Here is a photo of Ginger:
Posted on 05/03/2010 7:32:40 AM PDT by JoeProBono
THE man who bred the first labradoodle - and in the process made the mutt a desirable accessory - says it's the great regret of his life. The coveted accessory has pushed out other breeds in terms of desirability.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Yeah. He’s out babysitting the neighbor’s beagle pup right now.
I’ll keep an eye on this thread. My one daughter is going to write a “magazine” for school - comparing Australian Shepards and Great Danes. Our AS & husky mix died last year. We know have a lab/dane/pointer mutt. (Both rescue dogs).
The new puppy is being worked a lot harder and is much better trained. Both were well behaved. The AS was a GREAT and protective guard dog. It would sit in the yard watching the kids play for hours. When I would come home, it would finally lay down!
They are known as “backyard breeders” or “Greeders” amongst honorable breeders and it is they who damage the pure breeds. They offer minimal care to their litters, do not health test and do not research bloodlines in order to benefit the future and health of their breed.
You are so right. BYB are not going to pay for Penn-Hip x-rays for their breeding stock, nor guarantee the hips of the pups. They are not going to depend on future referrals for business. They are not going to title said breeding stock.
With hybrids, you also do not know which trait is going to come out - very often the worst of both breeds.
I do not like mixing but the Golden Retriever & Yellow Lab mixes are gorgeous. It is funny how they are very similiar looking dogs but their personalities are a bit different. Goldens can be pretty fierce guard dogs. They are sweet hearts but they can be scary when they are not happy.
Labs have such sweet dispositions.
Millions of good dogs out there and sadly not enough good owners.
Now have a Border Collie...another great dog.
You have a great vet and your dogs are lucky that they have *you*!
Dobermanns are susceptible to DCM as well and I give mine supplements intended for cardio support.
Odin gets Taurine, L-Carnitine and CoQ10 in the Ubiquinol form *only*.
He also gets 1 gram of Ester-C a day and kelp tablet.
I don’t know if any of those will stave off the DCM if he’s genetically destined to get it but supporting the state of his healthy heart tissue *now* will probably help in the future if, God forbid, he ever does get DCM.
The Ibizan Hounds who are not already on prescription thyroid pills get a kelp tablet every day, too, just to keep their thyroid glands happy.
We got our greyhound about a year and a half ago, first time we’ve had a dog. We think she’s wonderful and want to give her the best care. I’ll talk to our vet about kelp supplements - I take kelp myself when I’m not nursing a baby.
Maybe I should go down to the crossroads and ask the Golden greeders to see the sire and dam’s OFA and CERF papers....as ~if~.
Truth be told, I can’t even bear the thought of what they’re doing.
I’ve had Dobes for 35+ years and during the “Dobercraze” of the 70s, a woman up the road from me literally bred a Dobe bitch to death.
Every heat equaled a litter, non-stop for 4 years.
[the dog was not even 5 when it died right after whelping her final, premature litter]
Not a week went by until she had another bitch [uncropped/undocked] that was ‘put to work’ at her first heat...about the age of 9 months.
As if that weren’t bad enough, the “stud” dog was the worst Dobermann I’ve ever seen...and I think *all* Dobes are beautiful.
His topline was a travesty [completely wrong to the point of being nearly sway-backed] his tail set was as high and upright as that of a terrier and he was cow-hocked as sin.
[all of that just -screams- spine and hip problems on the horizon...and every one of his get bred “true”...they looked just like daddy...poor things]
But, if you wanted a $50 Dobe, she was your source.
My uncle [in ignorance] bought one of her pups and handed it off to me to crop, raise and train for his business.
Bless little Sheba’s heart, I had to give her huge calcium tablets every day for 2 months to correct the -rickets- she had.
When was the last time you ever even *heard* of a dog with rickets, outside of some third world hell hole?
I have *nothing* against mutts.
I’ve had a couple and spent huge amounts of time with the pack my gramma had.
