sandgrubber

Good on you for not naming names. You'd likely be up for a lawsuit if you had done so. The dog world, unfortunately, is awash with malicious rumours. Make sure before you spread gossip.

Sorry - it's been a few days but I only saw this post just now. You said you had 10 pups each with vaginal AI's. Are you willing to tell me which vet you used? I am also in WA and am contemplating breeding a maiden bitch using frozen semen. I usually go to Applecross who now use the trans servical method to A.I. Have PM'd you. This was chilled, not frozen semen. Applecross did the prog testing.

Sorry to hear Mischa isn't suckling. Will she suck on your finger? If not it's likely that she's in bad shape. If so, it's likely that there's something about Molly that isn't working. If you do go to the vet and she/he recommends feeding formula, you might ask about tube feeding. It sounds horrid, but it can be much easier and effective for feeding very young pups . . . provided you do it right.

Given the hype and counter hype, I find it hard to be objective about APBTs, and wind up as a fence-sitter on this debate. If the debate is to be resolved, people are going to have to build better cases. Lots of assertion being thrown around with little evidence, apart from long lists of anecdotes. Eg, in the above, Dogs from fighting lines (such as Peterbilt) did not produce successful fighters. Being polygenetic (such as many traits) it is quickly lost. The easy/biddable, moderate temperament in Labradors and many other Group 3 breeds is polygenetic, and tends to be present in Group 3 X-breeds. A Lab X kelpie is likely to be toned down from the high-strung, energetic, somewhat manic temperament that makes kelpies great herding dogs but dogs that require good management to make good pets. Also in the above: Giving a dog a weaker opponent or a bait animal destroys it's usefulness as a fighter. Totally unsupported by evidence, and I see no reason to believe it is true.

Poor woman. What bothers me most in this story is not breed, but numbers. Large, not-friendly dogs should not be permitted to roam in packs. I'm no expert on dog behaviour, but as I understand it, dogs with drive are much more likely to take on large game (including people and cattle) if they are in a pack situation. That this was permitted shows a serious break down of government.

Interesting. I assumed it was something like the game in "I'm game" . . . and thus meaning up for anything, enthusiastic, or at least willing to go along. Game as an adjective is a word going back to the 1600s. It is from a very Old English word "gamen" which means joy or pleasure. Funny how a word can take on so many meanings.

I learned about a new version of NIMBY. It's COVE. Stands for Committee Against Virtually Everything. Sounds like a good issue for them to take on.

Cant you trust the person you are selling her to? Good question. I think I trust her, but I wish I had more trust in my own ability to judge character. I am a trusting sort, and a few people have violated my trust. By far the easiest solution is to let the pup go on the Mains and hope for the best. The pup has great health profiles as far back as I can follow her pedigree, so maybe I'm being overprotective. Gawd damn it's hard to find the balance between trust and doing your part to ensure that people do the right thing. Maybe I should give up trying to be policeman. In some ways I think the growing tendency to caution and 'accountability', aka officious behaviour, is a worse scourge than the occasional small scale breeder who tries to make money off breeding a bitch that shouldn't have been bred. I have a gut aversion to co-ownership as a way of exherting power after a pup once it placed.

Have you gotten a quote from Applecross. I had some frozen semen with them for a short time. I don't remember what the fee was, but I know it was annual, and I think it was closer to $50 than $150.

Probably cost a few hundred dollars max, and less time than people have wasted responding to this thread. Come on guys. This is a democracy. Open letter. BFD!!!!! People, and organisations, even misguided organisations, have a right to mouth off.

Agreed 100%. But for people who hit tyranny of distance on finding the ideal mate, AI is a godsend.

I want to transfer a girl on Main Register with No-Breeding until she's reached a year and had health tests as appropriate for the breed done. Unfortunately, as things stand with my breed, you have to do the tests before you can breed, the regs will allow breeding for a dog/bitch with bad hips or elbows. Sire and dam are both PRA clear, so genetic eye tests not needed. The obvious way to do it is a Non-Breeding Contract. That will require me to eventually do a secondary bit of paperwork to repeal the non-breeding contract once the tests have been passed. Is there a way I can get myself out of the loop, and set it up so that the Non-Breeding Contract dies if and when health tests are done and acceptable results are presented to the relevant Canine Association. p.s. I'm in WA, the bitch is going to SA. I'm thinking of moving back to the USA and would like to make things simple for the puppy buyer and open a channel for the breeder to require health testing even where the K9 authorities haven't been willing to do so. I'm no spring chicken. In th bigger picture, I'd like to set it up to avoid legal chaos that benefits only the [accursed] solicitors should I meet an early demise.

Where are you? Vitality is a great deal, but you can only get it directly from the factory in Naval Base WA.

An open letter is hardly a major investment I love watching CM, but don't find his advice is particularly useful for my own dogs. Hard to see him as harmful, however. I sense, from the amount of time the author spent on CM's rags-to-riches bio, that the author is a fan, and has an agenda other than neutral presentation of news.

I can see being worried about AI in a breed where natural matings are a problem. Eg, I understand that many Bassets have trouble cause the boy is too heavy for the girl, and I know of one girl who has to be AI'd every time cause she'd like as kill the boy. I don't like the idea of a breed that can only reproduce via AI. But where distance is the only obstacle to a natural mating (or perhaps the death of the dog), what's the problem?

The locking jaw might be something to submit to Mythbusters. . . . which I prefer to JJ. You might want to look at the definition of 'game' thread under BSL. APBT's are, apparently, bred to be highly tenacious, determined dogs with a fighting spirit. But if there's a locking on, it's in the mind, not the jaw.

I don't know why anyone considers AI second best . . . I have seen no evidence that there's a biological difference in the pups. I'm in WA and simply can't take the time to go to the Eastern states for a mating. I wouldn't do frozen semen with a maiden unless there was a strong reason to do so . . . it's a fairly invasive procedure and not cheap . . . I'd prefer to do it on a bitch I already know is fertile and a good mother. I've done chilled semen with vaginal insertion on three maiden bitches . . . I got 10 pups each time. Timing is critical. Progesterone testing is important. A good repro vet is important.

I'm boomer generation, raised in California. My folks thought that a few litters was a good way to help us learn the facts of life. I can't remember any of the neighbors having puppies or kittens: but people (apart from my parents) were pretty conservative in the 1950s and they wanted their children to believe that the stork brought babies. I guess we were protected from other facts of life, like dogs getting run over and puppies that couldn't be placed with good homes. I don't remember what happened to any of the family dogs except Tonka, who hamstrung a neighbor's calf and ended out getting deported to someplace hundreds of miles away. He came back, and eventually got put to sleep. Our dogs were never fenced . .. almost no one had fenced yards. Nor, can I remember, were any of them formally trained. A few kids taught their dogs to do tricks, but most didn't. Our first dog, and English Springer Spaniel, used to bring home the chooks from next door . . . unharmed but they went off laying for a few days. Kids and dogs both wandered pretty much freely. There was a big Afghan named Stupid (the sort of name kids remember) who always came to the bus stop with his kids. Dogs HAD to get vaccinated and to wear their rabies tags or the dogcatcher would take them.

I guess Australia doesn't have a monopoly on stupid rules. Why on earth would they make AI difficult if they want to increase genetic diversity? They also want both potential mates to have reproduced naturally before considering AI. eg they won't accept that the dog or bitch is 'not dog friendly' as a valid excuse to AI. The KC also don't approve of those mating frames used by some breeds. You could consider these rules as wanting to keep breeds with the ability to be able to breed naturally without the conformation and temperament of a breed preventing it. You don't need AI to increase genetic diversity. What do they think is wrong with AI? You don't NEED AI for diversity, but it sure helps, especially where a breed is rare and funds are limited. Say you were breeding a rare Japanese breed in the UK; there were only a few dogs to choose from, and the ones you like best are closely related to your girl (the equivalent situation is widespread in Australia, but we have to go through quarantine as well as international shipping). It would be a damn sight easier to import a few straws of semen than to find someone willing to sell a first rate dog and bring him over. And if you do bring over a top-rate dog and don't mind making him available, you're likely to suddenly find everyone using him . . . with bad consequences for diversity. If you had done AI you could use a dog who is so good the owner is unwilling to let him go . . . and if you didn't like the results, you could repeat the exercise with another dog.

I guess Australia doesn't have a monopoly on stupid rules. Why on earth would they make AI difficult if they want to increase genetic diversity?

Have a yarn with California fire fighters. Quite a few people do put their lives at risk to save their pets in fires, and a few actually die in the attempt. It's a nightmare for the fire crews.

In recent years, there have been several litters in WA where some (roughly half) of the pups were something like brindled (mosaic). I wouldn't call them black and gold, but someone might. In some cases both sire and dam were titled. Pamela Davol discusses this, and black and tan labs, at length: http://www.labbies.com/genetics2.htm Such pups are generally registered on Limited Register. I don't see how this undermines responsible breeders.

If you go to the Kennel Club website and follow the links on the story, you'll find a BREEDER INFORMATION section. Apparently this service is going to allow you to look up health records on any bitch or dog . . . and in time veterinary information will feed into it. Thus, in time, you may be able to look up sire, dam, and the grands and get hips, elbows, any major health conditions, cause and age of death, etc.

Labrador -- from a litter that seems to have given up biting flesh at week seven. Yazmin has already sat down with all 10 of them and had them jump all over her, so, fingers crossed, it isn't going to be one of the cases where the girl wanted the puppy and then gets the puppy and discovers it has sharp little teeth.

I had a welder custom fit a Ford Festiva with a separator . . . which allowed me to put up to four large dogs in the back without worrying about them coming into the front. No crate needed. No fuss.