wuffles

No spooies overnight, yay!!! A few times I was getting nervous as she was a bit restless and licking her lips lots, but no surprises in the morning. We went for a short walk this morning as she is a bit more energetic, I guess because she actually has food in her belly! She's still not 100% crazy Ava again but I think we're getting there

Thanks for all the well wishes guys. It's nice to have people to talk to who understand! OH was a bit annoyed because no-one at his work was very sympathetic - they are the type to just stick the dog outside if it spewed. We are about to go to bed so we'll see how we go! It'd be nice to have more than 3 hours sleep tonight, for Ava as well! Wonder how she's going to go with no treat toys or Kongs tomorrow! I have frozen some iceblocks for her and maybe she can have a juice bottle... We are hoping hoping hoping that it's not contagious because the last thing we need is Satch to catch it as well. He is a big dog and does big spews She probably snaffled something on a walk that we didn't notice, or chomped a snail in the yard or something. And I'm pretty sure her stitches are healed enough not to worry anymore... they don't look swollen or sore and she didn't react when the vet pushed on her tummy last night except to look really nauseous @ Max's reaction to the Peptosyl. Ava would be the same. She is finally starting to realise that not all vets are great, though :D She HATES having her temperature taken (can't blame her, I would complain too if that was where we had to stick it) and she is not a fan of needles. She gave the emergency vet a big death stare when she put the needle in her leg, but then wagged her tail at her as soon as it was over

Hehe Ava had a tiny bit of boiled chicken and rice around 7pm which is still in her belly at the moment... we are just hoping it stays that way. She still isn't looking great, but gobbled up the food so please cross your fingers for us that the worst is over. Poor little munchkin

Oh, we call them PRESENTS! I have no idea why they do it, but Ava always has to greet you with something in her mouth too.

Thanks guys, she is very sleepy but seems to be doing ok. She has kept down two small drinks of water and is snoozing away quite peacefully. I'm staying home with her until lunch to make sure she is alright. Thankfully my boss has a spoiled staffy so he is very understanding. Satch thinks it's great, he got a rawhide when he got chucked outside by himself at 4am and now he gets to sleep inside for half the day

We had a bit of an emergency overnight Ava spewed... and spewed... and spewed... 6 times overnight! And had diarrhea So off to the emergency vet we toddled at 4am (two more spews in the car on the way). Thankfully the vet was convinced it is gastro rather than an obstruction, but we need to keep an eye on her. Poor little poppet is very sad and sleepy. And my wallet is looking much, much lighter than it was yesterday........

Don't say that he WILL fail because he might not I know you don't mind either way but he looks good from what I've seen! Unfortunately I haven't been able to do much training lately with Little Miss Stitches (who by the way is in Fort Knox today so hopefully will not be running around with her bro like an idiot) and I have also stuffed my foot so I can't walk! GRRR. Off to the physio this afternoon to see if he can fix me There is no next level after the trialling class We don't have an assessment as such, just a runthrough of CCD or CD for practice. Once people get to a level higher than that most train by themselves or in small groups that aren't formal classes. That is a looooong way away for us And I'll be putting my name down for agility too to hopefully start sometime next year, which I am very very excited about! As long as I can walk properly first

It's really scary that this is the last week of obedience before assessment!

Maybe we should train together Primedogs, our goals are pretty similar

Wow, seems like a lot of dogs had fun today :D

Yay, my first goals thread! Ava - Work on duration heelwork while keeping enthusiasm high. Must do this first! - Enter trials and gain CCD title. Aim for high scores rather than just passes. - Be able to work to a CD standard and maybe enter some trials. - Start training in agility, and depending on when we can get into classes, hopefully start trialling towards the end of the year. - Think about dabbling in DWD or flyball. - Work on manners. No jumping up, calm greeting of other dogs, no rushing to the door to greet visitors. Satchmo - Work harder on his almost nonexistent recall. - Be tough but kind, be consistent with NILIF and don't let him take advantage of me. - Take him through at least two full sessions at our club or until he passes the Silver assessment. Me - Work hard to get my leg strength back after my surgery earlier this year so that I can keep up with Ava in agility! - Listen to and learn from those more experienced than me. - Put in the effort to make each and every training session fun and exciting - tails must be wagging and happy. - Don't let myself get frustrated. Learn how to put it behind us and move on. HAVE FUN! :D

