sandgrubber

Good to know. When I flew dogs to the US they wanted a funnel installed on the outside so that they could put water into the can. I think they wanted it dry for loading.

Yes. Pitbulls are today arguably more ubiquitous than they've ever been; we'lI fight these laws every step if the way until they're dead in the water and our breed will emerge better than ever. You don't protest law buy obeying it. Disobedience puts dogs at risk. Not advisable. There are better ways to combat BSL.

I have flown Labradors from the US East Coast to Europe (Germany, travel requiring change of flights) and from Perth to San Francisco. In the latter case, dogs were over-nighted at a kennel in Sydney (JetPets service). I was a nervous wrech about both. The dogs hardly seemed to notice, though they were very glad to be out of their crates, and on the Europe flight, the dog was very thirsty on arrival. I confess that mine had quite limited crate training before travel, but they are pretty bomb proof. I would be a lot more worried about a brachy breed than about a dog with normal breathing. There is a reason that many airlines have banned flying brachy breeds: many individuals in brachy breeds have very low tolerance of heat stress, and fatalities are bad for business. Yes, if you fly in summer, or have a stopover near the equator at any time of the year, heat stress is a real possibility. (Where I live in the US you can't fly your dog if the weather forecast goes above 85F at any point in the day).

What does 'in control' mean? Say the engineer can't stop a train before it hits a car parked in a railroad crossing. Is the train 'out of control'? Are any dogs doing zoomies fully under control? Should it be illegal to allow your dog to do zoomies in public? Though my guess is a court of law could go either way on this one, should it go to court, I'd hope a judge would not find the dog owners negligent. A much better outcome would be 'use at your own risk' postings at dog parks. Finding the Rotti owner alone negligent -- because the Lab owner can't be found -- would seem a miscarriage of justice. It was, in effect, a conspiracy of two dogs that caused the accident.

Cool! Does Victoria also have shelters for cockroaches, field mice, and rats?

Pretty hard to outlaw stupid or vain. And calling idiots stupid seldom improves their behavior.

Following up on the fleas thread . . . Some people around here swear by diatomaceous earth for preventing fleas on the dogs and lice on the chooks. Has anyone had experience with this? If it works it would be an inexpensive and pretty easy approach . . . just sprinkle the stuff in the dogs bedding and wash it out periodically. I'm a little afraid of silica dust . ..

"Tattooing an animal for the vain sake of joy and entertainment of the owner without any regard for the well-being of the animal… is not something the ASPCA supports," they said in a statement. Whoa! How horrid. He doesn't have the support of the ASPCA Giving a tat to a dog that's under GA seems pretty harmless to me. But what an ugly, boring, trite tat! Looks like something a 1950's teen might carve into a tree. I would not call Mistah Metro an artist

Who is to blame and who would win a lawsuit are two different questions. I agree with the majority . . . no one is to blame. . . it was an accident. My guess is, had it come to a lawsuit, the party with the better lawyer would win . .. unless the judge was predisposed one way or the other. Details like how the park was posted (enter at your own risk?) could be important. As Zeebie noted, the lady who got hurt weakened her case by initially refusing help and not taking names. It's like getting into a fender bender and waving the other car off when they offered to exchange details. Then changing your mind and trying to hunt the driver down. If I were on a jury for such a case, it would bother me that she remembered only one of the two dogs.

Why does someone have to be at fault? I agree with the majority of posts . . . accidents happen. I hate the notion that there's always blame to be pinned on someone.

I'd guess it's complicated and not just sight. If her sense of smell were connecting properly with her brain I think she'd find the food bowl, even blind and deaf. I think you said you had a home for her. Seems to me the sad concern now is communicating with her owners-to-be about the potential extent of her disability and watching and waiting to see whether she moves toward, or continues to lag away from, normal. Hopefully there isn't a hard decision to make. I doubt you'll find much science to go on, as the awful situation you've been in has few precedents.

