gently undulating terrain up until the age of three months gives a good prognosis when it comes to preventing HD."

As usual, there's a combination of genetics and environment. With Labs (and goldies, cockers, pointers . . . etc), I wouldn't blame the breed, but I sure hope people take a careful look at the breeding. Please add breeders to your rant, especially gun dog breeders who are willing to breed from dogs with unstable temperament or DA/HA tendencies. Gun dogs must be dog social. A dogfight is totally unacceptable in shoot. Temperament faults are at least as serious as faults in physical conformation! The show ring has a lot to answer for . . . in my opinion, failure to root out unstable / aggressive tendencies is at least as bad as encouraging extreme conformation. My personal rant is about Pedigree Dog's Exposed. JH is obsessed with photographs. I'd guess as many dogs die early deaths and live unhappy lives due to unstable temperament and unsocial tendencies than due to brachycephalic heads or wrinkled faces. I don't give a hoot about whether a Shar-pei is a bonemouth or a meatmouth (a la http://pedigreedogse...style-icon.html ). I'm very concerned about whether some lines of shar-pei present behavioural problems. Seems to me that pugs, Cavies and Bostons (favorite PDE targets) have succeeded cause they are easy dogs to live with, especially on a small property or in an apartment. You need to breed FOR the successful characteristics as well as against the unhealthy ones.

I've never seen the DOL community so strongly in agreement on a question. Guess there's no need to feel embarrassed about getting a grin and a chuckle from pictures of dressed up dogs :). Maybe we need a new thread for displaying dogs in a different kind of show.

Yeah dogs! Yeah Labradors! Great story. Thanks for posting.

I was impressed that the news story above simply refers to 'large dogs'. I doubt there was a reporter on the scene, and the police often keep silence. Rumors abound, cause people want information and sometimes there isn't much . . . or what there is is confusing. It seems that the public has an appetite for breed specification, and some parts of the press cater to it with speculation.

That rumor has been around for many years. Personally, I think the Banjup kennel zone is in more danger than Canning Vale, as there are a lot fewer kennels and they're on 5 acre parcels, as opposed to mostly 1 acre parcels in CV. In theory, Banjup is protected because it's on the margin of the Jandakot Water Mound. But the water mound isn't well mapped and I'll bet a little scientific measurement could show that suburbs on sewer systems would be no worse than large kennels on septics. With land prices where they are, a 5 acre parcel is a nice holding, and I suspect many of the Banjup crew would be happy to sell out if they got the right price.

A Pit Bull is just that , same as a kelpie is a kelpie. There are bull breeds other than APBTs , is that what you meant? The definition of pit bull varies geographically. In some California counties, a Staffie is legally classed as a pit bull. Where bull breeds are common and not commonly on any pedigree register, the distinctions get blurry. Where I live, all bull breeds are commonly referred to as 'pits'. Some 'pits' wouldn't meet the APBT or ASBT breed standard, others would. I don't hate bull breeds, but see both APBT;s or SBT's as part of a breed group that often have issues with other dogs, and if of the wrong bloodlines or in the wrong hands, can be dogs that require extremely good containment and a strong collar/leash/handler. It amazes me that SBT's are SO popular in Australia, while pit bulls are banned. Pitties, like Staffies, are, for the most part, sweet, funny, loyal, cheerfu, waggy dogs. Except when they aren't. Very few of them go bad. Those who do are a problem. In this particular instance I see the BIG NO NO as a pack of dogs allowed to roam. Sorry. There's no excuse for that. Doesn't matter what breed. I don't care if your fence blew down in a cyclone. If you have multiple big dogs who will act as a pack, you MUST keep them contained. Full stop. If you're not prepared to create accident-proof containment, restrict yourself to dogs who are unlikely to do real damage to other animals or people. If your dogs get out and do damage, you deserve the full force of the law . . . if not worse.

Http://totallycoolpi...ressed-up-dogs/

Especially tragic for the guide dog's owner. We all love our dogs, but loosing the animal you depend on for sight must be devastating. With respect to laws, it might make sense to regard free roaming packs of two or more dogs as dangerous, regardless of breed, regardless of prior history . . . and to encourage public reporting.

