cali

Lol oh I totally agree! I give exact weights if the person is looking at my dogs, its just if the person hasn't met my dogs and needs to know their size for whatever reason I will exaduarate to give them a a more accurate picture in their head. For example a lot of dog products are sized by weight for no good reason, if someone was wanting to purchase something for Gem based on "42lbs" that something is going to be waaayyyy too small. I actually much prefer height measurements and use them exclusively when I can lol. The Rottie I spoke of is in GREAT shape and a normal sized Rottie, I dont understand his owners desire to pretend he's massive lol

I admit, I often up Gem's weight in convo's with people because of the way people associate weight and height in their heads. people don't take structure into account, they go "my bulldog dogs is 60 lbs, so if your dog is 42lbs that means my dog is much bigger then yours" when my 42lbs dog is actually 3 times the size of their 60lbs dog lol. the average person would associate Gem's height with a 55-60lbs dog, so that what I tell people if they ask. that said I have had people do that too, a Rottie at work, his owner brags that he is gonna grow up to be 180lbs..ya, ok lol

My next dog will be a female Toller, whenever the breeder has one for me lol the names in my mind are Sola or Rory :p

I would not tolerate a male that would attack a bitch. Totally unacceptable behaviour to me. I hope your male that did that was not bred with. Oh heck no, he was promptly desexed after I got him, however he was 4 when I got him, so prior to that its entirely possible unfortunately

I think it depends honestly, I have 5 girls in my house,all dominant bossy types and never had any kind of problem whatsoever. With Multiple males however I have experienced nothing BUT problems. IF I ever own a male dog again I will never do more then 1, females though? I'd be happy with nothing but lol Its worth adding that I HAVE had issues with hormonal bitches, getting nasty when close to season, but outside of that my females are all good friends. My males OTH barely tolerate each other and for years were crate and rotate and they sometimes cause issues between the females who are very tolerant otherwise. Heck Gem is my "bitchiest" female and she will always do the least she can get away with, ie, when one of my males attacked her she didn't even use her teeth to defend herself, she just rolled over and kicked him till I could get him off her..then she walked away calmly...and then offered a play bow...

all my dogs are crate trained, they all have free access to crates, only Rusty, Gem and Gypsy are ever closed in them at home, and Paisley is only crated at trials. my brother lives with me and he is of the extreme PETA view, he hates crates, and if he is the last to leave the house he wont crate anyone(OTH if he leaves the house, he takes Rusty with him lol) I trust Gem loose alone, and have started giving her more freedom, but my mom still crates her. Gypsy.... my brother leaves loose, but I really don't trust her, she is really really really bad about getting on counters and in garbage's, she will chill out sleeping somewhere just waiting for you to leave the room, then immediately snatch everything she can reach....which is surprisingly everything considering she is not that big lol. OTH the last time my brother left her loose, she didn't get into anything, quiet the opposite, she just herself in her crate and refused to leave it till I got home and opened the (unlatched) door. Rusty...if we lived somewhere where creates were illegal, Rusty would be dead. if he didn't kill himself(he has a penchant for knives and will pull of some amazing feats to get a hold of a sharp knife..he's 15lbs) then somebody would have killed him. between the running away, the marking in the house(despite 4 YEARS of umbilical training), the non stop barking, and the random full blown attacks on other dogs for absolutely no reason(ie, fast asleep, wakes up, attempts to murder the nearest sleeping dog..). he is doing great now, but it would not have been workable without a crate.

Unfortunately I have no idea! I know she breeds both Lagotto and Puli but thats all I know really

the lagottos I know are great dogs, very friendly, stable, well tempered, high energy but not unmanageable, the 2 I know belong to a disabled woman who can barely move and are regularly managed by the neighbourhood children. now, all the lagotto's I have met are from the same breeder(the 2 belonging to the disabled woman and I met 5 of the breeders dogs when she was in town) so its entirely possible it's just that line that I love so much lol

one of my co-workers moved here from England 2 years ago and went to school with Kate, she said Kate used to bring Gin around the school all the time and Gin was kind of a jerk, granted this co-worker is not a fan of BC's, so it may well have just been Gin being a typical Border Collie lol. I had forgotten all about them until my co-worker mentioned it cuz she knows how much I love BC's lol

I have read and experienced both sides. and I am 100% pro de-sexing(at around 8 months) for health reasons for females and behavioural reasons with males. here anyway there is has been more and more of a movement in the pet world to leave males intact, and I my line I work? I see the results of that. frankly people are stupid and people are lazy, the no neuter push does NOT make pet people train their dogs, its makes pet people have a bunch in intact males they cannot control and don't understand. me personally? I will not own an intact dog again, I have had nothing by health problems with intact females directly related to their reproductive organs, and males..I would rather not own at all, ever..regardless of being desexed or not.

