wuffles

Other animals' poo is fair game for my self poo-hater. Duck truffles are his favourite.

You left them unattended with a toy with STUFFING?! ARE YOU CRAZY?! Anyway, don't you think it's worth $6 to keep the doggies entertained for a day?

Satchmo is a poo-hater as well. He literally tiptoes through poo corner to find a spot to go. We've put poo in holes to stop him digging before, when he realises it's there he gives you this look like, "You disgusting human being! Why in God's name would you put THAT in THERE????"

The other thing is, sometimes it's not possible to avoid the snakes. We've seen them just lying on dirt paths or literally just beside the path and they haven't moved until we're pretty much on top of them.

I don't even do dogsports yet, but I was back at obedience training 2 weeks after my ACL reconstruction surgery Living in Canberra you kind of get used to bad weather, especially extreme heat and extreme cold!

I think sometimes it's just a matter of knowing which dogs yours goes a bit nuts for and avoiding them when it comes to important stuff! If we have to go anywhere near Harvey the samoyed in our assessment, we're screwed. Ava and him are obsessed with each other ;) I never did off leash recalls with our older dog at dog club. I always brought a long line and did it on that. 90% of the time he was fine, but the other 10% was always embarrassing. Once I was in the small fenced pen with him, someone opened the gate and he got out while classes were going on -- I think he went and said "hello" to every single dog in the area, dozens of them. He was dancing around, play bowing, running from dog to dog I yelled at him to COME, he turned on the spot, ran towards me, ran a circle around me, then ran back to the other dogs until someone caught him for me I can laugh about it now though, man he had a good time

You could be there too by the end of the year ;) I hate the obstacle course. They tell me I should walk faster through it, but it's literally two fast steps between each obstacle. They also tell me not to worry if she wanders a bit away from me, but the course is not set up for medium to large dogs at all... I just find it stupid and annoying. If they moved the obstacles a few more metres apart I think we'd do a lot better. I was so scared the first time I did stays or mat off leash Thankfully Ava hasn't disgraced me yet, touch wood. If a dog next to her got up and ran, though, she'd be chasing it in a jiffy. On the assessment sheet it actually says to leave the leash on the dogs and drop them to the ground for the stays which I also find annoying ;) I'm going to do some practice on the oval this week just to proof things as they are on the sheet - for example putting a toy between her and the mat Although this morning she went to the mat even though Satch had his big bum planted in the way!

Ohmygosh KTB, how is it already time for another assessment? I saw you and Elbie going around the loose leash course on the weekend and you did much better than us. That's our worst exercise and I suspect the thing that will see us repeating the Silver class - unless she does the fly-by in her recall again! The two dogs tethered at the start belong to the Silver instructors. The juice bottle is always what gets us in that course as well That and the colourful stuffed toy, because we have the same one at home and it's much loved! Yep, Ava always looks like she's sharing some personal joke with herself. She doesn't take anything seriously Kelpies and BCs tend to have that serious look about them sometimes! Satchmo often looks sad, especially when Ava is biting his chops. Congrats at sorting out the car behaviour! Hopefully it continues! :D

Yep it's one of these: http://www.onlinepetwarehouse.com.au/?page...t=100&ps=21 I got it from Petbarn for about $6... Ava likes to chase it but just runs straight past and forgets why she was running in the first place. As you can see our kiddies like to cuddle each other! Satchmo won't have a bar of cuddles at home so I think Ava got her fix today.

Sorry to hijack the thread KTB, but to keep some piccies going... here are Clastic's little angels and my little devil having fun this morning!

Thanks RubyStar, that's one of the things I didn't realise I was doing until I watched the video ;) Yesterday at training I made sure I kept my hands in the same spot before and after

You poor people with destructo dogs. Mine don't destroy anything.

