B-Q

I don't know Nambour heaps well, only place I can think of off the top of my head is the showgrounds. We also have a footy field, 2 soccer feilds and an oval at Palmwoods. I don't know how they;d feel about having dogs there but we can always ask, its not fenced though.

I finally got Buster pretty good at loose leash walking. So it needs to be loose always, now I'm teaching him a more "formal" heel for when I need it and he's improving, so we'll do short bursts of it. Sometimes he can stop and sniff, particularily if he's in a situation where he would normally be a bit nervous or on edge, I like him to relax and smell the roses so I encourage that.

We're def interested. We went up to Noosa with Mac a few times and she's so switched on. It ended up being too far to get up there every week considering mum doesn't usually get home till 4:30-5 on weekdays, so dependsing on times and places. (aka. Nambour would be awesome) we'd love to start again. We had done a bit of training with her at home and after one lesson she'd worked out the box. Her biggest issue is getting her used to other dogs but once she's focusses, thats it.

no way, I'd still like to take BUster and he's creeping towards age 6 right now.

Evening, one meal a day. Somtimes a bone halfway through the day if I'm at home and he's bored

Very interested, would have to be my own room if I did make it because of Buster's DA. But at this stage depends on cost, transport and getting time off work.

I tried the stop and wait method with Buster for weeks and got pretty much nothing out of it, he's happy to stand and wait, or sit and wait at the end of his leash. What I found worked best was to start in the backyard, take a couple of steps and C&T after those couple of steps, slowlyincrease it till I could do several steps loose leash before a C&T Then once I could go anywhere in the backyard loose leash I opened the back gate, which made him more excited and we'd leave the gate open, going towards it as long as the leash stayed loose, turning away when it went tight, after about 3 days of twice daily sessions we had got out the gate. For a few more days every session started int eh backyard till he was fine walking all over the backyard and front yard loose leash. All the while clicking and treating every once in a while, after 6 steps maybe, or 12 or 20 or 4. Then we started the sessions going strait out the front door, this took about 5 days to build up to. We would practice on the nature strip up and down up and down, turning everytime he pulled and clicking every few steps when he was doing good. Buster gets more nervous as we get further from home (his comfort zone) so we had to slowly work on getting it through to him that loose leash means everywhere, not just where he is comfortable. It took about 2 weeks, twice or 3 times daily sessions to get him to the point where we were walking for a good length of time. I'm now incorporating a heel command into it (his offleash heel is lovley but onleash its not) using pretty much th same method. I can't believe how much its helped, he feels safer with me and more confident in me, which in turn has helped his DA substantially, he can walk past barking dogs only meteres from us on occasion and not pull on the leash. That said, its not 100% yet, he stills tests it sometimes but a quiet "back up" gets him to check himself. And, we've started jogging now, I wasn't able to do it with him before because he almost pulled me over, now we go everyday because he just runs along next to me.

Buster is 21kg, if he gets a frame he will probably only get one a day or 1 1/2 (cut in 1/4's because he's a sook and won't get into them) , he doesn't eat very much though and he generlaly gets under the 2-3% because he conserves all the enrgy he can. Mac is 11kg and we can easily feed her 2-3 a day, her metabolism is throught he roof and she is constantly on the go so she eats much more than Buster despite being half his size. Buster isn't mad on chicken frames in general though so I don't feed them very often.

Same thing has started happenign with Sophie. Walked intot he loungerrom the other night and there is just a random big dog poo on the ground. okay, weird, clean it up. Told mum the next morning and she said she'd found one in the kitchen a few days earlier. A few days after that she said it was Sophie, she saw her lying in the loungeroom with her "teapot tail" where she curls it under herself so its almsot like a handle lol and there was poo coming out, she said her name, Sophie stood up and it just sucked back in (gross) And her hearing is going... and she's getting sore again (needs more catrophen) off to the vet time.

Okay, she's off to the vet next week to have a couple of other things checked out aswell so I'll bring it up. It didn't really start with winter but the cold hasn't helped, despite the fact she's been in her coat pretty much the entire time, can barely get it off her. We try to keep her weight pretty low because her back end is pretty poor but she looks just a bit too thin atm. thankyou

Sophie's just turned 11, its been getting harder and harder to keep weight on her for a while now but its getting rediculous, even on 2 feeds a day I can still see some of her backbone, I hate it. And not small feeds, she probably eats eqivalent to 4-6 chicken frames a day. Atm she's mainly on chicken because its cheap and we're not really rolling in it atm, but I'm working atm and could buy some extra if it will help bulk her out. When I cut the fat off meats for the boys, I feed it straight to her and we brought some of those bones from the supermarket that look like they're just fat and bone. What is there that is more high calorie that might help? She's a boxer/bull arab/whatever mix, 11 years old, not desexed, used to weigh about 42kg when she was young, now she varies from 32when at her worst but we usually can keep her around 36kg

Buster got into a bag of it a few months ago that was left in the garage. I don't know how much he ate but I never saw a change in anything because of it. He's fine.

