corvus

It sounds like he'd be fine. A cat in the street running and a cat in the house are completely different things. Even Penny, who is fine with my rabbits, sometimes looks like she'd chase a cat in the street that runs. With the bunnies, I've found you can generally tell if a dog can be taught to be okay with them or not by watching the first meeting. When Penny first met them, she wagged her tail, poked her nose in their ears, licked them a little, and just followed them around until she lost interest. When my mother's vallhund first laid eyes on them, he ran up to the cage and tried to get at them, all stares and excitement and no hesitation. He knew what they were and he knew you chase and kill them. My mother's boxer/kelpie cross was more curious, approaching slowly, wagging her tail, sniffing, and fairly relaxed. If the bunnies ran in front of her, they'd be in trouble, and I would never trust her with them, but I could trust her in the same room as long as they were safe in their cages and she'd leave them alone. Pyry would try to break into their cages to get at them. It should be noted that Pyry is fine with cats, though, but he was brought up with them and not brought up with rabbits. So it sounds like he would be fine as long as you didn't take in a cat that was afraid of dogs and would run from him all the time. There's a lot to be said for cats that aren't afraid of dogs if you're not sure how the dog would do! I tend to think cats are not natural prey for dogs and it's not until they run that they might be treated like prey, but not all dogs have heard of my theories. :rolleyes:

I was going to do that, but now I have two dogs looking for rewards whenever I click when only one of them has done something I want to click. I've been saying their names before rewarding, but it's confusing for them. I want one of those clickers that has 4 different noises. I'm now training separately in the interests of helping two non-clicker-savvy dogs figure out what the hell is going on, but sometimes I call one over and work with them while the other waits or whatever and then call the other one over. That seems to be less confusing for them. Would you be able to just teach a quiet signal and then pair it with the sit so you give the quiet command, then ask for a sit? It might at least help tell the dog what you want. I taught Penny quiet when she was a pup the same way I taught speak, just rewarding for the quiet before speak until she understood the difference.

Eeek! Jedi has little bear paws like Kivi Tarro! You're doing better than me! I give KT Kongs and his meals in the pen, and leave him with a couple of his toys and a blanket in the kennel, but if I'm not in the yard with him, he's crying or sleeping if he's in the pen. He's been going for about 15 minutes, now, and it's his second round (I had about 20 minutes of blissful silence, there). He loses interest in the Kongs and toys when he realises he's by himself. I think I'm just going to have to wait it out. Loves the pen when someone is out there with him, just desperately lonely on his own, even though my older dog is in the yard with him. She tends to retreat to somewhere as far as possible from him, though. She doesn't like cry-baby puppies.

We brought our Lappie puppy home on Friday night. My partner went back to work on Monday, but I'm taking a week off. I thought about taking two, but decided I'd be bored if I did! It's been 12 years since Penny was a pup and I was at school then, so this is really my first solo effort. I wanted a week to figure out what was realistic for the boy and ease him into the routine. This week is basically all about confinement and abandonment training! I'm getting someone to come and feed him during the day from next week on. He seems pretty well equipped to handle winter temperatures even now at 9 weeks. He gets hot in the lounge room with the heater on and starts panting and stretching out.

My little boy is 9 weeks as well. He's doing all right on the toilet front. We crate him at night in our bedroom and he wakes us up around 4:30 for a toilet break. Toilet, then straight back to bed. He sometimes whines a bit, but I find sitting with him for a few minutes sorts him out and he's now quite good about the crate and will stay in there and snooze without crying while I move around the house. During the day, I try to keep him outside as much as possible. When he comes inside, he's either in his crate, snuggling on the couch with us, or pottering around the kitchen on the hard floor where it's no big deal if he makes a mistake. After a nap or a meal, he always goes out for a toilet break. He hates his pen as well. And yes, the crying and howling is tearing me up inside! Someone suggested I stay nearby when he's in his pen crying and just not make any eye contact. I sit out there with my laptop doing computer stuff while he howls and carries on. I let him out when he's quiet depending on how long he's been in there and how much crying. If he's been really worked up and going for ages, I let him out after about 90 seconds of quiet. If he's been going on and off, or he crashes out in exhaustion, I leave him in there for another 5 minutes or so, or if he's asleep, wait until he lifts his head. I've been feeding him in the pen and doing some little snippets of clicker training with him in there and sometimes letting him eat with the door open so he can leave whenever he wants. I try to vary the time he's in there and trying not to make him just deal with hours in there right from the word go. It seems to be quite emotionally taxing for the little guy, so call me a softie, but I'm doing my best to ease him in. I figure, he got good with the crate in just a couple of nights, and he wasn't left alone during that time, so maybe I need to approach the pen in the same sort of way. We're on day 3 and he's definitely better today. Shorter crying fits and he's happy to go in on his own. He's also not crying much when I'm with him, so that's a big improvement on yesterday. I've got the rest of this week to get him good in the pen, because next week I go back to work, too!

