gooeydog

We have this ad too, I looked at their website (shame on me, though I wasn't actually interested in any of their dogs), and wasn't the least impressed. They've been around for several years at least, from what I've seen :-?

On a regular harness, he's likely to only pull harder, as it'll be more comfy for him to do so due to his weight being distributed more onto his shoulders. It also gives less control over a dog's head, which can make keeping them calm if another dog comes up even more difficult. If you don't mind him pulling, a regular harness should be pretty hard to get out of, and is safer for that. If you prefer him not to pull, you'd be better to try either one of the no pull harnesses (though I wouldn't trust some to hold a squirming APBT) or perhaps a martingale collar or limited slip collar so he can't pull his head out. Both our APBTs are collar slippers (the older one is a regular houdini at it, doesn't matter how snug the collar fits), and they wear martingale collars to keep them from doing so.

[quote name='Beautiful Border Collie']The halti is like a harness that a horse wears. Wherever the nose goes, the animal will follow. I have used these for years. They are not uncomfortable,like the prong collar. My dog HATES the prong collar. I only use it on walks where people also walk there dogs and for some reason they cant read the sign DOGS MUST BE LEASHED :roll: The prong collar hurts a little, and it can hurt a lot too. The halti, IMO cant hurt, i just dont see how.[/quote] Dog, like people, have different comfort levels. What you may find pretty comfortable, I may find downright uncomfortable; what your dog doesn't mind, my dog might. I tried a Halti on our older APBT, Goo, took several weeks to acclimate her to it, made it a positive experience, etc.... and she still doesn't like it. She doesn't mind it too much so long as I don't actually apply any pressure at all to the lead, which is kind of defeating the purpose of such a device. If I make the mistake of "arguing" the point, she'll plant her feet, roll her eyes, pull her head down, and start trying to back up to still get to where she wants to be. If that's unsuccessful, she starts digging to remove the halti. Now, I can say "no" and pull her head up all I want, but one quick swipe to the wrong spot in her frustration, and she'll put her eyeball out. When I walk her on the Halti, she's head down, tail down (except when she's fighting it), not really enjoying herself at all. After seeing how unsuccessful the Halti was at getting what I needed (she was acting like a savage when we'd pass certain dogs in yards, usually these dogs would be runnign the fence and carrying on too, so that only made it more fun for her to do the same), I switched to using a prong collar on her. Sure, it's uncomfortable when she's being corrected, but it's not simply by being present, as the halti was. She already had an acceptable alternative to lunging at dogs in yards (I let her pull on the leash until we're by them, one of her favorite things), so it was just a matter of reminding her that pulling away from dogs is a lot more fun than pulling towards them. Took all of 10 times out to get that message across, and then I weaned her back over to her regular collar. In her case, the Halti was much more aversive than the prong collar, so I chose what worked best for her. Different dogs, different training needs.

It's been a few weeks since one of my usual odd questions, so here's one.... I'm giving Goo fish oil, Vit E, vitamin/enzyme supplement, and MSM all as supplements now. Should I be giving her a break from these every now and then, like once a week no supps at all? There is the occasional day where I'm not there to feed her, so she doesn't get them, and I don't worry about it much, but should I be giving a day of rest more frequently? Also, should I stop the supplements before she goes in to get her teeth cleaned when we do that? She'll be sedated, have teeth cleaned (they're not super dirty, but do have a bit of buildup, and she'll possibly need one taken out due to a chip), possibly have a quarter sized bump on armpit (thought to be a fatty tumor by several vets) taken off. If I should, how soon beforehand should I stop giving them to let them clear out of her system? I'd just ask the vet, but they're more of the "don't give any vitamins or supplements so long as the dog is doing fine without" line of thinking, so I don't know how good of an answer I'll get from them. One more thing, TDG, you mentioned to give Glucosamine Hydrochloride (I think? I did write it down to look for, but don't feel like getting the paper) and Nutritional yeast with the MSM, first, is that the kind of glucosamine that's used as a joint supp? And also, in two health stores, I haven't seen nutritional yeast. Should I be able to find it there, or where do I need to look to find it?

Remember that most non-shed dogs will need some type of grooming due to the make up of their coat (curly coats need brushed since the coat actually holds in the shedded hair and it needs to be gotten out to prevent mats; long haired dogs like shih tzus need to be brushed frequently to keep from matting; etc. Since you have one large dog, I wouldn't go with a small, fragile breed, as you wouldn't want your dog to inadvertantly hurt the new dog.

Our dogs have gotten this a few times, was there any bleeding? Usually for ours, the little flap of pad dries up and falls/gets ripped off, and the skin under quickly becomes like a pad again. It takes around a week most of the time for it to look pretty normal again. The only thing I do is clean it well when I notice it, then keep them off pavement/roads for a while, only cleaning it again if they get really dirty. Bag balm sounds like a good idea to keep the skin supple though.

