WoofnHoof

Couple more pics from this morning this is another new rug doesn't fit too bad, it was clean but he saw me coming to take it off and decided he'd better roll and get it a bit grubby :laugh:

Sounds great you are obviously on the right track!

Co owner deals like that can be a bit messy from what I've read on here, maybe start a thread in breeders and ask them what sort of arrangements need to be made to protect all parties?

But you can't be a crazy dog lady with only one dog. *nods*

If you want another one, get another one :D It's really only a PITA if they don't get along and in my experience the tinies are much more likely to get along fine and if they aren't they are heaps easier to manage if they need to be separated. Yours was already fine with the foster so it's highly likely she'll be fine with another one. I think you are much more likely to regret not getting him than vice versa (that's what I'm like anyway) :)

I shouldn't have clicked on that link. :laugh: I would love a pony or two, just don't have the money or the property, but maybe in my next lifetime. :D Lol compared to the big horses this little guy is cheap as chips! :laugh: I am lucky I have property to put him on that's for sure :)

Lol it might get shortened to TP :laugh: I'm thinking of giving him a haircut since the days are getting warmer and his wooly coat doesn't seem to be in a hurry shifting, at least he has a few rugs now although they may not fit him after a haircut since most of his body volume is fluff!

Lol OSO facebook is dangerous for me, so many gorgeous tiny ponies for sale! :laugh:

I think breed plays a huge part in problem behaviours (at least in those which have identifiable breed traits) I know that huskies are not for the average owner and yet there are so so many in rescue I was talking to a woman the other day she told me she was given a husky but it kept running away (I was amazed that it came back I'm sure mine wouldn't), she gave it to another lady, saw her a few years later and found out that it ran away from her as well and never came back. Probably hit by a car poor bugger So little breed education out there and with breeds that are not as biddable it is absolutely crucial that they go to someone familiar with the breed or at least someone who understands and accepts the traits that come with it. The average owner expects a dog to come when it's called, expects it not to shed boatloads of hair everywhere, expects it to stay in average fencing without any special modifications or management, expects it to have a modicum of obedience with basic training. All reasonable expectations for the biddable breeds but not so reasonable for a breed like a sibe. I can understand the problem dog issues though, you see this with horse rescues as well, they pick up a lot of horses (usually with soundness issues) and then spend thousands of donated dollars trying to get it paddock sound, if they can they then try to rehome it so they can rescue more. Problem is there are very few homes for paddock ornaments, it's all well and good if you can afford to keep it in the manner to which it has become accustomed to live out it's days (I've got one of those myself) but when your rescue relies on being able to move them on it very much has to come back to optimizing the chances of a good, long term home and that means euthanising the lost causes and being a lot more objective about the ones you bring home. It's very tempting for someone who is passionate about the welfare of horses to want to set up a rescue and get a truckload of doggers and take them to safety, but the reality of it all is that the costs are astronomical and the chance of success relatively small. Interestingly an old friend of mine who used to criticize me for being 'negative' about this sort of thing, asked me for help the other day to rehome an occasionally unsound horse she had 'saved' from being sent to the doggers a while back, now of course she can't afford to feed it so was all set to take it to the sales. Being the bleeding heart that I am I offered to put it up on a few facebook pages that I'm on, I don't know if it has improved the horse's chances of a decent home or not at least there has been some disclosure about it's soundness or lack thereof that *might* stop him getting bounced around some more. It's all very frustrating, I'm the first to say give an animal a 2nd chance, 3rd chance etc, but only if you have the resources and capability to do so, and if you want the animal to live you need to accept that it may never be able to be rehomed and you need to be responsible for that animal and not try to rehome it into an unsuitable situation and also give it the best life you can give it. It's a lot to ask and that is why I take my hat off to good rescues that can be objective and make the tough decisions, I certainly wouldn't be able to do it I have to wait for one of mine to kick the bucket before I can attempt another 'save' lol. Sorry for the witching hour rant ramble Edited: more of a ramble than a rant lol

How wonderful that she is home with you! :)

Any Victorian fans of tiny ponies might be interested in this gorgeous fellow on facebook, I'd love to have a matching pair but too far away linky

Lol yeah he doesn't mind if it's pink :D PC the BHW rugs are basically the same as minicraft they are a great fit and great quality you can't go wrong with them :)

Yay finally a rug that fits! Unfortunately not a gender appropriate colour but beggars can't be choosers

Good to hear you have a management plan for him. Hopefully he will start feeling better soon :)

So sorry to hear this DR

Lazy science isn't good science Woof and you know it. With a couple of exceptions, the most experienced folk in my breed are not here. Some would struggle to turn a computer on. Dodger's breeder doesn't even own one. You want to talk to the folk who've been in the breed 30+ years, go through the clubs. Or get out of the uni, go to a specialty and see the dogs for yourselves. Hand out flyers, press the flesh and talk to folk who've had many dogs of the breed over decades. One visit within Sydney at Easter could have shown Corvus that her conclusions about sighthounds were iffy. She'd have worn my dogs if she'd greeted them.. and a lot of other owners dogs also. None would deny that there are timid sighthounds, but my guess is most would dispute that its typical breed temperament. So if you come here for leads, ask for the contact point, not the data. Frankly I'd have thought the ANKC was the obvious contact point for both. Flog your hypotheses good and hard and be prepared to demystify the language for people. Science has done wonderful things for dogs. I'd like to see it continue - but both sides have to work together for that to occur. Like I said I don't know anything about the whippet study, if the ANKC breed database is anything like the Equestrian Australia club listings getting anything current from there was like pulling teeth. I agree that communication is an area that needs to be improved but there is so much anti science sentiment around these days it's hard to get through, people shut you down and won't talk to you, it can be very hard to deal with especially when you yourself are studying because you are passionate about a subject and yet people treat you like dirt and act like you're trying to bring them down. It can be very disheartening.

