sandgrubber

Do you have ticks in your area? Of all the pests, they are the hardest to treat, and if you have paralysis ticks, the most dangerous. If present, tick prevention should be the cornerstone and the other meds selected to complement the tick prevention program. Btw. monthly heartworm is also overkill. The parasite takes about four months to get established and its lifecycle can be interrupted at any point during those four months. Every two months, therefore, is safe. And you may be able to drop the winter months if there are no mosquitoes in your area in winter.

I would call it shallow science. Correlation without causation. As for the causation . . . if your sample is heavy on small terriers and other breeds selected to kill vermin . . . a situation where gameness is of high value . . . you're likely to find you get a pack of aggressive little dogs. If your sample is heavy on pugs and Frenchies, you're likely to come to a different conclusion. McGreevy seems to have a propensity for shallow science. A few years back he and associates did a much-quoted study showing that the brain layout in brachy breeds was different from that of other breeds. Hardly surprising. Change the skull shape and the grey and white matter has to go somewhere. The conclusions say something like: the next step is to find out if this has any behavioral consequences. But so far, the next step hasn't been taken.

There is every reason to expect a lot of variation among dingos. Australia is a big place with many different ecosystems. Dingos in the wet north should differ from those in the dry interior or southern coastline. Add differences in history of association with people and differences in inbreeding with domestic dogs, and I'd expect huge differences in behavior. We had one dingo x in boarding kennel who would jump the fence to get out: she didn't especially like the other dogs. But she'd jump back in for dinner and sleeping. Another who was just a sweet and gentle dog, a little on the quiet and shy side. I'm sure there are problem pet dingos as well, but I'd guess they tend to die young.

+1 3 dogs who love storms

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/12/10/police-investigate-babys-death.html A baby girl was killed by the family dogs yesterday morning while her father slept on the couch in their West Side condo, Columbus police said. Mia Gibson, who would have turned 3 months old this week, was pronounced dead at Nationwide Children’s Hospital at 7:45 a.m., after she was taken there from her home at 1467 Lake Shore Dr. Apt. C, police records show. Mia was on the couch with her father, who was asleep, when she apparently fell from the couch and the dogs caused injuries that led to her death, said Sgt. Steven Little, of the first-shift homicide squad. Little said the dogs — both Shiba Inus — didn’t attack the baby, but rather appeared to be playing roughly with her. Little said it appears as if the death was caused by the dogs, although the baby had no major trauma visible. She did have several small puncture wounds on her body, he said. The Franklin County coroner will conduct an autopsy to determine what caused Mia’s death. “It looks like the dogs were probably playing with the baby, thinking she was a toy,” Little said. The dogs have been taken by animal control, Little said. Shiba Inus are a Japanese hunting dog and range in size from 17 to 23 pounds. Mia’s mother, Sabrena L. Gibson, 34, was in her bedroom when one of the dogs at the bedroom door woke her, Little said. She went into the living room and found her daughter injured. Mia’s father, Chris Kusumi, 33, told detectives he had slept through it all. Little said detectives spoke to both parents and will not charge them. The case will be forwarded to the Franklin County prosecutor’s office to further decide whether there should be charges. “It’s just an unfortunate situation, and it’s a sad situation for the family,” Little said.

The price drops rapidly if you ship more dogs. I was originally going to bring four. I think the quote for four was around $6000.

Small change compared to the cost of shipping them to Oz from the US

I agree with others, it's natural and not to worry. It's interesting how different chocolates bleach, fade and regrow. My three tend to get bronze streaks and turn a bit redder everywhere. Then blow coat and darken, starting from places such as face, legs and underside, where the topcoat is thinner. One of them gets a weak mask

