sandgrubber

King River International in Canning Vale Industrail Dist. sells chopped roo tail bones at $3 for a 2 kg bag (frozen). They also have great prices for export grade roo meat, for the humans that is.

If the KC is indeed mild, I consider it almost a good thing. I think the mild cases build up immune response -- as do vaccinations. That doesn't mean it's fair to share it with other dogs, though. What's mild for one dog may be nasty for a dog whose immune system isn't prepared.

There is a VERY VERY small chance that the test results are wrong, eg, someone mixed samples up or a batch was contaminated, and therefore that both parents are not clear. I once used a dog who was tested to carry the (recessive) chocolate gene. He was retested. The second test showed that he did not carry chocolate.

Might be a good thing to get advice from a good vet and a good trainer. Could be she's sending you a message and you're not getting it. If it's physical (OCD or HD, for example) you must deal with the root cause.

Pups are likely to be curious about snakes, which is a good way to get bitten. Terriers, in general, tend to attack snakes, which is a good way to get bitten. The e-collar solution seems to be the best protection . . . if done properly, it may even give you a snake that warns you when a snake is about. However, it does not seem to have been done in an organised way in Australia. In the US the main target group is rattlesnakes, and it's clear that training a dog on one rattlesnake teaches him to avoid all rattlesnakes. In Australia, so many different snakes are poisonous, and their behaviours are different . . . so it's not clear whether you need to enlist the services of a snake farm to get the desired result, or whether it is sufficient to train with one harmless python. See responses to my earlier post about snakeproofing (in the Training Forum).

Not industructable, but last awhile and very cheap . . . I sometimes give my puppies cheap paint rollers. They love the texture, and the shape is great for throwing or mouthy games. You can put a rope through them, or p'nut butter inside for variety.

I'd suggest asking your vet. Mine recommends Rimdyl . . . a NSAI meant for dogs. She says the injections work faster, but the tabs are still good. But it is better to go through a vet on this one, as some dogs don't do well with Rimdyl.

I think the risk varies greatly by breed/temperament/age and by type of snake. I used to run into someone in a dog park who walked her two JRTs in a bush area. She saw a snake and leashed them up to leave. Then went ahead a few hundred meters and let the dogs off lead. Damned if one of em didn't go back to get the snake . . . and get himself killed. Small dogs with intense prey drive are probably the most endangered. Curious puppies that live in an area where there are snakes are also likely to get killed. Given what my Labradors do with blue tongues lizards, I don't think they'd be safe should a few snakes come onto my block.

Sometimes the person is more of a problem than the dog. Maybe you should put a collar and lead around the visitor unti he/she learns to keep your overgrown pup in line :p

In my experience, obedience clubs vary greatly. Some are for obediance competition, and not much good otherwise. Some have a rounded approach but are social events more than dog training. Cavs are not usually problem dogs, maybe a bit timid, but not agro or destructive. You might do as well using your own good sense. Try a few dog exercise areas and look for a play group situation that has a lot of smallish unaggressive dogs. In my books, the main reason for puppy pre-school is to give the puppy buyer who hasn't had a lot of experience with pups some added rescources and experience to draw on when it comes to dealing with whatever problems arise. Some classes may not be so good for some dogs. Product labeling ain't so good when it comes to dog training in Australia

So far as I'm concerned the specifics are clear. BSL will be unnecessary when [and only when] breeds that have a history of problems are selectively bred NOT to be dog or human aggressive and an ethic arises among people owning and perpetuating the breed that promotes responsible dogs who will not attack people or dogs. FULL STOP.

Lovely photo . . . every breed has some redeeming features, and I hope (against hope) all dogs of all breeds get redeemed by good management and breeding to tone down aggressiveness. BUT, as has sometimes been pointed out on this Forum, DA and HA don't always go together. Because a dog is sweet with children that it has come to accept as members of its pack doesn't guarantee that it won't take the white fluffy dog next door by the neck and shake it until dead, or for that matter, that it won't have a go at the postie. Cute pictures are a weak defense against BSL. It isn't one sort of good deed that is required. It is consistent good [or at least socially acceptable] behaviour.

Be selective about "out" if you're opting for early socialisation. Remember that Parvo virus is the biggest worry. It is carried in pooh, and can remain resident in soil for many months.

Have a read of the crittering article on Lou Castles e-collar website (google will find it for you). 12 weeks is probably too young . . . lots of other things to train at that age.

