Asalei

Thanks mtg, have you had an animal treated there before? Thanks TB, so he got it stitched back in and has dry eye as a result? I've heard that if you get it cut out, you have issues with dry eye.

We've booked her in with the Brisbane Vetinary Specialist Clinic (BVSC) over at albany creek for next Thursday. I hope everything goes well. I've been speaking to a few vets and this place, whilst not the cheapest, made me feel comfortable.

Thanks for your responses everyone, we've resigned ourselves to the fact that the operation needs to be done and we'll be hopefully getting it done next week. From everything that I've read and heard and been advised by multiple vets, the operation is the way to go and there are more successful stories, than not so I don't think we have an option. Leaving it will affect her in time.. doing the operation at least gives her a chance to have it fixed and have no problems in the future. It's amazing the different prices that places charge, specialist are obviously more expensive.. and call me stupid but I think I'd feel more comfortable going through a specialist that does this all the time, than a vet that has done it a few times. I'll update you on her progress.

Just wondering also if it would be worth our while massaging the gland back in and putting a patch over her eye for say 48 hours... Would this help it not pop out and maybe keep it in place...

Thanks Scarlet, I'll pm her.

Just wondering if anyone knows of an Animal Eye Specialist in the Brisbane area? Our little girls needs her cherry eye fixed and we've been advised to take her to an eye specialist to have the operation performed. It doesn't look like the problem is going to fix itself with cortisone cream and time, so we are going to have to have the operation performed. Does anyone on this forum have experience with cherry eye? The vet has advised that it's not something that needs to be preformed straight away, we could even leave it a few weeks to try and correct itself by itself, but he said it's more than likely not going to happen. Our situation is that we are getting married in 3 weeks and can't really afford the expense of the surgery right now. BUT, if it means she's in pain and it's aggrivating her, I'm very willing to give up things at my wedding to let her have the surgery. Has anyone had experience with cherry eye, and more specifically the operation side of things where they relocate the gland and suture it in? Thanks in advance.. I just don't want my baby in pain :D

Can you use both sentinel and advantage together? Our puppies are on sentinel and we've just noticed some HUGE fleas running around on them and they are scratching a bit. We've never had a flea problem before, so I can only gather this is from the doggy parks we've been to the last two weeks. Are we able to treat/kill the adult fleas that are currently on them by using advantage, and let the sentinel take care of no eggs being laid?

LOL, I love the look on his face "wtf are you doing, I'm trying to sleep!".. Soo cute

HTGR - when we bought our 8 week old beagles home, they ate all their food the first morning and then after that, they wouldn't eat much. We were lucky if they were getting 2 mouth fulls. I phoned the vet and they said that as long as they were drinking water (which they were doing a lot!) they would be fine and that they would eat when they were hungry. They've slowly eaten more over time, but still don't eat a full meal when it's placed in front of them. Maybe she's just not a big eater? We stayed on the same diet as the breeder had been using so it wasn't a change of food that stopped them from eating.

Shel: our girls go every ever on a walk, get home and crash on the lounge. Then about 10 minutes later they up and running up and down the hallway and attacking each other. I wish I could have a ten minute break and have all that energy again!

The vets always say how healthy they are and it's a good weight. I'm actually hoping they dont get much bigger! They are just the right weight at the moment to carry and be a lap dog! I'm actually wondering whether it's a beagle x?

Wow 15kg! I must be way under feeding my beagle pups, they are 6 months old and only 8kg's each. Maybe I'm not feeding them enough? We've been walking our girls and taking them on outings since they were 12 weeks old. It's only in the past 4 weeks we've been regularly walking them every weekday morning for about 3km's (they were nearly 5 months when we started walking them). ATM they are having a rest as they've just been desexed.

We found our puppies weren't eating when we were giving them the food, so we decided to cut it down to 2 meals but give them more. This seems to have made them interested in the two meals more than just eating a few mouth fulls and walking away. They haven't been big eaters since we bought them home, so we just gather they are getting enough that they need. I feed them a cup in the morning, a cup when we get home around 5:30ish, then a chicken wing at night. I can't miss the chicken wing, otherwise I'll know about it! ETA, helps if I put a age, they would have been 20 weeks when we decided to stop feeding them three meals a day. They are now nearly 24 weeks old.

