megan_

Yeah, we should really give bad dogs a really good thrashing too - you know, to keep them in line. Really lay into the little sh*ts.

Thanks tollers. I really like the club it just left me rattled

How did this story turn into a youth-bashing thread? Most kids don't break into pounds and release dogs. I was barely smacked, never belted and I turned out alright too.

yes - it can be deadly.

I'm going to try her out there, however there is one dog that constantly runs around and doesn't listen to her owner and has caused a few tiffs. Lucy wouldn't react well to having that dog in her face, especially since the other dog is a bit growly. Lucy is fine off leash, works well and focuses on me but doesn't like being greated by randoms! I'll speak to Susan about it and ask that Lucy never gets put in a class with this dog. If that isn't possible then we'd have to give it a miss. That said I work Lucy around the club house for about 20 mins before Fergus' class and she copes really well. The Frankston agility class is a lot smaller and quieter which suits her and the instructor always seems to notice if a dog is staring etc and tells their owner to get their attention to avoid a fight. It is just the obedience class that really rattled us.

Well the universe slapped us down a peg or two this weekend... First up, we had to go to a compulsory obedience class as part of the requirement to do agility at the new club (I missed the initial one so needed to make it up). At this club they give reactive/shy dogs a bright yellow vest with "PLEASE GIVE ME SPACE" printed on it. I thought this was perfect! I always hang around the edges so that people don't need to move out of our way but I was approached by a woman wanting to give Lucy a hug, even though she had her vest on. She caught me off guard and her face was in Lucy's face by the time I realised what was happening (hard to describe but she was walking past and then suddenly lunged for Lucy!). "Ooooh, poor little dear" she cooed. I immediately blocker her and said (trying to stay calm, but really, really p*ssed off)" "Her vest says she needs space. Leave her alone". So I got an eye roll and she retreated. Bloody idiot. I wish things got better from there but they didn't. We then had to go past the main club house (running the gauntlet) and into a small room. The instructor was nice and gave us a seat away from everyone, but the room was tiny and they were doing work next door so things were constantly banging. Poor Lucy was scared . She was still calm enough to eat and I just continually got her to do simple things and fed her but I let her down - I should have just walked out and left. I only stayed because it is a prerequisite of doing agility and the agility class is fantastic for her (no dogs say hello at agility, people are there to work not faff around). A woman had her two kids with her and when we moved outside to exercise one boy tried to touch Lucy a few times. He was a real little sh*t and would walk past, looking away and then make his move. After the second time I knew it was intentional and I told him that he had to stay away from us. He got the message finally and left us alone. Even with her vest on people still tried to get their dogs to say hello. WTF is wrong with people? I wasn't' standing in the middle of the group, I was off to the side. I think so many people have no control over their dog, he's "friendly" and so they let their dog pull them over to say hi, rather than admitting that they have a problem. The club is actually really nice and progressive but it isn't really set up with dogs with issues and is just validated my theory about large obedience clubs (ie I'd never take my dog to one, even my friendly boy, it is too much chaos). At agility, most people have control over their dogs before they start, but obedience clubs seem to be full of adolescent dogs that overwhelm their owners and pull them over to say "hi" to everyone. And yet my well behaved, focused dog is the one with a problem! At agility, people seem to focus more on their dogs and working with them, rather than treating it as a social occasion. I might write to the club letting them know that the intro class isn't really suitable for dogs with issues and make some positive suggestions re: how they can be included safely - I just don't want to be a trouble maker and get us kicked out of agility! Then this morning, when we were on our walk, I heard a big commotion behind us. 15m away was a huge GSD, thrashing about, straining to get to us. His owner was struggling to hold onto the leash. We were on a narrow path on a busy road. What does the owner do? Walk in the other direction? Give us a warning? No! She walks straight towards us with this large, out of control dog. Fortunately there was a break in the traffic, "quick, quick" we got across the road and changed directions (ie walking towards the dog, but I did this so we'd pass quickly rather than walk in parallel). I didn't want to stop or slow down for LAT, so I just talked to them "Good Lucy. Good Fergus. It's okay!". Lucy stared a bit (understandable when a dog is trying to get at you) but quickly redirected. No growling! Lots of praise and we continued on our walk. 50m from home we came across an off leash dog, did a U-turn and then traced back out walk so we didn't have to cross paths with it (bonus for dogs and I is that we got extra exercise). Still p'd off at the GSD owner for not turning around. Not only did this endanger my dogs, but it just rewards her dog for carrying on. Still, on the bright side my pack handled it well even though the adrenaline was really pumping.

