DogsAndTheMob

Jennywren does this - or tries to. She's a 13 year-old German Shepherd, so she usually falls over in the attempt.

I'm so sorry for your loss , Persephone! Thank you for the information. The local baiting program is partially aerial. Participating land-holders are supposed to post notices and most do, but I strongly suspect one neighbour has put out rabbit baits without notice; on one occasion we found dead king-fishers and crows, the local magpie family disappeared and his rabbit problem went away, all within a few weeks. what brand of muzzle do you use?

I saw a very dingo-like wild dog yesterday morning. The local (Hunter NSW) wild-dog baiting program started last week, so I wonder whether this dog came from a pack which was dispersed when the older pack-members were poisoned. Years ago, my parents lost a pup after she ate a bait or carrion from a baited animal. They were on their own property, several hundred metres from a boundary, and they hadn't put out any baits. They saw her eating something, but were too late to intervene. I'm now worried to walk my dogs in my own paddocks, in case they pick up a bait dropped by a crow or other bird. What do other people do in similar circumstances? Walk their dogs on-lead only? Muzzle their dogs? Don't walk them at all? And for how long after the baiting program ends will the risks persist?

Sometimes, what we think we're saying - with voice and body language - is not what the dog "hears". Is it possible that your poodle is reading subtle, unintentional cues from simple things you do? Videoing your successful and unsuccessful interactions may help you to identify things you do that make him switch off. No matter how experienced we are, it's difficult to spot our own mis-steps, so reviewing the videos with a dog-savvy friend might also be useful. I wonder if your poodle interpreted your lack of response to his greetings as a correction; I'm sure my border collie would. I think of dog training as a conversation, and experiment with posture/position, eye-contact and touch to see what makes each dog respond happily. Getting as close as possible to the dog's eye-level helps; sitting on the floor or ground is usually less intimidating than standing or sitting on a chair (although I have seen a dog spooked by this). Eye contact can be threatening, but denying eye contact can be seen as a rebuke. Context is important,too: my German Shepherd enjoys gentle stroking from stop to ears - but didn't when I was teaching her to retrieve. To train a happy retrieve, I had to reward her with a scratch on the chest.

I'm posting this in case anybody has tins of this cat food I their cupboards: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-20/weruva-best-feline-friend-cat-food-still-under-investigation/8540552

Look for a good quality, low salt, low filler dog food. Many dry dog foods use salt as a preservative; as a result, the dog is thirsty, drinks more and wees more. Cheap dog foods tend to be bulked up with cereals, beet pulp and other fillers that produce more frequent, more voluminous stools.

The Lapphunds I've met have been wonderfully calm and loving. I considered the breed when I was looking for a puppy, but I didn't think I could give the coat the care it needed.

It may be best to look for a young adult dog rather than a puppy and think in terms of the right dog instead of the right breed. Temperament varies in every breed and you can't know whether a dog will be suitable until it is mature. Also, puppies can pick up fears from the owner and the more responsive the puppy the greater the risk of this happening. It is probably worth considering longevity; As a rule of thumb, the smaller the breed of dog, the longer the average life expectancy. Miniature Schnauzers and Cairn Terriers may be worth considering. Although many miniature and toy poodles would be too sensitive, I have known individual poodles that would not be, and their intelligence would be a positive.

My Siamese cat's chip migrated from his neck to the shoulder, just above the elbow. I saw him chipped as a young adult animal, so I know where it was injected. From memory, the vet scanned for the chip a few months later and found it on the shoulder. The migrated chip was easily palpable and I don't think it shifted much in later years.

Thanks for sharing the report, Roova. It's certainly food for thought.

I wonder if experienced breeders' predictions would be more reliable. I suspect so. From my observations, there are subtle behavioural cues that might be missed by a test. Also, puppies' behaviour varies from hour to hour and day to day, so a single test only provides a snapshot. Hmm... only 50 of the 134 puppies tested were re-tested as adults. There's a risk of sampling bias in that; why were the other 84 dogs not tested as adults?

