Gayle.

I'm missing the relevance here.

Who is Stringy?

I will answer when I'm not at work and not on my iPhone.

Don't put words into my mouth and don't tell me what I do or don't believe, shortstep. I posted that to refute the belief that banning sales of puppies through pet shops will see the demise of puppy farmers. That is all.

So, what do breeders propose to shut down puppy farms?

?????

It seems that breeders are happy enough to let puppy farms thrive as long as no one looks in their backyards.

And another one....also local to me. Gee, who needs to go to a pet shop? This is a family farm, warm welcomes come free. Also very easy to do business with....pick up the phone, drop them an email, you can even order your hearts desire. "Breeders of spoodle, cavoodle, schnoodle. Spoodles, Cavoodles, Schnoodles, are bred for their non shed, low allergy and great temperament. We breed partie coloured, golden, black, white and other unique black and tans. Our pups are from top quality pure-bred dogs, spaniel mothers with poodle fathers, the pup is then a first cross (F1) to ensure health and hybrid vigour with the spoodle attribute of a wavy non-shed coat. This is called a spoodle or in the USA a cockerpoo, Read FAQ on F3+ crosses Yet temperament and our professional service is still our priority and this is ensured with our breeding dogs, come and meet our girls. All our puppies come Desexed, Micro-chiped, Vaccinated and Vet checked and with a health guarantee Farm visits are welcome come and see first hand the puppies and mothers in our modern welping nursery. See a real dog breeding complex. We are not puppy dealers or wholesalers. If you expect the best our pups are for you. Please have a browse of our Oodles Gallery and Puppies for Sale feel free to give us a call, or use the Contact Us page to purchase a pup or send a message, check out our Location page, or come visit us and our puppies face to face! To order a puppy from xxxxxxxxxxx Farm, send your order via our Contact Us page. We are the real deal being born and breed in the Gippsland heartland you can count on us we know and love animals. This is a family business employing local people so give us a call and and speak to Liz or Larry daughter Jo or son Max."

This is the opening speil on the website of a very high profile, and unfortunately local to me, puppy farm. They do a roaring trade "at the farm gate" I believe. They make it very easy for people to do business with them. No need to go via a pet shop, just phone or email. They even offer the international number format for buyers calling from overseas. "Welcome to the xxxxxxxxxx Dog Rearing & Breeding Establishment, the experts in high quality Labradoodle, Schnoodle, Spoodle, Roodle and Maltese Poodle breeding. We are an Australian Government Registered Breeder with 20 years of experience breeding hypo-allergenic, non-shedding family companion dogs. Dog is man's best friend. If you suffer from allergies and would like a canine friend who will be a loyal companion for the rest of their life, then read our information pages or contact us to find out more about the allergy friendly, hypo-allergenic properties of our marvellous dogs. We know you will enjoy browsing our many pictures in the photo galleries or in the puppies for sale page. As we offer worldwide delivery, many of our puppies are now living happily interstate or overseas."

Stopping sales of puppies in pet stores doesn't address direct-to-public sales, exports or internet sales. Puppy farms will still continue to thrive and prosper.

Lovemykelpie, I have a puppy and I set all the rules for him. He sets none for himself as he would not know how to set socializing rules without either him or another puppy getting hurt. So I say when he can "talk" to another puppy, how long for, whether he can touch the other puppy, whether he can have his lead off or not..........mostly not cos I'm a cruel mum like that. But he's too little to set the rules himself so I do it to keep him safe from harm.

It makes no difference what comes out the other end, or how it's disposed of at dog shows, my point was that when asked what they were feeding their dogs, many breeders and showies replied with the above. Nothing else, just that.

Don't let it happen in the first place. Keep him on the leash and close to you when there are other puppies or dogs around and don't let him participate in a puppy free-for-all, no matter how much fun it looks. He is too young for a halti, did someone recommend that you use one?

When I was subscribing to the Ozshow email list, someone asked the question "What kibble is everyone feeding?" and I was surprised by the amount of breeders and showies who DON'T feed a super premium grade kibble. And a large percentage of them were feeding Woofbix, which is the Big W brand. There were also a lot of them feeding Supercoat, Coprice and Bonnie.

I contacted them and found them to be completely unhelpful. I emailed them to see if there was a stockist in my area. They got back to be about 5 days later to let me know the Petstock store here stocks their product. Well, no they don't. I go there at least twice a month and I've never seen Nutro on display there. So I emailed them back and a few days later I got an email from a team leader to tell me the same thing. I went to Petstock, they have no Nutro there, and according to a large sign when you walk in the door.....they no longer stock it. Actually, they never really did.

