sandgrubber

I've moved to the US from Oz. I find that in the USA as compared to Oz, vet costs here are higher, dry dog food prices cheaper, raw food prices are MUCH HIGHER, and puppy prices MUCH MUCH cheaper. Go figure. I can't make sense of it.

If you want to improve the site for your breed, they seem to be open to improvements. See:http://www.comparecanines.com/home/discuss

There is if you want it to grow and develop properly Or if you want to show her. Of course you can simply lie and say she's entire.

Fun site but not to be used uncritically. For example it implies that Labradors are 'slow to put on weight' I'd say it was right in 9 out of ten for breeds I know and checked (where right is defined as 'agreeing with me').

Exactly. I think it's a real problem to be breeding dogs that have very low thresholds to aggression. Raineth are you talking Breed Specific or dogs in general??? Please elaborate. If you are talking breed specific are you aware of the Breeds exact purpose and what they were bred for.(and before anyone jumps up and says the Bullmastiff was only breed to pin and hold their prey then I suggest you research the breed carefully) If you are talking dogs in general then once again please elaborate. I do not condone any action that these dogs have performed but I think people need to be aware of what they are saying before they say it. Any dog can have aggression. ANY DOG(not breed) CAN HAVE ENOUGH AGGRESSION TO SERIOUSLY HARM A PERSON. Some dogs would have to be pushed to rediculous extremes to attack a person. Others will 'go' if someone pushes the wrong button. These things are not breed specific, but do have breed tendencies. There are legit reasons to breed dogs that will attack. What good is a guard dog without teeth? Or a guard dog that offers its tummy to strangers? As I see it, the problem here was not the dogs, it was the fence and the owners lack of adequate precautions. If you live in city or suburbs or are likely to have people walking by your property, and have 50 kg dogs with guarding tendencies that are easily triggered, you MUST have fencing that is beyond sabotage. You should have double gates, too. And if you fail to install adequate precautions, you should be criminally liable, as well as vulnerable to large civil lawsuits.

I have cared for many special needs in an ordinary boarding kennel. We were usually able to serve special needs without a lot of special charges because the staff was experienced and our relationship with local vets was extremely good. A few pointers. 1. Your going to do much better getting experienced, attentive care in a low season (Ie, not Easter Holiday, which is VERY hectic for most kennels).2. Some vets offer boarding. Their kennels are often quite confining, without a lot of room for exercise or recreation. If they don't have 24 hour service, dogs may be left overnight with no one on premises. But they are in a position to professionally monitor problems.3. Have a good talk with the owners. Make sure that the staff who will be on duty are not casuals without a lot of experience. Look for experienced dog people with a good arrangement with nearby vets. Make us someone goes through the kennel at least three times a day, and is willing to agree to do specific checks or treatments on your dog when they go through the kennel.

Personally I don't think breeding aggressive tendencies out of specific breeds for "the general public" is the solution at all. Some breeds aren't suitable for ownership by "the general public" and breeders should man up and take responsibility for placing pups in suitable homes instead of being ruled by the all-mighty dollar and selling to anyone. And part of the blame needs to land squarely at the feet of people who think they have the right to own whatever dog they want regardless of their ability to control and care for it properly. If the general public is generally ignorant, your placement of blame will logically lead to BSL, to protect people from their...and their neighbors....ignorance.

Oh for God's sake .... Firstly, to state that a dog is savage, aggressive or any other similar terms ignores the fact that this is a dog who has stood many times for total strangers to approach and open its mouth to inspect, then for them to move to the rear and touch his testicles. Aggression can be a contextual state. If there was agitation by an intruder for example. if that attempted intrusion resulted in a gate latch being disabled and then dogs get out , then they could be in a different state even compared to discovering an unlatched gate with no owner/pack leader around. To see such dogs playing together and with strangers dogs in a yard and at shows, doesn't mean there will not be a situation such as this tragedy. there may be other situations where that aggression saves the owner and family from such an intrusion. this needs a balanced discussion, not reaction that is even more removed from the incident than the newspaper reports. I agree. I think many top show dogs (and ppedigree pet dogs) in breeds with guarding or fighting in their breed histories could potentially end up in the same situation. I. Don't think BSL is the solution, but some measures to breed out aggressive tendencies in dogs for the general public, and regulate ownership for dogs with lethal potential is needed. Hard to do, given how badly governments do with dogs. But it would be good to have greater pressure for selection for temperament, and transparency about dogs whose temperament requires skilled handlers and good fencing.

There's a 12 yr old Boston who comes to the same dog park as I do. She had to have BOTH eyes out last year. It's a big 13 acre fenced dog park...members only...so dogs are well behaved. This old girl walks all around the park off lead, slowly, and you hardly even notice her handicap. Her owner says it sounds like an awful operation, but really, it isn't that bad for a dog. After all, it's pretty common for eyes to pop out on pugs and other bug-eyed breeds. The surgery is minimally invasive. Hope it turns out to be nothing, but the case you're worrying about isn't that bad.

Yes its extremely dangerous. Not to the person having the vaccine, they are ok, but dangerous to the australian population as a whole if production of this vaccine is increased. In order to produce this vaccine, animals have to be kept infected in Australian labs. Killed virus vaccines can be imported. I can't see any danger in doing so.

One way . .. . if you give the dog an anti-inflammatory or other painkiller and it becomes much more lively or acts happier, you know it's in pain.

I'll bet it was one soft hearted, muddle headed person who made the decision . . . .not the ASPCA as an institution.

