RallyValley

from the blog :

I share a story from another Australian breeder on breeding a litter of golden retrievers, and how it went anything but according to planned

Leema on DOL wrote the blog, she was obviously moved by the OP's story and asked to share it on her blog. It looks like the OP provided her with pics too, so they were obviously aware that it was going to be shared.

The blog author is Leema on DOL :)

The blog post is dated AFTER the OP's post.

I don't see anything suspicious here.

I just bred my first litter and they will go to their new homes this weekend. Today I spend the day focusing on structure but every observation up till this point has been temperament. I sit and watch/play with the pups for hours, I know them all. I have had people over to do temp tests and I am taking the pups out into an environment tomorrow to test working ability.

Every home will be matched on temperament and owner expectations. There is no point putting the cuddly people oriented boy with limited drive in a working home, no matter how nice his conformation is! Maybe it's just different for me because 4 out of 6 pups will be going to performance homes...

Is anyone else doing the Canon Photo 5, or am I the only insane one

The briefs seems really interesting and challenging this year. The first brief was the 'People's Brief' Reflections, if you entered that you became eligible for the main competition.

My box hasn't arrived yet but I have been told one is arriving :)

Here is the link with all briefs: http://www.canon.com.au/en-AU/Personal/imageSpectrum/Challenges/Photo5/Briefs

I just don't think that because someone decides not to buy a registered, pedigree dog they should all be tarred with the same "bad / irresponsible / don't care about their dogs / likely to dump" brush. As i think someone else mentioned - cost is all relative anyway. For someone on a $100,000 a year wage, the fact that a dog was $3000 probably doesn't make them reconsider dumping it if that is what they are inclined to do.

If I was buying a Stafford I would happily pay an extra $1,000 to know my dog was not affected with L2HGA, which sounds like a really nasty disease. I've never heard of an unregistered breeder that tests for L2HGA.

Or the very very sad thread that was on here a while ago where someone brought home a very cute Border Collie pup from an unregistered breeder, the pup got sick and died from TNS. A disease that can easily be prevented by doing a simple DNA test on sire and dam. I believe the family later brought a lovely registered pup. Again if I was getting a Border Collie I would rather pay for a pup I know didn't have a fatal genetic disorder.

I never realised the Alizin was so expensive (Guess I never thought about it really) - definitely makes desexing the better option in this case! Good luck with your girl, wishing a fast recovery :)

Alizin is a bargain really compared to the cost of raising a litter of pups :)

Well done Lasareina in making the right choice for your baby girl. I am currently raising a litter of pups, it is a massive commitment of both time and money. Even though everything went 'right' and I had years of preparation plus great mentors to see me through it I would still consider this one of the most stressful things I have ever done.

Mine are toilet trained on fake grass and this has transferred to the lawn outside.

OP you should rename the thread to Rear Dew Claws so people quit bunping it up without reading properly ;)

In 2013 I am not going to be too ambitious because Zora and I will be having part of the year off for a litter ( :D ). We have 6 beautiful outgoing pups that are now almost 7 weeks old. Probably Zora's best achievement yet! Good job Zora

Here are my goals:

-Finish RN Title

-Aim for RA (maybe even RE) -- On hold for a little bit, waiting till I am happier with her work. -- Hoping to get started on this after her 'maternity leave' finishes.

-Enter CCD -- I tried but then a season got in the way. Should get this one even if it is CCD NFC by the end of the year. -- Also hoping to get started on this too after her 'maternity leave' finishes.

-Get ready for trialling in agility early 2014 -- Still aiming for 2014 :p-- Still aiming for 2014 but have taken some steps to make that a little more realistic :D

Lastly this is a BIG maybe...

-Enter a UG Field Trial ]Not going to happen now, since Zora has missed the whole season due to being in season then pregnant. -- Sadly have missed the field season, however yesterday when we did some testing with the pups Zora reminded us how keen she is... Hopefully we can be on track for 2014

I also achieved an unexpected goal, I started to play around with tracking and Zora has already passed her track one. I'm hoping to get her track 2 by the end of the season. We got our track 2 with a grading of Very Good just before Zora went on maternity leave, despite being quite pregnant her enthusiasm never wavered. There is a possibility of going for track 3 this season otherwise we will put it off until the next one.

Well done everyone, looks like we are all going well

Especially Tumbleweed, I really admire what you have achieved with 'long distance' training mostly and limited chances to trial. :)

At the risk of sounding judgemental, the suburb this happened in, Koongamia, is populated by a fair bit of riff raff (thats polite prison officer talk). I grew up in a few suburbs down and would walk and play through that area as a kid, and have had plenty of dogs run out of poorly secured yards to have a go at us through there. NOthing as serious as this incident though.

The shire doesn't persue dog registration unless there is a complaint.

I agree Koongamia is a low socio-economic area however the article said the attack happened on Scott St which is a busy street where three suburbs (Koongamia and two higher socio-economic areas Boya and Helena Valley) intersect so not a street you would expect loose dogs. I have walked my dogs along Scott St many times without issues.

Very close to home and sad to read. I hope the lady is not someone I know from around the neighbourhood

Trus, I used to ride my horse down Scott street from the old bridle path that intersects it just south of Greenmount Library, and much of my family still live in Helena Valley. Its still such a small community despite the new estates. Isnt the old hospital now an elderly respite care centre? She may have been from there.

Yes there is now a senior's home where the old hospital was in Greenmount, so that is very possible. I grew up in Helena Valley and still have family there and in Boya, it's an insular little community there :) .

