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skycat

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Everything posted by skycat

  1. skycat
    Jeez! I wouldn't want to cook tripe: smells bad enough raw LOL By the way, all muscle meat is around 75% water, not just tripe. Heart is the densest muscle meat with the least water content. http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/Water_in_Meats/index.asp A well balanced diet should contain a bit of everything: muscle, offal, bone: (in that order, the greatest percentage first) just like you'd get in a whole carcase.
  2. skycat
    What type of collar are using to cause abscess, I have never heard of that happening? He must have it on too tight and the prongs are wearing holes in the dog's neck: seen it before when people didn't know what they were doing with shock collars They only need to be tight enough to make contact with the skin. Or, the dog was barking continuously despite the collar (those collars make some dogs bark incessantly: shock, bark, shock, bark: there was a stupid woman on here a few years ago who reckoned she'd had a dog screaming continuously for an hour with a shock collar on it :censored
  3. skycat
    It all depends on your relationship with the dog. If the relationship is correct, from the dog's point of view, then it will retrieve, and although retrieve training does help to fine tune the process, dogs that feel understood and in tune with their owner/handler, will actually want to bring them the catch. I've seen it too often to doubt this. Have a read of this, which Casso wrote a while back: he has hit the nail on the head here: DRIVE AND CONTROLLING IT The main difference with the drives between gun dogs and running dogs is that the gun dog can still hold the handler in its
  4. skycat
    I disagree there Bird: any pup can be taught to retrieve: it all depends on how the dog views you: as an end to the fun it is having when catching, or as an intrinsic part of the whole exciting process of hunting, catching etc. Adult dogs that have been messed up by incorrect handling are a different matter, and it could take literally years, a supremely gifted and skilled handler to overcome the problems that are already there.
  5. skycat
    Maybe you should try and get on that TV show: The Audience. They would be able to help you in this life changing difficult moment
  6. skycat
    I never give milky stuff, rice pudding or slops. Pups need plenty of protein, not mushy cereals. Someone once said to me: the answer in how to feed is in the word 'weaning'. Weaning means that the pup doesn't need milk any more: and it should go on to the sort of food that nature intended: meat/bones etc. Very good advice indeed.
  7. skycat
    Weird!
  8. skycat
    For pups under 12 weeks of age: Breakfast: scrambled egg and wholemeal toast with plenty of real butter on it. Couple of spoons of whole milk natural live yoghurt. Lunch: Either finely minced chicken (whole carcase bones and all, well smashed or minced), bit of rice or pasta, Kelp Seaweed Powder. Supper: Same as lunch but sometimes add a bit of top quality complete as they leave this to begin with but it gives them something to nibble on if they get hungry in the night. I vary the mince between chicken, rabbit and beef or hare or venison. Pups have access to large meaty bones
  9. skycat
    A dog in a crate should feel safe, not threatened. I'm not excusing the dog, but if it was being threatened/told off for shitting in the crate (and why did it need to do that in the first place? Should have been let out at very regular intervals to relieve itself) the only way it could defend itself from a person who didn't understand what it was feeling, then I can understand that. Threatening or telling off a dog that can't get away can lead to a lot of fear biting. More dogs are condemned to death as a result of being handled by people who don't understand or even like them than anythin
  10. skycat
    Looks like there'll be a good turnout this year, but there always is. I'll be there flogging my books and helping out. Look forward to putting a few faces to names.
  11. skycat
    Nice to hear that it works on other dogs as well as mine And it doesn't knock the stuffing out of them like galastop: galastop is an ergoline derivative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergoline It's pretty heavy duty stuff, and personally I wouldn't use it on my animals
  12. skycat
    Tranquillisers can actually make them suffer more as they're doped up but can still hear, but internalise the stress because they are groggy. Get the CDs Sounds Scary http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sounds-Scary-phobias-including-fireworks/dp/B000XPA5MU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348769127&sr=8-1 It won't ever completely the cure the fear that a sound sensitive dog feels, but it does enable them to cope much better. I start playing the CD every year around the beginning of October, very quietly for an hour every evening to begin with, and gradually increasing in volume. It doesn't replicate
  13. skycat
    Just make sure to add extra fat to rabbit fed dogs: lamb or chicken fat is best.