I second ness. I recently bought a Brittany pup, and I'm delighted with her. She's smarter and more cooperative than many of the GSDs and BCs I've owned, and she has an incredible off-switch for a puppy. I'm not sure whether that is typical for the breed - apparently they can be go-go-go - but I was prepared to compromise on that, for a puppy that was dog-friendly and people-friendly - and she loves everybody.

Please post some here. I'd love to see her.

I usually capture stills from a video.

Here's my girl:

I have a three-month-old Brittany. She's my first Brittany, but I've owned and trained quite a few dogs - mostly Border Collies and GSDs - and competed successfully in dog sports. Of all the puppies I've trained, she's the easiest. However, I wouldn't leave her unattended where she could destroy anything. She has an outdoor run as well as a crate indoors, and if I'm likely to be distracted when she's with me, I put her on lead - even indoors. When I had a highly energetic border Collie, I used retrieving games to occupy all that intelligence and drive. I'd hide a ball in the back yard, then send him to find it. I also trained him for and competed in advanced obedience; exercises such as scent discrimination, directed jumping and directed retrieve challenge the dog's intelligence and the handler's communication skills. (Frankly, unless taught skillfully, basic classes in sit, stand, down and heel can be a bit of a yawn for a dog.) If advanced dog obedience is not your thing, there is a wide range of alternative activities... including agility, noseworks and tracking, to name just a few. By the way, dog sports are a great way to meet people and make friends.

I agree. We wouldn't have dogs if we didn't believe we could give them a good life. It's not always obvious when that's no longer the case, but everybody seems eager to voice an opinion. I've sent dogs over the rainbow bridge earlier than others would have done - my heart-dog most painfully; her degenerative myelopathy was not advanced, but she was terrified of falling. I've also kept dogs alive, knowing that they had a quality of life that other people didn't recognise. My heart-dog's grand-daughter lived happily with more advanced DM; she learnt to prop her hindquarters against the clothes hoist while she showed a puppy how to dig. My oodle rescue lived a vibrant life in the world of smell, still able to track me through the paddock long after he lost both sight and hearing. Too often, I've prolonged my pets' lives against my better judgement, at the urging of vets. I've seen them die harder because of it, when their circulation has become too poor for rapid administration of the final anaesthetic. Most recently, my elderly Birman developed unexpected kidney failure. The vets sent her home, knowing that they'd been unable to get her to eat or drink. After a day of forcibly administering food and water, I returned to the vets. They talked about dialysis, and made me feel cruel when I opted for euthenasia. Her blood pressure was so low that they had to inject the anaesthetic directly into the heart. People are too ready to judge others for their decisions.

It is lovely to see her coming out of her shell. I wondered if it was an oestrogen affect. I've just read some articles on its affects on women but I think any possible risks are outweighed by the benefits for my GSD.

Thanks Persephone. It is a delight to see our funny old girl behaving more like herself.

Over the past year, my 13 year old GSD has become increasingly "paranoid", retreating to the bedroom when we want to pat or groom her, or take her outside. (At other times - and particularly meal times - she seems very happy, and she'll follow us outside while we're gardening or feeding the paddock-pets.) I attributed her odd behaviour to dementia, having seen paranoia in a human with early dementia. She also has creeping hindquarters paralysis - possibly due to degenerative myelopathy, and a few weeks ago she developed slight urinary incontinence during night-time sleeps, for which the vet prescribed stilboesterol on a decreasing dose. Her behaviour improved dramatically: no more retreating to the bedroom, and she even started asking for attention. When the dose dropped back from daily to twice weekly, her behaviour regressed, although she's still better than she was. Any suggestion on what's going on? We do need to collect a urine sample for testing (not easy with a paranoid dog) and I know UTIs can cause dementia-like symptoms, but I would not expect stilboesterol to treat a UTI, and certainly not as quickly as this happened.

My father made concrete water dishes for our dogs, using two containers as moulds - a large container as the outer mould, and a smaller container as the mould for the inside of the dish. The best I saw had the outer surface sloping in, with the thickness of the concrete at the base being about three inches, and at the top being about an inch. This version lasted for decades. A little extra lime in the concrete helps to water-proof it, but it would be adviseable to "age" the concrete before use, by filling it with water and letting it sit for a while, then repeating until the pH is neutral.

