sandgrubber

Ditto others warning not to put the stuff where it can be licked. Also watch out for dogs that lick one another. I recently had a girl go into horrid fits from licking a spot-on flea/tick med of her grandpuppy. It might well have killed her if I hadn't contacted a cluey vet, who said, 'hose her down, soap it out, pronto. The reaction stopped immediately when she was hosed down.

If there's a shortage, I don't see why they don't just place an order. Jeffers appears to have rabies vaccine in stock.... http://www.jefferspet.com/vaccines/c/10025/start/16/

I think Aussies should pressure to legalise home-dosing of dogs for KC,as in the US. I've seen KC go through a boarding kennel half a dozen times, and I've seen baby puppies get KC from the vaccination. In my observation, KC is a bit like human 'flu' or 'cold' viruses. Sometimes the thing that's going around is horrid -- you're sick for a week or two. Other times you dread the feeling that you're getting ill, and it's over the next day. Vaccinated dogs sometime succumb ... unvaccinated dogs sometimes don't get it, presumably because they developed resistence naturally by being exposed to related viruses. When a mild strain goes through the a boarding kennel, I think it's a bonus ... some free training of immune systems.

I have a pinot noir vineyard. My dogs munch grapes until their mouths turn purple and their poohs have little round contours all over the place. I've never heard any of the vineyard people I know have trouble with their dogs eating grapes. Billinghurst, in Give Your Dog A Bone, gives recipes for healthy dog diet that include raisons. I'm sure that raisons and/or grapes are toxic to a few dogs, just as some people can't take peanuts. Most dogs seem to do just fine eating grapes and/or raisons.

Sources, please. Black is the dominant colour in Labs. I have never heard that they are prone to bone or hamangiosarcoma cancers. I have seen studies saying that golden Cockers are more aggressive than other colours.

The sad thing with Labs is that the yellow is judged pretty evenly throughout the 'gamut' but any chocolate that is not 'nice dark chocolate' seems to be knocked back by judges. Mousy brown (liver, no?) or red-tinted from being in the sun is likely to be knocked back. Whatthehell, they're a working breed, you shouldn't have to raise 'em under shade cloth to end out with a colour that can get titled.

I think it's a fine name . . . good poetry. .. for a Chessie. I think of the Chesapeak Bay as being covered by a tawny brown matt for much of the autumn through spring. It also covers (from left to right) Light Deadgrass, Deadgrass, Sedge and Dark Sedge in Chessies. Urgh, "deadgrass" is not a nice name. :D

I've found that the 'someone is killing me' yelp starts to become common in week 6 with Labrador pups (or the bloodlines I've run) but only lasts a week or so. I imagine -- perhaps incorrectly -- that they start developing some sense of empathy in week 7 to 8. I should have said 'screaming' not 'yelp', but the software doesn't let me correct as I go.

I've never heard of health problems with non-solid colours (eg,brindle). I think its mighty sad that the snowflake Lab seems to have gone from rare to extinct. Colour is so trivial compared to the other things we're supposed to look after in the breed standard. It goes both ways I think. There are proven ailments and conditions that only attack dogs which carry certain dilute colour genes. Common sense would say that these should be removed first.

There isn't a good solution for this one. You can aversion train your dogs. You can create habitat that's unfriendly to snakes. You can avoid walking except when the temperature is below 20 C and stay away from snake habitats. You can create smallish areas of snake proof fence. But the risk doesn't ever completely go away. The problem,btw, isn't snakes. It's venom. Now that I'm back in California, I am once again delighted to see snakes cause they eat the bloody gophers. But in our area there are no poisonous snakes.

No discounts here. Most of my puppy buyers make a lot more money than I do, and they don't need a discount.

I had a similar event when a puppy broke into a garage and ate snail bait that the owners didn't know was there. They were great owners, and I think they made an honest effort to puppy-proof, but they messed up in one critical detail. I helped the family find a 2 yr old rescue dog.

Glycophosphate seems to be pretty safe for mammals in general. I seem to remember that in those horrid trials they do using beagles, they were unable to establish a lethal dose, though very high concentrations caused some upsets (liver, I think). Our friend Monsanto sells glycophosphate under the trade name of Roundup, but it's gone X-patent, and there are many formulations available these days. You would have to put the stuff in the dog's water bowl to get the sort of intake needed to show a health effect... but DO keep it out of waterways. It is not benign to aquatic life.

oops . . . meant to do the Breeders Forum.

I can't tell you how to get rid of the offending page. But Google on veterinary MRI cost came up with a range of prices from $600 to $1400 . . . all at US vet surgeries. Oops. Found another at $3675. Just guessing, but I'd say most of the results we're seeing are from research laboratories who are doing the procedure for no cost in order to get a good sample. May be awhile before the price comes down enough and the availability increases to the point where screening gets done by any but the elite breeders or people with very sick and much beloved pets.

