Maja

I'm glad you liked the story <3

Just one more story about Kelly: https://owceimanowce.blogspot.com/2020/01/green-bicycle-stories-part-4.html

I'm glad you enjoyed it .

They are wonderful dogs :D . The whole movie is really wonderful and the credits at the end. I am impressed that you brought a Tatra all the way from Poland to CA.

If anybody need some somewhat-literary entertainment, heres i my mini -play "the Day of Thunder" https://owceimanowce.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-day-of-thunder.html

Dog breath smell is in my opinion a very important indicator that something is off. Every dog has their own typical healthy smell (none too pleasing) or a "I just ate something gross (you don't wanna know what)" smell, but there is also a smell of illness, be it gums or something else. Very interesting discussion, and my conclusion is - if the dog needs it - brush their teeth, if the dog does not - don't.

I have 3 BCs: 13 yo, 10 yo, and 6 yo. I had a berner who lived almost 10 y and and mutt that lived about 12y. I never brushed their teeth and they all have/had very good teeth. the seniors 13 and 10 yo, have much better teeth than vets expect. Perhaps some dogs need brushing, I don't know.

Exactly.

Ruth, I am no expert in stock work, but I gave a lot of thought to the topic, and so far nobody has pointed out any serious flaws so, I guess it's not too bad . In my mind, the stuff I wrote on e-collars relates to my observations on Bonnie who has lost her hearing at the age of 4-5. And how long it took me to realize it and to see how much she had been reading from me without being able to hear the commands. And how people (who never had a dog going deaf) assumed without a doubt that she was blowing me off. It opened my eyes to how little we know sometimes on what is going on. I mean, they were sure she giving me the middle finger, while all this time she was desperately trying to figure out what I wanted. How much more wrong can you get? And the thing that scares me in people who want to use an e-collar for border collies is their brash confidence about being right.

Wow, that 's great.

Thank you

That's really good news that it has been made illegal in Iceland.

I wanted to share the link to my article on the above topic, since the question keeps popping up. The questions on e-collars are usually met with a great deal of negative emotions, which I perfectly understand and share, but I wanted to try and actually answer the question "why not" in an organised manner. I hope that maybe some people will find it useful. https://owceimanowce.blogspot.com/2019/01/why-we-shouldnt-use-e-collar-in-sheep.html

Very cute!

Very, very sad news. I have three of Donald McCaig's books and always enjoyed the discussions and thoughts he shared here. He will be greatly missed.

Here is Bonnie taking the flock out a couple of days ago. There is no original sound because , well nothing was said obviously, and you don't need to hear me being out of breath :). I'm sorry about the shaking but I can't find the stabilizing function on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHRj3SECwCw&amp;t=2s As a comparison, here is Bonnie's teeny-lamb intelligence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjmegvog0-c Bonnie's gosling intelligence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNGYKne7AHI And her Bonnie's ewe&lams smarts, and then she is searching for chickens and finds them, and then her penning smarts (older style with out the handler at the pen): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtJ2926VZ84 This last video she could still hear (at 4 yo), except when I went to a clinic Iater that year realized that I was really shouting in comparison with all other handlers.

I guess I will never know the mystery of ram horns.

My logic is just fine :). Skudde females have no horns. Surgically castrated skudde males have no horns. Intact skudde males have beautiful horns. Shashlik the skudde has horns. So either Shashlik is not a wether, or there is something odd about burdizzo castration.

But it doesn't make sense. So you have horned burdizzo castrated rams, and I have (had) hornless surgically castrated rams. Being hornless after surgical castration is not dependent on a breed. Obviously in burdizzo castration something different is going on than in surgical castration. And I would like to know what it is.

The burdizzo is supposed to crush the cords and the blood vessels and thus cause the testicles to atrophy which makes it a castration, since if there are testicles it is not a castration, but sterilization ( I had to read up on this to clarify it in me wee brain). So, yes I think it is possible that Shashlik's castration ended up being a 'vasectomy', but that does not explain Smalahundur's wethers' growing horns (@Smalahundur, from what I understood, your burdizzo wethers always grow horns, right?) - they can't all be mistakes. (I am not going to have any castrated rams; I'm just asking out of curiosity.)

So I moved here, since Smalahundur and I were talking about rams in a different topic. So the thing is this: Smalahundur said that his rams castrated by the burdizzo method still grow horns. Castrated rams I used to have always stopped growing horns instantly upon castration, which was done surgically. I have Shashlik which I got as a gift sort of, and he had been castrated with the burdizzo clamps, and I always suspected that his castration was somewhat failed and that he ended up with a vasectomy, since his horns are impressive. But now Smalahundur tells me that all his burdizzo castrated rams grow horns. So I am confused. Anybody has the horn/castration relationship figured out?

That's a good hypothesis, except you are looking at Shashlik - his horns are actually bigger than those of an intact ram his age, and I talked to his previous owner and it looks like his a result of a failed burdizzo castration, he is still sterile but probably the blood vessels were not all damaged. And skudde ewes don't have horns, and when surgically castrated rams' horn growth is arrested instantly, so within the same breed you have a very drastic difference in horns' reaction to neutering depending on the method. Very interesting.

I beg to differ somewhat : His looks do not point to a true wether because if you remove the testicles the horns stop growing. Here is wether Mikkey, he is first from your left, next to Ramzes the ram; you can see little horn buds on Mikkey the size of his 3 mo brother to the right. I am wondering how come the horns keep growing with burdizzo castration, if the testes are supposed to atrophy? Maybe it really takes a long time? I don't know what was done to Shashlik exactly, he has balls, but smaller; he jumps on ewes. He is very docile towards people. The main tup fights with him during mating season and Shashlik gives it right back. But there has been no indication that he has fathered any lambs.

I think a lot depends on when the vasectomy is performed, which in his case was when he was still a lamb. Shashlik has very small testicles, and definitely does not act like a ram his age would. All the fully castrated rams I ever had, showed an instant arrest of horn growth upon castration, so I am curious how exactly castration is performed in Iceland (I hope this won't be perceived as hijacking the thread ). (Concerning Ramrod, and e.g. earlier ram Rambo, it is very humbling when your safety depends on a 15 kilo dog.)

So wethers with vasectomy grow wide horns? It's funny because strangers are afraid of Shashlik who is very sweet, and they never notice Ramrod whom they should at least watch if not fear.