~*Shell*~

Gorgeous shots!! The one of river street is devine! I love the autumn colours!

I built Zero's focus up on me by telling him it was time to work (he sits at heel to start with) and then every time he looked at me, i would give him a treat. If he kept looking at me, he got another treat and another. I did this for a while to build up his focus on me and now i don't have to constantly feed him to hold his attention. Now if he looks away or sniffs the ground, he gets an "ah" to bring his attention back to me.

Which is fine. If I understand what you've done with Zero correctly, I imagine that he looks to you because he's been taught that it solves his problems. Penny looks to me if she has a problem, too. But if she knows what to do she does it. When she sees a dog behaving aggressively she knows what to do. There is no problem. Of all the ways I've let her down that is the least of it. I think she would have benefitted from your approach at one time, but we're past that now. She is happier if she sorts it out because she knows how to. I started this way with Kivi, but soon gave up. It just didn't seem necessary for him. He is outgoing and at the time we were still bonding. He trusts me more now than he did back then despite letting him sort out his problems a lot of the time. Anyway, I discovered soon after I gave up on it that he absolutely needs me sometimes and is quite capable of finding me when he does. I did actually point out that this was all based on one particular dog, guys. This is what I learnt from Penny. It does not necessarily apply to any other dog in the world, but it's not a mistake I intend to make again. So can your silly "you need more experience" remarks. This is not about all dogs! It's about one dog. One lesson. This is also not about corrective training. What's a withdrawal for Penny is not necessarily a withdrawal for every other dog in the world. At one time, Zero would've been happier to sort it out by himself too but where's the leadership? I don't want him to feel like he has to sort it out, even if he does know how - that's why I'm there. Since I started showing him that leadership, he's so much happier. He would've been happy to sort things out on his own, but since learning that he doesn't have to, he's not on edge anymore and you can see how calm he is because he doesn't constantly have to be on the lookout. What do you mean when you say you're past that? I'm trying and completely failing to see the problem (it's been a long week ). If you'd seen Zero when i got him, you'd know why i don't think fear ever does a dog good. The difference between Zero and Kit is that Zero's fear was learned because he felt fear from a lot of different things - a lot of Kit's fear will be engrained in the hare genetics. He was a very very different dog when I got him - afraid of everything. Obviously he hadn't had a bad experience with everything, but fear from one thing had transferred onto other things and he was very mentally unstable. For example - when i was putting his bed together, i dropped one of the metal pieces onto the concrete and it made a very loud noise. Zero took off and cowered. He'd never been afraid of slamming doors before but suddenly it became a massive fear for him - if it happened, he would run and cower. That became a fear of doors moving because he anticipated the sound, and eventually he was so fearful that for about 6 weeks, he refused to walk through a door, a gate or a archway and would growl when he went near it. Fear is just too unstable a teacher for me because you can never tell how badly it's going to affect the dog.

K9: whilst that is true (& amazing), the more amazing side is that we didn't use any over the top drive trigger, he just calmly stares at Shell & it is clear in his eyes he knows nothing will happen. He is totally relieved of duty & that is a very nice thing to see in a dogs eyes, never mind one that was aggressive previously, THAT is just stunning. You should see him when there's food around! :wink: You guys make me smile! I still can't believe how far he's come. I made my appointment with Steve at about this time last year when I was feeling so down about the whole situation because he was just getting worse and worse and I look at him now and I can't believe how much happier he looks. He'll even roll over for me to rub his stomach at training now - he never would've got into a submissive position like that with other dogs around before. He's actually relaxed and focused on me when there are a lot of strange dogs around now!

And this one: Tail only goes up when I move (i admit, the ridgeback caught me off guard and i freaked a little) - he doesn't care what the other dog is doing, Zero's ready to follow me because I'm moving.

