sandgrubber

Sorry I'm a bit ignorant here. The test was called specific gravity and when I asked 10.8 was a figure I was given and told she was not concentrating her urine. I was hoping I could research it a bit but it's not much help not knowing what it is . I can probably get a print-out next week. (As it happened the first urine test got lost in the system and I had to take another one in.) I am also not sure of the other tests you mentioned but I know they tested for glucose and said she is not diabetic. What a bummer! Taking one sample is bad enough! Sounds like a decimal place has gotten misplaced along with the sample. Specific gravity essentially measures whether something is heavier or lighter than water. A specific gravity of 10 would mean that a litre of the substance weighed 10 times more than a litre of water. Urine is generally a tiny bit heavier than water. The more concentrated urine is, the higher the SG. A dog with a reading of 1.008 would be having trouble concentrating. If the dog isn't passing a lot of water, this probably means that stuff that should be cleaned out with the wee is being retained.

As I understand it, birth size has more to do with how well they are plumbed into the goodies in the uterus. No significance for eventual size. Proportions, however, are likely to stay true. Big bones at birth are likely to be big bones to adulthood. When I've had a runt, he or she has almost always caught up with the others by 8 weeks.

I have a problem with bookworms

Bump. Any news? Fingers crossed for your girl.

Anybody heard anything further on this one? Hope the guy's ok.

Have a chew on a smako some time. They're very salty. Not something I want to feed my dogs on a regular basis. p.s. I haven't tried rawhide chews so can't comment. My dogs swallow them whole and I've never seen one come out the other end whole . . . so I presume they are at least digestable.

I seem to remember that events like this (sometimes involving substitution of a so-so stud for one with a winning record who commands a high stud fee) is why the greyhound racing folks DNA test all matings. Might not be a bad idea for pedigree dogs . . . or at least main register. If it's done routinely, the price will come down and people will be a lot more careful.

Best luck. This may not be helpful in your case, and won't cure any physical ailment. I often find that some dogs who won't eat in the boarding kennel suddenly become good eaters if they sense that someone else will steal their food if they don't get on with it.

Scratches look bad on gloss. They don't show as much on matt finishes, or on the 'natural' penetrating oil finishes that the green crew are promoting (with Jarrah floorboards, you can just pour cooking oil over your boards and come out with something dark and mellow that doesn't show scratches). Personally, I'm not vain, don't care so much about looks, but I do want to be able to keep things clean. Tiles are great if the grout lines are high and don't become pits full of dirt. Floorboards . . . similar . . . if they're 1 or 2 mm apart they can become great dirt repositories. Lino . . . forget it unless it's heavy industrial grade (expensive).

from a geek perspective, checking names should be a 20 second proposition if they set the system up right. Usually they don't set the system up right initially, but if the powers that be invest in digitizing the historical record, it gets better over time, and eventually the 20 second proposition should become something that causes a momentary delay when you submit a name.

I would say to get the sex you are happiest with, whatever you get, the first dog will be the one you learn with. show you are keen to keep showing and learning and you are more likely to get a better dog in the future. You don't have to breed with the first dog you buy! Personally, I'd start with a girl. If you have secure fences and can cope with a little blood, seasons aren't a big deal. If you show, you'll learn your dog's strengths and faults and be in a position to look for what sort of 'partner' your dog should have to build on strengths and correct faults. If you have a boy, and your initial dog is short on a few points, you won't find anyone willing to loan you a girl. If you have a girl, and are good at describing your breeding objectives and saying why you want to use a specific dog, you'll generally find you can get stud services. for me, the buzz of breeding is seeing what comes out of a mating . . . setting goals for each litter and then seeing if the resulting litter lives up to those goals. Very hard to do with a dog.

It's amazing what dogs can damage. The great thing about floor boards is that damage CAN be repaired. I'm ok with funky and don't mind looking at a few scratches. But if I had damaged timber floors and wanted to sell, all I'd need to do is have someone sand and re-coat the floor and it would look like a million dollars at a pretty reasonable cost. One thing I would consider if working with an original floor is the size of the gaps between boards. If there's a large gap, there's potential to store a lot of dirt. Not unsolvable. You can get someone to put a finish on that will fill in the cracks and leave it smooth and thus sweepable. Just something to consider. Btw, if I had my choice of floor, I'd go for polished concrete, gently sloped to a floor drain . . . so I could clean the floors with a high-pressure hose. Someday I'll build a house like that.

I got rid of the carpet.

Again . . . has anyone contacted channel 9 to point out that they are disseminating misleading information. winging on dol does nothing. . . ok it may let off steam.

Yes there was some relief in hearing the info. There's worry in just not knowing what the kidney enzymes reading means. They said her problem still could be EPI. I've just managed to collect a urine sample from her (boy was that a challenge with a girl who likes her privacy! ) so am heading off to take that in to the hospital now. Congrads on getting a urine sample. I've always dreaded that some vet is going to tell me to provide one. If you're worried about EPI, you might find the following link useful http://canineepi.yuku.com/directory

Hey guys. Why are you complaining on DOL about this instead of letting channel 9 know they're doing a rotten job? Or have you done both? (I hope so). p.s. I don't watch Channel 9, so can't comment on the program.