RIP Charlie Always though he looked like such a gentleman in yout avatar Alix. Run fast at the rainbow bridge Charlie

sounds good. Is it goign to be on the goldcoast or further up?

Thanks. He's my first actual dog, he's 5 now and its the first time we've passed another dog since he was very younh that I havn't had to pull him away from. Definetly makes in all worth while when you start seeing results.

Today I was out walking Buster, I've been working really hard on getting his leash manners better and today it paid off. Buster has very severe DA when onleash and today we were out walking, and came across a dog standing outside its house. He looked at it and kept his manners (usually he is zoned out and gone as soon as he see's another dog) we were on the footpath, I saw it and kept going. Then it started yapping and ran at us. I turned around said "no" to it in my meanie voice because I didn't think for a second Buster wouldn't react. Just as I said it Buster had started lunging, when he heard it he just dropped back to heel and kept walking, keeping an eye on it but behaving himself, no hackles, no whining, growling, snarly or carry on. It was just accidental perfect timeing that I caught him at that exact moment when he started to go... and he listened. Even better, he didn't loose it afterwards. Usually after we pass a dog he's so on edge it take a while for him to calm down and get back to me. Today he was fine straight away. As soon as we passed the dog it was out of his mind and we continued on. I couldn't be any more proud of him today, I know we arn't anywhere near done yet but its a step in the right direction.

I was going to sugghest this vid aswell. Buster has nearly alll black nails (2 are white) and he's behaves very well but I am still looking at tracking down a dremel, much easier and won't leave those painful sharp ends

would it be worth strarting cartrophen this early? We use it with Sophie and give her a top up every few months once she starts loosing her vigour and it does wonders, tried it with Harry and had about zero change o didn't try again

Thanks

Didn't want to hi-jack the other thread so thought I would start this one. As some of you know, Buster has mild HD on one side. I have him on glucosimine daily, gonna grab some fish oil and add that to his diet aswell. He's 5 and a half now and it doesn't really cause him any issues other than that he has never sat normally and occasionally he'll get a limp on it lasting anywhere from 5 minutes to a few hours and sometimes its very noticeable till one night last year I ended up carrying him to bed because he didn't want to get up, morning he was fine. Also a good chance he wouldve limped off to bed on his own but I took the chance to baby him for a second. Wondering what else I might be able to give him to help him in the long term, not anything like painkillers, just maybe something that will help him strengthen up and to give him the best headstart I can before he ages and things get hard. This time round we just grabbed a tub of glucosimine capsules, any specific brand I shoudl go for next time, or with fish oil, any specific brand I shoudl look out for? And what other excercises can I do with him to help keep good muscle tone on his legs, I toned down his jumping in the backyard, we don't do it as much or as high as we used to, the vet said with Harry to trot him through shallow water to teach him to lift his legs instead of just swining them around, Harry's HD is severe but I imagine this would work for Buster aswell? Anything else And the last question, anything imparticular that I maybe shoudl consider with his diet. Now he eats a small amount of dry (usually Orijen but I'm out atm) and raw.

I'd check with a vet, we noticed stiffness in Harry's hind end when he was about 1 just after we moved here, found a tick on him and rushed him to the vets wondering if it was paralyses, they showed us what to look for in future and the vet said his hips felt weird, have him checked for HD, we did and it was very severe. Buster is 5 and a half now, in Feb I decided to get the chiro vet to have a feel of his hips and check him out as he has alway sat funny and does get limpy on one side after a long sleep, he has mild HD on his right side. Now I look at it and I can feel that the other side has a lot more muscle. Both boys are on glucosomine now, Hopefully atleast with Buster, because I caught it early I can keep him more comfortable as he gets older, both boys are ACD mixes (well Buster might be Stumpy Tail mix but who knows) BTW Harry has very much got a J-LO butt, its his best asset.

Our behavioursit also suggsted turning the boys over to vets all natural and reducing their meat due to their agression issues. We havn't done it, mainly because it's one thing I'm not really comfortable with. I want to see what changes we can make with training first. It was a big argument to get my mum to even see a behaviourist, now after one session it's being hard to get her to follow up on much, I can't understand why'd she pay the money and not even give it a go. It's helped with Buster a lot though, I've been paying a lot more attention to his stays now and he's getting great at it, along with other things I can see him improving.

Would be very interesetf for Mac, depends on transport is all but would be great I imagine

Buster in the presence of other dogs, controlling himself and not trying to eat them all.

Also remember, if she's part working kelpie, their size can range drastically. Her kelpie parents might have only been quite small.