DeltaCharlie

Just to throw a bit of a twist in here. I went out to the club for my sister's birthday tonight and just got home. I put the dogs in their crates before I left (about 10.30) and I filled his water bowl up again. He was pretty much asleep as I left. He woke up when I just walked into the kitchen and the first thing I noticed was that his bowl was still full. As soon as I looked at it he sat up and drank the lot. Now, if it was a medical reason wouldn't he have needed to drink while I was gone? Or do they sleep through those needs? Is it possible he is drinking out of boredom (got nothing to do, might as well get a drink)? He seems to drink when he is left outside on his own and when he is in his crate, but Im trying to think if he drinks alot when it is his turn to be loose in the house with me. I don't seem to have to fill up the bowl in the dining room (next to his crate) much and he would have to walk past that one so it wouldn't be logical for him to go into his crate to drink.

Firstly, glad everyone involved is ok (dog included) Secondly, border collies are pretty much useless as guard dogs. I love them to bits, they will always be my breed, but they will allow absolutely anyone into the yard. My front door is behind my gates so visitors have to actually go into the yard with the dogs, the dogs have never had a problem with anyone doing this They would probably show the burglars where all the good stuff is kept. Thirdly, IMO a guard dog is really only a deterrent to rebellious teenagers, and for that to work you probably need a breed that is perceived as tough. Anyone who is determined to get into your home will still manage it. If you happen to have a dog that isnt distracted by yummy treats that they may have then chances are it will be injured or killed. There have been many dogs over the years that have been bashed, kicked, stabbed etc during a robbery. Most dogs will protect you and your family members from a personal attack, but they dont really understand the importance of defending inanimate objects. I don't know of anyone who has trained a border collie to protect property, its just not instinctive for them to do so. Border Collies will bark a warning but that is pretty much all you can hope for. Once someone comes in the yard the toughness ends. Delta will drive me nuts barking at every person that walks past, but I have been able to come home and sneak up on her without her realising anyone had come through the gate many a time. Hopefully you never find yourself in that position again.

I think the sleepiness is more a case of nothing to do because mine are doing exactly the same thing. After what happened with Delta and the way he acts around Charlie it is a very strict roster of 1 dog in a crate, 1 in the house, and 1 in the yard at the moment. Or everyone in crates so that the cat can come out of her locked bedroom for cuddles. Although without knowing what he would be like in a different circumstances, the symptoms could be masked by the present situation. I hadn't really thought of that until now.

Sorry, I didn't explain that properly. First urine of the day is yellow, the rest of the time it is clear. I'll try and get him to a vet before he goes to Ker next week. Something just doesn't seem right and my instincts can usually be trusted when it comes to my animals so I should listen to them.

He is able to make it through the whole night without needing to go. I slept in this morning so he was in his crate from midnight till about 10.30am. He didn't go at all in that time and wasn't in any huge rush to get outside when I let him out (although he did go out and pee, was just a stroll though). ETA His urine is very clear if that makes a difference. It just looks like water coming out.

Yeh Im thinking of taking him down to get him checked out. He is a kelpie x shepherd, slightly overweight, and has spent a lot of time sleeping. He has only been here since Monday afternoon so its hard to know what is normal behaviour for him. He hasn't urinated in the house, and will hold it for hours until I go outside and he follows me, then he pees on everything. That ruled out urinary problem in my mind as he is in control of his urination. Im thinking kidney problem or diabetes, instinct is telling me that something isn't right but my bank account is telling me to be sure :p This dog has already cost me $500 in vet fees to fix the gash he gave Delta under eye :D Be cheaper to just have kids lol.

The temp care dog I have at the moment seems to drink an unbelievable amount of water. In the backyard I have 2 seashell swimming pools that are nearly empty after 2 days, and he goes through about 3 or 4 standard size bowls of water in his crate each day. It hasn't been that hot so its not as though it is all just evaporating. He marks absolutely everything in the yard constantly so it is all coming back out again but Im wondering whether there is something wrong that is causing him to drink lots (and subsequently peeing alot) or whether he is just marking everything all the time and so needs to be drinking to keep up his fluids. He is desexed but without knowing his history I have no idea how old he was when it was done. Ive never really owned males that mark everything so is that just a normal thing? Do they drink lots to keep their fluid levels up? I have never seen a dog drink this much before which is why I wondering if something may be wrong. What are some things that drinking lots could be a symptom of? He seems healthy enough, has a wonderfully soft and healthy coat, eating fine and breath is great. What else should I be looking for? ETA: He is about 8 years old. Im thinking things like diabetes start to present themselves in dogs his age don't they?

