Staycalm

This is the mighty cute Teddy...

He's not so bad. Just normal puppy. Our other dog is Kelpie/Border Collie and she's extremely crusie. I'm leaving a part of the garden that's got loose sand, rotting sleepers and other stuff that all our animals like to explore. And I think that laying weed matting is probably asking for trouble. Hmmmm. Might need more chicken wire...

I am putting straw on the raised garden beds but it won't stay put on the other beds. I can see it blowing all over the back yard. :laugh:

I have a partly used 3.5kg bag of Supercoat Puppy kibble if anyone local would like it. My pup is now on different food. There is also a bag of Whiskers dry kibble for cats that my hubby bought by mistake. Unfortunately it was decanted into a container and the bag thrown away so I have double baggged it in plastic shopping bags to keep it contained. If anyone is interested me just pm me and I will sort out a pick up day and time.

Sorry if this has been discussed here before but I've not been on for ages and today I just haven't managed to find much when searching for related topics. I have an 18week old lab/beagle/kelpie who just loves to chew everything and eat it. We've had to throw a lot of toys out as it is clear that he loves to pull off material, threads, rope, etc and eat it. Outside he loves biting into twigs and wood, especially the old rotting timber left from a garden bed. We have been cleaning the yard up like crazy and the next step is to lay down weed matting and about 3mx3 mulch. What mulch should we get? I know not to get anything chemically treated or dyed but there is a choice in the size of the mulch as well as different types (pine vs Eucy). I just want him not to make himself sick. Do puppies grow out of this or can I just blame his breed mix? I've lived with a lab before and she would eat almost anything in reach, even as an adult. Fun times :laugh:

What a lovely story. :heart:

We recently lost our lovely old man Alfie to age and infirmity and I am starting the process to look for a new companion for our 5 year old Kelpie/Border collie Gracie. She was a stray and not well socialised, as she reacts with anxiety and barking with most other dogs. She took to Alfie with no trouble but he was the boss man at home here first. Unfortunately, in the last 18 months poor Gracie didn't get many walks due to the two of them being pretty anxious about being separated, she is a pain on the lead and I had some heath issues that decreased motivation. I have now started her going for very short walks just in the street in front of our house to hopefully give her some calming experiences. Sadly a lot of dogs around here are not walked on leads and there are quite a lot of fence-rushers as well. However I will perservere. What I would like is some feedback about what I need to know when introducing a new dog to Gracie. Is a puppy a better bet than an older rescue dog? Does the sex of the dog matter? If we go the rescue dog we would be looking at one about 4 years or younger and probably something bigger than the 10kg Alfie was but not as big as Gracie, as she seems to react more to large dogs. We also have cats so that might make a successful adoption a bit harder. Am I being overly anxious? She's never attacked another dog but then I've not put her in that situation, although she and Alfie once chased someone's terrier out of the off lead park Very naughty dogs!

He was a funny little fellow but he had a bad habit or raiding shopping bags or work bags for chocolate. He never had a reaction but gave us numerous heart attacks from it. One time he took and ate a whole Flake bar. Never found the wrapper from that one :)

Our little boy went to the rainbow bridge last Monday. He would have been 13 in a month or so. Rescued by Rescued With Love, he was with us for nearly seven years. Now he's not with us we realise just how much he was a huge part of our family daily life. Our other dog Gracie is missing him terribly. So are we.

I live in Glenroy, thankfully the nicer side, but I used to live close to where this latest attack happened. This suburb is particularly bad for dogs off leash and wandering. I usually average at least one stray a year I drop into the local vet for scanning. About half are chipped. Even around the block where I live I am so sick of charging dogs. Some are not fully contained and will come right out of the yard after us. I have reported quite a few to the council, in particular one little pom who is always wandering over the road, that I have seen nearly get skittled twice. He is a nasty little bugger

Alfie's lovely groomer moved to Sunbury and the other local groomer did a terrible job last time. Can anyone recommend a good groomer in areas around Glenroy, Broadmeadows, Coburg, Essendon? Even a good mobile groomer would be good. He needs attention rather terribly

Beautiful boy! Brewster??

Both the dogs have pulled up fine this morning. No vomiting or diarrhea Still, never going to give them opportunity to get their greedy jaws on any more chocolate again, so I hope they enjoyed themselves this last time!!

We are back from the vet. He had a good look at the two of them and is happy they aren't showing any signs of being affected by toxicity. He things that the larger dog is more likely to have eaten the bulk of it as Alfie might have been showing signs by now. He's advised me to feed them as normal so that the foil they might have ingested will hopefully move through their gut ok. He's just got me checking their gums periodically and to look for signs of excessive vomiting and/or diarrhea. Hopefully my heart rate and stress levels can come down now...

Yeah I must admit I'm a bit worried. I may have to take them to the vet just for my own peace of mind...

From Dogs and chocolate Why is Chocolate so Poisonous? Chocolate contains a natural occurring stimulant called theobromine found in the cocoa bean plant Theobroma cocoa, the bean that makes chocolate. Theobromine is the poison as it affects the central nervous system, as well as the heart of the dog, throwing their system into panic which often manifests in the form of epileptic seizures.

