jaybeece

Hehe, sorry! I didn't notice the dates either

I'd be really careful letting this kind of thing happen to such a young pup. It sounds to me like she's really not ready to mingle at an offlead park with adult dogs. Are there any smaller/younger dogs there that she can mix with? I can't imagine that having larger adults standing over her and mouthing her neck will do any good for her confidence. Also, when introducing her to other dogs (one-on-one) that would scare her, I'd ask the other owner to get their dog to drop and then let Indy approach them on her own time. I do this pretty often for pups and small dogs that want to say hello to my boy, but are too scared because of his size. They usually approach from behind and have a good sniff, then get happy enough for a nose to nose sniff which is really cool It's great to watch them walk away with their owner with a bit of a "I said hello to the big dog!!" swagger

I think what myszka is trying to say is that this sentence implied that the order in which dogs & humans eat makes no difference at all. That's how I read it and I'm sure others did too. So just to clarify, what you ARE saying is that if humans eat first it can help with dominance problems? Whereas if the dog eats first it won't be getting any worse or better? Not sure how that makes sense

This is the first thing that came to mind Glad you at least have this bloke on your side. If I were you I'd write your neighbour a letter detailing everything you've written here in regards to what you've done to try and appease them, including putting up with their daughter's behaviour (I know she can't help it, but you've been very understanding). I'd be handing a copy of it to the council as well.

My god, this reminds me of my stupid neighbour. She's been looking after her brother's dog for months now. I'm 99% certain he's a kelpie x bullterrier and he's in a small backgarden with not a lot of cover. I don't think she walks him enough although she swears he gets a walk everyday. He's always tied to a tree because otherwise he'll dissapear over the fence (what a surprise!) Every night she'd leave she'd leave for work at 11pm and the dog would bark constantly from then on until I practically passed out from exhaustion around 2am. I'd then have to get up at 5:45am to get to work by 7am. After the first week I yelled over the fence (when she was home) at 1am that it had to stop, then asked her again after 3 weeks. I even offered to walk him in the arvo when I get home from work but she declined. I didn't want to turn to the council, but after 2 MONTHS of her continuing to do nothing I finally filled out a diary the ranger made it stop overnight He was a lovely bloke who made me feel a lot better (although still sleep deprived) and whatever he said to her worked alright because I've barely heard a peep since. I'm not on the best of terms with my neighbour because of all of this, but she did mention something about containing him in the house when she was out and playing music which soothes him a lot. I don't think she takes the best of care of him, but he's always fed and has fresh water so I guess it could be worse.

I wouldn't be so sure....my bugger of a dog will be 2 in February and will still do it if he knows he can get away with it He was encouraged to do it as a pup and has just kept it up because it's fun. I'd be discouraging it as much as possible. If my boy starts biting at my feet I stop walking and completely ignore him until he stops. If it looks like he's going to start again I'll say "Ahh!" and then praise when he behaves himself. I also make sure to show him "approved" ways of playing that don't involve biting me

I've gone over this policy pretty thoroughly and there's no exclusions for breed related/genetic issues at all. I did check with them before signing up that they definitely cover HD and they confirmed that they do, however after this thread I'm going to have them put it in writing *just in case*.

This is the same reason I have for taking out insurance. HD treatments ain't cheap and I never want to be in the position where I have to consider putting my boy to sleep because I can't afford to treat him if he were to develop it. Same with the cats. panda - so sorry to hear about your ordeal. I hope you have some luck taking this further and it's made me look at Petplan in a new light! They do seem like every other insurance company out there though, as neos4life said it's like pulling teeth. It's just a lot more unpleasant when you're dealing with a loved family member.

This is very important. It means they don't need to cover anything they believe is caused by genetics which to me feels like a sneaky way of getting out of covering for a large variety of illnesses. Nearly every company I looked into would not cover my dog for hip dysplacia, which is one of the biggest reasons I wanted to get insurance. I'm with PetPlan for the dog and cats and they give a 10% discount for 3 or more animals. They will cover for any accident/illness up the policy amount (regardless of genetic issues) and so far have been really nice to deal with over the phone. I haven't made a claim though so can't comment on that side of things.

:D That's nasty. Closest I'd ever get to that is filling holes with dog poo to stop them getting any bigger, but pushing his head in there? No way in hell.

Thanks InspectorRex, I'll chat to the vet next time I'm up there. Right now he seems absolutely fine and I'm careful about exercise/jumping, but it would be nice to know for sure.

That's what I pretty much figured, thanks I am intending to have his hips x-rayed eventually, just haven't had the money lately.

Does anyone know if there is a certain age that HD is likely to occur by? My boy is a possible candidate, but he's 20 months old and all of his joints seem absolutely fine.

Wow, I never considered titles with obedience instructors. I've always looked to my instructor's dogs to see how they respond and to me it's always been a good indication of their ability & knowledge.

