(Melinda Shore) wrote in
:

It actually wouldn't be that surprising if the dog were
descended from a breed or possibly even group winner, though
(has an Elkhound ever won group?). Popular sire syndrome,
etc.

My impression was that she meant Best in Show, and of course I went
a-Googling. That's the sort of thing that can be fairly easily
verified. As far as I could tell, an Elkhound has never won BIS at
Westminster.

so when Pando went to his last veteran's class at the national
specialty at the age of 12 100 of the 102 dogs being shown that
weekend were directly descended from him.

Wow!

--
Shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net (the Mother Ship)
http://esther.cat-sidh.net (Letters to Esther)

"Shelly" wrote in message
...
"tiny dancer" wrote in
:

My own dogs saw their vet just over a month ago, and it was he who
said both the dogs were at their ideal weight, not me. He said
Gracie, at 72 1/2 pounds was perfect, as was Merlin at just under
80 pounds.

As the one of our past trolls was wont to point out (ad vomitum),
just about every vet I've been to with Harriet--and it's been
several, as we've shopped around for one we like--has told me she's
underweight. I'm not convinced that most vets have any idea what a
fit dog of an appropriate weight looks like.


I guess I have more confidence in my vets idea of what a dog should weigh.
If my dog is picking up a few too many pounds, he tells me. As if I don't
already know it myself. It's those times when I have to use my VOG towards
dh again, telling him 'giving the dog too many treats is for *you*, not the
dog.' "Simply because *you* 'feel good' giving them a treat, doesn't mean
it is what's 'good for them'."

As an aside, we just discovered the vet who put murphy to sleep is right out
here, where we live now. But for the horror of what happened when we put
murphy down, she was an excellent vet. So now we are mulling over this new
situation. She took very good care of murphy, was en excellent vet 'but for
the end'.

td



--
Shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net (the Mother Ship)
http://esther.cat-sidh.net (Letters to Esther)

In article ,
"tiny dancer" wrote:

He said
Gracie, at 72 1/2 pounds was perfect, as was Merlin at just under
80 pounds.

I guess I have more confidence in my vets idea of what a dog should weigh.
If my dog is picking up a few too many pounds, he tells me. As if I don't
already know it myself.

what kinds of dogs are these again?

--
Janet Boss
www.bestfriendsdogobedience.com

Melinda Shore wrote:

In article ,
Shelly wrote:

FWIW, the same coworker had an Elkhound that was descended from, and
I quote, "The dog who won Westminister." (No, that's not a typo.) As
far as I can tell, no Elkhound has "won Westminster," though Diddy
would surely know off the top of her head if it's ever happened.


It actually wouldn't be that surprising if the dog were
descended from a breed or possibly even group winner, though
(has an Elkhound ever won group?). Popular sire syndrome,
etc.

I believe that Monadnock's Pando was the only Siberian to
ever win Westminster and they bred the crap out of him
(Demidoff said he had such a great temperament she
particularly wanted to pass that along, although she did
regret overusing him). Dog's lives are unfortunately short,
but on the other hand you can get a bunch of generations in
a hurry, so when Pando went to his last veteran's class at
the national specialty at the age of 12 100 of the 102 dogs
being shown that weekend were directly descended from him.

Holy cow. Can you say "genetic bottleneck"?

tiny dancer wrote:

Excellent point Lia, after all, this attack happened when the owner was 'out
jogging with her dog'.


Sometimes the best discussion comes from the oddest places. All the
talk about overweight dogs and vets who don't know it is still good
information, even if it sprang from something in a news article that
might not be true.


I think the breed mix-up thing happens a lot in shelters. The shelter
workers who know little about breeds have to put something on the info
sheet so they make a guess. Every dog becomes a lab mix, a collie mix,
a shepherd mix, or a poodle. Adopters take the dog home, assume the
first part must be true, then leave off the mix part of the equation.
Some very weird "pure breed" dogs are the result.


I'm interested in the rest of the news story. I have all sorts of
questions about whether the dog showed a protective nature before.


--Lia

Julia Altshuler wrote:
Are we sure the yellow lab mentioned in the article was really a pure
yellow lab? Have we seen a photo that would suggest he's overweight?

Photo of Jack? (it accompanies a news article, although it's not
specifically labeled 'Jack')

http://www.wltx.com/FYI/story.aspx?storyid=54882

Hard to tell if he's overweight - a bit, maybe, but he doesn't look
like a real porker to me. Or if he's purebred - he looks pretty
Labby, but there's something about the snout... OTOH, it could just be
the camera angle.

