Annette Carter & the Borderbratz

I'm sorry Miz, will keep Boyden in my prayers.

Melanie, So based on your background, how should humans eat? I know really OT but I have many problems that are easily compounded by poor nutrition and I'm interested in how we evolved nutritionally as a species. I have of course consulted MDs and nutritionists but they tell you what and when, not necessarily historically why.

Oh Beck's Mom! Delta is going on 5 years old and she still talks back. She is more dominant than the other 3 and pushes her boundaries in just the cutest little ways! Although I appreciate just how darned stinkin cute she is, I have to be consistant in enforcing the rules and it may never end or who knows, as she becomes geriatric, she may tire. I just have to keep the smiles, oohs and aahs all to myself.

Miz, Also, I know putting Boy in the bathroom made you feel better and I agree that a time out can work but if you go longer than 2 minutes then the lesson is pretty much lost on the dog. If he doesn't understand then the punishment will be unjust. I rescued a lab/husky mix in 1990 from the shelter as a baby and she had this thing with digging in the garbage. My ex thought that a pup should be reliable loose in the house from the start and he was brutal to her- he did modify things somewhat when he would put her in the empty garbage can and make her stay there for a half hour at a time. I can tell you that it didn't work, keeping the garbage from rewarding her worked in the long run and my ex is my ex for precisely the reasons above. Here is a face to go along with the story.

Miz, I don't think you need to be flipped out over this. It is natural for even betas to guard their food from alphas and this is respected- it doesn't change the betas position as to when he gets to eat, what duties he has to the pack, etc but by gum when he's allowed to have his hunk, nobody is taking it- this is part of the very diverse nature or pack order, it can sometimes be confusing. I think he needs to be safe with you around food but there is absolutely no reason for him to have to tolerate another animal around his food. I do think it was wise of you not to push the issue and I do not think it has jeopardized your pack status at all. I do think that you should do some trading up with him- taking his dinner away for a trade of something else like offal or fish and then giving the dinner back to him- just building trust. By forcing Fynne on him at feeding time, you are purposely threatening him and have broken trust some. Now you have to go about rebuilding it. I'm not saying that a visit with a good behaviorist isn't ever a good idea but that I think this is a safe place to start. It is a fairly new concept that dogs should have to tolerate others around their food, nobody did this 30 years ago- it was "the dog's eating, leave him alone" not it's "the baby should be able to play in the dogs mouth at dinner time and not get hurt". The dog, is still very much the same critter now as then. My dogs eat side by side in plastic crates, they can't really see each other and so arguments are avoided. I can take food from them but I will regularly trade up with them now and again just to reinforce the trust between us. I think that you are doing a great job with both of them and if Boy won't tolerate animals around his food and that is the worst of it then count yourself lucky. I know Fynne, runs off when confronted by Boy in regards to food and some dogs will run off. In my house there is not any dog that will back off of food from any other. I would not force the issue either. ALSO (just waking up more here- it's 6:46am) You tentatively touched the towel and pulled just a bit toward you and Fynne. If I have the picture right... here goes. #1 if you were doing that to my dog I'd say "Hey Miz (oops almost typed your name), please don't tease my dog" #2 If I were your dog, I'd say, jeez mom is acting really tentatively, rather spooky I'd say, not normal at all, she usually just walks up with her confident mommy self and takes the stuff away, now she's crouched and trying to SNEAK my stuff away like a beta would from an alpha, so she must be retireing from Alpha for a while, ok I'm up to the job" It took me way longer to type this but I could think the basic concepts in the sec he decided to smile at you. So if I have that picture right of what happened, you were not behaving normally and your outward signals were of beta regardless of what you had in your head as far as intentions. I bet that if you had (instead of testing him with Fynne) stood up and took the bone away from him with confidence that he wouldn't have said (or done) a thing. Let me know and I'll call to explain better if you like.

Miz, Have they scraped multiple times for Mange? Sometimes, the mites are so in the skin that scrapings come up negative. I had a dog that was like that- Mitaban cleared it up when 5 different scrapings showed up negative. Incidentally she had chronic ear infections and bad skin off & on all her life-this was way before raw was even introduced here in the US as a viable alternative for feeding. But she lived til age 13.

Ditto. Which is why I won't bother I guess, it's just a funneling of income out of my pocket and into someone else's and is not necessarily a measure of competence.

