sheepdog

The best bones to use are big RAW bones. Once cooked, they become brittle and can break off in sharp pieces and injure mouths and throats of dogs. Also, eating too much bone, raw or otherwise, can cause constipation in dogs. But bones can be of great benefit to dogs. They are a good way to releave bordom if your dog has to be left at home alone while you are gone to work or somewhere, and they are a very good way to keep those teeth nice and clean and when the teeth are clean, there is less bad breath in dogs. Chicken and turkey necks are often recomended for cleaning teeth. (raw of course) Now, for the chicken bone thing. That warning has been around for ages. And yes, it could happen. But your dog could get struck by lightening too, just about as often as choking on a chicken bone. The same holds true with chicken bones as it does other bones, raw bones can be chewed up into smaller pieces without fracturing into splinters like cooked bones, so they are not really much of a danger. I've seen dogs get choked on rocks, so dogs, much like small children can find just about any way to get into trouble if they have even half a chance. When I was a kid we had a bird dog, English Setter. For 2 years the basis of his entire diet was cooked chicken bones left over from the restuarant at the bottom of the hill. It never bothered him in the least, and he lived to a very old age. And just a note about "raw." Some people have concerns about samonillia bacteria contamination when feed a dog raw meat and bones. You have to realize that a dogs digestive system is much different than ours. There are very few bacteria that can survive the stomach acid in a dog, so samonillia is not a big problem for an otherwise health dog. Only if a dog has other health problems will it be an issue. Usually just in young pups that have not had time to develope a good immune system, or older dogs in failing health from old age might have a problem with it.

I've made 3 or 4 posts now in the "just for Knowledge" forum, and so far not a single one has showed up. One I did just make yesterday, asking what had happened to the first 2, but one was made the day before Thanksgiving, and the other several days before that, so it's been like a week already since the first post was made and went missing. I know the forum is moderated, but geeeze, a week????It takes a far amount of time posting here to keep up credits, I sure hate to loose posts.

Ahhh, finally something right up my alley!Let me start by saying there is nothing that will start a dog fight amongst humans more than a debate on what to feed a dog. So I am definatly not going to get into brands but there are some things you should know about feeding our canine friends. First off, your assumption about canned dog food is wroung. It is not the best at all. As a matter of fact, dogs that are feed a constant diet of canned food are far more likely to have peridontal disease and other serious problems with their teeth. Yes, canned dog food contains meat, but it also contains a lot of water and filler too. And most dogs like canned better, sort of like giving a child a choise between broccoli and chocolate cake and ice cream. Just cause we like it better doesn't make it good for us. The handling of canned dog food to avoid spoilage and or contamination is also more difficult than dry dog food. Always keep unused portions coverd and in the refrigerator, and also be careful opening the can and make sure no bits of the metal lid gets into the food. When you figure it up cost wise, your paying a lot more for it, and what you are paying for is water, so it's no great bargian. Dry dog food on the other hand, promotes health teeth. The hard dry bits scrape tarter off the dogs teeth as he chews, keeping the mouth much cleaner and healthier. Modern dry dog foods have been developed with tons of feeding trials and a lot of scientific reasearch and study. Most are well balanced and very good for your dogs. They have vitimins and minerals added to make them balanced for complete dog nutrition. The most important part of learning what to best feed your dog is to read the ingredient label. But you have to know what you are reading. Learn what the terms mean. "Meat and bone meal" is pretty easy to understand, but what about "chicken byproduct meal?" Or "Poultry digest?" Also know that ingredients are listed in the order from most to least, a label that reads "ground yellow corn, meat meal, fish meal," is going to mostly consist of ground yellow corn, the first ingredient listed. There are some that think you are guilty of animal abuse if you feed a corn based dog food, but in reality, it is the balance of other ingredients that make it a good feed in some cases. If you see corn listed as first or second ingredient, and then 2 or more other meat based ingredients, a dog may just do quite well on it. You have to take the entire formula into consideration.Another thing to keep in mind. Price is not always an indication of quality. Beware of high priced feeds that contain "unusual" ingredients, like buffalo, rabbit, or emu, or a host of other not normally consumed animals. These types of feed are usually seriously over priced and likely not to be any more healthy for you dog than eating beef or chicken based feed. Then there are the fancy "designer" type foods, that claim to be orgainic, or some other wild and crazy claims, which is just to relieve you of your hard earned money, and will not give your dogs any particular benefits. And for goodness sake, NEVER even consider vegetarian feed for your dog. A politically correct and totally stupid gimic pushed by various retarded animal activist groups, who do not have your dogs health as their number one pyority. Dogs for the most part, are carniverous. But remember, when a wild dog makes a kill, it eats the entire carcuss. This includes the meat, bones, and the contents of the stomach. They will eat the grass that is being digested by the herbivore they killed to eat. So in reality, they are not completely carniverous. So some vegtable or grain products like corn should not be a problem in a domestic dogs diet. The best judge of your choise of dog food is your dog. Be observant. How does his coat look and feel? Is it nice and shiny or dull and flat? Is he in good flesh (in good weight) not overly fat? How are his energy levels? Is the skin flake free? And yes, you have to consider the consistancy and volume of his stool too. Pet owners may find this part a bit gross, but for dog breeders is just second nature to be a poop expert. Certainly see enough of it! Cheap feed high in filler and fiberous material will make for massive amounts of stool. Fiber might be good for humans, but it's not your dogs best friend.

