Diva

It has become much harder to legally breed dogs on a small scale as a dedicated hobbiest over the past 20 odd years. Bigger denser cities, tighter planning controls. Perth’s two dog limit has been in for how long? Twenty years at least. Fewer stay at home parents, more pressure on time, no free weekends, hard to do it right if you don’t want to move your lives to acreage and commute for hours. Doing it commercially like the designer cross breed folk is easier, make it your job, large scale, commercial. But if you don’t want to make it your job, and you want be legally compliant, and you want to do more than just keep a couple of dogs you breed repeatedly together? Too hard and too much impact on the rest of the family for many these days. Add the social stigma of breeding and the stress of trying to find really good homes, why bother. When I was working in a career that wasn’t compatible with living rural and had to either import or breed to get what I wanted, I imported. Costly but less stressful than trying to jump the regulatory hoops. Now I don’t work full time I can take a different path, but if I wasn’t so in love with my breed I wouldn’t be doing it at all.

Most breeders I know have had a heap of enquires since the pandemic started, many who usually advertise in DOL probably haven’t needed to. Still true that ANKC breeders produce only a small amount of the overall pups produced in a year. Just suggesting that current ads probably aren’t typical.

Orivet in Australia or UC Davis in the US. Used to use European labs but find I don’t need to these days.

Sometimes getting the opposite gender and even a different colour can help your heart stop expecting the second pup to be like the first. I would be concerned about getting the same health issues though, especially if it is a full sibling. Not the blockage, but the rest.

No decent online breed archive for Labs? We have one (well several, but one main one in English) and it is well supported, a large % of the breed are on it back to founders and the collective oversight keeps the error rate acceptably low. But for a quality of life affecting disease I would still test- the chance of a wrongly registered pedigree is low but I wouldn’t take the chance. Over 50 years there are a lot of chances for a sire not quite being who was recorded.

Interesting that they suggest the sire in question came from a marginal line, or the introduction of genetic diversity from other breeds.

Not aware of any comprehensive listing as you describe unfortunately. The info is probably in journals and text books but it’s a task if you are looking at a lot of conditions. I’ve long thought we need clinical geneticists advising breeders in the canine world as there are for people dealing with human DNA test results. We have molecular geneticists and population genetics but there is a gap in professional advice on how to interpret and use testing results in a measured way in breed decision making. My breed has only one applicable DNA health test, for the SOD1 degenerative myelopathy mutation, so I just do that and don’t bother with DNA panels, except for colour which I do out of interest. It’s a simple autosomal recessive, 2 copies put the dog at risk of the disease in old age rather than definitely getting it, so in a pretty healthy breed with average genetic diversity it’s not hard to manage. But I feel for the juggling act many breeders must face. I have been playing around with haplotype and genetic diversity testing but even with a science background it’s hard to knit it all together, too many unknowns and too much rhetoric.

If I was looking for a breed specifically for that role I’d probably look at a Dalmatian. I don’t know the breed in great depth but the several I have known well have all been sweet natured, easy going with other dogs, and very much built for endurance running. But there is always a chance they were atypical. My long distance running friend has always had English Springers and swears by them. Lives in Tas so cool conditions mostly.

If you want to organise it yourself give Qantas freight a call, some prefer Virgin but I am not sure what, if anything, they are flying at the moment. Or you could talk to companies that organise it for you, someone like http://baycitypettravel.com.au/, https://www.moorholmepettransport.com.au/ or https://www.dogtainers.com.au/, there are several other companies as well. There are also companies that do road transport, although for a young pup I’d go by air. Breed matters- rules for air travel are stricter for short faced breeds.

The only issue I have heard of with feeding lots of fish is thiaminase, but I don’t even know if sardines contain it as only some fish does. Sardines may well not have it at all, but if they do having too much can affect your dog’s thiamine intake. (Edited: Rebanne is right about mercury, I forgot that) Rabbit for human consumption can be found in organic and game meat butchers but it’s pretty expensive. I have found hunted rabbit sold for dogs at some stock feed stores around here in the past. It’s very low fat so doesn’t suit all dogs. You could also try duck, supermarkets have the prime cuts but Asian butchers are where I get it cheaper. There is a fb group called ‘Raw fed and nerdy’ where you could ask about fish. They are focussed on nutrient balancing and are not anti kibble, which can be helpful when you want a bit of technical advice.

