sandgrubber

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.

I think the problem is reactive and unstable people misreading nuance -- or deliberately doing so -- and other people using provocative language. If everyone stuck to the real issues and didn't get roused by phrases like 'crap dog', the discussion would become relatively dull and academic. I suspect that the human equivalent of a dog fight often occurs cause people just like to argue.

I disagree. If I decide to, say, put my Labbie bitch to a kelpie dog, knowing that the F1 cross of Lab and kelpie are generally good dogs, more placid than kelpies, but better in hot weather than Labbies (they were preferred dogs for scent work in Vietnam), I would not have a written, exterior standard, but I'd have a clear set of expectations and I'd know which dogs were duds. (I wouldn't do this cross, but in my time in Australia, I had several requests for pups of this cross). Likewise, those crossing pit bulls to mastiffs to get greater gameness in the mastiff have a very clear standard they are looking for . . . a pretty dangerous one in my books. With respect to purebred dogs, far too few cull the temperament duds. Not hard to find a titled Lab who doesn't retrieve and doesn't like water. Nor do I believe all attacking dogs are unbalanced. Some are steady dogs, bred to attack and sent into attack mode by some signal . . . perhaps an unintended signal. A friend of mine rescued a schutz trained guard dog. They had to confine it when people came to the house cause it interpreted some specific hand gesture as a command to attack . . . and it would do so if someone unintentionally made that gesture. This dog wasn't unstable. It was trained to a dangerous behaviour.

Anybody know if there's a good test for rabies that doesn't require brain tissue? If so, how long does it take for the disease to show up? Can a test, if conducted properly, be used for screening?

I agree that it's best to get experience first, but not on waiting to do a kennel as a retirement project. Why not aim, instead, to take over a retirement project in which someone else has built up the capital, but gotten tired and lack the energy to work through online marketing and have allowed a few things to go to seed in their kennel business. I left my kennel in the management of a younger couple. They've been doing a great job managing. Yes, they've made some mistakes. But they've had the gumption to work through them. My property includes two houses as well as the kennel, and it's 14 km from the CBD . . . so the pricetag is above the $1M level. However, they have been working very hard and doing a much better job building the business than I did. I'm quite confident that they will be in a position to buy me out within a year or two. Such opportunities may be hard to find. But retirement-project kennels are out there, and their owners generally hold on for 10 to 20 years, then choose to sell or put the place under management. If you can build skills and help with management in a good kennel whose owner has health concerns, you may be able to work into a position of working to buy. " I personally wouldn't leave my dogs with someone so young. " may be an attitude among older dog owners, but it is not shared by young urban professionals . . . the group who are most likely to be well-paying clients. They may well be drawn to the kennel with the best website and online booking system . . . or the most convenient services for pickup and return-home . . . or luxury heating and air conditioning.

Ummmm are you for real... this maybe possible with some breeds, Again what's with the "crap" dogs comments? do you even like dogs as a whole? Socialising dogs is the smart way to help your dog become socially acceptable to the masses who put certain criteria on them. What do you think will happen if you take a dog that was bred for stability then, you didn't socialise it, mistreated it etc.. do you think that dog has the potential to bite? of course it has. I've seen "byb" dogs that are rock solid around strangers, no issues with food, good with kids etc... but one dog didn't like the sound of plastic bags... fireworks didn't set her off but shopping bags did, this certainly didn't make her a poor dog. How many pure bred dogs do you know that are rock solid on fire works night? guess all the ones who are scared must be BYB or something..? I don't much like the phrase 'crap dog', but I don't see where you get that m-sass is saying the 'crap' comes from cross breeding or BYB's. There are unstable dogs out there. Poor temperament with genetic origins isn't the whole problem, but it sure doesn't help. Good BYB's, including those with mutts, may decide to have a litter because they have a healthy dog with good temperament, and they want another like her (or him). The whole breed registry system is only a few hundred years old. Before that, many breeds working dogs were products of back yard breeding, and many involved in the process had no compunction about using a different type of dog to try to get the sort of pups they wanted. Ie, we love this girl but it would be good she were a little bigger . . . so we'll cross to a good working dog of another breed who is an inch or two taller. For all we know, the dog who killed Ayen Chol was rock solid, bred via X-breeding, for low bite threshold, great strength, and high drive, and trained to go for dark skinned people.