I agree. Dogs get caught up in the moment sometimes and will just follow their nose. Also I think that some dogs may consider their territory to be larger than their own backgarden so they're not technically runnning away if they're still on their "turf". My dog has escaped twice when he was at my parent's house...well, actually my dad most likely locked him out by accident First time he sat at the front door and looked Very Sad until I noticed and let him in, second time I found him having a sniff-fest in the drive way. This is a dog that tears apart his dog mat at home and digs holes for something to do, yet he's not interested in roaming. He seems secure and content in his backgarden and is happy to leave exploration until I take him for a walk. On the other hand my parents have a deerhound who only ever seemed interested in sleeping all day, until they found out she had timed escapes every day. She'd scale the fence when we'd all left for work/school and then be back in the garden before we all came home. It wasn't until the neighbours commented that we found out. In her case I think that she was just overwhelmingly curious about the world and incredibly independant so happy to explore on her own. No dog is perfect and I don't think escaping is about poor training. It's about individual temperaments and dog proofing fences over and over and over each time the buggers find a new way to get over/under/through them :cool:

Yikes Nekhbet, be careful what you advise when dealing with this stuff. Correcting a dog that's reacting like that to another dog could easily only aggravate it and even encourage an aggressive reaction. Also, the OP said there's not agression involved, but what if there is? Correcting a dog for aggression is a terrible idea that will only lead to further problems and potential heartbreak.

I can offer a little advice on this- my dog does this as well and if he starts fixating on another dog I work on redirecting him to gain his focus back. Clicker training has been helpful, but just making myself more interesting than the other dog does the trick too. I'll call him back in an excited way and do a little bit of a trot back in the other direction- the quicker movement grabs his focus. If he's really fixated he's more hesitant to come, but once he gets going I can turn him around again and he's a lot less interested in the other dog and more interested in what I'm going to do next.

I think this might be part of it and I'd offer to take her out for a good walk if I was in the same state My dog goes a little odd if he doesn't get a walk out in the real world for a couple of days, even if he gets a good workout in the backgarden. I think it's more about mental exercise than physical. Also, don't discount the fact that you've not been 100% physically- my boy turned into an total basket case (more so than usual) the week before and after I had my wisdom teeth out. He was nervous, overgrooming and a bit scattered even though I felt mostly ok. I'd imagine the change in schedule would be confusing for her too as dogs really like life to be predictable.

Hours? Hah! My boy is finished with a bone within 20 mins, sometimes less. He's also not much of a chewer so once the ends are off a bone he loses interest. I've got one of the double ended dental kongs and for the ultimate treat I plug one end with peanut butter, sprinkle in some liver treats, pack in a chicken neck and then add more peanut butter to plug the other end. To top it all off, I mix up some beef stock and (carefully!) pour it in to fill any gaps. It then goes in the freezer. Last time I made one he didn't touch it But usually it's a hit. I've also got a puppy kong for the cats- they get raw mince mixed with fresh cat nip and a bit of dry food :D

Your dogs are adorable shoemonster

I've been through a bit of trial and error with my dog so.... 2x chokers (one was too long) 1x martingale 1x flat collar 2x harnesses 1x 1.5 meter lead 1x 6 meter lead 1x snub lead 1x Gentle leader 1x Halti 1x Halti training lead Some of that has gone to a shelter now due to being the wrong size or completely useless (martingale and gentle leader) for him. The Halti training lead is, withouth a doubt, the best thing I've ever purchased for him. It's extremely versatile and I highly recommend it for anyone. It can be used as a long lead (2 metres-ish), short lead, double ended and a big bonus is that it can be secured around your waist for hand frees training or jogging. Brilliant!

1. teach "Off!" 2. be prepared to see Very Sad Face a lot EDIT: and I guess 3. praise for sitting in the right spot :D The hardest part about this is going to be seeing the sad slink back onto the bed accompanied by the sad brown eyes and the sad stare while they think sad thoughts about being moved to an inferior dog bed.

I started training my dog this way last night and it works great Here's a video of our progress so far after... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1880284739947191949 He's in a goofy mood today but it took no time at all to get him flopping onto his side and he's getting the hang of rolling over to the other now. He's managed to rollover back to the drop position twice now, but he hasn't quite twigged that he needs to do it this way every time to get the reward yet.

I don't mind him getting normal food for treats, however he's not keen on the smell of it pureed so it's no good in the squirt bottle and, as I discovered last night, he's shy about eating his dinner in front of me! I've never noticed before because I leave him be outside when he's eating dinner. Last night we did a training session using portions of his dinner and he flatly refused to eat each piece unless I went inside first. So...tonight we're breaking the routine because there's no way I'm letting him be stubborn about this I think it really all boils down to him just not being hungry enough, hence the fasting need.

I've been doing this the last 3 weeks, but I either haven't rationed him enough or he really doesn't want to work for food I'm also a little warey about how much "junk" he's getting in the form of treats, I can't imagine baby food is that bad, but I'd prefer that it doesn't make up too much of his diet. The pureed dog food was not appreciated too much either- whole it's fine, but all mixed together it smelt kind of strange. We're still fine tuning everything at the moment so I might look at rationing even more, we'll see how we go :D