Steve

O.K. so how will you enforce a desexing contract? And suggesting selling puppies to those who want to breed doesnt mean you are still not going to be discrimminatory about who you sell to. It doesnt mean you just sell them to idiots or puppy farmers. You place just as much risk on selling to a registered show breeder as you do to anyone else. Im not suggesting we sell breeding dogs to just anyone - just more than we do now and with less conditions than we do now.

There isnt a ny definitive answer as every breeder is different and is able to put any conditions or price on they wish.I would never consider buy a dog on breeders terms and I wouldnt touch this one with a barge pole.

I agree with what you say, but most start off all honorable and then, the dollar signs start to become more important. I find it unusual to get an inquiry for, Show or Breeding stock these days. When I sell a pet it is de sexed I don't need contracts end of story. Even when sold to other breeders, if they decide they don't want it, they to can do the wrong thing and sell on as a pet not de sexed. I believe what is in the back of our minds is that we are doing what we do to stop any puppy farmer or Byb getting hold of any pure bred stock. Yes we can sit and discuss this for hours and still not come out with suitable outcome. Maybe it is a sign of the times but the average citizen appears not to want to show dogs. Which could open up a whole new topic. Thats why I advise them to do the intro to breeding course but even if they do end up where the dollar becomes more important isnt it better for everyone if they are breeding with dogs which wont do any harm to the breed? Yes that is a fair assumption. But in some of my cases or ones heard of, the breeding has not not been up to the standard the you or I or others would require. This includes the whelping conditions and general health for the bitch and her future litter. That is unregistered litters, use of the local dogs seen at the park. Not enough knowledge of the breed and using dog with bad conformation. One of the greatest problems is that when the pups are sold on the new owners perpetuate the situation by doing the same thing. This goes against the grain with me. I however have no problems with persons who breed and are registered and do the right thing by their pups. I may find myself in a similar situation in the coming years, but I will always breed registered pups and and use the best of the blood lines that may be found. I will also vaccinate and micro chip which may be found to be lacking in some of the non registered breeder cases. But if people who want to breed get access to good breeding dogs rather than having to go with anything they can get because the good ones arent made available to them surely its better for everyone and the puppies they breed. And registered breeders muck it up too. Example. A judge - well respected by his peers. They only vaccinate one male and one female in each litter and photo copy the vaccination certificate no microchips.No gosip this is a fact. We need more people breeding good quality registered dogs whether they show them or not and the only way to do that is to allow them to have access to good dogs and give them all the info and education and support we can.

I agree with what you say, but most start off all honorable and then, the dollar signs start to become more important. I find it unusual to get an inquiry for, Show or Breeding stock these days. When I sell a pet it is de sexed I don't need contracts end of story. Even when sold to other breeders, if they decide they don't want it, they to can do the wrong thing and sell on as a pet not de sexed. I believe what is in the back of our minds is that we are doing what we do to stop any puppy farmer or Byb getting hold of any pure bred stock. Yes we can sit and discuss this for hours and still not come out with suitable outcome. Maybe it is a sign of the times but the average citizen appears not to want to show dogs. Which could open up a whole new topic. Thats why I advise them to do the intro to breeding course but even if they do end up where the dollar becomes more important isnt it better for everyone if they are breeding with dogs which wont do any harm to the breed?

The Maremmas would do well with Roos and its very unlikely that the Roos would become habituated to all dogs.Thats not what happens in any other situation where the dogs work with native fauna or domestic animals.

Beautiful!

Well done - a most deserving win!

I believe that if we truly do have the integrity of the breed at heart that we would allow our dogs to go out without restriction for breeding to those who want a breeding dog. I believe that id someone says they may want to breed even if they dont want to show that they should be sold a dog outright which the breeder considers will do no harm to the breed. We have limited the gene pools by our controlling methods to a point where some breeds are in real danger and while that may make the breeder feel they can control what is going on in my opinion its placed in a position we didnt need to be in. There are 33000 members of the ANKC and of them Australia wide only 4 and a half thousand are breeders - we are a dying race. Not much point in having a great "line" if it dies out when you do.

Yes as from the 1st of July.2011.

Put "rare" in front of her name and charge twice as much

Ive taken my tiny girl to the vet and she has been given a clean bill of health. The vet tells me she is perfect. Tiny but fit as a fiddle. She weights 1/6 th as much as her biggest brother. She is probably good for nothing - might have to bring her into the fire - she's too little to be out there in the frost

Lilli, could you elaborate on that more? From the outside looking in, it appears we care more for our dogs and as a result our dogs are better off. But our extra care is weakening our dogs over generations. So our dogs do not live as long, their nervous system and immune are not as strong. Even seemingly basic assistance like worming and inoculation has an effect over time. There are lots of things I see done in kazak that I would not do, but there are lots of things I wish we had. :thumbsup:

Andrea, can you explain why you would always choose an adult? Andrea sees dogs which come from all over the place so without knowing the lines and the breeding the best thing for Andrea is to deal with adults because she can test them out before they go where they are going. Its really hard to change over one that's been doing one job to doing another. Its not always possible and a much bigger challenge than starting out with a baby which is optimum age to bond quickly. Easy to bring them in from the paddock to the lounge room but not vice versa. Puppies are better with chooks in my opinion and you dont get the Im loving these things to death as much as you do trying to bond an older one. My preference is for a well bred puppy but if you dont know the breeding better to have the opportunity to do what Andrea does and place them where they are most suited.

Steve, the dogs guarding the sheep in this scenario, can I ask what they are like with poultry? or are they specifically sheep only dogs? The dogs in this situation have never seen poultry but Ive placed some which go into free range chicken farms and they still sort out the hawks and the eagles.