I got a 15m tracking lead from Pet Goods Direct (before I realised they were connected to pets paradise). Other similar warehouse type shops offered to order one in for me before I found that one so Im sure you could ask around (it was petbarn and petstock who offered to order them for me).

Springwood District Dog Training Club 02 47542910 Website Email The obedience is on Thursday nights from 7.30- 8.30 (sometimes up to about 9). New beginners start the first thursday of the month. Dont bring your dog the first night, it is an information night for handlers. Then there are 7 weeks of beginners with your dog. After that you move into the regular obedience classes which is a week by week thing. I think it costs about $60 or $70 for the 8 week beginner course which includes your years registration. After that is done you pay $3 a week.

Congratulations Once you get into it you will realise just how easy it is. I don't even think about it anymore, I just grab random things out of the freezer each night. Dinner is as much a surprise to me as it is the dogs lol. I remember being really worried about how much of each thing to feed (which is where that plan came from you are referring to) but I quickly relaxed and stopped letting it worry me. I just keep an eye on the dogs and their poo (if it is really light and they are constipated you need to cut back the bones a little; runny means they probably need a bit more bone to add hardness to it). Ive got a really bad migraine so I don't want to stare at the screen too much right now, but feel free to PM me anything. Although with Wylie as your mentor I cant see you needing any more help Bec

I only feed mine once a day. I went through a stage where I fed them a chicken wing/neck/something like that every morning and didnt give them bones for any of their night meals. It is a fairly relaxed diet once you work out what you are doing, I don't really stick to much routine any more, just feed whatever I pull out of the freezer that night. I just make sure it is roughly 4/2/1 each week.

Do you mean a one on one trainer or just obedience classes? I do obedience at Springwood, many of us use clickers and the classes are very positive/reward based. There are also clubs at erskine park, penrith paceway, and somewhere in werrington but I dont know much about those sorry.

Haha, no I can't either. It was recommended to me by the nutritionist I spoke to in America before I started the diet as an extra source of calcium and because it is full of good bacteria. Its just something that I give now, when I think of it (I always forget to buy plain yoghurt). I forgot to mention (my memory is shot today sorry) that I feed fish for one of the meat meals each week, its a great source of omega-3. Usually canned tuna/mackeral/sardines/salmon from the supermarket although sometimes I will get them something from the "smelly fish shop" (are they a deli?)

Probably shouldn't be highjacking somebody elses post. PM me if you like. schaef10 feel free to PM me if you want to aswell. Yes their poo sounds fine. It will come out really light coloured and they will be a little constipated if they are eating too much bone. If their poo is white then you are feeding too much bone. If it is runny then they may need a little more bone. Usually my bones meals consist of chicken frames, duck necks, things like that. Not particularly meaty but they get lots of meat throughout the rest of the week. That's very useful info! Thanks. OK, mine have small, brown, solid poop that turns white after a day. I am guessing that's OK and it turns white because of the high protein content?

If their poo is white then you are feeding too much bone. If it is runny then they may need a little more bone. Usually my bones meals consist of chicken frames, duck necks, things like that. Not particularly meaty but they get lots of meat throughout the rest of the week.

I used to have to walk Cody with an umbrella. He had fear aggression issues when on lead and there were lots of people who walked their dogs offlead around the streets. Mind you, most of the time my best option was to simply drop the lead if the other dog seemed harmless as Cody never had a problem off lead. There is a lady that I know through dog sports who carries a stick to make sure he doesn't walk ahead of her. He is the most beautiful dog with so much potential, its a shame he has an idiot for an owner. The dog is petrified of her.

Ahh yes, I always forget to tell people that I feed their food frozen. That stops them from gulping down the bones, it takes them longer to eat and means they have to chew their meat, even if it is minced. My dogs love it frozen, especially in summer.

It should be roughly 75% meat/ 15% bone/ 10% organs. This isn't a daily amount (you would drive yourself insane trying to do that each day) it just has to work out over time. I usually feed it over a week, which roughly works out as 4 days of meat, 2 days of bone, and 1 day of organs. I feed mainly mince because that is what I get from my supplier. It can be in any form though, still has the same stuff in it. I try to feed a variety of meat (lamb poultry beef kangaroo). I don't feed mine any supplements. I do give them a raw egg once or twice a week and a some yoghurt once a fortnight. Im not 100% sure on the Barf diet but I know that prey feeders do not feed vegetables as part of the diet. I give some to mine occassionally as a treat but I know that it has no nutritional value to them and is going to go straight through onto the lawn Even then it is a piece of carrot or something when I am chopping vegies for my own dinner or preparing the birds food. I am always worried about the organs I feed them so I buy the chopped liver or kidney from the supermarket. Bit more expensive, but at least I know it is made for humans. I freeze it before I feed it to them as an extra precaution. Heart is actually a muscle so if you feed it, its best to consider it as one of the meat meals and not one of the organs meals. Usually 2-3% of their ideal body weight. Its pretty easy to judge though, if they are getting skinny, feed them a bit more, if they are getting fat, feed them less. http://www.rawfed.com/myths/ http://www.rawfoodlife.com/raw_pets.htm http://www.rawfeddogs.net/ http://www.rawlearning.com/rawfaq.html http://www.kaossiberians.com/rawfeeding.htm