Yes, you are absolutly right. I would say they were using torture to gain information from the prisoners there. I suspect it's like the old say, use fire to fight fire. Use terror as a weapon. Same thing. Only one real difference here. They are prisoners. Captured terrorists. People who have commited acts of terrorism against other people. But the terrorists have commited crimes against innocent bystanders, in order to terrify them. The innocents have not harmed anyone or done anything to deserve to be injured or killed. This is my whole problem with terrorisim. I can't understand wrecking hell and havoc on people who did nothing to deserve it. Now if someone pissed me off bad enough, I just might do bodily harm to them. My anger would be directed right at the person who pissed me off. It would be that person that would suffer my wrath. Not some innocent bystander. I don't see any point in hurting somebody that hasn't hurt me. Guess I'm funny that way. Well, at least we got this topic off and running!

I use the shop vac on mine. For some reason my computer seems to get filled up with dog hair. Can't figure out why. And if you think cob webs are bad, you would never guess what we found in an old computer that I took in to the repair guy to strip some parts out of....talk about embarassing!!! We actually found the skeletal remains of a mouse! Ug. How the heck that thing got in there is beyoud me!

Actually, I find it pretty hard NOT to bump up old topics. When you scroll down just 3 or 4 messages and see a post you might respond to and click on it, sometimes in some of the forums posts that high up on the list are several years old. I've done it accidentally myself numerous times, especially when I first started here and didn't realize they were out dated. I try to watch now, but still miss some sometimes anyway. It's easy done. So far I haven't got yelled at for that anyway.

Good points, most definatly!As to pet stores, actually, most do include or in some way provide information with the purchase of a pet, as that is an important part of their income, it's not just the sale of the animal where their profit margin lies, it's the extras they sell with the pet, books, toys, food, habitates like cages, aquariums, etc. In this modern world, there is no real excuse for not knowing how to take care of a pet. google.com. Just type it in and go, you can read to your hearts content and learn everything you could ever want to know. And a lot more. Now there may be some debate as to the accuracy of everything you read, you just have to read enough to get a consensis of what is good information and what is BS. Admittedly, that's not always easy to do. As for tethering. A fence contains a dog to a certain area. A tether contains a dog to a certain area. Both provide the same result. A dog on a tether can be provided with water, shade, a comfy dog house, toys and everything that you could provide for him in a pen. Yes, I would agree that leaving a dog tied in the hot sun with no shelter or water would be cruel. That is just plain common sense. It's the stigma of the tether when compared equally with a pen I fail to understand. A dog in a pen with no shade or water would be in just as bad shape as one on a tether without said food and water. Cruelety is without a doubt a difficult subject to debate. What constituts cruelty has such an unbelievable range of circumstances as you discuse it with more and more people. Take one of the animal rights complaints against breeders, that we FORCE dogs to breed. Yea, right. Now that's a real laugh if you know the first thing about dogs. There is no forcing them. Hell, just try to keep them from breeding! You would not believe what a dog will go threw just to have sex! Anyone with an intact pet dog can tell you all kinds of wild stories about how they thought they had safely confined their dog while it was in season only to find she had escaped and found a boyfriend somewhere in the neighborhood. Dogs can be unbelievable in their attempts to propagate the species! Don't ever believe dogs are forced! And just one more thing. The bed is mine! I will happily share the couch with our Schnauzer, but she stays off my bed. Am I being cruel???

