mita

Easy then, if they are sure they only want a cross bred tell them to look in the pound/rescue Well said. Like Gezi, who's proven herself as the perfect family dog & is up for adoption on PetRescue. A designed by god, dog. Vaguely dobe-ish, pointer-ish, dane-ish. Years back, I'd have been snapping her up for my family. http://www.petrescue.com.au/view/95704

Ruthless, I loved that pic! You'd think there'd be no room for sentiment, when your dog is a military dog & you're in the thick of the war in Afghanistan. The dog would be a 'thing', wouldn't it? Like a rifle. But here's what an Australian soldier dog handler writes about the dogs that work beside them in the war zone: Despite the danger, a working dog is at his happiest when he's doing what he was trained for, and wants nothing more than a friend by his side who he can follow or lead into the unknown. In return, he will protect his partner against all enemies, seen and unseen, and will work to earn his keep, because he loves his partner & his job. I know how the dogs feel. I'd dare anyone to tell that soldier he's just done a bit of bad 'humanising' dogs. He hasn't. He's described how humans & dogs find a bond in common. Which they've been doing since thousands of years BC. Great book. War Dogs:An Australian & his dog go to war in Afghanistan. by Shane Bryant with Tony Park

Me, too, chran. Our dear old grandma dog was also designed by God (that is, a mutt). We loved her to pieces. The genuine mutts are just as much a joy as pets. It's this business of deliberately taking one purebreed & mixing it with another, to produce a cutsey name. And accompanied by misinformation, like healthier than purebreeds, each dog has the 'best' of both breeds etc.

I'd be over rude people who call you biased & crazy, when you've simply made a point that is the same as the creator of the 'breed' they're looking for. They can take or leave what information you gave. They chose to leave it. You're quite right to just move on.

It was a beautiful post! I read every word & felt along with you.

630 ABC Local Radio North Q'ld (& their website & facebook) are good for information. It's looped into all the relevent emergency services & supports. Keeps updating the current status of Warning. I notice on their website, they include catering for pets in their planning advice. http://www.abc.net.au/northqld/ 631 ABC Local Radio Brisbane was brilliant during the floods in SE Qld. Just heard on it that Jetstar (& maybe other airlines, too) are putting on extra flights for people who want to get out of the danger zone.

You don't have to utter another word to him. Just print out this article in the science section of the Guardian newspaper. It contains a list of 'inventions' that their creator lived to regret. As a BIG mistake. Point to the first one on the list. It's the Labradoodle. The man who first created the labradoodle by crossing a lab with poodle to get a 'better' guide dog...tells how he so much regrets doing this & why And the avalanche of oodles that followed as people jumped on to the 'novelty' rather than 'wisdom' bandwagon. He's quoted: All these backyard breeders have jumped on the bandwagon, & they're crossing any kind of dog with a poodle. They're selling them for more than a purebred is worth and they're not going into the backgrounds of the parents of the dogs. There are so many poodle crosses , having fits, problems with their eyes, hips and elbows, a lot have epilepsy. There are a few ethical breeders, but very, very few. He says, years later, he's never & wouldn't own a labradoodle as a pet. 'No way!' he says, sounding shocked. His own pet is a p/b labrador called Rocky. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/nov...ors-idea-regret

Yes, complex reasoning is a possibility in humans. It develops (given the person has no adverse condition & has an environment for learning). So infants & young children are still less able in that department. Curiously, the same problem you've described re dogs, can apply here. Adult humans having unrealistic expectations of how littlies can think & control their own behaviour. That misconception is actually behind a lot of physical abuse of young children. Stanley Coren, the canine researcher, puts dogs' 'intelligence' on a par with 2-year old humans. (In a paper called 'How Dogs Think;, American Psychological Association 117th Annual Convention). Certainly, dogs learn by imitation, the same as the very early human stage of learning. I think all this needs a lot of thinking through, tho'...like, it hinges on exactly what is 'intelligence'.

Stay as safe as you can, bigdogg. And other north Q'lders, too.