Niques: I totally agree that waking up to doggie retching noises is the worst I'm sure Sir James will be fine, I could tell you some horrible vomit tales but KTB would probably be repulsed by her own thread, so I'll leave it up to your imagination They seem to have stomachs of steel sometimes! You probably won't be so excited about the leg cocking when you can't go for a walk without every single item along the way needs to be peed on OR THE WORLD WILL END Ok, so. I came home from work today, went to unlock the back door and there were two smiling doggie faces. Wait, what? Didn't I separate them this morning? "Someone" *cough*Ava*cough* had managed to open the gate between the pergola and backyard. I can't even imagine how much fun they had seeing as they haven't been allowed to play for four days. I really hope Ava wasn't screaming and carrying on all day trying to get to Satch The gate. To open it, she must have somehow lifted the lever all the way up and pushed Thank dog we have locks on our external gates!!! Hellooooo? Ava's "prison" - I think she had some help redecorating. The good news is that the vet says Ava's stitches look ok and are not infected. A little red and swollen which is consistent with being an active little monkey, but her temperature was normal so that's good

Agree, I think her face is really beautiful

Good tip, thanks! I know that fans technically shouldn't work on dogs but our older boy plonks himself down right in front of it every time we turn it on, so he obviously likes it ;) KTB mine were panting a lot over the weekend as well. I worry about a lot of stuff but heat not so much -- they always seem to find the coolest spots in the house/yard and never seem distressed.

Sounds like everyone has done really well with their goals! And those who haven't met them exactly have still made some great progress. So when is someone going to start a 2011 thread for those of us who would have loved to set 2010 goals but whose dogs weren't born yet?

I've left both dogs outside today despite the rain -- the pergola looked pretty dry this morning so I put the crate out there and left a bone, Kong and treat toy. Hopefully Ava stays in the dry bit instead of the wet garden bed. I'm taking her to the vet this arvo to have her stitches checked because I'm a paranoid mummy, and she is refusing to let me look at them. As soon as I go anywhere near her belly she runs away and hides which is making me very sad as she usually loves belly rubs

To be honest this is what I worry about with flyball and I am debating whether to put Ava on the club's waiting list or not! My issue isn't so much over excitability but the BARKING! I really can't stand the barking. So it's a mixture of not wanting to encourage Ava to bark, and not being able to cope with the noise from other dogs myself!! Yes and we are not meant to do any exercise more than a short on-leash walk. Don't want her insides falling out I'm pretty sure the redness around her stitches is from her being too active I'd say I'll probably leave work around 4pm for the assessment which shouldn't be an issue... :D Not sure what I'm going to do with him next term. Classes are good for him but I'm not sure how good they are for my sanity :D I'll probably come home at lunch time. Even then I'm sure she can hold on, she's a big girl. I'll see how much rain is predicted during the day, as even though our pergola is covered, if it rains lots it still gets soaked. She probably won't go to the toilet in the pergola either because there's no grass in there! Maybe you just need to be like me and go to all the doggy things by yourself OH did come to Dogs Day Out but he's not so enthusiastic about everything else.

With my girl, I found that at around 9 months she actually grew a brain. That doesn't mean she became easier to train, it meant that I had to step up my game and make things more fun and exciting for her, or she was going to make her own fun Some people recommended that I back off training at this time which I would have been willing to do if she didn't need the stimulation (she is a working breed). I found that she learned things very quickly around this age so I introduced a lot of new commands and games rather than trying to finesse old ones. She's now 11.5 months and is a delight

Reminds me of once we were at a fenced dog park when a man and his son (about 4 years old) entered, sans dog. The only dogs there were our big boy Satch and our friend's Japanese Spitz. Anyway, this child proceeded to throw a ball at my dog's head, yell at the dogs and the best part, he tried to kick my friend's dog (and thankfully missed). The father said "hey, that's not nice, apologise to the dog" (ummm, I think it should have been more like "we are leaving immediately and I am so sorry for my son's actions") and the son said "NO!" So I went against the social norm and told the child not so politely that's not how we act around dogs, and said I was taking my dog to the other end of the park so that we would be left alone. They left pretty quickly after that. Why you would trust a child, especially an obnoxious one, around an unknown 40kg dog? I am quite paranoid about my dogs being around children even though they are fine with them. These days all a dog has to do is frighten a child, which doesn't take much, and they can be declared dangerous. If I'm ever in a multi-use off leash area like our local oval, I am super vigilant and stay as far away from them as possible. Ava's recall is great but sometimes running, squealing kids, especially playing ballgames or the like, are just too much excitement. She goes back on leash if I think she's going to go say hello! That being said, I train with her quite regularly around kids on the oval -- one flying a kite came within about 2m of us doing heeling training a few weeks ago and a simple "uh uh" stopped her going to make friends PS. betsy, a breed trait of Aussies is meant to be that they are "wary of strangers" so I don't know why we have these problems

