Maddy

I've been feeding raw for roughly ten years and honestly, like a few others have said, I wouldn't bother with weighing out food. I feel there is so much emphasis on feeding THIS. EXACT. RATIO. EVERY. MEAL, that people forget that for no animal, is each and every meal perfectly balanced. There are plenty of raw feeding nazis out there who will happily tell you that what you're doing is OMFG WRONG YOUR DOG WILL DIE and that anyone who disagrees is also wrong, and then people who are militant in a different direction will tell you OMFG DON'T LISTEN TO THOSE PEOPLE, THEY'RE WRONG AND YOUR DOG WILL DIE. Prey model, BARF, other BARF, commercial, homemade, it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, best way to get into raw is to try things out, see what works for you, keep an eye on poo (you can learn a lot from what comes back out) and adjust as you go.

I'm sure some raw feeders would be horrified by what I feed my dogs- not a bit of pureed vegetable or cottage cheese to be seen*- but my dogs are healthy, happy and love their food. And those things are the important bits.

*Although they do get the occasional Cheezel, and one is rather fond of baked cheesecake 

On 01/08/2018 at 10:56 AM, Dogsfevr said:

Im not talking about Racers .
 

Sorry, it was impossible to discern that from your post. 
Perhaps you could specify which new laws are going to potentially impact the genetic diversity of showbred greyhounds, given they obviously aren't subject to any of the rules for the breeding of racing bred greyhounds.

3 hours ago, Dogsfevr said:

Actually this term is being used by ANKC members with the new laws coming in & i don't see it as an issue depending on the terms..
You have a bred that will never be bred in large quantities & a bred that comes under scrutiny by name so if any new laws came in about Greyhounds could potentiality be devastating ,given the gene pool is so small dogs being placed out as a guardianship programme to ensure a healthy future isn't a bad thing ,the issue is the terms placed on the dogs .In the OP case no sane breeder would consider that remotely ethical .

 

The greyhound gene pool is as small as it is because people insist on overusing popular sires. Just look at how many litters Barcia Bale has sired- https://fasttrack.grv.org.au/Dog/Litters/-710494 Roughly 945 litters, assuming some of the bitches missed. That number is staggering and frankly, also pretty disgusting. 

If the industry cared at all about maintaining genetic diversity, they'd cap numbers of litters a dog can sire. Instead, you have the canine equivalents of Genghis Khan, siring thousands of pups and squeezing that gene pool even tighter. Guardianship programs won't help when every dog is some other dog's half brother. And if you breed your dogs like a Habsburg revival, you're doing the breed potentially irreparable damage. 

Same old, same old.

There are industry participants who are claiming that this is a beat-up by the RSPCA, and that the trainer was an elderly man in poor health. Clearly not so poorly that he couldn't dig a sizeable hole though. 

On 11/07/2018 at 10:34 PM, liah_88 said:

From what I remember she didn't have any tumours that they found, they did an xray and possibly an ultrasound but the xray came back inconclusive

I lost a dog to pancreatic cancer that had spread over his entire pancreas, the lower portion of his stomach, the upper portion of his small intestines and all over the mesentery. Imaging (x-rays and ultrasound) failed to pick it up. It wasn't until the vet decided to do a laparotomy that they discovered it. Inconclusive imaging doesn't mean there wasn't something there.

My boy had similar symptoms- blood in his stomach (but also leaking out into his peritoneal cavity, from bleeding lesions on his small intestines) that made him look bloated, vomiting, diarrhoea and issues with his blood. The vet gave him three separate transfusions of fresh frozen plasma and it didn't help his bloods at all. 

In our case, there was nothing that could be done, but the worst part of it was that we didn't suspect cancer at all. He was perfectly normal (his version of normal, anyway) up until five days before he died. That's how fast and sneaky cancer can be, unfortunately.

On 12/07/2018 at 11:38 AM, sandgrubber said:

1. Lamb is pretty common US dogfood.

2. Do you need evidence to suggest something might be due to a cause?  In this case, evidence of small brands going big on marketing can be found in any large pet store.  Linda Case's blog had some nice evidence of poor quality control (and fraudulent labelling)...if I remember correctly, smaller brands were the worst offenders.

If lamb is common in US dog food, why is the author of the article calling it an exotic ingredient, and suggesting there is insufficient feed research on it (as an "exotic" ingredient)?

And yes- if you're going to word things in such a way as to lead the reader to believe they are fact, then the author should have evidence to back up those claims, and be willing to cite it. 

