dirtwinger
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Everything posted by dirtwinger
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She seems to be enjoying pregnancy too much, she,s just lying around happy as can be but no pups. Maybe tonight we'll see, if she didn't take on the first mating they would only have been due yesterday. I'll let you all know when they come, I think 8pups but I got three new homes lined up yesterday so i'm not stressing about a big litter anymore. all the best Dirtwinger
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Thanks everyone, I will pick Percy up on Sunday and be $1000 lighter in pocket. After all the pleasure he's given me over the years it's a small price to pay. Luckily my vet is a mate so he knocked $2000 off the bill for me, it's nice to have a good vet connection when you have working dogs. I put a ferret down last weekend that had cancer so I am very glad I didn't have a repeat today. All the best Dirtwinger
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Well yesterday my old Australian Shepherd x greyhound Percy went off his food. This is not like him he is the biggest pig in the world and will eat anything. So I was concerned when he wouldn't get up and refused food. Waited till this morning to see how he was doing, no improvement so took him into the vets and went off to work. Got a call a couple of hours later from the vet, he said Percy had a ruptured tumour on his spleen and was bleeding to death. Asked him what the prognosis was, he said that if it was only on the spleen it could be removed with the spleen and prognosis was very good.
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Ferrets seem particularly cancer prone, the most common form is Adrenal gland disease. Even in neutered ferrets they produce excessive hormones and this seems to be part of the problem. In neutered ferrets Adrenal gland disease will cause them to behave in a hypersexual way, hair loss and poor coat is also associated with this condition if untreated it becomes a malignant tumour that eventually kills them. We did the surgery on our old jill(adrenal gland removal) and it gave her a whole new leash on life. It is expensive but I am fortunate that one of my best friends is the top ferret vet in N
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Yeah got him at a couple of months old, its always sad when you lose one and he was a real softy. I had been out of the ferret game since I moved to the US and didnt expect to restart. My girlfriend of 7 yrs had pet ferrets when we met and I have gradually steered her to the idea of working them. She's a biologist but a city girl in her origins, she has taken the ferrets death hard. Growing up with animals I understand that if you have livestock your'e gonna get dead stock too. I will get another in a few months that will be raised specifically as a worker. I'm holding off for a while as I h
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He was snipped, it's very hard to get a uneutered hob in the US. My only access to ferrets here is through the petstores. all the best Dirtwinger
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Had to put down one of the hobs I tryed on Prairie dogs, yesterday evening. He lost condition very fast and went off his legs, so I took him in to the vets. He found a lymphoma in his abdomen so I had him put down. Second ferret I have lost to cancer this year, although the other was a 8yr old jill so she had a good run. This guy was only 5yrs old, not old but not young either. I will get another this year and raise it on meat and enter it on game from an early age and see if it will hunt well. all the best Dirtwinger
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what you have to remember is there all types of salukis in their home lands for hunting different quarry so you need to get the right type fore the job. You would be surprised what a good saluki in the right hands can do . There are several different types being run here in New Mexico. We have Kazak Tazis, desertbred Arabian Salukis, show types and I think some Kurdish types. Part of the problem is the core of the Saluki community is a bunch of fifty year old women who dont run their dogs as much as they should. I have judged at coursing meets and had to deal with them I found them ver
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i own a salukix and two pure saluki pups,my salukix is 5 years old now and has done everthing i have asked of him,but i will never forget the day i picked him up and i saw his father he was a stunning full saluki,and since that day i have always wanted one,but the job ive had over the last few years ment i only had time for my salukix,the job i have now allows me a lot more free time which is why i have got two pure pups now,they are only 20wks old but are showing real potential,they are jumping well and are retreaving a rabbit skin to hand,these dogs are far from thick as some people say and
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Maybe if they had their salukis out more like you do they would run as well as your. Saluki owners over in the US always have kennels full of dogs, the fact that they had 8 salukis says it all if they ran less dogs the ones they had would get more experience and run better. I usually run 4 to 6 times a week many of the saluki folk run once a month so theres some truth in that. The guys who are really hardcore out here mostly run saluki x greys. But as I said in an earlier post there are some good imported desertbred bloodlines out here, so we have dogs with the potential to be stars. I t
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Dan there are some good hares down my way thats for sure. Iv'e seen plenty of poor ones too but they dont last long usually. Certain areas are touted as having the toughest hares in the US at least. But everyone likes to make that claim about their local area. I have hunted hares in Central Europe, the UK and now the US. I have coursed four species of hare at this point in my life and I dont know which is the toughest, they all bring something to the table. I think it depends on the ground, the individual hare, the dogs and the luck of the day. all the best Dirtwinger
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One days hunting sticks in my mind from this last season. I went out on area of desert a few miles south of where I live. I was out for one hour and caught two hares with my lurchers, as I was heading back I ran into a bunch of guys running their salukis. They had been out for four hours with eight salukis on the same ground. Score Zero! The also told me the good news that one of their friends had just got their saluki back on the same ground after five days missing. Maybe I'm missing out on the fabulous saluki experience I could be having. But I have yet to see a saluki that would persuade m
