sandgrubber

Hi Midol, Good to hear about your successes. I'm about to start e-collar training for the same reason as you . . . to get reliable recall and be able to let dogs off lead. Could you please fill in a few details . . . or if you've stated them earlier, give us a lead about where the thread is. How many dogs are you training at a time? Are you using a two-collar system? What brand are you using? Are you using a 'system' or working it out on your own. Keep us posted.

Actually . . . have a look at The Third Chimpanzee (Jared Diamond, 1996). Diamond is a much respected scientist and a brilliant writer. He develops the theory that some of the nasty traits that make human history so brutal are found in chimps as well . . . though chimps lack the means for full scale war and genocide. I think another place to look in understanding dogs vs. wolves is the process of domestication. Balyaev's work on foxes was amazing . . . see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/807641/posts

Thanks, guys, for the correction of my understanding . . . I guess I've come to associate "she'll be right" with certain people's attitudes to safety gear in the building industry . . . glad to know that "don't panic" is the normal meaning.

I've been reading through the tire-jump incident thread in the training forum . .. I've lived in Australia for 12 years now. I have a gut feeling that something goes wrong in management of risk. Having trouble figuring out whether this is a universal problem, or something peculiar to Australia. On one hand there's the "she'll be right mate" attitude that ignores, particularly, but not only, when competition is involved. On the other hand, there's a "nanna" attitude in legislation that, in a spotty fashion, puts in severe measures to try to manage risk. For example, in many places in WA, it is illegal to have a kennel -- even whelping facilities -- within 10 m of a dwelling, and in most of WA it is illegal to have more than two dogs on a property. I hit the "she'll be right" attitude in unwillingness to contemplate the possibility of a major, severe fire coming hitting kennel zones in WA. "We've had fires before, we coped" . . . although the fires encountered were piffling little blazes of 10 or fewer ha I'm not objective enough to know whether this tension between obliviousness to risk and legislative overreaction is worse in Australia than elsewhere . . . or whether it's an inevitable dilemma . . . found everywhere. I'd love to hear other's opinions . . . or is this too philosophical for DOL?

If you're SOR, there's a wholesale export placed called, I think, Advanced Pet Foods in Naval Base. They sell a good quality biscuit called Vitality for $35 for a 20 kg bag, and bags of mixed biscuits . .. probably not quite as good, for around $20 for 20 kg. The local rescue people use them . . . if you're interested and need more info, PM me and I'll hunt down an address and phone number

Ah well. If you get her desexed in April, you shouldn't have to repeat the drama. I hope she turns out to be a good girl for you . . . despite getting off to a troublesome start.

Ah well. If you get her desexed in April, you shouldn't have to repeat the drama. I hope she turns out to be a good girl for you . . . despite getting off to a troublesome start.

no joke. GEESE attack everything and they're pretty scary when a flock circles you hissing and flapping. I once knew someone whose grandfather was killed by a swan.

Also . . . if you want them to eat veg, let them get a bit hungry. Feed the veg first without the meat in sight/smell. Or mix the veg with meat. Many dogs are happy to eat veg if they view it as the only thing or the best thing on the menu.

If you want to use ointment, I'd suggest something like Aloe Vera, which is extremely bitter and won't be something a dog is keen to lick off. I think paw paw may simply be one more reason to lick. Mine all love Illium neocort . . . another thing people often put on irritated skin.

The nutrition debates, human, and even more so dog, are so thick with rubbish that it's hard to get down to useful solid evidence backed information. Making sense out of it makes rocket science look simple. Someone recommended Give Your Dog a Bone (Billinghurst, 1993) to me, perhaps six year ago. Although I found the concepts appealing, almost no evidence, other than anecdotes and vaguely cited documents, was given. Inflammatory statements, implying conspiracy between vets and petfood industry, left me scratching my head. Likewise Lansdale. I find vets are all over the place . . . some pro-commercial, some open minded, some pro-raw foods. The dietary trials that form the basis for the formal literature on canine nutrition don't begin to address complex questions, like "show condition" or the merits of mixing fresh and prepared food; even trace nutrient requirements are poorly established. They often know how much must be fed to keep a dog from showing obvious deficiency symptoms in six months .. . . but what will keep it healthy throughout its lifetime? Personally, I think we're all shooting blind, learning from trial and error, doing the best we can. Some people are arrogant about diet, others not. Some people just take a line and stick to it, others worry and pile on more and more goodies, others experiment with this and that. Personally, I feed what I do because I can observe that my dogs love raw foods; also that chicken carcasses are cheap as chips and seem to be a good basis for a diet. Minimizing processing and buying locally are good from the perspective of sustainability. I hate the idea of importing pelletized meat by-products into Australia, a country that is awash with meat. I feel good about using a few supplements (the main one being a by-product of culling feral carp) and giving my dogs a bit of veg on the side. But I'm not surprised to see one of the pups I bred come back to me looking great . . . despite having been fed nothing but high quality imported biscuits in carefully measured amounts.

ditto that . . . though it's past tense . . . the dependent one recently passed away. I got her at two years. She had mama-itis all her life. Nothing to do with training . . . she was house trained, but little more when I got her. I'll never know whether her early life made her dependent . . . I tend to think she was wired that way. Dependency may be related to responsiveness, but I don't think it's a close relationship.

Ever heard the joke about why dogs lick their balls? Answer: Because they can. Maybe the same is true for bums . . . for some dogs. If there are no other symptom, I'd not worry about it. Keep watching, smelling, etc. It may be the equivalent of chewing fingernails for some kids. Who knows what goes on in a dog's head.

I planted a few butternut squash this year and it looks like I'll be getting 50 to 100 kg of a vegetable I rarely eat. I know some people feed it to their dogs. What's the best way to convert it to something they'll eat -- not as a main course -- something to go along with their raw meat and occasional egg, yoghurt, etc. Cook it? Dice it and feed it raw? Are the seeds ok? Must it be peeled?

I also run a boarding kennel (also do most of the work). I prefer gundogs. I love to watch dogs play, and don't like fights. Gundogs are usually happy campers, and have a fine time gadding around with other dogs of most any breed. Mind you, it's common for gundogs to be gawdawful diggers. I breed Labbies. It's hard to generalise about drive. My foundation bitch had only food drive (which she had by the bucketful). She wouldn't fetch. She wouldn't chase anything. She wouldn't swim unless it was very hot and I went in with her. Others are fetch mad. I think with gundogs as pets, prey drive is easily transferred to toys.

I can't resist. . . It's four foot drive. I think they just like to run in a pack . . . sled or no sled. They are energetic dogs, and I think most of them get cooped up or chained when they're not mushing. If it were prey drive, I'd think it might switch to real prey, with the result that the sled ended out crashing through bushes in a jolly chase of some animal.

I am sure others will have recommendations for a vet. But it may not be the vet's not wanting to deal with Musky, but rather, not having a silver bullet and feeling awkward because he/she doesn't have an elegant way to deal with a distressing situation. There are some things that veterinary medicine doesn't have down pat. So you may have to do the hardest thing of all, hang in there with the uncertainty and worry and keep your fingers crossed. In the little experience I've had with seizures, the diagnosis can be difficult, and figuring out the medication can take some trial and error. Some of the meds make the dog so groggy they can't do anything, though they get through that in time. Sometimes the meds work. Sometimes not. I hope it all works out for you and you get down to a stable regime.

It must always remembered that "kennel cough" isn't one virus, but a bunch of viruses lumped together by a couple words. There are many strains, and the disease landscape is always changing. Some strains are best untreated, though the vet may be happy to take your money for some antibiotics that don't work. Others may give way to bacterial infections that respond well to treatment. Some last three days. Some go on for months. It is possible that your dog has a virus, but the symptoms are not classic "kennel cough".

not to mention what would happen if you trained a dog to walk behind and then took it into the show ring I walk my four together on lines. Having them go behind would be a nightmare.

Someone once told me that in training guide dogs, you MUST develop the dog's ability to choose, eg. to ignore commands that may result in danger. If a dog is given a command to walk out in front of a train and it obeys, it would endanger its blind owner. I'd be curious to know if this is true . . . .am I correct in assuming that drive training is a better approach for achieving this . . . that is, at an advanced level, the natural instinct to respond to danger may be allowed to over-ride the response to commands? ps, I really don't know . . . there's no agenda in the question.

deleted . . . accidentally posted twice

No problem. Although something about the way the thread is behaving reminds me of how my mob do recall when they go out as a pack

Do watch the pup and make sure he can't get to the garbage. Silica gel won't kill her, but some things can do damage. One to watch out for is those thin spongy absorbant sheets that they often put into wrapped meat packs in the supermarket. Another (yuuukkkk, gross!) is tampax.

I wouldn't count a Uni degree in animal behaviour as much of a qualification. Theory, maybe, but not practice. I am told that one of our local prominent Uni-trained behaviouralists (I think he call himself that) stated to a Ranger's conference that pound dogs should be euthanised, not rescued, because many of them were in the pound because of unresolvable behaviour problems. This is heresay . . . but having BS, MS and PhD myself and spent a lot of time around the highly educated, I find it entirely plausible.

I think they think it sounds more scientifical