dancinbcs

this just to save me writing it all out again Yep, me too - took the words right out of my mouth! In a litter of 10 with pretty uniform temperament, I often doubt my own ability to pick 'the best' puppy for the particular family. Why not let them feel that they got the 'best' pup . . . or the one they chose. Yah, there may be one or two pups that stand out, and, say, seem like they might be better for a more active home. But I go for predictable temperament, and I often think my attempts to choose amount to playing God. What breed can have a litter of 10 with uniform temperament? I am used to BCs and we usually get the whole spectrum of temperaments from laid back to hyper and everything in between, within any litter larger than 3. Not just my litters but every litter I have ever assessed for anyone else as well. This is why I am totally against BC puppies being allocated before at least 6 weeks.

The Commodore Wagons from 2000-2007 are the big ones. From 2008 onwards they are useless space wise.

I am driving one for a couple of weeks as a hire car after my 2001 Commodore Wagon was crunched in an accident last week. Still waiting to see if they can repair my car. Anyway, I requested a station wagon and they gave me a brand new Territory. Have to say I'm not impressed space wise. It is big on the outside and a pain to squeeze into my driveway (have to get out and fold the mirrors in) but the interior is a waste of space. My Commodore fits two 90x60x60cm crates in the back with the back seat up. The Territory isn't as long or wide behind the back seat so I have had to fold down all the seats, just to get two crates in. It is only about 80cm long behind the back seat and about 105cm wide at floor level, narrowing as you go up. It is higher so you could put a false floor in but that would reduce the space even further because the back window slopes so much. There is a lot to like about the Territory but it hasn't been laid out to maximise interior space. The steering wheel is a strange shape and uncomfortable to hold and it is VERY HEAVY on fuel.

Can I ask if his parents were hip scored and what those scores were? HD does happen on BCs but isn't very common among dogs from the better ANKC breeders. Sadly it seems to be a problem in unregistered BCs.

Very sensible puppy to submit to every new dog it sees. Far less chance of any dog attacking her that way. Try not to keep getting her to meet lots of new dogs until she gets to know a handful of them better. Once she gets to see the same dogs a few times she should get to know how they are going to react and relax around them. I definitely wouldn't be taking her up to bigger dogs you don't know. If you are not certain of the dog's temperament keep your precious baby way from them. JapSpitz are very good at being full of bravado when safely contained in a crate or behind a fence. Take them out of the safe environment though and they have the sense to know not to take on anything bigger than them. Dogs are pack animals and like to be in a pack of dogs they know. It is not normal or desirable for dogs to bound up and greet every strange dog they see. Wild dogs are never friendly to dogs from another pack. You will have a far better trained dog if she concentrates on you and ignores most other dogs than if she is a social butterfly wanting to play with every dog she sees.

Less food and lots more exercise.

This means that the dogs do not "carry" the gene as a recessive trait. They only need one copy of the gene from one parent to be affected but the degree they are affected will vary from barely noticable on examination to completely blind. Unaffected progeny (those that do not have a copy of the gene) from an affected dog can never produce the problem. With recessive problems a dog has to inherit one faulty gene from each parent and therfore have two copies of the faulty gene to be affected. Dogs with one copy are unaffected carriers. With dominant problems only one copy of the gene is required for the animal to be affected. Using coat pattern as an example. A merle dog can vary from a tiny patch of merle to all over colour pattern but it must have one merle parent. Non-merle offspring of a merle can never produce the pattern unless they ate mated to a merle. Then the pattern will come from the other parent.

Why on earth did they breed the bitch and not bother to find out what they needed to do when she whelps? Surely the bitch would be better off at home with someone close by to mentor the owners. Also if you sold them a dog, why don't you know where they live? This all seems very strange.

If she has only had the testing done since the litter was sold then, yes, she has an absolute legal and moral obligation to inform her puppy buyers that their puppies could also be affected. Regarding the bolded bit above, is this person a registered breeder? If so I would hope she changes the parents around and also uses outside stud dogs. There is no excuse in a common breed like Cockers for just using your own studs. Each litter should be carefully thought out and the best dog seleced for each bitch, no matter who owns him or where he lives. A sure sign of someone out to just breed for profit in a common breed is that they only ever use their own stud dogs.

