Melbomb

Ha so i am not the only one who thinks he is a bit lacking I guess he's not outright rude but i don't appreciate the no smile and getting grunted at :p OMG i have seen you walking round the area Tosca. Last time i was in the car (with B) and I actually pointed you out to my partner excitedly screaming "look at that beautiful dane! Oooh and an Afghan" Well next time i see you i won't be afraid to come and ask for cuddles. From the dogs i mean Hi MSF ;) I will definitely check your brothers butcher out. Any excuse to go to Stirling. I love it there. Once again thank you everyone for your input

Ah your a gem

Is the shopping centre in between South Road and Marion Road on Daws road Tosca? Next to a BP service station? I have a sneaky suspicion i walk past it when i take B for his morning walk but just have never really taken proper notice of what's in there. Another one i will definitely check out Aubrey, i'd love to know the name of the place on Port Road aswell if you have it puhwease

Thank you Piper that most certainly helps immensely. The Central Market is only a short walk from work and the other two places aren't too far away either. Rural Pet meats has piqued my interest so i am definitely going to check them out. I keep an eye open at the supermarket aswell ness and try and grab stuff when it's a good price. I mostly get my turkey necks from Foodland. I have to admit though i feel kind of funny walking into butcher's that i've never been to and asking what they have for dog's. Alot of them just give you a funny look and say "oh we've got pet mince". I want good stuff dammit, not pet mince

As the title suggest i am wondering if any of you other lovely DOLers have recommendations for butchers in or around Adelaide? I live down Marion way but am willing to travel if it means getting everything i want at the one place. I did a quick search and nothing came up. Unless i'm blind At the moment i get kangaroo from bucket-o-beef, minced chicken frames from Leonards and anything else from a butcher at Castle Plaza. I have decided that i don't want to go to this particular butcher any longer as the owner of the place doesn't know the meaning of customer service :p and i don't want to support him any longer. Plus it would just be easier if i could get everything all at once :p So where do you all get your dog meat from. Any suggestions?

If he was that bad to begin with i would also whack some joint guard or something similar in his food. It can only help not hinder. I'm actually glad you asked this question Kyra. B was diagnosed with HD at 7 months and we recently got another set of x-rays done at 14 months. The vet said he had no degeneration ( :p ) so far (it will happen) and i did wonder if it may have been helped by his diet. After reading this it appears that way

When B was about 5/6 months old he got waaaayyyyy too excited and his lipstick got stuck out. We rang the emergency vet (because as these things happen it was a Sunday at around 3pm) and they informed us that if it didn't go back in half an hour that we had to take him in. Half an hour came with B still looking very unconfortable and his pink bit not going in and we headed to the vet. They got it back but she did mention that it was bad enough that she was considering surgery if her final go at it didn't work. She said it was reasonably commom in younger dogs and that desexing can lessen the chance of it happening again. So i moved his desexing op forward and it has never hapenned again.

Wilna if you want to use ACDSee i may be able to get you a copy, free of charge. :wink: Just let me know.

We were charged $180.00 and the trainer was at our place for two hours. I think that is a pretty standard price from what i understand?

We feed Bomber Great Barko aswell. The only downside i found from it is that he gets quite a few eye goobers, where as when we were feeding another food he was getting none. I'm willing to live with that though as since he has had Great Barko we have no more stinky farts, we don't have to feed as much, he loves the taste of it and IMO he is in great condition coat and weight wise. The positives out weigh the one negative

Ooh i really like the Click to Calm idea. That makes alot of sense to me and i think it would work well with B. Time to get the ol clicker out My body language and tone of voice was another thing i have to work on. Apparently when i tell him to do something it's more of a please than a command. Now that has been brought to my attention it will definitely be something i work on aswell. Kavik, thank you so much for your time and help. You have made alot of sense to me. I really didn't want to rush into using a check chain and i think there is definitely other things i can work on first. Thank you

Generally he get's a "yes" and a quick pat on the head, if were outside or somewhere i don't have food. In the mornings before i come to work i do a tiny bit of training, look being one of the commands and at that time he gets "yes" and a some kind of treat. Always extending the time. We were taught at our obedience club to hold a piece of treat at our nose, say look and when the dog did look we then gave them a reward. We progressed from there to them looking at you without the food at your nose and then onto look for an extended period of time. Always "yes" and treat after they had done it correctly. I have to admit he rarely doesn't do it unless we are walking and there is a distraction. And i will be honest i usually let it slide in the instance. Which i know i probably shouldn't do.