I think it depends on the dog. My dogs are both allowed on the lounge with me and the bed at night (after being invited) but I also know that I have the dogs to do it with. I swear mine jostle for who gets to be at the bottom of the pack! I cant feed them together because they both look at each as if to say "you can have mine too if you want" and nobody eats anything. I am very much at the top of the pack (without having to do much to get it) so I don't feel the need to have an "alpha only" area. Delta isn't a particularly cuddly dog anyway and will rarely get onto the lounge with me, she would rather go and sleep on the other one or in her crate during TV time. The dogs will quite often cuddle up together on a lounge though. My sister's dogs; however, are not allowed on the lounge as both are dominant females and there are too many power struggles going on there. My mum is the boss and they respect me if I go around there, but they see themselves as being above my sisters (I would too if I were them- my sisters are rather ditzy). Its a delicate balance going on there and I wouldn't risk throwing it all out of whack by allowing them onto higher ground. If there have been problems in the past between them then I would be stopping the lounge cuddles and joining them on the floor.

Ahh the border collie screams Your lucky it is only in the car. Both Cody and Delta were the same- cry because they were itchy, cry because they were eating, cry because they felt like crying. It was a constant whingefest for the first few weeks with both of them. As for the car, I used to just ignore it. Cody was the worst, we only ever had to go about 5 mins each weekend to visit my mum but he would scream the whole way there. It sounded like a child screaming and it was deafening. He kept it up until he was about 6 months old. Delta only did it until she was about 4 months but I think thats because she was on longer trips and a few times a week (I took her to agility and obedience for socialisation while I trained Cody) so she got used to it quicker. There is anti-nausea stuff you can give them to see if it helps.

I train at 2 different clubs but are pretty similar. I have only started going to the second one so I am not really sure how it all works. Also, Delta isn't really in a class there. She is too good for the beginners but too young to be running full height courses (she is 13mnths). There are a few dogs about the same level as her so someone is taking them as a separate class for the moment. Usually they have a beginner, intermediate and advanced class. They also run a clicker class every so often. The beginners work with wobble boards and individual obstacles, they also have a smaller dog walk. The intermediate and advanced seem to just run courses or set up a box to work on handling skills. They teach contacts with a hoop at the end to get the speed. If you want to do 2-on 2-off then you teach that separately at first. Once you have a dog that will run across an obstacle and also knows the 2-on 2-off then we combine the two skills. It seems to work. My main club The beginners do a 6-8 week introductory course where a new piece of equipment is added each week. The first week they do 3 weave poles and it increases each week until they are doing the full 12. At the start of it they use modified contact equipment (a-frame isn't very steep, low dog-walk, baby teeter) but by the end the idea is that they are doing the full sized equipment. A few people have gone back and redone the beginners course to really reinforce the basics. Next is the intermediate class. It is usually focussed more on handler skills. You work on front/rear crosses, pull throughs etc. A lot of the time there is only a few pieces of equipment (eg 3 jumps) and the whole lesson is conducted using that equipment. Or we might set up a box and work on calling the dog in close and sending it out, doing 180s and 270s etc. This class also looks at doing obstacle discrimination. So we might set up a tunnel and a tyre next to each other and work on being able to send the dog through the correct one with a command and body language. We also work on sending dogs to obstacles from a distance or an odd position. For example, the idea is that when a dog hears the word "tunnel" it knows to look around for a big circular opening, even if it isnt visible from where you are (ie you might be standing next to the tunnel so the dog cant see the opening). The advanced class were just setting up courses each week although the new chief instructor has made it so that as of next year they will be doing a similar program to the intermediate and only running a course once a month. Most of those dogs are competing every week, therefore, already running courses every week so she doesn't feel they really need to be doing it at training as well. The dogs in the advanced class started before the structured program was implemented so none of them have done the handler work and specific teaching that is done in intermediate anyway. As for teaching contacts. They explain the different options to you at the start of beginners and give you the pros and cons of each. Then they leave it up to you what one you want to do. Most people choose the 2-on 2-off method and they show you the steps to take to learn it.