They dig because the uterus is still contracting back to normal size and in some bitches it causes cramp like pain. The remedy is buscopan tablets to stop the cramping pain.

she has had all adults tested, she has no idea if any of the others from the litter were also affected, regarding what she is selling with breeding papers, if you mean the pedigree papers then they will all have those, statistically at least half of the litter must be carriers. if they were sold on main or limited register I don't know myself. If she has tested the adults, why did she do the mating that produced the puppy that has also tested as affected? It doesn't make sense to a do a mating like that and then just test one puppy, you would test them all. Are you certain this puppy is affected and not a carrier? If you are using DNA testing then you simply don't do a mating that could produce an any affected offspring. If the breeder did a mating likely to produce carriers then she would only need to test the one she kept to find out if it a carrier or normal. Anyone else breeding from the litter mates would need to test them before breeding anyway.

Not sure about Qld but in NSW it is illegal to sell puppies without vaccination and microchip. At least this puppy is 9 weeks and they aren't paying much for it. I know someone in NSW that bought a 5 week old supposed "British Bulldog", unregistered, unvaccinated and not microchipped. I hate to think what they paid for it with the current price for BBs and when I urged them to return it the same day they bought it, they unfriended me on FB. This person, I have known for 35 years, is very intelligent but my pointing out the fact that the puppy was far too young to be sold, the laws that had been broken as well the fact the puppy looked like a crossbred and was nearly all white (so likely deaf)as well as looking like it had a skin condition, all fell on deaf ears. I apparently spoiled their excitement at getting a puppy and they didn't care if they had been ripped off and were probably in for years of health and temperament problems. I also have a relative getting an "oodle" this weekend. I spoke at length to her about why "oodles" are a bad idea, where thaey come from, etc. She doesn't have time for a puppy and I managed to find her a stunning 4 year old Champion retired show dog for just the cost of desexing. She was all enthusiastic then suddenly changed her mind and ordered the "oodle" puppy. I give up. Many people see a puppy and turn into complete idiots as far as thinking things through. Unfortunately there is not much you can do about it except sit back and watch the train wreck that is about to happen.

Fairly unusual to get a mating 2 days before ovulation. Most dogs don't mate until after ovulation, sometimes several days after and that is why they seem to whelp before 63 days. All of my litter have been born 59-63 after mating but they were all pretty much 63 days from ovulation as is normal for all dogs. All were normal matings. My breed never goes over 63 days without it being a problem. If they haven't arrived on day 63 it is in for a caesar because I have never known anyone to have a healthy litter born late.

There has been some very good advice on here and you need to find the right dog within the right breed. In a lot of breeds the temperaments vary a lot and you need a bombproof, non-reactive, middle of the road dog for this situation. I too would advise against anything small enough for your son to pick up. When young children pick up puppies the puppy squirms, gets dropped and broken. Unless I am convinced that parents will be able to get their children under about 8 to sit on the ground to handle a puppy, I won't sell them one and my breed are 5-8 kgs at 8 weeks. Puppies are easily broken. With most kids between 1 and 8 you need sturdy dogs that are too big for the child to pick up and even more so with an autistic child. Although you need an active dog, don't make the mistake of getting a hyperactive one. The child and dog will feed off each other's activity levels until both are out of control. Try for a more placid easy going dog that is happy to run and play but also likes to sit quietly. Keep in mind that even the most active puppies only play for a about an hour at a time before needing a few hours sleep.

