sandgrubber

If the family member is into the macho thing, and the dog is big and muscly, I'd say 'good luck'. A Rotti breeder I know complains (or is it bragging) that he often gets approached by people with other 'tough' dogs . . . mostly mastiff crosses . . . to use his dogs. He's a Pedigree fanatic, and tells them to shove it. Unfortunately, someone who doesn't give a hoot about Pedigrees and doesn't health test . . . and sees the dog as an extension of his masculinity, is likely to think it's cool to sire a lot of pups. If I were you, I'd push on health testing, though.

It looks to me like Duke has been taught "Protection" as a game (tail wagging, no barred teeth). This is the only way you should be able to get a Lab to approach such things. The Lab's job in society, and the widespread love the breed inspires, are associated with gentleness. . . . I hope Duke is a one off and doesn't start a trend. As for the associated links, the 'Terriable Lab Attack" (of a stuffed animal) is more typical.

I only wish that the 20 year lifespan was the norm, not the exception. We could breed for longevity if we had anything to go by. Why doesn't the Pedigree keep track of deaths as well as births? I know it's hard. But I'd love, when choosing what dog to use, or what pup to buy, to be able to look back through the grands and great-grands and see whether the lineage was long lived or short lived. It really pissed me off to realise that the Canine Assn' has thousands upon thousands of dead dogs on their books and doesn't seem to care. edited immediately to fix oversight.

I think it's outright cruel. Poor dogs are obviously hungry. Teasing them so for human amusement is awful.

For some opinionated commentary and juicy background, see: http://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.com/2011/08/facebook-ghosts-and-ghouls.html

I answered N/A to all questions. Health testing and showing are not the only criteria for quality dogs . . . what about working dogs? What about temperament? It matters a lot to me what the facilities are like, and how many people are around to look after the pups. Some show people do some awful things to win shows . .. despite lots of health testing. I don't much trust the regulators . . . and think we have to be careful about what we ask for.

More and more DOL posts center around a YouTube link or other video clip. I have a slow, wireless connections. The phone company calls it broadband, but it's slower than dialup most of the time. I find these links frustrating. Just curious to know if others are having this same problem. Misery loves company .

An interesting concept and it certainly would be of great benefit to a stressed child but I can also see "the can of worms" and a potential bias issue. Although not ALL jurers would be dog lovers so the impact would be divided I guess. One would need to take this into account when selecting a jury. I thought children didn't have to testify in a courtroom situation because of the undue stress and could be hooked up via a video testimony????? I don't understand the need for testimony in an open courtroom. If the father raped and impregnated his daughter, there should be DNA evidence. But given the system felt a need for testimony, I can see why the girl would need all the emotional support she can get. I'd say that Rosie wasn't a bias, but rather a counter bias for the inherent trauma of a girl having to testify against her father.

The Labrador Retriever breed was founded, in large part, through a few large scale UK breeders who imported dogs from the Canadian east coast. The Duke of Buccleuch in particular. It would be interesting to know whether these guys made a profit or where landed gentry who didn't need to make a profit. These days we can't count on landed gentry to run big kennels, though the Queen still keeps a respectable Labrador kennel. But you still find, if you go to shows, larger breeders play an important role in achieving the scale, and the economic resources, to import quality dogs and maintain exchanges with other top kennels worldwide. I know that some of them make a decent living doing so. BFD. They work 72 hours a week. They've taken risks. They've generally put huge resources into their operations. They stay on top of testing, and vet care in general. Ok, you or I may not like the fact that their litters don't run around on the kitchen floor, and their brood bitches tend to be rehomed when they've had the allowed number of litters. Some have concentrated on showing, and don't worry that some of their stock have no drive and may even dislike water. If you're going to attack the show dog establishment, you may find some of these guys are guilty of line breeding and of pushing over-used stud dogs. But you can't deny their central position in the Pedigree dog world.

Interesting. Thanks for posting. For once, a well written news article. Guess you don't get to write for the New York Times if you don't understand spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

In good use of an e-collar, the dog can predict. You want to give the dog control, and ability to avoid the stim. Ie, dog should think "If I do X, I will get stim. If I do Y, I'm safe. I think I'll do Y." Or, "I know how to turn this damn thing off, all I have to do is come when I'm called".

I tried using one in the small dog section of a boarding kennel. I can't say that it helped.

funny? The page cannot be found The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please try the following: Make sure that the Web site address displayed in the address bar of your browser is spelled and formatted correctly. If you reached this page by clicking a link, contact the Web site administrator to alert them that the link is incorrectly formatted. Click the Back button to try another link. blah, blah, blah . . .

see http://scaashanghai....procedure.shtml The site is a rescue organisation and seems mostly to be run by, and work with, ex-pats from the US, Europe, and Australia. They sound like real animal lovers with a lot of experience . . . it might be good to have your folks talk with them. Given the way bureaucracy works in China, it may be worth working with a China-based company, especially, as described above, the dog can travel as excess baggage . . . meaning you will be on the same plane and be able to keep an eye on things. Looks like it's not especially onerous.

