poodlefan

Wouldn't that confused them as to where they are in the pack? Why? The fact that I dictate the pace and they don't pull suggests to me that they know who's in charge on a walk. I like that I can see where they are without breaking my neck to look. As they are all below my knee height, it sure beats falling over them.

For informal 'exercise' walking, I don't care where my dogs are as long as they don't pull on the lead. Generally they are in front of me. For a controlled or 'heel' postion, I'd like to see the dog's head by my LEFT (not right as in the linky) hand side level with my left leg. Personally I think that dog's check chain is too long but I don't walk my dogs on one anyway.

Zhenjie: Why do you want him to eat if he isn't hungry? Most of the daily recommended amounts on dog food packets are far in excess of what a dog needs. If you ditch the dry food, you'll need to do your homework about home prepared diets. A meat based diet with no bone will leave your dog calcium deficient. You want to grow your puppy as slowly and as long as possible. That said, at 6 months he's not going to get much taller. Given his size, I wouldn't have thought he'd need to be much heavier either. Can you feel his ribs with the flat of your hand?

Are you teaching it over jumps? Is your dog spinning on the take off or landing side of the jump?

Dogs like most animals don't grow out of behaviours they find rewarding or at least not aversive. Don't rely on the assumption that puppy will "grow out of it". As Cosmolo has pointed out, plenty of dogs DON'T. Playful mouthing by a baby puppy and the same dog mouthing you with no bite inhibtion, adult teeth and an adult jaw is no joke. Did you read the web link I posted?

Sorry about the barking! That was Atlas, wanted to play with his girl, not let Kaos have all the fun Something else that i thought of, she has never met another dog in HER house, could she have more confidence because this is her place? Possibly, but the puppies behaviour is very non-threatening IMO. She also can't really get in Kao's space in a crate. It's Kaos who's controlling the interaction.

Sure looks like play behaviour to me. Oh, and thanks for no warning about the barking.. it set my dogs off watching that video!! Fear aggression may not extend to all dogs. Clearly this pup is not a threat to her, especially while crated. Things might be different outside the crate though.

Are you sure he's a Lab? Sorry, back to the questions. How old is Cookie? Have you taken him to the vet for a general wellness check. Sometimes things like sore teeth or illness can really impact on appetite. I'd be ruling those out before tackling diet. What does Cookie think of food like roast chicken, cheese etc? Is he fussy or off ALL food?

Gerda, I suggest you read the puppy raising sections of the training textbook here. You'll find plenty of good advice from folk who've helped people raise thousands of puppies. Both you and the pup would benefit from a decent puppy school. If you post your location, you might get some good recommendations.

Only unfiltered sunlight assists with Vitamin D production. Window glass filters UV light.

I'd be adding healthy doses of Vitamin C to your dog's diet.

Can anyone elaborate on the best ways to go about training a dog not to pull? If that's not too much !!! In a nutshell, by never allowing pulling to be rewarded (eg by not allowing the dog to go in the direction it pulls), by rewarding a loose lead OR (and not the method I'd recommend) by correcting a tight lead. However a lengthy written explanation would be no substitute for some hands on training. Most folk can get the gist of how to avoid a pulling dog in a few minutes at a face to face lesson. The challenge for a dog that already pulls is to undo what the dog has learned. It goes without saying however that consistency is the key - if you allow your dog to pull at all, you'll have great difficulty avoiding this behaviour.

Oster do a series of breed specific grooming videos - they might be more useful in terms of how to do it than books. Breed threads here have a heap of pics of breeds in various clips too. ETA: Forgot to add, Shirley Kalstone's book is the bible of poodle grooming for most folks. I used to do my dogs with it propped open in front of me and follow the steps. I gave you the link for it at Dymocks.

Both have their uses. The ideal solution to your problem is to train your dog NOT to pull. That way you can walk her on a flat collar and lead and not have to worry about a harness rubbing her coat and her skin under her front legs.