I had a dog that felt fear for the first half of his life - i choose never to put him in a situation where he is fearful again. I just had to raise my hand quickly, talk loudly or excitedly or try to touch certain parts of his body and he would shoot off to the furthest spot from where I was and cower. It was the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen. Having a dog that has been abused has taught me that I never want a dog that feels fear for even a minute, even if it will teach him a lesson - there is too much that can go wrong mentally for them and it's really hard to fix! With the example of cats, I taught Zero to ignore Mow by saying to him, yes, you're interested in that cat, but nothing that cat can do is more interesting than me. I now have a prey driven dog that won't chase my cat - the cat is part of our pack and he knows that he's not allowed to touch it. He might chase other cats and wouldn't put them in a room alone together because I want to control their interactions but I can have them together without a problem. If i let Zero and Mow sort it out, I would probably have a dead cat and a dog with a big scratch on it's nose. Zero might be a little more wary of the scratchey, bitey end of the cat because of the small amount of fear that he felt, but given the chance, he would still chase cats. I found the photo I was talking about. The ridgeback is lunging, Zero is standing calmly - his tail is down which means he's not in the slightest bit interested in the dog, and his back is turned because he trusts that I won't let him get hurt. You can't see it in the photo, but he's looking right up at me.

I must admit, I'm doing the same. With Zero, he had no trust in me until I started being the alpha and not letting him get into situations with other dogs that weren't completely controlled by me. At this time, I put a prong collar on him so that when we did get into a situation where he had to be near another dog (if for example, we were on a walk and there was a dog behind a fence that I couldn't see or hear until it started barking at us) and I found that bringing his attention back to me with a small correction (me turning and walking in the other direction with a small tug on the leash if he didn't follow) actually increased his focus on me and his trust in the fact i'll deal with any situation that comes up. Steve can attest to the fact that when Zero is being lunged at aggressively (i'll try to find the photo), instead of trying to deal with it himself, he looks to me. I think that shows complete trust in me. He's not fearful of the other dog, he just trusts that I'll protect him.

Thanks Steve!

I have to say that until Steve explained to me the reason why Zero acted the way he did and how his mind worked, I had absolutely no idea. I mean, I thought i did but i was very wrong. I had been told a lot of things and while they made complete sense to me, those ideas humanised Zero and in practice, the training techniques I was using before I met Steve only made him worse. It wasn't until I became the alpha and showed him that he didn't have to be aggressive to other dogs because I would take care of the situation that he stopped being reactive to every dog we came across. What I hadn't been able to do in 18 months of work, under Steve's instruction, we were able to have Zero sit there and look at me while another dog lunged aggressively at him within 6 weeks, he could have dogs jump all over him in 8 weeks without reaction though I don't let that happen. He's now so much happier because he doesn't have to be on edge and on the look out for other dogs and our bond is 100 times stronger because he knows that I make good things happen. I'm so grateful that I had someone explain to me that a dog is a dog and there's nothing wrong with treating him like a dog - he's happy to be one! (btw Steve, I meant to email you. Guess who is now in the advanced class (he graduated last week) at obedience and can work off lead for over an hour with full focus on me like the other dogs aren't even there? Zero and I walk all the time and he's lost nearly 10 kilos since we saw you last because of it!)

That's what my reaction would have been!

That would be great Nik!

Some dogs do well on terrible diets - things that would make my dog look like hell. That's probably why your boy doesn't have the same look to his coat. Not because they're on a terrible diet, but because what's best for one dog, isn't necessarily best for another. You can buy a leave in conditioner (spray on, brush through, don't wash out) which was what Rysup was talking about. I haven't had any experience with leave-ins but I've seen Rysup's dogs and they have fantastic coats.

Thanks Luke! I think I'll start with the 430EX II and see how I go. I can always invest in a 580EX II later on when I want to start having a look at using multiple flashes.

Hey guys, After having a few very lack lustre indoor photo shoots with my 450d, I've decided to invest in a speedlite. I've searched and searched online and for the life of me, can't find any reviews and because of that I have no idea what I'm looking for (not even the usually helpful canon staff who work across the road from me could help). I went into a shop yesterday and the guy there looked at me like I was crazy when I asked him about them. His response was "they're all pretty much the same, regardless of price" and he didn't give me any helpful information at all! Can anyone give me a good place to start? What should I avoid? Any recommendations?

Zero's coat was dull and brittle when I got him so i started feeding him oily fish, olive oil, raw eggs and yoghurt - i found the combination did wonders with his coat! Recently Zero rolled in oil based paint and I had to put turps on his coat (only a small amount, but enough so that the tips of his coat were really dry). I ended up giving him a bath and conditioning his coat with tresemme conditioner (it was recommended to me by another DOLer!) and it worked wonders! Good luck!