I got 3 of those collars a few months ago (same place as well, I think they may be the only ones who sell those type). The measurement is while the collar is "at rest", like a normal collar, loop not pulled tight. So when you pull the loop, the collar will tighten further. If it helps any, Haley was 17" at the top of her neck (where I fit collars, since she, Goo, and Annie are all collar slippers), 18" at the bottom, so I got a 17-20, it's set on the middle hole (there are 5 holes I think). Goo is 15" at the top of her neck, 17 at the bottom, so I got the 15-18 size, it's set on the second-to-largest hole. I'd definitely go with the 17-20, even if it is a bit big, which I doubt, like you said, you can always add a hole.

Well said BK. People who can't exercise good judgement with their dogs are the reason the government in some places has removed that responsibility from all of us by banning the APBT and other breeds.

I wasn't going to post on this thread at all, but am having a hard time stomaching some of what's been said here. Everyone makes mistakes, some bigger than others. The thing I have a problem with is someone who has also had more than one (some more serious than others) preventable accident with their own dogs openly condemning someone else as if they have never made a mistake themselves. Yes, what happened with these dogs could have been prevented. Andrea thought she was helping the issue by trying to work on obedience, obviously she underestimated the magnitude of her dogs' issues. Anyone who says they haven't ever miscalculated their dog's thoughts or capabilities at least once is a liar. It just happens that the result of this case is a tragedy for all involved. The only thing you can do here is learn from it and use that in dealing with your own dogs.

My guess is that it'd be nearly impossible to be caused by a mutation, as from what I understand, true mutations often have other "bad" side effects, and these dogs appear completely normal aside from the merle pattern being present. It's also odd that they have only appeared only in lines of unscrupulous breeders (ie: no health testing on dogs, breeding only for color, etc), no merles have just "appeared" magically in any reputable kennel. Merle breeders say that the gene has been hidden all these years, like the dilute gene that causes blue. The one key difference though is that the dilute gene CAN hide in lines because it is a recessive, and requires two "copies" in order to be expressed. Merle is dominant, and only requires one, therefore, if a dog has even one gene for the merle pattern, it will be merle. The only way a dog not to be merle is to not have the gene at all, in which case, it wouldn't be able to produce merle pups. The link PitbullEmily gave is a good, not too complicated explanation of why the merle dogs are almost certainly not purebred APBTs. Aside from the fact that merle isn't actually an APBT color, it brings other issues to the table. On the site mentioned in the OP, if you look on the "produced" page, there is a dog that looks like it's a double merle (a dog with two merle parents, so it gets a double dose of the gene). DAL could probably explain more about the defects that many double merles have, but in short, many are deaf due to lack of pigment, and it's also common for them to be blind, or even missing eyes. There have been cases of other deformities as well, but those are the most common as far as I know.

Here's another good article on prong collars: [url]http://www.flyingdogpress.com/prong.html[/url]

Is his coat raggedy because he's shedding? Or do you think the shedding is because his coat's "ill"?

Oops, this was supposed to be in the pics section, this is what happens you post while semi incoherent from lack of sleep :roll: Anyway, thanks much :)

Goo says anyone that does can eat goose poop, she only wishes she could join them :lol: [img]http://img2.photobucket.com/albums/v11/gooeydog/July/ltheblur.jpg[/img]

I'm sorry to hear this :(

Another vote for vinegar here, I soak the collar/leash in 50/50 vinegar/water for about an hr, then drain it and do just water, then hang outside to dry in not-bright sun, and it smells good as new once dry. Baking soda would probably work well too, or oxyclean even. And, another note, even single ply collars will start to stink, so either way, you're bound to have smelly collars :lol:

Sounds like he had a stick up his a$$, and you just happened to get the brunt of his anger :roll: I could see if you were in a regular, dogs-on-leash park, but what did the guy expect in a dog park? Furthermore, if it was that big of an issue, perhaps he should have called to you to catch Jesse before he got to his dogs, kinda late to be freaking out on someone for letting their dog come up to yours when you've stood there and watched the dog stroll up without voicing any concerns/protest. I could understand if you were in an on-leash area, and he had asked you to get your dog (preferably before he got so close you weren't able to catch up), but he didn't, and if he can't accept that sometimes dogs wil ldo what they want, then too bad for him. I've had a few peoples' dogs trot off and come over to try and visit whatever dog I was walking (not in off-leash areas), and even with the dog aggressive dogs, the only way I usually have a problem is if the person ignores my asking them to get their dog (makes little or no effort at all, or tries to argue out of the fact that they're in the wrong), or if the dog is aggressive, or if the dog is repeatedly an issue. Of course, I'm lucky enough that both ways around our block have dogs/owners that meet all 3 criteria, so it's always a pleasure to walk the dogs (hmmm.... which one do I feel like dealing with today...?" :roll:

[quote]Oh man, I was hoping for more pictures of Goo in a duffel bag![/quote] :lol: Not this time. Since we're not going to be there all day sat anyway, no point in dragging her out and making her stay in a strange place by herself all day long, she'd be like this :o . The person coming to take care of them is someone they see just about everyday, so it shouldn't be a big deal for her to be taking care of them. I just ran through the list of phone numbers in case anything happens, and by the time I was done, I was feeling like the worried parent who hounds the babysitter about anything and everything :lol:

We're going to a family reunion out of state Saturday (well, I'm leaving Friday eve, my mom and grandparents on Sat morning), and had to make arrangements for someone to come and feed Haley in the afternoon, take her, Goo, and Annie out (my dad will take Joey and Casey, but he won't be home until around 4 in the afternoon, and Hale will need to go out befor ethen), rotate Haley and Goo at least once, as well as give Hale her shot if we're not back by 8:30pm, and feed them all and take out again if something happens that we end up really behind schedule and aren't back in time. Luckily, a friend up the road is coming to handle it all, but because she doesn't feel safe walking Goo if one of the neighbors dogs comes trotting over and starts trouble, I had to set up a cable tie-out for her to use as backup along with a leash for Goo's walks (we tested that out today, it was interesting, to say the least :roll: ). Then came the feeding instructions, Hale's insulin dose and reminder on how to do that, blah, blah, blah.... it's no wonder we never go anywhere :lol:

[quote]smart is a very subjective term[/quote] How true that is :lol: . Annie (Dachshund, not a breed reknowned for its trainability) is often slow to pick up on new things, but to watch her thinking and trying to figure something out on her own is amazing. She's a good free thinker, and quick to figure out what works when left to do things her way. Neither of the bullies are so independent, but both are much more biddable, and eager to please, which makes teaching them easier (they're also thinkers, but tend to look for more guidance in what they're doing than Annie). They're fine thinking that they're learning something from me, but Annie needs to be fooled into thinking it was all her idea to begin with :lol: . "Smart" for you may be different from smart for me, or the person down the road, and it's hard to draw a hard conclusion that x breed is smartest, when "smart" in itself will have varying definitions.

Hale does the recall into me sometimes, usually when she's real excited and I call her out of whatever she was excited about.... she comes flying back and jumps up a bit to get the most out of her impact (occasionally throwing a foot to gut at the same time) :o . I usually automatically turn now to catch her on my hip when I see she has "the look", definitely better than being caught off-guard. [quote]I've had my legs rammed so many times and been nearly toppled that I keep my knees bent all the time, no matter what I'm doing.[/quote] Does this go along with the odd shuffly motion that people who live with small dogs do? Having tried to walk "like normal" just a couple days ago and trampled Annie and Goo in one fell sweep (stepped backwards onto Annie, then went to move forward, and there she was again, I tripped over her, and onto Goo, who was standing right beside her.... like dominos), I'm back to that one again :lol:

We went to the drive-in movies tonight, didn't get back until about 2am, so after we unloaded the truck, I grabbed Goo to walk home a friend who went with us. We were almost to her house, when we noticed a white-ish looking shape over on the ground by the other side of the road, and my friend went to check it out. Turned out to be a cat with a baby bird, and the cat was NOT looking to let the bird go. My friend was tryign to shoo it off, but it just hunkered down over the bird and looked at her. We thought the cat was a pet we've seen around, but there's a lot of strays around here too, so we weren't about to just reach down there unless we knew it was safe, and Goo was growing antsy watching the exchange between cat and human. I thought maybe if I walked Goo over towards them, the cat (it wasn't actually holding the bird right then, just laying and kinda hovering over it) would move away, and sure enough, it worked. Then I stood right by the bird as my friend ran into her house to grab a towel to pick him up with, the cat was kinda wandering around us, but wouldn't come too close with Goo standing there. At one point, the bird peeped, and the cat started to get closer... Goo sniffed the bird, then gave a little hop at the cat like, "back off, this is MY bird!" (now whether she'd decided to adopt him as her own, or to have him later as a snack could be debated upon :roll: ). We ended up taking the little bird over to my aunt's for the night, he's got some missing feathers/fur and a few scrapes, and was scared out of his mind, but he ate a bit, and is staying in a box with some towels and a hot water bottle. My aunt's going to try to get ahold of the bird rehabber tomorrow before they go away, if they can't, looks like we may have a little visitor until she gets back to contact her to take him. He was so ugly-cute that I had to take a pic of him, here he is: [img]http://img2.photobucket.com/albums/v11/gooeydog/June/babybird43.jpg[/img]