I would say it is Roger's story. He doesn't attribute it to anyone else, and he spends much time diving in Thailand. I should have added a © Roger Abrantes to the annotations. Am doing so momentarily.

No, I sold out. I developed bad tendonitis in one of my legs and all the work on concrete was too much. Also the 24/7. Don't ask about the average kennel. They are all over the place, from people who take in half a dozen dogs to people who have capacity for 200+. The two are very very different. On the economics, if you work on a medium scale and are able to keep occupancy fairly high, kennels can provide decent income. But its hard to get there. if you want to build a kennel, you need land in a good location . . . generally not cheap the kennel itself, if you do it right and go for a medium-sized kennel (say 50 dogs) is going to cost around as much as new suburban brick home. If you are able to average 50% occupancy, or say 25 dogs, and you spend, say $7/dog/day on dogfood, labor, insurance, and maintenance, and getting $22/dog/day, you're taking in around $2500/week. Say you invest $500k and are able to get 6% interest. Your borrowing costs are on the order $600/week . . . . So potential cash flow is there. The tricks are (a) coming up with money for the investment; and (b) getting to 50% occupancy. That's hard to achieve for a start-up unless you're in an area that is chronically short in kennel capacity. Costs could be much higher . . . eg, if you're near a major city, land will cost a lot more . . . you may make some mistakes initially and find they are expensive to fix . . . you may have to pay 7.5% interest . . . and so on. Unless you really know how to do marketing, or have a really strong network in the local canine community, the first few years are going to be very rough . . . it takes time to build a client base. As showdog states, it's lovely working with dogs, but it's 24/7, holidays can be hell, especially

Ditto all those who say, poor kid, it's not the time to blame, we don't know the facts, and if the neighbours have settled it among themselves, good on them. Much better if such matters don't have to be handled by governments, cause governments generally do a bad job. It would be interesting to know the details, but the people involved might not find it interesting to have the general public discussing their personal stuff. I am disturbed by those people saying guard dog aggression should be tolerated in these circumstances. A guard dog that cannot be taught to know the neighbours and to recognize that kids are not to be attacked is a dangerous dog and should not be in suburban or urban neighbourhoods . . . at least not with extreme controls. I'm not sure it's a typical 'kid gets bitten' case. In the classic case, the kid and dog are on the same side of a fence, they aren't adequately supervised, and neither has adequate training/experience/maturity to respond appropriately to the other. Full time supervision of and eight year old in the back yard is an unrealistic expectation, as is full-time supervision of a dog in the back yard.

I started a kennel from scratch in 2004. I'd suggest touring all the kennels you can to decide what to aim for and how to get there. Things to consider include (1) which style of kenneling you like (ie, group exercise vs complete separation of dogs, commercial scale vs more homey; full service with grooming and pet product sales, training, etc. vs simply boarding); (2) which seems to be working best as a business; and (3) which of the local kennel owners you feel you could get along with. Then go for a position in a kennel that fits your priorities. You're more likely to get hired if you can tell someone you like and admire the way they run their facilities and you want to learn from them. It's hard, when you run a kennel, to find the right employees. Lots of younger people love the animals and are happy to play with them, but when it comes to cleaning the kitchen, they're not so keen. If you can prove yourself responsible, reliable, and able to help with the full range of chores that have to be done in a kennel, I'd say you stand a chance of working your way up to some sort of management position. It's good to pick up the animal certificate IV, good to have some computer and accounting skills, but in my days of running a kennel, reliability, responsibility, and basic skill in handling animals were far more important than certificates. Unfortunately, wages in the industry are not good. You'll not find it easy to work your way up from employee to owner.

You can probably get an answer to this question by going to the blogsite and asking.

