wuffles

Could it be reverse sneezing? Is she actually breathing out like a cough or breathing in?

I would be loving the enthusiastic flip to heel!!! Embrace the enthusiasm!!! Obedience trialling doesn't mean your dog has to be sedate and bored. You might have already seen them but I'll PM you some Youtube videos of enthusiastic obedience dogs from this forum... including ones who do an enthusiastic return to heel... I use the same commands and release words with our two... I just say their names beforehand to let them know who is expected to comply :D For example if I only want one to come inside and the other to stay outside, I get them both to sit ("Ava, sit, Satchmo, sit") then just release one ("Satchmo, ok"). It generally seems to work ok... I never train them together though so I've never thought about it too hard. I love "sweet" as a marker word, wish I'd thought of it :D

LOL. I thought the exact same thing, but you asked it way better than I would have :D :D By the way I love my Dyson almost as much as my dogs, so it's a fair question.

Sounds similar to my friend who, even with education, did end up with a (supposed) cav x poodle. Their dog is lovely, but he is much bigger than they expected (15kg), his temperament is very poodle, and his fur grows in long, tight curls which are hard to maintain. He's a bundle of energy, boisterous, very smart and takes advantage of them at every opportunity he gets I grew up with a purebred cav and he was the most delightful dog ever. All you can do is educate as much as possible, but in the end if that's what she wants, that's what she'll end up getting.

I just found this on Youtube No excuses for not going to obedience classes now...

So many people in this thread now, so hard to keep up!! You guys are brave giving your dogs any bedding at all Ours have a kennel with a concrete floor, sometimes it contains a carpet square if they haven't pulled it out and left it in the rain. They have a trampoline bed too but prefer to lie in the dirt. You guys are also so good, keeping toys and repairing them Once ours get the tiniest hole they're in the bin... I gave ours an empty juice bottle when we went out yesteday, we came home to a completely mangled thing... they'd even managed to rip the stickers off and into a million little pieces! Clever doggies... OH said to me when I got home, "How old is this bottle? It looks like it's been in the yard for years..." ;) Some of the funny moments we caught on camera this week while we were out... Vroooooooooom Satch chasing Ava. *10 seconds later* Vrooooooooom Ava chasing Satch. *10 seconds later* Vroooooooooom Satch chasing Ava. *10 seconds later* Vrooooooooom Ava chasing Satch. *rinse and repeat* At one point they were eating each other's faces when all of a sudden Satch looked up at the window where the webcam was set up and went "OMG. WHAT IS THAT?" *wide eyes...... goes back to playing* And of course a certain MATURE dog pulling the carpet out of the kennel and both of them playing tug-o-war with it... Ava even gave it the death shake I had an appointment today at 10:30am so I stayed home this morning and sneakily hid from the dogs. Right on cue at 8:45am Ava started barking at Satch so I tiptoed up to the window and banged on it loudly. They both jumped backwards about a metre... Satch seemed to click that I was still home but Ava still looked confused 10 minutes later They didn't utter another peep until I left. Ava was fast asleep in one of their giant yard-holes when I left. Satch and I made our comeback to obedience classes last night. He is just getting too naughty for my liking, so even though he'd previously done all the levels, we are back in Silver with him. He was a very good boy in general. He was so happy to be back there and kept play bowing at all the dogs in class. He is a really stubborn dog to train, totally different to Ava, so it shall be very challenging on my part. I'm sure KTB would be in fits of laughter watching us in class, he just has no clue

We had to throw out their clam shell because they were pulling bits of plastic off and eating it but it doesn't stop them digging in the middle of the yard :D The main issue seems to be that our older boy tires of play quite quickly, so when he tries to slow down, the little one barks at him to continue. It's not in any particular part of the yard. ETA: We are hoping to get them a new clam shell as soon as they come out in the shops here

To make matters more complicated, ours don't play much when we are home, and they rarely bark. In fact, I don't think I've heard the little one (who is doing the play barking), actually bark once in the past few weeks :D We've videoed them the past few days and apart from 1 or two bouts of the play barking, each hour or so they will bark at someone going past the house or the neighbours out the front, but only for 5 seconds. I am considering keeping them inside during the day although who knows what kind of destruction we would come home to They already have frozen Kongs, rotated toys, an hour of exercise before work and both get obedience training. They are absolute angels while we are home. I'm stumped

:D :rofl: We are actually considering leaving the dogs inside while we are gone Are we crazy? At least they won't annoy anyone with their barking inside, although I'm not sure our house would survive.......

There was a lab called "Dirt" in our obedience classes once.

Having met Elbie, I can't see that you'd have any problem with either sex, and you also probably wouldn't have a problem with a dominant pup either. Elbie isn't confrontational! I'd go for it if I was you, not that I am the ultimate expert or anything

Ava arrived at our house, I think, at about 12 weeks 1 day old. You have seen for yourself what she has turned out like I don't feel like I missed anything at all. She was still a little fluffball who had no clue about the world

A few times Ava has wagged so hard she's fallen over

My gosh my girl (tailed aussie shepherd) can wag. She wags if you accidentally make eye contact with her. She wags if our other dog accidentally makes eye contact with her. She wags if you say her name. She wags if you say the other dog's name. She wags if she sees a bird. She wags if she sees a toy. She wags in her sleep. She wags if you walk past her. Sometimes she wags for no reason at all.

Yes we do BUT... even people who are highly educated about dogs often end up with dogs with undesirable behaviours for their particular situation. They may know WHY the dog is doing it, they may have even expected it, but they still need to manage it. That part isn't really about education.

