SkySoaringMagpie

Err, she works for the RSPCA and she wants to go ahead and breed with a carrier of Collie Eye Anomaly? Apart from anything else, having just read the RSPCA's draft code of practice on breeding, I think you are either being entrapped or she is remarkably clueless. I think ellz has given wise advice.

I'm actually planning to back out of the show ring a bit in 2010 and show a lot more selectively - we're getting stale. I'm definitely not planning any new acquisitions. Also, my breeds are breeds that really only hit maturity when about 4 or 5. Certainly my desert bred girl has at least another year to go maturity wise. So 2010 will be the year of R&R and I'll take another look at where we are in 2011. If shows still exist by then that is, the last two weeks have been sobering when it comes to doggie legal affairs. The one exception to all that is that I'm also in the tragic group of people who have finished their show year with a dog one challenge away from their title. So I have to get out there in 2010 to finish Miss Mab. We should start a club - the 90+ christmas club

I'm sorry to hear you've lost such an old and dear friend fiona.

I'm not planning on seeing a qualified behaviourist. If Ian Dunbar or Shirley Chong were available to do local consults I'd consider it, but practically speaking there isn't anyone in Australia that I personally would bring in. Particularly not locally. However, good call on expert advice - I am going to shoot someone an email tonight and I hadn't even thought of asking her about it. The other dogs seem to realise that she is mostly all talk, including the bitches, and bounce back from her mouthing off quickly and then happily run about and play with her. She on the other hand becomes noticeably depressed when the main handler is gone. If I was going to anthropomorphise, I'd also be tempted to say she loses confidence that she'll get away with it when the main handler is gone as well. The antecedants are hard for me to identify because I'm usually not there - not being worthy of being guarded myself - LOL! But you're right about the value of identifying them.

A dominant bitch resource guards her main handler from other dogs in the house. This results in displays of aggression, but she has never caused a puncture wound. It's mostly sound and fury signifying not a lot but bad manners. The main handler has no trouble getting compliance from her, nor does the other human in the house, except on this one issue. When the main handler leaves the house for more than 24 hours, the resource guarding behaviours stop and things are much more peaceful. This is how the other human (ie, me) would like things to be all the time. What questions would you ask? What would be your initial hypothesis given that she is quite biddable when humans ask her to do something? The behaviours occur outside the house too which mean that one day she could well end up on a dangerous dog report despite the fact that she is highly unlikely to actually injure the other dog. This is another impetus for getting on top of it. I have a working hypothesis but I'll save that for now

http://vimeo.com/7356697 We should all be doing so well when we're 97. Go the hounds

ACVIM = American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine The paper is titled Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Canine Chronic Valvular Heart Disease You can download it for a short while from here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin...604679/PDFSTART

I think I will will try this first, this seems like the least fuss option to begin with. Jigsaw - she is crated happily at home. I haven't sat down and observed carefully what the features of a "bark" situation are. Next weekend we'll be at a show weekend and 2 sighthound savvy obedience instructor friends will be there as well as OH and I. I think I'll ask them to observe OH and I - it's hard to work out what is really going on when you're the handler/family. Sighthounder - :D I think your Indi is a gorgeous boy too :D

I am not involved with running this show, I've just been asked to post this notice here. All questions should be directed to the phone number on the updated schedule at the links below. -- Sadly due to serious illness Mr Ramirez has advised that he is unable to come to Canberra to judge at the 2010 Royal Canberra Show. We have been fortunate enough to obtain, at very short notice, the services of Mr and Mrs Zielinski (USA) who together are Toy and Utility Specialists. They will cover Mr Ramirez assignment in entirety with the one exception that Skye Terriers will be taken on by Mrs Mincey who is to judge the whole of the Terrier Group. Full Schedule details are available at http://www.dogsact.org.au/ and http://www.rncas.org.au/site/ and will also be available shortly at http://www.actroyal.com/

Yes, but with cotton blankets that provide some vision to the outside area. Here's a picture of the culprit and the set up - on top of the crate is one of those cotton waffle weave blankets. When she is inside the crate the blanket is covering the front of the crate but the blanket is not opaque like a proper crate cover. You can see that the back of the gazebo has sides up so you can't see behind or to the side. For obvious reasons she's not barking here: I am thinking we need to get a very solid crate cover, and employ the strategy that Neats suggests.