Sally does this as well, especially if we walk into the vets or something and there's another dog she wants to say hello to. It's quite embarrasing when it happens in such a public place! But I know she can't help it. So much better to meet new people on grass, then no one notices ;)

Robyn, we didn't go I felt so guilty sitting there knowing we were wasteing money. With every tick of the clock, I just saw a $ sign. OH really refused to go after reading things I'd been PM'd (not saying this is a bad way, I thank everyone that's pm'd me, it just opened his eyes a little bit). Then later that night reading this thread. He's going to try and ring the guy tonight and see how far he can get. I said that he might have one of those "women are are inferior" style attitudes and might negoitiate with a male better. I'm trying to get OH to come out to your club tonight, but this experience has kinda of scared him. I said this one sounds totally different and thats what tonight is about, going and seeing what their style is like.. which we know we should do now! I did ring that number you gave me, and left a message.. but I haven't received a return phone call. Do we need to let them know if we are coming out?

PAX, if only I'd known/thought about that 2 weeks ago.. Trust me, I'm kicking myself... literally!

I was just reading in that thread about what's your definition of obedience... and I guess what I've been trying to say this whole time is we want some socially acceptable dogs, that are still allowed to be puppies when they want. Not ones that are going to compete and have titles and championship status, or quals in a certain area.

He actually made reference to being in the industry for 20 years and knows his stuff on how to train dogs.. I'm not saying this is any way other than being observant the other night, but there were mainly GSD and Labs there... Maybe this is his area of expertise? :S Who knows.. I wonder if those 20 years if they've ever trained a beagle? ... I have a feeling we are just going to have to walk away... That's right, we were taught this at puppy school, using treats is a great way to teach a dog to do something, but you need to not let them rely on it. To teach them what we have, we used to give it to them everytime they did it in the beginning.. now if we ask them to do something, they are lucky if they get a treat every 5th or 6th time. IF we are showing someone their great new tricks, we use treats to ensure they do it though Well, whilst strategically stalling him last night on the phone and at my OH, I had him look up "what rights to a refund" and unfortunately, the answer came up unanomously that if we simply change our mind, there's no refund. I tried this line of attack saying we signed nothing or weren't given any terms and conditions, and he advised that they don't do that, it's just common knowledge that they dont give refunds unless a dog or owner is terminally ill. Maybe I should have made up a sob story that one of them was sick? :S (*touches wood they aren't*) He reckons we haven't given it a go though... He reckons after one nights training, you can't say that it's not going to work or what ever. Which I agree with.. it wasn't that the training method wasn't going to work over time, it was the fact that the style of training I don't think suits our needs. Unfortunately I didn't question this when we booked in.. Just assumed that everyone had swapped over to the new era style of training with treats. We want to keep our puppies as happy as we can, not them looking at us constantly for commands and doing things when we aren't even talking to them! As it is, we miss next weeks training because they are getting desexed and can't participate.. If they go well tonight, we thought we'd go next week and just observe so we know what to do. But I can't see that happening. OH really isn't interested in doing it with this company. He said that we should maybe just put it off and hold the credit with them. I reminded him that it's not going to change the way they do their training, it's always going to be the same... I'll update everyone tonight on how they go. We've been using the check chains whilst walking them in the mornings and experienced a huge change in the way they walk.

Well, I came home and phoned him all confident. He advised that they don't give refunds or anything. So, we either attend and use the training for good and take out what we want... or we loose the whole $320 we paid. I told him that the training seemed a bit too full on for us and we didn't want that high level of obedience for our dogs.. We just wanted them to walk beside us nicely and stay when seated. We have decided to go tomorrow night, see how they go... if they have improved a little and the class is shortened (he promised me they would be shorter), we mose well just stay and get out of it what we can. He told me that if we chose a life of treat rewarding, we'd be stuck when they go to the point of refusing a treat and wouldn't listen to our commands.

Thanks Luke, I didn't really know how to approach. And the way I see it is he can't refuse a refund as we haven't signed or seen any type of paperwork that states no refunds. I know I have to forceful, but it's just not in my nature, I'll try my hardest though!

