shmoo

I'd say you probably have - or only remember/emphasise in your mind the most extremes of the examples that were shown. Can you recommend a season/episode to watch please? I am always interested in different types/ways/methods of training.

If he does, then I have been watching the wrong show.

not touching that one ... Jebuz. I've really stepped on your toes somehow. I promote positive training first.

Nekhbet: Not saying that I personally would use a check chain on a sighthound. I don't use check chains at all, I prefer a martingale. But, I am not a professional trainer. I was just stating what I had heard.. So maybe Steve is an awesome trainer I have only seen Vicki in action. I have seen the police trainers out there too and that looked pretty cool, all positive (reward was the toy). I do plan on taking his 'Dangerous Dogs' course in the near future, so, I don't think the guy is pure hell. This is my personal opinion: I think that positive training should be tried first.

Like I said, I have only heard that. But I know several trainers that have worked with him and they walked away unimpressed. But I have only heard these things, I have not seen Steve in action (seen him IRL, but not training). The OP should go to all the kennels and talk to the trainers herself I agree. Only the OP knows her dog and what training methods will work. I know if I tried a check chain on my greyhound and started 'popping' she would fall to pieces.

Get help from a professional POSITIVE trainer. Using 'Ceaser Milan' techniques will only exacerbate the situation. Is he well and truly separated from the other dogs? Practice makes perfect when it comes to aggression.

The last shot is lovely!!

I don't always agree with their training methods either. I have heard that Steve Austin believes every command/lesson can and must be trained using a check chain. *shudder* Also, I am 99% sure that Vicki and Steve live near me at Galston. I was out at Pet Resorts Galston about 3 months ago, met Vicki, was showed around the premises (PM me if you want more info on that), meaning you maybe not be having Steve or Vicki train the dog directly. I know a fantastic kennel that boards and trains in Arcadia, PM me if you want the details.

Do not let a groomer clip her!!!!! Talk to the groomer about what you have been doing and ask for advice. The groomer will be able to demonstrate the different equipment and ways to brush. Her coat will also be changing slightly due to loosing her puppy coat (which can be easier to manage than the adult coat)

