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Everything posted by B-Q
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Just A Heads Up. They're Back! It's Snake Season Again
B-Q replied to LizT's topic in General Dog Discussion
We've already had a big python inthe paddocks, a smaller one in the house and a 5ft brown in the backyard yesterday. that's all in the last 2 weeks. not looking forward to this summer. -
Wrong thread! Whoops. lol
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This is getting seriously terrifying. Is there any sort of org to get behind that are fighting this and speaking out? like the EDBA or something?
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What a ridiculous comment - the dog was under control and was (in its mind) rushed by an out of control rude little dog. That is not a friendly advance. As the OP has already pointed out the right thing to do would have been to have her dog under control in the first place. Well, I don't know, in the interests of avoiding injury I think if I had a dog that was likely to respond to being approached with uninhibited bites, I would muzzle it in public. I don't need another dog or human being injured on my conscience, thanks, regardless of whether I was the one in the right or not. Snapping is another matter. If a dog doesn't intend to cause damage they won't. See, Buster is very DA. Because of this he is ALWAYS onleash. If approached by another dog then he's going to try to grab it. I refuse to muzzle him because I've run into plenty of loose dogs in his lifetime and his reaction in a muzzle would be the same if he didn't have it. I keep him under control and with me at all times, I won't place him in danger of not being able to defend himself should another dog thats in the wrong approaches him. To the OP, I'm sorry this happened. its always distressing when things like this happen. I usually go for the collar and try to choke them off. Havn't been in the situation to use the wheelbarrow technique.
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Looks like fun. I wanted to go but Quinn is just coming out of her heat so I took a shift at work. Probably not the best place to take her till I get her past her movement reactivity anyway. lol Feel like everythings falling on a bad day atm, Woofstock nest sunday and I'm doing the Bridge to Brisbane then have a friends baby shower on, then I have my prac fall on the Nambour Pet Expo in a couple more weeks. Very annoying.
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I was thinking about this just the other day actually. Why people think we should have pitbulls because "why would someone want that when there are "better" breeds?" There are lots of breeds that don't appeal to me, spitz breeds, scent founds and terrier come to mind staright up. There are mountains of breeds that I don't see the appeal but that people that have them adore them, so I think its good that I recognise these breeds arn't for me and stick with the breeds that do. I'm sure there are plenty of people that think having a working Border Collie as a pet is ridiculous but I can't imagine a better dog to share my life with.
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I have the opposite problem, I love sharing the bed and starting about 3 months ago Quinn flat out refuses to sleep on my bed. She'll get in when I'm not there but as soon as I come in and star getting ready she hops off and goes to her crate. Atleast Buster still likes to sleep with his head on the pillows so I don't feel too rejected.
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We don't have small dogs, all are 12kg+ but are indoor/outdoor dogs. When growing up we always had intact females, until we got Buster and decided to desex him to save any accidents. Now we have buster (8yrs old desexed male) Mac (5 year old intact female) and Quinn (15 month old intact female) Quinn will be desexed at around 2 years old when I know she is fully grown and matured. I plan on training her as a sports dog so want her to be as well constructed as possible but seeing as I will never breed her and she's an active Border Collie I don't really want to deal with messy heat, keeping her locked up for a few weeks and missing training/future comps for her menstrual cycle. My next dog will likely be male and if the breeder gives me a choice I'd probably prefer to keep him intact.
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There has been a fair bit of publicity about dogs in cafe's on the sunny coast the last year or so. http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/story/2010/09/28/2000-join-call-for-dogs-to-be-allowed-at-cafes/ http://www.hinterlandtimes.com.au/2010/09/02/coffee-with-your-canine/ Everytime I go down to Mooloolaba I see dogs sitting under cafe tables all over the place. I've always been surprised by how dog friendly it seems given all the recent contreversy. Even in the village I live in there are often people with their dogs with them outside the cafe.
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Our lot are a bit like that with new puppies. Buster isn't overly tolerant of puppies antics at first, he is firm but pretty fair. He is 7 when I got Quinn and they were sharing my bed by night 2. Not that Buster was happy about that. Mac (my sisters 5 year old terrier mix with no social skills) took quite a bit longer to get used to new puppy, its the first puppy we'd ever introduced to her and she really didn't understand. The first few weeks she would leave everytime Quinn approached her, slowly she learned to play with her - "So you play bow and I ... roll on top of you?" until they eventually worked out some games for both of them and now they play constantly. None of our three are particularily close, none of them snuggle with each other but they are all very tolerant of one another.
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That is a good point SpotTheDog however I'd hope most people on here would have a basic understanding of dogs and see this for what it really is, strong, agile, versatile and trainable.
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IMO there arn't a lot of breeds that compare to a well bred American Pit Bull Terrier. If the breeding/importation ban is ever lifted I'd love to have a really nicely bred one if I thought I could deal with the DA. They arn't the same as similar breeds and they definetly arn't for everyone. I suggest watching this video, it gives me shivers and makes me want to cry everytime. If someone told me they were going to ban all Border Collie/Border Collie type dogs I don't know what I'd do. This is my breed, I am passionate about them and they work for me, you don't ever have to have a pitbull but they are an old breed with a rich history and up untill recently they were adored by the public. I can't imagine what we would loose with them.