  14. skycat
    Some in, and some out, but the outside dogs are in when I'm at home. All can be kennelled if in season, wet and muddy or if we're out all day. But we do have a dog flap. I have 'dog-free' parts of the house, and the dogs only live in the kitchen, utility room and living room: all washable floors etc etc. Yes, it would be easy to have them out, but I'd miss out on their company, their interesting behaviour, and the young ones burn off no end of energy tearing about in their fenced off part of the garden and digging holes under the trees. That said, my lifestyle probably wouldn't suit most peopl
  15. skycat
    A pup of 12 weeks old is like a tiny deer, a prey animal. It is not the big tough predator it should grow up to be as an adult. Not only mentally fragile, but physically too: far too many pups are damaged by playing with bigger dogs: joint damage especially. Being knocked by your staff will be like running into a brick wall. Staffies are very insensitive physically, it's how they've been bred to be. Labradors etc are similar. Sighthounds are far more sensitive both physically and mentally. You should be playing one-on-one games with your pup with the bigger dog safely locked away. Play games
  16. skycat
    Much better. I even cheat sometimes, and add the catchlight in their eyes in Photoshop if it didn't come out correctly in camera! Oops: shouldn't confess to such trickery should I! Thing is, if you have an otherwise great photo, but the dog has very deep set eyes or isn't looking the right way for the sun to catch the eye, then such 'trickery' can save the photo from being binned and you've saved a good picture. OK, so maybe I'm a bit picky when it comes to what makes a great photo, and I'll never achieve truly great photos as I simply don't practice enough: many photographers have told me
  17. skycat
    Yes, the right location can make a photo But as I've got a bit of time on my hands this morning, I thought I'd throw in a few pointers: just being hyper critical here, and I know I'm not the world's best photographer, but these are a few tips some really top photographers have given me......... Photo 1: a nice head shot, but the dog's eye isn't quite visible enough. Would be better if you could see more of the eye, get some catchlight in the eye to show the expression. Dog is looking away from the camera very slightly as it is. Photo 2: Probably just me, but I've always thought th
  18. skycat
    Most of us, when we start out in working dogs, think we have the best dog in the world, or if not the best in the world, something pretty damn good. But, it is only after several, or many years, depending on how many other people's dogs we see working, that we can truly say if our own dogs are great, good, average or nowhere near any of those standards. It's great that you are so pleased with your bitch, but she's still a babe. At around 20 months of age you should be thinking about how to expand her working experience, not her belly. Plus there's the dodgy part about having pups: finding goo
  19. skycat
    That's very kind of you to mention me. I no way consider myself an expert canine behaviourist but I've learned a thing or two over the years. Part of the problem occurs when you breed for a particular trait in a working dog: drive, courage, a short fuse, and an ability to take the fight to an animal that may be considerably bigger than you: speaking from the dog's point of view of course. When you no longer breed for the canine pack thing, but create a dog that is designed to work on its own, then I believe you risk losing tolerance, canine pack manners etc. Fox hounds and beagles live
  20. skycat
    Really good clear photos
  21. skycat
    A lot depends on the temperament and breeding of the bitches as well. I have lurchers which live together all the time with never problem, and my own line of Russelly terriers are also very good together, but they are all closely related: they have their own space, and are kennelled separately at night, but loose together in a big pen in the day when they're not our working or on exercise. I've found the Lakie types and Patts much more unpredictable, but it really is a case of knowing your own dogs, and more importantly, the lines they come from, and being able to read, as has already been sa
  22. skycat
    I don't suppose those idiots think that it's cruel for the farmer to rear his cattle, have them TB tested, and then have to get them destroyed when they test positive. Oh, I forgot, they're all probably veggies who think that rearing cattle for human consumption is cruel: I wonder if they drink milk though.
  23. skycat
    I learned the hard way, like most people, many years ago: two terrier bitches which had lived in harmony for years: one was 6 and the other 7. The Lakie upped and killed the Russell one day, and the only reason I could think of was that the Russell was about to come in season, and the Lakie thought she shouldn't. And the two bitches weren't even confined to a kennel: they were in a very large garden of 35 metres in length with several kennels dotted about the place. Finding your best worker dying is not something anyone would ever risk again.
  24. skycat
    So what would you do to try and unite EVERYONE? How come no one has every tried to do this in the past, or have they?
  25. skycat
    Don't forget that the rabbits can see better where they are going on light nights as well!
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