Wait, there's rules? I think sometimes we'd all be better off if we pretended we knew nothing about dogs every now and then. When I was raising my little wild hare, I knew nothing about what I was doing and all the info I could get hold of turned out to be wrong. In the end, I just relied on him to let me know what he needed and wanted and what resulted was a really amazing bond between us. Much better than the bond I have with my dog! Having said that, there are of course some things that I wouldn't do if I had my time over. And knowing how much and how often to feed the little beggar would have been useful! I reckon you listen to all the advice out there and in the end do what rings true for you and your dog. But that's sort of wishy washy advice. Anyway, best of luck with it!

Yeah, but my point was, she seemed to be doing fine for many years, but when I switched her, I realised she'd never been fine even before the tummy upsets started. I don't really care what people feed their dogs (bizarrely!) and appreciate that a lot of people don't have time. I myself work full-time. I make up a big batch of food on the weekend. I'm just sharing my experience. I was so surprised at how dramatically Penny's general health improved when I changed her diet I come across a bit fanatical sometimes, but I promise you, it's just enthusiasm! My mother got her cats eating dry food again for the holidays when she was getting someone in to feed them and now one won't eat unless there's dry food sprinkled on her meat. I always thought it was propaganda when they said commercial cat foods have addictive qualities or cats wouldn't eat them, but sometimes I wonder. But to be on topic, the kitten looked pretty awful when she came home with her Science Diet and she wasn't eating much. That's the only experience I've had with it. She's a little gutso these days. No trouble getting her off the dry cat food again, so I guess it's not really addictive, or at least not to every cat.

Oh, and Westiemum, Penny is 8kg (small corgi). I aim to feed her between 350 and 400 grams a day, but honestly, it's so easy to maintain weight on raw. Much easier than on kibble. If Penny's looking a little broader than I like her, I cut back a bit. If she's getting a bit thin, I obviously feed her a little more. It takes very little time for her to respond to a changed amount. If you feed something bigger than the daily alotment, it's no big deal to feed them only a snack or nothing at all the next day. You'll get a feel for it very quickly.

It's kinda out there and a little crackpotty, but perhaps the pushing exercise, which is part of so-called Natural Dog Training would help. I've heard it can be quite useful in a sort of holistic way. Here's a link to the general idea: http://www.naturaldogblog.com/blog/category/dog-training/, and there are links from that page to the pushing exercise and tug itself. There are things you need to be careful about with the exercise, though. Specifically, make sure you do something with energy you build up in your dog, like let them release it with a good game of tug. That's kinda the point of it all. I know someone who tried this without doing that bit and ended up with wound up dogs that couldn't settle.

In my experience at least, dogs will listen to anyone it's in their best interests to listen to. From Penny's perspective (she's a corgi), that means anyone that makes it clear through tone that she won't get to do whatever she likes by ignoring that person. And anyone that gives her things she wants if she does for them what they ask her to. So all it comes down to in the end is motivation for the dog. If you can give a dog a better reason to obey than to disobey, they'll obey. And it won't matter who is giving them the reason, if it's going to be better for them from their perspective, they won't care where they might think of you in the pack order (if one even exists). I think the best thing to do is to get everyone to do training. Apart from making sure everyone is on the same page, it also encourages a bond between the dog and each member of the family, as training is a bonding thing as well as an obedience thing.

The problem is, a lot of the time it looks like dogs are doing well on something until you try something else! I swear for 9 years Penny was doing fine on Supercoat and I never had any cause to wonder about what I was feeding her. I switched to homecooked because she kept having bouts of severe tummy upset. You can imagine my astonishment when not only did the mysterious stomach troubles vanish, but her energy levels went back to what they were several years before, her arthritis vanished, and she shed a couple of kilos. She's on raw now and although she's 12 and has slowed down a bit, she's still up for daily games and long walks. So it turned out she wasn't doing well on Supercoat, and I had nothing much to compare it with, so how was I to know? She appeared healthy, her coat was fine, her weight was okay.... and it wasn't until several years of feeding her that stuff that she appeared to be doing less than well on it. ETA I don't feed kibbles, but my mother's kitten from the RSPCA had been on Science Diet. She was skinny and her coat was dull and dry and she just plain didn't like it. She was eating just enough to keep herself going. When she was offered fresh mince, she went berserk and turned into an insatiable monster.