Labrador? He is feeding a staffy and a beagle. My dogs do fine on chicken wings etc if thats what I happen to feed that day and my dogs are both bigger than Benjamin's. Usually they would get frames etc but when you also need to accommodate a cat, finer bones can be easier. Chicken necks are actually thicker than any bone you will find on a chicken frame.

God no, they would be rather fat if I did that lol. They are just examples of good bones to feed. To tell you the truth, after a month or so I started mixing things around. I needed something like that to get me started and stop me worrying so much about it, but then I relaxed and realised that the basic idea is that the diet balances out over time. You would drive yourself batty if you tried to follow the schedule too closely. I also feed organs and fish as seperate meals. Some dogs cant handle organs on their own at first so I find it easier to mix it until they get used to the taste. I have this on my fridge: Every meal I write next to it what they had (c= chicken, f= fish, l= lamb, b=beef, k= kangaroo) so that I dont feed them chicken all week etc. I write breakfast on the left, dinner on the right, although they usually just get one meal as Im lazy so I write both the same time. Any extra stuff I added gets written down the bottom (e= egg, y= yoghurt). It is easy to keep track of what they have had this way and I dont double up too much. I get my meat from a guy near richmond racetrack in sydney. Great stuff, no preservatives- that is no exaggeration, even in a fridge it smells by that night, has to be portioned and frozen as soon as you get it home or the whole house smells. He minces it fresh every morning. I get bones from butchers and supermarkets mainly. There is a butcher at Minchinbury that will sell 2kg of lamb offcuts for $1. I get chicken stuff (necks, wings, frames, etc) from a place out at bonnyrigg. Its usually 5kg for $5. Butchers have ox tails, not sure about kangaroo tails though. I get them from petbarn (although my dogs rarely get them as they are expensive). Organs I usually get from the woolworths. They are already diced (which stops my cat dragging them through the house) and it is just easier. Some butchers will sell individual organs for about $1 each but Id rather just get it from the supermarket.

I cant say I would ever feed this diet to any of my dogs. Dogs need meat but all your boy is getting is chicken and sardines? Where is the red meat? That should make up the majority of the diet. If you feed fish once a week you do not need fish oil tablets. He certainly doesn't need fish every day. Get rid of the vegies. Dogs cannot digest them and they will simply end up on your lawn. BARF feeders will blend the vegies so that the dogs can digest them but most people are of the opinion that if human/machine interference is necessary then they cant be too important to the dog. Mine don't get any vegies at all (unless as a treat but I recognise that it has no nutritional value to them). Raw egg is great for dogs but as soon as you cook it there is no nutritional value. Feed it raw, dont boil it. One egg a week should be plenty. Get rid of the pasta. Grains like rice etc are no good for dogs. This is a weekly feeding schedule I give people as a guide. I dont feed my dogs this structured, mine get whatever I pull out of the freezer that day. I just cross it off on the whiteboard so I can make sure they are getting 4 meat meals, 2 bones meals, and 1 organs meal each day. Monday: BONES (chicken necks, wings, drumsticks; duck necks; turkey necks; lamb soup bones; kangaroo tails; ox tails; lamb flaps; ribs) Tuesday: MEAT (a raw meat mince thing I get from a racing greyhound supplier near me. I usually get a beef/lamb/chicken mix but if Im short on money I get chicken mince. I try to get a different meat though as their bones meal is usually poultry based.) Wednesday: MEAT Thursday: MEAT Friday: BONES (unless mondays bones had very little meat on them, then I feed meat again) Saturday: 1/2 ORGANS (liver or kidney usually) 1/2 FISH (canned tuna/salmon/sardines/mackeral) Sunday: 1/2 ORGANS 1/2 FISH (basically the other half of the packets from the night before) Basically each day they should get 2-3% of their body weight. Basically a rough guide is to feed 10% organs 15% bones 75% meat I also feed raw egg a few times a week (plus the shell crushed, its great for calcium) and 50-100g plain yoghurt once a week/fortnight. So long as you are also feeding fish weekly you shouldnt need to supplement their diet in any way. They get plenty of omega-3 (eggs and fish) and calcium (eggs and yoghurt) as well as all the good bacteria that yoghurt provides. Off the top of my head I cant think of the names of all the vitamins and minerals needed but I know that they are provided by this diet

I know of a few dogs that have got them in the blue mountains. Apparently there are lots in Emu Plains (where I live) but I take my dogs into the bush a few times a week and have never found one on them.