sandgrubber

The fireworks woke me up, but the dogs slept right through them. They're used to target practice . . . we're rural and not a no shooting zone and have neighbours who provide a wide variety of booms. I think they like it. One advantage of a well bred gun dog.

Good luck with the litter! I can't remember which antibiotics are ok and which endanger teeth, but I'm pretty sure some ABs are safe. Amoxicillin and Clavulox are ok if I remember right. But don't go on my advice. I'm just kicking the can down the road. Someone else will have more info.

Sooo cute! I've never been around a pup who was blind from an early age. Looks like she has a little hesitancy about things . . . but enjoys life like a normal pup.

Rehoming is a bit like divorce. Sometimes it doesn't work out and all are better off if the sides part. I agree with the sentiment, but where the dog is happier in the new home than the old, I think rehoming is good. Sure, some people should never have gotten a dog in the first place. But you can't turn the clock back. We all need to be grateful to shelters, foster homes, Gumtree, breed rescue orgs, and all the other institutions that help with difficult transitions for dogs who ended up with the wrong family. And breeders need to be careful in screening puppy buyers.

Ehem, like my ex neighbours... They had a Rottie. They stuck it in the back yard and ignored it. One day I had a knock on the door from a guy from the council. The neighbours had called and reported they found a stray dog and shut it up in their back yard, can someone take it to the pound. They weren't home when he came around so he came over to ask me about it. I looked over the fence, "no, that's their dog" He left without taking her. A week later the dog was gone, a week after that they got a new puppy, a staffy cross. Because, "The old dog destroyed the yard" What lowlife wankers

There's a lesson here: Dogs can be really stupid about going over cliffs. Do not allow them off lead around severe drop-offs, and for dog's sake, don't throw anything over a cliff when there's a dog nearby Some 25 years ago I went walking with my mother, her Lab, my Lab, and a GR I was looking after in a large area of public land in Pennsylvania. Suddenly we had only two Labs. After much looking and calling we found the GR had fallen over a cliff face. When I scrambled to the bottom I found the poor girl drawing her last breaths. Much trauma. It's bad enough seeing a dog die. Worse to explain what happened to the owner of a dog you were looking after.

And then there's the tragic story of the old Labbie who was taken to the vet because she bit one of the kids. After he gave her the green dream, the vet noticed that she had a number of staples through her ear.

The local parks department is holding a dog walk, in one of the local on leash parks. It's billed as teaching lessons in dog etiquette! I hope they get good attendance.

I got Sprocket, my first Lab as a rescue. According to the shelter she was surrendered because the family who bought her was told that once a girl was speyed her pee wouldn't leave green circles on the lawn. They had her speyed, and she continued to detract from the perfectly manicured lawn, so they put her up for adoption. Sprocky was a wonderful dog . . . easy to live with, and with a terrific sense of humor.

Good on you for doing your 'research' by fostering dogs. As a Lab breeder, it's good to hear someone confirming the effort that good pedigree breeders put into health and temperament makes it worthwhile for an intelligent puppy buyer.

I think this is one of the reasons why Joe Public are wary of 'show people'. If you see a dog with beautiful temperament, multiple sports titles or a great working ability yet are dismissed as not worthy of breeding because they have floppy ears or a white blaze on their chest, people are going to question the value of the standard. +1 Also please read the 'born to suffer' thread in the News Discussion . . . in breeds where show conformation has serious health consequences, it may be better to breed from a 'pet quality' dog than a 'show quality' dog.

I've had that dream too . . . forgot all about it . . . remember waking up and thinking 'how weird'.

Depends a lot on what you are hunting and what sort of dog you want. Eg, some are better for flushing game, others for retrieving, some better for water, others for dryland. Some people like long hair, others want only short; some breeds are more headstrong, others softer. Within the breed you'll also find great ranges . .. eg, some Labbies are more built for running and jumping, while others are more suited to swimming and beating through heavy bush.

YOu think the Australian system is bad. Here in California, the county (read council) registration system generously cross registered the two dogs I brought with me from Oz. . . then the Registration company sent me a bill for $21 for each dog to continue the registration. Apparently they soak you for an annual fee to keep your dog on the database. Don't you love the free market.

Anybody else have strange dreams about their dogs? A couple nights ago I dreamed that I looked at Bonza's belly and was amazed to see that she had four rows of teats . . . giving her a total of 20. In the dream I was surprised that I hadn't noticed them before, and was little worried that someone was going to say it was the result of inbreeding. [Odd notion: She has only one repeat name on her 5 generation pedigree. The repeat is in gen 5].