Not going bananas - no scratching, no spinning. Not high pitched, in fact if she wasn't direct from Bahrain you'd think there was Coonhound in there somewhere. Not constant, it's "considered" behaviour if that makes sense. Salukis might not be a barky breed, but they are a manipulative one. OH said that today she was told "quiet" and then she eyeballed OH and barked. That lines up with what I've observed and says to me that this is attention seeking behaviour, so I think Neats strategy is worth a go. FWIW, she's been lying behind me quietly in the study here while I've been on the computer for the last hour. This is why I've described it as situation specific. At home, she is definitely not a problem barker.

Saluki. That's part of the puzzle, they are not a barky breed.

I have a young bitch whose barking at shows has crossed the line from acceptable to unacceptable. At home she will occasionally attention bark at a human (ie, once or twice a week) but will stop very quickly when she gets no reaction. At shows her barking is escalating. She doesn't bark when being exercised, just when in her crate and occasionally while waiting to go in the ring. She doesn't bark in the ring. It is definitely at its worst when she is in the crate. A couple of regular readers on the training forum have seen it in action, but for those who haven't, it is partially kicked off by one of us leaving the set up, but often our presence won't be enough to keep her quiet either. We have tried both rewarding for being quiet (food rewards, attention) and aversives for barking (spray bottle). We have also tried blocking her view. However, we're obviously Doin' It Rong as the LOLcats would say because it was the worst I've ever heard this weekend - I was stewarding so could hear it but could not intervene. I'm wondering if this weekend that was part of the problem, because I was often in her line of sight, but too far away to interact with her. Any clues or suggestions? We have never had barkers before so this is new! I'm not prepared to debark her but if I can't train it out of her she'll be spending shows in the trailer which isn't fun for her or for us.

My oldest girl worked out that you could get mum off the computer and paying some attention to you by scratching at the door to go outside. She stopped doing that so much after we had her go outside every time she did it. She can get me to open the fridge and give her a treat by just sitting next to it nicely. If you don't get the treat right away she shifts and resettles as if to say "look, I'm sitting!!"

This makes a lot of sense. Speaking more generally, I think there is a lot of mythology out there about certain kinds of working and hunting dogs. I'd say working dogs used by farmers are some of the most highly idealised of that bunch, and it doesn't do the dogs any favours (nor the owners for that matter). merijigs is not saying anything unreasonable in raising concerns about the way some (not all) dogs are housed and fed. FWIW, my grandpa was raised and worked on farms - too poor to actually own a farm himself. He had an incredible way with dogs, there's a lot pet people can learn from the quietly confident old school working dog man. But there are also an awful lot of arseholes out there in all the different dog owner demographics as well and rural working dog owners are not magically immune. Dogs shouldn't have to pay the price of the image we'd like to have of ourselves.

It depends what you want the dog for. If you picked this breeder because they breed exactly what you want for performance or show I would wait. OTOH, if you want a companion and it doesn't matter to you whether the lines are from Timbuktoo or Glen Waverley then I'd look at the puppy listings. I'd also factor in the relationship with the breeder, if it's a good one it's worth waiting a year or two.

They mostly carry their tails per the breed standard. Afghans - up on the move. Salukis - down on the move. It's not just carriage imo, but what the dog is doing with it. There's a difference between a tail held up stiffly, one wagging very slowly, and one wagging excitedly.

Yes, with five dogs I think it would be irresponsible to let them all run together unsupervised for hours a day. None of ours are DA but one is a bonehead, one is a resource guarder and one is a pushy submissive. So the risk of something happening when we are not around to intervene is too high for me. The other two, thank god, are sensible.

I am not going to suggest any anti-aggression training as someone really needs to observe what is going on. Get someone qualified in to have a look. I am going to suggest you get a health check on the 13 y/o dog who is being attacked - especially as she is in the age range where dogs start to come to their end of their lives. Often dogs will escalate against, or turn on, older members of the pack when they become ill or frail. Not something that sits well with our human values, but pretty common.

:laugh:

I feed the Brunswick sardines in Olive Oil to our skinny minnies and the two older dogs get them in spring water. They get a tin each once a week.

Am I the only DOLer so far to find this funny?