sandgrubber

I'd guess you can export a dog or bitch with 'not for export' pedigree, but you'd run into trouble when you tried to get the pedigree registered in the new location. The canine authorities power doesn't go much beyond what animal can and cannot be put on a pedigree register or shown. As for semen, unless it is written into the pedigree stipulations that neither the dog nor his progeny can be exported . . . which could be done and might cause problems with registration of a pedigree . .. I'd say you're fine. At least in WA there is space on the back of the pedigree for the seller to add stipulations.

Most of mine bleed heavily on the first season . . . but I did have one girl who I though was pretty old not to have come in season (20 months). I took her to a repro vet for diagnosis and he said "no problem . . . she's been on season, you just missed it". And I'll bet there are plenty people out there who have only found out about the girl having had her first season when it's apparent that pups are on the way.

If the water isn't frozen, it's not too cold for a Labrador :D . When I lived in New Hampshire mine used to love going into the river when there was lots of ice about. Only worry was that they would get swept under the ice (which never happened). As for kelpies, in my experience, most of 'em dislike getting wet . . . so if the kelpie part dominates, you won't have to worry. The dog just won't go in. Remember, Labbies were derived from dogs used to pull in fishing nets in the very cold, stormy seas off the east coast of Canada.

If it's a dominant trait and invariably shows up by 7 yrs, I'd say you can breed it out by only breeding from pups whose sire and dam have lived to old age. No? I fault not Cav breeders, but the pedigree registration system. Age of death needs to be recorded on pedigrees if you want to breed dogs that live to a healthy old age. It really irked me when I lost my first brood bitch to cancer and tried to take her off the records. The CAWA person behind the desk said, basically, "why bother . .. some people out there have hundreds of deceased dogs still on the books".

Will there be an experienced vet nurse around? Could make quite a difference if you end out going in for an emergency and the vet is a horse guy/

My record for frozen is 0,0,10. However, there were extenuating factors on the two zeros. Both bitches failed to produce to natural matings after the AI was tried. The 10 had had three litters of 10 previously, including both natural and chilled semen. I think the real question is not frozen vs fresh vs natural, but whether or not you do prog testing. I suspect that the main reason people get small litters from bitches that could produce large litters is cause they think 'the dog' knows, or use some other behavioural thing, and get the timing off. I'm sure some of the behavioural ques work well . . . for some people. But I also know they mess up sometimes for some people.

Does anyone know of any programs to train police on how to deal with aggressive dogs? I'd say the dogs in question got off lightly not being shot on the spot, and the coppers were probably doing the best they could with the tools on hand. Maybe they just got the tasers and wanted to try them out. Who knows. Unless people are trained in advance about how best to handle a situation, they'll improvise. Second all the anti-breedist remarks, and the 'scum owner' remarks.

Hope it's not rude to comment without reading ALL 13 pages here. I've been in California for the last 6 mo where pinch collars are everywhere. The local feed store has two types of collars . . . flat and pinch/prong. I have seen half a dozen pit bulls in people's front yards with the pinch/prong collar on . . . and I don't spend that much time in town. My neighbour, who does Schutz with her GSD's, routinely uses one. I've been playing around on Google to try and find stories about prong collars doing damage and come up, almost entirely, with people who are in favour of their use. I used one on my own dogs a couple years back . . . to reduce pulling. They understood instantly with the prong collar. Still enthusiastic about the walk. No avoidance of the collar at all. And after about two weeks we went back to the Martingale . . . but got no pulling. http://www.8pawsup.com/articles/training/prongcollars.html gives some evidence that they're much much less likely to damage a dog than choke chains. The people out to bust myths had a go at the Anna Marie Silverton advice, which apparently quotes a hard-to-find (non-existent?) German study. However, people chiming in on the conversation seem to confirm that choking is much worse for the dog than pinching.

Great article. Thanks for posting. btw, when did the points system go by the wayside? I would love to see it used.

What do they consider HD free. The worst I've gotten for a dog of my lines raised on my property is 3:1 . . . which I consider to be a non-problem, though not perfect. In my experience, there are quite a few Lab lines that run low hip scores. Lab averages are not that bad compared to other breeds . . . I don't know why they have a reputation for bad hips. Sandgrubber, Congratulations on having a line of Labs with no HD problems! You really should let some of the research teams know you have line of labs free of HD disease. They really need to look at what you have done to accomplish this and the genetics of your dogs. Your dogs could hold the genetic key for HD free dogs of all breeds. Cornell is using Labs right now in the search for genes. However the Labs are used as the affected line not the line free of HD genetics. They are using a different breed for the line that does not carry the genes. Usinfg 2 different breeds makes it harder to find the genes. I am sure your HD free labs would prove very valuable in their research.

Mine understand differences of rules about getting on furniture. And they catch on fast to the fact that some people are ready for a cuddle at 5 am and others would prefer to wait until 9 or 10

Thanks for the offer. At $35/pop or so, I'm unlikely to read more than the abstracts, especially as my stock has no hip problems but occasional elbow problems that seem to come out of the blue. Good to know the studies have been done. Some one else may be interested in references, though. With us all putting so much emphasis on hip and elbow scores in breeding programs, it's reassuring to know that poor scores are a useful predictor of later life health problems.

How interesting, University of Pennsylvania finds their own method is better. I wish they reported the correlation between clinical and radiographic finding . . . by either method.