<br>Perhaps it varies by breed, but I think this is a gross exaggeration. <br>When I lived in WA I registered around 100 pups. I was entirely consistent. If people wanted main register, I agreed to switch after the dog or bitch was evaluated at 1 year. If hips and elbows were above breed average and eye tests ok, and the dog didn't look awful, I would grant main register. Only TWO of the pups I sold, one bitch and one dog, were switched to Main, and the dog was only used at stud twice. The bitch went on to establish a line that some would call BYB pups -- no showing, but not bad looking dogs and decent healthy pets -- I have no problem with that. <br>When I bred my first litter, in 2005, pedigree Labrador pups were going for $600 in the Perth metro area. Now they are going for $1800. This would not be happening if a large number of people were trying to recoup the purchase price.<br>If there's a choice between retaining genetic diversity, by breeding from stock who are not the type-of-the-year or whose owners are not interested in showing, or restricting breeding to the creme de la creme, I know where I'm going to cast my vote.<br><br>p.s. I had more problems in the opposite direction. There were a few dogs I would have loved to see the owners keep entire so they might have been used at stud. But no, most puppy buyers want to desex.<br><br><br>Of course it was an exaggeration!! However, if you breed a breed beloved of puppy farmerS, many of the enquiries are not from people wanting pets, they are from people wanting to breed, but they don't want to tell you that, nor do they want you to mentor them; they want to continue their dodgy ways, with the pup you sold them and they wanted the papers because they can get more for the pups if they are registered. There was a lovely lady with a little boy going around looking for a pet for him. She bought 7 altogether. <br><br>What a lucky little boy he is.<br><br>Are you sure none of your Labradors are not in dodgy breeding establishments, Sandgrubber? How do you know?<br><br>I haven't got a problem with genuine people buying my pups and breeding them. <br><br>Sadly, there are very few genuine people out there wanting to breed to improve the breed. I received 86 emails for the last litter I advertised, all seeking pets (or so they said). When I said the pups were not for breeding, the interest reduced drastically.<br><br>I don't think selling a pup to a 200 dog puppy farm does anything to widen the gene pool.<br><br><br><br><br>Now Aint that the truth.!!!!!.<br><br>It happens here a lot of the time and the new so called PET purchases soon disappear when told pets only leave here de sexed.<br>As so many of us say......it has nothing to do with what register they are put on. It is more to do with the lack of honesty of some purchasers.<br><br>Many of us could sit here all day and write stories of what we have been told by other breeders let alone what happens to us. Most breeders are not protecting blood lines they are doing their best to protect the puppy.<br><br><br><br>I<b> don't have</b> a breed beloved by puppy farmers and began my post with a statement that this may vary by breed. If I had Frenchies or Bostons or miniature poodles, I might see things differently.<br>I've heard a lot about protecting bloodlines in DOL posts over the years, and heard many complaints from newbies about the difficulty of buying a quality bitch or dog on Main register. It's not like there's an explosion of people looking to become new registered breeders. Difficulty of getting started is one of many factors contributing to the decline of pedigree dogs, and protection of lines is one factor weighing in on the side of narrowing gene pools and pushing the norm of various breeds to the most typey examples of the day.<br>As for whether some of my dogs were in dodgy breeding establishments, if there were dodgy mass breeders of Labradors in WA, it would be well known in Labrador circles. You'd be insane to look to WA for breeding stock for a puppy farm when the abundance and diversity of pups available is so much higher over East. It's possible that someone has chosen to have a litter from a much beloved girl, off-pedigree. (I know one puppy buyer produces a Lab x kelpie litter by accident). So what? I see no threat to the breed.<br>I think conversation would be more productive if breed-specific frustrations were labelled as such. If there are demonstrable problems with some breeds, perhaps DQ would be willing to make exceptions. Or perhaps the clubs for the breeds involved could have a serious look at their health requirements and write them in a way that denies breeding unless requirements are met.<br>Main vs Limited only deters breeders who care about selling registered pups. It doesn't hinder the DD segment of the puppy farm industry, or those selling pups without pedigrees.<br>Because some breeds suffer from predation by unscrupulous breeders does not mean all breeds should be encouraged to limit their populations of pedigree breeding dogs. If decisions are to be made to remove some dogs from the breeding population, I think it preferable that those decisions be made when the dog approaches adulthood and both conformation and health problems are more apparent. <br><br><br>p.s. I don't think the UK has made a distinction between Main and Limited Register. Is that true? Has it caused problems? And I think the Scandinavians tend in the opposite direction, to limiting the number of times an individual dog can be used and requiring paperwork before desexing, with the intent of preserving diversity. At least in my breed, there are some lovely dogs coming out of Sweden and Finland these days.<div><br></div><div>p.p.s. If I were a dodgy mass breeder I'd fight tooth and nail to keep highly restrictive registries. Limiting supply and increasing the exclusivity of your product is a great way to improve profit margins. And lets not kid ourselves, there are some rotten apples among registered, show-winning breeders, including even judges.</div>