I won't argue against the point that it IS more labour intensive to feed raw than to open a can of crap canned food or to scoop some kibble into the bowl. For me it's not about how easy it is to feed my dogs but about what's best for them. The studies are starting to show the advantages of feeding a balanced raw diet. I only have to look at my dogs to see it. Not all dogs will do well on a raw diet diet, nor will all owners agree what's best in a raw diet. There's more than one way to feed a dog well. Why make "the best diet" some kind of competition.

You could try Bitter Apple spray. If it deters poodles from chewing each others coats, it may work on other sorts of dog coat.

There have been some recent pairs runs turn into uncontrollable zoomies here (and they weren't novice dogs).. even the judge was laughing.

Tassie: But if you're having a bad day, you're generally providing excellent entertainment for your fellow competitors. Strategic pairs is a lot of fun as a handler but even better as a spectator I reckon - especially when it goes wrong.

Princess Lil loves Dynamic Lifter. You can eat it AND roll in it. As it comes pelletised, it must be for dogs right? ;)

yep, far too many unfortunately. I would add "too old" to that list. Ah yes. I've asked before whether judges can excuse a dog they consider to be unfit to compete - they should do it. It's hard to watch an old or unsound dog giving it's all to its owner but falling short of the owners expectations. On the other hand, Veterans at Dapto was a scream.. Your dog has to be retired to compete. The oldies charged (at varying degrees of pace) around a very short course over teeny jumps and lowered contacts (no see saw, no tire, spread or broad and no weavers) to great applause and clearly very pleased with themselves. At the pace Ted went, he'd have better time than when he was competing. The competion was heavily biased in favour of the oldest dogs (I think a 15 year old won it ) although all the dogs won a prize.. Give me another 5 years and Big Ted will be a serious contender. He had a ball.

Dogs who are fat, unfit or unsound don't tend to be having "fun" either Vickie. And you do see them in some trialling rings. We get a lot of the "but I just want to have fun with him" arguments when we fail dogs at the fitness test. I make a point of telling owners that asking a dog to do things he's not fit for isn't any fun for the dog in the long run.

Barb, we get the "but I just want to have fun with my dog" argument too. At CDC we say "that's fine but that doesn't mean that instructors shouldn't insist on same standard of performance from you and your dog.. whether you ever set foot in a ring is up to you". We're not in the business of setting up equipment and providing an instructor so that people can just run their dogs over obstacles as they see fit. We insist on the same standards of fitness, of control and of performance if they want to be promoted to the next level. The overwhelming majority of our instructors are triallers who take time out of training their own dogs to teach and we reckon that if they're going to put the time and effort into preparing and taking classes, then they have the right to expect reciprocal commitment from class participants. How you start is how you tend to go on (what dogs learn first they learn best etc) and it isn't fair on beginners to allow them to learn bad habits and have to undo them when they (as the overwhelming majority do) start to think about trialling. I'd not mind $10 for every beginner who said "I just want to have fun with my dog" who's turned into an agility tragic. I should know, I am one. So things like contact strategies are insisted on.. but we still have those who don't get the message. We are about to trial some "fun and games" classes for those folk who've got the basics and don't want to trial but they'll still have to have good obstacle completion and control over their dogs before they get to that class. We've tried this before but basically most instructors get bored by taking such classes and commitment from participants tends to be sporadic. ETA: We do start on obstacles at the first level of agility for a couple of reasons.. it's what the punters want and we have a pretty stringent entry test before they're allowed to train.. we test both fitness and control on the flat and that includes a recall from distracton and a more formal one. The overwhelming majority of our starters are club members who've spent six months or more doing basic dog training before they get to agility.

Yep, and the most obvious examples of that and sometimes the most glaring training omissions are establishing a reliable wait and a recall from distraction. You don't jump a horse until it's fully physically mature or until you have established control on the flat. It's something that some members of the agility community could learn from.

One of these beasties. It's often the most challenging obstacle for beginner large dogs. Problem with teaching obstacles on lead (apart from inadvertent corrections) is that it doesn't teach the dog any independence from you. Even at the beginner level, you want to dog to come to you and go away from you over obstacles ASAP. You really don't want to have to hug the obstacle at all.

I have a Liberty and I'm very happy with it. I also like the fact that you can add a hose for initial drying.