Dalmatians - what are your experiences?

I have a Ridgie x dalmatian who I adore... despite the greed, stubborn-streak, Labrador (selective) hearing, the refusal to go out when temp is less than balmy, and forget it if it's raining, snow is ok in a coat and socks & plaggie-bagged feet JUST for long enough he can empty his clearly Olympic sized bladder, which he does on the run, he has more of a disdainful look than Julian Cleary, if he could speak would have more sarcasm than I'd like to think, can open anything, door, bolt, window, has been found hanging out the bedroom window expressing his opinions more times than I care to remember.... what else.. oh, they seem to have the knack of scaling any fence... the one Sir decided to get over was 11ft chain link.. apart from all this... wonderful dogs! (I guess I have to blame 50% on the ridgies side) BUT temperament to DIE for, fab guard dog by sheer size (in his case) and an affinity for spotting annoying door-to-door salespeople and yowling before they even knock.... :-) :-)
 
When I was at collage, my landlady had a dalmatian, he was lovely.

I do have a question though, are 'yellow' spotted dallies still pts, like deaf pups tend to be? My landlady's dog was a yellow spot and apparently they were normally pts as it's an undesirable colour?

This was about 10 years ago though, so things might have changed since then.
 
Tonks said:
He is wonderful with our 3 year old son and can tolerate the most horrendous tail pulling, nose rubbing, pretending his tail is a sledge (!!) ear pulling, etc - very unlike a terrior!!
Click to expand...

This is a pet hate of mine......"my dog is great...my kids can pull its tail and poke its eyes and it just sits there....." Why would *anyone* let their kids poke and prod dogs about!!??

I have had 4 kids, and when they were younger I had 4 dogs (3 weimaraners and a jrt), and I would never have sat by and let them maul a dog or puppy about.......
 
RutlandH2O said:
Isn't the problem with deaf dogs their often startled reaction to being touched when they are unaware of being approached? It is one thing for the owners of such dogs to interact with them, but quite another thing for those unaware of the dog's condition. It appears you have the knowledge and ability to handle such a dog, but what about those people who don't have such resources?
Click to expand...


I can only speak for my girl but she has never shown any sort of startled reaction either to being touched or woken up. She is very aware of what is going on around her. She is not an aggressive dog at all and if you did catch her unawares she would just be so pleased to see you you would be licked to death!

Google Deaf Dogs Network and you will see lots of deaf dogs and their owners doing agility and obedience and just being dogs!
 
I only ever had one dog, a dalmatian. She was actually my daughter's dog, she bought her when she was 10 (my daughter). She was an amazing dog, a fantastic guard both for the house and as a body guard out walking but not over sensitive like a friend's German Shepherds.

I didn't find her overly energetic, once she refused to go out, even in the garden for a pee, for over 24 hours because it was raining so hard!
She was naughty, had a huge sense of humour, obsessed with food (one boxing day we got up to discover she had eaten all the Christmas chocolate and sweets. She spent two days groaning and throwing up pools of fudge vomit), would only do as she was told if food was in the equation, loved to sit on our laps and just be involved, I'm sure she thought she was one of us.

She wasn't overly keen on horses though! She was never ever ill, when she aged she got a little gimpy and had lipomas but she and we all survived. I think people go a bit over the top warning about how difficult dalmatians are, you don't need some super mystical skills to own one.

And yeah everything in the house gets a nice matching frosted look from all the white hairs- apparently they have microscopic barbs so they work into fabric. You can't vacuum them out I know that! Sometimes I found hairs in places I hadn't even been yet!

I've heard lemon Dallies are PTS too, it does probably still happen, and the ones with patches. I'd love a lemon dally!
 
I bred a litter from my first Dalmatian - both dog and bitch had impeccable pedigrees but out of a litter of 10 one had a patch (which the stud dog owner wanted us to pts but we kept him as had always intended to keep one) and 5 that we thought were going to be liver spot actually were lemon.
They were very attractive dogs but couldn't be sold as pedigree as they were the equivalent of mis-marked. I don't remember being asked to have them pts though. I think it is pretty rare to have a lemon, we were told in a lifetime of breeding you might get 1 or 2 so we must have been incredibly unlucky.

Was certainly enough to put me off having another litter!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top