Well I went home on Friday night and talked it over with the OH and we really feel that we shouldn't be going back. The puppies aren't going to learn and the guy is too forceful for our liking. Unfortunately OH doesn't want to ring up and request the money back. I told him to do it as he may be oen of these people who has no respect for women and will listen to a male. But he doesn't want to. *I* don't want to either, but I don't just want to walk away from $250 that we are entitled to. So, today around lunch, or this afternoon, I'm going to try and grow some balls and not let him talk me into returning like he did the other day. I'm going to say that we've talked it over and we think it would be best for us and the puppies if we give it a miss at this point in time and request a refund for the time we haven't used. We've tried to do the training with the girls and they just don't seem to be picking it up with voice commands. At the moment, the only command they'll do by voice is sit. Sometimes they'll even drop when asked to sit (though they aren't rewarded for that, becuase that's not what we asked). Wish me luck! Hopefully wednesday night we'll see you MrsD

Robyn, yeah, I meant way back when when I was looking for an obedience place. OH and I had decided we would come out to the club that you suggested, but with this guy not really willing to give our money back, or giving us the option of either continuing or pulling out.. doesn't really help. $320 is a lot for us to spend and we had hoped we'd get the most out of it... I don't think I can just walk away and leave them with the money with us getting nothing for it I just wish I had of looked more thoroughly into different clubs. Kavik, as per what I've said to MrsD above, unfortunately we seemed to have paid quite a substantial amount for the training and I don't think I could just walk away and leave that amount of money with them and us get nothing... I might try getting OH to ring him and ask for the money back. I'd really prefer to go somewhere that caters for smaller puppies and their needs, rather than just a broad range of things. I kinda feel that now I've said something to him about the time the class went for and the attitude of the instructor, that we'll now be treated differently due to our concerns :S

I spoke to the guy .. and because I'm a softy and don't stand up for myself, he told us to come back next week as the first week is normally very daunting. I expressed my concern for the length of time the class went for and said that maybe we should participate in an hour of the class and observe the rest as the girls got way to tired. I said that the instructor kept advising me to make my dog stand/sit. But she was seriously too tired to do anything but lie down. I would pull her up to a sitting position and she would just collapse back down and curl up to go to sleep. He told me we need to perservere with it and see how we go next week. Do the training at home and see how they go. He told me not to use treats as they won't learn this way, they need to learn from the tone of your voice. He didn't give us an option to pull out either. I was trying to push for it, but he just wouldn't allow it. Just kept telling us to keep going and do the training and see how we go. Also advised us that we should be walking them on a check chain to train them how to walk. We should also not be letting them sniff the ground.. Question is.. HOW THE HELL DO YOU STOP A SCENT HOUND FROM SNIFFING THE GROUND FFS!? *sigh* I guess we'll just go next week and see how far we get this week. The week after we won't be able to attend as the girls are getting fixed up. I so wish I had of gone and observed them first before paying up I just looked for obedience training in the yellow pages and rang a few companies. I guess thats where I went wrong and I wasn't registered here yet. Guess I'm stuck hey :S

Lengthy replies are good, that means I'm learning something Initially we wanted our girls to attend obedience just so they would walk nicely beside us on lead and to sit and stay when asked.. Plus just have that general obedience and knowing that we say the commands and they listen. This was wanted because we really want them to participate in our wedding and we feel the way they are at the moment with their attitudes (puppy attitudes), they won't be able to. It's still 10 weeks away, so it is feesable to be able to teach them stuff, I just need to know how. I didn't take your post as a personal attack at all! Just you letting me know what we need to do. We know our girls respond very well to reward based training as that's what's worked in the past.. so maybe we need to find a club or learn techniques ourselves and use that form of training. I just wish I was home more during the day to be able to teach them. Thanks for your response luke dixon.

Just a question with the check chains.. Should we be using them when we go for our walks in the morning to teach them to heel? I'm against it because we were told they were just for training.. but we came home today and my hand was sore from pulling her back to heel all the time and her pulling forward. Should we be using the check chains when walking to teach them to heel on a proper walk?