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skycat

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Everything posted by skycat

  1. skycat
    to pianoman: That was a totally brilliant read. And put so much better than I could have done myself. It is all too easy to allow oneself to adopt a laissez faire attitude. Thank you for putting things in context.
  2. skycat
    About 18 years ive had running dogs first started off with a pure greyhound bitch. An for the taking adive ive done wat it says on back of the gain puppy an sap grams for weight of the pup an not to ad any thing else into the diet pal. This pups in good health had loads of lads say its a good looking pup shape stamp an just the look of him in general It is a big mistake to only give a dog what it says on the back of the bag, as this is a rough guide only. Many dogs need far more than the recommended amount. A lot depends on the dog's metabolism, how fast it uses the food, and how much exerc
  3. skycat
    Nice. Cracking feet and looks in good condition.
  4. skycat
    Rabbit is high value, ball is low value. Big difference between round hard ball and lovely soft squishy furry rabbit. A lot depends on the breed, type and mindset of the pup, but in general I would say that large type, and especially male lurcher pups should be kept away from rabbits until they are more mentally mature. Everything is play at the moment, and rightly so, for dogs learn through playing, but you don't want him to learn that rabbits are play things. Try gentle tug games, with rules (see the articles I put on here on the home page). Use an old stuffed sock and put in place the comma
  5. skycat
    Yes, even if the old dog is only doing to be doing a bit, you need to get his overall condition back up as much as possible, or he'll tear muscles and damage joints if you let him straight out on to game at a gallop.
  6. skycat
    Open skin tears can take several weeks to heal properly if they are not sutured or stapled. But it is better to leave a smallish tear open rather than mess around with staples etc if you don't know exactly what you are doing. Cleaning and flushing the wound out correctly is crucial if you are going to seal it up, as a wound which contains dirt, grass seeds or other foreign bodies will go bad very quickly. Also, large wounds need a drain put into them before suturing, and not many people would be able to do that without proper training.
  7. skycat
    I have learned from a combination of books, first hand experience and watching professionals at work. I was very lucky to have found a vet many years ago who was happy to let me watch her suture, staple etc my dogs after accidents in the field. Sadly 'health and safety' reared its head and clients are no longer, or very seldom, (maybe an old hoss and cow vet would still let you watch) allowed to watch their dogs being operated on. Thankfully I was, and learned a huge amount over 5-10 years. The rest I had to learn along the way. I also had a friend who was a vet nurse, which was useful in my e
  8. skycat
    If the dog is truly getting a balanced natural diet than calcium supplements can be dangerous as too much calcium can 'force' unnatural speed of bone growth. Years ago it was common practice to give very large breed pups calcium supplements, which often caused massive skeletal problems. You won't get these problems with a very good complete modern puppy food, (mega expensive meat based product) or with a natural raw diet: think whole carcase. For example a rabbit: percentage of muscle meat, percentage of offal, and other connective tissue, and the rest is bone from the skeleton. Add in your bi
  9. skycat
    A good balanced, raw diet that contains plenty of bone should do the job. I've had two pups break toes over the years and they both healed very well with no later consequences.
  10. skycat
    The only real mistake you can make is one that damages the relationship between you and your dog. All other 'mistakes' are just part of the learning curve. But always allow a pup 'free time' where it can go and explore and potter about looking for scent, finding interesting stuff in a place where you know it can't come to any harm or disappear over the horizon. It needs to learn things for itself as well, which is why ferreting is such a good place to start, for a pup can self-correct any mistakes it makes in a working situation and it will learn without you having to tell it what to do. The b
  11. skycat
    I spent many an hour in the company of and watching a very good trainer of working and trial sheepdogs.The things he could do with his charges held me spellbound and i put all this new found knowledge into 3 pups i bred,by the time they were 8 months old i had them retrieving,waiting,in sight or out of,moving left,right,forward and behind,running to a gate and waiting etc.,all independant of each other.The bloody pups were a joy to behold,alas i ruined 2 of them,when i got around to the serious stage of their education,the chase and catch,they were totally dependant on me for command and near
  12. skycat
    Lurchers have long had umpteen different breeds in them. Once upon a time people would put useful dog to useful bitch without caring or knowing exactly what breeds were in them. They produced lurchers. It doesn't have to be a first, second or even third cross to produce a good animal. My own lurchers have so many breeds in them I wouldn't know where to start, but they are lurchers and have been since before the 1960s and for who knows how long before then. I know for certain that there is Collie, Greyhound, Bedlington, Deerhound, Saluki in there, but there's bound to be more. No pure breed has
  13. skycat
    Why?