I don't see how this can even be a contest! Let's all give a big cheer to free enterprise!!! YEA!!!!Seriously, how could you ever be motivated to do your best and give your all when you know that the slacker next to you is going to goof off as much as possible, do as little work as possible, screw up all the time, be an annoying jerk, and still get paid as much as you do???? I mean, whats your incentive to do a good job? Pride in one's self and in your work will only carry you so far when you see everybody around you goofing off and not careing or showing any pride in their work. And at this point, I'm not even sure just how much the government should interfer with private business. While I may be able to understand that electric companys should not be allowed to price electricity so high that the average person could not afford it, then I find myself on the other hand wondering awhile back when gas prices kept going up and up and with the oil companies the government just turned a blind eye and let them run amok. Yet they spent no telling how much of the tax payers dollars in court against Bill Gates over Microsoft's supposed monopoly. Who the government goes after doesn't have a lot of rhyme or reason to it. So why bother at all? What purpose is served by putting any one company out of business? Look at Walmart. Look at all the hundreds of small mom and pop type stores that they have put out of business. Yet nobody whines or complains to the government and as soon as all the competition is gone, Walmarts raises their prices higher than anywhere else. Now why is that?I'd like to see a system where the person who really puts in the effort and works and acomplishes something wins. And doesn't get eaten alive by red tape, lawyers, lawsuits, and insurance companies. You remeber that, I think it was called the great American dream.

Wow, I can't believe this post has been here this long and nobody has touched it! Is everybody chicken or what? Ok, I'll be brave and jump in here. This is my take on the subject.In this country we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. But once someone is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be guilty, as far as I am concerned, all bets are off. And in the case of known terrorists, when they are known to be involved with or actually be persons who are trying to kill innocent people, I have no sympathy left for them what so ever. If water boarding gets information out of them that will save innocent lives, I say go for it. So...no, I don't think you are a sadist. Unless of course, we both are.

I am still hoping for solar power. Neuclear power still scares the stuffing out of me. I know they claim there are sufficient safeguards in place, but anyone who knows anything at all knows you can't stop every imaaginable scenerio from happening. Its not a matter of what or how it happens, but when. Sooner or later there will be a disaster at a nuke facility. And when it does your looking at something like 500 years before an area of many many square miles will be totally uninhabitable by humans, or any other living animal.(with the possible exception of *BLEEP* roaches.) I just don't think it's worth the risk.Sooner or later someone will come up with the technoligy to make solar power more efficient. Smaller, less expensive panels, better quality batteries for storing power, and a wider spread of technoligy that uses it more efficiently.I prefer solar for other reasons too. I don't see any way that any company or organization can claim ownership of the sun and charge for it's use. The same cannot be said of power generated by neuclear plants. Who ever builds and operates those plants will charge whatever they want for the power they produce. Much like the utility companys do today. With solar, once you buy the panels and batteries they are yours. And with our free enterprise system, if it survives, there will be enough competition in the building of panels to hopefully keep the cost of them down to the point the average person can afford them. Or at least I hope thats the way it works out. There have been some really fantastic break threws in all forms of technoligy in just the past few years. With increased interest in renewable energy sources, it's just a matter of time before somebody comes up with a good, safe workable and affordable way to harness the power of the sun.

Well, it took nearly 4 years, but I just got my first check from Google! I was so proud I nearly framed it. Ok, not that proud, but I did make a copy of it before cashing it! I really expected to get beaten out of it, I know a friend who nearly made it to the $100 minimum and they somehow "lost" his information and all the hits he had. I figured out the same thing would happen to me so occasionally I would print out what they had me at so at least I wouldn't loose all of it. They just mailed it to my home address I had used when I signed up for adsense.