I work in one and love it and my dogs love coming to work with me. not every dog is a daycare dog, but I have seen it help a lot of dogs with confidence issues. one was a rescue, who had been an abused street dog from Taiwan, she was terrified of life when she first came, she is probably one of our most rough and tumble dogs now, doesn't even bother to wait for the gate to open when she arrives, she just jumps into her play yard and goes to town wrestling with anyone willing lol. she had been terrified of big dogs before...her best friend is my dog, Gypsy..a Heeler/GSD.

lol Paisley does NOT fit in a 36" crate and she's a girl Aussie(albiet, larger then the standard calls for) And bigger then the dog I bought my 42" crate for, who also comes nowhere near fitting in a 36" lol

before automatically assuming a crate with "window flaps" is better, I would make sure your dog is just as comfortable in an enclosed crate as he in a wire one! I picked a crate with the most wide open mesh I could find because the dog I bought it for completely and utterly PANICS if she is enclosed in a "closed in" type crate. you would never know in a million years based on how totally calm and relaxed she is in a wire crate. "most" dog do like the enclosed crates(all my other dogs prefer the smallest darkest place they can find lol) so its a safe bet, but soft crates are not cheap, you don't wanna find out the hard way lol

to be fair on on the munchkin cat thing, both long and short legs are born in the same litters, "normal" legs are just considered non standard, but they are still munchkins, the gene is lethal when doubled.

i am pro neuter for pet males and I will never allow an intact male in my house as long as i live. I have lived with an awful one though, my friends all had intact males whom I despised and I work in a kennel so I see them all at their worst so perhaps I'm biased.

Happy was "my" first dog, I was only 13, and my parents had the biggest hand in her early life, but she was technically "mine" and not a family dog, as soon as I was old enough, I had 100% responsibility for her, she was legally changed to be under my name etc.. she will be 14 this year. after her I got Misty, but that was a parental thing again, I was only 15, and my mom was the one who told me I needed another BC... the first dog I got without any parental involvement at any point was Baby, my Toller, whom I researched and purchased pretty well the moment I graduated lol(well, researched and contacted breeders, I didn't actually GET Baby till a year later). Happy is the dog who set my life on its current course though, I had no interest in doing anything animal related till I got Happy and got involved in dog sports and such..oh and I wanted toy breeds..Maltese and CKCS were my favs. now I work with dogs and have 6 high energy working dogs lol. baby Happy baby Misty baby Baby dog

depends entirely on the person! I have 6 dogs, I like that number, I dont think I could handle more then that long term, my mom has 2 dogs so we have 8 in the house, short term I have no issues handling her dogs as well but I couldn't feasibly handle 8 all the time. my 6 dogs are all high drive working types medium to large in sizes and all live in my house, I don't have an issue keeping up with that, but my life revolves around animals, the only "hanging out" I do is with my dogs, hanging out with people includes walking our dogs together, I work with dogs and my gang comes with me etc.. I'm not hard done by or tied to my dogs, its just my personality. not everyone is going to be like that, lots of people have lives outside of their dogs, in which case 6 high drive working dogs are probably too many lol

I would if I could! we don't have such things here, lots of places have outdoor areas but they are fully enclosed and cannot be accessed without walking through the building where dogs are never allowed, sidewalk cafe's and the like do not exist here we dont have trains here either so that one is moot lol, we have buses and cabs only for public transport, no dogs on buses and cabs you have to declare it when you order the cab and only a cabbie who is ok with dogs will come, tho some still discriminate, my friend had a cab pull up look at her am. staff and peel away yelling "no dogs" despite ordering a dog friendly cab..apparently "pitbull friendly" is something totally different.

the magical crate is where Rusty takes anything he steals..if we can't find anything its in Rustys crate...very convenient lol. dunno if the next one is magical crates or magical cold, but if my dogs are out of their minds with bordem and acting like lunatics cuz they haven't been out in the -40 tempts, all I have to do is pick up their leashes, open the door and they look outside and all run to their crates and lay down calmly lol

lol ness, at Gems last trial I lifted my right hand slightly before my left hand to point to the jump, she ran to my right and took a flying leap through the air over whatever she saw...signs and cones. lol. she's hardly ever seen a broad jump so when I stuck her in Excellent I was worried but hoping that her sign jump meant she would jump whatever the heck I pointed too lol(she did)

for lefts, my "secret"(everyone asks me when they see my dogs lefts and side steps lol) is that I teach a solid understanding of what "heel" is(ie, perfectly in line with me and perfectly straight) they should be able to jump into this position no matter where they start. I then teach a command I call "better" which basically means "your a little crooked, straighten up" (this works for everything in heel position and is just a helpful thing to teach, plus you can say "better" without getting singed for a double command lol) once I have that I give the heel command and I begin turning into my dog just around and around and around and asking my dog to "better" ie "I asked you to heel, now I am turning into you so straighten up your heel" as soon as my dog starts swinging its butt I click and treat. they pick it up very quickly, and my dogs all have ridiculously tight and ruler straight side steps, left circles, left pivots and back ups!

I do limited vaccines. I used to vaccinate at 16 weeks and then just titre thereafter, currently I follow the jean dodds protocol, but only because I work in a dog kennel now, so the exposure risk is a tad higher. but to be clear I did not switch my dogs to Dodds protocol, I just follow it with new dogs, dogs I had before my current job have not been vaccinated since puppyhood and will not be unless needed(which thus far has been never..) and Happy will simply never be vaccinated reguardless as she has severe reactions. as for flea/tick/heartworm stuff, no, there is no heartworm where I live, fleas are rare and while we have ticks by the boatload they do not carry any diseases so they are nothing more then annoying and gross.

eh, they try to hog my bed, but they move for me when I ask them to, so it doesn't bug me much. otherwise...umm they don't let me get up in the morning? at the exact moment that my alarm goes off, Gypsy get up, noses her way under my covers and snuggles up on me, then I'm so warm and cozy and she looks so sweet that I don't wanna get up lol

I actually got a video of Happy cant post it from my phone though. its Happy playing fetch at a playground and she's jumping up and down into a sandbox and on her way back out she jumped too early and crashed into the side lol after that she went around the box!

yup :)