I used JetPets to bring two Labradors from Perth to SFO a couple years ago. I think it cost me $4400. The paperwork is a pain in the bum, and it's worth getting a company to do it for you. There are export vet checks to do. However, as others have said, there is n quarantine, and you can do the rabies shot in the US if you agree to a 30 day home quarantine. The dogs were surprisingly ok with the transport.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/new-strides-in-spaying-and-neutering/?emc=eta1&_r=0 Todd Bruce, a herd manager on a farm in Oregon City, Ore., had long resisted neutering his 5-year-old Australian cattle dog, Cody, for fear of losing the extra set (or two) of legs in the field. “I just wanted him to maintain his working abilities,” said Mr. Bruce, 28. “I’ve had other dogs neutered that have had a lot of weight gain, and their bodies go through huge changes, and I didn’t want that to happen with my dog this time.” Then Mr. Bruce’s sister, a veterinary student, told him about Zeuterin, a drug that sterilizes male dogs without the removal of the testicles, thus preserving some testosterone production. In June, Mr. Bruce volunteered Cody for the procedure, performed by veterinarians as part of a training program at a clinic in Portland. The next day, Cody was back at work, enthusiastically rounding up livestock. “It was quick, painless and super uninvasive,” Mr. Bruce said. “He’s mellowed out a bit, but I haven’t had the problems I had before.” The 40-year movement to convince Americans that they should spay or neuter their pets has been nothing short of a triumph: 83 percent of owned dogs and 91 percent of owned cats are now spayed or neutered in the United States, compared with only about 10 percent in the 1970s. But surgically removing the reproductive organs of every pet is still time-consuming for veterinarians, unpopular among a subset of pet owners and ethically troubling to animal welfare advocates. It is also an impractical solution to sterilizing stray animals, which constitute the bulk of America’s nuisance animal problem. “Surgery is definitely a bottleneck for humane animal control,” said Dr. Julie K. Levy, a veterinarian at the University of Florida who has researched the problem. Now, a handful of nonsurgical sterilization treatments are emerging — led by Zeuterin, which could be commercially available in the United States by the end of this year — that could reduce or even eliminate the need for traditional neutering. “The truth is, we may have maximized what we can do with surgical spay-neuter,” said Joyce Briggs, the president of the Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs, a group advocating alternative approaches. “Nonsurgical sterilants could be a game-changer for animal welfare across the world.”

As I understand it, it's healthier to desex BEFORE the first season. Lowers chances of various cancers. If they intend to desex and she has attained full stature, why not go ahead?

I don't much care for articles that take points from another article and append their own interpretation to each point, along with removing the caveats and the original author's conclusions and discussion. Is the original article available (preferably without having to pay $30 or some such).

I think he should stop pussyfooting and point out: 1) That he kept his boy entire at the breeder's request, and he paid full price for the dog 2) That the need for a Ceasar has much more to do with the bitch than the dog 3) That he understood he was to receive a stud fee. If there have been two litters and one of them was two puppies, what happened to the other litter? It is always hard to figure out what is fair when terms were not made explicit. But it sounds to me like the breeder is taking advantage of the fellow's inexperience.

guess I won't worry about it and instead be glad! It seems to be a self-extinguishing as well as a self-rewarding behavior. I haven't seen a spider for several days!

oops double post

The Adventure Box also looks great, and easy to build at home.

Steve, these two references say things I've heard many times, and I think most of the educated dog community know and act upon. The posted article goes beyond this in its mention of CPV-3, and in claiming the jabs are actually giving dogs the virus. If I google CPV-3, I find it's a remote controlled helicopter with three rotors. Searching "Canine parvo virus 3" yields the following about a new test for the disease, but no indication that the available vaccines don't yield protection http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131107103402.htm

A most uninformative news story. Were either of both of the animals roaming? I don't have a cat, I don't hate cats, but I deeply resent having them freely trespass on my property, hunt small native animals, yowl at night, and crap in kiddies sandboxes. If you want to have cats, fine, but keep them on your own property. I used to live in South Fremantle. Rumor had it that we had no stray cats in our neighborhood cause one of the local fishermen viewed cats as good cray bait. The rumor was probably false, but it provided an incentive for people to keep their cats in at night. Until there are decent laws to keep cats confined, there will be people wishing malice on cats. For good reason.

I wish I could loan Patty (Labrador, 14 weeks) to you for a few meals. She's the most avoricious, greeedy feeder I've ever met. She thinks cabbage cores and broccoli stalks are treats. I would bet that putting your pup together with a real greedy guts for a few meals, and letting her discover that if she doesn't eat she'll go hungry, would increase her appetite for meals. Btw,you might try making her treats less attractive than her meals. Eg, carrots. I'll bet it will increase interest in meals.

This was in the local paper: Have four boy's and for girl's mom is red noise and the daddy is massive and red noise looking for a good home are seven weeks and ready to go 175.00 a peace !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (From the picture, I'd say red nose pit bull x mastiff.)

