Loving my Oldies

Dogs Never Lie About Love, Jeffrey Masson On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals, Turid Rugaas Give Your Dog a Bone, Dr Ian Billinghurst

I guess the photography has emphasised it a bit, but I can't get over how grey some of them are. LOL as my youngest dog (I have 5 littlies) is just approaching 10, I don't really think of 10 as old anymore.

I would tend to agree with the over analysing statement, but only to a certain extent; you also see a lot of under analysing which perhaps could be defined as lack of understanding or even knowledge that dogs do need to be understood. In a lot of instances, we are dealing with people who don't know that they don't know and I think it is up to the people who work in the industry (vet, pet food suppliers, rescuers, groomers, etc etc) to step up to the plate and provide some education. People are told that dogs are social creatures and that taking them to the dog park is the right thing to do. So off the owner goes to the dog park thinking he or she is doing the right thing and the dog is going to have a wonderful time. Generally, no thought would be given to the fact that dogs are like people: many different personalities, many different ways of interacting, some will be nice and some will be nasty. They have been led to believe that dogs will be dogs and they'll romp and play and nothing awful will happen and they'll all go home happy and exhausted. I also think that people who have only one or two dogs rarely get to see the full spectrum of dog behaviour and so don't have the opportunity to even start to learn what they are all about. I'll never forget the time when someone who was staying with me came running into the kitchen asking me if I was going to break up the fight between two of my dogs. I could hear the dogs and they were playing. This person states that she is an accredited dog trainer

You are making things v.e.r.y. difficult, Jed . I can see danorses galloping around my backyard. Oh, what evil temptation.

It's hard to imagine a beautiful dog having a better life. You were blessed to have her,Grumpette, and she was blessed to have you and your family. Such a moving photographic tribute to a life well lived.

I see this is going to degenerate into a "she said", "she said" situation. Sags and Jed at 20 kennels.

Gosh - estimates way out. I'm sure Jazz will confound them too. :)

Aphra = huge amount of valuable knowledge. I hope you will be continuing to spread your expertise far and wide, Aphra.

Really sags, as though Jed's new offerings and her marketing of such could in any way be misleading. She is offering a valuable product - why would she need to mislead.

Sorry Kirislin, I've jumped ship because I want a striped hairless dog. :laugh:

Good news and bad news, Dave73. Why the time limit if there is no cancer in the surrounding tissue? Is it because where once there is cancer, it will be there albeit somewhere else? I hope too that she thrashes their odds .

Wonderful wonderful photos, Koala, of dogs just leading the best lives

Well, I'm glad to see that accidents can start to happen at what to me is still young - LOL. I have been a bit baffled as to who is "leaking" at night. They all sleep on my bed and move around a bit which is why I am not 100% sure who is having problems - my only certainty is that it isn't me :laugh: :laugh: , Gussy or Bunter. I don't think I can point the finger at Danny, so that just leaves the girls. I think both Jeune and Tamar are having accidents and as Tamar is not quite 10, I was a bit horrified to find patches where she has been lying Our annual vax times are coming up so I'll be having them all checked over. I had two really large wet patches in three days pretty much where Jeune had been and this morning I flipped back the bedclothes to find a smallish patch where Tamar had been. Thank goodness for dryers and the ability to purchase extra supplies of mattress protectors on line :laugh: .

How wonderful to see dogs on the full stretch

Wow! Jed, I can see how hard you have been working to restore your property. Well done! Love the house too - and I thought you were converting a shed. Your conversion skills are something else: from ornery dogs to superdogs, from ornery shed to mansion.

Oh Lordy - that is hilarious !

And there are people, even on this forum, who say that dogs don't reason, don't have "higher emotions" (whatever they are). I loved the way he kept looking up, presumably towards his owner, to get encouragement.

Don't you worry about Grabbit&Goe, Kirislin. I'll help you fight your case, because I want deeply madly desperately a Mini Black Pharoah Hound, provided photography lessons come with her. Yes, I'd like a girl, if possible.

I'd def be interested, but I'd worry that those long long legs would slip on the wooden floors. Of course, they are no long shiny and polished (the floors that is) because of all the other wondrous creatures that inhabit this place (including me :D ). The colour is also a bit of a worry because he is very similar to my Danny and I'd worry that Danny might think he was his mum or dad. I'll pass this year, but look forward to hearing of other exceptional examples of excellent and forward thinking breeding practices.

. And if we do manage to contort ourselves in our sleep, we need to visit the chiropractor :laugh: whereas littlies and dogs just jump up and get going.

Ah Kirty, what a sad sad burden you had to carry. Bless you for knowing what is the right and humane thing to do when others don't and won't.

Beautiful gal . Congratulations on saving her.

I suppose it might happen at some stage, but in none of those pictures is the puppy restricting the boy's breathing. I see a lifelong love affair happening .

Totally Off Topic, but I "bought a brick" when Sippy Creek was building its new facility - and I've never even been there. An elderly cousin of mine was a volunteer there.

LOL. I am sure she is lapping up all the attention . She looks a lovely dog and her wound, although frighteningly large, looks tidy and healing well.