sandgrubber

Ouch! Must have been terrifying. Poor people/dogs.

Having been a landlord who takes tenants with pets, I can understand why most landlords don't. Irresponsible tenants with pets can cause expensive damage and a lot of annoyance. The 'If your pets are looked after' is a big 'if'. Working pet owners who leave pets locked in and unattended when they work can be a problem. Chewing and scratching doors, hair in carpets, smells, barking and neighbours complaints, destroying the lawn/vegetation in the back yard . . . I have also had great tenants with pets. But the bad ones make you regret that you didn't put a 'no pets' clause in the rental agreement. References, unfortunately, can be cooked up and tenants from hell sometimes come up with great references.

My first Labrador was said to be typey and 'a good type', also show quality. She didn't like water and wouldn't fetch. Hence my cynicism about the word.

No overpopulation? There's no overpopulation of cute puppies. Seems like everybody wants a puppy. Babies have them on their PJ's, in their story books, and on their television shows. Its like society tells kids, from six months onward, that they have the right to have a puppy. Lots of adults who could turn down a grown dog get all soft when it comes to a puppy. But a lot of people lack the time and resources to raise a puppy properly. So when the cuteness wears off, and all too often, when the dog starts barking too much, escaping, annoying people, digging holes, fighting with other dogs . . . or the kids get tired of picking up dog pooh, even though they promised they would, and they take the dog to a round of training classes, but it doesn't fix the problem. Somehow drifts to another home, and eventually ends up in a pound. Some people are willing to look at adopting a pound dog instead of getting a puppy . . . but not enough to make the books balance. btw, The cost of subsidizing a spey or neuter is more or less the same as the cost of euthanising and cremating a dog. Scandinavians don't often neuter their dogs. But I'd guess fewer than 1 in 10 dogs in Scandanavia is allowed to reproduce.

Too many animals . . . too few good homes. It's too expensive to care for unwanted animals in populations capable of doubling in one year or less. Generally, it makes sense, through carrot and stick, to discourage breeding of animals whose offspring aren't highly desirable. I think subsidized desexing of pets is cost effective, especially for low income people. Mandatory desexing makes sense for animals with health or behaviour problems. People who have track records of abuse, or inadequate confinement, should be required to desex their pets.

Thanks for the correction. Stupid of me to think recessive . . . it is clearly expressed with one copy present. Can you suggest links relating to problems with the NBT? I did a little scanning and find only studies reporting no problems, eg., this one with Australian Shephards http://www.imgnr.com...al_nbt_art_.htm Also what seems to be a solid research article on the genetics of short-tailed dogs. Link MARJO K. HYTO¨ NEN*, ANAI¨S GRALL*, BENOIˆT HE´ DAN, STE´PHANE DRE´ANO, SAMUEL J. SEGUIN, DELPHINE DELATTRE, ANNE THOMAS, FRANCIS GALIBERT, LARS PAULIN, HANNES LOHI, KIRSI SAINIOy, AND CATHERINE ANDRE´y,Ancestral T-Box Mutation Is Present in Many, but Not All, Short-Tailed Dog Breeds, Journal of Heredity 2009:100(2):236–240 This latter reports 29% reduced litter size when two NBT dogs are mated is Swedish Vallhund. They found no dogs homozygous for the gene, suggesting that the homozygous condition is always lethal. After a bit more reading, I find some people refer to the NBT, like the merle gene, as lethal semi-dominant.

For once, I have no opinion. In my breed we go for otter tails (coffee table sweepers). Personally, I prefer natural tails on all dogs, but I'm not against docking at birth. I posted a set of articles by the guy who introduced the NBT gene into boxer lines (in Articles about Dogs: General discussion) and a few rotti/dobe breeders seemed interested in the possibility of this being done with their breeds. Those articles didn't present the problems of the homozygous pup being non-viable. Seems responsible to see that the problem gets discussed. Also, I find the question interesting as the extreme case of a lethal recessive gene. As I understand it, the genetics is much the same as, say PRA, but in this case people deliberately breed for carriers (no genetic testing required), but risk loosing pups, usually by foetal absorption, but sometimes through non-viable live births, if they breed carriers.

