ash1

Our 10 year old female pomeranian went missing from our property today, at Murphys Creek, Qld 4352 (near Toowoomba), and I would be grateful if everyone could keep their eyes and ear open for her. Although she is 10, she is tiny, so apart from a bit of grey around her eyes and muzzle, looks like a puppy. She has her long winter fur on. She is microchipped, but only wearing a tick collar, not an id collar. She is on medication, we are frantic with worry and desperate for her return.

I think have a good think before PTS if you love the dog so much. Build a dog run for him when he's outside with a padlock on it, and when he's inside he should be in a large child proof crate. Any welder or engineering place can make one for you out of fine mesh fingers cannot get through. I think the advice you have been given personally is not what I would give, nervy dog or not. I don't think this comes from a place in the pack, it's an already unsure dog more unsure and noone guiding him in definite no no behavior. I'm not saying push the child in the dogs face at all, but the dog needs to know life is now like this, cope with it. Run to crate and back, only by you and both padlocked. The dog can have one on one time with you when the child is inside or in bed and the dog is attached to you. I would try something different to at least make the dog less reactive towards the child. You cannot make a dog like or love something, but you can teach is what is acceptable or not and at least the dog learns if it feels threatened it backs off from the child and goes to an adult or it's crate in case of emergencies. It can be done, I wouldnt give up yet on the dog. Nekhbet, I'm not having a go or trying to be rude, I respect your knowledge and advice a lot, but wouldn't this be a miserable kind of way for a dog to live; i.e., locked in a cage all day and locked in a crate all night? I'm genuinely curious as to how the dog would cope.

I am absolutely convinced of this. We adopted a "Bull Arab X Mastiff" from a pound in Northern Qld, he was the absolute spitting image of a Dogo both as a pup and an adult dog, absolutely no difference to the google photos except of course he had his ears. He was such a lovely lovely calm and placid boy, unfortunately we lost him to a snake earlier this year. Should probably add we hadn't even heard of a dogo when we got him, just thought he was a gorgeous bull arab pup - i.e., did not go out looking for a dogo.

I am absolutely convinced of this. We adopted a "Bull Arab X Mastiff" from a pound in Northern Qld, he was the absolute spitting image of a Dogo both as a pup and an adult dog, absolutely no difference to the google photos except of course he had his ears. He was such a lovely lovely calm and placid boy, unfortunately we lost him to a snake earlier this year.

Love the way the black one just flopped backwards on top of the pile and then looked instantly asleep. Very cute!

One night some years ago I awoke screaming, very loudly. The two little girls who were sleeping with us on the bed (a chi and a pom), immediately jumped off and went and hid under it :laugh: . The two larger dogs (a GSD and a cattle dog), immediately lept up from their beds on the floor onto our bed to see what all the commotion was about. Our GSD, sadly now passed, I believe would have protected us with his life. He loved people, but was the self-appointed guard dog around here. I miss him badly.

I hope you find a wonderful new home for them. One of my best friends when I was 10-11 was an Irish Setter. I don't know who owned him, but he would meet me every day on the way home from school and walk me part-way home. May have had something to do with the fact that I fed him my left over lunch every day :laugh: I haven't seen an Irish Setter for many years.

Thank you so much for the responses/advice to my query of how to start the process of rehoming responsibly. Animals have always been with us for life, but they have always enjoyed their lives with us. Murphy does have some fun times, but too much of the time I watch him being fearful and it breaks my heart - I think he just may be able to do better than us, which is the most horrible feeling that I have failed him. I may just start advertising quietly, I am in absolutely no rush for him to go apart from wishing to find a happier situation for him. Selfishly I don't want him to go at all, but would consider it if I could find him the perfect home where I thought he would be a happier dog. It just terrifies me thinking that someone could come and give me all the right answers, I could go to their home and think it wonderful, but he could end up in a terrible situation. There are so many terrible people and hideous cruelty in our world. There is no way on dog's green earth that I would put him in a shelter situation. The only way he is leaving here would be to his proper forever home and with us as a permanent backup if anything went wrong. Great idea about being the second contact on the microchip paperwork - I would most certainly ensure that.

Little Gifts, is that an all-in-one - i.e., no straps, zips, velcro, etc? So pulls over the head and you lift the front legs through the holes?

How does one go about rehoming a dog responsibly? I ask because I too, have been thinking about the possibility of rehoming one of our young dogs. Not because I don't like him or haven't bonded with him, but because I feel he is not very happy here with us. He is the real underdog here, and three of the other dogs always want to beat up on him (not fighting, but chasing and bullying him). He spends a great deal of his time in "safe" places, or running away from the other dogs. He does play with them from time to time, but they just get too rough with him and he gets frightened and hides. He was a insecure and nervy dog to start with and just doesn't have enough confidence to stand up for himself. I think he may be very much happier as an only dog or at least away from our two young bitches, who are just that to him. I would actually rather keep Murphy and rehome one of the girls who is particularly bullying to him, but she has a few issues (incontinence being one) and I would be very worried about her future away from us if someone felt her issues were too much for them to cope with. I have never ever rehomed any animal and hate the thought of rehoming Murphy, but may consider it if I could find him a great home where he would be happier - but just don't even know where to start - don't want to just throw him up on gumtree! So where do you advertise, and how do you vet potential new homes? Murphy is a cross-breed (Doberman/Husky) and came from a shelter, so obviously I can't involve a breeder or breed organisation. I am so hesitant about it because even though I think he's not 100% happy here, at least I know he is well cared for and loved by us - by rehoming him, I can't guarantee that for the rest of his life. I could never forgive myself if anything happened to him. Sorry to hijack your thread, op, but hopefully this information may also assist.