Now that's a pretty wild fact! Why on earth if you had enough money to burn a wet mule would you ever live in a place like New York City????? It is certainly apparent from this statistic that having money doesn't mean you have any sense! If I had that kind of cash, I'd just buy me an island somewhere where I could be nearly all by myself without hardly any other people around to annoy me. I can't even imagine being crushed in the masses of humanity that team in a huge city like New York. Last place on earth I'd ever want to live.

LOL, I could copy your message exactly to the word only insert Doctor Pepper for the Hot Cheeto's Cheese flavor chips and our stories would be the same. Yes, certain cases of nausria still make me taste Dr. Pepper! After all these years I still won't touch the stuff. I think I was probably about 4 years old when it happened. So, no, I at least don't think you are weird. Or maybe both of us are weird, that's always a possibility too.

Oh, I have a great dog/kitchen story too.My previous Miniture Schnauzer, Zooker, was for the most part, the perfect, well behaved pet. She never bothered anything on the kitchen table except 2 things. Butter and my hubbies sour cream enchaladas. I could leave a package of raw hamburger out to thaw on the table and she wouldn't touch it. But I learned quickly that it just wasn't going to be something I could get away with to leave a stick of butter on the table. (I never refrigerate butter, we use it pretty quick and it's too hard to use if you keep it in the frig.) She would get on the table and get it every single time. She would eat an entire stick of butter if the oppertunity presented it'self. Then there was the night Hubby made his famous sour cream enchalada's. I have to say, they are a real treat, the best thing you ever tasted. (he had a fellow offer to buy him a restuarant if he would make them to sell, they were that good) Anyway, that night it was just him and me, we normally just make them for company. We had eaten until we were so full we were just about in misery, and between the 2 of us we only ate one half of one pan. That night Zooker got up on the kitchen table, and all by herself, ate the entire other half of the pan! I mean she had that pan licked completly spotless, there wasn't even a smell left over! I for the life of me don't know how a little 20 pound dog could possibly eat that much! Didn't even seem to phase her. And the funny thing is, hubby and I take turns with the night time cooking chores. Pretty much after the sour cream episode, I could cook dinner and the dogs would pay no attention to me what so ever. But let the old man come in the kitchen and start dinner and the dang dogs would line up by the table and watch him cook. Not hard to tell who is the best cook in this household, just ask our dogs! Bar B Que time was really funny to watch too. All of our dogs would line up in this perfect little row, starting with the biggest dog right down to the littlest one and stare at him the entire time he was BBQ ing.

Oh no, I disagree completely with you. You have to start young, very young, to get your bluff in on the kids. One simple word is enough to start. NO. That's it, just no. If you were young and about to stick your finger in a light socket and your parents said NO would you of stuck your finger in it anyway? Maybe. Even probably. But it's a pretty safe bet that when you regained your senses after being knocked out by a blast of electric coursing threw your little body, you probably would of realized the next time your parents said NO that maybe you should listen to them.

Ok, now for a double coincidence! The very next day after you posted this one I had a weird one.This past year the Missouri Department of Agriculture came up with a new wrinkle for our kennel licencing requirnments. We had to get a tax number. Now the department of revenue wouldn't even give you an exempt statement unless you registered. (there's some government BS for you, your exempt from it but you have to get it anyway, but i digress) After stalling as long as I could and not being able to figure out a way around this one, I finally got mine. Jumped threw all the hoopes and finally months after my kennel licence had been renewed I finally got the tax licence number. And then I promptly lost it. Hunted for months for it. Finally gave up, since so many months had passed and the issue hadn't come back up since I don't even know if I'll be in business next year I just blew it off. Well, I was cleaning up the house that day, and low and behold, after all those months, I finally found the stupid letter from the Department of Revenue with my tax number. And believe it or not, it wasn't 30 minutes after I found it I got a call from the Missouri Department of Agriculture wanting my tax number!!!! Weird!

