sandgrubber

I would be making preliminary inquiries to a lawyer. I'd say the chances are very high that they have insurance that will cover the incident and they don't want strikes against their insurance record. A well-written threatening letter from a lawyer might convince them that they have called it wrong. You probably don't want to go to court, as those suckers will bleed everyone dry. It's really obnoxious that they didn't give you the rest of the antibiotics after charging you the vet bill. I suspect a lawyer could use this in building a case. p.s. I formerly ran a boarding kennel in WA. Sh#t does happen. But you have a moral, if not a legal, obligation to pick up after the messes you create. In my kennel days there was a little kennel owners' association that hired a lawyer to write boarding contracts that basically said: "we take no responsibility . . . you pay for anything that goes wrong". We had good insurance, and were able to get claims covered on the couple occasions when untoward events happened.

Just curious. How is the economic health of greyhound racing in NSW (or Australia in general)? Here in Florida, the industry is barely viable. The legislature is debating whether or not to kick the legs out from under the industry by removing legislation that requires card gambling establishments to provide live greyhound racing. The industry is in decline and will probably fade away if not propped up by gambling houses and legislation. (the issue is called Decoupling by people who want to take away the legislative prop). See, eg. http://www.grey2kusa.org/action/states/fl.php

Unless you're going to do retrieving on ice, in which case it's important to preserve the front dewclaws, I'd say don't let this issue weigh heavily on your decision about a breeder. There are valid reasons on both sides. I'm in the camp that's against dew claw removal, but there are cases of torn dew claws, and if I had experienced one of those, I might very well sit on the other side of the fence. If I really liked a breeder and wanted a pup from one of their litters, it would hardly bother me that dewclaws had been removed.

But fortunes rest on horse racing outcomes . . . and that was a long time ago.

How absolutely horrible. Seems strange that only one dog was poisoned. If it was a crazy with something against Crufts, you'd think many dogs would have been done. I hate to think it's just nasty competition. Will people stoop that low?

I have three Labradors. My oldie has a lot of white, she's going on 11. My other two are 5 yr and 1.5 yr old. The old girl is a little shy. The other two are friendly to a fault. VIsitors always seem to want to pet the old girl . . . and escape from the other two. I'm convinced that real dog lovers have a special place in their hearts for the oldies . . . because they've had them too. As for people who aren't real dog lovers, who cares what they think. They haven't been there.

I claim no knowledge . . . but I once had a vet prescribe vallium for a dog who had had one grand mal seizure (never had a second) as a precaution for flying. Turns out that I opted not to use the vallium and she had no difficulty with the flight. But a friend who is something of a pill freak was super impressed by the amount of vallies the vet prescribed. Apparently it was far far more than the recreational dose for a pill popper.

Having watched retrievers with real (live or dead) birds vs. objects like rubber dummies, I can believe that live baiting could make a difference. I have fairly low drive Labradors. I've seen pups with seemingly no retrieve drive kick into very keen behavior when confronted with a dead bird. I had one old girl who I thought was a total retrieve-incompetent. One day when we were walking of the neighbors chooks crossed her path. She quickly and efficiently grasped it across the wings so it couldn't struggle and brought it straight to me. I'm not arguing in favor of live baiting. It's an ugly practice. Just saying that there may be reasons why trainers have persisted in using the technique.

Poor kid. Hope the surgery works and appropriate legal action is taken against the dog's owners. I wouldn't call that particularly bad journalism: just spurr of the moment collection of impressions from the people involved. Dog folks complain no matter what label they put on a dog. Someone the reporter talked to probably called it an Irish Staffy and the reporter used their words. I don't like the breathles, disjointed style, with short sentence followed by short sentence. But at least the article isn't burdened by a bunch of crap interpretation.

Being annoyed is bad for your health and not so comfortable. People do all sorts of things, and some of them are idiots, at least from my perspective. Learn to laugh at it. Accept the things you cannot change. Change the things you can. And have the wisdom to know the difference. And while I'm at it and half remembering the death of Leonard Nemoy, "live long an prosper".