  14. skycat
    Is that all he is getting? Chicken mince alone won't be as balanced a diet as it would if he was getting variety of meat and offal, bit of brown bread, or cooked brown rice, and some finely minced raw veg. As for the amount, I feed a pup of that age 3 meals a day, soon going down to 2 at around 8 or 9 weeks old depending on how much it eats at a sitting. Pups generally tell you if they are being fed too often when they start picking at their midday meal. Feed the pup as much as it will eat in about 5 minutes, providing it isn't a complete pig and blows itself out at each meal. Normal pups sl
  15. skycat
    You are so lucky to have paths like that. I have either roads with cars on them, or miles of track, but between woods lifting with all manner of forbidden wild life: kind of makes any bike trip a heart-in-mouth occasion even with the dogs on leads; never know when a munty is going to appear round the corner
  16. skycat
    That's right. Sprinters have 'fast twitch' muscles and marathon runners have 'slow twitch' muscles. Fast twitch are larger and more solid to provide a burst of speed, slow twitch can keep going for longer but aren't quite as fast: compare Mo Farrah with Usain Bolt. Most lurchers have a mixture of both, like most people, but both sorts of muscles can be trained to be stronger. A rock hard muscle with no give in it is probably strained or damaged and cannot therefore relax properly. Most of my older dogs have some muscle damage somewhere, usually on the thighs.
  17. skycat
    Here you go: sounds very much like this on the link: idiopathic head tremors. I was trying to remember what it was called before I posted this. I had a lurcher that did it twice in her life, about 2 weeks apart and never again, not in a stressful situation either, just sitting in the kitchen at home. Unfortunately idiopathic means 'of unknown origin' which isn't really very helpful, but here's the link anyway: http://ohmydogblog.com/2013/07/idiopathic-head-tremors-2/
  18. skycat
    It is about time that the authorities, who are apparently evolved human beings in a modern society, stopped treating sentient creatures like dogs as nothing more than property. Signed.
  19. skycat
    I don't lead walk mine any more than I have to in order to get where I can let them off lead. They probably spend an hour a day actually out on a walk, but most of that is spent playing about, learning about scent, finding their way through fences/stiles etc, swimming in summer. A forced march doesn't do much for a pup's learning apart from seeing the big world, and is actually more tiring than running then stopping when it wants to when it is loose. Mine aren't kennelled either so spend most of their days messing about at home and roaring round the garden. I would imagine they go a sight furt
  20. skycat
    I had one bitch put down due to pyometra at 13 years of age, but she was physically bad too; arthritic and it was a no brainer to make the decision rather than put her through major surgery. In nearly 30 years I've not seen it in my bitches apart from her, and most have lived to a ripe old age, whether or not they have been bred from. There has to be a certain amount of luck, or whatever you call it, involved, but overall I wouldn't have mine spayed, based on my own experiences. You obviously had different experiences and took action based on what you've seen. Until something affects us direct
  21. skycat
    Personally I wouldn't do either: spay or castrate. But Jackie Drakeford says it best: entire males are at the top of the pile, followed by entire females, then spayed females with castrated males the lowest of the low. It doesn't take away any aggression issues in male dogs because they tend to feel more defensive and at risk especially around entire males, which in turn seem to have problems with the castrated male, often trying to hump it as though it is a bitch in season. I've seen this for myself. Yes, it's fine if the dog already has an easy going temperament as it will tend to make t
  22. skycat
    Wishing your pup all the very best. It's a strange thing but so often I've noticed that people who don't give a sh^t about their dogs never seem to have many problems, and those who do their very best seem to have nothing but problems: there is a God, he's called Sod.
  23. skycat
    Here's a very good article on neutering: http://www.doglistener.co.uk/neutering/neutering_definitive.shtml
  24. skycat
    Sad isn't it, but I had to steel myself to write this, as showing seems to be looked down upon so much by many of the members on here as something that non-working lurcher owners do, and not something that real 'hunters' would ever stoop to but I used to show my dogs a bit, and judge occasionally and even enjoyed some success in the ring for a couple of years. Being, as some people would say, a smart a*rse , I try to do everything to the best of my ability: sorry, a very annoying trait to some people, but it's just who I am, so here is a list of tips gleaned from my fairly brief foray into
  25. skycat
    I couldn't agree more: there's no sense in keeping a dog if you don't like the type or it doesn't suit the way you do things, which is why I would never try and steer someone new to lurchers in any one direction. So much depends on how someone gets on with the mind set of a particular type of lurcher. I just prefer not to blind myself to the merits of any type, even if they aren't what I need in a lurcher. I don't need or want a straight bull cross, though some of mine have had bull in them. It's a minefield for anyone getting into lurchers for the first time.
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