SkySoaringMagpie

Bait = food in this context. A lot of people train their dogs to catch bait in their mouths when they throw it. Also, people throw bait to get the dog's attention and get an alert and animated expression. I don't mind if they throw it, as long as they pick it up! It's a bit of an American thing tho', and not all breeds are supposed to be "baited".

Apologies if this has been mentioned already and I have missed it. There's barking and then there's barking. I'm not in a barky ring myself but when stewarding in other rings, particularly utility, I've noticed some handlers have put barking on cue. Most do it during the individual judging after returning to the judge, ie, not in line ups for challenge or group/group class. That seems fine to me, shows a bit of personality, doesn't interfere with other dogs and is under control. OTOH, a dog yapping constantly while set up in a challenge or group/show line up one meter away from other dogs - not cool.

That would be really awesome.

The site to go back and check this stuff on is the DogsACT site because you can be sure that is the officially approved version. DogsACT has a schedule with neuters listed for the Gundog Society Show.

Peoples, entries are starting to close for this great weekend of showing. Don't miss out!! You can check information on the Carnival at the website here: http://www.canberracaninecarnival.com/ The Gundog; Hound; and Non-Sporting, Utility and Working Dog Clubs all have entries available on OzEntries.

Unfortunately I have concluded that in the breed in question, many know this perfectly well and either do not care or actively use it to further their own ends. For some, nothing but NOTHING is more important than making a negative point about someone's lines. Nothing. Grief at a favourite dog's death, kids, newbies - none of it is off limits if points are to be scored. For the OP i think it's fairly situation specific and breed specific, but if there is even an outside chance that she will be put through what Alyosha's daughter went through I would not do it. There's a good article in the latest Dog News Australia by Andrew Brace that covers, among other things, the importance of finding a good dog for a young handler. Adults can go into a situation knowing they are beating their head against a brick wall (rare breed, rare coat type, unpopular colour etc) and choose to tough it out. As Alyosha mentions, kids and adolescents need more careful handling and support.

The other complicating factor is that if someone goes into a situation with a dog expecting a problem and are nervous and lacking confidence as a result, you can be pretty sure a problem will usually happen. I am not saying the reverse is true, thinking sunshine and lollipops won't stop aggression, but being panicky and feeling ill-equipped to manage is no recipe for success either. OP, it's for that reason I'd take my dog and move out. Cesar Millan can do what he does because he's Cesar Millan. Most people are not anywhere near as fast, strong or dog savvy as he is, including you. The owner of the house and large dog will just have to deal with it. That's the thing about any unpaid dog minding arrangement, you get what you pay for. Even professionals can refuse to deal with a dog, but at least professionals have dog experience and are paid to cope. Sounds like this situation hasn't been well thought out on either side.

Believe it or not some dog people are teetotal as was explained to me by a cranky exhibitor when she saw that our BIS and RUBIS trophies were accompanied by bottles of champers. Faxon won a plastic woven mat once that we still use, but I agree with PF, go the cash and sash.

That must have been upsetting. I can imagine Boris and Ursie trying to be as far away from the crime scene as possible.

Sounds like you have a winner Corvus! JRTs it is

Don't know. Sight I think primarily with ours but it's sometimes hard to know. Tonight we got home late from a meeting. OH skittled a bunny while driving home and there were a few about the margins on our road. Driving up our drive I saw one as well before it ran off into a front paddock. In short, the local area is hopping!!! We let the dogs out, and they all instantly ran down to the driveway gate. Maybe their vision was good enough to spot the rabbit in the paddock from the light from the house, or maybe they smelled it. They knew something was there tho', even tho' by the time I let them out it had skipped off into the darkness from my human perspective.

It's times like that I'd like a magical reverse camera through the lines to see where it comes from. We encountered ferrets at a pet expo once, Lucy was there as an example of a well behaved Saluki. When she got a whiff of the ferrets her entire expression changed from laid back couch Saluki to "right, whatever that is I have to nail it now!". Mercifully the people with the ferrets made a deft retreat. As far as I know, ferrets are not native to the middle east but someone said it was probably that they have a foxy sort of smell?

Agree with Alyosha that in individual sighthound breeds you have a lot of variation and with any sighthound breed there's a risk of getting a serious hunter in your backyard. Taken as a whole tho', I think PF is probably right about Salukis. Not a breed to buy if you can't handle scrubbing blood off the carpet because you forgot to shut the back door. Can't comment on the terriers, but also agree with Aidan that it would be hard to usefully compare a terrier with a sighthound. The tenacity and drive is expressed in different ways.

Looks like there is a Sibe Speciality on 9 October. That might be your best bet.

