poodlefan

Can you put in a dog door?

Option B is sleep her somewhere where she can tell you she needs to go outside. Right now she doesn't have much option if she needs to go.

Have you changed what you feed her recently?

She's not feeling guilty by the way, she's feeling anxious and potentially anticipating being punished. Generally a dog will not willingly defecate in their sleeping area.

She looks great.

Why on earth do people buy coated breeds and then want to clip them short???

Whippet, Miniature Poodles, Toy Poodle.

There are many great members here involved with rescue groups.

Dogs obtained thru them are carefully assessed, fostered with families ... and socialised with kids & other animals in many cases.

In many cases, but not all. Not every dog from every rescue has been assessed or fostered for any length of time, if at all, and not necessarily in family situation with young kids.

I'd want to know that for sure before consdering any rescue dog.

Pointer, (english pointer)! Fantastic family pets. They are a gundog and have a similar personality to labs and goldens and they arnt over the top. They can be abit naught as babies if bored but what breed isnt?

They do shed... but not excessively, my pug sheds more!!!

Agree.

I'd rate the following as smooth coated family dog prospects that deserve to be known better:

Pointers

Whippets

Rottweilers

You are right that socialising a pup with children is important if it's to be a family dog.

However some mature dogs have already had that experience.

What ages are you kids?

I wouldn't leave any pup/dog in a bathroom all day if I worked..

what ages are classified as mature age in dogs?

Anything beyond "puppyhood". I'd be inclined to say 2-3 years and up.

Do Whippets creep you out?? If not, I think you might enjoy owning one.. or two.. or

Well, you get the drift.

How much do you enjoy grooming and how much coat do you want to maintain?

Spaniels and Setters aren't the easiest of dogs to keep in show coat and groom for the ring.

ps for example, the hypothesis here "Why do sighthounds tend to be timid/sensitive" has a huge bias, as it assumes that sighthounds are timid/sensitive.

But how do you know that is her hypothesis? It is just a topic name she started on DOL.

I don't think we're imagining it.

Corvus:

It's a huge generalisation, but it's a significant one according to my survey results. I'd rather not debate whether they are timid or not. Obviously there are timid and bold individuals as there are in any breed group. But my data indicates sighthounds in general are more timid than many other breed groups, and that's what I'm left with at the end of the day.

To say science is flawed is to say humanity is flawed (which it clearly is), since the society we have built is inextricably linked to the discoveries made using the scientific method.

I should have just waited for the more articulate artillery to arrive

I find this a rather charming comment. I'm trying to work out who has just been offended.

I find it a refreshing admission. The question is of course is THIS science flawed? Some of us think so and why is that so heretical??

I should have just waited for the more articulate artillery to arrive

Aw thanks Aiden2 I guess no-one likes being called a weirdo outsider just because of what they do for a portion of their day

It's a bit like being called emotional and biased because your observations are based on experience, not data. ;)

From Svartberg & Forkman (2002):

"The shyness–boldness axis, a fundamental dimension in humans that can be defined as an individual’s general tendency to approach

novel objects and willingness to take risks (Kagan et al., 1988; Wilson et al., 1994)"

I' jumping back from the love or hate scientists bit here and wondering at the above.

This whole thread was started on the basis of survey information on some dogs (mostly greyhounds) being compared to a shyness/boldness axis defined especially for humans, then that information being used to project a result across a varied group of dog breeds.

Does this seem completely ridiculous to anyone else here?? Seems like anthropomorphism taken to the extreme.

And, you just try and keep my dogs away from a "novel" object!!

I suppose my questions are more basic. Does it matter and if it does, why does it matter?

Hell, they've even developed a sitcom about it.

Yeah but those are physicists. Totally different ;)

One is an engineer. :cool:

Now I have a mental image of us all living a hermetically sealed town with 'scientists only' written at the gate, looking mournfully out at a community we can never be a part of

They already exist to some degree Weasels - they called universities. ;)

Some young folk go in to one end and never re-emerge.

It's just a job tho - I consider myself a member of the public and community, my OH is a tradie, I mingle with all sorts of people.

I hope I don't end up finding a hidden cache of unemerged young people in the basement now Great there's some nightmares - 'night of the living undergraduates!'.

Undergraduates still have hope.. its those with tenure who are lost to humanity

Now I have a mental image of us all living a hermetically sealed town with 'scientists only' written at the gate, looking mournfully out at a community we can never be a part of

They already exist to some degree Weasels - they called universities. ;)

Some young folk go in to one end and never re-emerge. And they spend their lives learning more and more about less and less and lose the ability to engage with anyone other than scientists.

Hell, they've even developed a sitcom about it.

oops

Huh, that's interesting. The breeder of my dogs has told me this before, and said to use a specific brand (Anchor) because other brands don't work. I confess being a bit of a skeptic I've never tried it and I just assumed it was an old wives tale.

Cascade is also OK. The key issue is the % content of raspberries. I have syringed it neat down Darcy's throat before.

I think from my reading that the practice has its origins in SW NSW and Victoria but I can't swear to it.

Wow. This thread has certainly fired up since I checked it last! I haven't read the whole thing, but I have some thoughts.

Ok... (dons flame suit)TLDR: Scientists are people too :D

No flaming here.

I was just being pre-emptive. It's still early in Perth and I'm a little sensitive until I've had a few cups of tea :D

Science can also learn from people on the ground (no big revelation there I know). Anecdotal evidence can trigger research.

The raspberry cordial research on cures for bacterial contamination in water is a classic. I gather someone got onto the fact that farmers were using raspberry cordial as a cure for scouring in piglets and other young animals and tested the "why".

Turns out its very effective for some kinds of bacterial infection/water contamination and now the Australian Army use it to assist with water decontamination.

I keep a bottle in the fridge for when Darcy looks like he's about to succumb to haemorraghic gastro.. I think it may have assisted a couple of times. It has to be a minimum of 25% raspberries though - not the Cottees stuff. ;)

Wow. This thread has certainly fired up since I checked it last! I haven't read the whole thing, but I have some thoughts.

Ok... (dons flame suit)TLDR: Scientists are people too :D

No flaming here.

Pics or it never happened.

sometimes thinking outside the dry food box can be your saviour. The only way to know what will work is to systematically try foods a couple of weeks at a time or speak to a specialist veterinarian. Advance is not the best food out there.

How do you say VAN is not a premium dog food? It is totally preservative, colour and additive free. It is a complete diet.

VAN has a ton of indigestible fibre. Could be worth a try.

Corvus' research (which I can't tell you much about because I don't know much about it) is looking at personality dimensions in dogs, specifically a bias for optimism. This probably has more application in human psychology but it's cool to know more about how dogs think (where for so long science has treated animals as machines). One of RevJo's research interests is also how dogs think; I think that's really positive stuff. The more you get into this stuff, the more you realise how useful this sort of research really is, not just for dogs but for people and other animals too.

Here's the thing though. We can theorise about how dogs think and we've been doing it for years. It doesn't necessarily mean we're right. So anyone suggesting that the science "must be right" and the observations of those who live and work with any particular breed of dog are 'biased' needs to reflect very carefully about that.

I'm all for furthering our knowledge of dogs. But theory needs to be tested. I hope that's the next step for Corvus because right now her theory doesn't hold water for me.

Science is not gospel. It's not immutable and it's sure as hell not always accurate. That doesn't mean its not worthwhile.

It could be a whole range of issues including balance.

I'd not be jumping to any conclusions.