painted_ponies

Aoife - 11 month old BC/pyr cross - has been with me about a month now. At first she was not all that into me. I noticed I began rising in her estimation the more I showed her interesting things.. Her life before me was very sheltered - for example, she saw her very first lightning bug last night. So the more I take her places and expose her to things the more interesting life becomes and the better she likes me. Sounds like your guy may not have been exposed to a lot of human-type stuff either. So maybe this will work for you? Of course, you will probably also run across stuff he does NOT love, but I think this is also valuable knowledge. Lets you know what kinds of things he needs help with. For instance, Aoife does NOT love other dogs, so we're working with a trainer and her dogs to help Aoife deal better with canine interactions. Which is also making her like me better. I guess it's kind of a bonding experience, getting through stressful situations together. So long as those situations resolve successfully of course.

Humans incapacitated by infancy or other disability have guardians appointed for them to manage their affairs. It's done to protect them, but has the effect of taking away their right to legal autonomy. Anyway, I understood Mr. McCaig to say "species", not "individuals," so I"m not sure that argument is exactly on point. I abhor the use of chimps in laboratories, but I don't see why we need to grant them legal rights to stop it. Why not just ban the use of chimps in research? Or captivity? In South Carolina, we did that with cetaceans. You cannot have dolphins, killer whales, etc in captivity in SC. Passed that law decades ago. I think making chimps into people creates way more problems for them than it solves. When they attack people, will they be imprisoned? Hardly seems fair, since attacking other primates is a perfectly acceptable thing to do if you're a chimp. So is rape, and cannibalism and a whole bunch of other behaviors we frown upon.

I once asked my vet about the food additives to make cat poo unpalatable. He said, "Sally. It's ****! How much worse can it taste?" Anyway, I use one of the gates that cats can sail over and humans can unlatch but nasty poo-eating dogs cannot breach.

How about a border collie/LGD (livestock guardian dog) cross? I have two, one of whom goes to work with me every day. All the smarts of a BC but about half the reactivity. Mine are crossed with Great Pyrenees and weigh about 70 lbs, although I think the bitch will mature to slightly larger. Well able to pull your wheelchair, I would think. This is a cross that winds up in rescue fairly often. I think of them as sheep farm love children. If I were looking for one, I'd keep an eye on both the LGD and the BC rescue websites. I've seen BC/LGDs on both. They make a really cute cross - sort of a giant fluffy BC. I'd post pics if I could figure out how to do it. Used to, I just copied and pasted a photobucket link. Now it's telling me I'm not allowed to use that extension on this board.

My BC bitch and my BC/pyr cross are desperate to exterminate the cat family with which the universe gifted me on Friday the 13th. (Heck, even my screwy little Brittany foundling would like to snap their little necks.) So far, the twain have not met, because the cat family lives on my back porch and in my barns, and my dogs live in my fenced front yard and in my house. But oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth that goes on when the cats, as cats will, lounge about on the other side of the dog fence. I should say that this same pack of ravenous would-be cat exterminators lives with two house cats. But it was a battle getting my Faith BC to leave them alone. Lots of time outs for chasing the kitty. And Scot - the BC/pyr cross - brings me dead moles and birds whenever he can obtain them. This is why I've never let my house cats outside - partly because I think if they were outdoors and ran from the dogs that prey drive would kick in and they'd be lunch in short order. Anyway, I just took Celie - the mama cat - for her little kitty hysterectomy. So she and the three nine-week-old kittens are living in my home office until her incision heals. Here's my question: while they're inside, should I introduce them to the dogs? I'm thinking maybe yes, so the dogs would understand they belong here and are not prey. But I'm also thinking maybe no, because I don't want to get the cats habituated to the dogs inside, and then have them enter the dogs' fence outside (it's a big old half-acre enclosure) and possibly get chased and eaten. Because I think the dogs' perception of them would probably change between encountering them inside vs. outside, and I don't know if little kitty brains understand this. What would y'all advise? And if anyone wants to say "I think outdoor cats are environmentally destructive so I wouldn't even go there"; or "Don't you think your coyotes/foxes/bobcats will carry off the cats before the dogs even get a chance?" I reply, respectively, "Yes, I agree with you, but I am overrun with rodents in my feed room and really need some help, plus this time of year in the South if I sent them to the shelter they'd be but a memory in short order. And besides that, I hate bobwhites and the wild turkeys can take care of themselves; and I shut the cats up on my back porch at night so the coyotes/foxes/bobcats and other nocturnal predators won't get them.

My two BC bitches did this, exactly. Violet, the elder, was extremely noise phobic until she hit about age twelve. Faith was never fazed by noise until she reached the age of six. I think I've read on this board that this is a fairly common phenomenon, but I can't refer you to any specific thread. Maybe others will chime in.

Instead of fleeces, I collect the Navajo saddle blankets from TSC. Only 9.99 and they're pretty sturdy. (They also come in all kinds of colors, not just red.) Dogs can and will chew on them so I don't leave them in crates. But they're great for putting over the back seat of the truck or to use over the slipcover on the sofa or as a traction mat in front of elderly dogs' supper dishes or . . . well, bunches of other uses. I throw mine in the washing machine every week, but you can also just hang them up on the fence and hose them off if they get stuff on them that you'd rather not have in the machine.

