sandgrubber

I used to live in a kennel area where there were lots of greyhound breeders. They had two meat suppliers they would use. They avoided most suppliers because the preservatives in the meat would show up in the tests done at the races and disqualify their dogs. Apparently high levels of preservatives is the norm.

Actually I'm looking at koolies. and maybe one Aussie kennel that has working lines. If you've identified the breeder you like, phone them and ask their opinion of when and how it's best to make contact. Different strokes for different folks, but no sensible person will resent a polite and flattering inquiry about how to work with them on the purchase of a pup.

European customs can be pretty disgusting, too. Factory farming? Dog fighting? Bear baiting (wasn't that long ago that it was outlawed)? Fox hunting? Cock fighting? de foie gras? Not to mention how wasteful we are that we don't eat insects. Castigating 3 billion people for customs found in small minorities is a sign of a severely limited and rather nasty mind. I'd guess that there are 500,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 people in Asia who don't eat meat and regard us all as barbarians because we kill animals to eat.

I think you need to be clear about what you want. The more coat, the more grooming . . . and the worse the mess if the dog goes in bush and picks up burrs etc. If you like combing out coat and find that a good way to bond with a dog, go for it. But otherwise, go for shorter coats. Eg., for the retriever, go for a Lab before a goldie (more color choice as well). If you really love grooming and want a big dog, you might want to look at Afghan hounds. Giants have lots of appeal, but many of them have serious health problems and short lifespans. Vet expenses have a tendency to get more expensive as the dog gets heavier as well. You can find some not-so-nice temperaments in the giants who were originally bred for bull baiting and guard dogs, but in my experience, Newfies, Danes, and Saitnt, and some mastiffs are placid and more inclined to be friendly than aggressive. There's huge variation in temperament within most breeds, so make sure to ask breeders about temperament.

Good to see attention to the (idiot) humans rather than the dog pts.

I've tried separating them and find it causes angst and does nothing good. My girls are very close to one another. I do keep the other bitch or bitches (at the moment I've only got two, but I've had as many as four) from getting into the whelping box during the whelping and in the two to three weeks afterwards. I have a couple girls who love puppies so much they would try to take over the litter, given half a chance. I've mostly had large litters, and I generally allow the broodier bitches (who come into milk when there are pups around) to do a little mothering at week two or three . . . by which time the Mum is beginning to get bored with the pups and spending less time around them. This once saved me a lot of trouble when Mum got mastitis and nursing got difficult.

My dog freaks out when she finds a bit of gecko skin in the house, so not sure if it has a similar smell to snake, but normally live lizards don't scare her. She is very wary of anything snakeish. Next time I find a snake skin I will have to see what her reaction is. You could also pick up the next freshly run over snake you find on the road, & put it in the freezer for training. Might be an idea to carefully remove the head & discard it so the dog can't get to the venom. In SES tracker training we were told that suicides are hard for dogs . . . the dogs follow the track ok, but can't associate the smell of the dead person with the smells that the live person left on the trail. I wouldn't assume snake skin or a dead snake is going to produce a snake que for a dog.

Doesn't QLD have a law against dumping? If they were able to learn this guy's name and age, they must be able to figure out who dumped him.

Tragic that someone who is down and out and finds a dog his best friend has the dog seized. I don't have a solution. But it may be worth pointing out, from the perspective of social costs and benefits, it's a lot better to let the poor guy be able to keep his loved companion, and hopefully find a safe place for both of them, than to kill the dog and have the guy end up in a prison or loony bin.

There's plans and there's plans. I plan for 10 years, but it gets more and more iffy as you go past two years. Plans always subject to the health of my dogs, the demand for puppies, and changes in my personal circumstances.

My experience says that dogs who have good things happen when they go for car rides (eg, get to go to a park that they like, go to a FUN FUN FUN puppy preschool training class, get to go for a walk where there are lots of good smells, get to fall asleep in the car while Mum goes shopping and then get some sort of yummy food treat) come to love the car. I'll bet if the associations are always positive, they'll overcome the possible problems of motion sickness. May require patience. And you may be able to tone down the travel sickness.

Try gently stroking a puppy or two's anus (use a wet microfiber towel or some such). If you can't stimulate a pooh, you can be pretty sure mum is doing her job. My girls have been excellent mums and every time I've doubted them, they've proven me wrong. You gotta keep watching . . . and it's hard not to worry . . . but mother nature tends to cover this aspect of puppy raising, in my experience.

Yup. And in the US you can find Master Hunters (the elite rank in retrieving competition) who are not just carriers, but AFFECTED! All heritable conditions are not equal. As the genetic testing industry develops genetic tests, we have to get more sophisiticated in how we use testing.

Five is sufficiently small that the pup shouldn't have much trouble getting onto some teat. I'm a little compulsive with pups (though I've only had one litter with less than seven) and can't help myself from taking the little guys and sticking them on the milkier teats. I only lost one runt . . . and this happened suddenly at week seven after he was well along to catching up with the others. I have no idea what happened. They usually pull through just fine. And a large fraction of puppy buyers want the runt . . . so don't worry about finding a home.

I've only seen eclampsia (sp? = milk fever) in a goat and it's really awful. It's fine to worry and better to be safe than sorry. I expect that experience will show you that you can cross that particular malady off your list of concerns if you feed a calcium rich diet regularly, and particularly in the months before conception. I don't understand panting in nursing bitches, but have had several who do it. . . .with no ill consequences.

Scour ban is good stuff. You can buy it at many feed stores or vets without a prescription. Follow the label.

Who said anything about cutting up beasts while alive or eating endangered species. I was thinking of the change from farm-based butchering to use of slaughter houses and distribution via supermarket chains. We need to look to our own practices before condemning others. Quoting the save-the-koala folks (https://www.savethek...endangered.html) "Koalas are in serious decline suffering from the effects of habitat destruction, domestic dog attacks, bushfires and road accidents. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates that there are less than 80,000 koalas left in the wild, possibly as few as 43,000." If you want to blame someone for koala decline, blame the developers who are destroying their habitat and the road builders who actions convert them to road kill. Don't point at supposed Asian poachers and dubious photographs. The old-fashioned blow to the head plus slitting the jugular (beheading, for chooks) is dying out in Australia, at least for the small farmer. I haven't done a state by state comparison, but I know that WA now forbids home-based slaughtering and dressing for sheep, pigs, and cattle. In the modern version, you first subject your pig or sheep or calf to transport, which probably terrifies the beast, feed lot it for awhile, and then put it through some supposedly humane and sanitary killing at the hands of a large slaughter house. I don't see this as an improvement from the animal's perspective. Btw, boiling alive isn't a nice way to go either, even if it's a lobster or crab.

I suspect that horse people are trying to defend their relationship with a reasonably dangerous animal . . .not dangerous cause it eats meat, but dangerous because horses weigh hundreds of kilograms, and horse accidents do a lot of damage. Given that dogs descend from predators and horses are herbivores, and that the hours people spend in dog company run to hundreds of millions per year (in Australia alone), I'd say it speaks wonderfully for dogs that there are so few dog incidents. Intent is difficult to prove even with human on human actions. Dogs rarely 'intend' to harm. Sometimes they react, and the reaction involves teeth. Poor dogs, can't respond with a verbal scolding or a slap to the face. Young horses commonly react to an unexpected weight on their back or someone intruding in their peripheral vision by bucking or kicking. Not sure it's instinct, but it sure isn't with full human-style evaluation of the situation. Also note the huge amount of abuse kids heap on dogs . . . ranging from taunting and teasing, to dressing them up in clothes, to tying tin cans on their tails and lighting them on fire. Yes, there are slip ups, but by-in-large, dogs are impressively tolerant of humans. Even though dogs far outnumber horses and live in much closer proximity to families than horses do, the fact remains that horses far outrank dogs in terms of physical damage done. Frankly, I'd rather have a few stitches than end out with a broken arm or be paralyzed for life. All the OP is asking is that people be a little more tolerant of the fact that dogs occasionally slip up in showing anger, fear, or some other negative reaction, and give more credit to dogs for the incredible amount of mistreatment they put up with at human hands. Do you contest that the human dog bond is remarkably strong? Are you saying that dogs should be blamed and pts when they react too strongly and someone ends up bleeding. Dogs acting as predators and treating humans as prey are a different case. I think there's broad consensus that such dogs are extremely rare, but must not be tolerated as companion animals. Or are you defending the human-horse relationship? If so, I don't see why. I don't see that the human-horse bond is under attack, anywhere.

For comparison of Albany bassets to show bassets you might want to look at http://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.com/2011/10/wrinkled-skin-no-legs-and-willies-that.html . . .the discussion is interesting as well . . . including input from various basset breeders.