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One days hunting sticks in my mind from this last season. I went out on area of desert a few miles south of where I live. I was out for one hour and caught two hares with my lurchers, as I was heading back I ran into a bunch of guys running their salukis. They had been out for four hours with eight salukis on the same ground. Score Zero! The also told me the good news that one of their friends had just got their saluki back on the same ground after five days missing. Maybe I'm missing out on the fabulous saluki experience I could be having. But I have yet to see a saluki that would persuade m
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I have never had a saluki, just going on what I have seen of other peoples dogs in the field. I will say that I have seen coursing greys (pre ban) that were every bit as bad as the salukis I have seen in the field about refusing to return. My dogs have always been good to recall and I would expect the same if I had a saluki. Correct me if I'm talking out of my ass but salukis have a reputation for this, perhaps because they are often not worked enough and poorly trained. I have heard saluki people over here say the reason their salukis piss about is they are too smart to come just because you
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Hi Dan, theres a few desertbred salukis running in New Mexico and contributing to the saluki coursing bloodlines here. We are lucky to have ideal ground for salukis to show their mettle and there are some good ones here. One my mates has imported some kazak tazis here too. They are a bit slow to my mind to be top hare dogs but they really add something special to a cross. i have a 1/2 Tazi x collie greyhound thats faster than shit and the definition of a natural hare killer. I dont think I could live with a purebred saluki though, I like my dogs to come back when I call them. all the best
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Looks like the US, you find rabbits on peoples lawns and gardens all over the place inj the states. When I first moved to Georgia I used to lamp cottontails out of the window of my jeep. My old deerhound x grey would jump out of the window and run across lawns and catch them and retrieve back to the jeep. Peoples lawns were the only place I could find open enough to get a slip with the dog in heavily forested North Georgia. I will tell you this the rabbits I coursed were better runners than that one! all the best Dirtwinger
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Same thing was going through my mind. atb Dirtwinger
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One of my mates in Albuqueruqe has a vet clinic and has problems with loose dogs, he has his own solution to the problem. He gets idiots walking into the clinic with pits and the like off the leash into a crowded waiting room full of cats and dogs. he tells them to get the dog on a leash and under control or he will. If the still wont control the dog he hits it with pepper spray, if the owner kicks up a stink he sprays them too! He says that since he started doing that he gets very few arseholes coming in the clinic. all the best Dirtwinger
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I think I see your problem, its the name "Rambo" I never give a working animal a macho name. Do that and they turn out crap everytime, if you'd named him "Seed eating faggot" he'd have been your best ferret ever! All the best Dirtwinger
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I had a whippet years ago that was a wreck. He fractured his pelvis and trapped the syatic nerve then fractured a fore leg at 6months. he raced to championship level before having his thigh broken in 17 places in a collision with a spectator at the races. He lived to 18 and I ratted with him for years on 3 legs. One of the best dogs I ever had, so much heart and personality one of those dogs you just enjoyed having around. all the best Dirtwinger
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dose breeding from dogs make them harder
dirtwinger replied to allgame's topic in Lurchers & Running Dogs
I dont think it changes the bitch any. But i have noticed that during the pregnancy bitches can get very intense about food including living creatures they percieve as food. I had a grey bitch 9yrs ago, she was as dumb as a rock. As soon a s she got pregnant she got very canny at catching stuff and pulled moves she never had before. After breeding she went back to her dumb old self. all the best dirtwinger -
I have one area I hunt with a lot of loose lava rock, it will do a number on the dogs stoppers every time. I usually wrap the dogs legs in vet wrap before I run, this seems to stop damage oucouring. all the best Dirtwinger
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Two other factors for me are seasonal, Once the weather warms up rattlesnakes can be a danger for my dogs in some fields. my old dog was bitten once on a camping trip. Luckily it was a dry bite and he was non the worse for it but I have heard of dogs dying this way. the biggest seasonal danger for me is heat. I tis very easy to fatally overheat a dog in the desert even in Nov or March I very careful about this and soak my dogs with water on warm days and carry water with me in the field. It is easy to find yourself a very long way from water with a dog that needs cooling done urgently. This i
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out in the field there are always hazards to our dogs from minor to major that will render some ground unsuitable to run on despite plenty of game. What do you consider makes a piece of ground a no go for you? For me there are several some unique to the desert where I run, others I suspect universal to anyone running a sighthound. Here are mine. Barbwire, wont stop me running a field but may effect how I work it. I ahte the stuff with a passion though. Roads, busy roads are something I try to avoid. Volcanic rock rubble, I have some fields that have a lot of loose pieces of lav
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Jeez you sound like the rspca, she is actually looking better than two days ago. partly its just her build she and her brother both have the same heroin chic look, built like sticks but run like the wind. She has two weeks to go, by then she should have plenty of fat on her. I'll post picks right before she's due if she looks like shit feel free to tear into me. Here is a pic of her brother skinny like her. All the best Dirtwinger