It's no different than the crazies on the other end of the stick, who claim anything processed will cause cancer. I'd want evidence for any claim presented as fact

In the 50+ greyhounds I've fostered, I'd say only a couple were temperamentally unsuited to the average home. One was a very large, hard tempered boy who was sociable and friendly but way too much dog for the average dog owner. The other came from a very shitty background and was unpredictably dog aggressive (which doesn't make for a good pet). The rest just slotted themselves in on sofas, as if they'd been born and bred to lounge. They are soft tempered dogs so they do need a gentle hand but even then, when they're upset, they tend to take themselves off for a sulk. Biting is one of the last things the average greyhound would do.

I think it's also worth pointing out that greyhounds being seen for behavioural issues is not the same as "greyhounds may bite your kid's face off". Issues like SA are not uncommon because greyhounds are born and raised into environments with a lot of canine company, whereas many families only want a single dog. And going from a life surrounded by other dogs and constant company, to a lonely, quiet house for 8 hours at a stretch, can't be easy to adjust to. I'm sure another portion of those dogs are being seen for issues like high prey drive (which isn't actually a behavioural fault in the dog at all) or for the myriad of other odd greyhound behaviours that are actually pretty normal- digging, trancing, sleep startles, nesting/hoarding, nitting, and a variety of creepy/alarming noises that can come out of them.

For the exposure Karen Dawnson has, maybe she could have picked a real issue to focus on- like prey drive. It's the one part of greyhound ownership that impacts so much of the rest, and whether or not a potential adopter is willing to learn about it and understand, easily sorts people into the "should own" and the "should never own".

Groups like Animals Australia post photos of greyhounds cuddling with fluffy duckings and baby bunnies and that's a far bigger lie than "greyhounds make good pets". 

Greyhounds aren't for everyone (no one breed is, ffs), but this article makes them sound like a legitimate risk to own, and that's garbage. 

12 hours ago, sandgrubber said:

The article is circumspect about exotic ingredients... I don't see that it says anything stronger than that they, or some of them, can't be ruled out as contributing to the problem, and there's little evidence of benefit.  In short, research is needed.  On the other hand, there's LOTS of evidence that exotics are good marketing.

But exotic is being defined as just ingredients that aren't common in one particular country. Lamb is a common ingredient here, and presumably, large brands such as Black Hawk are ensuring their foods are nutritionally complete. The article suggests that "Small pet food manufacturers might be better at marketing than at nutrition and quality control"and then provides no evidence of that, at all.

If "exotic" ingredients like lamb and roo are as risky as the article suggests, Australian dogs should be in a lot of trouble, given those are actually common ingredients here, used by many large non-boutique manufacturers. 

On 23/06/2018 at 11:31 AM, crazydoglady99 said:

Oh I don't know.  I am on an email list that sends the pound needies and temp notes for the local pounds. It also has bits and pieces/requests from rescue groups.

It just seems to be the same ones, constantly needing food, bedding, wormers etc etc. 

 

Probably the issue is more me, and I feel terrible that they are struggling. But I can't help but wonder..

 

Edit to say - working within your means. You nailed it. 

I guess it depends on how desperate that need is, if you get what I mean?

If they're constantly down to their last few cups of food, with no capability to self-fund if needed, there is an issue. As PL said, sometimes things go to shit and that's just the nature of dealing with living creatures. But if you can't self-fund enough to ensure basic welfare requirements are being met, and things are becoming urgent on a regular basis, that's pretty clearly indicative of management problems. 

Personally, I worked out what my costs were, decided how much I was willing to self-fund if there was no other income, and I don't take in more dogs than that amount would cover. It limits chances of things go badly into the red and gives you a point at which you can comfortably say no. 

With regards to foster carers using donated items on their own dogs.. I guess it depends. If it was to the detriment of the foster dog (for example, using the coat on their own dog while the foster dog stayed cold), I'd be pretty upset. Sharing items while in care..  doesn't bother me too much, as long as necessary items go with the foster dog to their new home. In saying that.. because I mostly self-fund, I wouldn't appreciate a carer using more expensive things like worming/flea treatments on their own dogs, because that money comes out of my pocket, and limits the dogs I can actually help. Of course, on the other hand, if one of my fosters somehow caused a carer's dog to become infested with worms or fleas, I'd absolutely cover their costs. It comes down to being considerate and neither side taking advantage.

17 hours ago, RuralPug said:

I agree with Maddy on that.

Leaving aside breed specialty rescues, which are a different kettle of fish, if the rescue or shelter mostly offers for adoption the less popular but common mixed breeds at reasonable prices then I see no problem with them charging a substantially higher price for a popular type or baby puppy if one or two should happen their way. 

However I am the first to sneer at so-called "rescues" who offer almost nothing except highly priced puppies.  As far as I am concerned these (and there are a few around) are simply a front for puppy farmers and blacken the name of rescue. 