Dogs do well on a wide variety of diets There is pitifully little research on the effects of diet, over many years, on dog health. In scientific terms:. THERE IS NO (proven) BEST FOOD. There are a lot of dogmatists preaching about this diet or that, and a lot of large corporations trying to earn maximum $$ by getting you to buy their fancy, but largely unproven, product. Keep your crap detectors turned on. I'd say go to the medium-to-high end kibble range. Experiment with different foods (knowing that it may take a month or more to see results). Work out what works for you and your pup. My dogs seem to do best with some fish meal based dry food; one of three seems to get itchy with chicken-based foods. They get fat on chicken frames. But it's doubtful whether my circumstances can be extended to your pup.

It is possible to do a good job of breeding for color, but it either takes decades of work looking for chance appearances of the desired color in quality dogs, or tens of thousands of dollars importing quality genetic material (AI is cheaper than importing studs, but takes longer). It's VERY easy to tell whether a breeder is doing a good job . . . or indiscriminately breeding for color. Just ask them about temperament and health of sire/grandsire and grand-dam, etc. If they can't answer, there's a problem. I like red fox Labs. When I lived in Oz and was breeding Labs, I briefly considered going for red and concluded it was beyond my means and lifespan to make it work. Could be done. Would take 20 or 30 years . . . and perhaps $50k.

The golden retriever and the flat coat retriever were once one and the same breed. The breed was split by color, and the two breeds each went their own ways. No such split occurred with Labradors, although (unfortunately in my book) some color variants (eg., hailstone) were weeded out and the occasional non-solid color (eg., semi-brindle) is a disqualification.

If this is true, why are there so many yellow Labs (with the shade of yellow seeming to get ever lighter)? A century ago almost all Labs were black. Black is dominant. Without breeding for color this would never have happened. Look at how strongly goldens are moving to cream. In WA I remember shows where dozens of goldies were entered . . . not a single one dark. Look at the rapid increase in number and quality of chocolate Labs in Australia. Ten years ago chocos were a rarity and seldom did well in the ring. After a lot of importing of top lines, this has changed greatly. Yes, many breeders breed for color to get a premium price, and some (many?) do it indiscriminately. But others bend over backwards, importing new lines and doing a lot of AI, to develop excellent lines carrying uncommon colors. That said, I wouldn't look for a red fox Lab in Oz. There are probably a few around, but you're narrowing your options so much it isn't worth it.

No offense. I'm an old-timer raised in a time when people spend a lot of time home and no one crated their dogs. But I find early crate training a scary indication that the role of 'the dog' has changed. Brave New World for puppies is here.

I presented the cart-dog analogy more as an allegory than a studied case. Take home messages: beware of unintended consequences. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I've never been to a greyhound race and just get hand-me-down news about the greyhound racing industry here in Florida. It is controversial. The industry would have died long ago but for some peculiar legislation that allows gambling operations to exist if and only iff they maintain a racing track. This law is now being challenged. My region of Florida has no greyhound tracks, no breeders, and no relevance to the debate. I formerly lived in a kennel zone in WA. Because that particular area wasn't too far from the track and had 5 acre parcels (good for having a track and providing growing pups with enclosures that encouraged sprinting), it attracted the greyhound industry. Many of neighbors bred, trained and raced greyhounds. An abrupt ban on racing would have ramifications for these guys. Some of them were attached to their dogs and I'm sure they would have done their utmost to adopt out dogs if the industry was suddenly terminated . . . and they would no doubt hang on to a few favorite dogs. Others were more mercenary and would probably have euth'd their dogs if they saw no economic future. Personally, I don't see a bullet as much different from the green dream. Nor do these guys. I expect that some 'disposal of surplus dogs' would have been done by methods that are considered inhumane.

common or not, 14's a pretty big shock to a foster owner who was expecting six!