As bans on tail docking spread, outcrossing and backcrossing to produce natural bobtails seems like an attractive option. I was reading the Retrieverman blog awhile back and came across some horrid accounts of what can happen if pups are homozygous for the bobtail gene. see: http://retrieverman....atural-bobtail/ Apparently they may end out missing not only a tail, but also without an anus, with the result that they should be PTS to avoid a horrid death. Are people aware of this problem? Is it a problem? (edited to add the word 'spread' to first sentence. I dropped it somehow, leaving the sentence confusing)

Its not about support its about over regulation. Breeders arent walking away because the ANKC doesnt support them. Unless you actually suvey breeders you haven't any real evidence about why they are walking away. Chances are, it could be that they feel óver regulated' but by the same token, that doesn't mean that promotion and or support won't turn things around. Further, what is stopping new breeders coming into the fold? I can't see that the same influences would affect both groups. Much like the debate about the originating source of dogs in pounds, unless a fact finding mission is instigated to determine the actual lay of the land, and a considered and appropriate approach is taken based on those findings, the rot wont stop. I agree that study trumps opinion. But study requires hypotheses to test. I'd suggest the decline in breeders has multiple economic/social causes. 1) Breeding is time consuming and everyone is pressed for time. More women are employed than in past decades. And there are a lot more options for using your leisure time than there used to be. 2) The real costs of breeding are high if you consider the cost of buying and maintaining an appropriate property. 3) Lack of welcoming entry. It's hard to find anyone in the pedigree world who welcomes a new entry into the world of dog breeders. You get dismissed as a back yarder if you have an entire bitch and decide to give breeding a try without first making a serious commitment. No one likes to feel judged. There are a group of people calling you names if you make a profit on a litter, which amounts to saying, you are required to operate at a loss: a big loss if you are one of those people who consider your dogs 'forever' pets, and end out supporting your brood bitches through their old age.

Not much. After 12 mo, they fill out more than growing taller in my experience.

Good on you for taking on a blind pup. Is she ok with somewhat uneven ground? You don't have that many steps. How about changing steps to semi-ramps using some triangular blocks that produce a drop of a few cm . . . . then using smaller blocks . . . . then taking the blocks out altogether.

My dogs (Labradors) puke a lot after a ferrier has trimmed horse hooves. I don't see that it does much harm to the dogs, but can be a bit disgusting when they puke on the carpet or bedspread. I'd guess the same applies to cow hoofs.

Read the label!!!! Beware of pyretherins. I almost lost an old girl (bitch) to them. She licked the spot-on application off a puppy. Awful cluster seizures.

Thanks, everyone for replies. The best I can figure is, that, sigh, like so much else in life, it's complicated. I pull loads of ticks here in California. Sometimes I get three or four off each dog when we go through the daily inspections (you're right, the dogs love being feel-ed over). I get ticks as well as the dogs. It itches like hell and sometimes the pull-spots get infected when I pull them from myself (mostly it's the juveniles that get me . . . not the big fat suckers). I finally ended out putting the dogs on the chemical equivalent of Frontline-Plus in the spring, when we have the most ticks. But the little buggers we get here are a nuisance and not deadly. Lots of wildlife. No hope of getting rid of them. I like living where there's lots of wildlife. It scares the crap out of me to think of getting similar numbers of ticks when they may be a life and death matter. I spent ~15 yrs in WA, but haven't coped with the east coast conditions.

+1 My dogs live on a 7 acre vineyard property. I know a lot of vintners who have dogs. No one reports problems. I expect my dogs eat hundreds of grapes a day during harvest season. Maybe as much as 500 g/day. The only problem I see is extra sugar/carbohydrates. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease! A few, and I'd say a VERY VERY few, dogs have problems with grapes. Dogs are pretty good at puking when they need to.

Sand is a fact of life. Yah, it's messy. But washed sand is sanitary. Accept the things you cannot change. Use a dustpan occasionally to clean up the harmless mess.

