sandgrubber

I don't know the answer, and may be flamed for suggesting this, but is your girl from a breed that commonly has reproductive problems? Is she from a breed that has a small gene pool? This is the sort of reproductive failure I'd expect from dogs with a high degree of homozygosity, either due to inbreeding or due to a small founder population and/or some bottlenecks in the breed evolution. This may seem harsh and forgive me for suggesting, but personally, I don't think a girl who can't carry pups to full term should be bred from.

I did a 3-way share on import of frozen from Auckland to Perth a couple years back. If I remember right, my share came to around $180 . . . so the total cost was ~$550. Of course, surgical insemination wasn't cheap.

In my opinion, if you dump a dog on your parents and give them all the responsibility, you parents own the dog. If there's no microchip and no puppy papers, what's the vet going to say?

If you want to get your cat going they've also got cat fight sounds: http://www.soundboard.com/sb/cat_fight_catfights_clip.aspx

I found this on a 'sounds' website. Loved the comment: I finally found a legal way to get back at my neighbor and his undisciplined dogs! Thanks, this should keep me out of jail. http://www.soundboard.com/sb/Dog_Sounds_sound.aspx ie, If the rangers won't respond, record it and play it back at them!

Do dogs who have never been around coyotes recognise or respond to their calls. Play a little experiment. Go to this site, play a few selections, then vote. http://www.soundboar...ote_sounds.aspx p.s. If you play around with this site you can also find dog sounds with a lot of barks. My dogs were more impressed by the coyotes. http://www.soundboar...unds_sound.aspx

If you ever see Castor & Pollox, it's good competition for Taste of the Wild. Maybe some importer could be convinced to look at it. Mine have been thriving on it. Their ingredient list for Natural Salmon begins: Salmon, salmon meal, herring meal, menhaden fish meal, dried peas, dried potato, tapioca starch . . . It's very rich/concentrated, so small portions: 30% protein, 15% fat, 2.25% Omega 6 fatty acids, 1.75% omega 3's . . . and I feel fine about letting them a few carb-rich scraps on the side.

certainly new to me I did not suggest they are dogs, but they're in the same family as wolves, coyotes and jackals. the point I was trying to make is that I believe that dogs and foxes although primarily carnivorous, are opportunistic feeders, if they come across ripe blackberries they might eat them, if they come across windfall fruit, they might eat it and in the case of my own dogs they eat lots of leafy green plants they find on their daily walks. From Wikipedia . . . reference: Heptner, V. G.; Naumov, N. P. (1998). Mammals of the Soviet Union Vol.II Part 1a, SIRENIA AND CARNIVORA (Sea cows; Wolves and Bears). Science Publishers, Inc. USA.. "Wolves will supplement their diet with fruit and vegetable matter; they willingly eat the berries of mountain ash, lily of the valley, bilberries, blueberries and cowberry. Other fruits include nightshade, apples and pears. They readily visit melon fields during the summer months." Seems likely they would be happy munching on grapes, bananas or carrots if they were available.

For large bed destroyers whe I find a thick carpet scrap and nail it down to a pallet. Tech screws are better than nails, cause it makes it easier to replace the carpet when it gets too dirty.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120123152508.htm ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2012) — Members of a University of Pennsylvania research team have shown that they can prevent, or even reverse, a blinding retinal disease, X-linked Retinitis Pigmentosa, or XLRP, in dogs. The disease in humans and dogs is caused by defects in the RPGR gene and results in early, severe and progressive vision loss. It is one of the most common inherited forms of retinal degeneration in man. "Every single abnormal feature that defines the disease in the dogs was corrected following treatment," said lead author William Beltran, assistant professor of ophthalmology at Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine. "We were thrilled," said senior author Gustavo Aguirre, professor of medical genetics and ophthalmology at Penn Vet. "The treated cells were completely normal, and this effect resulted from introducing the normal version of the human gene into the diseased photoreceptor cells." The similarities between humans and dogs, in terms of both eye anatomy, physiology, disease characteristics and positive response to this gene therapy, raise hope for a clear path to human therapies. (the article continues. . . )

Lots of people do use electronic and other types of bark collars, but they're not a magic bullet. The ones I've seen say 'don't use for more than 8 hours at a stretch'. Some dogs don't respond well. And I think most people who start using them end out stopping for some reason or another. From what I've seen they keep a dog from barking, but they don't often succeed in training the dog not to bark. Are there any long term bark collar users out there? Or people for whom a bark collar has cured a barking problem?

Hate to be cynical, but sounds like a 'bums on seats' program to me, and I would look closely at job prospects and course requirements before enrolling. Within an Australian university there's a lot of competition between schools for student enrollments. Your budget depends on your enrollments. So schools offer whatever sounds 'sexy'. For example, in recent years there are many new programs in forensic this and that . . . probably taught without a single forensics professional and requiring a pile of existing classes. How many forensics jobs come available each year in Australia? Will those jobs place students with a degree in forensics, or go instead with proven physicians, computer security professionals (or hackers) . . . etc?