Kim, Here is the results of one study and it's related sources. http://www.mountaindogfood.com/HealthCare/Salmonella.htm

Hi Kim, If you are asking if research has been done on the time required for dogs to digest meat and carbs- yes but I have to go find it for you. Give me just a bit to re-dig up the places where I got that information ok?

Lemme see if I can answer this correctly: Carb laden meals significantly slow down digestion for dogs. They have short digestive tracts for the purpose of digesting meats quickly and with much different acidity in the stomach as people. Feeding carbs and raw meat together is not a great idea from the standpoint that meat infected with salmonella is not digested quickly enough and can make your dog sick where as salmonella infected meat fed alone is digested too quickly and at the proper PH levels to make the dog sick from it. It would instead be shed in the feces.

Julie, Apparently, I'm a glutton for draggin my soul uphill. Now if I could just get my butt up the hill more often I might stave of diabetes a little longer. (nope not overfat yet but my family's real prone-being underweight is the key and I have a problem getting there) Strangely enough, the trainer I went to see is old school although she is trying positive methods, she doesn't get that P+ has to be delivered in 2 secs or less. She is the only trainer for 70 miles! Last night I was helping the trainer with her human aggressive dog! She still drags her away by the collar, whacking, and yelling NO! When I explained about desensitization, the trainer lady looked at me like I was some kind of genius. Now, she only does one class a week and that is what she lives off of, regardless of how big or small the class is. So really, I can see me putting the woman out of business. What I may do is see if there is enough business (there is I bet but they aren't using all resources) for us to work together but if that is the case, she is going to have to get spun up on more modern methods and I don't know if she's willing to do that. Oh by the way, she holds a certification in Dog Training so I'm floored, really.

Thanks for slumming with me Miz, you're a good gal too. Totally OT but I ordered my camera-so poop on the bills. It's all on paper right?

I know. You're right. I just came from sitting in on a local trainer's class (I'm looking for work in my new town) and managed to talk 3 people into keeping their shelter dogs because after 5 weeks of classes things aren't going so well for them. That is a total of 4 dogs that were headed to the pound and 2 of them were PB great danes from BYBs. I've offered free private sessions with these people in their homes because no kidding, the dogs were headed to the pound tomorrow. Just frustrated I guess. But relieved that the doggies get a stay of execution...

Yes and not only do you have good genes and cultural eating habits, our wonderful dentistry could have you living what? 250 years or so? Heaven forbid you don't have periodontal disease to rot all your internal organs to kill you off at a meager 100 years old. I know I'm just jealous cause I'll never be asian- doomed to Spanish Irish bad genes!

Shewster, how nice of you to be slumming with us then....

I have experience in shipping and doing AI with chilled semen. In this particular bitch bred her normal/average litter size was 5 pups and the chilled semen produced 3. There were two shipments of semen made and the second 36 hours (about) from the first. The cost was indeed up there-with fertility specialists on call included in the price. It was a regular AI, no surgery needed as I guess you would with frozen. My boy Indy is a result. Only one of the 3 pups met standard requirements for quality to breed -(2 were on the small side-all were promising workers though as far as shelties go).

I know here they can take blood and determine allergies that way for about $80.00. Usually when there is a reaction its because more than one thing is bothering the dog. Ask your vet about this test and if he doesn't know about it then ask other vets if they do. I'd rather get allergy shots than steroids. good luck,

Hi Laura, I too had this discussion with my vet. They use tooth polish to close the porousness of the tooth that occurs with scaling the tooth. I too used to scale my dogs teeth but they were never as bright as using a RMB so that's what I still use. I have a spreadsheet that was developed by a couple of friends (an OBGYN and an RN team)a while back that if you plug in the info will return what your dog's daily nutrition is over time. I haven't used it since the days of feeding barf but it would apply to any food or food mix, cooked, or raw. These people had a golden with serious autoimmune problems so they did tons of nutrition research. The food values are pulled of the USDA site. I just thought I'd offer it to whoever was curious- and Melanie since you are a researcher at heart and by employ I figure data collecting on your own dogs might be fun if nothing else for you. Let me know and I'll e-mail it out. I think it was done in MS Works. So far my only problem with whole prey is how terribly messy it is. After my dogs eat, they need a bath! The reason I switched is because the only food I can get easily here is Science Diet and I'm not real happy with the ingredients, although, I have heard lots of people say that their dogs do very well on it. Anyone here feeding it or has fed it before, any opinions? I figured that the grocery store was closer and out here driving to anyplace will quickly increase the cost of the item you go to buy. So far, I like the way the dogs are responding to the raw and they seem to do even better, the more red meat I feed them (they get, neck, legs, body meat, liver when I can find it) - so chicken is fed but just cause it's cheap and no more than twice a week. I was surprised that some of you guys got on the defensive - everbody here is just doing what they feel is best for their kids and for the sake of freezer space alone if I could find I good quality, low/no grain packaged food in my area, I'd probably buy it, and still feed beef ribs like once a week to keep the tartar off the teeth.