I have just had to deal with the same problem. After having 2 to 5 Borders at a time, for over 25 years, I suddenly lost one of my two remaining dogs in June. She was the mother of the 7 year old male I have left and he was not coping with being an only dog. What I really wanted was a puppy by my dog but that may not happen in the near future. I have a lot going on at present so didn't want to lease a girl for a litter and then thought if I bought in a girl I would be back to 3 dogs in a couple of years if I bred a litter to keep a puppy. A male Border would be no use to me to keep my lines going unless it is by my dog, so that wasn't an option. Finally I settled on the breed that was always going to be my "next breed one day" and last week brought home an 8 week old male Japanese Spitz. The males in JS are more placid than the females and I picked the puppy with the temperament that I know I could live with. My Border is very tolerant with the puppy and is still not overly impressed with him but I'm sure he will enjoy the company once the puppy is a bit bigger and they can play properly. The size difference is a bit too much at present, the puppy can be rather obnoxious and my Border is too placid to teach him any manners like my BC girls would have done. In your situation I would get a male BC puppy to train up the way you want it. 2-3 years is a nice age gap and the male Borders are much easier to train and much more devoted than bitches.

Keep up the good work trying to convince your friend to do the right thing. If she is too ill to walk the dog she is far too ill to raise a litter of puppies. Puppies are a lot of hard physical work with often many lost nights sleep for the owners at the start and the constant feeding and cleaning up of puppy pee and poo for the last four weeks at least. You have no idea how much poo a litter can produce until you have to deal with it. Then being Lab cross puppies they will chew and destroy everything they come into contact with. I know you believe you will be able to find homes for the puppies but sometimes it just doesn't happen. The demand for large crossbred, especially black, puppies is very low. Without knowing what the sires are and having the current BSL laws in Vic could make finding homes for puppies of unknown parentage impossible. If there is the slightest chance they are Pitbull or Amstaff cross then you will not be able to sell them. If several dogs are following a bitch in season the one that actually gets to mate her is going to be the most aggresive, so that is also something to keep in mind. When I worked for a shelter we regularly had part or whole litters of medium-large cross breeds surrendered because the owners had done everything they could think of and could not find homes for them. At some point they could no longer afford to advertise anymore or keep feeding growing puppies so had to surrender them. Unfortunately we had not much more chance of finding homes either and many of these litters were put down the day they came in. Basically if we already had one litter for sale all the others would be put down as they came in. We were lucky to find one home a week for large crossbred puppies and that was at a major shelter in a capital city. You have all the good intentions in the world as do many people who raise unwanted litters at great expense of time and money but the reality is that after all that there is a better than average chance that most of these puppies will not find homes and will have to euthanised so please keep working on the owner to either get the bitch desexed or sign her over to you.

And what would that achieve? It would abort this litter so she could come straight back into season, get out and get mated again, not to mention the risk of pyometra as well. The owner of this dog has proven herself far too irresponsible to own an entire bitch let alone raise a litter and if she wants to keep the dog it needs to be speyed now. Talien - I don't envy you at all because I sure as hell wouldn't want to share a house with someone that treats her dog so badly. Good on you for getting the info you need but now you have to be strong enough to convince this "friend" to finally do the right thing by the dog. Perhaps organise a trip to a shelter with her this week and call ahead to see if they can talk some sense into her. A visit at euthanasia time for the unwanted dogs would be ideal. There is nothing like watching healthy unwanted puppies die because no one wants them, to make you act responsibly and not bring unwanted puppies into the world.

Glad that the dog found her way home but she needs to be desexed in the next couple of weeks. If I was you I would just take her and have it done Is your friend prepared to have the bitch die when she whelps if she gets a puppy stuck because she was mated to a dog too large? She won't know the exact whelping date so may not get help in time if there is a problem. If she does get help a caesarian could cost her $1000. Alternately the bitch could have a litter of 10-14 mixed breed puppies that will cost her at least $400 each to feed, vaccinate, microchip and raise to 8 weeks. Then it is unlikely she will be able to find homes for puppies that she has no idea what the father is. Is she prepared to then have these puppies put down when she can't find homes for them? If she sells them and they develop hip displasia, she could be sued for $1000s for corrective surgery because she didn't have the parents hip scored. 10 puppies each needing $5000 worth of surgery is a possibility. So I hope your friend is cashed up because she will need at least $3000-$4000 on hand to raise a litter if all goes well and much more if it doesn't.