I think it even happens in breed specific rescues. There have been a few times I've been asked to take dogs from group situations, after other rescues have already picked out the desirable dogs- females, fawns, blues, cat safes- leaving me to collect the huge, black males, who are barely small dog safe and are difficult to rehome. It's annoying to be left with the dogs that take several months to rehome but unlike the people who turned them down to start with, I'm not going to leave a dog to die, just because it'll be more work. However, that also means less exposure from people sharing photos of pretty/interesting dogs, higher expenses from keeping dogs longer and less dogs helped (which equals less donations because it appears you do less work). As always, being ethical in what you do, often disadvantages you. Unfortunate but true.

11 minutes ago, Rascalmyshadow said:

Ok thanks for clearing that up and I know there are so many people willing to hand over ridiculous amounts of money for xbreed mutts, I just never thought an ethical rescue would encourage that.

If it helps to subsidise the rehoming of less desirable dogs, or dogs who require extensive vet work, I'd say that's a reasonable way of going about it. 

With PR gobbling up public donations as efficiently as they are, it's harder for rescue groups to stay in the black, and as long as it's not straying into ethically questionable territory (like only rescuing the highly desirable dogs, and leaving other rescues to deal with the large bully crossbreds that seem to make up most of the pound population), I can't see any problem with it. 

3 hours ago, animallover99 said:

Are you lot calling me out on my lack of Rabbit knowledge!! 

 

 

Not at all. Sometimes, you do get really sweet buns. I have a cashmere lop who is endlessly sweet and patient, and if I didn't care so much for his comfort, I'm cuddle him to adorable, floofy death. If all rabbits were like him, they'd be awesome pets. Downside is he needs some really serious grooming to keep his immense floof in order.

On the other hand.. we also have another rabbit, rescued from a backyard meat breeder, and depending on her current mood/level of murderous hate for all other beings, she can be anywhere from slightly scary to be around, to a two man operation to remove/clean her food bowl. She has been known to kill (and possibly consume) birds, she will lunge, she will bite, she's 5+ kgs, depending on how many souls she's recently devoured. Rorschach would make a great childrens pet, if you hated children. On the inbetween, there's bun number three. He'll bite at fingers that get poked into his house and he'll bite/scratch if picked up but otherwise not too nightmare-inducing.

They're incredibly interesting pets, especially if you're happy to watch from a distance, and they have some very definite personalities, but I really feel they're an adult pet. Kids won't appreciate the nuances of rabbit behaviour anyway and in terms of good husbandry, there's a lot to them. The amount of times people have seen our rabbits and casually commented that they/their kids had rabbits but they only live six months before they randomly die.. it's sad. My eldest (the floofer) is currently about five years old and he's basically still a young adult, with heaps of life left to live. It's sad to think that many pet rabbits die a very premature death, in silent agony, from easily preventable diseases, like RHD, GI stasis, malnutrition, etc., just because people have been misled into believing that rabbits are a low care beginners pet.

In the OP's case, just a very bad idea. Rabbits can be trained and made tamer/safer to handle but it takes patience and commitment. And even then, some rabbits are just not going to be friendly, no matter what you try (see: Rorschach and that time we desexed Rorschach, hoping it might help her aggression. Spoiler alert, it didn't help, it made her even worse)

1 hour ago, Dame Danny's Darling said:

I’ve been biting my tongue, @juice, but you have said exactly what I have been thinking.  Except I wouldn’t even suggest a cat as: "It took nearly a year to teach not to squish guinea pigs.”  Cats can be gorgeously squishy, but they can scratch.   

 

Getting a dog should be like getting another family member.  Unlike a new family member, a dog isn’t shut away to have a couple of hours afternoon snooze.  

 

@jwt, it is good that you have asked these questions and told us about your family situation, but I, too, am having difficulty understanding why you want a dog. You have to consider the dog’s needs as well and if you have doubts that you can meet those, put “having a dog” back on the list for a time when you feel more up to it.  

And I definitely wouldn't recommend a rabbit, either.They take gentle, consistent handling to be able to pick them up without stressing them out, and they're not really suitable pets for kids. A lot of people don't realise it but rabbits are fairly complicated animals to care for correctly. They need companionship, a very high fibre diet, six monthly vaccination for RHD and an appreciation of the behavioural differences in prey animals.

Besides that, a pissed off rabbit can be a very dangerous creature. I have scars on my arms from just necessary handling of unsocialised rabbits- a child with no idea of how to correctly hold or respond to a rabbit that's starting to struggle, could end up getting hurt. 

