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sandgrubber

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Everything posted by sandgrubber

  1. My guess is we will continue to disagree. . . that's fine. I don't place a lot of weight in "I know someone who knows someone" sort of evidence. But, apart from having lived in Brasil and met a few Filas (at a distance) I can claim no expertise here . . . other than trying to read and seeking what appear to be balanced sources. Here's my source on the Dogo http://www.bulldoginformation.com/dogo-argentino.html . . . I'd guess it's fairly neutral. I've lived in Brazil, and have enountered Filas in the flesh . . . but only at a distance, and have done a fair amount of reading on Fila websites. I btw, if you want to evaluate the source you might like to read the APBT description on www.bulldoginformation.com . . . I'd say it's a sympathetic but realistic . . . I don't think I said the Dogo was used for fighting . . . but that the creator of the breed had fighting in mind. My sources agree with you . . . it's primary use is for dangerous game, particularly wild boar. The Fila is used more as a guard dog from what I saw in Brazil, but they say it's also used to protect cattle from jaguars and was at one time used to track runaway slaves.
  2. posted twice ... DOLF and Mozilla aren't getting along. Sorry.
  3. The US is a large and diverse place that encourages freedom of speech. So it's likely that there are some misinformed people who think boxers are related to pit bulls. Ok .. . long ago . . . through the common ancestral wolf genes. But Chihuahuas and Newfoundlands are also related to APBTs . . . and to boxers . . . and to the whole kit and kaboodle As for the numbers, I think we're missing connection. I, and others who have made an honest attempt to form an opinon on BSL (btw, what is BDL?) and found what numbers we can. 'The numbers' we find when we look around are far from perfect for reasons that are widely and prominently advertised. They are imperfect goods, but they are goods. And time and again they suggest breed-specific problems. Your turn. Please find some numbers; fine if data are rough and have to include caveats. Anything concrete that shows that bull breeds are no more problematic than other breeds would be of great help to those of us who are, at heart, against BSL, but find a lot of evidence saying some breeds are a problem.
  4. My guess is this story is shifting sand. My gut feeling is that there have been multiple domestication events . .. there is no wolf bitch Eve, but many wolves that have gotten closer to many populations of people and become domesticated to some extent. From what I know of anthropology, wolf-dogs started hooking up with hunter-gatherers -- as scavengers who removed waste and provided an alarm system -- long before the farming civilisations of the fertile crescent came to be. The genetics on this one will be messy, because dogs/wolves are so amazing in their ability to interbreed.
  5. Pathetically weak. Is there anything in Australia that goes even that far?
  6. Great story! Good on the Police for not shooting first and asking questions after.
  7. See posting on In the News. Winston went to court and spent a week in the clinker. But he's out on good behaviour. And I wonder what will happen to the dog..............I hope he survives the 6 month probation period
  8. We live in a kennel zone and carry a 50 dog license. We pay $15/dog for the license. We are not required to register resident dogs.
  9. The discussion of forum moderation leaves me curious to know if people use the Report button. Probably better not to replay the circumstances under which you used it . . . no need to reopen old wounds.
  10. Reminds me of a tiny little filler article in a local paper I saw a long time ago. Simply reported the costs of re-upholstering the police car after some kids let a skunk loose inside of it. If you've ever smelled skunk close up you'll appreciate this as droll Yankee humor. Sometimes a hundred words can convey more than a video.
  11. Interesting you claim APBT, SBT, BTx and ASBT (whatever they are but it proves my point) are one and the same, so do I (except for BTx). In other jurisdictions so is the Boxer and any shorthaired muscular looking dog, as is the AmBulldog. I agree apples and pears is a poor comparison, chalk and cheese much better. Interesting how you misinterpret my words and think anyone has proven any point. I went up a step in the Linnean system and aggregated species into genus. I can imagine places where similar use of aggregation might aggregate Homo sapiens, H. erectus, and the the Austrailopithocenes (H something-or-other) . . or go up another notch and class us together with the chimps and gorillas to say something about some primate group. That is not to say there is no difference between us and our ancestral species or taxonomic cousings . . . or that there's no difference between an apple, a pear, and a nashi pear. Just to say we're part of a larger group stemming from a common origin -- as are apples and pears. Chalk and cheese do not share common ancestry, so far as I know. As to dogs . . . the boxer originates the Mastiff group and does not fall in the same branch of the family tree as the bull terriers. Dog family trees get messy, cause in theory, all of them can interbreed. More basically, to quote Bill Gates: "Show me the numbers." If the available data are poor, tell me where I can find better. Saying the CDC never concluded there were breed specific problems is not satisfactory. Maybe the CDC was under pressure of some sort that prevented them from taking a position. Every data set I come across points to a problem.