extracts, reposted from Roger Abrantes wonderful blog http://rogerabrantes...kki-tikki-tavi/ The Thai Rikki-Tikki-Tavi © Roger Abrantes . . . We all know Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the brave mongoose from Kipling's 'The Jungle book.' This is the story of Mah Noy, the brave dog from Koh Lanta Yai in Southern Thai. Koh Lanta Yai (เกาะลันตา) remains one of Thailand's well-kept secrets . . .. It is relatively close to the better-known islands of Koh Phuket and Koh Phi Phi, but is practically inaccessible, requiring two flights, a long drive, and two ferry trips. . . . Thai fisherman [of Koh Lanta] like to have their dogs with them for company and practical purposes. When I'm working in Koh Lanta, I always go ashore in the evening and stay in modest accommodation right on the beach. On one of these occasions, just before sunset, I was sitting in front of my bungalow, cleaning my equipment, when two children came along to talk to me, as always, curious about foreigners. . . After having washed my gear, I decided to walk the 30 yards up the cliff to grab something to eat, and the kids followed me. . . . Thai street food cooking and selling is a small family business and since dogs are part of the daily life in Thailand it is not unusual to see them with their owners at work. "Khun cheu aria?" (What's your name?), I asked the little boy . . . He told me his name, which sounded funny to me. Thais have all sorts of interesting nicknames, and they are especially fond of animal names. Elephant, shrimp, crab, fish, bird, duck, rabbit, turtle, and even chicken are common names—but I've never heard a nickname like this little boy's. It was then that his mother, Poo (Crab), the owner of the food booth, told me the story. Five years earlier, two days after giving birth to the now gap-toothed boy, Poo was cooking dinner whilst the family dog catnapped behind the cradle where her newborn baby was happily babbling away to himself. Thais usually cook outdoors. It's always warm and they don't like the smell of food indoors. The dog was typically Thai, of unknown origin, the size of a small spaniel, with an unruly black and white coat, and friendly, deep brown eyes. They had found him on the street a couple of years beforehand and had fed him. For want of a better name, they called him just (หมาน้อย), Mah Noy. He stayed around and finally moved in a couple of weeks later after conquering their hearts. The pressure of natural selection for dogs in Thailand is on kindness. The kindest dogs have a greater chance of survival and pass on their 'kinder' genes to their progeny. On that particular day, Mah Noy gave Poo such a fright she almost lost hold of her hot pan, which could have resulted in serious burns. The dog had suddenly emitted a deep growl and then in two agile, determined jumps, just missing the baby's cradle, he launched himself on top of a cobra, biting it firmly behind the head. Mah Noy (หมาน้อย), the boy, got his unusual name for a good reason. The Andaman Cobra (Naja sagittifera) is an impressive snake, measuring about three to four feet in length. The effects of its venom are devastating; it is capable of killing a human in 30 minutes. Poo was terrified, rushed to pick up the baby, and ran out of the front gate into the street where she began shouting for her husband. Na (short for Chai Cha Na = victory) came running to the scene and charged into the backyard to grab a spade. The cobra was lying a few feet from the dog, apparently lifeless, but, just in case, Na cut it in two with a well-aimed strike with the spade. Mah Noy looked up at him, gasping for air, and barely able to wag the tip of his bushy tail. Na understood right away that the dog was dying, picked him up and, holding his dog firmly on his lap with one hand, he rode his motorbike as quickly as he could to the local vet. On the way to the vet, Mah Noy peed and pooped on his lap. Na stopped to get a better grasp on the dog. Mah Noy looked at him, gasped for air for a last time and gave a final wag of his tail. Na understood it was too late for the vet and the strong fisherman from the South Andaman Sea began to weep like a child, right there on the side of the road to Klong Dao, in the fading light of the day on which he had come so close to losing his first-born baby boy. When Na got home to Poo and their newborn, they buried Mah Noy in their backyard and placed a yellow marigold on top of the grave (yellow is the color of friendship for Thais). That evening, they decided to call their baby boy หมาน้อย, Mah Noy, which in Thai means 'puppy.' edited by significantly shortening the introduction and giving copyright attribution. I highly recommend the original . . . and the blog in which it appeared.

Whoa! This place is full of genetics deniers. (I'm responding, not to m-sass, above, but those who have flamed m-sass) No question that the problem of dog attacks has genetic component. I don't mean breed-specific . . . I mean pedigree specific. Breeders of any sort who don't put temperament high on their list of priorities, or who deliberately breed for low bite threshold and high drive, produce dogs that are more likely to do harm. These days it's almost harder to find a goldie who is a natural retriever (and I don't mean tennis balls) than it is to find one who has deep problems with resource guarding. I've met more than a few dogs from 'herding' breeds who would be clueless faced with a flock or herd, but have loads of drive and are inclined to nip. You don't have to look too hard to find a conformation show breeder who will overlook unstable temperament in a dog with good show prospects. I know a show breeder who pts'd an imported show dog (titled, to boot) because the dog maimed a puppy. How many breeders would do this? I doubt it's more than one in five. It's unfortunate we can't know more about the dog who killed Ayen Chol. Who bred him? What were his lines? What happened to his littermates? I'm not saying that heredity caused this attack, just that the possibility should be considered. If some idiot breeder is placing mean, powerful dogs with owners who are not in a position to manage them, said idiot at least deserves to be named and shamed. The other side of the coin is that the management capabilities of the average pet owner have declined. Yards have gotten smaller. The number of homes with an adult at home during the day has gone down. Walking the dog has ceased to be a normal kids chore.