You can use pumpkin as a filler food too - when I wanted to take the weight off Zero, i put him on a low fat kibble (first optimum which was recommended to me and surprisingly good for weight loss, and then artemis which stripped the last couple of kilos off him really quickly) and halved what he usually had for dinner. He was 43kgs when I got him - he's now 29 (i'm going to take him down to 27 - the top of the sibe breed standard) and he's lost that in about a year.

You'll get addicted to obedience training! I really look forward to monday nights when we go!

I was told the same thing as Terranik. Zero had had one of his testicles kicked back up inside of him by his (very abusive) former owners so had a 7cm incision in his abdomen on top of the usual neuter incision. He was able to go into the water on the day he had his stitches out. His was longer than 10 days because of some problems he had with the incision "leaking" (he had what looked like very dilute blood coming out of it for a day when he popped one of the stitches) but I let him play in his paddling pool on the day they came out (about 15 days after desexing). I'd assume that if the incision is closed, then you shouldn't have a problem.

What a cheeky looking face! Love the "when i got home" photo too - i didn't know greys could give such good dirty looks!

I feed artemis weight management (well, I'm only going to need one bag since Zero will be down to the weight he's supposed to be by the time i finish this bag) and it's been fantastic. His poo is better, his coat is better and he looks and (judging by the way he's bouncing around) feels better too. The discharge from his eyes has practically stopped and today was the first time i've wiped gunk out of them in over a month. I'll be moving him off the weight management when i get him the next bag but I don't think he'll have any complaints when he changes. My cat is on Royal Canin and no complaints there either - try artemis and if you don't like it, go back onto royal canin.

Poor Zero - he was so hot when I took those photos and he really wasn't into it (you can tell by the facial expression!) - and now the whole world has seen what's he got to offer ;) I found some old photos I took when I first got my dslr tonight - I really really want my PC back! I found some great shots that definitely need some editing and I can't run the programs on my laptop! I've got photoshop cs3 but i think i might invest in lightroom - thank dog for my work subsidising creative software for us. Now i just need my macbook pro and final cut studio and I'll be back in business!

I'm so very very jealous of you right now! I want my hydrobath now!!

The barfshop pumps are about $350 for a replacement - I'm not sure if you can use these pumps on other brands, but I've always found those guys great to deal with and I'll be getting my hydrobath from them. I'm not sure how much it costs to have it fitted though. Maybe drop them an email and ask them if they know anyone who can fit it for you or if you need someone to fit it.

Beautiful shots of Calvin! I like it for certain things with the dogs, but i've found after yesterday (i set myself the challenge of only using the 50mm yesterday because lots of people have told me it's the most versatile of lenses) i think i'll be going back to my 18-55mm for a while because i find the focus on the 1.8 can be very soft indoors (it'd be a lot clearer with a 1.4 apparently) and while that can be good if you want that look, it's not what i'm going for most of the time. I can't wait to play with the picture of Mow Mow in photoshop - because he's an inside cat and our house can be quite dark, it's hard to get a good photo of him. If I put it on a slower shutter speed, his whiskers always blur (they move a lot because they're so long), if i use the flash (still saving for that speedlite and diffuser *sigh*), usually he ends up with next to no detail in his white fur. I'm sure I'll get there one day! I love the 50mm for outdoor, bright lighting shots still (Zero was being a terror on friday and wouldn't take any photogenic shots, even though it was the perfect setting - I call this shot "look Mum, I can ruin a photo 2 ways!"): I vow to one day retake this shot with a better behaved Zero! What programs do you use to edit Rocco? When my PC is back up and running, I need to get back into editing and it's been nearly 6 months since I did any retouching so I might as well try my hand at a few different programs and see which one i like best.

I took some shots on my 1.8 (wish i'd had a 1.4!) yesterday at the Sydney Royal Easter show so thought I'd post a few up here (they haven't been edited yet because my laptop is so slow it's about to thrown against a wall and my PC isn't up and running atm): Terranik's Ahsoka (who won puppy of breed) being a great ambassador for the breed and meeting the show goers: Janoby Kennel's Aslann (who i was told is the only blue and tan lappie competing at the moment): And again (i wish i had reshot this without the leg in the way but when my PC is fixed, I'll play around with the editing) Janoby Kennel's Flash, a Swedish Lapphund and my new crush: And one from this morning - my cat, Mystery (who we nicknamed "mow mow" because he follows us around the house miowing trying to find me)