WoofnHoof

It seems though that there is a difference between backyard breeders and breeders adhering to a registry, I'm not 100% up on the forum rules but I don't think they specifically state no discussion on breeds in development or breeds other than ANKC recognized breeds. What about working registries? What about breeds recognized in other countries? It might be distressing to poodle purists that their breed is being used in the development of this new breed, but the fact is that the niche exists, if it's not filled by poodles and there are no other options available it will be filled by crosses until a new breed is developed to take it's place, that is what happens with breeds, a need arises and selective breeding takes place. The majority of people talking about the registries are not taking about f1 crosses, they are talking about many generations and serious attempts by the registries to produce a 'breed'. As far as the motivations go, well there are plenty of motivations for breeding dogs and it doesn't have to be just work, the working role of dogs has changed in our society and so what we need in a dog has also changed. We condemn people for wanting to reproduce their 'great pet' yet many breeds were developed because of one or two 'great' dogs. At least give credit where it's due and recognize that a developing breed is just that and should not be confused with f1 crosses.

I'm with you OP I think that was a very off putting email, it's all well and good to get advice about the best way to 'sell yourself' to a breeder but when you only want a pet why on earth would you bother researching lines and what not? I totally agree that the vast majority of the general public are a) not going to understand why they have to sell themselves, they aren't applying for a job they want to give a pup a home, and b) not going to put in the effort off their own bat without knowing why and why would they when there are plenty of other cattle dog breeders out there who will happily sell them a pup. Asking $100 deposit with no pups on the ground is the height of rudeness IMO, as is selling without papers even though I understand that it's not compulsory over there it's still kind of the point of going through the rigmarole of buying from a registered breeder. I understand that breeders want to weed out time wasters but this approach does nothing whatsoever to encourage people not to go to pet shops, the vast majority of the puppy buying public are not going to view that email along the lines of 'oh well they are trying to weed out non serious buyers so they can establish a rapport with their puppy buyers' nope they are going to view it as snobby, off putting, money grubbing and rude. JMO.

Yeah I would think that if poodle breeders did pool their resources and bred towards a temperament more suited for this work no doubt they could produce it, but whether there are enough standard poodle breeders (and dogs) out there willing and able to do this is obviously the main question. I'm working on the assumption that the cross seemed like a good idea at the time and no doubt it is if they can get it to breed true to a stable type, I think in terms of the pet situation a lot of the difficulty with poodles as pets is primarily due to image, heaps of times I've seen newbies post 'what breed' threads and they've stipulated 'no poodles' usually because their husband won't let them! I think if the poodle got an image makeover AND standards were more plentiful we would see a shift, although it probably needed to happen well before the cross was attempted.

My understanding of this is that poodles are unsuited for guide dog work as they are often highly strung and need far more mental stimulation than labs do. That's the case with most poodles I've had anything to do with anyway, labs are unruly when young but settle well into this role with age. Someone with more poodle experience surely would be able to clarify if this is the case though but I would assume there was a signficantly good reason for the cross being attempted in the first place as if it were that simple it would have been done well before now. I know poodle fan has posted pics before of a poodle in the role of a guide dog but since this is the exception rather than the rule obviously there is a significant barrier to the breeds suitability for this particular job, both are retrieving breeds but that's about where the simialrity ends. The real question is that if the cross is producing all these awful dogs why are people still lining up to buy them? Why is the breed (whether or not you agree it is a breed) still so popular? This debate has raged on here well before I joined DOL in 2006 and yet the pound doesn't seem any more flooded with oodles than it does of any other types of dog other than the rarer purebreeds. Why aren't people lining up in droves to get rid of these dogs? Why do they go back for seconds or thirds? Clearly a niche exists for a large non shedding breed and whilever there aren't enough purebreds being promoted and bred to fill this niche then clearly the need will be filled by the cross. If they can get the dogs to breed true and do all the right health tests then more power to them. I also don't get the argument for a 'purpose', the making money purpose is only a problem when welfare is compromised, otherwise it's no less noble than any other purpose for breeding dogs, after all every working breed has been developed to 'make money' just in a more indirect fashion by replacing human labour.

Yeah yeah I know the RSPCA suck and all that but I still love going, missed it last year but have been every other year the Warwick lure coursing club usually have a small run set up which my boys LOVE and fingers crossed according to the doc I should be walking by then! Woot! So whose going you cant miss me I'd have to be the only person around with a chi and a sibe

Friends are selling a two berth one in the OT marketplace they are open to offers but they are in QLD. eta link

So sorry RL Always remember that you gave her 11 of the best years too, a life well lived and loved.

Awwwww! as someone who is not really a bulldog person I have to say that is an awfully cute bulldog

Are there any other symptoms? Seizures can indicate a liver shunt although they didn't present in my boy until later early signs include failure to thrive, digestive issues, depression and a host of others although they don't all have to present to indicate a shunt. Blood test should be a priority in the meantime keep the diet bland and low protein if there is an issue with the liver it should show up in blood tests they normally do a pre and post eating test which gives the best indicator of liver function. Other things to look out for are poisoning, lead poisoning was suspected in my dogs case some dogs get it from chewing batteries etc.

Got everything crossed for Lucy hope she has many more cancer free years with you.

So sorry to hear this RL Hope her last days with you are the best they can be

Thanks RL1

Good luck with her RL1, I know how hard it is when your vet can't/wont help, and what a relief it is to finally find a vet that cares and is willing to work with you to find a solution.

My next dog will be a White Shepherd I'd also love a dally one day.