I've only just skimmed these pages, but I'm reminded of the RSPCA's second big campaign: that to outlaw cart dogs in England (back around 1840). Yes, many cart dogs were abused. But cart dogs were mostly owned by the poor and served an economic role. Many of them lived with families who couldn't afford to keep them as pets only. So when cart dogs were banned, tens of thousands of dogs were turned 'free' to roam the streets, starve, cause problems, and be killed. This article says 100,000 dogs were killed in the first year after cart dogs were banned. http://messybeast.com/history/dogcarts.htm

You're correct, I missed AU Standard 5812. On trying to figure out how effective this standard is, I hit a few problems. First it would cost me $96.79 to get a copy. It's only 29 pages long so that's absurd. And if I opt for the digital copy it can only be printed once and is no copy/paste. What about transparency? http://infostore.saiglobal.com/store/Details.aspx?ProductID=1454233 (this is the source suggested by the PFIAA) Second it is a voluntary standard, albeit, with a high compliance rate. It is supposed to be enforced through companies hiring an outside company to do inspections. Do they do ELISA to figure out whether 'no soy' products contain soy? or to ensure that chicken (cheap) isn't substituted for other more expensive protein sources? Or do they hire 'friendly' third parties to do the inspections. One can only hope. In the US, the FDA requires truth in labelling, etc. Problem is, enforcement is weak.

Oops. I must have done something wrong on copy and paste. Here is the link. I've corrected it above as well. Sorry. https://thesciencedog.wordpress.com/2015/01/21/whats-in-your-food-2/ Btw, I looked up the Australian standards for pet food http://www.agriculture.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/animal-plant/animal-health/pet-food-safety/enclosure-7.doc Not much there. Some sanitation requirements. You can't sell diseased animals or stuff that's not fit for pet food. Not much by way of labelling requirements.

No. Nothing to do with the Norwegian study on HD. Here are the references: Raditic DM, Remillard RL, Tater KC. ELISA testing for common food antigens in four dry dog foods used in dietary elimination trials. Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition 2010; 95:90-97. Willis-Mahn C, Remillard R, Tater K. ELISA testing for soy antigens in dry dog foods used in dietary elimination trials. Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association 2014; 50:383-389. Ricci R, Granato A, Vascellari M, Boscarato M, Palagiano C, Andrighetto I, Diez M, Mutinelli F. Identificatin of undeclared sources of animal origin in canine dry foods used in dietary elimination trials. Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition 2013; 97:32-38. Okuma TA, Hellberg RS. Identification of meat species in pet foods using a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay. Food Control2015; 50:9-17. Pretty sure they're all American. I would say they are quite relevant in Australia because: (a) the testing required isn't the sort of thing regulators do. ELISA and PCR are not used by regulators;. and (b) a large fraction of the dry food sold in Australia is imported from the USA. p.s. ELISA is an immunoassay technique. It might be used in human food testing to ensure that peanuts or other allergens are not present in food . . . although this is not common and mostly used for tasks like ensuring that "gluten-free" foods are actually gluten free. Usually labels contain some caveat such as "this product may contain traces of XYZ allergen" which gets around the need to test. PCR is full DNA work.

Licking may be a sign of digestive problems. See: https://thesciencedog.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/mr-licks-a-lot/

It's just cellulose. Annoying, yes. But no real problem. My pups grow out of it.

I've had a couple vets tell me that low birth weight puppies generally had poor attachment in the womb and therefore the embryos didn't grow to full size. I guess this could cause problems, but most often the pups catch up rapidly if given a good seat at the milkbar or a little supplemental feeding. No long term effects.

I've been avoiding checking into this thread. Opinionated stuff I post when I'm a little tipsy often gets me in trouble and I'm embarrassed by having to fess up to the stuff I get flamed for. Good to hear I'm not alone in impressions about dog food marketing.