imported_Kat

Thanks for that guys.. We were giving ibuprofen to dogs for many years in the surgery where I was and it definitely said on the tub, the dosage for dogs... so really I don't know what to think. However in saying that I have just called another vet and am waiting for the vet to call me back to get an appointment and to get some form of anti-inflammatory. Amazing what we learn through these boards. I shall keep you updated.

Just back from traning and I'm noticing that Meg is favouring her left shoulder which I am not impressed with. It is very very subtle and not very noticeable, but I can tell definitely that her gait isn't her usual smooth prance. She isn't in any pain and I can do anything with the paw and all the way up the leg, and she doesn't flinch. I am thinking that perhaps Tyler might have came down on her and hurt her, or the alternative.. that she may be developing a wee touch of arthritis :-? Im giving her Ibuprofen for a few days to see what happens then taking her next week to the vets to maybe get a cartrophen injection when she gets her booster. Its not good at all with Crufts so soon, but she comes first and foremost.. Fingers crossed... Crufts is less than 3 weeks away... :shake:

I would go with the Irish wolfhound being the tallest, but as far as weight goes, the Old English Mastiff I would have to say would be the heaviest. Thats going by our Hills breed weight chart in the surgery.

The worst case scenario I ever seen of chocolate poisoning was a 16 week old German shorthair pointer pup called Ludwig and the 3 year old kid had given him cadburys buttons. That was a very sick little pupppy in our surgery with a raging temperature of 106.5 and extreme vomitting. He pulled through but its one case that stands out and no dog should get chocolate .

It was the look in her eyes , just staying down with her ears back. You know the look :( Tyler's owner was a prat. To be honest he wasn't very remorseful at all and just kept on going on about how Tyler didn't like other dogs..all the more reason for him to be on a lead :roll: Michael (head trainer) reprimanded his owner well and truly and i got well stuck into him after I had checked Meg over and gave a right rollicking to him :evil: . He didn't even scold his dog at all. If that was my dog that had attacked I am afrraid that he would have got a right yelling until he was clear that his behaviour was not acceptable. His owner is on his last warning anyway, but I don't think he will come back...not that I care if we lose his membership.

There was a dog breed, possibly a Johnston pitbull/bulldog? That I encountered in a confiscation case several months ago. This dog was the biggest dog as far as bodyweight in proportion to height ratio goes!

Whenever I say Mary ray is a friend, that might sound a bit offhand.. :P She is totally fantastic and all you UK lot will know her I'm sure from her famous canine freestyle display she does (usually with Quincy) before the BIS. She is to be admired for taking her dogs to the top for Obedience and Agility, flyball and canine freestyle, and she only uses proper positive training methods. She really is a brilliant example to the doggy world! [url]http://www.maryray.co.uk/[/url] Check out her wonderful dogs for yourself :wink: Her Quincy (Ob. Ch Woodsorrel red wine) is a relation of Meg. We performed a canine freestyle routine a few years back at Crufts together :wink:

I am against docking, unless it is a true working dog, but PETA would need to target every single KC in the world to change the regulations. With their track record, I can't see them being taken very seriously :roll:

erf last night at the dogclub was a bit eventful. A guy that has been coming for quite a few months has a GSD called Tyler who is a rescue dog and is rather unpleasant. Last night I had Meg up at the far end of the hall in a down and was setting out some dumbells for the directed retrieve. Now fair enough Tyler has been good the past wee while but the idiotic owner took his lead off last night. (Leads don't come off unless an instructor says so). I saw him coming racing down the hall and before I knew it, he was on top of my baby snarling at her and nipping and with such a look in his eyes. :puppydogeyes: I told Meg down down down because if she moved, he would have had her. Now Meg is a wee dog and Tyler covered her whole body towering over her, but it was like a quick decision thing and I went with instinct, if she was submissive he wouldn't see her as a threat. His owner rushed down the hall and grabbed him and he went to bite Meg. At that point when he grabbed his dog, I grabbed mine. She isn't physically hurt or anything, just her fur was all ruffled up and slobbered on . :shake: She came over to me and looked at me as if to say "Did i do something wrong there"? Now thinking about it after, she didn't move when that big bugger was over her, even though she must have been sh!t scared and known she was in danger, yet she obeyed me. I actually feel really guilty now.... She is fine emotionally and physically and we had a cracking training session last night and tonight, but I feel so guilty. She is such a good wee dog and she trusted me enough even though she knew I was jeopardising her safety>.< :(