asal: Did you contact the vaccine manufacturer at the time this all happened? What was their response?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...tscol081810.DTL Did you find yourself hip-deep in cats the last time you left the house? No? Neither did I. But if the so-called "facts" about feline reproduction that humane organizations, animal lovers and the media spread with zeal were true, we'd need feline-resistant biohazard suits just to cross the street. Take this statistic, once published by the Humane Society of the United States and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and still zealously spread by many local animal welfare organizations and cat spay/neuter advocacy groups: The offspring of a single unspayed cat will, within five years, add up to 420,000 cats. Four years ago, pet columnist Gina Spadafori ran those figures past Carl Bialik, the Wall Street Journal's "Numbers Guy." He has a degree in mathematics and physics from Yale University, and his column routinely examines the basis of statistics used in the media. "The numbers didn't add up to me," Spadafori said. "And it turns out they didn't add up, period." Bialik did the math in a couple of different ways, and consulted a number of experts in veterinary medicine and wildlife management. The real number? Somewhere between a low of 98 and a high of 5,000 cats in seven years. Today, neither HSUS nor the ASPCA use the higher number on their websites; John Snyder of HSUS called the number "flawed" and told Bialic, "I have no idea where that number came from." The ASPCA, for its part, said it had gotten the stat from HSUS, and agreed with Bialik that the number was wrong. Nonetheless, a search for "unspayed cat 420,000" will clearly demonstrate that this particular falsehood has developed a life of its own. I found the flawed statistic quoted by countless organizations, including the Michigan Humane Society, Operation Pet Fix, and AdoptAPet.com, a high-profile advocacy project sponsored by Purina, Bayer and the North Shore Animal League. So why do so many humane societies and animal advocacy groups keep insisting that one single unspayed female cat can produce something like 420,000 offspring in just five years? And why do so many pet lovers believe them, and keep repeating it? Those are the questions that drove Peter J. Wolf to create Vox Felina, a blog dedicated to examining the basis of claims made about cat numbers and behavior, and debunking those that don't withstand scrutiny. Wolf, a mechanical engineer and professor of industrial design and visual communication at Arizona State University, is a life-long cat lover. After his involvement with the rescue of around 900 cats from a bad situation in Nevada, he began to do research into the feral cat problem, particularly into successful and unsuccessful attempts to manage it. "I kept coming across some very dubious claims," he told me. "And the more I'd dig into them, the worse it got. You'd start out thinking there was broad support for a particular claim, but you'd start drilling down a little bit and see all the references supporting that claim pointed to the same flawed study. So this 'broad support' became questionable." Like Spadafori four years earlier, Wolf turned to Bialik at the Wall Street Journal to help him understand the problem of what he called "sticky numbers," or statistics lacking a scientific basis that nonetheless gain wide traction in the media and among advocates for or against various public policy proposals. He quoted Bialik as saying in a column, "An interesting phenomenon of these numbers is that they'll often be cited to an agency or some government body, and then a study will pick it up, and then the press will repeat it from that study. And then once it appears in the press, public officials will repeat it again, and now it's become an official number." Bialik wasn't talking about cats in this particular column, but Wolf saw the same phenomenon playing out in the often acrimonious public debates over managing feral cats. "Take the estimates of how many birds are killed each year by cats," he said. "A 1993 article usually called 'the Wisconsin study' is constantly being cited, with an estimate that between 8 and 219 million birds were killed by free-roaming rural cats in that state." But 15 years ago, study co-author Stanley Temple told the Sonoma County Independent, "The media has had a field day with this since we started. Those figures were from our proposal. They aren't actual data; that was just our projection to show how bad it might be." Despite that apparently definitive disclaimer, Wolf discovered that the study and those numbers are still being cited in such publications as the New York Times (2007) and the Journal of Conservation Biology (2009). Even the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cites the study, he said. Wolf attributes the "stickiness" of some of these feline statistics to a number of factors. "There will always be those people who hate cats and will look for any excuse at all to justify their attitudes," he said. "But that's not the whole story." People often become overwhelmed with the complex reasons behind the destruction of habitat and wildlife. "Things like clearcutting that really contribute to songbird losses aren't even on this continent, let along something people feel they can do anything about," he said. "It's much easier to focus on something they feel they can get a handle on, such as rounding up and killing feral cats." But the real problem, he said, is that a false statistic is very simple to express, and the explanation as to why it's wrong can be very complicated. "It's very easy for someone to make an argument that's bumpersticker-sized," he told me. "Saying cats kill one billion birds is the kind of thing that rolls right off the tongue. A 15-second news spot can cover it. But it takes a couple of episodes of 'Frontline' to dispute it." Worst of all, said Wolf, "Complex arguments don't combat sound bites well. You end up sounding like conspiracy theorist on late night radio." Of course, this isn't just a problem in the cat world. Pulitzer-prize winning science writer Deborah Blum feels Wolf's pain, too. Blum, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, said, "In science journalism, we spend a lot of time looking at this particular problem. Why do some numbers get this bizarre traction? Why do people believe it, when if they did a little digging they'd find it's not only wrong but in some cases even does harm?" One reason, she told me, is that there's a whole PR machine behind many research studies today. For example, she said, "A few years back there was a study done by Ohio State University. It found that when interviewed about the kind of women they'd like to date, the majority of men said they preferred secretaries to bosses." Inflammatory? You bet. Media fodder? That too; it sparked plenty of coverage, including a column by the New York Times' Maureen Dowd, and Blum was asked to comment on it for a radio show. But when she took a look at the actual study, what she found was far different from what the press was reporting. "The question they asked was not whether men would rather date bosses or secretaries," she told me. "It was whether they'd be more attracted to a women who could tell you if you could go to the bathroom or not, or a women who brought you coffee." Of course, most people don't do what Blum and Wolf do, and read the actual studies being cited and reported in the media or during public policy debates. "We get gamed by the system because institutions and government agencies are promoting themselves, and most people haven't taken a statistics class, and aren't professional science journalists with all this time to wallow around in a scientific paper," Blum said. She cautions against believing numbers without some kind of understanding of where they come from. "There's some outstanding work out there, and sometimes numbers give us a valuable portrait of what's going on," she said. "But if you're talking policy issues that affect the lives of people and of animals, that influence our lives in an everyday sense, you have to realize that numbers can be deceptive in their simplicity, and often tell a false story." Getting back to cats, why does this matter? Tall tales about rampant feline reproduction and predation rates, and their persistence even after being debunked or challenged, can be a matter of life and death for feral and free-roaming cats. If large numbers of people believe -- and convince public policy makers to believe -- that a single unspayed cat can produce 420,000 descendents in seven years, and that cats kill a billion songbirds every year, it becomes very easy to argue for the mass trapping and slaughter of free-roaming cats in the name of protecting birds. Cat advocates obviously don't want to see that happen, so the fact that they're often the very ones quoting the 420,000 number is particularly ironic. But bird advocates shouldn't want to see it happen, either. After all, public policy based on bad data is going to be ineffective, and if your bird protection plan is based on a lie, it's not going to save the birds whether you get rid of the cats or not. "You end up spending all your time fighting over some statistic," said Wolf. "Which means you're not having the discussion that will move the issue forward. You're getting mired down in a process that can never result in an actual solution to the problem."

