silhouettestable

Thanks nice to be back. Hopefully this little old laptop keeps going at least a few more weeks, I have a nice new one on order for my daughter for Christmas that I plan to share

Wow! I haven't been on this forum in AGES, cause my computer was messed up and wasn't letting me into some sites. It finally crashed and now I'm on an even older laptop that can't seem to access everything online cause it's so old and I'm testing what I CAN get into. Lo and behold, first time back on this board and one of the first things I read is about BC's pulling :D/> Not only can they pull, they can do it well. We use ours for skijoring, sprint racing, a bit of mid-distance racing and recreation. We do dryland training with a 3-wheeled rig and scooter and have raced dryland too, but my preference is running on snow with a sled. My daughter and I both race 4 dog teams in the 4 mile sprint classes and I've done 6 dog 15 miles and plan to do that again this winter and a 6 dog 20 mile class too, in addition to our sprint racing. I often hook up an 8 dog team for training and fun too. I usually log my training runs and races and have put on over 300 miles in a season. As for how BC's compare with other breeds for pulling, in the classes I enter I always finish in the top half of the class. We are competing against teams of siberian huskies, alaskan huskies (a type developed over many years for racing and faster than the majority of purebred sibes), greysters (greyhound mix), pointers and other houndy mixes (some called eurohounds). I train with a cycling computer or a gps and have logged my dogs max speed at 25.7mph (yes, miles, not km) They don't maintain that speed, that would just be coming out of the starting chute. I usually record a max of 20 or 21 when training but speeds fluctuate throughout a run and average training speeds for a whole run are often more around 10-12mph and racing averages around 14-16mph. The winning teams are averaging speeds of about 20mph. One race I go to also has a weight pull and for fun I entered a dog in it last year. He's not purebred BC, he's BC/lab mix. He did very well and ended up coming 2nd. He had completed his last pull and could have tried again to go for a win but it was his first time doing a weight pull and he was getting tired. My friend's dog who was also still in it was looking less tired and I figured would win anyhow so I didn't want to demoralize my dog by asking him to do more when he was already trying so hard and getting tired. So I decided to stop while he was having fun and we took 2nd Something else we had some fun with last year was I was asked to take part in an elementary school's winter carnival and give dogsled rides. there was barely any snow so I started with only 4 dogs until they tired a bit (would have been no stopping a big team in those conditions) and then added in more dogs after so I had 8 on for hauling the kids around. We gave rides to over 200 kids that day. The next day we had another interesting "job". I'd been hired to deliver a bride by dogsled to her outdoor wedding, on the lake in front of her cottage. She met me at the public boat launch and I drove her about a mile or so down the lake and into the bay by her family's cottage. Dropped her off for the ceremony and I took the dogs for a spin around the lake and then back to the wedding for photos. It was lots of fun for the bride, guests and us and some of the children in attendance also got a little ride in the sled :)/> ETA:I usually harness break dogs somewhere around 8-10 months of age but keep it very short and fun with no real weight. They're about a year old before I start doing more and gradually work up the distances they're running as they gain experience and condition. As with any activity, you don't want to rush to do too much too early and injure your dog although running in harness is fairly low impact since there is no jumping, no sudden stopping or turning. It's just running smoothly straight forward with teammates also helping pull what little weight there is to a sled or training rig. If you're going to be doing any pulling it's important to get a proper harness designed for the type of work your dog will be doing. There are many different types of pulling harnesses available for different builds of dogs and different types of pulling. A freighting harness would be used for weight pull or other heavy pulling; one of the many different kinds of sledding harness would be used for sledding, dryland training or skijoring; or a carting harness for carting (different again than dryland rigs)

They do pass and he heals all up except the hair is a bit thinner in some spots so he has a bit of a scarred look. Luckily it seems to look worse than it feels because he really doesn't act much bothered by it other than when it's bad around the eyes, at which time he rubs it along the fence and makes it bleed and scab worse. Yes there is more than one condition referred to as collie nose, one is solar nasal dermatitis which usually affects dogs that have white markings and pink skin above the nose. The others are the auto-immune disorders. The only way to be sure would be to have it biopsied and go from there. Treatment in that case could include prednisone which I'm hesitant to put him on for an extended period. Last time the vet saw him she suggested I manage it by keeping him out of the sun, using sunscreen on him and she also gave me an anti-inflammatory/antibacterial eye ointment to put on around the eyes to help soothe that area. I also use a zinc oxide cream on the rest of his face and ear tips and since I suspect seasonal allergies are contributing I'm also currently giving him Benadryl. It's not as bad now as in these pictures. The sores on his nose are now healed and the pink on the nose leather is turning black again. The bridge of the nose is still bald and pink but not as raw looking as a couple of weeks ago.