So Here is the question. I have a litter here - beautiful - except one. What do you do with a mini Maremma. This little girl is about a quarter of the size of her litter mates and is an obvious dud.Appears to happy and healthy but looks like a maltese.

I am struggling with this at the moment. Snowy will only let children in her paddock, some select women and no men. I am feeling a bit stuck about going away for a weekend. What do you mean she wont let them in? She was an older dog when you got her wasnt she? Do you know anything about her history?

As long as the dog has met them before and the people dont want to get all lovey dovey with the dog is no problem.

Ive told this story here before but will tell it again. We had a young boy out in the paddock and the kids came in to tell me there were several crow bodies lying around the paddock. Its pretty hard to kill a crow so we all went out and watched what was going on. The Maremma had moved out from the flock just a little and was for all the world looking like a sheep .He had his head down as if he were grazing and eating grass.The crows obviously were fooled into thinking he was a sheep out on its own and as they came in he pinged them. Crows do not fly over my paddocks which the Maremmas are in now - they fly around .

Maremmas are definitely not dog aggressive. They do need a good boundry but because if not they guard the road and the neighbours property and there have even been some reports of the guarding the town. We placed a pet maremma in a small country town. The dog would go ontot the road and bring a young toddler back home for its Mum who lived a few doors down. The odg woul bring the kid to the porch and sit between the steps and the kid and keep it there until Mum decided to come looking for it. It became quite famous for it. Though I always wondered about Mum and why she let the kid get into that position in the first place. The dog really did see allof the houses in the block as his - in that case the people who lived there loved it but as the dog got older the territory started to spread so it had to be bought back to staying in its own yard or it was trying to stop anyone who didnt live their coming in. The ranger got a bit antsy.

No I dont think I would agree with that Maremmas do defend the flock but they also defend the territory and anything considered normal with in it. The Maremmas take down eagles and crows.

That's what I was hoping. I'd love to get one now to bond onto myself, my existing dogs and horses (oh, plus the cats), but am planning on moving in the next 6 months so I think I should wait. I'm buying land with my mum, and am considering running agistmnent, so I'd want to be there before getting a LGD, so it would get used to people coming and going from the start (also so I then know the dog laws and if I need to get a permit as I already have 3 dogs). I assume in this case the dog would become good at discriminating between those coming in with good or bad intentions from the person's body language??? Yep its about body language but also about what is normal. The meter reader here is always more at risk than anyone else because he parks the car outside the gate and tries to walk in swinging his black thing he uses to read the meter.If he just did what everyone else does and drive in through the gate and held the black thing close to his body it would be nothing out of the ordinary. But when I see a stranger with a hat pulled down around his eyes and he walks through the gate swinging something I get a bit curious too so you cant blame the dog. I put a padlock on the gate now around the time the electricity has to be read so he cant just open it and walk in - he needs me to escort him.

If you are out walking with a Maremma and a dog approaches on lead its no big deal but if a dog approaches off lead and gets into your space its going to try to guard you .As far as dogs on your property as long as you introduce them and show the Maremma you accept them.They accept whatever you accept.

They accept anything you accept .Bringing in a new animal here is no big deal. I walk in put it down and say dog meet new animal and they say Oh O.K..They will actually go out of their way to make friends and let the new kid know they are no threat and that they will look out for them.

I bet you feel safer knowing she is there. I have no doubt that if someone rushed at me in a threatening manner they would be pinned in a heartbeat. I would be guessing at why they wag their tail but its my experience when they are "on" the tail is the last thing you would be looking at

In general: The Anatolian is in the middle between Maremma and Central Asian, wrt using physical confrontation as their defence response. By that I mean maremma innate response is to bark and warn from a distance, Central Asian innate response is active physical confrontation; Anatolian is generally warn first followed by physical confrontation. That said, It depends on the lineage of the dog, some Anatolians you can leave out the front to bark at unknown arrivals and some you cannot, because they will attack unknown arrivals. How they work is not the only difference, but it represents a lot about the dogs' general temperament and character traits. Probably Anatolians are more likely to exhibit aggression towards people than the maremma, but you will have to check with steve. Anatolians are expected to take the lead if there is leadership lacking and it is not unusual for this to manifest into human aggression if raised the wrong way. Generally if an Anatolian is 'not working out', it is because the dog is exhibitng aggresion towards the owner / family. Nothing wrog with the dog. Just the wrong temperament type for the home. My ideal Anatolian has a strong pscychological ascendancy and I will use an alpha assertive temperament type in at least either the sire or dam when breeding. Not all Anatolian breeders share this ideal, nor will a whole litter be this way. Yep maremmas are never aggressive and do all they can to avoid attacking. I believe the dogs are very much the result of their homelands. The Maremma is from Italy. Anatolian from Turkey. Central Asian from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. The Anatolian had less day to day interaction with people than the Central Asian, it needed to protect a lone shepherd and his flock. Being good with people was not a requirement. It was necessary that the dogs did not need people The dogs were never part of the family. The dogs of Central Asia were family guardians, expected to be a canine warrior of sorts and evolved to be physically so hardy because basically there is nothing there to support them. I dont mean 1000 years ago or 100 years ago. I mean even now. The landscape of Italy I cannot relate as I have not been there to look at the dogs in their environment, but if you extrapolate what you know of the three geographical regions, and the histories of the peoples that lived on them, then you will also see and understand the psyches of the dogs who lived with them. It is probably true to say that the Central Asia dogs can be as volatile as the history of the land they are from. But they are also survivors. I arrived in Kazakhstan with a lot of speculation and arrogance about how we look after our dogs, and left humbled with a lot of admiration for the land and her dogs. And realising there is so much for me to learn Very true. In italy they are expected to be more people friendly as the threat is from wolves and they are also expected to have basic manners with visitors etc when they are bought back in closer to the farmhouse.