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skycat

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Everything posted by skycat

  1. skycat
    What are you feeding the pup, and how much exercise is he getting every day?
  2. skycat
    Common Quaker Moth: I googled it!
  3. skycat
    Yes, a shiny black dog draws the eye, especially one in decent condition
  4. skycat
    It is probably an imperforate anus. If the anus hasn't formed properly it will not allow passage of faeces. it is surprising how long a kit can live with this condition, though I would have thought that if the anus was completely sealed it would have died by now. Either get it straight to a vet or cull it painlessly and immediately.
  5. skycat
    No, you're right, but I already had my bitch direct from Ian. I actually brought two pups back from Scotland, one for someone else. It sadly got killed as a pup. If I remember rightly, Stevie's bitch was about a year old when he had to give her up, and I had her here for a little while. Very sweet natured bitch, but I wouldn't have had enough work for her and she would have always played second fiddle to my much more dominant bitch so I found her a great home through Airedale Rescue. If you thought I had two Airedales, this is probably why Ian thought I had three, as he probably remembered
  6. skycat
    I did, many times, but I failed to find a suitable stud in the UK due to no records of where Ian's pups ended up. There was a possibility of going to Germany a while back, to a chap who has a Redline imported from the States, but the dog is elderly, has never mated a bitch, and the owner refused to get the dog tested for fertility. Like I said, if I had been 20 years younger, I'd have gone all out to promote the breed, and would have imported a male pup from the States. Alas, I discovered Airedales too late to really do such a programme justice, and having met with little or not interest I dec
  7. skycat
    It sounds like a nice project, but I really don't think there is enough interest out there. Even in the USA and Canada working Airedales are relatively few in number compared to other types of hunting dog. The people who keep and work them do so more out of a love of this particular dog than anything else. One of the American blokes on the Traditional Working Airedale forum is quoted as saying that there are better purpose-bred animals for jobs such as blood-trailing, bear and couger etc. BUT the Airedale is an all round hunter, with many strings to its bow; a thinking, very intelligent animal
  8. skycat
    No, he won't. Dogs are different to human males. They are only stimulated to behave in a sexual manner if the bitch is in season. Many, many male dogs go a lifetime without ever having mated a bitch, and they are none the worse for it and don't feel frustration. Even male dogs that have mated bitches don't bother bitches which are not in season, probably even less than an unmated male, as they know that the female isn't receptive until she has reached a certain stage in her season. Humans, and I believe, some primates, are the only animals to indulge in sex for 'recreational' purposes as oppos
  9. skycat
    Uneducated Americans use 'I could care less' instead of 'I couldn't care less'. I didn't know it existed in 'English' as well!
  10. skycat
    Some dogs are born with great eye to mouth coordination. Others have to learn it. My OH's old dog was pretty useless for the first half of his first season. Miss after miss after miss. He stuck with the dog, and in his second season he came really good.
  11. skycat
    It is not necessarily as easy as you make it sound. 'Rotating the neck' for example, is incredibly dangerous if someone who doesn't understand the mechanics of the vertebrae tries to do this. Too roughly done it may seriously damage the dog. And many people are unable to truly feel slight heat or hardness in a muscle: it can take a trained eye and hand to spot such problems. It's all very well, and sometimes very useful, to know how to check your own dog over, but I know that I'd sooner have a trained and experienced person look over my dog. It is also very easy to overlook something if you do
  12. skycat
    No, don't go to a vet, but rather, take him to a very good bone/back man. It sounds as though he has what is commonly known as a trapped nerve. Which is to say, that a strained muscle or joint is squashing a nerve, but it only 'stabs' the dog with pain every now and again.
  13. skycat
    I have my puppy run half roofed in, and half open to the air. That way pups get into good habits of emptying themselves in the run even when it's raining, but they also have access to sun when the weather is warm.
  14. skycat
    So pleased she's doing well, but just a question if you don't mind: why has she got to get used to the kennel while the Whippets live inside? Surely she'd be much better off inside with them? Dogs can teach pups so many things very easily that we struggle to teach them ourselves. Or is it just for when you're not there?
  15. skycat
    I'd be looking at the amount of space they have, the type and amount of food they get, and above all, the conditions in the environment: stress, disturbance etc. Neither me nor my OH have ever had this happen, but I'm not saying that there isn't an infanticidal gene roaming about in domestic ferrets: nature does throw up some weird glitches from time to time, though I'd be more in favour of looking at abundance of food. Even rabbits have been known to kill and eat theirs and others' young when desperately in need of some first class protein.
  16. skycat
    Why haven't the vets done an endoscopy of her gullet and stomach?
  17. skycat
    That's because the food that he can digest has passed out of the stomach before his body tells him to get rid of the indigestible bits by throwing them back up. Mine do it with bits of gristle or bone sometimes. Nearly all raw bones are dissolved by the stomach acid, but occasionally some may be too hard (shards of large animal leg bone for example) and knobbly bits of cartilage seem almost as hard to digest. Dogs that swallow big lumps of bone without chewing them small enough shouldn't be given that type of bone. Very seldom do they cause a problem, but if they do make it into the small in
  18. skycat
    I can't believe any vet would refuse to dock simply because they were anti. Surely leaving a bloody raw tail is tantamount to cruelty, but if the dog really does have a heart murmur then fair enough: not worth the risk, but I'd get a second opinion anyway, from a good, experienced and older type of vet.
  19. skycat
    I've read the books, seen the odd trailer for the TV series, but honestly, I found the whole thing mega depressing, with seldom anything to show the more positive side of life. OK, it's only fantasy, but come on, do people really want to wallow in endless misery, death, torture etc etc? Apparently they do! Maybe these things serve a purpose of sorts in that they remind us of how much worse life could be, and that our own lives aren't really so bad after all: there endeth my philosophical thought for the day
  20. skycat
    Lucky dog: good news.
  21. skycat
    You're absolutely right there: everyone who ever lived has made mistakes, and I remember when I admitted to having a litter of pups from an accidental mating. Bloody hell, that backlash was unbelievable, especially as I was apparently someone who should have known better Most of my mistakes occurred long before the days of the internet, and to this day I regret not putting a young lurcher on a lead along a country lane where there was 'never' any traffic, and a dickhead came along at warp speed and killed her. Life is one long learning curve to the summit, providing we keep our eyes open an
  22. skycat
    Sad and so angry that this poor little bitch had to be so traumatized through her owner's ignorance. We don't live in Disney land where all the fluffy animals are best friends forever. Nature is cruel, and a dog's instincts are brutally primitive at times. Whether it was the JR or the dam that killed the pups is irrelevant: ALL heavily pregnant bitches need their own safe space for at least 2 weeks before the due date. Yet another very sad example of how out of touch many humans are with how animals behave.
  23. skycat
    4 minute runs are usually seen or remembered as 10 minute runs, and 2 minute runs are seen as 5 minutes A friend of mine always carried a stop watch with him: he shocked a few people when he told them their 5 or 10 minute run was only around 2 or 3 minutes.Time does seem to stand still when watching a good course though: can't deny that, but time is subjective too.
  24. skycat
    That's lovely!
  25. skycat
    That reminds me of a time similar: all the brambles were covered with snow. Terrier went in and disturbed a big old dog fox: by the time the lurchers had got in there too all the snow had been shaken off the leaves and all you could see was the bramble heaving and steam coming out of it. Crazy!
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