One might ask why more scientists don't follow this advice and approach breed clubs direct. Frankly they'd probably get better data on it than asking for volunteers in places like here. Maybe they could leave the lab and see their test subjects up close and personal rather than relying on owners to interpret their dog's behaviour via surveys. There is deep suspicion amongst pedigree dog people about the agendas running behind a lot of scientific research. "Pedigree Dogs Exposed" has a lot to answer for. It seems to me that better communication on both sides would assist but frankly neither group has a particularly brilliant record at that. The sooner scientists grasp that they need to "sell" their research agendas to get the data they want and the sooner pedigree dog folk realise that not every scientist is aiming to make pedigree dogs extinct the better. Scientists no doubt think that they're bettering the world for dogs (and plenty are) but they need to convince others of that outside the ethics boards at their unis. If you want pedigree dog data scientitsts then YOU need to clarify your positions to the owners of that data. That won't happen on this forum. The "timid sighthounds" research STILL pisses me off. It pisses me off mostly because in my experience (admittedly not a statistical valid sample) it is simply not true. Temperament varies significantly among the sighthound breeds - some are downright protective if pressed. It also pisses me off because any knowledgeable sighthound person will tell you that socialisation is crucial for their breed. Corvus made some big conclusions on some very limited data and when pressed was a lot less candid about its limitations that she has been in this thread. Maybe she didn't think of the harm those conclusions could lead to for the breeds involved but breed fanciers sure as hell did. I was one of them. If the data was skewed by being drawn from one breed of sighthound and mostly from dogs NOT born and raised in family homes then that would have been useful to interpreting its outcome. If those factors were unknown they maybe it could have been mentioned as a possible interpretation. Published and picked up by the media its poor publicity for breeds that have a lot to offer as family pets - outcome pretty disastrous for the breeds involved. And all in the name of "science". So it comes down partly to "it ain't what you say it's the way that you say it". And that applies to both sides. I agree that reaching the right people can be difficult, but I think that's why people do come here, it's far less legwork to find a large amount of breed fanciers in the one place (Dogz) than it is to find the contact details of every single breed club. I know it was an extremely laborious task to try and gather together a list of equestrian clubs I did a while back and I found that most of the contact info that I did find was out of date. I don't know anything about the sighthound study so I can't really comment on that, I don't have anything to do with companion animal studies but having said that I would think that the huge amount of variables is absolutely a problem in designing a study and getting a statistically signficant number of participants. We can all poke holes in research that has been done by other people because of those variables and how difficult it is to get any meaningful data, but when it comes to doing the research it's just not easy to design and implement research that takes into account all those variables. Realistically companion animal research, while important to us, has very little priority in terms of funding and manpower, most students do their work with a very basic budget and obviously there are even less actual paid working researchers in the area, there is little enough funding available for animal welfare and most of it is allocated towards farm animal welfare because it's industry funded. I don't know what the answer is but a good start I think would be a central point of contact for both researchers and breed clubs/representatives.

I'm basing my opinion of McGreevy on what he has said on Catalyst and elsewhere rather than his student's opinion of him. Please state your evidence of where Pav or I have said the above in this thread? Why not go straight to the source? Most researchers working through unis have a uni email/contact details if it's so concerning just go and ask him to clarify his position. The heckling that goes on in these threads would be amusing if it wasn't so sad.

I suspect you just said a lot more about yourself than Paul McGreevy. :laugh: I promise you, he's not interested in ending pedigree dogs. He's VERY interested in the long-term health of pedigree dogs. He doesn't think that necessarily means ending them. I hope you don't! He has the desire and the means to be a big help. Propagating hatred towards him in pedigree dog circles is probably at best unnecessary and at worst counter-productive. But hey, what would I know? I've only hung out with him talking dogs for the last 2 1/2 years. When someone who has hung out with McGreevy for 2 1/2 years qualifies a statement about his interest in the long term health of pedigree dogs by saying he doesn't "necessarily" think that means "ending" them, then I think Pav's concerns are well justified. Scientists don't talk in absolutes, there's nothing sinister about it.

There is a study I linked in the 'studies about dogs' pinned topic which looks at the morphological differences between a variety of breeds and how their behaviour is comparable to the developmental stages of behaviour in the ancestral wolf and showed a correlation between certain breeds and the development of certain behaviours. It was very interesting stuff and anecdotally I found it reminded me a lot of the communication breakdowns that have occurred with my husky and small breeds.

2'9" :) once he's into 3' it will be easier to find better fitting ones, I've got a couple more coming hopefully they fit him better.

Lol Piper the lady I bought him from named him Smiley but it hasn't really stuck I just keep calling him Tiny Pony :laugh:

A few more iphone pics from today :)

So tiny pony has moved up a rug size and OMG it's difficult to find good fitting teeny tiny rugs! Anyway here's a couple of pics :)

Lol yeah he is a bundle of cuteness all right :laugh: it's really hard to be tough and not let him get away with naughty behaviour too! Haha I'm the same re FB it's great seeing all the gorgeous piccies your pups always look like they are having a ball :)