To be honest, from the point of view of someone who rescues, I agree with Juice. I wouldn't place a dog with you. It's lovely that you'd like to help a dog out but if the home situation is such that a dog basically has to be seen but not heard, maybe it'd be best to look at other ways to help rescue dogs. Not every home or situation is suited to dog ownership, and in your case, I think you're going to struggle to find a dog that will be happy with the situation, without a lot of training and a lot of understanding on your part.

17 hours ago, Selkie said:

Oh I totally agree ... I just meant prior to designer breeds, people did deliberately cross breed dogs to get useful working dogs. 

 

These dogs are not to my taste, but I can see that if they came from well screened parents (which I know they don't) they would have good characteristics for a pet for a lot of people. Muzzle short enough to be cute, but not so short that it distorts the anatomy. Stocky and solid, but not as boofy as a staff. 

 

I'm talking about ideal situations here, though, not the real world!

That's assuming you actually get the traits you're after though.You could equally end up with a big, boofy dog with a squashed face. That's the trouble with first gen crosses- unless you know exactly which genes control which traits (without even getting into polygenic traits), and what dominants/recessives you have to work with, it's just a genetic lottery. Best example of that is first gen lab x poodles. Maybe you get a non-shedding coat, maybe your house gets buried in dog hair, who knows.

On 06/06/2018 at 7:52 AM, Diva said:

None of my sighthounds would have used the stumps to escape. But the only time any of them have been an escape risk has been in the first few weeks, once they knew they belonged they didn’t want to. A different type of breed though would find escape easy over the stumps.

 

I would listen to the greyhound experts who have responded, unless you get an unusually determined Grey the biggest risk is probably running into them. And as Greyhound skin tears so easily I would  take action on that account.

Definitely. The tap in our front yard now has a large, bright piece of poly pipe around it because one foster dog ran into it and actually managed to smash not only the tap pipe itself but also a steel support for the tap. Fortunately the greyhound was completely uninjured but it could have ended very differently. Landscape as if you have a sugared-up, blindfolded toddler who can run at 60 km/h.

I've never had a greyhound who could climb or position their legs in such a small space so I wouldn't be too worried about the stumps. We use baby gates to keep foster greys out of certain rooms and most (probably 90%) are baffled by them. Bear in mind though that some are more determined- we just spent half an hour adding a second latch to a gate that has held in 50+ other dogs - and if you do get a grey like that, life becomes a never-ending arms race.

13 hours ago, Bushriver said:

Not saying that I agree and chances are that yes they are being bred for money, but just maybe someone is trying to work on the breathing issues and other health issues with the French bulldog? I'm definitely no expert on the breed, but from what I gather, something needs to be done. 

If that was the case, why advertise them as shortybulls? A "shortybull" is not a French bulldog so I can't see how it's going to help the Frenchie breed. It's not being done with the oversight of the ANKC or the breed club so none of the potential changes will make it into the pedigreed population. And given "purebred" dogs sell for much more, I can't imagine many backyard Frenchie breeders would want to rob themselves of the words "purebred" just for the dubious possibility of health improvements.

Perhaps the individual puppies of this litter might have better health than a purebred French bulldog (or perhaps not, who knows), but that doesn't help Frenchies, so let's not pretend that this is somehow altruism.

On 30/05/2018 at 11:02 AM, Selkie said:

I will prefix this by saying that I'm aware that the issue here is the overbreeding of dogs of unknown health backgrounds and predatory marketing.

 

Now I'm going to say something very contraversial - in the dog world, I think, due to the issues above, we have forgotten the benefits of the first cross. With horses, it's used very commonly - the Anglo-arab (tb x arab) and hunter ( usually tb x draft, often clydesdale ) are very commonly used and respectable crosses. Because it's first cross, the results are pretty predictable.

 

In the uk, lurchers (sighthound cross terrier or collie) have long been popular as hunting dogs. 

 

SBT cross FB actually could be a nice little dog. 

 

The problem here is both parents are probably backyard bred with no health screening, and the pups will probably raised in dreadful conditions.

If you believe the problem is lack of health testing and questionable care, then surely lurchers would also be a problem? They are very unlikely to have come from health tested parents and if breeders of other hunting types (like stags and bull arabs) are anything to go by, whelping/rearing conditions will be pretty dreadful.

The real issue with crossbreeds is the intent behind their breeding. lurchers/longdogs are bred to work. Surplus puppies will be sold but there's virtually no pet market for that sort of hunting mix, so it's really unusual to see anyone breeding them for pets. On the other hand, someone breeding SBT x Frenchie is doing it entirely for the money ($2,500 per puppy, to be exact). There's no breed standard to work towards, nothing to improve on, no purpose to the dogs, it's just crossing breeds for the sake of profit. No different at all to any other oodle or DD mix.