I also missed this post the first time around. I'm glad his nose is better now but keep a close watch on it in future. My rough collie Noah has had "nose issues" for the last 2-3 years and each time it comes back it gets worse. The first time all that happened was he lost a bit of pigment above his nose for a few months and then the colour came back. Now when he gets it he looses hair all up the bridge of the nose, around the eyes, tips of his ears and gets all scabby. This most recent time he also lost pigment on some of the nose leather and got sores there too. And, in conjunction with all that going on with his face he he's been getting terrible hot spots on the back of his thighs and under his belly. He's turning 9 in October and he's only been getting all this happening in the last 2-3 years. He's been seen by the vet who did a skin scraping on his face which came back negative for mange, yeast or bacterial infections. I suspect environmental allergies are contributing to Noah's problems, he only gets this in the warmer months and in the winter he's fine no matter how much time he spends out in the sun then. Here are some pictures showing the progression of what he looked like the first time he experienced any problems, and more recent ones I took a few weeks ago. His face is now looking better than when I took these most recent pictures but the hot spots have started again.

I use some of my dogs for goose work too. I don't have sheep, but I took them to a friends to start working with her sheep before beginning to do anything with geese. The were also already exposed to poultry at home, (chickens and turkeys) and were used to accompanying me into the coop during chores. Next I got permission to take the dogs to some private properties and at first I found that if they put the geese into water even if the dogs swam they didn't really know how to get the geese to leave, and really only one dog wanted to swim. The thing that seemed to really make it click was taking them to geese up in a hayfield were the geese would always fly away. They had no water to head into so they would leave. The dogs got the idea that they were to drive the geese away and now when they swim they don't give up no matter how much swimming they have to do. Also now both dogs are swimming eagerly where before one was more reluctant to enter the water. Last year I was hired by our township to keep the geese away from the public walkways and park, plus I had some other clients as well. In town I did work during the summer months, after clearing it with a conservation officer. A river flows right through our town and that gives the geese access to swim up or downstream from where ever they had nested (don't know where that was, couldn't find any nesting activity on lands I had access to), but it also gave me a route to send them back away. True that they can't be made to fly away in the summer, but because we were not causing them any harm and not putting them in danger on roadways or anything, the CO said it would be fine to drive them back down the river and away from the public areas. My dogs have learned the difference between when I want them to push the geese downstream and when I want them to be getting them right out of the water. I work mainly with those first two dogs but I have also started doing a bit with a couple of my other dogs, usually in quieter private locations. When the geese visit my neighbour's hayfield in the fall it provides a great opportunity to take the younger dogs and get them learning to drive the geese away. Oh, I will also use either one of the first two goose dogs to gather up my chickens and ducks in the evening to put them into the coop for the night. I have pictures of my dogs working geese from last year posted on facebook (3 pages worth of photos!) Goose Dogs at Work Also 2 pages of pictures of them with our ducks. I think this was the first time either one of them was exposed to the ducks out in the open, outside of the coop and they were very intrigued that they flocked up, unlike the chickens Ducks ETA: as for how I went about getting hired by the town, I just submitted a proposal and presented it at one of the council meetings. The town has spend a ton of money on building this nice walkway, plus there has been fundraising done, donations etc. and then people were complaining about it being too messy to even walk on because of the geese. Also the beach at the park would sometimes get posted as unsafe for swimming because of high bacteria counts and the beaches were so full of goose poop that kids couldn't play there in the sand. The town had gotten some group to do a study about possible solutions the previous year but they hadn't made any decisions about it. So I offered them a solution and they took me up on it. Worked out great, the park was clear of geese all summer, beaches were clean and although there were geese in town in the spring and for part of the summer we kept driving them away before they had the chance to make much mess. By July they weren't coming into town as frequently and they stayed away for the whole month of August somewhere downstream and only came back for a few days in September.

On Sled Dog Central there were 2 dryland events with cani-cross classes listed this past fall for Canada East. Here's the schedule, with links to more information: http://www.sleddogcentral.com/schedules/ca...ast/dryland.htm You can also go to the SDC Talk forum and check out the discussions in the Dryland section, or join the forum and ask for more info about cani-cross. Sorry I don't know too much about cani, I run a team of dogs and have only raced on snow.

With any kind of mushing sports (sledding, skijoring, bikejoring or any other dryland kind of training), the dogs are taught the command "on by" which basically just means to ignore any kind of distractions. No stopping to visit people or other dogs, no sniffing around, no investigating any side trails etc. Their job is to run (and pull) in a straight line on the intended trail, for whatever distance the musher is training for or racing in. Could be 4, 6, 8 miles or more for the sprints, or longer for distance. Distance racers do get breaks for rest, snacks, water etc., but not for several miles. "On by" is easy to teach when you're working with just one dog at a time, on leash with you. Keep an eye on Zorro's body language and as soon as he begins to show interest in stopping or any kind of distraction just tell him "on by" and give the leash a little tug towards you to keep him moving past that spot. Don't wait until he's already stopped, or tugged you over to a hydro pole, watch him and prevent that situation from occurring. It won't take long before he knows what you want. If my lead dog even glances down a side trail, I just tell him "on by" and he knows we're not turning there. (if I did want him to turn, that would be gee or haw, depending on which way). And if we're passing other teams, either overtaking them or passing head-on, "on by" means to keep moving and make a clean pass, don't stop and visit the other dogs. You mentioned improving your pace. Do you run competitively? Have you ever thought of doing cani-cross with Zorro?

