poodlefan

That's interesting. I had been pondering at one point how one gets into scent detection training as a 'hobby'. Elbie's got a terrible nose but Hoover's nose is freakishly good so part of me was wondering if it would be possible to develop him further and train him in the area. I'm sure he'd find it fun even if he was never going to be good enough to do 'work'. You could try tracking as a sport. There are a few folk who do it locally but the only club I"m aware of is in Sydney. Other than that, the only scent work I'm aware dogs perform is in the higher levels of obedience or 'finding' stuff like truffles. Steve Austin does quite a bit of scent training for dogs to work 'professionally'.

Many of the 9/11 rescue dogs were owned by members of the public who do volunteer SAR work.. kind of like being called in as SES. Pity there's not more of that here. It would probably speed up finding a lot of lost folk.

I know the Australian Army has looked at rescue ACDs and taken some on for bomb detection. I'm pretty sure Australia Post has a range of working breeds and mixes (from pounds mostly) working in their mail centres. Labradors and working English Springer Spaniels are popular for scent detection work with a lot of police forces. AQIS has gone with Beagles. Kelpies are not a common breed outside Oz. That may be one part of the issue but the professional dog folk tend to go where they know results have been had before. I doubt its any reflection on the capacity of the dogs to do the work. Most dogs in work with professionals are bred for the job. They come from lines developed for the work to improve the potential of pups to successfully complete training. I'd say few scent detection dogs are sourced from the wider general public these days outside of Oz Post and the Army. Others may know more.

So can the bill from the microsurgeon. If the owners were just standing there (often the case) I'd be trying to get some action and possibly acting myself. I'd certainly risk a limb to help someone being attacked or unable to help their own dog from a roaming one. Two relatively well matched dogs I'd probably stay out of. It would be a case by case thing but I expect I'd be reluctant to do nothing.

This sounds nearly identical, but today i went and felt maccas chest and he has a firmer two lumps i'm just thinking they are muscle hahah fewww! i feel lie an idiot But a trip to the vets will not hurt anybody except my wallet. Better safe than sorry. I've just had another lump drama with my oldest boy. Small lump on eyelid eye that has grown slightly. Off to the vet. When he pulled back the eyelid (something I hadnt' thought to do because it looked like an external issue) the lump had grown inside and along the inside of the lid. So another fine needle biopsy (that was fun) and off to pathology. Results yesterday say benign, slow growing cyst that can be drained next time he goes under a GA for any procedure. Phew!!!

Yes, it does hurt! Pups use their mouths the way we use our hands - to explore and make contact with their environment and their playmates. They aren't being nasty but your job as the owner is to discourage it the way his mum and siblings would have. I strongly recommend you find yourself a good puppy school and book into lessons. Teaching bite inhibition should be one of the things covered.

Or boredom. What else has he got to do?

Beautiful Vickie! What a lovely gift and what a thoughtful friend.

It might pay to bear in mind that I made my original comment about where people should source their rescue dogs and nothing about the dogs themselves. If you chose to take my comment personally or as some kind of insult to your dogs you might like to consider that not everyone has had the success you have. This thread is a case in point. So rather than bridling and taking a swipe at me, perhaps you need to consider a perspective beyond your own experience. What's wrong with pound dogs? Generally nothing or little that some training can't fix. However, inexperienced dog owners lack the skills to temperament test dogs. Hell, even very experienced dog folk are hard pressed to know exactly what a pound dog is going to be like a month after its sprung. You can't really know what a dog is like until you see it OUTSIDE the pound environment. How would you know if its a fence jumper, a resource guarder, cat aggressive etc. Pound temperament tests are indicative, not certainty. Breed research won't tell you anything specific about the temperament of the individual dog in the run that you're looking at. It's even less helpful for crossbred dogs and dogs of indeterminate breed. That's mainly what you get in pounds. Furthermore, temperament is not based solely on genetics. Environment and experience shape it also. Both of those factors may be completely unknown when looking at a pound dog. I stand by my comment. I would always recommend people who wish to take on a rescue dog go to people experienced with dogs who've had the ability to observe them in a home situation. The consequences of the picking the wrong dog for your home can be distressing or they can be tragic. I know because I see these dogs roll up to my dog training club with owners desperate for help with problems they didn't know they were taking on and I hear the stories of families devastated by the wrong dog selection. I have also had one of my dogs attacked (requiring veterinary treatment) by a dog recently adopted from a pound by an owner clearly incapable of understanding or controlling its aggression. I say leave the rescuing to the experts and support them by sourcing your dogs from them. If you consider that uncalled for or 'not nice enough', so be it. All I said is I recommend people get a rescue dog from someone with the knowledge and skill to match one with them rather than taking the riskier option of sourcing direct from the pound. I fail to see what was nasty about that. Its certainly a better option for the dogs than bouncing back into the pound because the new owner made the wrong choice.

Congratulations I loved the RnR thread.. and I bought their calendar! I still have it. Rocco will never be forgotten here. I can't pass a Bull Mastiff at a dog show without thinking of him.

My dogs will generally take a tablet if its pushed into a bit of cheese or 4Legs. If not, its the old "down the hatch" method using fingers to push the tablet down the back of the throat. It's actually easier to to this with big dogs than small ones. Agree to follow up with a treat. In addition to rewarding them, it ensures that the tablet has gone all the way down.

My girl Lil has a fatty lipoma on her chest. Nearly gave me a heart attack when I felt it. It was hard and could be moved - it wasn't adhered to the surrounding muscle. It was diagnosed via fine needle biopsy. Vet visit definitely but don't panic.

