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I'm shifting my ancient lurcher onto a raw meaty bone diet as per Tom Lonsdale - tried BARF in her youth but she wouldn't eat the veggies so I gave up. Have been encouraged to try again by the state of her teeth (not bad for 14 years old, but not as good as they could be) so we're reading the...

I wonder if someone who has all the data, and is experienced within the breed, could identify how many genuinely unrelated lines exist in whippets. As someone who only has 'the whippet archive' to go by - which is not the greatest resource, but does make sense insofar as I have yet to find two...

I used always to suggest owners got their dogs castrated - there are good medical reasons (removal of the risk of prostatic disease/carcinoma) and as a vet, I became very, very pro-active in the move to stop unwanted matings (and some of the wanted ones). YOu don't have to work around rescue...

New vet is right that the descended one isn't at risk, and as long as you're sure he'll never breed (it's an inherited defect, but then you know that) then there probably isn't any problem. I'd stick up for your vet in saying that we have less than scrupulous people trying it on every day of the...

Me too - as a vet, I'd say that castrating (at the right age, and that's controversial too) reduces to nil the risk of prostatic disease/carcinoma (cancer) which is well in its favour. plus there are already too many dogs being bred. Everyone who leaves their dog/bitch entire risks it being...

It amazes me how these things run... this is a whippet forum and I had no intention of bringing greyhounds into it, just wanted to show that I'm not alone in the views I hold on close line breeding. Bearing in mind that the BVA organises its speakers months in advance, I'd say that Emma Milne...

Greyhounds are bred to kill. Therefore they have murderous instincts. They can be trained out of them, but it takes time and effort. and it was an opinion piece. I'd have said that in our current climate, more than anything else, I'd go by the principle that, 'I may not agree with what you...

I've read it - and read the first article, which seemed to me to be immensely sane. What she was saying was: a) she'd had a very bad personal experience in which a dog under her care had died after being attacked by two greyhounds - this is true. She didn't say it was always the case, just...

I think that, given she's presenting her piece at the BVA, that she's being used as a political mouthpiece because she's a TV vet and so has a huge presence. If one of the rest of us said it, nobody would report it at all - not that I don't think she believes it, but the key bit is what the...

For those who are interested in this debate (and I'm assuming those who aren't have left the thread long ago) this was in Sunday's Telegraph (and no, I'm not a Telegraph reader, but it still seems useful and interesting and I didn't see it in the Observer or I'd post their link)...

Dear Patsy, you are sweet, and it's charming when people support their vets. Doubtless when yours gets his board certification, he'll be presenting papers to the soft tissue surgeons of three continents to explain how he does it. In the meantime, TC might like to keep an eye on what looks at...

Dead lucky you didn't need a drain under the skin flap - but just as well, 'cos they often end up with bits of white hair where they've been. and he looks as stunning as he did in the flesh, which is quite an achievement for any photographer - well done everyone... m

I haven't decided. My elderly lurcher, who was beginning to look as if life was a burden when I started this quest, has passed her 14th birthday, got the sun on her back and some longer walks when we're not both being rained/hailed on and is bouncing around like a puppy. So there's breathing...

Been thinking.... as far as I understand it, the CoI meaures the likelihood of any one gene being replicated in any given individual.... so if the repeats are a long, long way back (>10 generations) and there's a lot of other blood in there... the figures might come out OK I'd go by Malcolm...

But possibly worth knowing what they are in any case? and worth also knowing which distinct lines exist. There *are* people doing that - just that I don't know enough to find them? Natalia is your source for all of this - or an equivalent.... m

Well done that woman... brave move. I think Natalia on the last list said she was looking at 20 generations but I may be wrong - anyone with more stamina than me can look it up. What you need, more than anything else, is a geneticist. Just that you'd need to treat her gently for it to be...

You would. So if we take an example that won't burst blood vessels on this list, if you were to cross your GSD with a Clumber Spaniel, the resulting offspring (I am trying so hard not to imagine this) would still have appallingly bad hips. Similarly if my lurcher were to carry a recessive gene...

If I didn't credit you with serious intelligence, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all - it was sparked in the first place by the honesty, integrity and forward-thinking that I read on the UK/USA thread a while ago so - one last try. You get up in the morning for your dogs. I'm...

This is becoming infantile to quite a startling degree. You are entirely free to disagree, to resort to hyperbole (I have been at pains all along to point out that the whippet is, relatively speaking, a particularly healthy breed. I wouldn't have been interested in buying one were that not the...

Fair enough; we can let it go for now and a decade from now, when we revisit, you'll either be proved right, or I will, or enough people will have let go their anger/vested interest and listened to the science and perhaps there'll be enough of a mix for neither extreme to have been reached...