I love reading this thread but it's a bit intimidating as a newbie when everyone posts such excellent videos So I thought I'd be brave and post one from a beginner!!! Our club assessment is coming up so I just wanted to get a video that included most of the exercises they expect. I've already picked up a few things wrong with my handling that I didn't realise I was doing until I watched my footage (eg. stepping into her, funny hand positioning on the recall) so please be kind ;) My little girl is 9.5 months old, she is so willing to learn and is teaching me a lot. We usually train on the oval where I have a lot more room to reward differently and be a lot more exciting, I don't usually just walk in circles in my pergola

Is he licking the kitchen cabinet??? What a spethal boy

Awwww beautiful!! We fostered a 10 year old grey girl and she loved to run as well - and was still so fast!

Just thought I'd update this in case someone is searching in the future. Ava hasn't reverse sneezed for the past two nights, and she has also stopped snuffling and snorting. Still snoring a little bit but that's probably just her The vet thinks it was probably some kind of foreign body stuck in there, something organic like a grass blade which has either dislodged itself or simply been dissolved. We're keeping an eye on her but so far she seems perfectly happy and back to her normal self. Thanks everyone for you advice and experiences.

Ava's always been an early bird. When she was crated, she'd wake up and whinge her butt off at 5:30am. Now that she has free run of the house, she is still up early, but we have more of a chance of sleeping through, as she just wanders around the house rather than whinging. Some weekends I've been annoyed by her wandering at 5:30am, so I've put her into her crate and she's been quiet. I think all dogs are different so you might have to try different things!

Great video Niques! It's great to see such happy teenage dogs that are getting a good start in life! Max#1, if you don't want to, you don't need to retrain commands. Our instructors don't really care what we use unless it's going to be distracting or confusing. For example, I go to the same club as KTB but I use "stay" in the food exercise. I also use "down" instead of "drop". I use the command "heel" but some others in my class use "close". I use "come" as a recall and others use "here". Both my guys learned to stay pretty easily. Build on one thing at a time so build time before distance. Start with them sitting either beside you or right in front of you. At first I'd release them after 1 second, then 2 seconds, then 3 seconds, then 1 second again, then 4 seconds... and so on. When they understand that, introduce movement and move further from them. The trick is to mark and reward them BEFORE they break You can usually see if they are getting restless. If they do break, give a marker that they haven't done it right (I use "oops"), put them back in the position and try again. It's great that you are making training fun for Max, I have tried to do this from the beginning too even though I might not have succeeded in making heeling fun yet!! We had a labrador in our class who has absolutely brilliant focus because his owner builds his excitement between exercises by playing games, using tug toys and getting him excited about the food reward. He is stunning to watch! (KTB, have you seen Champ training lately? He is amazing!) I am sick at the moment and home from work so even though it seems like a good opportunity to train, I just didn't feel up to it today. Practiced a few tricks and stays in the house but it was raining so couldn't go out. Ava was at the vet yesterday as she possibly has something stuck up her nose or at the back of her soft palate, but we are waiting a few days to see if she stops sneezing/snorting before we take her back to get her anaesthetised and probed! Poor little girl.

Just got back from the vet. He said it sounds like she has some kind of foreign body in there due to the sudden onset and frequency (she is waking up multiple times in the middle of the night doing the sneezes). We are going to wait a few days to see if it gets better before we take any action. The vet stuck his hand down her throat and blew into her nostrils and she still went straight back to him for kisses

No scientific evidence here, but I have tried just placing my hand over her nose lightly as suggested, which stops the sneezing immediately, and she looks up at me and gives me a tail wag. It's definitely not distressing her I'm going to book her into the vet anyway as she's also started to snort a bit and she is not a breed that usually has this problem. Just want to check she doesn't have an injury or anything.

She's only been reverse sneezing and snoring yesterday and today.

She's only started snoring today with the reverse sneezing. OH says "you always complain about my snoring when I have a blocked nose" :p

If we wake her or she's woken by a noise, she still reverse sneezes... She's snoring like crazy at the moment Thankfully it doesn't seem to distress her, she actually wags her tail the whole time. But it is such a horrible noise and makes me feel bad. Poor little girl.

Happy birthday Micha! Mine would go nuts over the noise that toy makes. How tough are they?

Thanks guys. Her 'episodes' are only lasting a few seconds anyway so thankfully I haven't had to stop them! Just seems weird that she is doing it pretty much every time she wakes up from a snooze.