We often have poddy calves and have to make up milk formula for them. All of the dogs would quite happily sell their souls for the calf milk (so would our pet pigs). The most senior dog ensures he comes out on feeding duty with me morning and night - he knows he gets to lick the buckets... All of the younger dogs go nuts for Watermelon, older dogs ask "you want me to EAT this?" One of the older dogs is very partial to cambembert, any cheese actually. We just have to ask her "Where's the CHEESE LuluBelle?" and she starts salivating. We have a tree in the yard that we call the candyfloss tree. It produces seedpods that are full of "candyfloss". One of the dogs in particular will leap up and pull the pods off the tree to get to the candyfloss. (It's safe, people can eat it).

I'm up near Toowoomba in Queensland, and we've had huge problems with ticks. Just pulled one off a calf yesterday, so the cooler weather is definitely not stopping them. I think the very wet weather, combined with the warm temperatures has caused a huge influx of them.

She is quite clearly enjoying herself, but gee, she must be exhausted at the end of her swim!

I have a heart disease (atrial fibrilation) that causes my heart to beat erratically and often way too fast. Before it was diagnosed and medicated, I was having "fits" kind of like what you have described. I would semi-blackout for a few moments (vision/hearing completely black out but not totally fall to the ground) and when I "came too" I would find myself kind of rocking/bobbing my head like you have described. I have no idea whatsoever if dogs can also suffer this condition, but when I read your post I thought it might be worth mentioning.

It is definately getting colder - over the past two nights our two little seniors have been getting under the blankets with me instead of sleeping on top of the bed. Our three younger dogs sleep in their own room off our room, and we have a thermostatically controlled wall heater in their room. The heater was very cheap to buy, less than $100 delivered from 00.com.au. It is electric, so of course costs to run, but it's only on at night and has the added benefit of flowing through to our bedroom because of the way the two rooms are off each other. I'm happy to pay the few extra dollars in the power bill to make sure everyone's toasty warm overnight. Because it's thermostatically controlled it keeps the room at an even temperature. Before the heater we put blankets over the dogs, of course they had shrugged them off well before morning, PJs were chewed off during play. The heater is a great solution.

It never fails to amaze me how ingenious people are. They're very reasonably priced, too, for the amount of work that must have gone into them, let alone the materials.

Three of our dogs are still youngsters and love collecting. Our peacocks were moulting their tails and for weeks and weeks I was retrieving chewed up feathers from the dogs' beds. There is zero chance of food being ferreted away in their beds, every last morsel is gobbled up immediately. Anything plastic is a favourite, they also love my bras and steal them from the washing basket and ferret them away in their beds. Or leave them strewn across the yard. One night I heard one of the dogs chewing something in his crate in the lounge. "What have you got, Spuddy?". Immediately a chewed up DVD came flying out of the crate. He'd projectile spat it out: "Wasn't me, wasn't me". The DVD had been missing for days, obviously hidden away in his crate.

We have had two large breed dogs (GSD and a Bull Arab) cremated within the last two weeks (one PTS old age, one snake bite). The cremations cost us $242.00 each. $750 for a poodle seems hugely excessive. It is lovely that it was donated though, good on the company who donated their services. Poor doggie and poor owner, what a hideous way to go. I couldn't bury our dogs as I couldn't bear the thought of them outside in the cold and rain - silly I know, but they had always shared our home with us and I couldn't stand thinking of them outside, all alone, on a cold, rainy night.

Agree 100%. Would rather have an end, even if it was a tragic outcome, rather than always wonder and worry.

We have a dog room for our three youngest dogs, who are all under 18 months old and still in the crazy loony stage. I work from home so our dogs have access to both outside and the house all day long (and spend most of the day outside, by choice), but if I go out, then our older dogs have the run of the house, but the three madcaps have their own bedroom. They also sleep in there at night. It is a room directly off our bedroom (weird house layout) and is totally bare apart from their crates/beds and toys. There is a wooden slat gate separating their room from our room, so they can see and hear us at night. In the evenings we're all in the lounge together (we bought a ginormous lounge suite just so everyone could all fit on it), but if the pups won't settle then they get put into their room. It also means that the older dogs can get a rest from the puppy energy. A lot of those dog rooms upset me, they seem so far removed from the main part of the house and if it's a single dog it's being excluded from the "pack" and doesn't know why.

Oh, I so hope Little Gifts is right - so much better if she has been picked up and looked after rather than having spent 11 days in the bush by herself, poor baby, she would be absolutely terrified. Everyday I read this thread and hope to read some positive news. I cried during the video, can't imagine the trauma those poor people are going through. Sending all my thoughts and energies towards her safe recovery.

Ohhhhh, I would love to... but OH would probably kill me dead.... NO MORE DOGS! he keeps telling me.

When our cat died when I was young, my aunty sent me: The Tenth Good Thing About Barney http://www.amazon.com/Tenth-Good-Thing-About-Barney/dp/0689712030

If Moët is named after the champagne then apparently it is pronounced "Mo’wett". The original Moët was a Frenchman with a Dutch surname. http://lucire.com/2002/0530ll0.shtml Yes, I was told that if you say Moët & Chandon then the T is silent, but if you just say Moet, then the T is spoken. Yummy either way! When I'm rich I will be drinking it every day for breakfast :laugh: And those white pups... ... wish I wasn't so far away...

Have you tried recording your own voice and playing it back in a loop? I have no idea whatsoever if this would work, is recommended, etc, just a random thought after reading the above posts asking about sound.