Wow glad she is back home with you! You can also work on keeping her stimulated so that she is less likely to be interested in escaping. I am lucky my sibe doesn't really look for ways out but if he ever did I would look at putting some hot tape (electric tape) at the top and bottom of the fence to keep him away from it. That depends on what state you are in though some states (NSW I think?) it's illegal to use electric tape or wire for dog yards. As others have said inside or a safe enclosure when you can't be with her is probably the easiest and safest, good luck and good on you for looking for ways to keep your girl safe!

I'm sure I remember seeing a study reporting that dogs who lived with smokers were more likely to get certain types of cancers, particularly nasal cancers in shorter nosed breeds I'll have to see if I can find it. There have been numerous studies over many many years quantifying the obvious causal links between smoking and increased rates of certain types of cancers in humans, anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal, against real population statistics it just can't compete. Edit well I was half right there have been studies and it was nasal cancer but it's longer nosed dogs that are more at risk, a quick google showed up quite a few articles http://therealowner.com/health/can-second-...risk-of-cancer/ Edit #2 according to another article shorter nosed dogs are more likely to get lung cancer, I did find one awful study where they forced dogs to smoke to prove that smoking causes cancer because the tobacco companies weren't convinced that statistical correlation didn't indicate causation and therefore needed a more direct experiment to prove causation.

I'm the same, I couldn't breed dogs but I will probably breed more horses when I am in the position to do so, I don't know if I could ever sell any so it's just as well they only have one foal at a time

Yes and in many ways that would be the case, especially with most breeds of dog which generally look to their humans for guidance anyway, my experience is with horses and I find that it's dangerous to attribute them with too much intelligence and it's dangerous to treat them as little more than machines that you can train to do this or that, inevitably confounding behaviours will occur and that's when people lose the plot. My perspective may be different because I deal with prey animals but I also find similarities with the husky, like horses he doesn't have a lot to motivate him to be obedient, unlike horses negative reinforcement is largely ineffective, positive reinforcement is extremely unreliable in his case because a treat that has great value one day may have next to no value another day. It's hard to apply behavioural principles to inconsistent behaviour!

Some are some aren't, bit like the corgis the natural bobtail gene is reasonably common in the breed as far as I know.

I'll put another vote in for the Swedish vallhund my mum has one and she is an awesome little dog, just like a big dog only smaller

I remember quite a few years ago someone I new in the US who had a dog door for their giant (guardian) breed dog had a sign over it for would-be burglars: THIS DOOR IS FOR A DOG THINK ABOUT IT They never had any burglars that I know of, and any burglar that was stupid enough to try would have got what they deserved IMO Classic!

Curious - Do you think that extreme Behaviorism is detrimental to dogs? What happens if someone doesn't acknowledge the individual personality, motivation, arousal, and emotional state of a dog, but bases all their interactions with the dog on operant conditioning? Is that just as bad or worse than humanising them in a detrimental way? Can't respond in depth my lunch break isnt that long lol! But yes I do think that extreme behaviorism has the potential to be very harmful. My example is with horses because behaviorism is the latest 'fad' to take over the horse world and you would be familiar with Andrew McLean's work re training of horses, these theories are quite sound in and of themselves and in a controlled situation, the problem then occurs when you take the animal out of the controlled situation and expect the same results. This can result in an extremely stressed horse as it's behaviour becomes less predictable as extra stresses and stimuli are added to the environment. Not to mention the experiences the animal has had in the past which will shape the behaviour as well, the emotional states and temperament of the animal must be taken into account, not just the blanket application of behavioral principles, most experienced horse people recognize this but like dogs you get people following a certain trainer or method without flexibility Patricia McConnell was talking about that study on her blog. She said let's not confuse correlation with causation. The study is about correlations alone. If there's plague around, you probably shouldn't sleep with a cat that has fleas is what it comes down to. Yeah but it does annoy me when articles feed people's ignorance, we know that if the plague hasn't appeared in your region since the dark ages you're probably not going to get it from having the cat on your bed, but a lot of people will read that and think 'ZOMG cats carry the plague!!!' you know how it goes.

Bubonic plague??? OMG that really is clutching at straws, I'd be very interested to see this list of 100+ serious illnesses, I'd put money on 99.9% of them not being zoonotic diseases at all but just random diseases more associated with poor hygiene in general. It would be funny if it weren't so indicative of the general public's ignorance of basic microbiology and increasingly irrational fear of 'germs'. Better go kick the dog off the bed so I don't get the black plague...

I just cut a big square in my security screen door ;) anyone who does go in through the dogs door will probably have a heart attack because my sibe very quietly watches you don't see him until you see those wolfy eyes staring at you then if they really wanted to pinch stuff I'd only have to go round the pawn shops looking for stuff that has husky hair embedded in it

I do often think that the anthropomorphism label gets thrown around far more so than necessary, yes it can be dangerous but so can the other side which behaviorism tends to favor which results in the animal being thought of as a machine of sorts, simply a product of behaviour with little thought or reasoning, you can be aware that they can't use complex reasoning without taking away their obvious basic reasoning capabilities. It's not humanizing to logically attribute certain traits to animals when their behaviour and physical states correlate closely with that of our own, they are social mammals which have evolved in parallel with humans so it's not much of a stretch to assume the same basic processes are in play. It is a fine line but one which I think needs to be found because I'm a bit over the constant Skinner references as if that is the be all and end all of animal cognition! Behaviour should be one aspect of animal cognition not the entire spectrum, animals do have thoughts and feelings and while they are simpler and less complex than our own they still need to be acknowledged and understood, as much as they can be anyway. My fear is that people get so hung up on this 'push button' concept of behavioural training that they forget that there is a mind driving that behaviour and like our own minds they don't all work the same way or think the same things.