Dear R. Sole,
I would love to help you but unfortunately I am not a dog breeder.
Regarding scales, I have always found that cod works the best although Australian colleagues have reported good results with those from raw prawns. I don't know whether you are Dover or Lemon but you could also try some of your own.
Regarding your amplifier problem, this may be easily cured by replacing the knobs with ones labelled from 1 to 20. Remember that sound power is on a logarithmic scale so such replacements will far more than double your amplifier's output.
As "Loud'uns" are made in Northern Ireland they are used to rather cold, wet and miserable weather. They should be perfect if you plan a holiday in such a climate but if you plan to tour around in a hot country such as Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka or Australia you may find the expense less justifiable.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Guitar