Well, after less than a weeks use, I can highly recommend an electronic anti-barking collar. My barking boy, Benson, would bark at everything He has a loud, ear splitting bark and he got worse since we moved to a rural area. He barks at the horses going by, the greyhounds over the road, the birds in the trees, the leaves falling off the trees, the neighbors he can see through the fence, the dogs down the back.....absolutely everything makes him bark. His worst times are me being in with the chooks....that ramps it up to feral level, waiting on his dinner.....if he can hear me preparing it he just about barks the place down.....and running alongside the rideon mower. After 5 days usage, I have a very quiet, calm boy. He hasn't had the collar on for three days and he hasn't barked at all. Today he ran alongside the rideon mower while my husband mowed our paddock, and he had an absolute blast.....without barking. I can prepare his dinner in peace, he hears the kibble going into the bowls and doesn't utter a sound. I can tend to the chooks ad he just sits quietly and watches me. The collar gave him a tingle when he barked, I tried it on myself and it didn't hurt but it did make me wake up. There was no residual pain, and I made sure the collar came off when he was inside. It was absolutely brilliant and I've now packed it away only to be gotten out again if we have another problem barker. My feeling after using this collar that it's a very low stress method of stopping a nuisance barker. I'm not yelling at him constantly to shut up, no one is throwing noisy things around which is stressful for everyone, the other dogs aren't affected and it worked very quickly. VERY quickly.

Really happy to see Janet O'Donnell's boy Ashleigh.....Ch Willabaa Silver Ghost, get RDCC in the Aussies. That would have been a tough field and he is finally getting some recognition. A very under-rated dog.

And this is where the mis-interpretion lies, I believe....the one between health issues in purebreds as opposed to cross-breds. People assume purebreds have health issues because they are purebred, and this is true....it's the early inbreeding and linebreeding that set the features but also set the heritable diseases. So they assume that crossbreeds don't have the same issues....but this isn't true because crossbreeds are the product of purebreds, although not the same type, and the heritable diseases are still there and still happening.

But all pedigree dogs ARE inbred, not necessarily by current breeders but almost certainly by the early caretakers of the breeds , and that IS what caused a lot of the health problems.

Do you deny there are problems? Or woud you prefer that they weren't mentioned?

Further update. On Friday's we do our grocery shopping after work and come home a bit later than usual. Tonight we got home about 6pm and the dogs were at the gate, very excited to see us. We unpacked the car and started putting groceries away, the dogs took themselves around to the pergola to wait for their dinner. Now this is the time when Benson usually drives me crazy with his incessant barking. As we were stacking groceries my husband said to me "Hey, look at this" and had Bensons anti-barking collar in his hand. I realised I'd forgotten to put it on this morning as I was in a bit of a rush to get out the door. But Benson hadn't barked at all when we got home and not one peep out of him when he was waiting patiently for his dinner. I think the collar has taught him to be quiet. He's worn it every day this week except for today. I will leave it off over the weekend and see how we go.

I like the name Bandit too, cos my very favourite dog novel is about an Australian Shepherd named Bandit, who is the same colour and has exactly the same markings as Benson, so I've come to really love the name Bandit. So that would be my first choice for him. He's lovely and I'm sure he'll settle into your household soon.

If I were breeding any breed commonly used in "designer" breeds, or popular with backyarders, I'd get the pups speyed as early as possible. A slight risk of incontinence is a very small price to pay to keep the puppies from being used in unethical breeding situations. And that goes for larger breeds too.

I personally don't care what breeders charge for their puppies, but if I ask, I'd like to be told so that I can decide whether I can afford it or not. I do have a problem with bullshit excuses as to why some breeds cost so much. Rare breeds when they're not, small litters when they often don't, and high medical expenses when I truly think that if you're having to pay $6000-8000 in vet fees to whelp a litter, you really shouldn't be breeding from that bitch because she clearly has something seriously wrong with her. Why not just say "That's the average price for this breed, so that's what I'm charging". Rare doesn't always equate to desirable, some breeds are just not what people want to own.

To answer the opening post, it depends on the breed. One breed that is incredibly expensive springs to mind. The excuses given are...it's a rare breed, however there are always at least 6-8 advertisments on DOL for puppies so it's not that rare; the litters are small.....actually there are litters of 5 or more pups regularly advertised, enough that one would think it's not an unusual occurence; and my personal favourite...the medical expenses involved with whelping. To be honest, if you are selling 2 or more pups for $3000-3500 each and are not making money due to high veterinary expenses then you seriously, SERIOUSLY need to look at the quality and health of the dogs you're breeding from. So, it depends on the breed/breeders.....some breeders are out to make money, others put their heart and soul into breeding quality litters, finding fabulous homes for them and are more concerned about the future of the breed and the puppies than the money.