Get involved with council. As permanent residents, you are in a position to see that the Ranger patrol gets its numbers doubled during the holidays.

Why not just leave the dog inside?

When I was breeding dogs in WA, I had a policy against selling to renters, which I sometimes broke. Eg, I was happy to sell to a vet school student whose parents were willing and able to look after the dog if necessity arose. I sold to someone who was the head corporate lawyer for a multinational (they eventually moved to Canada, but took their dogs with them). At least in Perth metro, where a large fraction of the housing stock is pretty new, dog-friendly rentals are few and far between. Difficulty finding housing is a pretty common reason for dog abandonment. I seldom had to apply the rule. Most of the puppy buyers owned. . . . many had waited until they got their own house to get a dog. I generally told renters I wouldn't sell to them without a signed letter from the landlord showing a lease for a year or more, and that a puppy would be allowed. I never had a single renter come back with such a letter.

On the other hand a Staffy X Lab will almost always be listed as a Lab X . . . to improve chances of adoption. The high frequency SBTs and SBT-X's makes sense because: 1. the SBT is one of the most common pedigree dogs in Australia (#1 in puppy registrations in 2010) and 2. Where I've lived in WA, the entire males I had to fend off when my girls came in season were mostly SBT's or SBT-like. Lots of people who get staffies seem to like 'em with balls on . . . and SBT's tend to be clever at escaping / breaking in (especially chain link fences). p.s. I've spent many hours looking at pound and shelter listings . . . but it would be good to be able to say something stronger than "my impression based on looking at pound listings". Social data are almost always inaccurate . . . but collected data tend to be more accurate than anecdotes.

Don't panic. Lets assume the rat was poisoned. If your dogs weigh, say 10 times more than the rat, and some of the poison has gone through the rat, there's little chance of a lethal dose, even if the dog ate the whole rat. Sure, watch, be cautious, try to figure out if there is rat poison around and what its effects are. Most rat poisons are slow, cause rats are smart, and the pest control industry finds that they'll learn to avoid anything that kills fast. Even in the worst case, you have time for a measured response. On the other hand: Rat poison is extremely cruel. There is much more danger of dogs finding the baits than eating poisoned rats. Trapping is both more humane, and safer for your dogs.

Lovely vid. Thanks for posting. Tawnies are great. All that hissing reminds me of a long-forgotten event. On our bush walk, one of my Labs brought a chick to me (unharmed). Apparently, crows got to the nest. CALM had big fines for keeping wildlife and I ended out turning it over to someone with permits for wildlife rescue. Wish I could have kept track of the little guy.

Add boarding kennels to the question. They are more likely to be in bush areas, and very likely to be full over the summer holidays, when fires often get out of control. I once tried to work on organised evacuation plans in a WA kennel area. No one was enthusiastic. All kennels seem to have their own ad hoc plans, which may or may not work. Ok. I'm a poor sales person. I hope someone else can do a better job of recognising the problem and getting a good response plan implemented.

In some cases sure but society in Australia is very geared towards pets we have some of the highest rates of pet/ dog owners world wide. Families often have dogs and have friends with dogs I'd say it's more personal experience and exposure that leads to these behaviors not patterns and cartoons. Those images wouldn't have been created if there wasn't a call for it. That's like saying teen pregnancy has nothing to do with media focus on sex. There's huge demand for love. Both human love and the kind of love that only dogs can give. But kids are being sold the gratification side without the full instruction manual. The 'puppy' image as propagated by commercial channels isn't troubled by the fact that throwing your arms around the neck of some dogs is going to earn you a nasty bite on the face.

Kids' puppy fever is generated by story books, puppy patterns on their bedsheets, TV shows, Snoopy cartoons, and a long social tradition that seems to say 'a kid has a right to have a puppy' . . .'happiness is a warm dog' . . . etc.. It would be good if more effort were directed to stamping out the 'puppy love' myth in places where canine reality has gotten harsh.

Many DOL'r, including me, use the argument that pedigree dogs are less likely to end up in shelters than BYB dogs or DD's. Many of us have images of shelters overpopulated by one type of dog or another. I have a sense that some breed rescue groups are much more active than others . . . perhaps due to higher rates of people buying the breed image without understanding breed characteristics. I'd love to know the facts. The only data I've been able to find is LA county data, which shows a huge number of bull breeds/bull breed X's (40 to 45% of all pound dogs) . . . and a spike in Chihuahuas a couple years after the Beverly Hills Chihuahua movie came out. Has anyone seen shelter data that keeps track of dogs by type, if not breed?