I agree, give it some time. With our two, I found that once the puppy started respecting the older dog's boundaries a bit more, they both relaxed around each other. It just took the pup a while for her to work out what was expected of her, and it also took some getting used to on the older dog's part, too. For example, our older boy doesn't like other dogs near him while he's sleeping or relaxing. It took a while, but now the younger one has worked out the EXACT distance that he will tolerate and she lies there Once she was in the study, he came and lay in the doorway, she went to leave and realised she was trapped! As a puppy she would have just tried to squeeze past him which would have resulted in a growl or telling off. But she has learned, so she just went back to sleep in the corner of the room Our girl is now 10 months old, our boy 5, and they get along really well and respect each other. They play, although not constantly, they often sleep in different rooms and ignore each other a lot of the time. But they greet each other like long lost friends if one of them is gone for 5 minutes and generally enjoy the company.

I don't think it's too much either, but these days we live in such close confines with our neighbours that we unfortunately have to be a bit paranoid When she gets older she'll hopefully be doing agility but I don't think it will really help! It's just so hard to do anything while we are at work.

Our neighbours have mentioned that our dogs bark a lot when we are not home so we have been filming them! From our observations they do have a little bit of a woof at the neighbours or at passers-by but nothing I would consider excessive. Nothing more than about 5-10 seconds of barking a few times a day. However, the little one barks at the big one in play They are left with a frozen Kong each, scattered kibble and rotated toys, and are walked for an hour before work. Both are obedience trained. Once they have finished their Kongs they tend to run around and play for about an hour which is when she is barking -- it's probably for a period of 10-15 minutes. They don't really play with each other while we're home so we have never really witnessed this. She doesn't tend to bark when playing with other dogs at other times. How do you correct this without the dog associating the correction to playing or the other dog???

I agree with everything you're saying I just think that it's always something that's going to happen so all we can do is prepare our dogs as much as possible and do what we think is necessary to protect them. It's the same as the aggressive dogs you come across on walks - it shouldn't happen but it does.

The ANKC rules say this: If a dog gets up and starts to roam, the Judge may instruct a Steward, or Handler, to take the dog away from the other dogs. I'm only a beginner and haven't trialled yet (but have been to trials and stewarded) but I think sometimes it's difficult to know what the best course of action would be. Some dogs would be more likely to break if the dog beside them stands up, but some dogs would be steady when the dog beside them moves, then break if someone walks towards them to collect the dog. If there is obvious threatening behaviour then of course there should be immediate intervention, but if the behaviour is seemingly innocent, I'm not sure what should be done. IMO it's just one of those things we have to work with if we want to do obedience trials. Some dogs don't like group stays because of the other dogs, others don't like heelwork for some reason or another, some are difficult with the SFE

Can't give you advice about a male dog, but I've called around a few vets for our female and found the same thing -- big price differences. The cheapest quote I found was $310 and most expensive $450 (she's just under 20kg). Our usual vet is $410 but one of the other local vets with a good reputation is $320, so I'll probably be going with them.

Great story KTB. Mine aren't that exciting but I will post anyway to add even more pics to this thread We went looking for a dog a few weeks after we moved into our house, we both grew up with dogs and missed them heaps while we were renting. We wanted something medium to large, moderately active, friendly, and most importantly, would be happy to be by itself while we were at work. Satchmo was the first dog we met and we knew he belonged here from that first meeting. He was originally from DAS in Canberra and was listed on this site in the rescue section, but I wasn't a member back then! He was in foster care for about 4 weeks before coming to us and had already met a few families -- but they all thought he was too big! "Wouldn't fit in the car", "Too big for the kids", etc! When I was signing his adoption paperwork he came up to me, put his head on my lap and let out a huge burp. He had chosen his new home. His pound mugshot. He'd been handed into the pound because he was "escaping". Thankfully for some lovely volunteers who begged for him to be held over (he was there for 3 weeks, very lucky) and also took the initiative to call the old owners to clarify that he was escaping through LOOSE FENCE PALINGS, he is still with us today. It actually makes me kind of sick to the stomach when I think about how close a lovely dog like him was to being PTS. Pound shots taken by volunteers. When we decided we wanted another dog, we were originally going to go through rescue again, but after some deliberation decided to go with a registered breeder. We like more unique breeds in general, so there were a few we were looking at. I wanted to do obedience and agility so we were looking at a lot of the herding breeds. We came close to getting a puli (I think we will still have one one day, OH loves them) but I was following Ava's litter on DOL and fell in love with her pictures And that is that, really My little blob! With her brothers, Here are my happy dogs now They are both just gorgeous

No advice here but ugh how annoying Cats don't come anywhere near our yard anymore as our dogs hate them. I think Satch has given a few the fright of their lives when we first got him and they used to walk along the fence - he lets out a woof then bangs on the fence with his paws, they certainly keep their distance these days!

I'm sure I speak for Clastic as well when I say we are soooooooo tired Anyway, Ava doesn't like the sheepies much She prefers to eat poo and sniff the ground. She's interested in them when they are moving, but loses interest quickly when they get stuck in a corner (which they do a lot). I spent more time herding them than she did today She obviously has the instinct, but doesn't know what to do with it, and is very soft with the sheep! Mars however is a little superstar On his first run he managed to grab a few gobfuls of fleece but his second run was beautiful. We have some videos and pics but will probably take a while to post them... One thing I will say is that our dogs are lovely, sweet and well behaved. You just don't appreciate it until you meet everyone elses ratbags

I'd report them but it will be interesting to see if any action is taken. We see a LOT of foxes in Canberra, heaps out our way!