Tilly

We were working on nose touch this morning ... and he was getting it within about 3 attempts. He is a very fast learner ... unfortunately if he doesn't quite get it right (didn't quite touch so didn't get the click/reward) ... he is resorting to circling the yard and then coming back to try again. Lets hope he is not associated the running around the yard in a circle as part of the nose touch. I must say it is the happiest I have seen him when it comes to training ... his tail is wagging and he looks happy. Even when he is working in drive he doesn't look like he is enjoying training.

This topic has probably been done to death but the search function never seems to work for me ... I am looking at enrolling my youngest into an obedience / agility class in April (next class starts then) ... but they use clicker training - something I am interested in learning more about but at this stage I don't know too much about it. I have spoken to the instructor and she gave me some links on u-tube so we could get started ... and I sort of understand the principles. I will probably end up going back and seeing them again this weekend. So rather then give my boy his bowl of mince/veges I have been getting him familiar with the clicker/reward process. I click, reward, click reward etc ... for the first couple of days he would sits intentently watching at me waiting for the click and reward. This morning I waiting a bit between the click / reward so he wanders off and paces around the yard ... when he returned to me I was clicking/rewarding. Then I noticed he started to repeat the process ... comes to me, gets his click/reward and then does a circle of the yard and returns for his click/reward and then circles the yard again. I have been working on his recall so I started calling him to me and was rewarding the coming to me. But where do we go from here ... Is there any good websites that can explain it in a step by step process for stupid people like me .... Some of the videos I have watched were a little confusing ... some clicked, the dog offered up a behaviour and then they clicked and rewarded. I thought the click was a reward for doing the right behaviour. How do I encourage/shape the required behaviours?

Thanks AMS - both dogs had explosive liquid poos for a couple of days but they were ok. I put it down to the fact they had some roo which can be a bit rich for them. I gave them some Inner Health plus and it cleared up quickly. Thanks Tiggy - they have had turkey necks recently. Maybe I am just worrying about nothing but I just have the little nagging feeling something is just not right ...

With the yoghurt - I just mix their extras with yoghurt and/or sardines and freeze this as well - my guys love is yoghurt ice blocks.

He has been in my care for over a week now - so I know he hasn't eaten anything yellow in colour. He appears "normal" as such but to be honest he hasn't really fully recovered from his illness in Nov 2008 and then his paralysis tick in Sept 2009. He tires easierly and doesn't seem as happy and playful as he used to be. We put some of this down to the new addition (the brat) which came into the family in May 2009 ... I was never fully convinced that his illness in Nov 2008 was fully due to a suspect prostate as the specialist implied - they haven't been able to give me a full explaination as to what happened. I was told that having him desexed would fix the issue but for him to still have issues urinating when confined for an length of time is a big concern to me. He has been given a clean bill of health by his local vet ... but I just have a nagging little voice in my head asking ... what if there is something we are missing.

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that our older GSD had yellow poop (he was away from home 5 out of 7 days). When I questioned my brother if he had eaten anything ... then only think he could think of was the curried egg sandwichs (who buys curried egg sandwiches for the dog and then complains about farting!!!!). I didn't think much more of it assuming it was something he was eating ... I have just done another poo scoop and found some more yellow poop ... now I know he hasn't been eating curried egg sandwiches (they are both fed raw) ... so being a little bored, I decided to google "yellow poop" ... and am now very worried!!! ;) Pancreatitis and Giardia were 2 things mentioned ... What are the symptoms? What tests are involved to rule them out? Now my older boy had issues with urinating and was eventually desexed with a suspect prostate ... but I was not convinced that was really the problem. The specialists didn't seem absolutely certain as to what the problem actually was. Even now if he is confined for any length of time (more then an hour) then he still has trouble urinating (comes out as a dribble and not a stream) - so he needs free access to outside area at all times so he can urinate as he wants. I am now wondering if his problems were not caused by the "suspect prostate" but are something else ...

Definately contact the breeder - the pup would have contracted parvo while with the breeder so the whole litter could be affected (particularly given it was showing signs of illness within 24 hours of arriving - it take 5 to 7 days for symptoms to show once contracted). Also agree with contacting the transport company as this puts other puppies at risk ... Fingers crossed that your little one pulls through. Parvo is a very nasty disease ;)

I will be taking my boy camping and I also feed raw. I was going to use dry ice and place wet towels on the top to keep the cold in ...

I was waiting for the "I have never had sexual relations with that man" ....

If I wasn't sure then I would take it the sample to the vet for them to look at (only because I wouldn't know what I was looking at). If it is worms ... then worm the whole family (skin and fur) just to be on the safe side.

My older boy just loves traffic cones. The first night my brother took him to work with him he disappeared for about 30 minutes ... and came back dragging the biggest traffic cone I have ever seen. We never knew where he got it from but he wouldn't give it up for anything. I remember walking him one night past some roadworks ... and having the road crew laughing at us - I turned back to see my boy trying to drag about 3 of them in his mouth. The guys gave him one which he proudly carried home. We have about 8 of them at home over the last 7 or so years ... and have only had one destroyed ... thanks to the youngest brat.

I believe they are only available in WA at the moment (little print at the bottom of the page) ... I feed by GSD's on Canine Country and raw bones such as rabbit, turkey, chicken, beef, fish and lamb etc. They have never been healthier and happier - it totally agrees with them.