I noticed that is some Big Dog too - it says fine ground bone but it was nothing like finely ground. My dogs hated it anyway so I just threw the lot in the bin.

I have heard of a number of elderly dogs in my breed getting this. Most overseas. It seems to range in severity from mild and easily managed to severe and life threatening. There is an operation some have used. Of course your vet is the best source of advice, but from the experiences I have heard hot and humid weather make it worse, exercise is usually restricted as part of management, and most switch from a collar to a harness if they were using collars. Good luck. Old dogs are glorious but they do develop unfortunate health challenges just like we do.

Ask the vet for a script so you can get it filled online.

For pick up at nine weeks I would let you come to my house. I would expect you to want to, too. But by then I would have had many conversations with you and checked you out thoroughly. I would not agree to sell you a puppy if I didn’t feel confident enough in you to let you visit at that age. But I don’t allow visits at my home before I have done that due diligence on the buyer. .

The most recent time I used one tablet, which was a child’s dose. Can’t remember how many mg that was. It was a big breed puppy. It’s off label use of course, so all the usual cautions.

I tried all the counter conditioning ideas and travel position ideas with mine but at the end of the day only Cerenia /sea legs helped relieve it, and only time cured it. They both out grew it by 7 months old. 2 different pups of different breeds some years apart.

It’s been a topic of discussion in the dog groups. Some people have been told the company is no longer going to be making them at all. And others have had suppliers tell them the company is retooling and will recommence supply in Feb. No idea which is correct.

Yep, a friend of mine took on a pair of older Pekes after their owner died. We nicknamed them the fluffy slippers and they lived on into a grand old age. Very active and no health issues until high into their teens. Great dogs.

I have never dealt with behavioural issues on that scale. Anything I have worked through has been pretty minor by comparison and the result of a specific event - the effects of an attack by loose dogs was the worst and very understandable to me. So I can hardly tell you that you need to turn your life upside down and exhaust yourselves further for this dog, that you have only known for two months, and who has issues that appear severe. That would not be fair of me. I know Christmas is a hard time for anxious dogs and so are the first months in a new home, but I can’t tell how solvable this is. There is a fb group called something like anxious dogs Australia that might give guidance based on direct experience. And if you have to rehome try to get her directly to a new home or rescue organisation that fosters in home. I doubt a return to a shelter env will help her any.

If you do rehome her please do so with full disclosure of her behavioural issues, otherwise she risks a very uncertain future. Otherwise, I’d suggest you see a behavioural vet and consider medication while you work on remediation- she can’t really learn while she is highly anxious or panicked. Medication might give you that window for learning.

You could try a transport company called petwaggin. They are based in Toowoomba I think and google will find their contact details. What they would charge and whether they would even take a pup that is not yet 8 weeks I don’t know. The dog would need to be in the air conditioned vehicle with them with the temps forecast for this week.

I’d discourage it but it’s not likely to make much difference when you are not around. Make sure you have some antihistamine on hand in case she does get stung. One of mine was stung on the face by something in the garden at midnight a couple of weeks ago. It went from a golf ball sized lump on the side of his muzzle to his whole face swollen in about 20 minutes. I had over the counter antihistamines for myself, confirmed safety and dosage online, then gave him one. But he started vomiting and I don’t think it stayed down, so we ended up at the vet first thing in the morning for an injection of antihistamine. If his breathing had been affected we would have gone to the emergency vet, but it wasn’t. The vet confirmed the antihistamine I had used was one they used themselves and was the right thing to do. She thought the vomiting probably meant he had been stung before and his response might be worse every time it happened. Bit worrying.

I just get mine at the local health food/whole foods shop

Globally, I think lure coursing and other forms of running sports have been great for my fav breed. I was getting quite concerned for the direction it was taking but when those sports came in around the eighties (overseas) it seemed to moderate the extremes. It is not a big sport at all in Aust and I don’t take part with mine, but my dogs are from dual champion lines and I’ve reaped the benefits. Also great to see what were pure show lines enter the field in the US and Europe and do brilliantly - evidence we hadn’t strayed too far from fit for purpose.

I’ve had about 15 dogs from show breeders over the years. In my fav breed all breeders are pretty much show breeders. All lived long healthy lives. Only one had a clearly genetically acquired health issue, although the mode of inheritance is not proven and there is no test. Even she lived a long healthy live with treatment. I wouldn’t go anywhere else.