Tractor Supply sells the same kind of mat you use in a horse stall, only it's roughly the size of an extra-large dog crate. They make perfect, indestructible crate mats.

Ha. I remember meeting my first old-sheep-dog-guy at an NC trial. I was scribing for him. He told me how women let their dogs sleep in the bed with them. He said he thought that was stupid - until those women starting beating him at trials. He said he figured if he could get dogs to work for him like those women, he'd let them sleep in the bed, too!

I don't know. See that angelic looking little face in my avatar? That would be she-who-will-not-be-leashed. Damnedest thing. She's not a bad dog. She has a recall; a sit; a down. Now seven, she actually instructs newbies to my pack on how to be good farm/house dogs. But leash walk her? nope. In my half-century on the planet, I've trained way more dogs to walk on lead than I can count. I've taught maybe a half-dozen horses to lead nicely. But not our Faith. S'ain't happenin'. She has not been traumatized. I've had her since she was a tiny puppy. (She's traumatized me a time or two, but that's another story or twelve.) I took her to a Jack Knox clinic at Julie's once, years ago. He thanked me for bringing her, since it made everyone else so much less embarrassed about her/his own dog. But after two days, he suggested maybe I take her home and get a handle on her before taking her back to sheep. Anyway, OP, not to discourage you. Just to say that well, sometimes these things happen. I just stopped putting a leash on mine - but then I live in outer East Jesus so I can do that. Do you have alternatives?

This is kind of an old idea. When I got my first dog - way back when you had to have dinosaur-proof fences - the old "dog men" (the guys who did field trials with their bird dogs) fasted their dogs one day a week. For some reason, it was usually Wednesday. Maybe that was poker night? Everything old seems to become new again if you just wait long enough. But no, I don't do it. Even if I run out of dog food, I cook a big pot o' rice (cause that's a South Carolinian's answer to any emergency ) and dump in a can of tuna. The dogs it. If I tried to fast mine, they'd pester me to death!

I will never again allow a vet to take my dog into "the back" without me. It's not an issue with my current vet. But once, years ago, I allowed it with my lhasa apso. A couple of days later, the dog sickened and died. He was in his teens so, although crushed, I thought it was normal. Then, a few weeks later, when I was in with another of my dogs, I read my folder. Turns out a vet tech had accidentally pierced the lhasa's bladder while trying to express urine. I think it's possible my dog died of a systemic infection from that injury. Maybe or maybe not. But nobody works on my dog without me ever again. Or my horses either.

Well, one must consider the source. From the linked article: Really? Looks like the breeds are ranked in order of how well the average obedience trainer can figure out how to make its members execute a set of commands. I don't think that says much about the intelligence of the breeds - might say something about how well obedience competitors can figure out how to motivate different kinds of dogs. :)/> One of the smartest dogs I ever owned was a chow chow. He wasn't much interested in executing obedience commands (although I showed him in obedience trials and he did OK). But he could figure out how to open a crate, free its occupant, and attempt canine-icide in less time than it takes to describe.

Not arguing with you, but your post made me remember the first time I encountered dogs who weren't pets. My great-grandfather had a pack of Walker hounds. As it was the middle of the last century in the Appalachian mountains, the hounds weren't kenneled but had the run of the farm until my great-grandfather hollered for them to come hunting. I think my life was enhanced by being allowed to interact with these hounds as a toddler. I had the opportunity to learn the rules of pack interaction, with animals who were far more interested in and attuned to one another than to me. I think this experience helped me understand canines much better than I would have otherwise, and I don't think I'd have been able to get the same experience once I grew older and bigger. Naturally I can't say if those hounds' lives were enhanced by having a little kid tagging along with them. :)/>/>/> I will say that to this day I will do just about anything to help a hound, cause I figure I owe those guys. During hunting season I'm honored to give out suppers and a warm place to sleep for hounds who've temporarily lost their way. So maybe some hounds' lives have been enhanced, if not those exact hounds who put up with me as a child. I honestly don't remember if I was ever nipped by those hounds. I've been nipped and bitten by so many different animals during my life that I've never paid much attention. I can remember being knocked down by them, and I can remember hounds getting in fights in close proximity to me. The first time was sufficiently frightening that I learned to spot the signs of impending aggression before canine fisticuffs actually ensued ;)/>/> - definitely a lesson that stood me in good stead over the years. :D/>/> Of course, these days I understand anyone being afraid for his or her dog if the dog were to injure a child. People take those things so seriously nowadays. But I still think children today are missing out because adults feel their safety must somehow be guaranteed.

Oh, yeah. My brother got bitten by my little pekingese just about every single day. It never occurred to anyone to get rid of the dog. Occasionally my brother was punished for teasing the dog, but most of the time my parents reaction was "well, what did you expect?" I've been wondering the same thing as Kelleybean. Not that Rileydog's gender matters in this situation. But I was puzzled because his/her posts read as though Rileydog is female although the profile identifies Rileydog as male. Anyway, I guess it depends on the family court judges where a person lives. In mine, SOP is for one person to adopt the child as a single parent, which is less than ideal for the other partner but better than the couple not getting a child at all. Times they are a'changing though - and none too soon!