davecol

Thank you for the replies so far - chewing them over. Just to clarify. I am using the word "person" in a different sense than most people would be used to. Don't worry, I don't see her as a dog-shaped human. But she, like all animals, has a subjective experience of life, has agency, intentionality, sentience, emotionality, etc, in ways that are to be sure quite different to how our own experience as humans, and mostly unknowable to us, but which are real nonetheless. (A link for anyone up for a bit of philosophy!)

Hi. I'm hoping for some advice about spaying or alternatives to it. We have a female lab, 6 months old. We are torn about what to do. I see all animals as persons, and she is a family member. I'm done having kids but I'm not going to get castrated. And I won't be giving my human daughter a radical hyserectomy, even if research shows some statistical risk reductions for certain diseases ... many of the problems we would all see with that, I see applying to some degree to dogs. It's a deeply invasive surgical procedure and it would permanently and profoundly alter her inner world by affecting her hormones. BUT of course we need to be practical. We don't want pups. We don't want roaming male dogs jumping the fence (she is an inside dog but of course spends a lot of time outside. One side of the fence is only 4 foot high though maybe this needs to change.) We're not sure how difficult or inconvenient it is to manage an entire female during heat cycles. We have no experience to help with any of these things. This is our first time with a dog. So maybe that means we should just spay. Or maybe we should try to find a vet that will do an ovary-sparing spay or a tubal ligation. Or maybe we should leave her entire. What I'm hoping for is more information on those pratical considerations to help me weigh them up. Or direct advice on what to do, but advice that is not dismissive of where we are coming from philosophically (which is why I'm not going to bother asking the vet...) Thanks in advance!

She does have a slightly undershot jaw - could that be a problem here?

Thanks for the comments. Might give chicken a go just to see although it's a bit pricey for me everyday because I insist on free range. (Will have to teach her how to hunt bunnies methinks!) Is chicken definitely OK for a 10-week-old? The info from our breeder said chicken frames from 6 months plus .. ?? I fed her some more of the flap today, one really thick rib plus the attached piece of sternum, plus some two big flaps of the abdominal wall meat. Not much good still. She got one meat flap down when I wasn't watching after sitting tearing at it for a while - don't know if she got it apart or not. The other one she gave up on. And the bone, she pulled some meat off and tried and failed to crunch even the cartilege around the sternum. I broke the rib into three sections hanging together with connective tissue and held one end for her, still no go even at separating those pieces... Hopefully the chicken helps. Well I'm worried now if I'm not letting her swallow bones whole, she's not getting any bone at all! I'm certainly concerned she gets the right nutrient balance. She has no kibble, just the diet the breeder had her on, 1) diced beef, 2) lamb flap 3) stew, 50/40/10 pet chicken mince, rice/pasta, vegies. (Actually I suppose the pet chicken mince has bones in?) I want to start getting rid of the cooked meal with grains and onto pure raw but worry if I don't get her eating bones and I do that also then I'm making things even worse.

Hello, I am after some feeding help. I am feeding our 10 week old lab lamb flaps, separated into indvidual meaty ribs, as this was what the breeder was feeding him (for one of three daily meals). She swallows them whole. I might be remembering wrongly but I thought the breeder said this was normal. But just now I'd read this thread on oxtail saying no, they can choke if they try to swallow it or any bone whole, so feed them bigger bones they have to crunch up. What gives? I've also fed her lamb forequarter offcuts with bones too big to even attempt to swallow but she doesn't seem to be remotely close to being able to crunch them up. In fact often I come back later and break them up (often the bony part is in three or four fragments from a joint, joined by connective tissue) so she can have a chance of swallowing them. Am I missing something? Do I need to teach her how to crunch? Or cut bones into tiny bits? Or feed rabbit or chicken which should be easier to crunch?

Thank you all for the comments. I don't think she has behavioural problems - we just wanted puppy school for socialisation, advice and learning how to train her. I won't say where I am as I don't want to hurt the feelings of the lady who was running it who was friendly and obviously just doing what she thought best. (Especially seeing as I might persist with it... doubtful but you never know) Yeah, basically every time she barked or jumped or wouldn't sit I would leave the room (saying "shoosh" if she was barking) then ignored her for however long it took until the noise let up for 10-20 seconds of quiet, then would approach, say "good girl/good shoosh/good girl" (occasionally give a tidbit of food if she kept quiet for longer than average) and try the routine again. Does that sound OK? She's been a little darling this morning but maybe that's more luck than anything!

Well tonight has been a nightmare with barking at the kids and refusing to sit even for a meal... a half hour stand off before she finally sat when asked and was quiet for 10 seconds to get her meal... so I think my mind is made up!

Hello, great forum and site, I have learned a lot looking through old posts. I have a question I'm hoping someone can set my mind at ease. We took our new puppy to puppy school for the first time and one of the dogs was a very full-on barker, deafeningly so. Since then I do think our girl is barking and whining more than she was (which previously was hardly at all). I'm worried she is learning to misbehave from this other dog. Is that possible? I'm thinking of not going back if it's going to teach her to misbehave. I'm not sure we'll get much from puppy school anyway. It sounds as if the training I've done in the week and a half we've had her (just from books-come, sit, come/sit at side, heel) takes us through to about week 3 of 4 of puppy school anyway. And she gets her second shot next week so can socialise in public anyway. The Science Diet / yearly vax hard sell doesn't go down well with me either. If there's one thing that made me resist getting a dog for a long time, it was the neighbours' annoying dogs who bark all day while left home alone (just like I bet this puppy does). So the last thing I want is for our gorgeous girl to turn into one of those.