Nushie

We have Best for Pet for our 2 dogs and 1 cat. Our cat is 14 years old. Every 6 months they check her bloods, kidney function etc all for free. So far they have checked her every 6 months for about 5 or 6 years and each time they say she is doing well and we walk out paying nothing. No vaccination fee, no consult fee, no testing fee. And it means that we dont need to worry about the $$ amount. Its designed as preventative care. So a lot of the routine year to year things are covered. If your pet gets sick, you get 10% of meds but the rest is on you.

I would not be putting any animal in one of those!

Ditto - haven't seen a flea on either of the pugs for many many years.

I have a Dyson handstick animal V-something (its about 5 years old now). Its good for quick vacuums on carpet but my Dyson upright still does a far better job. I use the handstick for during the week (I have 2 pugs so vacuum every 2-3 days) all over the house and then on the weekends I pull out the upright and do a "proper" job. Its amazing how much more hair the upright pulls out.

I think it depends on where you live. I used to live in Sydney and it was really hard to find parks etc that allowed off leash dogs. Even parks that weren't sporting grounds or had play equipment were mostly on leash only. The only other options were dog parks and I try to avoid them if I can, but even they were few and far between. Melbourne is fantastic and a lot more dog friendly. We live in northern suburbs and there are a number of off leash parks and their are a lot of creek walks that allow dogs which is great as it means we can walk in nicer places other then streets and the dogs get to smell new things. A lot of cafes will allow you to sit out the front with dogs and all the ones I have stopped at with ours will bring out a bowl of fresh water for them. I don't think dogs need to be in shopping centres or in restaurants. I am 100% happy with what I can do with my two dogs where we live. I do wish that there were more national park type places where you could go for really decent walks with dogs (onleash). But that's about it. Even rentals are more pet friendly down here :)

Generally you will find that if it is neighbourhood cats chances are they will be more likely to use it as a toilet at night when the dogs are asleep inside. At least they did with ours. We used to uncover the pit during the day for our dog to use and then cover it back up at night. Rarely (really really rarely) would we have a cat use it during the day as the dog would chase them out of the yard. That said, if it is your own cat or your dog is fine with neighbourhood cats in they yard, not much you can do.

My first thought was to put a non slip type material up the stairs but the OH was concerned about the potential trip hazard for us. Might head to Bunnings this weekend and see if they have something that looks suitable that hopefully wont cause us issues while trying to solve hers. She isn't a very spring-y dog either which also might be causing issues. We don't have a very high bed but we had to put an low ottoman at the bottom of it so that she could get up onto the bed on her own. So maybe a the fact that it is a little slippery and that she hasn't got good springs in her could be the reason for the problems. Might even try the stairs at the park and see if she hesitate with them. She hasn't had issues with concrete or other outdoor stairs before but they all tend to have more grip. So will be interesting to see if it is just the indoor stairs that she is reluctant to use. Thanks everyone. Any other ideas are welcome. Really helps to be able to talk these things through.

We have just moved into a new place which has wooden stairs up to the bedrooms. Brandy is now ~18months old and never really had issues with stairs before but most of the internal stairs we have used have been carpet. She was a bit hesitant when we first moved in about 4 weeks ago but with a bit of coaxing she was fine using them up until last week. Over the past week she has been getting more and more reluctant to use them. As far as we know she hasn't had an accident on them, however she did seem to "rush" them when she was using them. The last week we have tried to treat her or make a fuss of her when she does use them and ignore her when she doesn't and try and get her to work it out but it is getting worse. Last night she flat out refused to use them and spent 20mins crying at the bottom of the stairs while we were in bed. Eventually I went down, took her outside to distract her and then carried her up the stairs. We will probably set up a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs so that they cant get up to the rooms (the bedroom doors are closed when we are out so no reason for them to go up there) just in case she has had a accident while we weren't there. I tried to coax her up 2 steps yesterday and happily puts her front feet up but wont put her back feet up. Thinking a vet visit may be in order just to make sure there is nothing happening in her hind legs. But has anyone else come across similar problems? From a training point of view if I spend time with her slowly getting her up 1 step at a time etc. Will it be undoing it if I then have to turn around and carry her up at night? Looks like I might be spending a long time sitting on stairs with roast chicken :)

I'm a winter person and don't like the heat. So if I am uncomfortable outside then I don't take the dogs and having pugs, even on nice spring days we make sure that we avoid the main heat and walk early morning or after dark. But generally they will tell me. We have had about 3 days of 28-35 degrees here and both dogs who are normally crazy even with their daily walks are content to just be lounge lizards so they probably wont be going out today either.

Hi all, We have just started training with a bridge word. I have been using "Yes" with Jager but I cant find anything that feels right for Brandy. I want a different word for each as I have found it confusing when walking, my partner is trying to train Brandy to walk on a loose lead and has started using Yes but when he says it, Jager looks to him as if waiting for a treat. So I want to stop that. Can you throw some suggestions for what else I can use? I don't like Good as I use that quite a lot and don't want to confuse them. Perfect doesn't feel right. Just want something that always sounds enthusiastic. I know it can be anything, I am happy to use whatever feels right. But I am drawing a blank.

I use a park that allows dogs to be off leash but it isn't a designated dog park. Its a soccer ground that just allows dogs to be off leash. If you go down there during peak times there are stacks of dogs and we avoid that at all costs. But at other times there might only be one other dog there and we just stay at the other end away from them, but generally when we do go we have the place to ourselves. Only problem is that it isn't lit at night. So in winter if we stop there, we get there around 6am it is black. So we hang around the only lit area that is from the street lamp. Other than that, it would be nice if they provided some dog bags. We often get down there and there are a few bombs left laying around. Not sure how that goes over summer when they actually use the oval for soccer..... We used to go to a dog park in Sydney when we lived there. We avoided peak time, but even then there would often be 6 other dogs there and because it is fenced, so people just sit down and let them run around all crazy. It was nice in the fact that it had lights, water bowl, seats and shelter from sun and rain. But the area was far too small and the dogs just went nuts, so we rarely went there.

I do the same. Buy a bag and use it as treats. It is out of our price range to feed it as their whole diet, but they love them as treats!

So the last couple of days I have been feeding them both in the kitchen. Jager on the outside of the breakfast bench (in towards the dining area) and Brandy on the inside (in the kitchen area). Both seem to eat at the same time, Jager has been finishing first and goes around and stands at the corner and watches as Brandy finishes and then they swop bowls to lick. I have been watching them and I don't know, if I weren't there maybe Jager would muscle Brandy away from her bowl. But we will be there to supervise during meals so that shouldn't be a problem.

I was feeding it to my boy. He did great on it, small, firm stools, shiny coat, energy. He did really well on it. No one really local stocks it anymore so I changed to Black Hawk and have been feeding that with very little success. Have used 2 bags and he now poops a lot more and they aren't as firm. He is dropping weight despite the increase in food. So last weekend I found a place about 30mins away and I will go back to feeding Earthborn. I feed the small breed one or if that's not available I have used the primitive one.

We have bought a second wobbler so that they would have one each. Will try giving them a kong each and watch how they go.