Sandra777

The best food for your dog is the food your dog does best on.

Yes - many dry foods are sprayed with fat and flavours to make the dog want to eat them, so some do smell horrible to us.

What are you feeding now and what specific things are you hoping to improve with a change?

Hi guys

Quick update - I have spoken with my breeder and she was very supportive. She has suggested that if it looks like there are only a couple pups I should discuss an elective caesar with my vet as she may have trouble bringing the actual labour on. I will speak with my vet today about this as an option.

We walk our dogs on a golf course near home and there are really other animals there so I might take her for a short walk tonight to try and use up some of her energy. I'm a little concerned about her jumping onto the bed but I'm having a hard time discouraging her. I'm not sure how firm I should be on this point - if it's not likely to hurt her or the puppies then all I'm doing is confusing her?

See - wasn't so scary was it :)

The best advice is don't panic - dogs have been having puppies for thousands of years and although sometimes things end up in a disaster, most of the time they know far more about it than we do. If in doubt, phone the vet or the bitch's breeder, but if you panic your bitch will too.

Let her play if she wants to - just be aware that if she bashes against a hard surface on the wrong angle she could damage herself so just be aware of where she's playing. Yes she should be walked - giving birth requires a fit and muscular body.

I don't think I said I agreed with the abort/spay option either actually. I think the OP should spay after the pups are born.

Nothing in my comments suggests that you did agree with the abort/spay option

In your situation I would de-sex/abort even at this late stage, IF I could find a vet to do so as I can understand it must be very traumatic for all. I have had a litter born 10 days early, all survived, so a week out they would certainly be born alive.

Do you know how many pups she is having - for this you will need an x-ray from a decent machine & a good vet to read the results.

Make absolutely positively sure you know where you can go for GOOD repro help in the middle of the night - (it's always the middle of the night). Make sure you know what clinic is open when, how much it will cost and that you have the money available up front. For an emergency clinic budget anywhere between $1500 and $3000 but make sure you KNOW.

If she has more than 2 or 3 pups, I would strongly suggest you consider culling the litter down to this number - firstly because it's virtually impossible to find responsible homes for Stafford pups and secondly because she will manage better with just a few.

I find it curious that your dogs are tested clear of L2 & HC - why would you bother to DNA test a bitch you never planned on breeding from?

me too....

Best of luck OP - I wouldn't want to kill the pups either

No drama from you when multiple people say abort/spay but wait a week so the bitch isn't subject to a risky op and it's suddenly not OK...

The DNA testing was conducted by our breeder prior to us getting both our dogs. They were both show dogs initially and we got them when they were both 5 months old.

Ok - now this is getting bizarre, I'm outta here.

Hope your bitch is fine having these pups, please contact her breeder.

I find it curious that your dogs are tested clear of L2 & HC - why would you bother to DNA test a bitch you never planned on breeding from?

clear by parentage?

Could well mean clear by parentage but she says tested.

In your situation I would de-sex/abort even at this late stage, IF I could find a vet to do so as I can understand it must be very traumatic for all. I have had a litter born 10 days early, all survived, so a week out they would certainly be born alive.

Do you know how many pups she is having - for this you will need an x-ray from a decent machine & a good vet to read the results.

Make absolutely positively sure you know where you can go for GOOD repro help in the middle of the night - (it's always the middle of the night). Make sure you know what clinic is open when, how much it will cost and that you have the money available up front. For an emergency clinic budget anywhere between $1500 and $3000 but make sure you KNOW.

If she has more than 2 or 3 pups, I would strongly suggest you consider culling the litter down to this number - firstly because it's virtually impossible to find responsible homes for Stafford pups and secondly because she will manage better with just a few.

I find it curious that your dogs are tested clear of L2 & HC - why would you bother to DNA test a bitch you never planned on breeding from?

I'd say yes some breeds are more prone than others, and some families in those breeds are more prone as well.

I've had a few over the years, from very mild to removing a 1kg uterus from a 14kg bitch - who had no temperature and showed no real signs of illness except a constant discharge. Think we got very lucky with that one.

Many years ago I had a bitch get it on her first heat, antibiotics cleared it and she went on to have 4 litters no problems as all. She was never spayed and lived to 14 when stomach cancer took her.

Tell the whole truth Rainy - one of your dogs would EAT the fence :laugh:

Back nipples pointing outwards has always proven a reliable sign with mine

Bitches of one family of mine will go out of heat very quickly if pregnant, not necessarily refuse to accept the dog any quicker, but once they do they go out of heat within a day or two (no more bleeding, swelling goes down)

i think that's where i am confused, do i continue with this hunting instinct or try to move away...

we have a small agility set up at home, hes AMAZING at the jumps and loves the tunnel more then anything, if i leave it set up and hes outside he will spend hours running in and out of the tunnel by him self lol

persephone - that would be amazing... are you being sarcastic or serious LOL wouldnt know the first thing about how to teach that!!

It's great that he loves jumps and tunnels, IMO he needs to also learn to be calm and careful and do very precise stuff too - such as the contacts and weaves I suggested.

Another thought - flyball??