In large doses it is not good. Small doses can be beneficial.

My family JRT, Glenda, lived till 16. At 'My Dog' and 'Pedigree Dry' her whole life. Very fit and active due to 3 active kids - she would run along side us on our motorbikes! My mother walked her EVERYDAY of her life, when she was old enough, for at least 45mins. Glenda always travelled with us on holidays, had her vaccination every year and a dental every few years when she was older. Passed peacefully in her sleep. ETA: She was a tough JRT. Took on blue tongues in the backyard that were bigger than her. She moved a herd of cows over 100+ acres all by herself right under their feet. (No this was not intentional from us!)

Hi Erny, I have kickatinalong PJ's for my greyhound that I purchased over 3 years ago and they are still going strong.

^ This. Humping and dominance has been delinked that many times I can't understand why people are still so quick to jump to that conclusion.

My boy Sweep is from a Pet Shop. Total impulse purchase and I turned my life upside down to have him. My next two dogs were from rescue. Sweep has had terrible skin from the start. Malaseb baths every week by the age of 6 months rang alarm bells for me and I did research about Pet Shops and learnt all about Puppy Farms. I love him to absolute bits and do not regret purchasing him, but he has cost me a fortune in vet bills and at 7.5yrs has mild pancreatitis, is diabetic and now blind. ETA: I'll only ever have rescue dogs or dogs from breeders I personally know.

I'm so sorry to hear Steve. I am sure you and your family are devastated. A friend of mine a couple of years ago drove over her own maltese when she pulled into her driveway. Rural property, and just did not expect to see the dog there. All happened in the blink of an eye.

Have a look at Dr Billinghursts BARF diet if you are interested in feeding a 'home made' diet. http://www.drianbillinghurst.com/index.php

Is that website for real? That is a lot of grains. I would personally feed more meat and veggies (and only a small amount of broccoli - less than 10% of the diet). The only time I feed a rice based diet is for short term when a dog is ill and it's stomach can't handle anything else OR in a diet for a dog long term that has a sensitive stomach.

Rice is just a cheap filler. Use something else like cooked then mashed pumpkin Fantastic for dogs.

You guys rock!

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions! Unfortunately Roo sets his skin and chewing off I have tried Roo as this is quite cheap.. but no, not for Sir Sweep!

Where did you get that from? I guess I chose chicken because its a very easy meat to source, and I know he loves it!

I am after breast mince because it is the lowest in fat (have I got that right?!) I am hoping to get it a bit cheaper than $10ish a kilo. ;) Looking to put Sweep (the diabetic Silky) on a raw diet (with other things included of course) to check he does well with his skin and then drop him at the vets with his new diet and have them check his glucose levels etc and make any insulin changes. He does terribly on the vet recommended dry/canned food diets

This is true. I'll give the food processor a go! Ty!