Sorry, Monah. It did look as if I were correcting what you said! I was actually saying that Darwin argued commonalities could be expected across some mammalian species raised in social groups. Here's a current 'follower' up-dating that position: http://thislivelyearth.com/2010/10/02/kind...nimal-instinct/ And here's an interview with a scientist who's in a similar line of thought. He talks about how & why dogs and cats are 'emotionally connected' with humans. (Just 2 mammalian examples): http://lawofsuccess2.blogspot.com/2010/07/...ns-de-waal.html

We make those judgments about dogs 'emotions' , based on looking at their behaviour. What the dogs do with their bodies & the expressions on their faces & the noises they make Which is exactly the way we make judgments about human infants' emotions. Before they are old enough to tell us in words...as well. So it's fair enough to use those words for dogs. That doesn't make dogs the same as infants. It just says there's something in common. AWL QLD has a program which teaches children how to interact with dogs. It shows them how to look at a dog's behaviour. So they can figure out what the dog is 'telling' them about how it's 'feeling' about what's going on. Like, if it's getting annoyed or irritable. The children then can change their own behaviour so the button gets unpressed. It's bleeding obvious that dogs don't possess language to communicate...an essential difference with humans. But they communicate via body language, facial expressions & noises... as all humans do, too. Dogs communicated 'Not Fair!' , in a study, via body language. And it wasn't fair! Children would say so, but who hasn't seen their body language 'sulk', too. http://www.physorg.com/news147960499.html

Darwin certainly was not anthropocentric. That is, he didn't see all life as centred on human values (but then science is value free). His work showed that humans evolved, same as all the other animals. He made it clear that's why he was so strong about how humans should treat animals reasonably. He personally pursued a legal case against a local farmer who treated an animal badly, beyond the reasonable. Most of the 'facts' in his snippet about Darwin & his attitude towards dogs are accurate. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_dog_did_Charles_Darwin_have Finding similarities between humans & dogs....such as the fact that dogs' learning is the same process as early stage human's...is not anthropomorphic. It's finding something in particular in common. Seems the things that humans & dogs have in common, can provide a close sense of companionship. And meet mutual needs, from pets to working dogs.

We & our neighbours live on securely fenced 1/4 acre blocks in suburbia. Man at the back is part of a greyhound racing group (who love their dogs). So we have greyhounds, living retired lives, or coming and going, right next door. And they're truly wonderful dogs. Very much like what showdog's described. All our yards have the greatest space in the back & with secure side fences. A little (!) 13 week old greyhound girl (from champion bloodlines) has come to live there, until she'll much later go into real training. She's having a wonderful life, comes over to play with our tibbie girls. We've found it a joy living next door to well-cared for greyhounds. The secure fencing plays a big part in making this possible.

But I love, too, the funny stories that vets & vet nurses come across. My favourite is the lady who brought in her dog's first litter of 9 identical golden retriever puppies to be vet checked. As the vet checked each one, he dipped his thumb in some water & left a damp spot on the top of that puppy's head. To show it'd been checked. This procedure went on for a while, as the lady watched with great interest. At last she said, 'I didn't know puppies had to be baptized!'

To be accurate, we 'animalise' our dogs. Humans are not angelic presences. Humans are animals, too. We tune into some aspects of dog behaviour that have resonances of our own & tend to reward and reinforce them. Like, there's evidence that the way a dog learns has similarities with an early stage of human learning. So it's not surprising that reciprocal relationships have grown up between humans & dogs. Nor how 'old' this is. Grave findings dating from 7500BC in Sweden, show dogs buried with the similar ceremony to humans. It's pointed out that, even by then, dogs had long been domesticated & that it was not difficult. And humans valued this 'closeness'. The question is how appropriate are particular behaviours towards dogs. Just the same as adults have to ask how appropriate are particular behaviours towards children. To answer those questions, we need to have knowledge. Like about dog traits & behaviours & how they develop... and there's lots of interesting stuff emerging about this. And, for children, about child behaviour & its development.

Her name's Snowy because she's got slightly more white than black.

Recommended to be smeared on garden edging. I wondered about the vicks vapour rub getting on a dog's paws, if their curiosity got past the smell. And the dog started licking it off. It's got menthol in it. I looked up pets & toxins on the US ASPCA poison control page. They advised not giving dogs anything containing menthol as it irritates the tissues of mouth & gastrointestinal tract. I was a bit sensitive to this point, because my tibbie girls use garden edges as their walking tracks, the higher the better!

Heard of one incident yesterday from a person associated. BC x girl was found after the flood, in the Lockyer Valley. She was still guarding a herd of cows. But had a badly broken leg. Can't be returned to an owner. Looked about 7 yrs + old, otherwise in good condition. She was taken in by a good rescue, who found she was a loving, gentle nanny dog, who happily cared for kittens! The vet tried setting the leg....& he remarked she was probably 10 yrs old. Break proved too bad, & wouldn't set. OK, so you have a 10 yr old dog, no owner, with a leg so broken that it could only be amputated. End of the story? PTS? No, the vet amputated her leg & she did fine. No problems with going 3-legged. AND he adopted her. She'll go to 'work' in the surgery, mothering any frightened littles & telling other pets at least they have 4 legs.

