david, google "gold coast mastiffs" and you'll find my breeder's website, which includes a picture of one of her mastiffs working in schutzhund. there's also lots of carting and weight pulling pictures.

it's a lot colder where i am than where you are! we have several weeks every winter where it doesn't get above zero even in the daytime and gets as low as -25 at night. my EM is outside eating his RMBs every day, no matter how cold it gets. it doesn't bother him.

some EMs have very short coats. but not all of them.

i don't know what an "american mastiff" is. as far as i know, some people who have mongrels call them american mastiffs, but it's not a recognized breed. it's a cross between an EM and an anatolian shepherd.

i've had my EM take me for a ride on my scooter in the summer. it's fun, and a great way to exercise him because i have a bad knee and am not allowed to run. same thing with xc skiing, he loves to run alongside me, even in very deep snow.

weight pulling is *good* for their joints, provided they are built up slowly and safely. and also, you have to wait until their growth plates close, around 18-24 mos., before you start them on any kind of intense exercise.

if you are so happy with malamutes, why are you looking for a different breed? most EMs are not good working dogs, but i happen to have found a good line that is healthy, and with a working temperament. saints have just as many problems, maybe more. and HD and bloat are nothing to dismiss. they are not minor problems if your dog has them.

I know they're are mongrels. What was the point of them? Less drooling. I don't really see the point of getting a young breed when just because a person wants them to drool less, oh well. They're only recognized by the CKC.

I first thought to find her a new home. Unfortunately for her she recently cut her toe, and its not healing like I'd want it to heal. One of those injuries to where it looks like it would rip open under pressure. I'm more aggrivated than anything, she has been with me for thepast 8 months. I'll have to see how the wound heals. She gets pretty ill in the car, I realize she is only 1 year old,but she is so afraid she only makes the car sickness worse. I'm trying a medication specifically for car sickness, then trying acepromazine.

Its not like I'd be working the EM until it passes out. I know how winded 200lbs dogs can get. the AM gets winded after 20-30 minutes of running, which is long enough if he was pulling. lmao at the schutzhund picture, last breed I expected to enter the event.

I know bloat and HD are nothing to dismiss, but they are preventable. I still think malamutes are the most hardy I guess some HD could be genetic, but sometimes caused by people premature working or hurting the dog.

hmm. I was looking at the web site of the breeder. is vWD one of the health issues in the EM breed? I see she has them checked on them. Like I was saying, mostly with malamutes its common only for breeders to get OFA hips and eyes checked.

 Quote:

I know bloat and HD are nothing to dismiss, but they are preventable.

no, they are not preventabe. they still don't know what causes bloat, and hd is inherited. that's why dogs that don't pass their OFA tests are not bred. (by good breeders, that is.)

vwd is very rare in the breed, but she tests for it anyway. she is one of the pioneers of health testing in the breed, and so does more testing, rather than less. it's a requirement for getting a breed club gold health award (an award she helped pioneer.)

i'm still not clear on why you aren't simply sticking with malamutes.

often car sickness begins the day a new puppy comes home to its new owner. the pup is transported after having eaten, the pup gets carsick, and sometimes, for the rest of its life, the dog will associate the car with vomiting. i had a dog like this as a kid. motion sickness medications didn't help.

there was another thread on carsickness here recently. someone successfully overcame it by leaving the dog in the car all day with it parked in the garage, then making the car her "dog house" for a few days.

The problem with limited registration is that I cannot buy a U.S. puppy/dog and title it in Canada. I have to have full registration on the puppy to do so. Same if vice versa. I cannot sell a puppy to the U.S. on a non breeding contract. If I do the owner cannot compete in AKC events. So kind of hard to title.

To be honest thus far I have not had any problems with my puppy buyers wanting to breed. In fact I often have to really talk them OUT of spaying/neutering early. I believe this is not a good choice for a healthy dog and my contract states that they will wait til the puppy is 18 months before sterilizing them.

I do a very careful screening though and spend a ton of time educating/talking to new owners before they get the puppy and after. I ask them up front if they want to breed later and if they are intersested I usually stick my name on the registration as well. They must first go through health checks with the dog and I also want a working title and want to have the dog assessed by either myself of someone else who is competant before they breed. Then as my name is on the dog still we talk about a stud/female suitable for breeding, talk about what they want to do with the puppies, talk about are they willing to take back pups if the new owners decide to not keep them (at anytime during the dog's life) and so on. MOST people choose NOT to breed.

In the end,even though I have in my contract that they CANNOT breed, and that I can take back the dog if they do with out permission, anyone can choose to take a dog that is not fully registered and breed it, sell pups as non registered etc. We will have little control over that if that is what they decide. (unless we find out and do something about it).

I think the 'best' thing we can do is screen as best we can and keep in contact with the new owners. Encourage GOOD ownership, poper breeding and If they STILL want to breed, help them do it right.

 Quote: alice oliver

no, they are not preventabe. they still don't know what causes bloat, and hd is inherited. that's why dogs that don't pass their OFA tests are not bred. (by good breeders, that is.)

I probably used the wrong word. From what I read and talked with people you can contribute to the development of HD by activities which place strain on the dog.

Far as bloat I only assumed it was caused by improper dieting like feeding too much or not spreading out the feeding sessions. Though I've never had bloat as all my dogs were GSD sized and lower. Doesn't mean they couldn't get bloat I guess, just think its less likely.

 Quote: alice oliver

vwd is very rare in the breed, but she tests for it anyway. she is one of the pioneers of health testing in the breed, and so does more testing, rather than less. it's a requirement for getting a breed club gold health award (an award she helped pioneer.)