And some pig hunters are going the other way . . . catch, mark, and release. This guy cracks me up. He raises a wild piglet with his litters of pups . . . and takes down the pig barehanded with the help of one dog. http://hogwrangler.com/index.htm

And some pig hunters are going the other way . . . catch, mark, and release. This guy cracks me up. He raises a wild piglet with his litters of dogs . . . and takes down the pig barehanded with the help of one dog. http://hogwrangler.com/index.htm

I didn't express myself well. What I should have said is if you're worried about possible hereditary epilepsy, find an experienced vet and set up a plan of action. It's likely to help the vet if you have a video of the seizure, or at least, time the event. If the mum had epilepsy and the pup has seizures similar to the mum's . . . and there is no reason to think poisoning, nutritional problem, or brain tumor . . . it's very likely an experienced vet will say, 'watch it for awhile. Before we get into testing, let's find out if the seizures will repeat, and if so, how severe they are and how frequently they occur'. I grew up in a medical family, hearing scuttlebutt about how certain doctors manage to increase their income by ordering unnecessary tests. We used to get a drug-company financed journal called 'Medical Economics' which Dad threw out and us kids were free to read. It was big on pushing more tests and more pills. Dad often complained about doctors who 'heard hoof-beats and thought zebra." Years on DOL convinces me that such practices are not unknown in the veterinary world. Ideopathic epilepsy is diagnosed by ruling out all possible causes. That's an open invitation to do unnecessary tests. An experienced vet can tell a lot about fits/seizures by seeing the event and getting a good background history. Eg, I almost lost my old girl to seizures that followed application of a spot on flea/tick treatment. Murphy's Law . . . it happened about a half an hour before the clinic's closing hour on Friday and they aren't open weekends. The vet (on phone consult) said it didn't sound like epilepsy due to the nature of the seizure and started asking me about any possible source of poisoning. We went over the flea treatment label. He said 'run a hose over her and soap her down, then rinse well'. She had been seizing for 45 minutes and stopped immediately after a thorough wash. She might well have died without it.

I agree with going overboard, but parvo scares the sh!t out of me. It's so easy to use a mobile vet or have the vet give the shots in the car. Why take the risk? I don't think extreme caution is necessary in most cases, but when there's an active parvo outbreak in the area, I don't think you can be too cautious. btw, In the old days, like when I was a kid, parvo virus didn't exist!

Though sometimes timely is more important than precise. From what I've heard the kits are pretty accurate, they just aren't very precise.

If I had a neighbour who used a band saw all day every day, I'd complain. LIkewise loud band practices. There's a reason why zoning generally confines noisy enterprises to specific industrial areas.

I have 7 acres of pinot noir and if grapes were toxic to my dogs they would be dead. At harvest time they spend the whole day browsing grapes the harvesters drop. I've asked, on a vintners forum, if anyone had ever had problems with their dogs getting sick eating grapes. The answer was a uniform NO. There may be dogs who have a problem with grapes, but most dogs are fine eating them. My dogs (Labs) love carrots, apples, bananas, cucumber, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, peas, beans, radishes, daikon, cucumbers, jicama, peppers (including jalepanos), spinach and most other veggies. They don't like citrus. They are happy to eat lettuce if it has salad dressing on it. My old girl will also drink up vinegar at the bottom of a salad bowl (I often use balsamic + garlic as a dressing with no oil).

As you can see, there are lots of opinions on this. You'll probably find lots of opinions among reproductive specialists too. And amazingly, everyone gets puppies most of the time, and if you go through enough matings, chances are good you'll end out with one that doesn't take. Then you'll get lots of opinions about why it didn't take. I agree that prog tests are worth the bother, especially if you have an hour's drive to go to the dog. Being within a day or two of the peak is important. If you don't have prog testing at a local vet you may find that, as a vet nurse, you can collect a blood sample and have it analyzed at a human lab. I know Applecross Vet hospital gets their prog readings done at St. John of God (or they used to). I seem to remember, long ago, a repro specialist suggesting some meds for an older bitch that hasn't whelped for some years . . . some hormonal stuff that causes sloughing of the coating over the uterus a bit and make it easier for fertilized eggs to stick to the surface. I can't remember the details, and it may need to be done some months before the mating. Someone else may be able to fill you in on this. Good luck!

Worrying is useless. You need to be prepared to deal with it if and when it comes. 'Epilepsy' is a bit like 'cancer' in that it encompasses a wide range of conditions, some of them severe, some of them not. YOu should be aware that if you bring a dog in with 'fits' or 'seizures' of any sort, some vets will run a large number of expensive tests, often finding nothing conclusive. Other vets will listen to your description of the event and, if the situation does not seem to be life threatening, suggest that you wait to see if it is recurrent, and if so, how frequent it is. It may help you to get a useful, not-too-expensive diagnosis to have a video camera of some sort on hand and be prepared to record the next episode if and when it should occur. One of my dogs had exactly one seizure in her life, quite a severe grand mal, and never had another. I'm grateful that I didn't spend thousands of dollars on diagnosis of what turned out to be a one-off event. The fall back treatment for epilepsy, phenobarbitol, is often effective, just means two pills a day, and is very cheap. You could buy a lifetime of tablets for the cost of one MRI.

My silly girls won't break eggs. I guess it's a gundog soft-mouth thing. I just drop them from a meter up into their dishes.

It doesn't get hot here. When I'm out my dogs usually come too. They love the car.

I think there's good reason to believe late maturation is hereditary and I seem to see it in my girls. I have never had a bitch who was highly irregular . . . off by a month or so . . . but nothing extreme. So I can't say anything about patterns . .. sample size too small. In my lines, seasons do seem to go silent as a brood bitch matures and has had more litters, but that's not what you asked about.

So . . . you say . . . a farm family with some good herding dogs (say, a lot of kelpie blood but purity questionable) should not be able to breed from their working stock? I'm all for pedigree dogs. But I think there are all sorts of measures by which a dog or bitch might be found exceptional and worth breeding from. I don't think the KC's and show rings should have a monopoly on this. I don't like having a beauty show determine what constitutes a 'good dog'. Some people, including many people with degrees in genetics, prefer cross breeds. It's a moot point, though. The force (of public opinion) would not be with the KC's if they tried to push for desexing of all non-registered dogs.