macka

At our place, the gate from the front yard to the back leads to a path down the side of the house. I have put in another gate (just made out of an old puppy pen) on the backyard side, to stop the dogs from being able to get to the actual gate. Someone has to open the gate to read our electricity meter and I was paranoid about them letting the dogs out which is why I did this. Would this be an option for you?

Puppies at that age are similar to human babies in that they cannot regulate their own body temperature all that well. For this reason, at this time of year, I'd be letting your pup sleep inside in the laundry or similar. You will be able to transition him to outside when he is older if that is what you want (personally mine will always sleep inside as I prefer to know that they are safe and secure overnight and not able to bark or make noise overnight or early in the morning). The method I used for toilet training initially for both my pups was to keep the pup contained in a crate or similar, then get up during the night to take them to the toilet. At first you may need to get up twice/night, then gradually you can reduce it to once/night, then not at all. This should only take a few weeks all up. Good luck.

For me, personal preference. I am usually walking two dogs at once and I find it hard to handle anything longer than about 3 feet when I've got two leashes to hold. And I only have one hand per leash. My dogs don't walk in a perfect heel (though I'd like it if they did ) but are usually a bit out in front, one on each side. I don't really mind so long as they're not pulling. I also have a knot tied in each leash about half way down so that if I need to, I can grab the knot and hold the dogs very close to me, if we are walking past others on a narrow path, etc.

At the moment I use a Chain Martingale on Archer and a Front-Leading (Easy walker) Harness on Leia. Just normal nylon webbing leads, about 3 feet long. Leia is the type who can pull you along the entire walk, but she does better with the harness on. Archer doesn't usually pull while you are just walking along, but he does sometimes try to pull to go and sniff trees and things, and he lunges at passers-by (getting better with this as we can now walk past people reasonably calmly, but people with dogs are another story). So the martingale offers a correction for lunging and stops him from being able to pull me over altogether. There is a man with a dog who lives near us who walks his dog off-leash. However the dog is so well trained that it responds to the man telling it when to stop and when to go, it won't cross a road without being told to, and it showed no interest in me and my on-lead dogs when we walked by. Very impressive.

same here, but then it's into quarantine for a few hours as his farts are deadly I was just going to say beware, as raw eggs cause horrendous farts for my guys!

Mine are crated. I take them for last wees whenever I go to bed. Usually around 10.30 on weeknights and later on weekends. They sleep through until one of us gets up. Around 7am on weekdays and later on weekends. They don't need toilet trips during the night. Occasionally if I am having a real sleep in I will hear them scratching to be let out in the morning, so I get up and let them out. They can last pretty late though.

My two are friendly wiggly-bums when strangers come over whom I let into our house. However I know for a fact that if we are not home and someone tries to enter the yard they bark their heads off.

Haven't really noticed this. But probably because there's a little bit of friendly rivalry between everyone's favourite colour labrador. There's no real differences between the colours. except that blacks are better Of course!

Nope my two don't.

Haven't really noticed this. But probably because there's a little bit of friendly rivalry between everyone's favourite colour labrador. There's no real differences between the colours.

I have an 11kg Mini PoodleX who is 2.5 years old and a 34kg (at the moment) Labrador who is 10 months old. They get on fine. They run together during the day. They play, they wrestle. My lab is really gentle with the smaller dog. The smaller dog is the boss of the bigger dog in any case so if she decides she has had enough of him, she just tells him off. She can definitely stand up for herself. I think it helps that she is the older one. I am careful not to leave collars on them when I'm not there as the lab does tend to like biting on to the smaller dog's collar and I worry that he could get stuck like that and drag her around. Apart from that there is no issue leaving them together.

If you are up for it then great, have fun and enjoy! And join us in the lab thread.

If they won't let you return it then I would sell it privately or on ebay and buy the one that you want. But I think if you go in there and kick up enough of a fuss they should let you. It's terrible that no-one explained it would be manual focus only!

I'd love to have a nice fast 35mm, it's a focal length I enjoy using. It will feel a bit differently to the 50mm you had though - it's a wider lens. Totally up to you.

