Recent content by Sch3Dana

For a dog to sit straight with any degree of reliability, they need to have a large portion of their weight on their front feet. Sloppy sitters lean back onto their butt allowing the rear to go all over the place. Sitting straight requires strong muscles, good structure and a straight spine. I...

It sounds like he doesn't like the collar and has had quite a few experiences where complaining about it has caused you to remove it. I think you need a bunch of positive experiences around the collar and to make sure you never take it off when he is "complaining" about it. And no walks until...

Another question I have: Why take her on a walk since she clearly wants to run? I'm not saying she shouldn't learn leash manners, but so many people fight the dog on this issue simply bc the dog is never getting the amount of exercise they really need and simply doesn't enjoy a leisurely stroll...

:hail: It's only within this context that health testing is likely to have a positive effect on the gene pool. A dog with good hips may or may not have a family history of good hips. His litter mates hip status is almost as important as his own for predicting what he will produce. We need to...

The problem with a pinch collar at this stage is that the dog won't have any idea what she is getting corrected for (mother and litter mates do not enforce leash manners or anything else so foreign to a dog's basic nature so that analogy doesn't work here). She's quite likely to learn it means...

Ditto that. I feed approximate amounts and watch my dog's ribs. If they start to look skinny I might feed larger meals or 2x a day for a couple of days. If they look a little heavy I cut back. Also, the amount of activity my dogs get varies, so feeding a constant amount would also result in...

I think potatoes are much less likely to be an allergen than grains.

My understanding is that the rabies vaccine does not reliably produce anti-bodies in hybrids. But, you'd think you could vaccinate and then run titers to prove immunity. Then if they failed you could require that they not leave their property unmuzzled or some such.

OK, let's get over pulling as an attempt at dominating the owner. There simply isn't any good evidence that suggests that there is a correlation between pulling and dominance issues (say, growling or biting at the owner). If you want to read more about how unlikely that is, check the thread from...

Congratulations on your breeding success thus far and thanks for your honesty. Breeding is always a roll of the dice no matter how careful you are. It's nice to be honest about our inability to produce 100% perfect puppies in every litter. Still, I'll keep my fingers crossed for all normal elbows :)

:spam:

I also loved Excelerated Learning. Some others: The Dog's Mind by Bruce Fogle- a rather heavy read, but it contains some really fascinating information. It will take a while to make it through the book, but you will come away with some really cool information that is available, but...

Do you mean he barks as he chases the ball? That's an unusual problem! I'll think on a solution for you :popcorn:

Gosh, how is it that you think I was disrespecting your dogs? That was a joke and in my mind it was funny bc I know you really could train many jacks to bite people. I said in the next paragraph that I was bitten rather badly by a terrier. I do not think they are a joke and I know they can do...

I would argue that when a personal protection dog actually bites someone, someone usually did something wrong. The dog should be a deterrent so that you never actually end up in a physical confrontation.