Make sure you specifically check that the wing that you need to drop/pick up your dog fro is open at the time of your flight (AEC for santas). Theif opening hours don't always match flight hours.

There seems to be a myth that old people are immobile fuddy duddies! My aunt and uncle are in their 70's and have a very active standard schnauzer. They are very active and he gets walked 3 times a day. He is visited by 20+ grandkids and has a ball, goes to coffee shops, visits friends and family etc. Because they are retired, my aunt and uncle. spend a lot of time with him. He lives a much more active and rich life than the vast majority of dogs. If something happened to them and family members couldnt step in( unlikely), then he'd go back to his breeder.

If you feed all those trial packs they might get a very upset tummy even if the food is good for them. Nutro is great, I don't use it because the kibble is large and my dogs train for their food so I want a tiny kibble. If I was bowl feeding I'd stick to it.

That's great news Snook. Good luck in the group classes.

Does he work for all his food? Do you feed him in a bowl? If I just got paid for doing nothing, I wouldn't want to work either. All dogs, with the exception of those on their last legs, are food driven. Without food they die. The problem is that most suburban dogs get more than enough food for nothing so they don't work for food. Just stop feeding him in a bowl and make him do thing to earn the food and his attitude will change. It might take a bit of time but it will work.

Is he advertised on petrescue? A rescue group might list him there on your behalf. There is also some great info on there on how to advertise. You might also want to add some info on pointer personalities - most people don't know what pointers are and what a gun dog is.

Processed food is normally more easy to digest

I don't know but I'm never visiting my aunt in mount Eliza. Ever again.

yeah, but you can't call people who vaccinate puppies close minded and unable to think for themselves and not expect to cop some flack.

Kangaroo is pretty lean, so it might be a good starting point. Note: I haz no animal nutrition qualifications. I feed my guys kangaroo but due to parasites I only feed by dogs human grade meat, so it can get pretty expensive.

I'm allergic to many oils - it doesn't matter how fresh they are or how they are stored. Some dogs are deathly allergic to fish oil, even though it is good for the vast majority of dogs. You could try the diet without the coconut oil, stabilise her and then add it down the track if you choose? If she has IBD I wouldn't feed her any bones.

You need to stop before he starts disengaging (which is really hard, because when they're working well it is very tempting to continue). You need to do this so that: i) He wants to train more (if you finish something while you still love it, you want it more) ii) He doesn't learn that disengaging = I don't have to work anymore. An alternative is to take along a crate and crate him when he isn't working. It would look something like this: * Arrive and crate him. Learn what you're doing, chat etc. * Take him out, warm him up and work him. Stop long before he is bored. * Put him back in the crate, learn more, decide what you're doing next then out of the crate to work. This way you won't miss out on learning stuff and he won't get bored. It is good for him to be in a class of "iffy" dogs and not be allowed to say hello to them. It helps him learn that he can't say hello to every dog he meets and you are in charge of who he greets. I don't let my friendly boy say hello to dogs at school - we are there to "work", he has plenty of social time in other settings. Note that when I say "work" I mean have lots of fun training together. If he is more interested in other dogs than you then you really need to build up your reward value. Do you ever play with him? I mean tug, run around like a crazy person, even wrestle him? He needs to see that working with you is more fun that saying hello to other dogs. The sad fact is that, for most owners, that isn't the case because they don't actually play with their dogs. They're even boring when giving treats to them ("good" in monotone voice, treat). Start playing with him at home and build from there. Talk to him when training, tell him how good he is. Squeal with delight when he gets something right in a happy, sing-song voice. Praise him like he has won Olympic gold. Mix up rewards (toys, tug, treats). Help build anticipation of a reward. I might be a good idea to teach him something like "Look at That" (LAT). There are threads here explaining how to train it.