Misleading headline. Should be clear that it is a proposed law and up for comment. Good on the council for advertising and leaving room for comment. If you don't like it and you live there, by all means, comment. In my 60+ years, I have walked by a few front yards and felt like a scene from Jurassic Park when the velociraptors hit the fence and you get a gut feeling that the containment system might fail. I don't think that's a good vibe for a neighbourhood, and see why a council might want such dogs constrained to the back yard. Hell. Many councils don't allow a decent dog fence along the street and thus by default require back yard confinement. This system at least leaves it open for people with friendly or unscary dogs to use the front yard as exercise area.

If it's your own dog and the little bugger sleeps on the floor anyway . . . just take the bed away and don't worry about it. In a kennel we have to show we are giving the dog a choice. But if 'bed' = toy and floor = bed, why bother. In summer many of my personal dogs won't get on a bed ... preferably seek out a hole they have dug under the rosemary bush where the retic system keeps the sand moist.

I rented house and kennels to a Lagotto breeder who is no longer in operation . . . . please don't ask for references. From living next door, I sense that Lagottos can be great little dogs, but DO require a lot of grooming, especially if they are in a natural environment with burrs, grass seeds, etc. (ears need cleaning to avoid infection even if they aren't allowed out in nature). Also, pups that aren't properly socialised at a young age may not make good pets.

Ya. But bitch that I am I can still bitch about it :D . As for not working at first . . . that's normal. Remember the lines all the way around the supermarket when they first introduced bar code scanning? But supermarket customers don't tolerate incompetence cause they loose customers when the lines get too long. The CC's are monopolies.

Kangaroo breeders beware. They only have 12 chromosomes I'd be interested to know if there's any empirical evidence to support this theory . . . eg, do fruitflies (six chromosomes) fall apart under inbreeding? Do carp, with 104, stand up to it well?

I've recently spent some time on the US (AKC) site relating coordinating the officialdom of the pedigree dog community and was struck by the fact that US breeders can register litters, transfer ownership, etc. online. No more having to write membership numbers and registration numbers twice on the same damn piece of paper . . . no worry about getting your forms sent back to you with a find and a delay because you copied a 0000 as 000 when writing out the numbers. Why isn't the Australian scene keeping up? I'm sure someone would be happy to sell us the software for a fraction of what it costs to handle the paperwork.

The point is that you can breed dogs to be vicious. Government is correct in recognising this and prohibiting imports in cases where the breed standard overtly encourages this. I have no problem with the fila breed per se. They are lovely looking dogs, and have some noble traits. I do have problems with any breed standard that not merely tolerates, but openly encourages HA and DA tendencies, and expects them to be shown by 12 weeks of age (try some google work on the fila if you don't know what I'm talking about --and make sure to turn on the features that allow translation of Portuguese). I think it is correct to prohibit imports of anything that is designed branded to inflict damage on people and/or other animals . . . whether it's a switchblade knife or a guard dog. The idiots among the Australian population who shouldn't have dogs at all and get APBT's because they are 'tough' would find the fila one step above the APBT from fighting lines. I can see them branded as the pit bull of mastif size. If safeguards were in place to ensure that filas stayed in the hands of people capable of keeping them from doing what they were bred to do, or to see that the only imports were of dogs who failed to show sufficient courage and aggression as pups, I could change my mind. I see no such safeguards, nor would I trust the relevant authorities to enforce behavioural/temperament safeguards if they were put into writing. The time I spent in Brasil (~8 months 1n the 1980s, mostly in Para and Amazonas provinces, with time in Sao Paulo, Rondonia and Minas Gerias) left me thinking that the powers that be in most of Brasil wouldn't care much if a poor person was killed by a guard dog. This may be changing. [Now-President] Lula was seen as a hopeless case when I was in Brasil. I understand that in his reign there is a genuine move toward social equality in progress. But the murder of street children in past decades is well documented, and undocumented killings in frontier regions have clearly happened. I associate the fila with an attitude that arises when the rich need to protect their families and property from the poor (or to catch their runaway slaves). . . . a breed, unfortunately, developed as a tool in class welfare. I see it as reasonable to ban imports of such breeds . . . unless some credible filter is put in place to ensure that the dog or pup in question is not DA or HA.

I am against BSL for the APBT, but think BSL has a place. Sorry, I couldn't sign. If a breed has a breed standard that favours HA and DA tendencies, eg, the Filo Brasilioero (acceptable, by breed standards to bite the judge in a specialty show, supposed to be HA to non family members and DA to an extreme) I don't think imports should be allowed.

Please update us when you get the bloods report. I don't want to comment before info is complete . . . other than to say that loosing weight isn't a common problem with Labbies. I would be worried that pancreatitis was a sign of pancreatic cancer (horrendous, incurable disease that progresses rapidly . . . common in dogs .. . my mother died of it) . . . not sure if bloods would show that.