Better safe then sorry. I couldn't imagine making a big f'up like this one breeder I've heard about on another forum. The dogs were bought by police and by individual pet owners. Can't imagine the money spent on police training.

 Quote: alice oliver

i'm still not clear on why you aren't simply sticking with malamutes.

I'm still thinking long and hard about it, will take me oh.. 6 months to make a decision.

 Quote: alice oliver

often car sickness begins the day a new puppy comes home to its new owner. the pup is transported after having eaten, the pup gets carsick, and sometimes, for the rest of its life, the dog will associate the car with vomiting. i had a dog like this as a kid. motion sickness medications didn't help.

there was another thread on carsickness here recently. someone successfully overcame it by leaving the dog in the car all day with it parked in the garage, then making the car her "dog house" for a few days.

I did try Dramamine(didn't work), I haven't tried the other two medications yet. I'm real bummed out on the car sickness. *sigh* I don't think anything will work, I even tried ginger(works on humans, heh).

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no, they are not preventabe. they still don't know what causes bloat,

actually bloat can indeed be prevented, by feeding smaller meals more often - not allowing exercise/running/over-exertion after eating/drinking, and not allowing "gorging" behavior. Vets will tell you, that MANY bloat/torsions are caused by exercise/exertion after eating or drinking - running on a full stomach, causing gas build-up, causing bloat, which can cause tortion. So this can be prevented by feeding smaller meals, and keeping the dog quiet for a while after eating.
Of course there are bloat incidents when every precaution is taken, and the dog still bloats and tortions. This could be genetic? or "just cause" ???? I don't think there is any explanation for some dogs bloating.

molly

 Quote:

actually bloat can indeed be prevented, by feeding smaller meals more often - not allowing exercise/running/over-exertion after eating/drinking, and not allowing "gorging" behavior. Vets will tell you, that MANY bloat/torsions are caused by exercise/exertion after eating or drinking - running on a full stomach, causing gas build-up, causing bloat, which can cause tortion. So this can be prevented by feeding smaller meals, and keeping the dog quiet for a while after eating.

sorry, molly, but nobody can prevent bloat. the scientific research on why it happens is very inconclusive. it does not follow a predictable pattern. vets advise to take the precautions you listed because it's a way to ease the worries of owners, but the truth is you can take all the precautions in the world, and your dog may still bloat. almost any vet will tell you this, that we just don't know why.

i know whereof i speak because my dog is very high risk for bloat, and i researched this out the yin yang for months. we ended up getting him an incisional gastropexy, which tacks the stomach to the chest wall. this does NOT prevent bloat, but it will reduce the risk of torsion, giving us more time to get him to the vet if he bloats.

 Quote: jennifer ruzsa

I had a horse once who was a BEAUTIFUL gelding, gelded (neutered) before I bought him. This horse grew up to be one of the best reining horses my trainer/coach had ever worked with, and she said repeatedly what a shame it was he had been gelded. I guess that's where some of my opinion comes from. As far as I'm concerned, if I buy a dog it's my dog to do with as I please and (once achievement/health have been proven) if that includes breeding, so be it.

I think many breeders who go into the whole "spay/neuter" thing without giving consideration for people who want to work their dogs are just on high horses believing that no one can be as good of a breeder as them. And I don't even know WHAT to say about the ones charging two different prices for the same pup depending on whether or not you want to keep them intact.

Jennifer, being a horse lover myself I so agree with you! If Performance Quarter Horse people were like some dog people are, Smart Little Lena would probably have been gelded, and talk about a huge loss for the cutting horse industry, huh? What about floppy eared Hollywood Jac 86? If his breeder decided to geld him Hollywood Dun It would have never been born! I've allways wondered why some dog breeders decide which dogs are worth breeding without even trying them. I too think that if a dog doesn't have any obvious defect and has good breeding should be tried before deciding whether to neuter it or not.

Another thing that amazes me is the fear of linebreeding some dog people seem to have, but that's a diferent topic and I don't wanna be called a thread hijacker.

yeah, I can buy the response. There are many "facts" vets have told me which I later go back and find out they were wrong. Esp with diets. When I was young I thought Science Diet was good food *sigh* Maybe when I was 10 Glad I worked at a vet clinic later on and did my own research.

wow, what a method. Well I guess any illness can be influenced by genetics. How old is he? Did the bloat start when he was young? *out of curiosity*

david, i assume you are addressing me? my dog hasn't ever bloated (knock on wood), but one of his siblings and a half-sibling have. it is thought that it isn't genetics, per se, but body type that predisposes the dog to bloat. if a dog has a very narrow and deep chest (both features at the same time), his physiogymy is thought to predispose him to bloat. also if he is slab-sided and long waisted.

one version of the thinking is that a dog with such a conformation is going to have a gi tract that stretches out over time, and there is enough room in the chest cavity for it to flip over. think of a balloon stretched out and then flipping over.

the biggest risk factors are body type and a first degree relative that has had it. but i think these are both the same thing.

i've also seen a very persuasive argument that it is caused by giving distemper shots too early and in combination with parvo virus. the dog gets a subclinical distemper from the shot, which causes tiny seizures in the part of the brain that controls peristalsis, or the movement of matter through the gut. the peristalsis shuts down, and gas and bile are trapped in the stomach and cause it to bloat. the dog dies before the peristalsis starts up again.

but that is just a theory. interestingly, the research team at purdue university lost their funding once they honed in on studying the effects of vaccines on canine bloat. wanna bet their money was coming from pharmaceutical firms?