Yes its extremely dangerous. Not to the person having the vaccine, they are ok, but dangerous to the australian population as a whole if production of this vaccine is increased. In order to produce this vaccine, animals have to be kept infected in Australian labs. Why not import it? Effective killed virus formulations are available, cheap, and can be transported in refrigerated containers.

Bats, megabats, fruit bats and flying foxes – it's all the same animal. Do micro bats belong to the same family & equally carry the Lyssavirus? A cat could so easily wrangle a micro bat & bring it inside. A real worry. Seems they do. NSW Dpt of Health: In Australia, only bats have been found to carry Australian bat lyssavirus - both the larger flying foxes (or fruit bats) and the smaller insectivorous (or micro) bats. Bats, ie Chiroptera, all belong to the same Order. It is the largest order, in terms of number of species, in the Mammalia. There are 18 families in the Chiroptera. I somehow doubt that anyone has studied if all 18 families and 200+ genera of bats can get the virus...better to be safe than sorry.I'd say the bigger worry is that some rabid bat will fly to the Top End from the Indonesian archipelago ... Because many bats live in colonies, they can spread a saliva borne disease quite rapidly among themselves...and most, if not all, mammals can get rabies.

In most states in the USA you're required by law to vaccinate your dogs against rabies. I've never seen anything written to say the vaccine used for humans can be harmful. It is recommended for people working with animals in areas with known problems with rabies. The post exposure treatment used to be painful. I think it involved a large needle to the stomach, but am not sure. I think they now have a less drastic shot available.

A 'perfect dog'???

Almost by definition of digest, yes. If an animal can break down starch to metabolizable molecules...that's what enzymatic digestion does ..., it can metabolize the molecules. Where I'm unclear is whetherr a dog, with four copies of the gene for amylase, is twice as able to break down starch as a wolf with two copies.

Oops, double post

Here's hoping someone will figure out the significance(s) of the 19 regions that have to do with the Brain. Also 4 to 30 copies of the gene for amalyse is a huge range. Does this mean that that some dogs are much more able to digest starch than others? Hope we get more analysis of these results in the future.

My impression is that PETA would happily eliminate most, if not all, pet dogs. If such a drug can be developed it needs to be highly regulated. Show dogs aren't the only concern. I could imagine the stuff being used as a 'humane' alternative to 1080. Say goodbye to wolves in the wild. And I wonder why they chose dogs rather than cats. Feral cats are an ecological disaster. See, eg, http://www.npr.org/2013/01/29/170588511/killer-kitties-cats-kill-billions-every-year?ft=3&f=122101520&sc=nl&cc=sh-20130202

The sniffling behaviour comes from blowing with the nose to "lift" the scent molecules ... ie get them into aerosol form to allow the vomeronasal organ to process them...and then inhaling the lifted scent.

Found a good description of the whole scent system on the web.http://www.whole-dog-journal.com/issues/7_11/features/Canine-Sense-of-Smell_15668-1.html Extracted from that article...but I'd recommend reading the whole article. It contains amazing figures comparing dog to human olfactory systems. Elsewhere the author says the vomeronasal system works synergistically with the other smell system. The result is something we humans can hardly imagine. "Jacobson's Organ Inside the nasal cavity and opening into the upper part of the mouth is the final piece of the dog's scent-related puzzle, the remarkable Jacobson's Organ. Jacobson's Organ is a "sense of smell" receptor that is actually not receptive to ordinary odors. Rather, the scenting nerve cells of the organ are quite different from those in normal olfactory tissue in that they respond to a range of substances that have large molecules, but often no detectable odor. The sensory cells of Jacobson's Organ (which anatomists claim are unlike any other nerve cells) communicate not with the olfactory bulbs and cortex, but with the accessory bulbs and the part of the brain that coordinates mating and other basic emotions. In fact, recent evidence suggests that the two separate but parallel systems of odor detection cooperate in surprising ways to produce novel sensibilities not achievable by either of them on their own."

Go for a cotton lunge lead rather than a nylon lead to avoid rope burn. With a 10 m line you need to develop skill in reeling it in and unfurling it...takes a little practice.

In general reading about scent detection I've come across descriptions of a secondary olfactory organ, called the Jacobson's organ or vomeronasas organ. (Google the term for more description). Human noses only detect vapor phase scents from the air. This other organ works on liquid phase compounds. It's present in many mammals, as well as snakes and some other animals, but largely absent in humans. Most of the scientific research on this organ focuses on the sex lives of mice...pheromones, oesterus, and what not. Seems to me it may explain why dogs take such joy sticking their noses into odd and disgusting things; and why so often they seem to respond to things we cant sense. Putting your nose directly into a pile of something and snuffeling around a bit may be the olfactory equivalent of a magnifying glass. In my experience lots of biologists are fixated on sex, so it's to be expected that much attention has been given to the use of this organ in detecting pheromones, etc. But I often see dogs taking great pleasure in using their noses. Sticking them down a hole or into a pile of leaves ... And many many times I've found one of my dogs sleeping with its nose pointed directly to one of my smelly socks or some other item of clothing that has gotten fragrant through wearing...as though they get comfort from the body odor.Just curious . . . .has anyone seen anything good written in the dog behaviour literature that does a good job discussing what this sixth sense does for dogs?

Looks to me like one more person with opinions about dog breeds mouthing off. I have met two people who had their family Labrador pts due to development of jealousy toward the newest member of the household. This is not to say anything negative about Labbies. Great breed, generally fantastic with kids. BUT, any breed can be a problem with a baby if not introduced properly and supervised carefully. Anyone suggesting that you can get a good dog for an infant by selecting the right breed is an idiot, regardless of how many pink hearts they put around their text.