WoofnHoof

Oh yeah I see what you mean about the handling at shows, it certainly wont help if she freaks out at a show! Hope you can get her a bit more settled then. Is she sensitive to a lot of handling or is it more the strangers? Is there some way of desensitising her to other things on her body using harnesses or backpacks or something? Just throwing some ideas out there.

I wonder if it's a sibe thing, I don't know too many but the ones I've seen are like mine, they don't really like people in their face. My fellow will wander over for a pat if it suits him but generally he just cruises around he tends to back off if people are too full on with him. I know that they generally aren't "in your face" dogs anyway so perhaps that natural aloofness is a little more so in her than your other dogs? I'm not really sure but I've never really pushed my fellow to be accepting of lots of "hands on" attention, he loves people but I don't mind if he's not all that affectionate with them.

Haha anyone who watched the olympics probably just thinks of dressage as a horse going along like "pepi le pew" thanks to that dopey jockey The only dressagey tricks my sibe can do is a dodgy pirouette (totally on the forehand) and some airs above the ground - not allowable in your modern dressage test, hmm bit of work to do yet

This is where the philosophy of animal conciousness and ethics collide, and is the subject of an increasing number of studies. As yet we don't know what is concious and what is subconcious in animals, Temple Grandin has some interesting theories I have a link here somewhere... Here 'tis There are more on her website regarding conciousness in animals. Personally I think that if someone has conditioned a response to a certain drive there is an ethical onus on them to then ensure that this response does not result in diminished welfare for the animal, in greyhound racing the animal cannot judge whether it's exertions in extreme heat will result in severe heat stress and the responsibility is on regulators to set reasonable limits.

Well being paranoid as I am I cut the bones out, they felt a bit hard and sharp and I didn't need any more to stress about so I just cut them out. They were quite easy to cut out so I think I will keep getting them as the dogs liked them

Sounds like an infection to me, I'd go see the vet asap.

Thanks everyone, I'm a bit torn now, I might have a feel of them (even though I hate handling raw meat - yuk!) and see if the bones are hard/sharp.

Yep I'll be feeding them raw, usually the only bones they get are in chicken necks as they generally have no trouble with those. I'll take the bones just to be on the safe side. Thanks

I bought some neck chops for the dogs and wondering if I can feed them with the bones in or if I should try and dig them out? The bones look pretty small and I don't want them choking on them or anything, does anyone else feed them and do you take the bones out or leave in? I have a husky and a chi.

Corvus that's interesting I will have to go look it up but it sounds similar to something I read a while back which questioned a lot of the wolf behaviours which have been adopted for dog training because many of these behaviours had been observed in wolf packs meeting for the first time, fighting over something etc, not necessarily behaviours exhibited in their daily life so to speak. This is apparently where a lot of the dominance/submission stuff came from originally and whatever I was reading suggested that this is not normal behaviour.

Now that really is a can of worms Cosmo! How much stress is too much? How much stress does one method produce over another and does it make a long term difference? Who really knows - other than the dog? Personally I think that attempting to continue to teach recall in my sibe who is clearly not bred for it would cause him unnecessary stress because his brain simply isn't oriented for something like recall, yet I would happily teach him sledding because he is genetically tuned into that kind of activity. That's my personal take on it I know that there are plenty who attempt to teach recall in sibes but unless it was a particularly biddable sibe I would question the value of training something which was totally against it's core nature. (Flame suit on lol)

No a clicker isn't a gadget in the horse world, obviously the word 'gadget' as it's used in the horse world is different to it's general use, in the horse world a gadget is a piece of equipment which forcibly holds an animal in a certain position, which have the potential to be harmful because of the way it's used, these are devices which make it uncomfortable and even painful to the horse to put it's head any other way. There is plenty of controversy in the horse world on the use of gadgets as many believe they can be fine in the right hands and the right circumstances, although the general concensus is that 'less is best'. Anyway, a clicker would not be referred to as a gadget because it's use in the wrong hands is unlikely to cause the animal serious damage. Edited to add link to horsey gadgets if anyone's interested :D

I used to work at a pork abattoir and we tested tongues for E. coli as they were an export product and they were full of it. I wouldn't feed it raw or handle it without gloves either.

I know what you're talking about - for years I've ridden in dressage, eventing etc. I've always thought of it in terms of "yielding" and "acceptance". When it comes to horses though I just never thought of it in terms of "submission". Not saying you're wrong and it's just a matter of semantics and perception I guess :rolleyes:. Lol it's this part of the collective marks I often have to pay attention to when reading my test sheets as I often get 'resisting' comments so I'm probably more used to using the term: That's from one of the novice tests, it looks like the FEI tests include "lightness of the forehand" as well.

I've never thought of the horse coming up under the saddle and accepting the bit as "submission". Have to think on that one some more. It's commonly used in dressage as the opposite of resistance, submission is used in conjunction with acceptance of the aids, bridle etc. True submission is considered as being when the aids are accepted willingly and without resistance.