Are council officers in Vic able to enter a house without a police warrant? I know they can enter a yard but would be interested to know if they are legally able to enter a house if refused entry by the owner.

These new laws are targetting those that have been trying to flaunt the existing laws. There is an immediate solution until the legality of it all can be questioned. Register the dogs as required and comply with regulations, that are similar to the conditions that racing Greyhounds must be kept under. Any dog as strong and powerful as a Pitbull should be kept under these conditions anyway. Their agility and strength means they can easily escape from a normal fenced yard so they need to properly confined for their own protection. Wearing a muzzle in public also isn't the end of the world. Greyhounds and many working dogs wear them without a drama. With the public fear of these types of dogs, you would need rocks in your head to have one off lead in public. There are lots of "Pitbull types" (not SBTs) in my area of NSW and I can almost guarantee that they aren't registered Amstaffs but I am yet to see one being walked with a muzzle on. They are just about the only breed you see being walked or running loose in the streets around here, so the laws are not being upheld in NSW and the morons that own them are just creating more of a problem that will come back to bite them all.

I wouldn't be refunding one cent without a copy of the x-rays and a score on them from a qualified radiologist.

That's a little unfair. I agree she's an idiot. To some degree I may even agree with you that she doesn't deserve to get her back. That said, I would not want to see her in anyone else's hands. Some dogs are lucky if they are fed and loved and played with as much. Others don't even get given a chance :*( Edit: She is a 4yo Black Labrador I don't think it is unfair at all. All bitches in season bleed and yes they can make a mess but they still need to be kept secure inside or in a dogproof run when in season. This bitch had already escaped before so her owner knew it was possible and if she can get out, dogs can also get in to the yard. Many a bitch has been mated by a dog jumping into the yard and it is never safe to leave a bitch in season in a yard unsupervised. If the owner couldn't guarantee to keep her safe at home she could have boarded her for the duration of her season but instead she has allowed her to escape. If she wasn't prepared to keep her safe she should have desexed her. This is the ultimate in being an irresponsible dog owner. I am not having a go at you because it isn't your dog but the owner needs a big wake up call and I hope the poor dog doesn't suffer because of it. The chances of a Lab coming home on her own are pretty good but it won't be until she is coming out of season and has most likely been mated by every dog she could find. Hopefully she won't come to any harm in the meantime. If you get her back please do whatever it takes to get the owner to immediately desex her before the pregnancy progresses any further.

How good are they at finding their way home? It depends on the dog and the breed. Some are great and others hopeless. Why on earth was a bitch in full season put out in the yard without being supervised? Hopefully she will end up in a shelter where she will have to be desexed to be released because she will almost certainly be pregnant by the time anyone finds her and your idiot friend does not deserve to get her back. If you are going to own an entire bitch then you have to take responsibility to keep her safe when she is in season.

I've been feeding BARF for over 10 years to several different dogs. I had one dog that couldn't eat kibble and raw bones. Once I cut out the kibble and went to all raw he was fine with the bones. Some dogs have a hard time digesting lamb but are fine with other bones. One I have at present that has a sensitive gut after a whole lot of medication over the last year is doing best on mainly turkey necks. Hopefully we will get him back to a variety of bones in the future. With BARF type diets it is a bit of trial and error to find out what combination suits each dog.

Isn't the DNA profile of a Amstaff the same as a Pit bulls? The only way DNA would establish if a dog is an Amstaff is if it is from ANKC registered parents and you can prove parentage. No vet could declare the difference between them either. They are essentially the same breed descended from the same foundation dogs through different lines bred for different purposes. The APBT as working dogs and the Amstaffs as show dogs, so without ANKC registration and a microchip to match there is no way to positively indentify any dog as an Amstaff. The ANKC registered Amstaffs escaped being a banned breed because the breeders claimed to have bred for a different temperament for many generations and no ANKC registered dogs have been involved in any of the attacks that sparked the dangerous dog laws. If they don't have ANKC papers the owners really have no idea what their dog is. Same applies to any non-registered dog of any breed. It may look like a particular breed but unless it is a registered pure bred dog then it could have anything in it.