I did my two dogs with a squeeze on called TriForce. Active ingredients: Cyphenothrin (40%) and Pyriproxyfen (2%). About 24 hours later my older girl (who is big on licking the younger girl) started having seizures. Awful deep muscle spasms, strong enough to cause her to flip onto her side from standing . . . lasting less than a minute, followed by tense muscles and a lot of panting, plus some drooling. Back to semi normal for a five or ten minutes. Then another attack. I wasn't going to be able to drive her to the vets alone cause a spasm in my vehicle would have been dangerous. A neighbor is a vet nurse. She gave me the number of a vet to call. The vet heard the description of symptoms and asked about possible poisons. I told him about the spot on treatment. He concluded that she was poisoned by the stuff and said to wash her thoroughly to get all of the stuff out. I did so and the symptoms disappeared within a minute or two. I suspect that the older girl licked the pup and ingested a lot of the stuff.

If you chase the stats to the source you find about six reports/year in the US veterinary data base. I'd guess there are at least 50 million dogs in the US. Our dogs always got raisins when I was a kid. I suspect the problem is about like the problem with peanut alergy in children. I can find a lot of vets who say bones are bad for dogs as well. In a vinyard context, not eating grapes means getting locked up, at least as the grapes get ripe. 'Unknown toxin' sounds pretty weak. fg

I've moved to a vineyard property and the question of dogs eating grapes is becoming a possible concern as the grapes ripen and the dogs begin to find them more interesting. I asked someone on a vineyard forum about their two Labradors in the vineyard. Here's the reply: "My dogs eat lots of grapes despite my best efforts and have never shown any ill effects. They eat dropped fruit and once things get a little sweeter, I can't trust them not to harvest their own when I'm gone. The yellow has a stronger drive for food and I've busted her before with purple jowels. My Petite Sirah is within their boundary and it leaves a pretty incriminating stain on a yellow dog." I think the bottom line is that only some dogs get sick from eating grapes.

In boarding kennels we find about 1 in 10 dogs is nuts about hose chasing and has to be confined when we hose down the floors (using high pressure). Gun dogs, GSD's and terriers (mostly SBT's) are the worst offenders. Had a tenant who bred Goldies. Her bitches were so hose mad that they'd go into a fight to the death about who got the hose. Needless to say, a bucket of water was not a good way to break up the fight. My own Labbies are hose shy, though I've never disciplined them with a spray.

Confused. If it's prey model shouldn't the diet include fur and feathers as well as meat and bone. I'm about to begin a major gopher trapping exercise (I'm in California now and there are zillions of gophers everywhere). Can't figure out whether it's ok to feed the gophers to the dogs. (A gopher is larger than a mouse but smaller than an adult rat).

How many litters can a cat have a year? How old does she have to be to have kittens? What is the average number of kittens in a litter? How old does a queen need to be to have her first litter. I tried to do the math on this one assuming six kittens per litter, three of them females, two litters per year, fertile at six months. The numbers shouldn't add up . . . it's multiplication . . . and offers the potential for exponential growth, which often leads to explosive projections which can range from tens of thousands to multi millions depending on a few initial assumptions. For me the math wants to come up to a very large number. If you count not only the queen, but also all her progeny and her progeny's progeny, you can come to a number approaching 500,000 in the sixth year; change the assumptions and you end up with hundreds of thousands more or less. The most important, and most absurd, assumption you have to make to get a very large number is that all kittens survive and reproduce. Of course, most barn kittens die without reaching adulthood, and most owned house cats get speyed before they have a litter . . . or shortly after the first litter. Few families want to go through with a second litter. On the other hand, a ferral cat in an area rich in rabbits may succeed in raising litter after litter, and her kits may also succeed, for many years, ending out with enough cats to begin keeping rabbits in check, and more than enough cats to decimate native animal populations. I think people are being too hasty to dismiss the RSPCA's comments about cat fecundity. We aren't confronted with unwanted kittens everywhere because a large fraction of cat owners get their girls speyed. Personally, I'm glad that's the case. Btw, the issue is one of projections, not statistics or facts. Projections vary greatly depending on the assumptions made in the model used to make the projection.

Second that. Applecross does good Xrays and isn't extra expensive. If you're a breeder you get good discounts. I once had a dog done twice . . . Applecross' rays were much clearer than those done by the other vet.

I don't do insurance. I figure my dogs are healthier than average cause I take good care of them and keep them away from roads. I figure that with insurance you're always paying for someone else's bad decisions, plus the expense of supporting well-paid professionals in downtown offices. I have always been a saver . . . and the amount I've stashed away by not doing insurance is more than enough to pay for a $5k vet bill, should one arise. I'd say, set up something like a trust account for your dogs, and deposit your insurance premiums in it. It won't take more than a year or two to build up a pretty good buffer, especially if you have more than one dog. thanks for the advice. Yes it would take ages to save up...

In defense . . . there has been a lot of work on aggression in cockers, and it the problem appears to be genetic. I can't remember the authors, but they are in the Vet school of the University of Barcelona. Even if 'rage' is a myth, bad temperament through wrong breeding is real.

You can also train 'good hole' / 'bad hole' without a clamshell. In some places I've lived there has been a cool shady moist place that really suits the dogs on a summer day, and I've encouraged them to use it as a dig place. For the most part they stick to the chosen spot. One reason dogs dig is to stay cool in summer. Hard to fault a dog for doing that.

Given your great credentials with dogs, you might do as well posting a note on DOL asking if anyone plans to go on travel. Some folks have a hard time finding good house/dog sitters . . . eg, boarding kennel owners often don't travel cause it's so hard to find responsible people to look after the kennel. It's also worth putting an add on Gumtree.com.au. There are versions for most if not all capital cities and it's free to post. The rental market is pretty rough in capital cities and there are quite a few people looking to house sit.

Hard to say anything without knowing how they did the study. The author of piece I read clearly has an axe to grind. As a rule, when someone claims a scientific study proves anything, you can bet that the person knows little about science and has their own agenda.