  12. Actually, the Doggo is a breed largely created by one person and he had fighting in mind. I can't speak to 'all Doggos', but I think some of them still have quite a bit of fight left in them. As for the fila, it's a breed I'm glad is banned. So long as the breed standard calls for extreme hostility toward strangers, which should be shown at an early age, and specifies that the dog should not be faulted for biting the judge at a dog show, I think the breed has no place in Australia. It's guarding function also included tracking down runaway slaves in the old days. Kidnapping of children for money is big business in Latin America, and there's a role for fierce guard dogs. Not here. (To verify, try Google and go for official breed sites and major breeder websites).
  13. Thinking about this thread, some day I think I'll have a 'game' litter . . . and name the pups things like Monopoly, Tiddly Winks, Black Jack, and Two Card Stud.
  14. Many years ago when I lived in New Hampshire (USA) they busted a local town cop, a deeply unpopular bloke with a miserable life story, for shooting pets in New Hampshire, cutting off their ears, and collecting on the bounty on feral dogs in Vermont (the next state over). There are some sick and sad people out there; there always are. The bloke, btw. wasn't arrested. He was demoted. But because he was the one and only town cop in his town, the demotion didn't mean much.
  15. Sorry to be petty, but 'amounts of dogs'? Please. Numbers of dogs. Dogs are counted as individuals, not measured by the kilo. If Labbies and Goldies seem to be targeted, it's likely that they're doing resale, especially if pups are being taken. I can't imagine using breeds that won't be a good fight being targeted for 'bait' in the fighting ring.
  16. If I find the data messy and can't separate apples from pears, I go to the category 'pom fruit' or Roseaceae -- something that encompasses both apples and pears. Likewise, if there are real problems separating SBT, ASBT, APBT and BTX's, the normal way to deal with ambiguity is to move to something like 'bull breeds'. If this is done, the results will still look bad. Try that with the NSW dog attack data . . . the bull breeds are in big trouble. Yah, yah, yah . .. the APBT barely makes a showing in the years since BSL appeared in NSW; that's probably because a ranger who reported an APBT attack would immediately be pilloried by a 'boss' for improperly managing a restricted beed, so it's easier to say 'bull terrier or bull terrier cross'. In my observations, in Australia, in Europe and the US, the bull terrier group has a wide range of temperaments. I love the 'good' Staffies and have met some very loveable APBT's and ASBTs. In the broad sweep of things, I think bull terrier folk need to knuckle down and push people into breeding out aggression. Instead I see them attacking people who hold up the best available data and implying they are Nazis and saying that the best available data are rubbish. If you don't like Sachs et al, please let us know where better data are to be found, or even, what methodology you'd recommend, given the great confusion that 95+% of the population has distinguishing the various bull breeds, to come up with more accurate data, and the immense difficulty of coming out with accurate breed identification at a state or national level.
  17. I brush my dogs teath daily by giving them bones to chew on. The vets regularly comment on how good my dogs teeth look. I think dog tooth brushing is a big rip off. If they eat even semi-naturally their teeth stay good.
  18. I allow and encourage 'drop in' inspections, but try to steer them toward less busy periods of the day when the kennel will be open and attended. . . ie, not the middle of a feeding cycle or bath time.
