sandgrubber

Whew! I'm not the only one who uses not-so-nice nicknames. Bonza, the naughty but cuddly one, goes to Bombza, Bomb, Stinky (due to a memorable incident) to Stink Bomb, as well as Rat, Little Rat, Stinky Rat, SweetiePie, MudPie, and BonBon, to name a few. Jarrah, who has little sense of humor and rarely misbehaves, just gets Jehr-Jehr or Sweetie.

She plans on keeping him outside..she doesn't trust him, but her daughter does go out there when Mums back is turned. Bet the neighbours will LOVE that.

No doubt the owner's response was: "Oh well, if that dog couldn't take down an old man with a JRT, it wasn't going to amount to much as a pig dog. There's plenty more where it came from." I hope he gets the book thrown at him.

Christina, it is a tragic society and it is not improving. People are busy, shorter fused, and more self oriented. More and more people in the same geographical area will bring more and more of these problems. Tolerance of barking dogs is pretty much a thing of the past in many urban areas. Years ago, I did not like the idea of de-barking but now I see it as pretty much as the answer and it has definitely saved the life of quite a few dogs. If you're not prepared to keep your dog in at night and you live in a high density neighbourhood, you shouldn't get a dog. Souff I don't think people have gotten more, or less tolerant of barking. They have been packed tighter and tighter, they work longer hours, and they increasingly substitute buying stuff for their dog for caring for it. I love dogs, but that love tends to disappear to when they interfere with my sleep.

I suspect dogs find their own probiotics . . . in all the disgusting things they like to eat. What could be better for repopulating your gut flora than material that has passed through the gut of another animal.

I think I read somewhere that there's an amino acid imbalance in egg whites, and you shouldn't feed dogs whites without yolk . . . but yolk without white is ok. As for whole eggs, I'd pay attention if eggs were more than 10 or 20% of the dog's diet . . . but if they're a side dish to a main meal, I wouldn't worry. Nor would I panic if my dogs occasionally got an egg white without yolk. It's not poison, just not well balanced.

Well written article, for a change. Managing dogs in high density situations where many dogs are left alone for 8 hours or more at a stretch is a big problem. Night barking, especially with a high pitched bark, is unfair to neighbours. I don't know where the numbers on 'bad behaviour' came from, but if 77% of dogs rarely misbehave, that leaves an awful lot of potential problems.

Not necessarily. Many Master Hunters are relaxed, laid back dogs-- until someone pulls out a gun. And you can find show labs who are manic even into adulthood.

You'd have no trouble finding the lankier Lab build with narrower head if you were in the US. Australia has relatively few people who use Labs to hunt, and most breeders go for show conformation. I don't know them personally, but I think Kadnook Labs in Victoria would be a good breeder to start with. They are more into functional Labs than show Labs. see, eg http://203.89.193.82/kadnook/Pages/Page_Frames/history_page_frame.htm

+1 The bottom line is the bottom line. I'm sure you'd be much happier looking after her dog if she paid you fair market price . . . which is not a small sum.

Personally, I'm bored with righteous indignation about BYB practices. This sort of thing has been going on since the concepts of 'purebred' and 'pedigree' took root. Fat chance of getting rid of it. And given the many abuses in show breeding, I think it may be good that a few people, at least, are breeding their 'nice' dogs. If there aren't a few people breeding non show conforming dogs, there's going to be nothing left to recover traits that may be lost through show breeders overemphasising a few phrases that happen to be in a breed standard that was written before much was understood about genetics.

Because BYBs are known for producing sound, health-tested dogs, right? :rolleyes: If you actually feel this site is a waste of time.. why exactly are you here? The only thing I can think of is to troll. Also.. for someone so bothered by "do gooder dog rescuers", you sure do spend a lot of time in the rescue section ;) I sure do saving worthy dogs. Not trying to save every impounded dog at any cost. Not all rescuers do that and most of the rescuers here are good people doing the hard work to help where they can. Nice to know what you think of their efforts though, my under-bridge dwelling chum ;) This is getting absurd. Totally off topic. I'd suggest you guys thrash it out personally and not bother us with this . .. or do it in general, not news.