My dogs do vineyard chores with me . . . which means a few walks a day, rain or shine, off lead, over 13 acres, plus some swimming if they want.

I used JetPets sending two Labbies from WA to California. No complaints . . . other than some silly paperwork at the end. I'd advise taking a tranquilizer yourself, cause sending your babies is very worrysome. But the dogs seem to take it fine .. . I have previously travelled between the US and Europe with a dog . . . no real problems. Do look at the schedule they propose. Long stopovers aren't good (duh!). And DON'T assume it will be as easy bringing 'em back to Oz as it is shipping out . . . but you probably already know that.

As a rule of thumb, the rate of breakdown of organic compounds (and most medicines) doubles for each 10 degree rise in average temperature . . . or so they teach you in biology class. As applied to dog meds in general, they'll be good LONG past their useby date if you keep them in the fridge. My father was a doctor . . . he kept meds for family use in the fridge for years. When I asked the mobile vet, she agreed . . . she said the meds you keep in the fridge will go off years later than those I carry around in the back of my vehicle. . . expiry dates are almost irrelevant.

I don't think it's a JRT thing . . . you see it in some Labradors. My girl who does it most has a strong maternal streak. She also cleans eyes and ears, and privates.

I suspect the author is anti- B.F. Skinner, and probably thinks Karon Pryor is all of clicker training. When I was younger there were some 'operant conditioning' fanatics around who seemed to be of the mindset he ascribes to clicker trainers. Maybe they still exist somewhere. And I have met some people who carry the 'all positive' attitude to an extreme and/or use it as an excuse for leaving their dogs pretty much untrained; and some dogs whose behavioural problems would be pretty hard for the average Joe with the average low level of comittment to training to fix using clicker training.

I've seen something convincing that showed one person big in promoting 'silver' as a separate colour, eg, not a subset of chocolate, had some dubious breeding practices. That does not prove that the chocolate colour can't tend to the grey side. Although, with all the bad mouthing of silver labs going on, most breeders would turn away from stock with a 'cooked liver' colour. I think it good that there is a range of colour accepted in 'yellow' labs, and think it's a shame that people talk about 'a good dark chocolate' as though the reddish browns or less dark hues were inferior. I don't think any Labrador registry in the world accepts 'silver' as a distinct colour. Mary Williams, in Advanced Labrador Breedings, speaks of there being a pure white Lab colour in the UK in the 1940s or 1950's and laments the fact that people dropped the line because of the colouring. Personally, I'm sorry I'll never get the opportunity to see a snow white Lab with black points. . . and I think it sad that the definition of chocolate/liver may simularly be narrowed.

Sprocket, my first Lab, was with me when I lived in State College Pennsylvania -- home of the Nittany Lions (Penn State University's football team). On the corner of the Nittany Inn, there's a larger than life statue of a mountain lion. The first time Sprocket saw this she absolutely freaked out, hair on end, barking like mad. There was a bunch of people around, many of whom laughed heartily at the dog misinterpreting the statue. A credit to Sprocket's intelligence, however, next time we went by the corner she had no reaction to the 'lion'.

Another perspective can be found at http://www.labbies.com/silver.htm I sometimes wonder if some confusion comes from the acceptance of 'liver' as a colour in Labradors (it is considered equivalent to chocolate). Is that raw fresh liver, or cooked liver? If it's cooked, I'd say that a silver lab would just be another chocolate. I've seen brindles come out of two labs with no mismark . . . no, doesn't mean a rottie walked by. Labs were a genetic mish mash through World War II and many breeds have been co-mingled to create what we call the Labrador today. Sometimes this shows up as mismarks.

When I joined DOL, the forum menu was such that I could get to my favorite forums without having to scroll down the menu. Since then the Forum list has grown from the top. Now when Il log in for a quick look, training doesn't even appear on the screen. Anyone who works in marketing can tell you that sequence of appearance has a huge effect on likeliness of reading ... that's why everyone wants the front page, and why there are so many companies named AAA this and that. It's like Breeds 101 and In the News jumped to the front page and displaced training to page and Health,Nutrition and Grooming is getting down there. I don't think people's cruelty to animals has much to do with pedigree dogs . . . or, for that matter, monkeys stolen from the zoo. No big deal if they're on DOL, but I don't think they deserve the front page. How does that work? You're only going to be exposed to it if you seek it out anyway. Just dont look in the news subforum if it upsets you so much. Pretty simple, really.

Agree with the NZ crowd. I'm in California now. Have a lovely pond on my property. It's great to be able to let the dogs venture into frog central without worrying about bloody tiger snakes.