I've always missed the boat with these - how do you enrol?

He has a reward history of not listening to you and that has been reinforced every time he has ignored you, so it is going to take some work and some awesome rewards to turn things around. Rest assured though it can be fixed. Here's what I would do: Phase 1: Build up reward history with the word "come" (or choose a new word if he has gotten used to ignoring this. It can be anything because dogs don't talk English). * Get his favourite treat ever and when you're around the house and close to him, say "come" and shove the treat in his mouth. He doesn't have to do anything at all to get the treat. Your objective is to have him associate the word with the best treat ever. Over the course of a week or two, repeat this hundreds of times. Sometimes give him one treat, sometimes give him 3, 10, 2, 5 etc. This will also teach him to hang around after recalling. It is really important to do this often and not stop when you think he's got it - you are using classical conditioning so repetition is really important. If you're afraid of him getting too many treats then feed all of his food this way. * Then go to another room call "come" - he should come running to you with great gusto. Praise him greatly ("you are such a good boy, such a good boy") in a very happy, light voice while feeding him lots and lots of treats. I mean lots - feed him his whole meal this way. If he doesn't come running very fast then go back to step 1. Phase 2: Slowly increasing the distractions: * With the long line continue to build on "come". First just in the yard, then in the driveway etc. Remember to treat each and every time and vary the number of treats you give him (so that he learns to hang around after a recall rather than bolt off). Start off by giving the treats in really quick succession then leaving more time between treats to teach him to wait around for a while. Phase 3: Teach sit on a recall * If he knows sit with a hand signal, after you say "come" and he runs to him, give him the hand signal or say "sit", he sits, and then you treat like there is no tomorrow. Then say his release word (assuming he has one. If he doesn't, I'd teach this separately. It means he has to sit until you say the release word which come in handy to stop bolting). I'd train the sit after recall at home first with few distractions then build it up to outdoors. Phase 4: "Leash time" game * at home, say "leash time", clip on the leash and then give him a reward. Repeat hundreds of times over a few weeks. Sounds silly but I see many owners whip out the leash and the dog knows that this means the end of fun so they do a runner. My dogs love "leash time" because they are rewarded for letting me put it on. Phase 5: Fade out the long time. *I always play a game with my dog when he's let off leash. This means that when I go to an off leash parka and remove the leash, he doesn't bolt off. Rather, he spins around and looks at me: "What are we going to do??". If you stop your dog from bolting off immediately the chances of a good recall are increased. It also helps increase your value and build on your relationship. I then use my release word to say "go off and play/stiff". * Make "come" into a game that you play, rather than a formal command. I say "come", he runs, sits, treat, treat, release, treat, he then goes off, I turn and bolt and call him etc. We then play a game (eg tug, ball). The important thing is that he doesn't associate "come" with the end of fun. Don't only call him when you want to leave. Call him and release him far more times that you call him, put the leash on and leave. Keep your voice light and happy. Remember to praise him like he's just won Olympic gold and play with him often. If you aren't making a fool out of yourself in the park then you're doing it wrong. * I have also taught a "check in" command for when I want him to come closer, but he doesn't need to come at lightening speed and sit. I taught it by accident really but it comes in handy when they're getting a bit too far away and you want them to get closer. I just held treats in my left hand and slowly fed them to him. I then added a cue ("check in") and we went from there. The above sounds really complicated, but it is really simple and if you follow the steps he will recall.

Same. Plenty of people here don't vaccinate annually but their dogs are vaccinated as puppies to proecting them against parvovirus. Have you researched parvovirus? The only breeders you'll find are BYBs because it is cheaper to sell them without vaccinations. Those people won't test for things like TNS either.

What fantastic news! I must say that after she was gone after a few days I feared the worst - there are always people who convince themselves that they're doing the right thing by keeping the dog.

What if dog1 doesn't like dog2? What happens to fog2 then?

It was my iPhone!!! Promise ladies!!!!

Of you get one made for repelling figs the nozzle is rally powerful