You can continue agility training without a club - making him think will help tire him out. Easy to teach weaves, contacts, waiting (stay) the stuff that requires lots of practice, without too much equipment. Flirt poles are great - you can easily make one at home to see if he likes it, but it's hard to imagine a terrier that wouldn't LOL.

If you have a bit of room and some handy-person help you could make some earth dog style tunnels even if it's just some suitable sized pipes laid above ground.

Personally I'd be redirecting him away from hunting and on to stuff he can do WITH you, hard work with an independent minded terrier but if you're not going to be in a position to allow him to go ratting or do earthdog trials then he obviously needs an alternative you can both live with.

What TSD said... minced meat is not balanced, for me it would be better to feed a chicken Maryland or something that size and dry. Or if you want to feed mince then instead of necks which are mostly cartilege feed wings which have more bone. Nope don't randomly add calcium, especially with a large breed puppy.

I have friends that have spent loads of money on pet shop (back yard breeder) dogs because they are cute.

And if people stopped buying puppies on a whim from pet shops because they're cute it'd put the puppy farms out of business. Sorry, people need to take responsibility for their own actions, there is endless information available now via the internet which tells you why buying puppies from pet shops is a bad idea. No sympathy for anyone who spends a lot of money for a dud in this way. Most people do more research when buying a fridge than when buying a living animal.

If we can try and support genuine cross-breeders, perhaps this may be at the very least, reduced.

Cross breeding is not the same as breed development - which do you want? And incidentally - pure bred cross bred or breed in development not one single genuine breeder of any sort would ever place a puppy in a pet shop.

but of course they're all the show and breeding dogs so the pet quality puppies might end up nothing like these ones.

Not if the breeder is a good one. In most cases the difference between show & pet is so small most people wouldn't even notice.

There are prices for pet quality puppies on the websites (approx $800-1000 depending on breeder) but POA for show quality puppies. What sort of % increase in price would you expect to see in a show quality puppy?

None. Pet & show are the same price here and with most people I know.

Also - there is no such thing as a show quality puppy - show POTENTIAL, yep, but if the breeder is offering show quality - run away very very quickly..

As I understand it, there's no point giving her probiotics now as the antibiotics will just kill them off anyway. As Persephone has said - fresh food diet, nothing artificial and she should be OK. Once the problem is solved then a short course of probiotics may well be a good idea.

Why do we let ourselves love them so much. It's never easy but I too believe that for people who treasure their dogs you do know when it's time. You never want to but you just do. Be kind to yourself and let her tell you when it's enough.

Yes. I had a bitch years ago who was badly attacked at a show by two dogs of other breeds at the same time. She was a pup, the other two slipped their leads, being walked by the same person. She refused to have anything to do with any breed except her own from then on. Ironically, she was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. :laugh:

So two apparent black dogs do not produce black offspring? A K^Bk^br dog would be true black but carry brindle and would only produce true black to another with the same K^Bk^br genes. The same applies to blues. Do they not produce clear blues when bred together?

Not in numbers enough to support the idea they are black rather than brindle, hence why it's always been believed "black" doesn't occur in Staffords.

Phenotypically black dogs have not produced a large enough number of black pups to lend any credence to the idea they are genetically black.

There's a few DNA testing for colour and all the ones I have seen have come back k^br - including one absolutely black pup I had here.

There's a fair amount of anecdotal evidence that black Staffords are frequently tan-pattern but with black brindle points, black brindle so intensely black-striped they appear black. Tan pattern is often seen in the same families as these black dogs.

The standard says black, brindle, red,fawn or blue. No genetically they're not black and in reality only one in a couple of thousand is black - as opposed to black brindle - but as the standard uses the term black the club will too - the class is for black brindles and the fun is in guessing which one is black brindle and which one is brindle :-)

So sorry to hear what you've gone through but glad Maddie is on the mend.

No reason for you to hold your temper at this moron - I would be hitting her up for my medical costs as well.

Hope you are all OK

All of them. Freeze first to avoid hydatids. If you really have to choose I'd be going for the tripe because that's really hard to buy!

She also likes to desex later for pet homes, but registers on the Ltd register to cover against breeding (I think)

To me this sounds like a fabulous idea...best of both worlds I guess?

Limit register doesn't stop breeding, it's stops registration of pups. With SOME breeds the difference between registered and unregistered really isn't that much so limit register pups are in great demand with BYB in these breeds. And of course with other breeds they are in demand for cross breeding, crossbreds of some breeds being sold (was going to write "worth") for more than purebreds.

Ive heard of others repaying $XXX when the new owners desex the animal after the appropriate age...so they basically pay show dog price for a dog on the ltd register, and after the animal is desexed at 18-24 months, the breeder refunds the difference between a show dog and a pet dog??

:laugh: my show potential pups are either free (in some circumstances) or the same price as pets. The refund idea is valid and a good thought, but again - one litter of unreg'd pups or crossbreds in some breeds is going to get the BYB way way more than the refund will ever be.

Sadly incentives only work on the honest, and all a breeder can do is vet potential homes and try their best to find responsible homes with good people. Thankfully there's still lots of them out there.

There is no one answer and I'm not saying the breeder you have chosen is wrong :)