Lots of people feed Royal Canin here with good results. I'd switch her to an adult maintenance formula if you can get it- otherwise you might have to restrict her consumption. The general idea is to make sure the pup gets lots of uninhibited play (only in as much as the pup will push itself-like chasing and wrestling with another puppy)and limited calories- kept fairly thin during the growing process for proper growth and strong bones and joints. You may want to check the research done on joint suppliments in puppies and weigh if you should indeed suppliment and with what and how much.

You can use a remoisturizer conditioner, or Mane & Tail on her. Since her coat is so sensitive you might try having a leave on conditioner spray with UV sunscreen in it, on hand for the future.

Oh Jeez, I'll bet I get the question about brewed tea so I'll explain it. Not very scientific. I have a friend who is Scottish (Vicki knows her )and after a trip home I asked her how they fed their dogs and she told me what her grandmother always raised her dogs on and they always lived to be very old. Oatmeal/porridge in the morning, tea (a saucer full) and bisquits in the afternoon and canned or fresh meat for dinner. I am a great advocate for tea (and berries)- it has lots of antioxidents and on average tea drinkers throughout the world are healthier people- especially those who do not overeat (The Asian people come to mind as a culture) My Japanese sense (Karate) is an old man who at 80 something years old was still competing and looked like he was 40 something years old- he always said, "eat little, but good, and keep your mind & body clear and calm" He said much else too but not applicable here.

Yes I have. I think they have new products out now since I last looked into them though- (like 1998?). The dry mix was recommended to me by my holistic vet in Louisiana to mix with fresh meat. Any products in particular you are looking at? I'll go look at them then and tell you what I think. My original cost comparison was that I could do better and now I don't think about it because I prefer not to feed any carbs and I don't feel my kids need fruits and veggies. I only have 4 dogs though so if I had more mouths to feed I might think about carbo supplimentation but I'd probably do that in the form of cooked sweet potato, oatmeal (made with brewed tea) and some pulped berries and mustard greens. It's a pain in the butt but if I had quite a few to feed I'd probably give them that mix for like 15% of their diet-just to keep the cost down. Sorry for rambling

My last monthly figure was 75.00-80.00 for 4 dogs. I was going through 60 lbs of wellness before that which was 37.00 for 30 lbs so for me it works out about the same as long as I keep my spending to under .99/lb. I buy pork hocks, chicken is always on sale here, Pork necks, The parts humans don't eat with regularity unless you cook sole food or strange indian dishes pretty much go for cheap. I just got whole chickens for $.89/lb which is very doable for me.

Joan, I can answer that based on a discussion for treatment for my seizure dog that I had with my holistic vet. Feeding whold prey provides all the gizzards of the animals which is about is complete a B complex as dogs can get. Vitimin Bs are essential to neurological support which is often why dogs with brain chemistry problems benefit so much.

Frozen sperm has it's advantages and it's disadvandages. A possible advantage might be to reintroduce herding instinct in 10 years down the line to a breed that no longer possesses it because it's been bred indiscriminately. Of course if I were the owner of such sperm, I would only breed to approved bitches showing the highest available quality of working ability-at my own cost so that I could keep most of the litter and test them for ability as they age. The breeding of dogs that are not proven workers and the selling of sperm or dogs for the sole advantage of the cash your pocket is of course, irresponsible regardless of how high tech or low tech the method of the breeding. Shewester, you have yet to post your opinion of any topic in regards to dogs, breeding, etc. You have simply voiced your opinion of how you don't like how we voice ours.