It depends on which method they are referring to when they say someone is taking the 'easy way out', in the horse world this is almost always referring to the use of 'gadgets' to achieve a forced submission or achieve an instant outline. This is negative because the point of achieving the desired outline is that it comes from the understanding of the horse and the way it carries itself, many people think that head down = submission but if it is forced with the use of a gadget or incorrect use of the bit it results in a tense horse and no true submission. I would think that the doggy equivalent would be the use of a halti or similar device in unskilled hands as a means of controlling a pulling dog, as opposed to the longer method of training the dog not to pull, if that makes sense. It has a negative connotation because of the long term possible damage and the fact that it may not necessarily 'fix' the problem as the problem could be rooted in the training rather than the symptom of the dog pulling - ie not listening to the handler. That's the way I see it anyway.

I tend to agree corvus, I think that humans influence the hierarchies more than anything else, as the animals can tell who we favour the most no matter how equal we try to make it. That is why the structure is more more solid and defined than it is in the wild, our own sense of structure influences the way the animals behave towards each other.

Friend of mine had her two dogs vacc and given the heartworm jab at the same time and they both got a little sick, she went back to the vet (not sure if it was the same one) and he told her that some dogs will react if both are given at once so they recommend staggering it. When I moved down the hill where there was more risk of heartworm I got my two the jab and they had no apparent side effects, it was lucky that it was about 6 months after their annual vaccs anyway so that was good. When I took mine to a new vet he tried to convince me to get them all at once (and get the heartworm one early!), I told him what I'd been told and he reckoned he'd never heard of it, he was an arrogant terd anyway and wasn't listening to a word I said so I wont be getting him again.

Good to know she's going well for you. Don't be surprised if she doesn't want to go in the garden when it rains, mine hate going out in the long grass when it's rained, can't be getting all soggy now!

Just out of curiosity - where is the 'correct' place to poo? With my dogs as long as it's outside somewhere then I'm happy I think putting the poo in the spot where you want it might help, if you see her 'go' in the right spot then lots of rewards might get her to eventually understand but personally I think having one particular spot where she should go is another of those 'too high' expectations, at this early stage I would just be happy with 'outside' BTW she is very cute

Big Dog may be able to deliver to you. We pick ours up at Greenbank because they will hold it there in storage till we can pick it up. We used to get it delivered to Ipswich but it was during the day when nobody was there to put it away in the freezer. Cool thanks I will have to ring them when I need the next lot.

I agree with erny, it's an interesting idea worth investigating, while I can see a few areas where I differ in opinion the answer no doubt lies somewhere in the middle! Merry Christmas everyone

I got a heap of the barf stuff from Acacia (they stock canine country) and my dogs refused to eat it I had to chuck it out! I rang them about delivery too because they said they deliver to Ipswich but when I revealed that I'm 5 minutes out of Ipswich - nope no deliveries. What a pain in the arse.

It does look to me as though it's purely a difference in defintions, this Ray fellow appears to be referring to 'pack' in terms of behaviours expressed as part of the behavioural sequence of hunting, however this I would think would be different to other behavioural sequences such as that observed in more mundane social situations, grooming behaviours, submission etc. Our defintion of a 'pack' includes the entire social structure, loosely modelled on behaviours of wolf packs in the wild. Social behaviours exist in every species (otherwise mating wouldn't occur lol!), however the degree of 'structure' in the social group varies greatly. I read somewhere that in horse herds (and I think it mentioned wolves and dogs as well), the social hierarchy in domestic animals is much more stable and structured than comparable ones in the wild, which are much more fluid and dynamic. Possibly the subtle signals given off by people can influence the pack/herd behaviour towards each other? All very interesting

tkay, motor patterns (drive sequences and/or hunting behaviour) are intrinsic behaviours in a dog. The predatory (motor pattern) sequence is only seen in its complete state by wild hunting canids. What we humans have done is selected dogs that display either some of most of these sequence patterns to create various breeds, dependant on the type of work we wanted accomplished. The motor pattern sequence is a behaviour RULE and is hard wired, although which aspects of the sequence a particular breed will display is dependant on what I just explained. Oh yes I see what you mean there in terms of the hard wired sequences being broken up in various breeds, that makes sense. I think I am thinking more about the feedback between the situation and the animal in determining which behaviours are expressed, but now that I see the slide about the broken up behaviours I can see where there is room for feedback to influence the dog's thinking and the way it approaches the 'hunt'. I'd like to know more about the relationship and interaction between hard-wired behaviours and learned behaviours I think that would be interesting. As far as the cross-breeding theory goes the theory is fine but extreme cross-breeding should obviously be avoided as you can have opposing genes creating conflict within the animal both behaviourally and physically. Did he say much about out-crossing within breeds? It would depend on the gene pool and how many healthy animal fit into it though.