Nea, personal experience... she is a [b]TWAT[/b]! She spent 8 weeks with Mary Ray from England who is a very good friend of mine and she copied all Mary's [i]training[/i] methods and wrote about them in "her book" only applied her own crap about dominance to each exercise. She came to N.I on a training night oh about a year and a half ago maybe and gave a seminar. Some guy had brought an unuly GSD that he was having problems with to walk to heel. At question and answer session at the end of the seminar (which was total crap and she had no confidence and kept contradicting what she was saying :roll: ), the guy asked her to work with his dog. She panicked like hell, you could see it right across her face and she refused to work with the dog or even to go near him. She is a total fraud and has no CLUE whatsoever when it comes to dogs. In fact I have actually included her in my thesis saying how her assumptions are wrong and that she has no research to back up her statements. Dominance in a dog can be pre-determined by so many environmental factors (the position of a dog in a uterus horn..if a pup is beside 2 males it will be more dominant due to an increase in exposure to testosterone and genetic factors and when I quizzed her on this, she didn't have a baldy notion! Actually because I put her on the spot, people came up at the end to talk to me including the guy with the GSD, so that night our dogclub gained several more members through explaining proper real facts to people, and not the rubbishy crap she spews about. unfortunately doggy people who don't have background knowledge will go out and read her book and ruin their dog by attempting to strongly dominate it :roll: My advice to you is to avoid her fiction. You would learn more reading about Harry Potter! :o

Does Westminster have obedience and agility like Crufts just out of interest? :)

Whoa! That is such a cool novel idea! Its fantastic to see the diversity of breeds too :D

Ok I'm now having nightmares of the judge giving a really hard complex shape thing to walk :eek3: Me qualifying Meg that day for showhandling was a complete fluke, so we are only entering showhandling for a laugh and concentrating more on the Obedience and Agility :D

Thanks for that Golden. :D Those rules will actually come in very handy to know when Meg and I are at Crufts in 4 weeks time :-? I actually was going to wear a black suit with a pale pink shirt underneath but I think I shall go hunting for a pale lilac suit now!

I got curious and looked it up and found this website [url]http://www.rallyobedience.com/[/url]. I don't like the sounds of it having to memorise a course and follow signposted directions. I have a hard enough time concentrating on listening to the stewards commands when I compete, but most of my concentration is put into my dog and my feetwork, so I know that if I was trying to read signs as I was doing heelwork, then I certainly wouldn't be giving my dog all my focus!

Nea, your best bet would be to find someone who is nearby that is familiar with show handling. It isn't as easy as it looks! Believe me I found that out with a 5 minute crash course before entering a showhandling crufts qualifier :roll: Before that I mocked it saying it was nothing compared to obedience and agility to learn but wow yeah there is so much to learn! Get Web used to being handled all over from his mouth to his tail to his feet by you and any other person you can get the hold of. Get him used to standing. (look in the stance thread in general discussion as I outlined all the basic steps in that I think). :wink: Good luck!

That was really heartfelt. It sould be sent to all who own a dog.

Think about why they are in the shelter in the first place. The world is over-populated with all breeds of dogs, so why experiment in making cross breeds which are subject to so many adverse problems and bring more dogs into the world? These designer dogs are effectively mutts and it would take a lot more selective breeding over hundreds of years to get a so called true line. There are more than 800 recognised breeds in the world as it is. Leave it at that.