Disagree. My dogs regularly play bite one another around the neck . . . they do it hard . . . it would break my skin if they did it to me. Because the neck is so up front in fights and so inclined to take hits in hunting, dogs generally have tough skin and often have thick coats around the neck. I'd say thigh with chaps would be a realistic test for dogs with good neck padding, say, a husky or Labrador. Not that chaps are needed to convince most people that the horrid looking thing is actually less painful than a choker chain. I used a prong on one of my girls, who had a bad habit of pulling on the lead. No pressure required. The pulling stopped immediately, but she showed no sign of shock or pain, and was all waggy the next time walkie time came around and the prong collar was pulled out. And after a few walks with the prong collar she gave up pulling for good. I'm not saying the thing is a miracle cure for all dogs or that it won't be misused. But in some cases it's a fantastic training tool.

When I lived in WA I had a 22 yr old Scottie next door. He was fed supermarket food and scraps, and had been all his life. Still had a decent coat, wasn't deaf or blind, and still did the ~2 km walk to the shops with his owner on a regular basis. The neighbour kids -- adults by that time -- remember him as being a terror who was always out, and who sired a good many oops litters.

Or peanut butter . . . it has the advantage of keeping form many months and not needing refrigeration. Dogs love it. I generally give a little dob of P'nut butter to each my dogs at once . . . the dog getting no meds gets it first. Then dog #2 is greedy to get hers too and doesn't notice the pill.

I'm preparing to build a new house. In my days in the boarding kennel business I often wished I could hose down the floors in the house and squeegee to a, as you do in the kennel. The new house will have concrete floors with radiant heating, and drains, plus splash boards on the walls. Also a couple good places for a whelping box, and of course doggie doors. If you could build a new place, what would you add to make life with dogs easier and more pleasant? Or, what features of your present house make it good . . . or bad . . . for dogs?

+1 I think the 'choke chain' should be renamed 'garotte' . . . and anyone speaking against the prong collar should be required to try putting one around their thigh and seeing how painful it isn't. As I've said many times on these forums, the worst unkindness I see with dogs is putting a highly social, moderately intelligent beast in solitary confinement in an unstimulating back yard for the duration of its years. I'm sure if you could give dogs a choice, they'd tolerate a little pain here and there to get stimulation and company.

I live in a state / country where you can buy a prong collar in the local feed store . . . you may need to go to a larger town to buy a halti or martingale. There are no restrictions on e-collars. There are loads of pit bulls, mostly street-bred. You do see prong collars misused . . . mostly on pit bulls. Specifically, you sometimes see dogs constrained in the front yard, tied . . . with a prong collar around the neck. The population that has pittis and uses prong collars tends to be on or near minimum wages and poorly educated. Mixed feelings about all of this, but I'd rather see the dogs under control than jumping fences and attacking the other dogs in the neighborhood. The good, but ugly thing about prong collars is that dogs don't push them. If someone did a study of the necks of dogs who are cruelly kept tied with a prong collar . . . and you'll get this if you don't put constraints on the use of prong collars . . . I doubt you'd find much physical damage. As for psychological damage, I'd guess that the prong collar was a minor contribution to a much larger problem. Only in Victoria (the only place in the world, AFAIK, that has banned them). FYI There are places - actually entire contries ;) where the use of prong collars on dogs is banned.

You may say KISS, but it isn't simple, S. The problem is, if the breed had an Adam and Eve, say 100 generations ago and has been kept pure, everybody is closely related, and a 5 generation COI is worth nothing. If the founding population was 100+ dogs, with a fair amount of outcrossing (with different breeds) and backcrossing as the breed developed, as with Labs and Goldies, there's a much larger gene pool to work from. I hope, one day, we'll be able to give up on this subjective garbage and COI's and work directly from DNA indices. If you're working with a breed from a very narrow genetic base, you may be stuck. All breeding is inbreeding. If the genetic base for your breed is broad, then breeding in a close, but highly selective, manner, may be a safe, and a way to select against genetic faults. And there's lots between.

The sad thing is that, though I suspect that the dogs mean as much to him as kids would to many, he'll find the legal system doesn't give a hoot. I'm not generally a fan of colourful businessmen, but I wish this guy, and his dogs, best luck. Dognapping for ransom is not something we want to see, and I hope the legal authorities take it seriously.

Ouch! You might try a product called Musher's Secret. It's a paw wax. I don't know if it's sold in Australia. It works pretty well on cracked human feet as well. http://www.jefferspe...cret/p/0027941/ Alternatively, you can put booties on. Or both. My pup had cracked pads. I think she got them from exuberant digging in dry, extremely hard dirt. The cream seemed do work, but I think it also helped that she learned that digging hurt and cut back on her dry dirt projects.

Beautiful dog. Hope he lives past 8. . . . and an extreme case of the runt of the litter outgrowing his littermates.

Thanks everyone. Sounds like a good solution for me. My Labs will eat almost anything, so it shouldn't be hard to get it down.