Oh No ... I wasn't expecting that. ;) Run free Olympus ;)

Does anyone in Brisbane know where I can buy 20 to 30kg of good quality fresh chicken frames that have not been frozen into a 5kg block ... I don't like the idea of partially defrosting and refreezing raw chicken. Also - does anyone know where I can buy rabbit on the southside?

Our best dog ever was a rottie ... he was just as good as the GSD's in the chase, had a much harder hit (muzzle hit) and a fantastic bite. We have just gone off the rottie's and now got GSD's because it became more and more difficult to find good working rottie's.

Lots of jobs ... just not a lot of reputable companies

He is moving to sunny Queensland ... ...

He could have a blockage of some description .... poor baby - hope he is feeling better soon. It is times like this that we wish they could talk and tell us what is wrong...

I was feeding my GSD pup (now 10 months old) anywhere from 2 to 10% of his body weight. Some days he gets a big meal and other times he will get a lighter meal - it will depend on if he is going through a growth spurt and how his body weight/shape was going. He was putting on an average of 1.2 to 1.8kg per week. Even though he is on the very lean side (clearly see all his ribs) he is going to be a very big boy .... he is now 46kg. My boy is now down to 1 meal a day and he does small nugget size poops. Compared to what our older boy used to deposit in the back yard - the poops are much smaller on raw.

Rather then fencing the whole yard ... maybe a run would be a cheaper (until they can afford the whole fence).

Sorry - it isn't my dog ... I googled and found him but he is a very cute model

I think the Puppia Harness looks very cute ....

Our older GSD boy was desexed about 12+ month ago. Intially it increased his agression and work drive (excellent as he is a security dog) but then after a couple of months it has seemed to disappear. He will do his job but just doesn't have the same passion for it and much prefers to snooze in the back of the car rather then work. He has retired completely now as my brother has changed jobs. Can't say it is because of desexing ...

Our previous dogs have always been outside dogs. When we got our older GSD as a pup he naturally became an outside dog because our rottie was an outside dog. When we got our youngest GSD he was brough up inside the house and crate trained with the intention he would be allowed inside ... but he prefers being outside in the water and mud. Initally I worried about him being outside in a storm or something ... but he now has a lovely new kennel (which stayed nice and dry during a downpour over over 160mm) but where was the dog during this storm - out in the rain and playing in the mud. As long as they have access to good shelter, secure in a good fenced yard and they enjoy being outside it shouldn't be a problem ... If the dogs don't like being left outside and continually cry and bark then it might be an issue. How do they cope with the change?

When my older boy was sick (stopped urinating) we rushed him to emergency on a Friday night. After about 5 hours he was discharged and I took him home. Next morning he still wasn't ok so I took him to my local vet. He took one look at him, drained his bladder and said to get him back up to the hospital. When I took him back to the hospital they required a $400 deposit but because I had paid about $800 that morning the transaction wouldn't go through ($1,000 limit) - they wouldn't accept him until I could give them the $400 even though it was in my account I couldn't get the money out ... I ended up ringing around until I eventually got onto my mother (at the hairdressers) and she was able to pay over the phone on her credit card. He spent the weekend in their ICU unit where they took x-rays, ultra-sounds, blood tests and urine samples to grow bacteria ... and they still couldn't find anything wrong with him. When he was transferred to the specialists on the Monday where they operated and found a suspect prostate (despite previously being told his prostate was fine). He was desexed on the table and then spent another week in their wards where I had to visit him regularly so they could medicate him, attend to his dressing, feed him, walk him etc (he was getting really cranky by that stage). All up it cost over $4,600 and they couldn't positively tell me what was wrong with him. Now ... if he is confined for any length of time (more then an hour) and can't have free access to toileting then he has trouble urinating for days afterwards. The last time he was sick I had taken him to the vet for a suspected ear infection .... only to have him collapse within about 10 minutes of getting home. I rang the vet and told them he had collapsed and I couldn't pick him up to get him back to the vet. I check him for ticks, vet checked him for ticks, took blood samples and then diagnosed a middle ear infection which was affecting his balance - when asked if it could be a tick he said he wasn't displaying the normal symptoms for a tick so that was ruled out. Over the next couple of days he was going downhill - the vet kept telling me it was an inner ear infection and it would take about 3 days to start to get better. I took him to a second vet on the Sunday (with the help of a friend to lift him in and out of the car so I could get him to the vet) to have his bladder drained because he hadn't gone to the toilet since he had collapsed ... and during the consult we found a tick. He was immediately given the tick syrum and they wanted to hospitalise him - I refused because it was too stressful for him (and there wasn't someone with him 24/7 at that clinic so I would rather be with him incase anything were wrong). Within 2 days he was back from the brink and continued to improve. When I contacted the initial vet to let them know a tick had been found ... the comment was "we thought it would be a tick" WTF - if they suspected a tick why didn't they say so and we could have shaved him then and there to find it and not let him go on for another day or 2 when it could have been too late!!!! That couple of days cost just over $1,100 - I had to borrow money from a friend because I just didn't have that sort of money laying around. I did get comments from my mother about wasting that sort of money on the dog when I could be using it to pay off the house ... We did look at pet insurance but a lot require you to have the money upfront to pay the bills and then reclaim it back ... and then there is a lot of times when they don't pay out anyway. Problem is if you don't have the cash up front .... We do have a dog account with ING Direct where money is deposited regularly but that can still take 24hrs to come over into my other account. Thankfully we have a joint account used to pay household bills and the house repayments - and this used to have an extra 1,000 or so in it to get us through the initial payment.