My boss has two and while they are stunning to look at, they are the most skittish dogs I've ever met. They were socialised and treated like normal dogs, but nobody except my boss can get near them. And if they are at the park and get a fright, they just take off. One sighthound breed that I have definitely crossed off my list! Here is my Borzoi with one of my boss' s Ibizans: That's a shame. I don't think they have to be skittish. The "perfect Sphinx" I saw was competing in Open class obedience, which means that it was reasonably trainable, and not too flighty to stay still for off-lead stand-for-examination. I'd love to see a picture of your Borzoi running.

Have you looked in Masters? A couple of weeks ago, our local Masters store had black plastic fish ponds of various shapes and sizes - all with 30% off. They may have sold out by now, though.

I wish it was that simple, Willem. Every time this subject comes up for discussion, I use Google Scholar to browse through the literature, but the evidence on both sides seems to be weak and inconsistent. There is a hierarchy of evidence for medical and veterinary research. Meta-analyses and reviews based on multiple, well-designed randomised controlled trials are best, followed by well-designed randomised controlled trials. I have seen very few randomised controlled trials of desexing -- not surprisingly, as I doubt if many owners would be willing to leave their dog at the vets, unsure whether they would be collecting an entire pet or a neutered one at the end of the day. Most research on desexing uses epidemiological or retrospective cohort methodologies, which are generally regarded as providing fair to poor evidence. In addition, you need to consider bias, confounding and causality. As an example of confounding, my urban colleagues' pets are usually desexed, my rural neighbours' working dogs are usually entire, and I'm not sure about the hunting dogs I see on Friday nights, heading up the highway in cages on the backs of utilities. I'm sure the owners of these three groups manage their dogs' health and behaviour quite differently, and studies that fail to account for such demographic differences (i.e. many studies) are likely to produce spurious results. The studies you linked to are interesting, but here are just a couple of comments: There are questions about causality in the Golden Retriever study; were dogs lame because they were desexed, or desexed because they were showing signs of lameness? The study also had an interesting way of allocating months of health to entire vs neutered status - see point 4 in Dr Barker's comments. Despite the statistically significant link between some cancers and desexing found in the Visla study, the study was unable to demonstrate any affect of neutering on longevity. This would suggest either that the cancers were insignificant in their affects on the population (perhaps due to low incidence) or that other risks flowed in the opposite direction. It's worth noting, also, that this study does not advise against desexing, it merely suggests that veterinarians should discuss possible risks with their clients. Overall, I have not found anything in the literature on which I would base a decision, either way. My next female dog will probably be desexed, because neither seclusion during oestrus nor false-pregnancy after oestrus seems to be a happy experience. In addition, I adopted an aged dog with pyometrium, whose health ruled out desexing, and I don't want to see another bitch endure that. My feelings about desexing my male dogs are more ambivalent; I've owned entire dogs that have lived to extreme old age without problems, and those that I've had desexed have seemed to have been in pain for a week or more afterwards -- more so than the bitches, actually. I'll probably opt for late-life desexing to avoid prostate cancer; I don't see the logic in desexing at six months to avoid a problem that might occur many years later. Edited to add: My observations as a one-time dog training instructor suggest that dog-to-dog aggression can be a problem in some entire male dogs. I would opt for de-sexing (and have done so in the past) if I had any concerns that my teenage male pup was inclined to be be sharp or bossy towards other dogs. I'd do so sooner rather than later; you can't put the genie back into the bottle.

I've loved Ibizan Hounds, ever since I saw one, 30 or more years ago, in perfect Sphinx posture during the Down Stay in obedience competition. Unfortunately, commonsense says "No" -- I don't have time or resources to cope with a sight-hound (plus) that can soar over 5 foot fences. Speaking of soaring over fences, google "Ibizan Hound jumping" for some pictures of sheer beauty.