Mine have no rituals except to inhale it all as fast as possible, with or without any extras added

All the time!

Hi Cynthia, That will be the weekend before Labour Day, right? I don't know a heck of a lot about sheep and trialing but if there's anything you need an extra set of hands with I can probably help. I say "probably" because it's better if I don't give a firm committment and then not be able to make it. Nowadays I get so bothered by the heat I can barely function, if it's too hot (and especially humid) I feel weak, sick and get migraine headaches so I'm hesitant to say for sure I'll be there doing a job, but if I can make it I'd be glad to help out any way I can.

I have a frost free hydrant for filling the trough and a floating de-icer. The two combined make winter watering super easy. I used to have to chop the ice out and bucket the water over from the tap at the back of my house, and I have also tried using a hose, taking it up over the grape arbour and a tree limb so that it would drain after each use. That worked okay most of the time, but did freeze up a couple of times when I didn't stretch it out enough and some water collected in a sag in the hose. I would disconnect the hose from the tap and stretch that end down to drain from where it went over the arbour, and then go to the other end by the trough and stretch it down from the tree. The system I use now is so much better, and to keep the hydro cost down for the de-icer I put it on a timer so it's only on part of the time, plus I insulate around the trough with some banked up soil and the snow when it comes. I also tip an old sled upside down over part of the trough to keep the heat in and cover it with snow for insulation.

I think temperature has a lot to do with how much the snow clumping up on rough coats would be an issue. Wetter, heavier snows tend to clump more than a colder, drier snow. I never have any issues with snowballs forming anywhere on Storm's body, only in his feet in wetter snow conditions. That being said though, although I like the look of the rough, I am so sold on smooth for the easy wash-n-wear maintenance. All my smooths get some amount of undercoat and never get cold when we're out for hours as long as they're active. When we go to dogsled races they have no problems either racing or spending the rest of the day in the truck, though if it's really bitterly cold I do have coats I'll put on the smoothies. I see a big difference in the amount of coat on my smooths that live in the house and some of their littermates my friend has that appeared to have the same coats as puppies but live out in a barn or dog kennel. Even though the kennel is made from thick squared timbers (an old log barn) and is plastic-ed up to help block drafts and winterize it, they are living in cooler temperatures than my guys and they have much more undercoat on them.

He is so fast and intense in everything he does, I'm guessing he decided to pick up a stick and dove for it, probably impaling himself in a smaller bit. Either that or maybe he got clobbered in the face by Flurry's big stick that he was carrying around when they were playing. We weren't playing with sticks (no throwing and fetching) but about half of our property is heavily treed and there's no stopping them from picking stuff up when I take them out of the back yard to have a run through the fields. Flurry always carries something in his mouth when he runs around, sometimes a ball or toy, sometimes a bone and sometimes a big stick. By about 11pm-midnight last night he was feeling much better, and this morning he was back to his usual self. All swelling is gone, he gobbled up his breakfast and is very smiley and playful again. He'll be on antibiotics for a while but other than that he's fine. What a relief.

Change of plan. A few hours after returning from the vet, I noticed that the swelling in the throat area was no worse, maybe even a bit better but around the corner of his mouth was now swollen too. I was wondering, could it be a tooth abscess forming or did both the vet and I miss something? I decided to take another look myself to see if I could find anything. Laid him down on his side, head flat on the floor and opened his mouth. His tongue fell over towards the floor and BINGO! There was something embedded under it. Examining him while in an upright position wasn't moving his tongue out of the way and neither the vet or I had tried to do that since the problem seemed to be the throat. So I called the vet, they said bring him back right away and leave him to be sedated and have it extracted. This is what they pulled out! The whole thing was buried under his tongue with just the tip showing. Now wonder the poor guy wasn't feeling well.

Went to the vet and she couldn't find anything specific either. She said I had two options, antibiotics and monitor it over the weekend, or anesthetize him and do a more thorough exam. We went with the antibiotics and monitoring, as he seems to be feeling a bit better this morning than last night. His fever is down some and he showed some interest in food, though doesn't have his usual appetite yet. He usually gobbles up his food whether it's plain dry kibble or has extras in it. This time of year when they're in training I'm usually feeding them something extra (meat, gravy, broth etc.) and last night when he wouldn't eat his bowl had roasted chicken and broth added to his kibble and he wasn't even interested. This morning I guess he was hungry enough that he tried a few pieces of plain kibble, but I didn't give him much in case he had to go under anesthesia at the vet. After the appointment I made him a very soupy mix of some kibble, chicken and broth and he slowly ate most of it when I hand fed it to him. I had an appointment booked for tomorrow morning anyhow to take some of the others in for vaccinations, so he's going to go back then too for a recheck. He's now on pain meds and stronger antibiotics than the penicillin I gave him. If that isn't enough and he gets worse over the weekend he'll go back Monday morning to get put out for a more thorough exam or surgery if necessary.