LOL, oh yea isn't that the truth! We have these laws to stop crime and we still have lots of crime, so lets pass lots more laws since it is apparent that the other laws aren't working since we still have crime!!! When are the idiots in charge going to figure out it doesn't work????

I'd love to see a racist comment or what makes you think she is a racist. I certainly won't argue she is religious, and conservative. The negativity I have seen coming from her is in her frankness and calling a spade a spade. (and no, I don't mean that as racist comment, it's just an old saying) Also I listened to her on her show and on another interview and she has a pretty low opinion of the media and their attacks on her children. It is just the nature of a mother to protect her kids. I certainly can't hold that against her. Do you really think it's fair to attack her children?(or any children for that matter.) A commedian that made fun of any other down's syndrome child would most likely be run off the stage, yet the media delights in trashing her boy. And how many thousands of rebelious teenagers have made the same mistake as her daughter? I think they have used that in a very positive way, with the daughter speaking to other teenages, in hopes that they don't make the same mistake. Ok, so, tell me, how conservative do you have to be to be a conservative? If you are just a little conservative, then would you be liberal??? Politics, labeles and all that do leave me scratching my head, no doubt. I don't think Sara is one of a kind. I think a lot of people think like her. They are just afraid to admit it! It takes real guts to stand up for what you believe in and not back down and not worry about what other people think. You have to give her credit for that at least.

Cute picture!Actually, trolling also refers to fishing. You know, rods, reels, bait on hooks, lakes, rivers, boats, that sort of fishing. Then you have your trolling motor. No wonder english is such a weird language, so many meanings for our words. Has to be tough to figure out.

Using a cell phone will not make your brain explode. We know that now. Playing Wii may not give you cancer. Today. But as I said, what about 10 or 20 years from now? You can't claim a product is safe after short periods of useage. Look at all the sugar substitutes that have come and gone over the years, use them for years and then decide they cause cancer so they come up with a new one. How many new drugs have come out in recent years, only to be recalled later for one reason or another. I'm just saying we have no idea what these products will do with long time useage.

Now there you go, that's some pretty cool trivia!I just think it's so funny how yesterday's sience fiction is todays reality. Remember Buck Rodgers lazer gun?I can't wait to say "Beam me up Scottie!"

Are you sure China won't take over first place before 2050? It almost seems like they are now. You can't buy anything hardly in the USA that is made in the USA! Our own government is regulating most small and large business right out of business. Between all the little beuracrasies, with those cute letter names, like USDA, EPA, ATF, etc, business are drowned in a sea of red tape and all your basic BS.

Gee, you sound like Nancy Pelosie, "let's pass this huge health care bill so we can find out what's in it." Really, it would be a big mistake to jump into something like this without some consideration for safty. What happens 10 years down the road if it's discoverd that the interfaces are a cancer causing problem? Call me a cautious old foggy, but all this new stuff scares the daylights out of me.

Ok, that's pretty wild, and sounds about like our luck. One year we decided to burn off the weeds in our garden, we got a spot burnt about the size of a small car, the fire jumped over into the yard, then cleared off a fair amount of the yard, and show how, some way though I can't figure out how, it managed to jump the county road, got in the woods and went gang busters up the hill, I swear we nearly burnt up half the county before it was over. Never did get the garden burned. (and had better sense than to try again either.) From now on I'll just move the goats over to the garden and let them eat it off!

You've hit on the exact thing that annoys me the most about the Humane Society of the United States. They have all these adds where they show pathectic sick animals and play on peoples emotions to get them to contribute money to their cause, and then they spend all that money not to help animals but on high saleries for the top company brass, millions for lobbists who enact laws that restrict the privledges of humans, even lawyer fees for arsonists. Did you know that they actually pay one company over 4 million dollars just to count their money!!!! Imagine that, having so much money it costs you 4 million to just count your money??????HUSU spent over 4 million dollars on their ad campaigne in Missouri in support of Prop B. Can you imagine how many low cost or free spay surgeries that would of paid for, when they rattle on about the supposed horrible pet overpopulation problem and all the dogs that have to die in shelters because there aren't any homes for them. Now THAT would actually help animals.