They also have pet grade chicken mince for $1/kg. And I mentioned in another thread that the big pet store in Caringbah sells roo shanks. And roo tails, now that I think about it. Big ones.

We do vegies, so I guess not really technically what you want for this thread, but thought I'd mention the big pet store in Caringbah, Sutherland Shire sells kangaroo shanks for about $4.50 a kilo. They're a real hit with Penny, and don't cause the constipation the lamb offcuts have been causing. I think it's a matter of bone to meat ratio for her. She doesn't seem to cope well with large amounts of bone these days. Pork hocks are also a favourite of hers. She's not a real fan of chicken, though.

You don't want a prolonged argument! Penny and a previous dog started fighting one day and it escalated into something truly ugly and scary. In the end, Penny nearly lost an eye and my mother nearly lost a finger and the other dog had to be put to sleep. It's easy to feed them separated and avoid any messyness. Incidentally, I've come to believe that there is no pack structure as such. Dogs, like any other social species, just try to balance avoiding conflict with getting what they want. Top dogs are just dogs that want things more than other dogs. Dogs with a "dominance" problem are just dogs that want things very badly and have discovered some unpleasant ways to get what they want.

They do look dreadful. I looked them up out of curiosity after about the 50th debate on the US based forum I'm on. I was like, "my goodness! No wonder they're so controversial in some circles!". I do wish they were more accepted in this country simply because check chains are worse and that seems to be the default. And because a dog can still pull a person over with a check chain and they couldn't with a prong. They do at least cause the dog discomfort, though, or they wouldn't work.

I'm gonna see how I go. If anyone else in Sydney wants to do it as well, I'd love to hear from them any time.

For what it's worth, I absolutely agree with Mel (hey Mel, I'm a Mel too). Sounds like he's just feeling a bit out of sorts, most likely from the vaccination. I know I don't feel 100% after shots. It's not that wild an idea that he's feeling cruddy and that makes him a bit short-tempered. Hope that's all it is.

Thanks!

Hey guys, I have been looking for a Sydney based frisbee group but have had no luck. It's such a shame, because frisbee with a dog is pretty much as fun as it gets for me and I would so love to have a play and get some tuition, although I don't actually have a frisbee dog at this point. Penny likes fetch, only her idea of fetch is to wait for another dog to run after the object, then chase that dog all the way back to the thrower. She doesn't get why you want her to bring back something you just threw away. However, our Finnish Lapphund puppy is coming home in less than 2 weeks, now. I know it'll be a year before I should let him do much in the way of jumping or hard running, and the lappies aren't exactly known for their drive, but I'm gonna start with him early with the frisbee and see if I can build frisbee drive with him. Is there anyone else in Sydney interested in frisbee? We could always start our own informal group and stumble along a bit helping each other.

Are you sure about the dingo? Dingoes are not like normal dogs, IMHO. They have prey drive to spare. When they're in the zone, they'll kill everything that runs from them, including small dogs in some cases. They're also naturally wary and from what I know of similar dogs (e.g. Canaan Dog) it's possible they might go through a fear period at around this age where they attack a lot of things out of fear. Anyway, it's impossible to say what's going on without seeing the dog. Sounds like you have big problems.

Penny was on Supercoat before she developed chronic episodes of upset tummy. After inconclusive blood tests and x-rays, my vet gently suggested I try her on homecooked. Within a week, she was bouncing around like a puppy, devouring her food with more gusto then ever before, and over the following weeks, we waved goodbye to stomach upsets and, surprisingly, her arthritis. She was 9 when I changed her over, she's 12 now. She dropped a fair bit of weight and just seemed so much happier and healthier. Nowadays, she gets a mix with pet chicken mince as the base, with some vegies mashed up in the food processor, some organ meat, a little garlic and rosemary, some yoghurt or cottage cheese, and sometimes some fruit. I never thought about using leafy green vegies, though. That's a good idea. I already buy stacks for the bunnies, who love that stuff. We avoid grains (including corn) and starchy vegetables. I can't promote raw and homecooked enough. The change in Penny when I switched her was practically instant and quite profound. I felt pretty guilty for having her on kibble for so long, which in retrospect she not only didn't like, but was actually making her sick! Oh, and for rmb, Penny loves pork best. She likes lamb, but it's been giving her constipation troubles of late and it's off the menu. She doesn't like chicken very much, but will eat it if there are other dogs around. Turkey necks are good and often easy to come by.

Penny was the smallest in her litter, but she was spunky and stood up for her little self. She grew up healthy and with the same speed as any other pup would have, although she's still a small corgi. She's 12 years old, now, and still happy and healthy, although she had back trouble a few years ago. I highly doubt that had anything to do with her size, though.