AWL Qld has a DVD available which contains everything new puppy owners need to know. Caring Responsibly for your Dog They also have a series of booklets in the Friends for Life series, which covers specific issues....like Help! My pup bites. These can be downloaded or hard copies bought. Details here: http://www.awlqld.com.au/puppy-planner.html

4 Pet Recovery Days are being put on, by the Pet Industry Association, for dogs belonging to owners who live in flood affected postcodes. First one, will by on Sunday 30 January from 10.am to 2 pm at the RNA Showgrounds, Gregory Terrace Bowen Hills. All of the following free: dog wash or brushing, health care products, collars & leads, vet check, pet games & activities. Details & contacts here: http://www.ourbrisbane.com/whats-on/events...t-recovery-days

Completely agreed. Another opportunity to educate gone right down the drain. Agree with you both. The program was not objective. It was under the influence of a pet food company. Did you notice the product placement (brand showing clearly) with the comment that puppies only needed dry food. So that means the program's 'scripting' was not going to diss any particular kind of breeding, like deliberately mixing cav & poodle. Nor diss any point of sale (note, we saw puppies for sale in a petshop). As the 'designed' mix dogs form such a large part of the pet population now, this program wasn't going to deal with either objectively. They want customers (K'ching), not educated dog owners. I rarely hurl abuse at a TV screen. But when I saw the cav parent & poodle parent in the pen at the designed mix property, I screeched like a banshee, 'Leave the purebreds alone!' And when they came to rate the 'success' of the pets at the end, I was left with a strangled, 'No!', when Max the cavoodle got the highest score. Honey, the German Shepherd (p/b I suspect) was the outstanding winner, by a mile, IMO. Her owner complained & whinged more (bless her, been there!), but she and her daughters saw problems as issues to work on. And they did! Honey got the best socialisation...with the flocks of little girls, other pets. And Honey attended a breed specific obedience class. Pity the viewers couldn't have seen a bit more of those magnificent adult GSD's, owned by ordinary people, going thro' their obedience paces. With Honey & the others in the 'baby class' getting some role models. And her mum & the girls learning heaps about the best a p/b GSD can be. At the end, Honey's mum summed it up. Honey was transforming into the brilliant & affectionate family pet they'd wanted. And was showing her care for the youngest daughter, by 'shadowing' her. How could they put Max the Cavoodle first? His owner loved him, no doubt. But he was indulged, rather than trained. Jumping all over her new boyfriend. My tibbie girls are trained....'Bottoms on the ground first, to get any pats from new people' OK, some tiny snippets of usefulness. A fleeting glance at some rescued puppies. Really nice ones at that! But so many basics were left out. Like for puppy's first night away from mother dog & pups! Where was the soft toy that had been rubbed all over the mum & other puppies to take their comforting scent into the new home??? And where were the specific steps of toilet training?

These wonderful Gran (& Gramps) dogs are inspirational. We keep saying they finish up giving us more than we can ever give them.

I'm so glad to hear you say that. A few times I've been waiting at a vet surgery & out comes someone obviously blinded by tears, with their car keys in their hand. Like, once we sat near a 30'ish woman who had the dearest little very elderly, very frail poodle on her lap. I had no idea she was there for the kind PTS. We came out of the exam room with one vet, just as she came out of another room. We walked thro' the front doors together. She was absolutely blinded by tears & her hands were shaking. And no elderly poodle, of course. Yes, car keys in her hand. I asked her, 'I understand, been there myself. Is there anything we can do?' 'No,' she said, 'I just want to get home! I had that little dog since I was a teenager. She was mine & shared every bit of my life with me.' Maybe the vet staff did try to sit her down somewhere & she said the same thing to them. Just wanted to get home. But I worried so much about her getting there safely.

My mother once met her General Practitioner getting into his car with an empty bird cage...outside his surgery. She asked what was he doing with that! He told her that an older lady (a patient of his), had come in with her loved pet budgie flat on the cage floor. She'd owned him for ages. No wonder, she was weeping & distressed. She had no way to get to the vet in the next suburb, but lived near his surgery. So she'd brought the budgie to him to see if he could help. Sadly, he found the bird was dead. And he had to tell her so. He got his receptionist to take care of her & give her cups of tea. While he went off to buy her another budgie. I'm glad your vet visit was quick & easy. And I agree that vets & vet nurses do a wonderful job on the frontline of tragedies for pets & their owners.

Don't mess with Gran! is her motto. I love her fighting spirit. :D No wonder she's doing so remarkably well, in the face of cancer.