Bump and btw if you want to buy handmade dog stuff there's heaps on etsy.com. You can also sell there.

My vet said, no chicken before 14 weeks because immature immune systems can't handle Salmonella. However, one of my bitches took to eating her frames, then puking them for the pups could feed. Thereafter pups got necks and as they got bigger, frames to suck on. Didn't have any problems. Here in the US, frames and necks are hard to come by, so the last litter didn't get bones. (Labradors, so large-ish pups and greedy guts).

Almost every dog owner thinks they are a responsible owner. Distraught? Of course they are distraught. Anyone would be, if for no other reason, because there's a possibility they they might be held liable (not to say they aren't distraught about the little girl's suffering). Remorse does not absolve guilt. If the dogs truly were secure, the accident would not have happened.

Perhaps it varies by breed, but I think this is a gross exaggeration. When I lived in WA I registered around 100 pups. I was entirely consistent. If people wanted main register, I agreed to switch after the dog or bitch was evaluated at 1 year. If hips and elbows were above breed average and eye tests ok, and the dog didn't look awful, I would grant main register. Only TWO of the pups I sold, one bitch and one dog, were switched to Main, and the dog was only used at stud twice. The bitch went on to establish a line that some would call BYB pups -- no showing, but not bad looking dogs and decent healthy pets -- I have no problem with that. When I bred my first litter, in 2005, pedigree Labrador pups were going for $600 in the Perth metro area. Now they are going for $1800. This would not be happening if a large number of people were trying to recoup the purchase price. If there's a choice between retaining genetic diversity, by breeding from stock who are not the type-of-the-year or whose owners are not interested in showing, or restricting breeding to the creme de la creme, I know where I'm going to cast my vote. p.s. I had more problems in the opposite direction. There were a few dogs I would have loved to see the owners keep entire so they might have been used at stud. But no, most puppy buyers want to desex.

Poor girl, poor family. What a welcome to a new country! I would like to hear that the owners of the dogs were held criminally liable and made to pay for the costs of pain and suffering and a small girl, quite likely disfigured for life. I would expect to hear that the dogs were pts and the owners went off and got some more dogs to replace them. If the dog owners were held responsible for the full extent of the damage that poorly managed dogs cause, a dog catcher for 3 hrs a day might be more than sufficient.

Diagnosis might be a bit different depending on whether the people growled at were familiars, with whom an ordinary pup would have bonded, or strangers, and on how the pup reacted to adult dogs or other pups. Assuming pain or correctable physical problem can be ruled out. Could be an early and extreme guarding behavior, in which case the pup should only be placed with an owner who wants and is capable of managing such temperament. If the aggression continued through to, say 4 months, and was shown toward all animals and people, I, personally, would pts without feeling a need for behavioralist evaluation. Admittedly, the behavioralists whose work I have seen may not be the best, but my sense is most behavioralists have a bias toward thinking problems can be fixed/managed. I've seen people go through months and months of training and end up with little improvement. Given a choice between the heartbreak of having to pts a pup and the heartbreak of doing extra training and fencing, and still having to constantly guard against aggression; and possibly, eventually, mop up after the dog harmed or killed another animal or mauled a person, I'd choose to pts.