I can imagine it works well!!! When I did tracking in SES, the dogs were completely flummoxed by suicides. A dead person smells completely different from a live one . . . not to mention that it doesn't move. Cadaver dogs are an different specialty and require different training. I would assume the same is true of snakes, and I would be cautious about training snake avoidance with roadkill.

There are some wide chain collars that are pretty much chew-proof . . .but like others, I skip collars when the dogs are at home.

Not really. Mostly, I seem to find that no one has done much, and there's not much of a foundation for knowing how to do it. It would be easier in the US, where most of the poisonous snakes are rattle snakes . . . and pretty similar in look and behaviour. But I think it requires testing to see if dogs generalise correctly, and to learn how much it varies from dog to dog. I'd expect that small terriers, who were bred to go to ground, might have different tendencies than, say, sight hounds or gun dogs. I know of Rottis and one Labrador who have killed dugites [a very venomous WA snake] without themselves being harmed. Terriers seem to have the greatest talent for getting killed. Next step, I think, is to do some search of funding agencies and see if it might be possible to get a small grant from the Lotteries Council or some such to do the study required to set a foundation for doing it right. In WA the only snakes one can keep without a rather difficult-to-obtain license are pythons, so testing to see if dogs trained on a python are also trained off tiger snakes and dugites (the main problems in Perth) will require collaboration with a professional snake handler . . . who is probably going to want to be paid. . . . and to use the e-collar on my own dogs during the blue-tongue mating season. My crew are not very nice with blue tongues . . . they bark at them and lunge until I come out and give them hell and take the poor lizard away. That behaviour should be easy to fix with an e-collar.

You might want to read look at the articles on Lou Castles website. Specifically the one on crittering and dog aggression. http://loucastle.com/articles.htm

Here's Lou Castles reply to a question about using crittering for snakes Me: Could the Crittering approach be adapted to teach a dog to ignore snakes (or reptiles in general), eg using a captive snake? Lou: I think that more than the dog just "ignoring" the snake is called for. I also think that it's best if the dog is trained on the poisonous snakes (not just any snake) that may be in his environment. I know of dogs that have been trained on non-poisonous snakes and many of them now fear rope, garden hoses and anything that even remotely resembles a snake. He goes on to say that he developed his Crittering approach to make sure police dogs wouldn't chase cats. The exercise would be much easier to set up if you could use a python rather than a deadly species. So any information on how dogs are likely to generalise from one species (or genus) to another would be very helpful.

When I was doing tracking, one of my fellow trackers had a kelpie who was awful about drinking. She succeeded in teaching the dog to drink water squirted from one of those back-pack water bladder thingies.

Apologies for an overlapping post . . . this is more specific than the question asked on the General Forum. I've been looking into snakeproofing dogs, and conclude that e-collar on a high setting (aversion training) is the way to go. I've been warned by an expert (in the US) to train specifically for the animal of concern, lest you end up with a dog that has phobias about garden hoses and other things that may look remotely like a snake. But I'm not at all clear about how well dogs generalise. Obviously, it's much safer and easier to do the exercise with a non-venemous snake. If you train with, say, a python, will most dogs correctly generalise to, say, a brown snake or tiger snake? Has anyone had experience.

Nail length also depends on the surfaces on which dogs walk. If they do a lot of walking on concrete or other gritty surfaces, they may in effect file their own nails, leaving you less to do. Several months back, there was someone who posted an article on training your dogs to do their own nails (clicker training) by scratching them across a sandpaper-board.

Personally, I found Ronnie pretty terrifying. If you want to avoid having the person from the government come to help, keep your act clean. Don't breed for aggression. Expose dog fighters, or participants in other blood sports, to the shame and legal sanctions they deserve. If your dog is spirited and powerful, make sure the energy is channeled in directions that don't bring suffering on the neighbors or their pets. Fence adequately. I think most people would rather not have BSL, but given the actions and breed preferences of the small number of drongos who consider a vicious dog to be a status symbol, a large number of people have come to see it as a necessary evil.

When I worked at Murdoch Uni, the Vet School had three or four rescue greyhounds who served as blood donors . . . and no doubt helped in laboratory practicals. One often saw them being walked around campus.

Expect colour change to continue with a choco lab. Often the undercoat and topcoat are somewhat different colours, and as the undercoat thickens and thins the coat colour changes . . . not to mention sun bleaching. None of my chocos have faded, though.