Zenith

Happy Birthday :)

She's just gorgeous Jules :)

We use Macarthur Vet Group - Who are at Bradbury, Mount Annan and Camden! They have been fantastic and our animals have been so well looked after in both general vet work and emergencies. All of our friends in the area use them as well and they have gone above and beyond. I've also been to Ingleburn Vet Hospital after being transferred from Macarthur when our boy was bitten by a brown snake. He was only there for a few hours sadly before passing away, but the staff were lovely.

Sounds like a lead would definitely come in handy, that way you can keep him close whilst keeping an eye on him, as well as directing him to the part of the yard where you expect him to toilet. Sometimes it might take 30 minutes for him to go at first, but make such a massive fuss of it when he does go, and then play with him before taking him back inside. Hope it goes well :)

With our newest pup, I always have him on lead, i just encourage him to come along with me and I stand out in the rain until he goes. Before he got big I would just pick him up and carry him to the end of the yard, and stand out there with him.

I've only had the walky dog, well I have 2 so I could run 2 dogs or hubby and I can take 1 each. The lead part is attached to a spring inside the attachment so it's flexible. I had a few bad stacks on the bike when holding the lead because my boy stopped quickly at about 15km/hr and it hurt, and gravel rash wasn't particularly endearing, So I used the walky dog particularly on public bike tracks, as often we encountered loose dogs etc.it is handy and quick to take off to pack my bike in the back of my hatchback.

Yes ours are all wet too! They are a bit cautious to go out at first, but when it's time to feed the horses they are running around like mad in the pouring rain. I think their fav part of the day though is being towel dried every time they come back inside!

We start new pups in a crate in our bedroom of a night time. Once they are finished their chewing & mischief stage they can move to a bed in our bedroom, or sleep on one of the dog beds in the lounge room. We also have 2 house cats - they have a room with a baby gate on it so they can get away from the dogs if they want their own space, and we built a massive cat tree house, scratching post thing so they can get up high enough. Our now 15 week old puppy is still too rough with our female cat as she is fluffy (which is more enticing to the pup than our short haired male) and she puts up with it and comes back for more. However because our pup is either in his crate, in an exercise pen in the lounge room or on a lead when inside, he doesn't have the opportunity to be rough with her, and is learning to sit or leave, so eventually we can have them interact without upsetting or hurting the cat.

Gorgeous girl, congrats :)

Best of luck to all of those training for the ET this year :) We will definitely try for this when my puppy is old enough, I had a great time training for it with my late boy.

Oh how exciting Ellis! How long to go now Jules? Your little girl is gorgeous

Sending my sincere condolences Caz RIP beautiful Buddy

My dogs & cats are fed mostly raw. We ourselves eat healthy food - we rarely have takeaway and eat whole foods. We rarely drink soft drink or juice (unless we've juiced it ourselves). We do have some junk, but not often. I figure my animals can't do the shopping or decide their meals each day so its up to me to make the best choices I can for them. I guess it will be the same when we have kids.

Fantastic news Jules! Look forward to updates in the coming weeks on the countdown! Exciting news about Hudson and yep we bought so much stuff before Jäger arrived :)

I'm no expert, but a few ideas that we have used for our dogs and with our new puppy - In addition to the great articles mentioned above by K9pro, we also use many of the principles Leerburg uses. We've used them on adults and rescues with great results as well as our newest addition. We have an exercise pen in the lounge room that our puppy is in during the day whilst we are inside - he has toys in there that we regularly change. He is fed in there at mealtimes, anything not eaten is taken away. I take him outside for toilet stops as soon as he wakes up, finishes eating or once he has been playing for a while. He can see all the goings on in the house, but has had to get used to us walking away from him etc etc. We also crate him at night, he's in our room at the moment, so I can take him out as soon as he wakes up to toilet. He must sit before coming out of the crate or pen, and is always on lead outside of these times. If he's not crying when I walk past etc, I just throw a treat in - I don't say anything to him as he starts carrying on again. We just ignore him if he is carrying on. K9 pro has lots of info on his website about crate training. I also have an exercise pen over at our stables, and he also has an assortment of toys in there. We also have a separate run for him in our backyard, and we started off putting him in there for short periods of time, and building it up. So we give him a kong or a nice big knuckle bone and we leave him in there (also with toys too) before leaving the house. All of these are assisting in him getting better with us leaving him in the 2 weeks we've had him. Our older dogs are also crated at meal times and whenever we want to train separately or we have people or kids over etc. With treats - try a few different things and see what he likes most. Mine love sausage (chicken or beef), cheese, BBQ Chicken, steak! I just cook up whatever I have, cut it into small pieces and freeze then defrost bits of different treats - that way I can mix it up and not get them bored. I will also miss a meal or 2 if they aren't that interested. Although one of our girls is more interested in playing tug as a reward, she's funny with taking food from your hand no matter how hungry she is. With regards to recall, we don't allow our dogs off lead until they have reliable recall. Being on a farm its too dangerous with our horses, and snakes and other wildlife if they can't be called back. Whilst our adults are all great at home, I don't trust all of them off lead when under massive distractions whilst not at home, so they stay on a long line then too! There are lots of resources on the web regarding producing a reliable recall.