Or not Jack.

FurPaw
--
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense
a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and are not clothed."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

To reply, unleash the dog.

"Janet Boss" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"tiny dancer" wrote:

He said
Gracie, at 72 1/2 pounds was perfect, as was Merlin at just under
80 pounds.

I guess I have more confidence in my vets idea of what a dog should
weigh.
If my dog is picking up a few too many pounds, he tells me. As if I
don't
already know it myself.

what kinds of dogs are these again?


Their photo's are posted on Kali's page, that Jack put up for me. Gracie is
a Rottweiler mix, possibly mixed with German Shepherd and Merlin is a
Catahoula Leopard Dog. We don't know if he is mixed with anything or not.
It's hard to tell. My vet is originally from Louisiana though, so he is
familiar with that breed. The vet was excited to see Merlin when I told
him I'd adopted a Catahoula. I haven't measured their heights, but Gracie
is a good sized dog and Merlin is probably 3 or 4 inches taller than she is.
When I say *taller*, I'm referred to the height of their actual bodies, side
by side, rather than where their heads reach. All of my own dogs have
always been mixes, so usual breed standards don't really apply.

td



--
Janet Boss
www.bestfriendsdogobedience.com

http://picasaweb.google.com/handsome...ey=qc6Us9gdI9k

My dogs pictures are on this link. Gracie is the dog seated with my
grandson Jake. Merlin is the big goofy looking one with one blue eye and
one brown eye, and Murphy is my now deceased *heart* dog, the black dog with
big, floppy ears.

td

"Julia Altshuler" wrote in message
. ..
tiny dancer wrote:

Excellent point Lia, after all, this attack happened when the owner was
'out
jogging with her dog'.


Sometimes the best discussion comes from the oddest places. All the
talk about overweight dogs and vets who don't know it is still good
information, even if it sprang from something in a news article that
might not be true.


I try to be very intune to over-weight dogs, having gone through arthritis
with Murphy. I know and understand the need for good body weight. Not that
Murphy was 'over-weight', but that arthritis and bad hips have to be so much
worse if a dog *is* over-weight.




I think the breed mix-up thing happens a lot in shelters. The shelter
workers who know little about breeds have to put something on the info
sheet so they make a guess. Every dog becomes a lab mix, a collie mix,
a shepherd mix, or a poodle. Adopters take the dog home, assume the
first part must be true, then leave off the mix part of the equation.
Some very weird "pure breed" dogs are the result.


You are so right there. When we adopted Gracie, we were told she was a
German Shepherd/Boxer mix. I could see the shepherd in her, but boxer???
Since she was a complete stray, found wandering during a hurricane, nobody
could have had any idea of what she actually *was*. When I was looking at
dogs, I was still quite upset, in grief over the loss of murphy. But after
I got Gracie home and began really looking at her, I thought to myself, 'she
looks almost exactly like a rottie', markings, lopped off tail, etc. I
remember the girl I got her from said 'they figured *boxer* because 'she
liked to use her front paws a lot'. ???? My murphy 'used her front paws a
lot' and she was a lab/English Springer Spaniel mix. We knew that because
the 'parents' were observed mating by a number of kids in the neighborhood.
;-]




I'm interested in the rest of the news story. I have all sorts of
questions about whether the dog showed a protective nature before.


Yes, I wish there had been more including a photo of the dog. I'll see if I
can find anything more later. I don't know what Merlin would do, but I feel
confident that Gracie would protect me. As it is now, she always places
herself between me and male strangers if/when we are out, or if a strange
man enters our house. A workman or such, I mean. And once, when a man
assisted us in bringing home something we purchased on craigslist, Gracie
did sort of snap at him when he caught her off-guard. I had her onleash so
my husband and this guy could carry our purchase into our home. Gracie saw
him and was apparently *confused* as to whether or not he was coming into
our home *invited*. So as the guy approached me, standing there with Gracie
onleash, she growled at him and snapped. Luckily I had her onleash, and
under control. He was a rather 'rough-looking' guy, lots of tattoos, long
hair, etc. That was the only time anything like that had ever happened, so
I guess there was something about him that Gracie didn't like.

td




--Lia

"tiny dancer" wrote in
:

I guess I have more confidence in my vets idea of what a dog
should weigh.

And I've got more confidence in my own. I know what a fit animal
looks like, and when a vet tells me that my fit animal is
underweight, I tend to think that maybe he doesn't know what a fit
(or unfit) animal looks like.

--
Shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net (the Mother Ship)
http://esther.cat-sidh.net (Letters to Esther)