Gayle.

A few months ago, pedigree Maltese puppies were being advertised on the DOL puppy page for $800 - $1000.

I've been doing a 3 1/2 hour round trip every couple of weeks for herding training and then the same for trials. When my girl gets her titles, will she be a petrol herding titled dog? Or just the titled dog of a very tired and poor owner?

.

Longford Vets sell it.

In order for a dog to be shown, it has to be main registered and that is the ONLY criteria. There is nothing in the rules that says it has to be a great example of the breed, or that it has a chance of winning, it only has to be main registered. If someone with a main registered dog with a fault, a limp, poor temperament or conformation, or even a main registered dog that looks like a donkey wants to show their dog, that's their prerogative and their right. If dogs with faults are being shown and winning challenges, that's not the fault of the owners. And even if they are aware of the dogs faults, and the dogs are awarded challenges, or even class wins from time to time, why shouldn't they keep showing?

My rescue dog came from the people who bred her. They are also a registered breed rescue organisation. The dog was returned twice to them, as per their conditions of sale......the first owners neglected her and couldn't live with the resulting behaviour. The second owners moved overseas and didn't take her. She came to me because I already owned the same breed and I had access to local breeders and owners of the breed in case I should need any advice or help. There was no discussion about whether someone would be home, where she would sleep, what she would eat etc. It was simply an understanding that she would be given a good home with owners who were familiar with the needs of that type of dog. This would be my preferred method of adopting a rescue dog in the future. Plenty of breeders of pedigree dogs have dogs returned to them for various reasons. They often make excellent rehoming prospects. An added benefit for me is that my rescue dog has a pedigree, she has been transferred into my name with Dogs Victoria and is currently competing in ANKC sanctioned events as a pedigree dog. And for the first time in her life, her pedigree name is appearing in catalogues. And I LOVE seeing it there!

They have red leather collars in Petstock. Nice ones that aren't over-priced.

I had met Brock for the first time just a few weeks ago, at a herding clinic. It was the first time I had met Jules and her lovely dogs and Brock seemed to be a special favourite of the regulars at the clinic, as he mooched pats of everyone during lunch. Such a friendly, handsome boy, way too young to be gone like this. Still so sad for you, Jules. How are you this week?

Chilli? Kind of goes with the frosty theme (chilly).

My husband calls Dusty "Girlfriend!" and whenever she hears the word, her bum wiggles a million miles an hour. She can be sound asleep and he whispers to her "Girlfriend!" and in her sleep, she wiggles happily. It's so cute!

Dusty is a beautiful name for a dog. I love my Dusty girl.

I changed the name of the 5yo rescue dog I adopted. Her name was Shade and I dropped the D so she is now Shae. Not very different and it made no difference to her. I liked the name Shade and it's from her pedigree name but I wanted her to have a whole new start with us. Our young boy Isaak gets called "Piggy" or "Pig" and he responds to those names just as easily as he does to Isaak. If I had a dog named Krusty, I'd be changing the name too.........no matter how old the dog was!

Vets gave never discouraged backyard breeding and they have no reason to. They are medical practicioners, not the breeding police.

I remember seeing a dog grooming show on TV once (a US show) and on one episode, they had to groom a Chow Chow. One of the groomers freaked, she said she hated Chow Chows and never accepted them in her salon due to their nasty temperament and having been bitten by quite a few. However there is one in our local town I see being walked and each time, I ooh and aaah over it. It's a gorgeous looking dog and the owner takes great pride in having the coat look magnificent.

Awww, how cute! He looks like he's saying to Onslow "Are you my mother?" LOL!

Your quote sounds about right if you've used their online quote form and put in your Ballarat address as the destination.......they quote door to door if you do that, and yes that's very expensive. Request a quote from airport to airport. I got a quote from them to ship an adult dog from Perth to my home address in country Vic. It was almost $900. I nearly died of shock! Then I realised they'd quoted door to door, not Perth airport to Melbourne airport and got a much more reasonable quote of $305. ETA, just to clear up any confusion, I'm talking about JetPets.

Julia, I've been thinking about you all day. Hope you're OK and have some company there.

I get what shortstep is saying.............the pedigree dog world should never have gotten to the point where mandatory health testing should be necessary at all. But it's there now and it's time to try and undo some of it.

Oh god, you poor thing. How absolutely awful. Jeeze, I don't know what to say. So, so sad for you.

And Isaak asks the same about orange cake, warm and fresh from the oven. Last Friday I made two.....one for us and one to take to the herding clinic the next day for morning tea. They were cooling on the bench next to the stove and I was sitting with my back to them. I heard a "ker-flump, ker-flump, ker-flump" noise and I said "Whoever is doing that, can you stop it?" It didn't stop so I turned around and here was Isaak on his hind legs, head twisted to one side and tongue out as far as it would go, chewing a hole in the side of the nearest cake! Little bastard looked quite disgruntled when I yelled at him and pushed him down. But he made it easy to decide which one was ours and which one to take to herding.

We have a tub of Rocky Road icecream in the freezer right now....so glad my husband didn't tell the checkout chick the dogs get to lick the bowls, she might have got all hoity-toity and made him put it back!

Isaak would like to add his paw print to the petition and asks that humans use their imaginations as to what could happen to a hairy tweeter during a pee on frozen grass on a sub-zero morning. NOT NICE, HUMANS!!!!!!

I feel sorry for whoever ends up owning that dog, because people are going to harass them something chronic - no-one will believe that it was natural I get asked a fair bit about the lack of tails on three of my dogs, I just explain two were born like that and one was docked before the ban came in. I don't get harrassed at all, never have been, people just ask out of curiousity.

Not all pet shops have birds in small cages. There is one near me that keeps the birds in large aviaries in the store, they have plenty of room to stretch their wings, branches to perch on etc.

No. They'll be waiting a very long time. I don't know about that...they are already a recognised breed in America in the miscallenes(spelling) class. Its called a Mi Ki Mi-Ki A toy sized companion dog the Mi-Ki is a loving and friendly pet. There are several theories as to how exactly the breed developed. One of the theories or origins is that it was developed in the 1980 in Wisconsin by one breeder named Micki Macklin. In this origin several toy breeds were crossed in the lines including stock from the Yorkshire Terrier, Papillon, Shih Tzu, Japanese Chin and Maltese lines. Other theories of origin from different clubs include the same general foundation breeds, however not all include the Shih Tzu lines and some have almost no records of the exact toy breeds used to develop the Mi-Ki. Regardless of the foundation lineage the Mi-Ki does have breed standards and is recognized by many of the individual registries although not currently with the major Kennel Clubs. The Mi-Ki is a toy size companion pet, not typically weighing more than 10 pounds at maturity. It can be long or short coated, either variety is acceptable, but on both coat types the ears have to feathered and highly mobile. The tail is carried high over the hips and is fringed, giving a balanced appearance to the dog. They can come in a variety of colors from fawns to browns and even blue colored coats. Eye colors vary from dark brown to blue and should correspond with the coat color. As with any toy breed dental problems can occur in the Mi-Ki so regular dental hygiene is essential. The shorter muzzled dogs are prone to the same respiratory problems as Pugs and should be carefully monitored when exercising. They aren't on the AKC list, nor are they in the miscellaneous class of dogs waiting to be recognised by the AKC, so I'd say they'll be waiting a very long time for them to be a registered breed here. http://www.akc.org/breeds/complete_breed_list.cfm