The Deluxe Compact might be the solution - its 1.3m long as opposed to 1.5m for the Deluxe. 2 piece legs instead of 3 in the ordinary compact. Check Ebay for prices. Even with shipping you can get some good deals from online retailers. If you need more space there is the Compact Pavillion which is 2.4 x 4.8m and still folds down to less than 1m. They are a bit ungainly to set up though. However I think a new car or a dog trailer might be a better solution. Don't sell the Deluxe though - you're not a real showie till you've got at least 2 gazebos - someone I know has 4! I really like the Compacts - and they are getting more and more popular. No doubt their ease of transport and handling has a lot to do with it. I suspect a Deluxe Compact will be gazebo no. 3 for me. :D

Yep. Got to love that name!

That was brilliant! I can't talk to the AWL proposal but I think a council member putting a proposal like this up for discussion on a popular and passionate dog forum is awesome. Well done Ipswich - it's where I was born!.

That's where the balance is important. An ad that doesn't leave you remembering the brand or product it promotes is a failure That's like the "Bankworld" ads to me. I know Barbara is from Bankword and I love the ads but for the life of me I can't remember what actual bank runs the ads.

That was brand promotion at its finest. They weren't trying to get you to try beer. They were planning on making you look for Carlton beer when you opened up the door of the fridge with a bunch of beer brands on display. Taking that analogy to the current ad. The RSPCA isn't necessarily urging you to buy a dog. What they are trying to do is, if you want a dog, to buy a dog from them.

Now I want the Gruen Transfer to analyse this ad! It does seem to have piqued buyer interest in Afghan Hounds. By the way, who are you calling tragic? Once I've finished doing the judges' books for the show, groomed three dogs for the Royal, cleaned up the guest bathroom for our Afghan's breeder who is staying with us for the weekend and packed the dog trailer then you just watch out! I figure if a clearly very well cared for purebred dog can get people thinking about sourcing their next dog from a shelter or the RSPCA, it can't be a bad thing. Lets hope that it doesn't result in Afghans becoming the new flavour of the month as they were for a while in the 70's. I doubt it though.

That's a James Boag beer isn't it? Or XXXX - they have good ads. Mind you no one's ever going to top that Carlton one filmed on the NZ South Island to the music of O Fortuna from Camina Buruana. That was AWESOME!!

Who knows? However the fact that people are talking about the ad tends to suggest it might be working.

I'm not an advertising guru but I don't think these ads are meant to be taken too literally - its brand promotion and not specifically "product" selling. If the dog is beautiful and memorable it sews the seed that "the RSPCA has dogs for rehoming". I don't expect to see that dog there when I go but I do know they will have dogs for sale. I know for a fact that tossing an ugly boyfriend in a Tassie river is not sadly going to make him George Clooney but I can remember that these are Boag's beer ads. The RSPCA is pitching to potential dog owners more than die hard dog tragics like we forum members. Fuzzy: That pitch only works on people who are motivated to 'save' dogs and there is evidence that continued pitches of that kind cause folk to simply tune them out. People can reach sympathy overload. Its precisely that effect that caused savvy charities to come up with themes to get people to reopen their wallets. Red Nose Day was one of the first and most successful campaigns. Most people probably couldn't tell you what charity it supports.

I see it this way: A trainer teaches skills to handlers and behaviours to handlers and dogs. Some of those behaviours may be taught to resolve unwanted behaviours. A behaviorist works primarily on resolving undesireable dog behaviours at the higher end of the scale. Unless a trainer has sound knowledge of resolving aggression issues, I think that's a job best left to qualified/experienced behaviourists.

Sue Hogben is positively inspirational as a trainer and trialler. And she has Golden Retrievers!

I would be worried about the behaviour escalating. I'd certainly not be leaving the dogs together unsupervised, which probably defeats the purpose of the second dog. Gee I wish folk would get their rescue dogs from good rescues, not the pound.

aussielover: The problem with teaching tricks, playing games etc is that a lot of puppy owners don't go to puppy school for that purpose. What was one comment "I dont' want a circus dog". Our club fell into that trap for a while - a bunch of dedicated dog trainers who decided what would be wonderful for pups to learn and not what your average everyday owner NEEDS to know. The question trainers need to ask themselves is what puppy owners DO want. From the survey our club did, mostly they want a dog they can walk on a loose lead, that comes when it's called, isnt' going to knock the kids over or bite them and that's about it. They didnt' care about targetting, about tricks, about basic scent work etc. Toilet training is only useful for about 50% of owners -those that allow their dogs inside. Most trainers have 6-8 weeks to set a dog up for life. We all know that's a pretty tall order. So boring them with theories of operant conditioning (seen it done), providing them with clickers (that will be binned and never used after the classes) and teaching 'nice to have' stuff like tricks eats the time you've got. In my ideal world, puppy owners would do kindy and high school as a bare minimum. They'd come for 8 weeks for the very basics. Walking on lead, sitting for pats/dinner, tolerance of handling (including nail clipping), dealing with mouthing, how to do appropriate socialisation and some general advice and reference to ongoing resources. General husbandry advice is also important. Never ceases to amaze me the number of owners who roll up with their new pup and have no idea how to groom it. Oodle owners are a case in point. Then back for 8 weeks at six months - more on lead skills, big work on the recalls and other essential skills. I think those could be sold to the public as not excessive. Hell the RSPCA runs recall clinics that are popular - maybe that's another way to go - training for specific issues which will, of course, inevitably look at the basic dog/owner relationship.