Noticed that Visa Print has a huge range of dog logos and themes on their offering, ranging from business cards, to personalised calendars, to hoodies, to banners and car magnets. Designs range from cartoonish to silhoettes, to photos, and from sentimental to stark. see (this is the link for business card designs . .. you will get similar assortment and options for other products). http://www.vistaprint.com.au/gallery/MAEAAAADAAAAAAA=/premium-business-cards/dog-3.aspx?filter=9%3a10013%7c%7c1%2c4%3a10003%7c%7c1&xnav=pagenav&xnid=bottom Might be a good Xmas pressie for someone (this is not a paid promo and I'm getting no kick back for referrals . . .I was just amazed by the offering and wanted to share)

I recently had my old girl speyed. I've not had a good couple years and got the state-subsidized rate of $40. In Oz I always picked the dog up right after a spey or Ceasar, or whatever, and had her (or him) recover at home. I was quite shocked that my $40 spey included an overnight stay and this was non-negotiable. I felt terrible leaving the old girl at the vets in a cage overnight. She didn't seem particularly upset about it, though.

The point of the OP is that dogs are common, widespread, and often poorly managed. I think it says a lot for Canis domesticus that there aren't more injuries and deaths. Yes, there are accidents, and a very very few dogs should probably be removed from the gene pool and/or deprived of the right to breathe. I just wish people would put those dog accidents in perspective of other trans-species relationships. I wish society could extend the same degree of forgiveness to an old dog who bites in surprise or pain that they do to a frisky colt who throws its rider and breaks someone's arm . . . or neck. If fencing and training and zoning restrictions were as widespread for dogs as they are for horses, we'd have a lot fewer dog problems. Imagine what a mess it would be if people were as free-wheeling about keeping horses as they are about keeping dogs . . . and every other household owned a horse.

Ummmm sorry to be so blunt, but who cares????? We are not in the dark ages now. for somebody who promotes so much animal liberation stuff on DOL, even comparing horses and dogs etc.. thats a bold claim to make..... so i suppose a homeless person in usa or australia etc.. is allowed to eat whateva and kill it however because they have limited to no money???? :rolleyes: im pretty sure if the headline was homeless man bashed dog and ate it alive your comments wouldnt be so compassionate towards them.... Hey, let's get personal. Guess you twist people's words to putting them into categories. What does that say about you? There are a lot of subjective judgements involved in meat eating . . .not to mention vermin control. For the most part, our ancestors killed efficiently, with no deliberate cruelty. I'm happy standing against torture. But not against conventional throat cutting or other 'primitive' ways of slaughter. The modern sanitized process repulses me in some ways, cause it leaves people free to eat meat without ever looking the animal in the eye or seeing blood spilled. If you suppose a homeless person can kill whatever, however, I'd say your standards are low. You never heard/saw me say/write that. I don't buy any party line . . . animal lib or otherwise (if you did your homework you'll find I'm with the breeders and pretty frightened of the Animal Lib line on the puppy farm debate). I've studied a little anthropology and a little history and lived in various places in the third world . . . I try not to be judgmental. I'll bet the RSPCA wouldn't approve of most of the killing techniques employed in the third world. What would you say to farmer decapitates a chicken with hatchet?. . . as happens all over the third world and on many many small farms . . . not to mention the way pigs are killed in small farming. I'll tell you, though, if I was a pig or chicken, I'd much rather lead my life running around free and then meet a sudden, bloody, not-so-sanitary death by traditional means than be forced to live in a factory cage, cheek by jowl to face a 'humane' death in some commercial killing facility. And don't get me going on how kind it is to kill rats and mice with slow kill poisons . . . or foxes and the occasional dog with 1080. Where I lived in WA, the more 'new age' greyhound breeders called in a vet and did a 'humane' pts for the dogs who didn't run well. The old timers just used a bullet. I cannot say which is more humane. It would be great if all failed racing dogs could be rehomed . . . maybe racing should be banned altogether . . .hey . . . I'm not ready to pronounce on these things.

Ummmm sorry to be so blunt, but who cares????? We are not in the dark ages now. If you made less than a dollar an hour, and were lucky to eat 100 g of meat a week, I'll bet your standards would change.

Endangered species need protection . . . no question . . . but you need to identify the species before making an uproar. Some cultures like to eat insects, some like game meat, including exotics (many Germans pay top dollar for kangaroo and value the gamey taste of wild hare). Poor people who lack refrigeration often buy food, or get restaurant food, freshly slaughtered. Often the killing methods are primitive, and not up to RSPCA standards. But how do you think our ancestors lived? Asian black market sales put pressure on endangered species . . . for virtually no benefit obtained. Tiger penis or rhino horn does bugger all for health or potency. But these are markets that sell at $1000/kg and upwards. More . . . much more . . . information is required before forming any intelligent judgement.