THIS IS AWESOME! My favorite dog trainer and dog whisperer of all time has just released a free video online explaining how to eliminate 94% of all unwanted behavior in ANY dog. Her name is Krista Cantrell and I absolutely LOVE the way she teaches. Click on the video to watch. You'll be glad you did...

A breeder of Ovtcharkas, when she heard what we were doing for Kody, asked if we would be interested in raising this puppy. She likes his type and wants the opportunity to see him as he grows to see how he shapes up. Kody is now with her new forever family in Wisconson and her departure has left a hole in our hearts - so getting to care for Boris is a thankful distraction! (Thanks to Mike and Denise for giving our beautiful Kody, their 3rd Ovtcharka, the wonderful, loving home she deserves!!)
As you can see, Ovtcharka puppies are absolutely Squishable! Boris is so soft you absolutely cannot walk past him without burying your fingers in his wonderful fluff.
As stated in the “Kody” videos, Ovtcharkas ARE NOT a breed for most people - they are independent thinkers bred for a 24/7 life of guardianship of a flock without a lot of human direction and often may behave as though they find you more of a hindrance than a help in their decision-making processes. As a result they can be VERY challenging to deal with and should only be considered by the VERY experienced dog owner.
Please see Baad Ram Tv’s Caucasion Ovtcharka videos for a more detailed look and to get just barely an idea of their massive size - make a note that Kody is only one year old (and is already 29″ at the shoulder) and will grow even more as she fills out!
As always, do your research BEFORE choosing this particular breed, or any animal of course, as your next pet!

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I am a psychology major from Nebraska. Can you make training seeing eye dogs a living? How would I get started doing that? Are there organizations that I could work for or is it an individual thing? How much would you get paid for raising puppies for a living?

There is a difference between raising and training Seeing Eye dogs. Puppy raising is a volunteer position and a money losing proposition. Though the organization will cover many of the costs, there will be incidental costs you will have to bear yourself. Puppy raisers are not paid for their work, it is done as a gift to the community and to people in need of a guide dog. Puppy raisers do not actually train these dogs to be guide dogs. They raise them to be well-mannered pet dogs. At around 14 months old, these puppies are returned to the training center for formal training as guide dogs. Trainers at the center are paid and it is a full time position. The pay for guide dogs (as opposed to service dogs) is pretty good, but the competition for these positions is very stiff and a three-year apprenticeship is required. Here’s what the Seeing Eye says about that on their site:

"Quite frequently, people ask us, “How can I become a Seeing Eye instructor?” Staff instructors are full-time employees who hold college degrees from various fields of study and have successfully completed three years of specialized on-the-job training.They relate well to dogs and people and are physically fit, since their jobs are physically demanding and involve working outdoors in all weather. Some of our current instructors came from teaching, business consulting and rehabilitation fields. Some were in the military and worked with dogs before, and many started out as kennel assistants here at The Seeing Eye." http://www.seeingeye.org/aboutUs/default.aspx?M_ID=119

There is only one Seeing Eye in the US. Only dogs trained at the Seeing Eye can properly be called "Seeing Eye dogs." All other dogs trained to guide the blind are called simply "guide dogs." There are more than a dozen guide dog schools in the US, but they all operate similarly to the Seeing Eye in their professional standards.

Here is a list of other guide dog schools, with contact information: http://www.gdui.org/schools.html

To be a puppy raiser, apply as a volunteer. They’ll do a home inspection and ask a bunch of questions to determine whether you are suitable for their program, then if approved, they will put you on a waiting list for the next available puppy. It may be a few months. http://www.seeingeye.org/raise/

Labrador puppies 20 days old from CZ - http://www.felbest.ic.cz

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I was reading this site http://leerburg.com/2dogs.htm as well as a couple of others about how bad it is to raise two puppies from the same litter but I have not ran into any problems and am interested in knowing what I should look out for.

I have two puppies from the same litter one male one female. I chose to buy them one extra large crate for both of them since they prefer to sleep cuddled with each other anyway. I did all basic training with each dog individually and did not even try to train them together until they were listening about 80% of the time. Training together went well but I always make sure to train individually on a new trick. I have not seen any dominance issues between these two. No fights or humping. I am home 18 hours a day and have no social life so my puppies get all of my attention. After reading multiple websites it seems as if I am doing everything wrong, yet nothing bad has happened. My puppies are well socialized and love to play with children. They have never growled or attempted to bite anyone and they do not jump on people. This being said my question is am I setting myself up for disaster and don’t even know it? Have I been able to avoid such problems because my dogs are the opposite sex or am I just lucky? Are they not having any problems because they are still the young age of 6 months? I have had my puppies since 8 weeks of age. Thank you for your responses! Any experience with puppies from the same litter would be appreciated as well.
UHave2: As I mentioned they do train separately. I have had dogs my whole life and would consider myself experienced. You have to have a first though. While I have raised two puppies at once before they were not from the same litter. Well yes they deserve their own sleeping space but the dogs do not sleep in a crate, they actually sleep in my bed cuddled up to each other. They choose to sleep next to each other.

You made me think of another question though. I do have the extra large crate I mentioned. It has two doors and a divider. Would it be enough to just put the divider up when I do leave? Or is a 2nd cage still needed for more separation?
Thank you all for making me feel better! Yes they are both already fixed too =D two puppies is enough for me I don’t need a whole litter! haha

I do not have any experience with this personally, and like you, just recently found out that this is supposed to be a bad thing. Not recommended. However, I think every dog is different. My best friend adopted her two lab mixes (both males) from a woman who wasn’t taking care of them. They are two of the most well-behaved dogs I’ve ever met. They’re 2 1/2, they don’t have any issues with each other or even other dogs. Wait, I take that back: her ex-roommate had a dog that was very dominate and that’s the only time the boys (as well call them) ever exhibited aggression and that was after months of being "picked on" by the other dog. She moved out and they’re still doing great.

Sorry I don’t have anything more personal than that, but I hope things work out! And if they’re anything like her boys, then you have nothing to worry about.

Learn how much to feed your puppy to make housebreaking your puppy a success in this free online video series.

Expert: Tracy Tenner
Contact: www.extracareanimalhospital.net
Bio: Tracy Tenner has been training dogs for over 25 years.
Filmmaker: Hiu Yau

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Just about 2 months ago our family got a female shetland sheepdog, Annie, that is 2 years old that just had her heat cycle and should be done by tomorrow. And we already had a dog before Annie that is 9 years old who is also a sheltie, but a male. My mom and I were talking about this today. At first our family wanted puppies, but then after recieving Annie we decided not to have puppies but now I think we are starting to want puppies again. So my mom and I were talkng about this today and I told her that if we can have puppies that I will do research on how to raise puppies and what to do if your dog goes in labor and if I should go to the vet or just keep her at home. But don’t get me wrong I understand they may be expensive, and it may be hard to find homes for all he puppies and I really don’t want to add onto the puppies at shelters because they already have enough. So before we even have our dogs mate I have to find families that would be willing to have a dog. So I need an estimate on how many dogs would be born… I know this is a lot but I’ll just sum it up.
- when is the best time for my dogs to mate? During a heat cycle or not?
- should I take the dog to the vet for labor? Or should I do much research on how to help the dog with labor?
- tips on how to take care of the puppies
- when should I get them immunized
- his many do shelties usually have in a liter
- my male dog is 9 and my female dog is 2, will this create health problems to the puppies?
Please help me and give me advice!!! Out of my family ( 3 older siblings ) I’m the most interested in animals ( I grew up with a LOT of animals ) and do a lot of research on them. Especially dogs. Please and thank you.

My advice is to go back to your original plan of not having puppies and having your dogs altered.

There are an abundance of reasons not to. They FAR outweigh the possible benefits.

ETA: I’m really trying not to be mean. I promise. You genuinely sound like you want information so I am going to give it to you. Please take it in and consider it all.

-The only dogs who should be bred are those who have excellent show standings or working titles, are registered with a reputable registry, and have passed all genetic health screenings. Without this, the puppies could inherit all sorts of genetic conditions.
-People who breed should be VERY knowledgable about the breeding process. They should have studied under a breeding mentor through a breed club. (This might be a VERY good idea for you as you sound like a person who wants information.) Without proper knowledge and experience, you run a VERY high risk of loosing your female, the puppies, or both.

Please please do not breed them. Let them be your cherished pets. There are so many things that can go wrong. Like I said before, if you are truly interested, get involved with a sheltie breed club in your area. See if you can do some volunteer work with a local breeder.

Here is a link to the national Breed Club:
http://www.assa.org/
You will find some very useful information there.

If you want to have more pups around without adopting more, you might consider applying with the breed rescue to be a foster home. This way you will help Shelties needing a home, instead of creating more of them. It would be such a better way to show your appreciation of the breed and dogs in general

http://www.dogtrouble.net Take a look into the play habits of a young pit bull puppy named Cayce. Blue and Cayce are playing just a day or two after Cayce was adopted into my pack. Playtime is also learning time!

Puppies play games with their teeth. Here you will see Blue and Cayce in some perfectly natural puppy time play.

In this video you will see how to deter excitable, dominant humping behavior as Blue gets a little too excited about the new pack member.

Enjoy! If you have serious dog behavior problems, please visit my website at http://www.dogtrouble.net

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My pomeranian dog thats 1 year old is pregant.It’s going to me a mix of pomeranian and chihuahua.and i wanted to know things im supposed to know this is the first time she is pregant. so any helpful infomation would help.also any helpful iformation that would help or just fun stuff for the dogs anything works but i need a bit of information on what to do

There is no way anybody is going to be able to tell you everything you need to know over the internet and I do believe she is too young, probably haven’t been checked for patella luxation (knees) etc., but still, some basic advice that might be helpful:

First of all, I hope your b*tch is up to date on her vaccinations and deworming, otherwise the puppies will not get any basic protection through her milk from her vaccinations and she might transfer intestinal worms to them.

I hope that you have saved up some money in case she needs a caesarean section, either way you have to pay the vet when checking how many puppies she is expecting and later, for deworming and giving the puppies their first vaccination.

Go to a library and borrow books about dog breeding or buy some books on the subject, read more than one book, check when the books is published, books from the eighties might still be mainly correct, but hopefully we know one or two more things now than compared to what they did then.
E.g. this book seems to be from 2006 and has gotten some good reviews http://www.amazon.com/Breeders-Successful-Breeding-Health-Management/dp/1416031391 .

Get proper contracts that you can use when selling the puppies, where you can state what guarantee you sell the puppies with, that you want them back if the new owner can’t keep them for any reason etc.
I get my puppy sales contracts from my kennel club, but maybe you can get some tips here http://www.akc.org/enewsletter/akc_breeder/2007/spring/contract.cfm .

Do not overfeed on calcium, no matter how tempting it might be to try and avoid eclampsia, overfeeding calcium before whelping can for some absurd reason increase the risk of eclampsia http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2109&aid=1505 .

Remember that a b*tch in good body condition are more likely to have a successful whelping, but exercise less about the last three week or so before the expected whelping date (from the date of mating it in average takes 63 days to whelping, plus/minus 7 days).

No whelping has to be exactly as any other whelping, there is lots of completely normal and natural variations. This is why you preferably should educate yourself before even mating your b*tch, then you’ll have some ideas about which variations that is normal and which variations that means that your b*tch needs a veterinarian.

Always contact a veterinarian if the water has broke, the b*tch has been having mild labour pains, her temperature is up and no puppy arrives within 2 hours.

Always contact a veterinarian if the b*tch are having strong labour pains/has really been pushing for 20 to 30 minutes without any puppy being born, the puppy can be too big or stuck in the wrong position.

If the expected litter is large, about 10 puppies or more, the b*tch might take a "break" in halftime, before delivering the last puppies, BUT if the expected litter is small, all the puppies will most likely be born without any "break" and in about the same interval between them.

The infection following that a placenta or the remains of a puppy is stuck inside a b*tch is very dangerous, potentially life threatening. You need to count the placentas that comes out, if the number of puppies is more than the number of placentas, contact your vet.
As far as I know, average litter size for a Pomeranian is 1 to 4 puppies, but just in case, don’t allow your b*tch to eat more than 4 to 5 placentas, eating too many can give the b*tch diarrhea, but you should allow her to eat some because there is nutrition in them.

When the whelping is finished you must check that there is nothing visibly wrong with the puppies, check for cleft palate, umbilical hernia and that they actually have an anus opening etc.

I don’t know if it is counted as fun stuff, but you need to have lots of gnaw bones and washable toys for the puppies to play with. Also give them some things to investigate, like i.e. a dripping pan, cut a large opening into a cardboard box etc. (Edited To Add, put the box upside down so they can’t pee on the bottom of the box, if the edges of the box gets pee on them, cut it away or get a new box. /eta)

These links are quite informative
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/breedingpregnancyguide.htm

http://www.k9web.com/dog-faqs/breeding.html

http://www.k9web.com/dog-faqs/medical/whelping.html

Learn tips for housebreaking puppies in this free online video series.

Expert: Tracy Tenner
Contact: www.extracareanimalhospital.net
Bio: Tracy Tenner has been training dogs for over 25 years.
Filmmaker: Hiu Yau

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The adventures of a litter of German Shepherd Dog puppies from birth to 16 weeks. Take a look if you want to see some of what should go into raising healthy, well socialised puppies - and this is before you even take them home!

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