LOL that is super and I am sure a lot of breeding owners would be able to identify with a lot of thsoe stages :lol:

Seen that one before, but still great, we used to have it displayed in our waiting room of the surgery :wink: Vets next week for boosters and bordatella before Crufts for Meggie; can't believe its that time again! I normally give them myself but with our surgery now closed, I have to take her to another guy.

Recall is the most important exercise you can teach your dog, to avoid a potentially dangerous situation (along with the emergency down of course). Meg was taught recall when she was a pup and through her obedience, agility and pet life she has always used recall. Her recall skills are great now but when she was younger she was a little brat! She lives with her brother and I co-own Meg with a lady who doesn't do anything with her. This lady's hubby works Meg's brother and when he was working her brother Shane when the dogs were younger, Meg would do a dash from one end of the field to the other to her brother to play. It came to the crunch one day when we were at an agility show and the carpark and showgrounds were separated by a busy road. Meg did 3 jumps and jumped over the tape and out of the ring to the carpark, nearly being smacked by a car. From that day on she was on a flexi lead for 3 months solid and she did not get off even when she was not near any other dogs. She hasn't looked back and is now working championship obedience and agility, and is qualified for the obedience world championships for Crufts 2004, so don't give up! There is always light at the end of the tunnel! Basic recalls: Start with the dog on a lead always. Arm yourself with cheese, sausage, livercake, something really really tasty that the dog will be into. Keeping the dog on the left hand side of you put him into a sit and flick the lead being held in your right hand up slightly and say wait. Take a step to the side but keep your right hand on the loop of the lead and use your left hand to slide up and down the lead, as a control. i.e. the left hand goes closer to the dogs collar if he goes to move as the lead will then tighten. Reinforce the wait again. The lead only slackens if he is sitting. Take a step to the side and keep saying wait and if necessary use your left hand out to the side to reinforce that wait. Hold that position for a few seconds, back into heel position and praise him up and feed him the tidbit. Only when you have the wait sorted with no movement when you gradually back away from the dog, then you can start the recall, but take it in small steps. Don't gallop before you can trot. Use a decent length of lead (5/6 ft) and keeping that wait with him on the lead still, call him to you (use his name and come), using your arms out wide to encourage him. When he comes to you, hold the food above his nose and say nothing or do anything until he sits. Immediately when he sits praise him and feed him. After doing this for a bit, you can start dropping the lead in front of you and calling him, then gradually increase your distance until he can be taken off his lead and will come with no problems. If you always have a cheery disposition when doing this and raise your voice excitedly, then your dog will want to come to you and will know that he will be getting a reward. This should also help with him dashing out of the door, and his name and come will be associated with a praise session or/and treat. Good luck :wink:

1. 3-4 times 2. This varies depending on if we are out for training (usually about 2 hrs though yesterday it was 3 hrs!) or if its just a normal day with no training I would say 120 hours ish. 3. All of the above! Obedience, agility, canine freestyle, therapy visits, S&R etc! 4. DOGS ARE MY LIFE! :wink:

Good job on getting the Malinois placed Carol :D

[b][i][size=6][color=violet]Congrats to you and Sassy :wink: [/color][/size][/i][/b]

Border Collies through and through for me :D You guessed that already though :wink: When I was younger I always loved to watch the obedience and agility on crufts. I was totally hooked to the tv and recorded the programmes to watch over and over and watch in amazement at those fantastic Border collies and how close they were in heel position. Thanks to Meg the most wonderful of dogs that I will ever own, she got me involved into the competitive scene and now people watch Meg in the ring and come up to me after saying wow. I do not think myself any higher at all of some handlers in the ring and when a kid asks to pet Meg after watching her compete in the ring, they are in awe... I always remember that I was once that child and how I admired those people. The tables turn now and everythime I get a compliment on Meg I remember that little girl watching Crufts on the tv :wink: Two other breeds that I am very partial to are Alaskan Malamutes for their closeness and behaviour like wolves, and also Hungarian Vizslas. My next one however will be a Border Collie, then who knows a few years down the line what will be living with us :D