Borrowed from OffTopic

If the pup is healthy and the aggression is not rooted in pain, I'd be worried about genetics of temperament. Is the pup only aggressive to strangers, or to everyone? Puppies can be aggressive from a very young age, but in almost all breeds this has been largely bred out. The exception is the Fila where one segment of the breed community deliberately selects for aggressive pups: See http://www.mindspring.com/~anableps/Image%20Pages%20folder/Ojeriza.html : "On the contrary to other puppies, a Fila Puppy is not inclined to relaxed playing with anyone. He attaches himself quickly to those with whom he lives but is, however, from his earliest youth suspicious of persons he does not know. Suspicion may make him irritated and annoyed and to some extent even make him growl with a certain amount of aggression, but yet without sufficient self-confidence to attack. In the course of his development the aversion against strangers will become more and more apparent. Already as a puppy the Fila will clearly show his displeasure if a stranger would try to touch him. At about the age of one year the Fila would attack any person unknown to him who would try to touch him." (Written by a Fila breeder who is Hon. Secretary of one of the two major Fila breed clubs in Brazil).

I wasn't there and didn't see it, so my opinion of whether it was a bite or not is irrelevant. But in my book, it's quite possible for a playing dog to break skin, especially if they are jumping when they make contact and the person has thin skin. My dogs break my skin on a pretty regular basis . . . accidentally. . . especially when young.

I just found my original reply to this . .. it's in the health and grooming forum. It's confusing to have the same post in two different forums!

While it's true that the outer coat may provide some shading, you're got to be a mean bastard to your dog outside on a hot day without access to shade. Once shaded by a tree or overhead roof, there is no further gain to shading (you take your sun hat off when you go inside, no?). The provision of cover is far more effective than guard hairs because it cools (technically prevents the warming) the surroundings as well as the dog's back. Shade cuts down the heat gain from absorption of solar radiation. That's all. The dog's coat's main effect on energy budget is to trap dead air and interfere with convective energy flow (as with a doona or jumper). It also interferes with conduction, ie., reduces the extent to which a dog can cool itself down by digging a hole and lying to the cooler dirt that's down a couple inches. The only way a coat has a cooling effect is if the dog is wet, in which case, provided it isn't near 100% relative humidity, evaporative cooling will help a whole lot (hence the love of clamshell pools). A longer coat holds more water. Sweating vs. panting is relevant only in that it makes long nosed (not brachycephalic) dogs better able to withstand heat than we are. They have a significant internal evaporative cooler which is poorly developed in humans. We have a surface cooling system, but it doesn't help much to reduce core temperature.

This topic comes up every year. I did my annual reply, but somehow it disappeared. I don't have the patience to reconstruct previous post but its essence is: THE PHYSICS BEHIND THE 'ANTI-SHAVING ARGUMENT IS BULLDUST!!! Heat energy flows from DOWN gradient, from warmer to colder. Your dog is usually around 39C. If the ambient temperature is less than 39 C, you dog's coat is helping it to retain body heat. It is NOT cooling the dog. No air conditioning. More like throwing on a doona on a hot night. There may be good arguments against shaving your dog's coat, but keeping to core temperature down is not one of them.

I still see value to input from people with assistance dog experience. Both the dog and your child will live on for a decade or decades. They will change. Needs will change over time. It's hard to see the long haul from the present without input from people who have done that road before. Whatever decision is made, make sure it is tempered by construction of scenarios for 10 years in the future.