Yep we have "look" which he does straight away regardless of where we are but when there's something that to him is more interesting he chooses to ignore it. The trainer basicly said last night that positive reinforcement wouldn't work that well with B. But i might try doing as you say and taking something of high value with me when we walk. The main issue wasn't wether we wanted him walking loose lead or heel it was that he gets easily distracted when he see's other dogs, people or even motorbikes. Distracted to the point that i have to basicly pull him along the sidewalk. I think other than resorting straight to the check chain maybe we should do more focus work first and then see what happens? Would that be a better way to do it do you think?

Hi Melbomb Check chains can be a useful tool in training. I use one on Diesel when doing obedience, mostly to get his attention when he loses focus as he can be easily distracted at times. I also use food and toy rewards for giving focus, including clicker training and food spitting. So using a check chain or any equipment is only one part of the equation, it is what you do with it and what other reinforcers you are using that is important. Ah okay. When you say other reinforcers what exactly do you mean and do you mean during the walk or when doing other training, in the home environment? We were told to use the collar (i should add here i haven't brought one as yet. I want to try with a martingale first), snap it when B was distracted, looking at whatever he wants, trying to pull to something interesting or straying from our side etc. Nothing else was mentioned about it other than to use it, no other commands etc. Although we were shown alot of leadership things that we should do around the house that we weren't doing and that we should have been. The trainer's words were that B is "off in la la land when he is on lead for a walk. Which i completely agree with He is 35 odd kgs and i worried that if he saw something enticing enough he could pull me over, although that behaviour has never reared it's ugly head. I'm able to control him to a degree with just a normal flat collar. Sorry i am a little bit dumb about this kind of stuff.

Just a suggestion. The security dog discussion is not what this thread was started about initally. I've just read pages and pages about training security dogs and really all i wanted to know were people's opinions on check collars, as i have recently been advised to use one. Maybe you guys could start your own thread? It's all been very informative but now i have no idea on wether a check chain is a worthwhile training tool or not. Which wasn't really the original question either but....

Hi Polomum, What did the vet say about Koby? I've been thinking about you and wondering.

Oh Polomum It must be absolutely heartbreaking for you to see your boy go through this. Unfortunately i can offer no advice as i have never had a dog that had seizures or dementia. I just wanted to offer my support. He sounds like he is getting very old, and i'm sure the seizures are not helping at all. What's his over all quality of life like? I'm not sure moving is going to be good for him either but again JMO and not a medical one at all. Maybe best to talk to your vet. Not alot of people check out or post here in the Boxer thread. You may get more of a response if you repost this in health?People who have been through the same thing may be able to offer up their experiences. In the meantime

I think i paid around the $350.00 mark when we got B done. The cost went up because he was over 20kgs (and apparently, according to the vet it cost's more to put them under) and because we opted for an IV drip as opposed to the usual non IV drip. We also had bloodwork done because i was concerned about how skinny he appeared. So basicly yes it cost us that much but only because we decided on extras.

Haven't been around DOL for that long so never knew about Oakley. He looks like he was a gorgeous little man Cassie. Lots of :rolleyes: to you

Thanks for sharing Tess32. I think i'm going to try it out considering i'm one of those people they mention in their speil that can't get their dog to come to them while their partner can get recall everytime :rolleyes: I really hope it works.

I second the roo tail! That's one of Bombers favourites. That and Turkey necks. Chicken necks are abit too small for him. He's a gulper.

Last time i bought joint guard i actually got it from our local Petstock. For the 400gms tub it was i think (brains failing me) $58.00. I worked out to get it from greyhounds was more expensive and that's why i just picked it up at Petstock. Oh should mention that was only for the 400gms tub. They didn't have the bigger one

I second the Cuz toy. Although i have a Boxer and not an Amstaff. Bomber has had it for ages, we even play tug with it and it is still in an excellent condition. Best place i could find to purchase them from was petnetwork.com.au.

Oh wow that's awful. If ever anyone needed a reason why not to leave food out there it is!

I feel your pain! Bomber wasn't keen on any kibble unless it was Beneful which for multiple reasons i decided to stop giving him. I thought changing it over would be a disaster but as soon as we tried Eagle Pack Holistic we didn't look back. He will eat it on it's own and he has never done that before!