[she couldn’t resist a stray anything, just like me]...:)
*But*, having said that, *if* I were to get a mutt, I would immediately send off for the “mutt DNA test kits” so affordable and available now, *just* so I would -know- what I was going to have look out for, in the future.
The list of breeds identifiable is growing every day so odds are very good they’ll be able to tell what you’ve got....:)
Here is just one of the many DNA service providers:
http://www.muttmart.com/Dog_DNA_brees_test_SKU-DoggieDNA.html?gclid=CIGmh-fAtqECFVdN5Qod-FIEAw
Forewarned is forearmed...:)
You did a *good* thing....you saved a wonderful dog from a crappy life and an even more awful death...:)
Kelp is great.
Being a natural food, it can’t hurt *unless* one was -severely- hyper-thyroidal, which is fairly uncommon.
A lot of dog food companies [well, the more reputable ones, any way] are adding kelp and Taurine to their formulas.
Cats are notorious for their need for Taurine supplementation and it’s only been fairly recently that cat food makers started adding it.
And amazingly enough, after they did that, people’s cats stopped “dropping dead for no good reason”.
It’s only been in the last couple years that dog food companies realized the benefits of adding Taurine to dog food.
For myself, I will not buy any food that *doesn’t* have it because I think it shows the company’s not paying attention to the ever-evolving and new discoveries about dog nutrition.
I’ll have to check the ingredients on Ash’s food. I suppose she’d swallow the kelp if we wrapped it in a slice of meat, like she did when she was taking antibiotics.
Here is a photo of Ginger:
The ones I got at WalMart are so *tiny* you could just dab butter on them and she wouldn’t even notice them.
Some of my dogs just eat them because they like “green” stuff.
They’ll beg for alfalfa tablets as though they were dog treats.
Odin is such a good boy about taking pills.
Anything to please “mommy”...he’ll chew up and swallow a *huge* flaxseed oil capsule just to hear “Who’s a good boy?? He’s a good boy!!!/etc etc etc”.
Jack, on the other hand, has to tricked, cajoled or forced, he hates taking *any* pill so much...even the yummy beef flavored Interceptor tabs that everyone else loves.
Pookie [the Ibizan on thyroid meds] just lets me open her face like a Pez dispenser and drop them in with no tricks or anything else....:))
[I’d *love* to see a picture of her, if you could manage]....:)
Here’s all my brats:
Ooops!
Never mind...I just saw her on your page.
She’s beautiful and my favorite Greyhound color!
[but I like the “black tuxedo” ones, too]
Here's another view, her favorite winter spot in front of the fake fire. Ash is my husband's true soul mate; she follows him around sighing like the pathetic heroine in "Twilight."
And here, she was reading and fell asleep ;-).
The Ibizans are gorgeous. They have a very distinctive body shape, not much like a greyhound, really.
I take issue. Poodles are fabulous, so are labs and the combo is a gorgeous dog that has the hypoallergenic qualities of the poodle and is healthier.
We have had standard poodles and they are the best dogs I ever knew,,calm, protective, sweet, devoted, no shedding and no allergies.
You have *no* idea how many times I’ve been asked “What kind of greyhound is *that*?”....LOL!
She is just gorgeous.
[I’m still laughing over the “pathetic heroine” joke...hubby feels slighted because Odin follows me like a shadow..heck, all the girls slobber over him like moonstruck tramps and *I* don’t get “offended”]....;-D
My son and I take turns ascribing idiot “Twilight” dialogue to poor Ash. “I love him so much, I can’t live without him ... but now he’s gone into the bathroom, and I’m afraid of the shower. If I lie here and dribble by the door, at least he’ll think of me when he steps in the puddle ...”
Some people up the street have Great Danes, and the man asked me once if Ash was a puppy!
You must go way back in age, this is only the second time I have heard that remark...my aunt used it at one time, she has passed on and was born at the turn of the 20th century. I never could figure out what it meant...:O)
read quite a while back that the point of breeding those 2 breeds was to get a dog that had the nature of a lab and didn’t shed...poodles don’t shed the same as other dogs...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.