I don't detest cats. I detest free running non-native predators that decimate native wildlife. Cats that are confined to the house or a well built cat enclosure are fine with me. As for ferals, many places in the US have programs (our local one is called "Operation Can-Snip" ) that neuter feral cats for free. These are generally inadequate and feral cat populations persist. I don't see why you rule out euthanasia. After all, we slaughter rats with very nasty poisons, and rats are intelligent, social creatures. If you don't believe this, google "rat agility" . .. you'll be amazed. I can't imagine what would happen if there were as many feral dogs as feral cats, especially in urban and suburban environments. It would not be pretty.

In the US, legal definitions further muddy the waters. A legal site, commenting on dog laws says: "What exactly is a pit bull? There is no one pit-bull breed and no reliable way of identifying a dog as one of the pit-bull breeds. And because "pit bull" has become synonymous with "mean," any dog that bites someone and has a passing resemblance to a bulldog is likely to be labeled a pit bull." http://www.nolo.com/...hapter12-4.html In Riverside County, California (and probably many other legal jurisdictions) 'Pit bull is legally defined as "Any Staffordshire Bull Terrier, American Pit Bull Terrier, or American Stafford Terrier breed of dog, or any mixed breed of dog which contains, as an element of its breeding, any of these breeds so as to be identifiable as partially of one or more of these breeds." ' See: http://blog.pe.com/p...tails-revealed/ Many counties require that 'pit bulls', by the above definition, be sterilized at 4 months. The rationale is generally given that dog shelters are overflowing with such dogs, and they are disproportionately involved in dog attacks. Ordinances sometimes make exceptions for registered breeders of pedigree dogs.

On your #2 point, you've been fed hype. Dogs can digest starch. Recent DNA studies looking at the difference between dogs and wolves found that one big difference is that dogs are better endowed with the genes to produce starch digestion enzymes. One of the evolutionary changes that happened when wolf changed to dog is that the system got better able to handle starch. I wouldn't pay one cent more per pound for foods that substitute roots for grains (ie, sweet potato vs. rice). I still avoid foods where corn is the #1 ingredient. When I lived in Perth I fed pups (Labs) on a mostly-raw diet cause it's so easy to buy raw in Perth, and they thrive on raw. I've been away from Oz for some years, so you'll have to ask around about where you can buy roo, but I'm pretty sure Leonards still sells chook bones. My vets warned me off feeding chicken bones before 4 mo of age because chicken sometimes carries salmonella and younger pups don't have strong enough immune systems to handle salmonella. I generally adhered to this, but when one of my girls took to barfing up half digested chicken frames to feed her litter, I gave in to feeding raw chook to pups. Never had a problem, but it could be risky. Now that I'm in the US I'm feeding Eukanuba puppy to my Lab pup, along with eggs, veg and fruit (carrots, all cabbage family veg., bananas, apples). I find it's a lot easier than the raw diet, and, frankly, I can't see any difference in the pup's health. I don't like Science brand. . . have had lots of puking when I feed it ...and avoid the low end brands. But I can't see the value of the most expensive stuff. The biggest problem I had feeding raw to Labs is the fat problem. This is particularly hard when you feed raw. Chook frames are the cheapest and some say the best raw meat for dogs. But the frames from modern factory chook frames are grossly fatty. So are some of the other red meat cuts commonly sold for dogs (eg, lamb flaps). Even if you trim the fat, you're going to have to be quite careful with portions to avoid feeding too much. It's a lot easier to ensure that your dog is getting more joules from protein than fat when you feed a quality dry food product.

Where's the headline saying NUMBAT KILLED, CAT BLAMED Small critters have no chance so long as cats are allowed to roam. Cats are held responsible for the extinction of nine species of bird in Australia, and for pushing 33 other species to the brink of extinction. The Australian Wildlife Commission estimates that cats kill 75 million small native animals, daily. See: http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/natural-born-killers-the-problem-with-cats.htm

My Labs generally growl at daughters if they've been away for several months. It's a front. They make up to them within a few minutes. I tend to keep a daughter from each litter. They become much devoted to one another, playing, cuddling, and grooming. I have three generations at the moment. Gran and pup are devoted to one another, as are mothers and daughters.