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This is why this is a seperate thread, as a dog forum ofcourse we are going to discuss the BSL issues that will arise from this. DNA breed testing is mostly bullcrap, you can't determine heritage without registration. BSL is a really nice bandaid solution that hides the problem and doesn't fix it. I'm livid with some of the comments made in this thread. I hate to think how many attacks/deaths (of dogs and people) could be prevented if people A. Didn't BYB crap B. Researched dogs in general and what breed they are taking on and C. Understand the basics of socialisation, training and dog behaviour. Banning breeds doesn't fix shit.
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Oh god this makes me so sad. I don't know how you get it through to people! Honestly, the amount of good quality, actually purebred APBT's left in Australia would be so small that I don't think you can be blaming the breed at all. Most of these "pit bull" attacks are probably nothing more than some poorly bred, BYB bully type that someone got because they wanted a "pit bull" without relising what sort of dog this is or the responsibilities that come with owning one. My mum always talked about owning a bully breed and having to think ahead for them, they are great dogs but they live very much in the moment and you have to protect them from themselves to a certain degree. Australians are wildley uneducated in dogs, why can't we relise its got more to do with this than X - Breed.
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Oh man! ^^ JELOUS!
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lol! Nah, Quinn prefers to save the room for her tounge to hang out of the side of her mouth (never out the front) I'm atleast glad I found out that it is just motion reactivity now, when it first popped up I had never seen anything like it, didn't really knwo what or why she was reacting or anything. It was surprisingly hard to find info on how to deal with it and I feel so relieved every single time I meet someone that has come across the same issues. She was good at agility last night but had a huge flip out at the frisbee dog demo they did at the end of the night, couldn't expect her to handle that at this stage though.
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possibly, but they are only likely to be wearing her out if you are asking for too much at a time & your reinforcement rate is not high enough. People often think their dog is worn out, only to find they have a heap of energy left to chase a ball or play with other dogs. Means your reward history is not strong enough. Try to be a bit more unpredictable with your rewards & break things down more. Do you crate her between runs? Putting her away when she's wanting more will help her come out fresh for each run. She is crated between runs but she's slow even when she comes out. She listens and does as asked but there isn't any spring in her step. Not like Tues nights, on Tuesdays I have to enforce downtime for her or I think she'd work the entire hour. I could definetly start mixing up when she gets the reward more though, now that she's playing tug more enthusiastically I can hopefully amp her up more if she knows thats coming. I was really happy with her tonight, first time ever over a low A-Frame and Dogwalk and it was all I could do to keep reminding her she was getting treats just for BEING on it and she didn't have to go right to the end straight away. She only reacted at running dogs a few times, most of them she recovered quickly from but the dog doing a frisbee demo at the end of the night sent her way over the edge. We'll get there though, it was only 6 months ago that a single dog playing a single game of tug 200m away would have her lunging, barking and being a general lunatic and now she can be in the vicinity of multiple tugging dogs like its no big deal. And have another agility class running only 30 metre away with multiple dogs doing different obstacles and its no big deal.
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Thanks Vickie. I try to make sure I'm using a toy when I can. She loves her food but is more driven for her toy. At the same time though she takes food easier than she plays if distracted so I have to remind myself not to fall back on it because its easy, she is improving with playing tug and keeping engaged with me. Thanks for the advice. I think the sequences are probably too long for her at the moment, they're good to make me think but I think the fact that she gets soo mentally pushed there every week might be wearing her out a bit.
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I'm wondering about Quinn's motivation level. We train twice a week, once at a real agility club. We're in beginners and still working onleash due to her movement reactivity, she's very motivated when training here but its not very challenging stuff. On Sundays we train close to home, a couple of the same instructors from the club run some extra practices, the idea is to give normal dog people a taste of agility and provide an extra practice for anyone that really wants to learn. On Tuesdays we are just working on basics, start line stays, looking down the line, 2o2o, weaves etc. On Sundays we parctice more sequencing and I find it tends to be more about me learning about handling. On Tuesdays, Quinn's motivation level is high, she works really hard and fast. If it wasn't for the odd reaction I'd be happy with her offleash as she's quiet focussed on me. On Sundays she's started to seem more distracted and docile, because there isn't as much going on I can have her offleash but she seems to get more easily distracted, she runs slowly and just seems to be going through the motions and not really enjoying herself like I know she could. I can think of a couple of reasons. 1. Its hard work for her, my handling is dodgy and confusing at best. She's more intune with me than I thought and if I'm not relaly thinking about my body it sends her off. 2. I'm concentrating so hard on my mechanics that its boring for her. I had to remind myself to get silly and amp her up and it did seem to make a difference last week. So during the week I played a lot of Ready, set, go! with her which she picked up on quickly and loves. And at training on Sunday she was ust flat, she did everything I asked of her but seemed bored with it. On the positive side she did play a good game of tug at the end. So, might it be because in that class I'm moving too fast for her? Could it be that she doesn't have enough value for the equipment? Should I not be worried about her being slow at this stage? Will she speed up as her understanding gets better?
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Congrats on the great runs Sheena! I'm lucky, all the instructors from both places I train understand Quinn's issues and fully support the LAT game for dealing with her reactivity. They are also sure to make sure her and I have as much downtime as we need and as much time off playing as we need. They're very understanding.