  19. I would check around for information on the boy's sire and dam and any siblings to find out whether that's a 'good' 8:8 or a 'bad' 8:8. I was confronted with a similar choice years back and opted to do an AI with chilled semen instead of use the local boy with less-than-excellent hip scores. I think the bottom line is 8:8 to 0:0 could produce lots of outcomes, and on the whole you'd expect scores to come down from 8:8 . .. but they could go worse. I was told that the Rotti people allow or disallow matings based on the total score of the sire and dam. The story was that they were finding that focus on hip scores was resulting in generally smaller, lighter bodied dogs. The combined score approach was used to allow people to bring really sturdy dogs -- who may tend to have worse scores -- back into the breeding pool. Maybe a Rotti person can shed more light here, as this was an over-the-fence conversation and I may be repeating something that's incorrect. My memory was that people view the combined score approach satisfactory. Btw, some people seem to end out with high scores. I think maybe they come from the pup spending too much time on concrete or not getting the right sort of exercise . . . who knows. If there's something like that going on 8:8 may be a good score.
  20. I would check around for information on the boy's sire and dam and any siblings to find out whether that's a 'good' 8:8 or a 'bad' 8:8. I was confronted with a similar choice years back and opted to do an AI with chilled semen instead of use the local boy with less-than-excellent hip scores. I think the bottom line is 8:8 to 0:0 could produce lots of outcomes, and on the whole you'd expect scores to come down from 8:8 . .. but they could go worse. I was told that the Rotti people allow or disallow matings based on the total score of the sire and dam. The story was that they were finding that focus on hip scores was resulting in generally smaller, lighter bodied dogs. The combined score approach was used to allow people to bring really sturdy dogs -- who may tend to have worse scores -- back into the breeding pool. Maybe a Rotti person can shed more light here, as this was an over-the-fence conversation and I may be repeating something that's incorrect. My memory was that people view the combined score approach satisfactory. Btw, some people seem to end out with high scores. I think maybe they come from the pup spending too much time on concrete or not getting the right sort of exercise . . . who knows. If there's something like that going on 8:8 may be a good score.
  21. Kennel cough is like flu. Lots of strains. Some of them awful. Some just a little uncomfortable and annoying. If the strain is mild, I recon it's like a free vaccination . . . something to train the immune system . . . and I make no attempt to isolate my own dogs. If it's a deep really sick sort of sick cough, I'd ask the vets advice. If it's going around the vet may have direct information about how long it will last, and how long it takes to show up.
  22. I didn't look at this thread cause I know nothing about Antibiotic Q. Cephelexin . . . ya . . . everybody is right. It's the same stuff as Rilexene and some vets prescribe a more generic Ceph. I've taken dog meds on occasion to guard against infection from dog bites, and I've given my own pills to the dogs on occasion (with veterinary advice). No diff. although I don't much care for liver-flavored tablets. Doses are variable, but a medium dose for a Labrador is close to a human dose.
  23. If my vet wouldn't sign off I'd direct them to the AVA website. If that didn't convince them, I'd change vets. . . . unless a good reason is given for going against the AVA guidelines and the preponderance of scientific evidence The reason it will be hard to get clear answers is that the people who make $$ off annual vaccinations will be slow to give up. Btw, there are still reasons to do an annual checkup. It may help you in getting the vet to sign off on 3 yr to make it clear that you still intend to do check ups. That would be good but my vet will not sign off on a i year vacc for 3 years and if I don't have a yearly or triennel vacc I cannot go to dog training or take my adult dogs along when we have Puppy pre school. My vet will not sign off on a 1 year vacc for 3 years. I do not give Proheart anyway, so no drama there.
  24. Denominators are easy to supply . . . and the conclusions generally get stronger when data are normalised cause the alleged problem breeds are less common than retrievers in Canada or GSD's in Europe. Yes, the data are ugly. But I doubt they are off by a factor of 10: Especially if you normalise them by the abundance of the breeds in question. As statistical evidence goes the data in the Sachs paper is next to useless, firstly there is no denominator and secondly there are too many 'unknown' cases. Without a denominator its not possible to come to any meaningful conclusion on the relative risk from different breeds. This becomes more evident when you look at data from other countries where different breeds are popular. In Canada you find large numbers bites from retriever breeds and in Europe you get more from GSDs. Other papers have attempted to correct for this both here and the US. The results are fairly inconsistent but generally risk seems to be more related to the size of the dog, ie bigger dogs bite harder not the breed. There are also too many other more important factors to become preoccupied with breed alone. S btw, if you want some Australian data that are normalised by breed prevailence try this http://www.dlg.nsw.gov.au/dlg/dlghome/docu...June%202005.pdf Rottis come off fine but pittis are still indicated.
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