I am merely sharing my opinion on the situation........should I just agree with what other's are saying.......sorry I don't You need not agree . . . I agree with some of the directions you are coming from. But more thoughtful and civil language would result in a more productive -- and less inflamed -- discussion. Don't bait 'em and they won't rise to the bait.

Is that what you had in mind m-sass? I think not..... Fighting fire with fire may work in fire fighting, but only if you set a backfire to work against a normal heading blaze. In a dog fight or argument, it tends only be more like adding one headfire to another headfire . . . resulting only in more flames. Harmless enough here, but indigirl, why waste your breath . . . and m-sass, unless you're angling for confrontation, why not choose your words more carefully? There are reactive dogs . . . and then there are reactive people. I'm on the reactive side myself, and I'm probably making an ass of myself trying to stomp out flames, but what the hell.

"Birdseed exclusions extist so that people get insurance early." ????? meaning????? Maybe I'm a grumpy old woman, but I don't see why people no longer save 'for a rainy day'. If you kept a buffer fund of, say, $10k -- this can cover car break downs and a hundred other little mishaps, so long as you replenish it after you draw on it -- you'd still be better off self insuring. How much do you pay for pet insurance premiums each year? How much over the life of your two dogs? How much did your premiums go up after the two claims you described? I don't know if pet insurance companies presently class people as a 'bad risk' after they submit a few large claims, but if they don't now, it's only a matter of time before they do so. btw, If a moldy lunch cost you $1000, I would question whether your dogs are healthy. A dog with a healthy immune system can eat quite a bit of garbage without worse consequences than bad farts and irregular bowel movements.

A well written and clever article . . . but I did my PhD in conjunction with NCAR, one of the leading climate institutes in the US and the world. I must say, I resent the author's use of the debate over climate change as a Trojan horse to push what is an opinion -- albeit one backed by quite a bit of evidence -- about the value of positive methods of dog training -- followed by a strong and not well founded condemnation of the prong collar and aversives in general. There is no question that positive reinforcement is a powerful tool, and experimentally proven to be effective. That doesn't give positive methods the same sort of first principals and evidence-based credibility as the 'greenhouse effect'. I like positive methods, but I see no solid evidence indicating a need to throw aversives out, entirely. I think the explicit condemnation of the 'toolbox' approach to dog training is dogmatism, not science. To date I've not seen anyone demonstrate that positive reinforcement is as effective as a good fence for keeping a dog in your back yard. And if your back yard is several acres, I see no harm in the strong aversive of an electric fence. It works. It's certainly better than having your dog run free and get run over or get shot for running livestock or suffer any of the other ill fates that can happen to an free-roaming dog in our modern world. The bottom line of the article is anti- prong collar. I would love to see a serious scientific study that demonstrates that positive methods are as or more effective than light aversives for un-training a dog who has learned to pull hard on a leash. In my limited experience, the prong collar can be a lot like the electric fence. I no longer have my prong collar. I used it only twice. The girl I used it on was wont to dislocate my shoulder with pulling hard on the lead before I used it. The prong collar got the message through immediately. She didn't react as though the collar hurt. When it was on her, she walked happily . . . she simply stopped pulling. And five years later she still doesn't pull. Likewise, the single electric strand that I ran around my 13 acres was only powered for a few weeks . . . since then the dogs have made no attempt to go under my deer fence.

Have a search on Consumer Reports website. They agree that pet insurance is a con and recommend that consumers will generally be better off selecting to try and get a healthy pet and keeping a buffer fund to cover unexpected veterinary expenses. True, people with unhealthy or accident-prone dogs sometimes get value for money from their insurance. That is how the insurance business works . . . the premiums of people whose dogs don't get bloat, rupture their cruciate ligament, etc. are used to pay the claims of people whose dogs do have such problems . . . and to pay for high salaries and expensive office space and advertizing.

+1 Vets find it distressing to pts a loved animal. I have no doubt your vet is quite happy to have you DIY. When I was in Australia I tried to use the mobile vet, cause she was kindly about the euth and it's nicer to have it done at home. She also did her homework and found the cheapest crematorium. I don't remember what it cost. I do remember that sometimes, when the vet came out to do something like puppy vaccinations, she was very glum, having just come from having to pts a much loved dog. . . . or a healthy dog that the family found inconvenient.