At the risk of sounding judgemental, the suburb this happened in, Koongamia, is populated by a fair bit of riff raff (thats polite prison officer talk). I grew up in a few suburbs down and would walk and play through that area as a kid, and have had plenty of dogs run out of poorly secured yards to have a go at us through there. NOthing as serious as this incident though.

The shire doesn't persue dog registration unless there is a complaint.

I agree Koongamia is a low socio-economic area however the article said the attack happened on Scott St which is a busy street where three suburbs (Koongamia and two higher socio-economic areas Boya and Helena Valley) intersect so not a street you would expect loose dogs. I have walked my dogs along Scott St many times without issues.

Very close to home and sad to read. I hope the lady is not someone I know from around the neighbourhood

The babies at 4 weeks <3

So adorable Nevafollo!

Rally Valley how do you toilet train yours? I did it with my first litter but am interested in people's different techniques!! Always something to learn! Oh and I LOVE your puppies. I have a soft spot for the Brittany - just can't deal with the hair. Us GSP people are just lazy about hair!! It's all the running around we have to do with the dogs - can you imagine if they had long hair too! Then they'd be a full time job.

Nevafollo - awwwww gorgeous, love those pointer pups!

Jetpoint I don't know if I did anything right but at 3.5 weeks my pups were close to getting out the box, so I penned off part of my room using a baby pen that screws into the wall. The pen is kinda like an L shape, but with the long side quite wide and the return quite short and angled. I just put vet bed in the short side of the L near the gate, put thier food and water in the middle/corner of the L and then put the fake grass at the far side. We are now at the point where 100% of the poo is on the lawn and 80% of the wee. I didn't do much to make this happen, I think it just comes naturally :) When they get to run in their outdoor ex pen they will run from the paving onto the grass to go too.

Gosh I know why it's so quiet in here, pups are very full on at this age! Mine are 6 weeks in 2 days. I am having fun trying to think of 'new' things for them to try /experience.

We have an 11 month old Golden Retriever who was purchased from a registered breeder in the Perth area. Our dog has just been diagnosed with ectopic ureter and one of his kidneys has failed as a result. Our vet has informed us that his condition was a result of bad breeding practice which went either ignored or unchecked and his condition is hereditary (passed down through his family's lineage). The vet mentioned that hip dysplasia and the ectopic complaint go hand in hand. He has to go for more blood tests in the morning to determine viability of his other kidney before any procedure can be considered or performed. The procedure of attaching his ureter back to his bladder where it should be has a 50% success rate. Despite being insured, we are unsure if our dog will live to see his 1st birthday as a result of complications. We want to do the most humane thing for our dog and not to have him suffer. We are heartbroken. Our dog was simply bought to love and not to breed from.

Besides contacting the breeder has anyone any advice what to do about bad breeding practice. We were assured perfect bloodlines, good hip scores, eye scores and free from genetic conditions when we purchased him (I guess we were naive). We have since located other complaints on the net written both before and after we brought our beloved dog home. Where do we go from here?

Thanks in advance for any advice given.

First of all I'm sorry to hear about your dog, and I've got my fingers crossed you get good test results.

However I had to point something out, there is no way in a breeder can they guarantee pups will be free from some "genetic" conditions such hip dysplasia, as they have a complicated way of inheritance and even though the sire and dam may be healthy and fully tested it can still pop up in subsequent generations.

If the response from the breeder is not satisfactory I suggest you contact Dogswest. Be careful what you post about the breeder on this forum as the forum owner may delete the thread if it becomes clear who the breeder is (although I have a strong suspicion I know who you mean).

When hunting you are usually at least an hour but sometimes 3 or more hours from a vet... Imagine if the dog tore a dew claw while out running through paddocks/fences etc and you had to drive that far with an injured dog in pain. Or, you could just remove them at a neonate and never face an easily preventable issue. :)

Well done Trisven and Brintey :)

Brittanys, Flat Coated Retrievers, Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, GSP, Vizla, Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, Weimaraner are just a few breeds that spring to mind as dual purpose breeds without markedly split lines.

OSO 2 week old Whippets are so cute!

Nevafollo looking forward to seeing some Pointer peepers :)

The pups are no longer 'boxed in' here :) Have half of my dining room penned off for them and they are loving the extra room. Also have commenced toilet training, really impressed that we have only had one poo on the vet bed in the last 24 hrs and all the other poos are on the paper section or the artifical lawn section. :)

Here is an updated photo of Fuchsia, she is going really well and while still the smallest will play as much as her big brothers and sister.

22DaysFuschia-2814 by Astrelis, on Flickr

My breed is the only other breed that has an AKC standard stating that overreaching is desirable. The rationale in my breed being, a perfectly square and properly angled dog would have to overreach when showing full reach and drive.

Frank moment here - when you first start shooting manual your photos will get a bit worse, but then once you have practice and start to think things like "This scene would really look good with only the main subject in focus, I'll put my aperture wide open (e.g f2) OR the most important thing to me right now is that everything is sharp and there are dogs running around, I will make sure my shutter speed is nice and high (e.g 1/1000th)" your photography will improve exponentially and you will be so much less frustrated as you can make the camera do what you want, not click and pray!

Awesome first shots tdierikx! It's very traditional to take duck shots when you first get a new camera or lens

Definately have lens envy here, looking forward to more zoo shots. :)

Oh and July, Bronze - Set Subject: Blue is the main focus

June - Bronze - Creative (Shot on $300 camera with lens from 1979 )

June - Bronze - Set Subject: Macro or Close Up Flowers (Also shot on $300 camera with lens from 1979)

April - Bronze - Creative

June - Bronze - Creative