I think you're disagreeing with me, or at least agreeing that I'm overly cynical. To clarify, I don't doubt that shit happens, I pretty much expect it. That's why I have the point of view I have. It's the "shit's not going to happen" POV that I find hard to get my head around. That said, I remembered on the way home after a day out with the dogs that I had posted into a thread about renting with animals with tenants and landlords going hammer and tongs and realised that cynical or not, I'm a complete idiot for posting in the first place

I fear I'm going to sound like a old fart or crazy reactionary but that has never stopped me in the past When it comes to dogs, it's not just housing, it's relationships, work, a whole raft of things. OH and I were each living in rented share houses when we met, both driving banged up second hand vehicles and no other assets. We were finally in a position to buy a house after being together about 6 or 7 years, in that time we both worked jobs we loathed. The house we bought was a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom ex-Govvie in an unfashionable part of Canberra. It needed a lot of work, which we did. Up until that point we were renting with cats and that in itself was a nightmare, there was no way we were going to try renting with a dog. That is the part I don't understand, we waited 5 years before getting that dog because we knew that renting was a crapshoot. I also think that looking forward to finally getting an Afghan was a motivator for my OH when it came to paying down debt and saving. Luck did play a role in where we are now, the unfashionable part of Canberra we were in, was actually a lot closer to the city than a lot of McMansion suburbs and there were good capital gains while we were there. Now we have our dream country home - got a sizeable mortgage too, but a plan to pay it off. The other thing I wonder at is women who put their financial future in someone else's hands. So many women I know were trapped or are trapped in relationships they would not otherwise be in if not for the dogs and/or a lack of income. I'm not talking about ill-health here, I'm talking about life choices that mean that if it all goes to shit, you're so vulnerable you can't leave. I hope my home and relationship won't ever go to shit, but if it does I would be able to walk with my dogs and still take care of them. Am I just overly cynical?

Best option would be to try and tee something up up with a DOLer first, who can then arrange to meet you and introduce you to someone who will be at the show and be happy to talk to you. I have no idea about the Siberian scene in Sydney, it's not my group. Generally speaking tho' not all exhibitors are newbie friendly, particularly not in the stress and bustle of showing their dogs.

Wow, that's ridiculous.

When Ian Dunbar was out here last he talked a lot about the importance of buying a family pet from someone who had whelped and raised the litter in a family home.

I think this comes down to an outlook on life as a dog owner. My dogs have destroyed things, dug holes, pissed on things they shouldn't have. That all comes back to me. They do things they find rewarding. If I don't like it, I need to find a way to stop them. If they do something I don't like, I didn't manage or train against it - my fault. Even when I'm sick. In this case if it was important to me to have a nice garden and I had a dog that loved, loved, loved to dig I would probably fence off the section I wanted to preserve while I worked on a more long term solution. Allowing the dog to piss you off doesn't help anyone - not you, not the dog. I can think of one person I know who has a lovely back garden and lawn and dogs and he works hard at managing them. The dogs don't get unsupervised access to the garden and have runs. There is even a specific spot where they pee so they don't burn the lawn. Most people I know with dogs have a back yard that looks like a moonscape/dusty tundra/junk yard. Agree with whoever said to treat the lawn. Ours dig sometimes, but pretty much only when they are ant-hunting. We also have a dog who is a crazily accurate cicada jumper - he stops, listens, then leaps on the spot where the noisy buggers are to shut them up!

Beagie: Even volunteer instructors should have some idea of how to handle agression Yeah, I know how to handle it. Refer to a professional. Most of us volunteers are good at teaching dogs to sit on their mat, recall, stay, etc. All the usual house manners that people want when they enrol in basic obedience. I would not pretend to be an agility or tracking instructor, and likewise, when it comes to bitch on bitch aggression involving backyard bred GSDs I know am so far out of my league it's not funny.

Thanks for posting Steve. I have to admit, this is the first I've heard of the outside kenneling requirement. Does that mean we should avoid putting photos up on the internet that show 3 dogs lying in front of a living room fire? Edited to say - from a welfare perspective, today in Southern NSW my light framed desert dogs are better off inside.

Sorry if this feels a little like us stacking on, but it's only because we know how badly these situations can go and are concerned. You can still be hurt if you get in between two fighting dogs - particularly dogs like GSDs that have power behind the bite. Dogs are incredibly fast, and whether or not the dog is human aggressive, the chance of a human injury is still a very real possibility. My OH once had to break up a fight between dogs - one was a Bull Arab, the other was a DA boxer/ridgeback cross. Two kids under 10 were walking the Bull Arab in front of our house. The kids were screaming and if OH had not been around there's a very good chance one of the kids would have been bitten in their panic about their pet. The DA one was a complete pussy cat with humans, but that didn't mean he wasn't a menace in the neighborhood. I mention the breeds too because society is very intolerant of aggression in large dogs, including GSDs. Agree with the others that you need someone who really understands aggression - if you post your location perhaps people here can suggest a good behaviourist.

It's illegal to release a captive hare or rabbit for the sport of chasing, but I'm not sure it's illegal if a dog kills a rabbit or hare that comes up out of its own territory where the dog is just standing by? That precludes the scenario corvus is considering of course.