Without type a dog is merely a dog. Type is what best describes a breed. Could you elaborate on this? I don't quite understand the meaning of "type" For example I think most people can see the difference between show and working line breeds eg. GSDs, Labs, Setters etc but both "types" can easily be identified as the correct breed. But why is only one "type" rewarded in the show ring? As another example, my pet labrador is hardly a potential show winner, yet most people correctly identify her as a labrador. Are you saying she is "merely a dog" and not a "labrador retriever" because she lacks (show-winning) type? Not taking a position. But be I've found sometimes 'type' means pushing to the showing extremes (eg, for Labbies, big boofy head and big bones, and the classic 'look', exaggerated. sometimes at the expense of temperament and health). I'd much rather see the catch word 'balanced' than the catch word 'type'. To me the intelligence, temperament, and mental profile of a Lab are more important than ear-set, tail-set and 'boofy' look, and I think the way a dog moves is equally as important as how it is shaped (which I guess means I do care about angulation).

There are other reasons to worry about Bostons. I think they're the sweetest of the brachycephalicbreeds and the best suited to smaller houses and urban lifestyles. But check out the health concerns before you consider buying. An expensive pup that has likely health problems is not something to covet. Anyone serious about healthy Bostons? I'm in the US these days and thinking about returning to Oz Also thinking about shifting from my current breed (Labs) to something smaller and more suited to an old lady who thinks you should be able to lift any dog you own (I can still lift a 35 kg dog, but doubt that will continue for another decade). I'd welcome an opportunity to bring in some very healthy Bostons with me. By 'healthy' I mean free whelping, good temperament, tested or pedigree-based indication of being clear of significant genetic faults, maybe a bit longer in the snout, so as to allow for normal physiology. I'd be happy to work with someone on finding and exporting/importing a few quality dogs.

Good question without a good answer. We need more transparency and better data collection, especially for breeds like the BB with extreme conformation, high prices, and long departure from the breed's supposed 'job'. (When was the last time one of these guys was set against a bull?) Personally, I think the PDE crowd has a problem with wrinkles, and I could tolerate 'Ceasar required' conformation if the problem was made clear and didn't involve the creation of dogs that were doomed to short, painful lives, with pain in walking/running.

I don't know a lot about BB's and am willing to believe some breeders are a lot more careful about health than others. It's true for most breeds. Given the high price for BB's, seems like there may be quite a few people who will breed from any entire bitch they can get. If you accept that there is a problem with some breeders, why not expand your pedigrees to include hip/elbow scores and birth/death years for as many generations back as you can (eg, put 2001-2011 for a dog who died this year, and 2004- for a dog who was born in 2004 and was still living when the pedigree was issued? The PDE comment that US breeders claim their dogs are healthier than UK dogs, but offer no longevity data, is a valid point. True for all breeds, but especially so for breeds with major health concerns (I can't dismiss the horrid hip/elbow scores for the BB in the OFA database and the rumors of high mortality), it would be good to have better transparency about health over the dog's whole lifetime.

Depends on the kennel. The science is complicated. The C3/C4 part of the vaccine tends to be good for years, while the C5 part (KC) tends to wear off in a matter of months; the C3 diseases are life-threatening while KC usually isn't. Unless your state law makes specific requirements, different kennels will have different interpretations.

The equivalent, with Labbies, is 'blind dog'. Usually kids. I chuckle internally, but see no need to correct them. People aren't born knowing the language of the pedigree dogs. Lots of people are essentially tourists in the dogworld, and of course they make mistakes. I've murdered Spanish, French, German, Chinese and Portuguese in my travels, and I'm sure I've said some pretty stupid things while grasping for words. I'm grateful that by-in-large people listen for what you're trying to say and ignore your literal words.

Ah ok, sorry BP, I totally agree with you anyway, the bolded part was what I was getting at. The dog owning public isn't uniform. I'd guess that the problem segment is made up of people who don't have the time, means, or inclination to do right by their dogs. These folks are inclined to have X-breeds that were not bred for profit, and available for cheap. Its common for them to keep their dogs entire, and to fence them poorly, which ends out with quite a few oops litters. There are some ugly specimens with 'my dog can whip your dog' mentality, who take pride in how many litters their dog has sired via fence jumping. Apart from this lot, and the show crowd, whose lives often revolve around their dogs, my guess is you'd find X-breed owners and purebred owners aren't all that different.

+1 They're making $$$ of you, on the average. What you pay for includes expensive executive offices and high salaries. If you keep a buffer, and mind your p's and q's with respect to risks, you should come out ahead. More-so if you have several pets.

"Don't cuss the climate. It probably doesn't like you any better than you like it" - Don Marquis (1930's)