Oh, dog hairs in my food/water don't usually bother me either, just the unidentifiable little specks and blobs (and human hairs, blech!) :roll: We even find dog hairs petrified into our ice cubes, despite the fact that the fridge has an ice maker, so the water never even comes outside of the fridge to be "furred", I guess they just drift in there :lol:

It's not so much the way APBTs aren't adopted out from certain groups that gets to me so much as the blatant misinformation some of the ACOs spew during the shows. It'd be one thing if they weren't looked upon as knowing what they're talking about, but people who are supposed to be experts need to hold themselves to a higher standard as far as accuracy and knowledge, and some of these people don't. It was a couple years ago that an ACO from MHS was on a show on dangerous dogs on MSNBC, standing there explaining how a dog behind him in a kennel was "aggressive" and "game" because it tugged on a collar he poked through the chainlink.... and how pups off a "gamedog" like that could be sold for thousands apiece. Not only was that a bunch of bunk (if it was true, I could've been out peddling "game" dachshunds the next day :lol: ), but his words were basically a statement to anyone watching.... "this is the kinda dog you can cash in on". Now the Miami ACOs are doing the same, I wonder if they don't add almost as much to the problem as they relieve at times :-? As far as adopting out pit bulls, pit mixes, and other "risky" breeds, IMO, if you can't do it right, don't do it at all. Better for a dog to be dead than placed irresponsibly (and as has already been said, these places don't have the resources to do things right, or in some cases, the knowledge) and suffer even longer.

It's late, so these may not be the best, but for Goo I'd say one of the funniest things she's done was pee on my dad's foot upon my arrival home from a couple weeks visit with relatives, the look on his face at having the dog spring a leak on his bare feet :lol: . For Hale, it'd have to be an episode of "poop-on-a-string"... My mom brought her in from outside, and I noticed she was acting funny. I went into the kitchen, and noticed her wandering into the bathroom (she doesn't usually go in the house, but when she does, she prefers the bathroom, so that got my suspicions up), so I ran back to try and catch her before she went. As I looked around the bathroom doorway, she got an "oh no!" look on her face and went to hop off into her room..... buuuuttt.... she had a case of poop-on-a-string, and as she went to go by, it was bouncing around on her hocks, which in turn spooked her and made her shoot out of the bathroom. Once in the hallway, she proceeded to do some lightning fast spins as she tried to figure out what it was that was chasing her, then started running again, only to find that the manacing poo was still hot on her heels (literally :roll: ), so she again went into a spin, this time, she saw what was chasing her and was desperately trying to catch it, more of a "how dare you!" at that point than actual fear anymore. By that point, my mom had came out to see what was the commotion in the hallway (the entire episode only took maybe 10 seconds, but I was so stunned by it all, I didn't even have a chance to react), and dispatched the offending poo, and Hale quickly forgot about it :lol: The above reminded me of another Goo story, I had her down in my dad's workshop as we were cleaning up, and she was wandering around here and there (nothing too dangerous for her to get into). All of a sudden, she came strolling by, and as I watched her go past (I'd only been petting her a minute before and hadn't noticed anything) I saw to my astonishment that she had not only managed to get a piece of duct tape stuck on her tail, but also managed to collect a screwdriver, several pieces on sandpaper, and other assorted trash, which was stuck neatly to the tape, and trailing along behind her. I think the funniest part was not that she had all that stuck to her, but her nonchalant attitude at having been mauled by tape and tools. We ended up having to coat her tail with veggie oil to get the tape off without pulling her fur, and since, Goo is banned from areas where tape may be lying about :roll: As for embarassment, this one didn't happen to me, but it involved Haley. Back when Hale was still with her old owner, she told me this story. She was sitting out on her porch with a guy she liked, talking, as Hale was on a tieout, when Hale came up and butt scooted the whole length of the porch, right across in front of them. Of course, since Hale only has one front leg, her version of the butt scoot is a bit odd (but at the same time, sorta funny to see), and her owner was mortified that she'd done that in front of someone she was trying to impress :lol: Last summer, when Hale went to an obedience demo, I was supposed to be showing just her basic recall, sit, down, etc.... and the trainer said to go ahead and try her off-leash for the recall. She did fine with the sit, and the down, and the stay, then I called her, and she came partway, then veered off to visit with some kids sitting on the sideline, and had to be dragged away to finish :roll: The next time we were better prepared, with better treats (she'd only been in class for a few weeks at that time, so was still just learning the ropes), and she didn't decide to visit during her turn :lol: