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Bedly

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Everything posted by Bedly

  1. Bedly
    Anybody have the link to the Working Bedlington site? Is it still going? I changed computers and lost a lot of stuff, and can't find the site by Google. Bedly
  2. Bedly
    Thanks, Whiptail, that's most informative. I'll read through the club's site. Alas, its breeders page isn't up yet. I don't suppose there are any good working IWS in Australia. There are only about 8 breeders on the main dog site here, and they all boast about show wins and imported champions, so they'll be useless in the field. One lot mention working trial awards, so a few of the show dogs may have some ability.
  3. Bedly
    Very interesting topic. I've been fascinated by IWS for a while, but imagined they'd be mainly show dogs and not used for work. Are they any good on rabbits, or are they a wildfowl specialist? Would they flush and retrieve in a Springer sort of way?
  4. Bedly
    David, I'm dismayed to hear that even someone as well connected as you cannot find a good bitch pup. Here I was thinking you'd be a bloke to go to for a future dog. As to working Bedlington shows, while they sound a good idea, they have their dangers. If they are just judged on looks, they'll go the same was as KC shows, and so will the dogs, if many didn't come from that side in the first place.
  5. Bedly
    I think all of us here feel the same about the direction show Beddies have taken, and most probably understand how and why it has happened. To give them their due, they make wonderful pets, which is all most people want. I'm one of them, really. My pup (if he's still a pup at 11 months) is a show-bred Beddie, and he's a fabulous little fellow. He's not an extreme show type, but I don't think he'll have a lot of work in him, other than maybe chasing a few rabbits (and don't start on what terrier work is or isn't - I'm not addressing that here). Some show breeders are uneasy at the distance th
  6. Bedly
    These are brush-tail possums, and they are opportunist omnivores. They feed on rose-shoots too, and other garden plants and fruits, but they've found the left over bird grain to be an easy and regular meal. They are lovely animals, but can be a bit of a menace. Most rats here, at least in domestic circumstances, and the Norway brown rat, but we also have some of the blacks; and we have native rats of different sorts, which are rodent rats which introduced themselves before Europeans arrived. Whatever they are, I can do without them. I'll set up a bait station at the weekend.
  7. Bedly
    Thanks everyone, especially Ditch. I'll try that tyre arrangement. I have to be careful with poison, as I also have 3 possums that feed there every night, and I certainly don't want to harm them. They are far too big to get to the tyre bait, though.
  8. Bedly
    I have the frustration of rats coming to my bird-table every evening. When I go out, they scarper across the rose-trellis into tall shrubs and disappear. They are gone before the dogs even see them, but they can't get them anyway. The poor old cat, who is well over 14, just sits under the bush watching the rats. I know I could poison them, but that seems cheating. Anybody got a tree terrier?
  9. Bedly
    David, you are dead right: he is a show bred Bedlington. That's all you can get in this country. I'd have got a working type if any had been available. Of course, I could have imported one from the UK, but you have to know what you are doing, what's around, what lines are sound, what breeders are honest etc, etc. Basically I wanted a pet anyway, but one that might bush a few rabbits and be fun to take on country rambles. These show-bred (pseudo) Bedlingtons are great pets and very appealing in character, and I love this little bloke. I hope before long to go to the UK to suss out the dog scen
  10. Bedly
    Where are you, Pip, if you're not in England? No, there's no test to screen for the gene for the disease. It's very common in Persian cats, and they do have a gene test for them, but so far they can't get anything working for dogs. They can do an ultrasound to see if the dog has the disease, that is, symptoms, but if the dog is healthy and is a carrier of the dud gene, you can't tell. One day they'll have a test, just as they have for the copper toxicosis gene. One thing I was considering was breeding this Beddie to a Whippet to get lurchers, but I'm now cautious about spreading a disease gen
  11. Bedly
    That's a great photo! What a squeeze. Is that gap about 4 inches? You'd never believe it without seeing it. My late Beddy was a great one for squeezing under things like gates, but I doubt she'd have tackled a gap like that. My pup is still spannable, but is over 17 inches at the shoulder, and he's not 8 months old. He doesn't look big, to me anyway, and I got a shock when I measured him. He's the bloke whose brother died of polycystic kidney disease, so I won't breed from him, as he's probably a carrier. It is a variable disease, well known in Bull Terriers in which it has autosomal dominant
  12. Bedly
    Believe it or not, I've a mate who free fed his Labrador. There was a big open bag of kibbies in the house, and he also got a daily meal of tinned food. He was the leanest, fittest Lab I'd ever seen. Anyway, the bloke got a Lab pup that had the typical Lab food obsession, and it quickly became as fat as a fool, so the free feeding stopped. The idea is a good one: the dog can regulate its intake without any stress or worry about food. It won't work for all dogs, though.
  13. Bedly
    Same with my bloke. He's 6 months old and I can only just span him. I've got small hands though, 6.5 inches from wrist to tip of finger. I expect him to end up 16 inches high and about 10 kg. I never blame the fox, but the chicken owner. If you want chickens, have a secure pen. Nothing difficult about it. The poor old chooks, then the foxes, pay for the owner's incompetence.
  14. Bedly
    Mate, you have my condolences, not just for the poor pup, and not just for your personal trauma, but also for the compromise of your feelings for Tag. I hope that changes with time. I've wondered how I'd react to such an event, but it wouldn't be good. There's no knowing about dogs or what motivates them. After all, he'd be praised for killing a fox and thought the world of. Killing a pup is vastly different in our view, but how different is it in the dog's view? I remember someone telling me of a Beddie show kennel he'd visited in New Zealand. They had 5 or 7 Beddies when they went out, and
  15. Bedly
    That's a good point, Oyama. To what extent are these named lines reality, and to what extent just names? I would think that once the originator of a famous line is dead, the line is pretty well finished too. Yes, there may be Rillington, eg, dogs about here and there, but I doubt that anyone is keeping the line going in a systematic way. If so, they must be crossing in other blood, or it would be horribly inbred. Mind you, the original kennel would have brought in other blood too, but as part of a considered plan. I'd be grateful for advice on good lines of Beddies that are really available.
  16. Bedly
    Nobody will be able to trump that, unless it's the Archangel Gabriel!
  17. Bedly
    I doubt that I could get a picture, as she's dead now, and I don't think the people were much for taking photos. Just magine a smooth, long-legged and lightly built JR. She was small, I'd guess about 4-5 kg. I'm only going on what the breeder told the owner about 15 years ago, that she was a Den Terrier.
  18. Bedly
    A friend of mine just put down her very old terrier that she said was a Den Terrier, not a Jack Russell. She was a very small, smooth-coated, and lightly-built dog of white with tan colour. She was a nice little thing, but slightly demented, which I think came from the frustration of having a mad owner. Just a pet, but I'm sure she'd have been a keen worker of sorts.
  19. Bedly
    Has anyone come across working Pharaoh Hounds, or crosses? They were specialist rabbit dogs bred in Malta, but now may be mostly show dogs. They look the part, but looks only go so far.
  20. Bedly
    Raw chicken is great food, especially with the bones. For small dogs and pups I feed chicken necks, and you can get babies started on it by mincing up the necks with a clever. The bone is top nutrition. The carcase is great too, as it is soft marrow rich bone, and cheap. While it's true that all raw bones are good for dogs, you have to watch them. I'd never leave a dog alone for long with a bone, as there can be accidents. On two occasions my Golden Retriever got a lamb shaft bone stuck in her mouth when a molar pierced it and jammed. Potentially slivers of raw bone can pierce the gut, but it
  21. Bedly
    Russell, you are dead right about buying the biggest packet and measuring out the correct dose. Over here the tiny packets for small dogs cost almost as much as the biggest packets that have much greater volumes. Frontline is fantastic (the spot on is what I've used) and revolutionised flea treatment. Indeed, it ended the flea problem altogether for me. However, I find that we now have fleas that are inmmune to it, and I hear the same from others. Good old natural selection has been at work in the fleas, it seems. I switched to Advantage, which is the same type of product but with a differen
  22. Bedly
    I wouldn't be doing anything like that until the dog is over 12 months at least. Hard exercise should wait until the bones are mature, but I confess I'm not sure when that is in a Beddie. My Beddie pup is 4.5 months, and I only lead walk him around the block - about 10 minutes. He gets tons of exercise in the house and yard playing with the poodle pup, and if he gets tired, he can rest. It's easy to get impatient to get the youngsters out, but keeping them back a little pays later on.
  23. Bedly
    I heard a story on the radio yesterday about a plan to eradicate rabbits and rats on Macquarie Island, which is a speck of land between Australia and Antarctia. They got there off ships and are now a plague, endangering penguins and other wildlife that breeds there. Anyway, the plan is to use dogs. The New Zealanders succeeded with this method on a couple of their islands that had similar trouble. The bloke talking said it's easy to get the first 95%, but the last 5% is the challenge. He claimed the dogs take 18 months to train (why, one wonders?) and they have to think out what sort to use.
  24. Bedly
    Good to see first class accommodation provided for the little blokes. It's a pity all dog owners didn't take the same approach. One thing that occurs to me, though, is that there's a lot of wasted space above floor level. I don't know whether ferrets are climbers, but they may profit from some high boards and boxes, with some platforms in the sun. Maybe I'm thinking about cats, but that's the sort of thing I set up for my cats.
  25. Bedly
    Is any Whippet a useful cross, or do you need working strains? What about racing ones? I've heard that Whippets have soft skins, easily torn, and delicate feet too. Does the Bedlington cross alleviate that? I've been thinking of that cross for a while, but haven't come across any in Australia. Anyone know of blokes who breed them?
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