A genetic dissection of breed composition and performance enhancement in the Alaskan sled dog Heather J Huson1,2, Heidi G Parker1, Jonathan Runstadler2 and Elaine A Ostrander1* They're starting to work toward understanding of the genetics of athletic performance in dogs. See: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2156/11/71 Fascinating article on genetics of performance-selected mix-breed dogs. I found lots of things interesting about this, including charts of degree of heterozygosity comparing 141 AKC registered breeds (conclusion, sprint dogs are more inbred than distance runners . . . and strangely, a few purebred dog breeds show levels of genetic diversity that imply considerable outcrossing). One thing I didn't expect comes from the pictures . . . the sprint racing dogs show sloped hindquarters that approach those of the much maligned modern GSD. p.s. I didn't put this in studies about dogs cause that part of the forum doesn't permit Topic Titles . . . which greatly reduces its usefulness.

This is a bit off topic, but Consumer Reports studies conclude that pet insurance is rarely worth the cost . . . the better way to insure your dog is to put the money you would have put toward insurance into an emergency fund. See, eg., http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/money/insurance/pet-insurance/is-pet-insurance-worth-the-cost/overview/index.htm

Wish we had more science news and less politics news :)

Some dogs have a great sense of direction . . . one of the dogs we had when I was a kid (a GSD x) killed a neighbor's calf and my father gave him away to some people who lived a couple hundred miles away. It took him about a week to come home. Other dogs get hopelessly lost. I agree with others, the best solution is to keep your dog within your fenceline. If you walk around your neighbourhood with your dog on a regular basis, it makes it much more likely that it will be able to find its way home . . . if it doesn't get run over or stolen or turned in to the rangers.

I've heard that the vermicides they use in worming tablets will wipe out a worm farm.

So I need to crawl into a hole for providing a solution to avoid getting bitten by a leashed dog You may get away with sticking your head in the sand.

Property managers play a huge role here. If anyone wants to change the situation, I'd suggest they look into better ways for the landlord who likes dogs to end out renting only to responsible pet owners. I have an axe to grind here. I will never forgive the property manager who rented my place out to the nutcase who burned my house down -- with his dog inside. He clalimed that Jennifer Lopez told him to do it . . . also, apparently, he did it to get rid of 'evil spirits' who lived in the house. After the fact I learned that various neighbours had complained about the guy, but the property manager didn't see fit to pass the complaints on to me. For this I pay 10%, ie, $30/week?

I wouldn't have objected to posting this in the main News section. I think the abuse section was created for sensationalised and tittilating (sp???) abuse cases that were cluttering the main news area. This is a legal precedent that may be of general interest.

This is self-contradictory. If you don't have to disclose, why bother with references? Also, note that to a property manager, 'references' are just a slightly extended credit check. I can't remember the details in WA, and they probably vary by state, but as I remember it, if you're not explicitly blacklisted and you've paid on time, the reference check will come out clean. I don't know if there are any property managers that read this forum. If there are, I'd love to hear how you handle the 'pet' thing.

If you want a healthy, full size golden, I'd recommend taking the breeder up on the offer of a replacement . . . unless the blood tests reveal something that points otherwise. With Labs, I figure a weight gain of a little under a kilo a week. The breeder may be perfectly honest . . . and still some other dog managed to get in there while the bitch was in season without anyone knowing. It's possible and not uncommon to have more than one sire in a litter. btw. to my knowledge, 10 weeks is too early for closing of plates and X rays are not likely to be useful. A paternity test would be more relevant.

It's probably less hassle to just try another mating and send the girl home after, unless you've got excellent vet service in your area. I've never had a girl who tied twice over a period of 3 or more days fail to end up in pup. Where I live now, by the time they sent the blood to the lab and got the results back (2 days), the girl may well have gone over the peak.

I sent a note to the sire's owner, who had never heard of the condition and checked with her her Vet Opthamologist. Her eye-guy also said it's not hereditary. Tempest in a teapot, but tends to make me a little skeptical about required health tests. If they're gonna stamp health certifications for trivial conditions with dubious genetic components . . . jeez . . . we've got much bigger things to worry about.

Article was interesting but I couldn't get passed those horrible cropped ears in the photos section. shudder For photos of extreme dogs, I recommend: dogshowpoop.blogspot.com Personally, I'm more grossed out by coiffure than ears that have been tampered with. But then, I'm not into cosmetics and I would never own a long haired dog.