My dog licked it off my finger the first few times but once he realised it didn't taste too good he stopped. I put a few drops on my finger and stick it in the side of his mouth so it effectively goes onto his gums.

Yay for Elbie and his first stand for pats!! Hopefully it has now "clicked" and he will keep doing it well for you guys ;) I think he'll do great in the assessment! We had to skip training today even though I'm sure Ava would have loved to go. Stitches? What stitches? I think I am going to do the CCD runthrough with Ava for assessment (which starts at 6pm, whaaaaat?!) but I am not even going to attempt the silver assessment with the 'Mo I won't tell Ava that they got to play with Nugget and Champ as she will be very jealous! Rain and dog desexing don't go together Seems like Little Miss will be relegated to the laundry tomorrow which I was hoping to avoid, so we'll see how she copes in there for 9 hours ...and how I cope at work stressing all day

There are three dog training clubs in Canberra, all of which hold regular trials.

Good to hear from you Wizzle and I hope the sickness improves soon! Ava is doing well but she is proving very difficult to "keep calm" and it's only Day 3 We have been out for a few short periods and left her in the pergola and Satch in the backyard (there is a gate between the two). Well when we got home they were both panting and had crazy looks in their eyes so I am sure they were somehow playing through the gate! Then we let her inside and she wriggled and squirmed and bounced and generally acted like a little feral. Although she is happy to be crated generally she will not enjoy being in there for hours on end and I think she may thrash around, hence the pergola. Her incision is looking a bit red, but not swollen, so I am keeping a close eye on it. I have some Wound Guard that I might start applying, she doesn't seem to be licking it much but I'm paranoid... sigh. I am going to be sooo stressed when we go back to work on Monday!!! And to top it off it's predicted to rain :D Satch had hotspots last year when he had allergies. They were horrible and nasty. One of his went from a tiny little clean bald patch on his rump to a huge, weeping, nasty sore overnight The poor baby had to have his bum shaved, ointment applied and a bucket on his head for two weeks... now I am super vigilant as if you get on top of them right away they go away much quicker! I have an entry level DSLR, the Canon 1000D. I love it!

Satch gets goopy eyes sometimes, we found that even though his eyes didn't appear red, the vet showed us under his eyelid which did look inflamed. We get Tricin for him and apply it three times a day and it clears up almost immediately. Putting eye ointment in is a learned art, though

Mine are pretty typical of a dominant dog and a submissive dog In reality I think that most dogs sit somewhere between the two. The way I see it, dogs are smart enough to distinguish between humans and other dogs and therefore the whole pack thing is not set in stone. I do definitely think that we need to be strong leaders though so that our dogs respect us! While Satch is easy to live with because he's laidback, he is cheeky. We say that he is passively dominant because he's not really pushy, he is just plain sneaky! He nudges your hand to get pats. He always wants to sniff our dinner and just wags his tail when we tell him "no" (I often have to physically get up and walk him to his bed to get him to back off). He doesn't get out of your way, and if he wants to stay somewhere he will plant his bum and not move. We can take food off him easily with no reaction and when it boils down to it he does listen eventually He's dominant with other dogs but will not start fights and generally just play bows if another dog gets grumpy with him! Ava will stop doing something naughty with a look or just a tiny "uh uh". She went to lick her stitches today, I went "ahhhhh" quite loudly and she immediately rolled onto her back. She does what she's told with one command. If we tell Satchy off at dinner time she will leave the room She will move away if we try take something valuable off her but relinquishes it quickly if we catch her. She's submissive but confident with other dogs. I like Facebook I held off on joining for quite a while but like it now that it's there. Makes things easy (especially when lots of my family/friends are interstate).