Thats because you dont understand that its isn't MY definition - its the definition which law makers and those responsible for the various codes etc use. We attended a round table meeting with many many other dog related groups including the ANKC, AVA, PIAA, AAPDB,RSPCA several states etc and there was a consesus drawn on what the definition was to be used Australia wide of a puppy farmer . I didnt much like it but it wasnt MY call. The fact that other people havent taken that on board and that their definition is different to that which has been agreed upon has nothing to do with me however, every time I bring it up as a way of explanation as to current events it falls on deaf ears and somehow or other turns into MY definition or some crap about me supporting puppy farmers.Rubbish. It simply explains why nothing will ever progress as long as this continues with most of the world believing a puppy farm is different to the other half and why when they deny buying from puppy farms they believe they are telling the truth based on the agreed upon definition. Actually, Steve, it's because when you bring up this definition of a puppyfarm thing it just obfuscates what people are talking about. I read it as a case of someone who wants to bring about change from the outside dumping on someone who has put in many years trying to bring about change from within the system. The situation doesn't require obfuscation. The definition of a puppy farm is inherently touchy and difficult given the various interests involved. The Animal Rights community wants to make it look simple -- but many of them classify a large fraction of pedigree dog breeders as puppy farmers.

Hard to evaluate without knowing what's in present laws, whether the problems are in the laws themselves, or in enforcement, what sorts of puppy mills are operating in New York, and who the legislation actually applies to . . . ie, how much it will force small breeders into using concrete kennels.

And then there's Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist (Dickens) “If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.” I'm not quite sure what the 'bachelor' bit means . . . but the wish for the law rings true.

Good to hear a fair share of condemned dogs are winning their cases . . . and that it's costing government agencies big time to try to enforce this rediculous legislation Another absurdity, if you want a REALLY big, bad, mean terror of a dog to suit your macho style, you can cross a dog-fight bred pit bull with a large, aggressive dog of some sort, and come out with something that would pass the Vic standard. Am I right in thinking they still haven't released pictures of the dog who killed Ayen Chol? If, as commonly alleged, he was a pit bull x mastiff, it's quite likely he would have been too big to get nabbed under the Vic legislation. Even if you support BSL, you have to agree it is highly problematic when it comes to enforcement, and pretty much un-enforcable when it comes to cross breeds. Pseudo BSL based on appearance is just plain stupid.

I think you'll find oxygen can be purchased through welding supply places (If I remember right, Boc is a company that supplies gasses for industrial purposes in Oz). Oxygen isn't dangerous per se, but things burn better at higher oxygen levels and in some circumstances, oxygen may promote explosions. So you need to avoid flammable materials and anything that might cause sparks. As for making a tent, mask, or whatever, that's another question. p.s. I spent a year burning things in enhanced oxygen environments (scientific experiments) so I got to know sources of O2.

This topic has come up before, and I've posted this answer before. Get a pallet and some thrown out carpet from a tip, or recycling center, or curbside disposal. Cut the carpet to size and tack it to the pallet with roofing nails or carpet tacks. The dog will have a hard time destroying it, and if the bed does get destroyed, you will only be out a few bucks replacing it.

Correction: Sudden popularity, particularly combined with media hype, IS a curse for ANY breed. Labradors top popularity lists in several countries, and have held their place for decades. In Australia, SBT's are high on the list, too, and I don't see any media hype push behind their popularity. Not to say that there aren't health problem with Labs . . . or people denying health problems (eg, epilepsy and old age cancers). Not to say that SBT's don't have problems either. Point being, it's the craze that's the problem. Popularity may have a firm basis.

The sickos that give thumbs up to such displays on U-tube are as much a worry as the perps who post the vids. Btw, there are real people who are proud to call themselves cowboys. They can be rough, and many might use a rifle where the RSPCA would call in a vet to inject the Green Dream. But most of them would be disgusted by setting dogs on pigs to watch blood and gore. . . just as would their Australian equivalent, the jackeroo.