You could think about getting an older lab who is good with children? Do you have the time and energy for a puppy, toilet training and puppy training?

You're welcome. Lucky for you I am bored at work today. Now the challenge is to make yourself think about all this next time you go take a photo.

Cameras are all about capturing light. All of the basic settings therefore relate to the way in which light enters the camera through the lens. Shutter speed refers to the length of time the shutter is open. A higher speed will mean the shutter is only open for a short amount of time and therefore only lets in a small amount of light. A lower speed lets in more light because the shutter is open for longer. The length of time the shutter is open affects the sharpness of the image. Imagine taking a photo of a waterfall. If you use a very fast shutter speed, you will be able to see individual drops of water frozen in time. If you use a slow shutter speed, the water will look silky and blurred because all those drops of water moved a long way while the shutter was open, and the camera has captured that movement. In the same way, if you are trying to photograph a dog running and your shutter speed is too slow, instead of freezing the motion of the dog and giving you a sharp image, your image may be blurred because the shutter has stayed open while the dog moved across the image. Also, if you move the camera in your hands while the shutter is open, you will blur your image (camera shake). As a general rule to avoid camera shake, your shutter speed should be at least 1/X, where X=the focal length of your lens. So if you are using a 50mm lens, your shutter speed should be at least 1/50. The faster the speed, the less chance of shake. Aperture refers to the size of the gap/hole through which light travels into the camera. A low aperture number (like f1.8) means the gap is large, therefore letting in more light. A high aperture number (like f8) means the gap is much smaller, and lets in less light. Aperture also affects which parts of the image are in focus. A big/low number aperture gives you a shallow depth of field, where your subject is sharp but the rest of the image is out of focus. A small/high number aperture increases the depth of field and allows you to get the whole scene in focus. The ISO determines the sensitivity of your camera's sensor to light. In bright, sunny conditions you do not need your camera sensor to be particularly sensitive to light because there is plenty of light around. So you should choose a low sensitivity of ISO100-200. In low light situations, you need your camera's sensor to be more sensitive to light, so you use a higher ISO. Using a high ISO allows you to use a smaller aperture/faster shutter speed than you otherwise would be able to in low light conditions. However, a higher ISO number will result in more "noise" or fuzziness in your image. This is why it is always desirable to use the lowest ISO possible in any given light situation. There is a complicated relationship between these settings - for example if you choose a small/high number aperture, your shutter speed will have to be longer in order to let in sufficient light because the gap through which the light passes is very small. But if you increase the ISO, you may be able to get away with a shorter shutter speed and still maintain a small aperture, because your sensor will be more sensitive to the available light. But your image will then have more "noise" as a trade-off! It takes time to get the hang of the settings and a camera course can be very helpful. I hope you can sort it out and get the lens that you are happy with.

Don't feel silly, these things are complicated! Yep just focus by twisting the focusing ring around on the lens. Practice twisting it slowly until you see your subject "pop" into focus. I recommend using it on still objects to start with!

Fran, just did a quick google and sorry to say the D5000 does not have an auto focus motor built into the camera body. The only lenses that will be able to auto focus on it are labeled af-s, where the motor is built into the lens. You will only be able to manual focus with that lens. I have a couple of manual focus only (cheapo) lenses and it is a bit of a challenge until you get used to it.

Not familiar with Nikon but..is the lens definitely compatible with your camera or could it be DOA?

Leia has been known to defend us from the doggy calender on the wall before. And the secret black doggy who lives in the mirrors. As far as being real guard dogs though, both of mine showed potential the other day when my OH forgot his house keys and had to "break in". Both the dogs barked their heads off at him until they realised who it was. :p

Archer was great as a pup too. Never destroyed anything, great recall, etc etc. Now at 10 months he has destroyed every single one of my pot plants and his recall has vanished! :p Not saying Mindy will do this but they can go through a challenging phase during adolescence so be prepared.

She's beautiful - congrats on the new addition.

Just saw him again! on SBS, during the news, nice one!

Sorry to laugh but that is too funny! I can just picture them eating the pizza with you watching them from outside the car!