The ad was on FB but was removed. Found it again on Gumtree. The full ad included a prefix and an ID number, but whether either are real..

43 minutes ago, Rozzie said:

English Staffy?

Yeah..

I recently saw an ad for Staffordshire bull terrier x French bulldog puppies (being sold as "shortybulls") and the ad mentioned the fact that the puppies were MDBA registered, despite only being first gen crosses. Does anyone know if this is actually now being allowed by the MDBA?

Already checked MDBA website and couldn't find anything.

Edited to add screenshot

I have two dogs of the same breed, one from an interstate breeder and the other from a local breeder. By far, the dog from the interstate breeder is better- she's healthier, has a better temperament and the whole experience was very positive. The local breeder.. suffice to say that the entire thing was pretty awful. At the end of the day, a good breeder is a good breeder, regardless of how far away they are. My next potential-maybe dog will be from an interstate breeder and this time, I asked direct questions and got direct answers, so I'm feeling very confident that everything will be good. 

Trouble is, figuring out a good breeder from a bad breeder is not always easy. Some less reliable breeders may say what you want to hear, or be deliberately vague in what's going on, or even outright lie. And in my experience, it can be hard to figure out, especially if someone is skilled with dishonesty. I suspect many potential puppy buyers are cowed into not getting the information they need, because breeders can simply refuse to sell them pups. With my locally bred dog, I didn't push for exact details because I didn't want to come across as a pushy/rude puppy buyer. And ultimately, we've paid (and are still paying) the price for that mistake. better to end up with no puppy at all, than risk being sold one who is totally incompatible with what you wanted. 

On 18/05/2018 at 2:49 PM, RuralPug said:

Thank you for that, PK. I have to say that the pictures of the euthanised pack don't show any dachshund charateristics to me and certainly the large black and white mix doesn't look to have much, if any, border collie in it.

An example of how the media beats up breed - in this case they looked all to be well and truly mixed breed with some of them being short legged.

 A pack of dogs acting as a pack can and will pull down a large animal (including an adult human)  there may not have been any mobility issues, the poor victim was caught un the middle of a field.

Why this semi-feral pack was permitted to roam freely we may never know, but that is the true cause of this tragedy.

It's black and white like a border collie though, and a lot of people assume that common colours/coat patterns are linked only to one particular breed. It's like all the "dalmatian" crosses in pounds here. Anyone would think we had a massive population of undesexed dallies or something. But if you look at any of those dogs, chances are, they're random crosses (maybe with a bit of cattle dog in their heritage) with some ticking. I've even had people insist to me that Bosley (white with black greyhound, ticking) was obviously crossed with a dalmatian, even though he was a purebred greyhound (from DNA'd parents) with a known pedigree going back to the 1700s.

Some people really just have no idea.

I saw the photos from the original article and my opinion? The black and white is some sort of bull breed cross. The others looked like a hodge-podge of other (predominantly) bull breed crosses. The one in the article that PK linked does look maybe a bit more dachshund but I don't think that dog is representative of what the majority looked like. There are a couple that look very much like BT crosses to me but it's impossible to do more than guess anyway.

In one of the news clips, there's an extra photo that shows two of the dogs more clearly. The one that at first glance looked to have a wire coat is actually just a patchy and very scruffy double coat. The other looks like the smooth-coated lovechild of a GSD and a corgi. If I had to guess from that photo, I'd say GSD x corgi. But another photo taken by the same person, showing the same two dogs plus two more, makes them look more staffy

This looks nothing like a dachshund to me

At the end of the day, I don't think it matters a great deal what they were. A family pack, not properly cared for, maybe edging towards feral from lack of human contact/socialisation- it was an accident waiting to happen, regardless of size.

1 minute ago, Jumabaar said:

$400 of that was probably anaesthesia.

 

Possible additional costs

Pre anaesthetic bloods - maybe $80

Fluids-- $50/80ish

ab- 30

pain relief- 30

Dental xrays -100to200

 

Then the dental may have taken over an hour to complete- with a veterinarian and a dedicated anaesthesia nurse. Some teeth just take a really long time- even if its a specialist performing the procedure!!

 

The special dental machine that needs to be payed off + have upkeep.

The special dental tools required for extractions.

The facility, electricity bill, water etc also needs to be paid. 

 

An equivalent human procedure would be in the thousands with a GA. I think my wisdom teeth had a 3k excess with private health insurance.......

Seems very high for GA. I can get a 30kg female dog desexed,chipped and C5'd for less than that.