Before I write anything I want to stress that we have rung the vet... One of the dogs has pinched the remainder of a 200g block of dark chocolate (about 2/3s of the block) from my bedside table and munched into it, possibly while I was picking my daughter up from school. There is a chance he/they started eating it while I was home for an hour after work, before I left, as after I got changed I didn't go back into the bedroom and I think I would have noticed. I think the window of opportunity is from 1.30 to 4pm. Alfie is 9 years old, 10kg and definitely smells of chocolate. Gracie is about 3 and weighs 26kg. She seems to smell slightly of chocolate. The vet has said to keep an eye on Alfie for vomiting and for signs of being unwell. At the moment he seems quite normal. If anything starts to change we will take him in. Anyone had this happen? What was the outcome?

x2, good suggestion. Thankyou! That's a great idea

Alfie would hate a stroller. He loves his walks Thanks Perse but she is definitely not herding. She is very subservient to him. It's funny to see but he is definitely the boss. She is an anxious dog at times and I am pretty sure it's just that. I do have a great training contact but I want to try some other ideas first. Safety of the dogs is no issue. I am just feeling I need to get some pleasure back into the walks or I am not motivated to do them enough.

My dogs have two very different exercise levels and very different approaches to walks. Alfie is older with very short legs and for him a walk around the block is OK but any more than three or four blocks and he's pretty stonkered. Gracie is younger and bigger and could walk or run quite happily for an hour or so. She is a Kelpie x GSD but luckily is not a hyper dog that needs a walk every day. The problem is that it is near impossible to walk both together easily. Gracie pulls dreadfully a lot of the time as she is over-protective of Alfie and is always wanting to be ahead of him and making sure he is safe. Her focus is on him and not me or the walking so much. She is not treat or particularly voice responsive when in this hyper alert state. Alfie just wants to trot along and sniff and wee at every tree. He gets pulled along and is not happy jogging along at Gracie's speed. I have tried taking them on separate walks but no matter what order I do it in, they both carry on and it's near impossible to get just one out the door. The other one then races into the driveway and barks the whole time we are gone. I try to co-opt my husband or my daughter to come and take Alfie while I work at getting Gracie calmed and walking with proper lead manners but we just never seem to have the time after school/work. So the poor doggies have been missing out on heaps of walks because, to be honest, it's become this big chore/struggle. It doesn't help that Alfie is getting a bit deaf so he is not so responsive to voice commands as we walk and definitely cannot be allowed off lead at the dog park anymore. I stopped taking them to the park after they both took off across the park after another dog. I was very embarrassed. Naughty dogs!! So.... these are my thoughts. I am planning to make the walks small to start with but along a regular route (Away from as many hysterical dogs behind fences as we can. Way too many around here!) so that Gracie might learn to relax more. I am not a fan of routines and sometimes this gets me unstuck but I think Gracie needs the familiarity of a route. I am wondering if a different lead for Gracie would help. I have been contemplating one of the gentle leader/halter type leads. I have been using a choke chain but I don't think it works well with Gracie's 'soft' nature. I would like some recommendations about what to use and how to introduce it. My goal is to be able to take the two of them out more and find some way to allow Gracie to exercise more. One benefit to leaving Alfie on lead all the time is that Gracie doesn't run too far away. So I was thinking of getting a long lunge type lead to put Alfie on at the park. Should I try a retractable lead or are there better long leads I could use? I think that way he can trot along with me while Gracie gets to run back and forth freely. So I have a plan. What do you think?

Thanks for the condolences. I have been lucky that my cats have always lived to a ripe old age and I have been comfortable knowing I was doing the right thing when it was their time. I miss them dreadfully though because they are part of the fabric of our lives for so long and then they aren't, all of a sudden. I miss Tia's sweet little purr and her happy dribbles. She enjoyed her life and I am glad we made her happy.

PoppyDog, I get the impression that you had built up a rather rosy pictured image of the situation with this first foster. It is a terrible pity that it has gone this way and that you now feel it has turned into a negative experience that has not only put you off fostering, but you don't feel the same way about poor little Huey. Yes, it is important to clean clean clean and now you have had a lesson on why animals taken from pounds do need to be quarantined in some way. If it wasn't parvo it could have been kennel cough. Both are easily caught in pound situations. I just can't help feeling that you were a little emotionally unprepared for anything less than a positive experience. Anything can happen with fosters and to expect that every experience will be a positive one is a little naive. Plenty of sad and tragic stories are out there from people fostering. They pick themselves up and keep going because the good times far outweigh the bad in the main. Request all vet bills to be covered by the rescue. You can try to have them cover the cleaning chemicals but in the end you need to use them no matter who pays. I hope you will have Huey back, even just to allow him time to recover. It's not his fault poor lamb.

I bought my two new bowls for Christmas and they are the best. They are by Pet One. The metal bowl is easy to take out of the colored melamine surround for cleaning or to take to the kitchen to be filled. The colored part is chunky and sturdy with rubber grips underneath so it doesn't move. I have found them so practical and they look great. I can highly recommend them.

Our eldest cat Tia was put to sleep today as we realised she had lost her sight and life wouldn't be good for her in our busy household. I bought her from a petshop back when I didn't know any better 17 1/2 years ago. A norty torty she was, stealing food all the time (once including a whole frozen chicken!) and her appetite stayed with her to the end. She got thin and lumpy but was happy to lay in the sun until dinner time. We will miss you little girl

Alfie was about 6 when we got him. He was a sad boy mourning for his old life. Now he's full of joy (in his own conservative way) and happily bosses our girl around and prances up and down the hallway after dinner letting us know all is right in his world. He didn't bark until we'd had him a few months now he barks at the neighbor's Jack Russell through the fence and he's since learned this funny little grumble sound to get our attention. In fact, he's just done it to me now to let me know the water bowl is empty and he'd like fresh water thanks! So even at 9 he's learning things all the time. I love the older ones. :D