Beny

So cute!! My husband is going to hate you - you hit the clucky switch lol

Mine do. They did it more when Kira was a puppy though..

i LOVE the 6th photo. It's like she's saying "That's for ME?" :D

I have Photoshop and use the magnetic lasso tool to remove objects from their backgrounds

Aw that was so sweet. They captured that little tentative play jump that puppies do so well

Hubby is away with the army and missing the girls so I got their puppy vids off the camera and put on youtube for him. Warning: Extremely soppy song. Also, the start is just teasing his cameraman skills, the rest is (slightly) better filming

Apart from the breed sub forums I seem to only write here when my dogs are being naughty so I thought I should show that I REALLY appreciate the fact that they don't bark at thunder. I would be interested in hearing the great things your dogs trained themselves to do.

Regardless of her motivation, you solve the problem the same way you would if she were on her own. Wanting to be out in front might be making it worse, but there is nothing you can do to stop her feeling that way except give her a reason not to be out in front and my preferred way to do that is to - never let a dog get anywhere on a tight leash, reward when in position. Nothing magical. Thanks Aidan. Patience and perseverance!

Hi all Hope it's ok to add a slightly different question on here... My two girls are great on lead when I walk them separately but the youngest one pulls really badly when they are together. I have been using the same training techniques (all the ones that the original poster mentioned) with her when they are together to try and solve it but no luck. I believe it is a result of her competitiveness/jealousy with Iz that makes her need to be out in front (same as she needs to be the one getting pats, getting through doors first etc). Her herding instincts may also come into it, because even at the end of the walk when she is tiring, and therefore more in line with Iz she will keep sort of hip and shouldering her, as if to push her further to the left Has anyone had experience with correcting chronic pulling with another (well behaved) dog present?

Gah, I need to avoid yur posts Wolfsong, or I'm going to end up with another dog!

I was just looking up the website for WA tracking and look where it bought me! Would love to join with you guys too. You going to get both dogs involved RS? I'm thinking if Kira gets the agility I should give Izzy this, especially since OH is taking too long to get his ...stuff together and organise the sledding with her

10 Things you didn't know about Kira: 1. She is a big suck If I'm sitting down, or even if I'm not sometimes, she has to be in my lap. When I'm making dinner she wants to lay on my feet etc.. 2. She is competitive This is great when it comes to training cause she normally works wonders when needed, but poor Izzy finds it hard to get a pat in before she charges in between us. 3. Her pedigree name is Gaitmaster Sugar Merry And hopefully one day we can do Steph proud with her agility and tracking! 4. She does the Aussie "grin" She does it when she is happily playing with her sister though, so an onlooker might wonder why we are allowing our Satan-Dog to attack Izzy. 5. Kira is a pig If there is food anywhere in the house, apart from a fridge or cupboard she will find it and eat it. Lollies in your handbag - check, Something off in the bin - check, Meat defrosting (not so) out of reach on the sink - check. Even a tissue that has been used to dab a bit of food from the side of your mouth will be hauled out of the bin. 6. She's a sook. When she gets a fright her first reaction is to bark. She had an ear piercing bark for a puppy and doesn't stop all that quickly 7. We had been looking for her for about a year When we saw Gaitmaster had a litter we began the count down from the day she was born! 8. She distracts me at training I can never seem to capture it in a photo, but when those green eyes stare up at me I really do get lost in them! She gives great attention too, so there we are staring at each other. She's probably thinking "food now?" and I'm thinking "God, you're adorable" and the instructor is probably thinking "those two will never pass this class" 9. Kira = Jack in the box While she is encouraged not to jump, when she gets excited she jumps up and we touch nose to nose (I'm 5'8, and she's 7 months old!!!) 10. She tends to drive people insane and fall madly in love She does many annoying things and sometimes you can't help but get frustrated. Even visitors when they are trying to pat Izzy and she butts in, get annoyed, but then when she settles and goes to them for a hug, or stares up at them while she flops down on their foot - it's all forgiven.

What a great idea! 10 Things you didn't know about Izzy 1. We got her from the RSPCA as a 3 month old puppy. Her, her Mum and her 4 brothers and sisters were surrendered, and being the least fluffy out of the lot she was still available when we rang to inquire. Weird how I decided to check the adopt a pet page that day even though we weren't looking for an animal 2. Izzy LOVES swimming She especially loves waves, and has chased a poor kyaker along the Swan River all in the name of some ripples. 3. Girl Genius As a little puppy we could put words to just about any action and hey presto we would have a trick. Her cutest is still her bow. If you ask her to do something and she doesn't get it she will do every trick in her repertoire. 4. Izzy is never allowed off lead. We had started trusting her from the car to the front door and she had been going fine for months. One day she must have caught a sent and off she shot, down the end of our street, through the alleyway and across the main road. The OH finally caught her in a Maccas carpark (that's my girl!) 5. Izzy loves her sister. As annoying as Kira can be Izzy hates being without her. If Kira is in the vets, Izzy is out in the waiting room embarrassing me with her howls of pain. 6. Health Nut If it's healthy she will eat it. Favorites include peas, carrots and apple. 7. Also Health Nut related.. She has really good abs! Even the vet compliments her on them. How a dog gets good abs, I dunno!! 8. Izzy is not an overly affectionate dog, but if I'm upset - she's there. In fact, one of my best memories of her is when she was about 6 months old and I was watching 8 Below and started crying (who wouldn't?!) She came over and jumped on the couch and we watched the rest of the movie snuggled together. 9. Two dogs for the price of one Seems like Iz gains and looses so much hair at various times of the year she looks like two different dogs! When she is big and fluffy I see the Elkhound side of her dominate, but when she has dropped coat, like now she looks like a wolf <3 10. Dropping it = enough Izzy assumes if she drops something she isn't meant to be chewing when asked that she is an angel and therefore should feel no guilt over the chewing. In fact sometimes she seems pretty damn proud! (see photo above with washing for an example)

Thanks to the advice in here Iz is picking this up. Word is 'you stink' and action is holding my nose. I may be bias, but I think the overall effect has a whole heap of cuteness

Edit: the vid worked for me... love the quick hand bite on the way down. Mine do that too sometimes!! Glad to hear it's going well and maybe he's just doing an extra dramatic version including the post-death twitching you see in bad horror movies

We use the same hand signal and word bang with Iz. We just did the action and said 'bang' everytime we would catch her laying on her side. After a while we started saying it when she was in a lie position, and once that was 100% started saying it at any time. We've managed to teach her a few cool little tricks just by putting a command to a natural action Good luck!

Thanks guys

Forgot to mention as well re. the raw meat. She lost two dogs due to high levels of E coli and blames the the meat she got from the slaughterhouse. On her website she does say "I have been advised that certain parts of the world do not have a problem with raw beef - Australia in particular. And there may be other places. But as long as I am in the US, and buying my meat and poultry over the counter, I will cook it and recommend you do the same." Not wanting to be argumentative, but if I had lost 2 out of 8 dogs for this reason, it would put me off (however, I wouldn't write a book advising others to do the same...)

I haven't seen that recipe in there but there are some in there I've seen that I will not bother making. I've only cooked the ratatouille and pasta salad from her recipes and Issy still gets raw bones to munch on during the day. Maybe it's a good thing I'm not following it too closely! Still, I have seen a positive change since we started feeding homemade meatloaf, mash potatoes, chicken stew etc to our furball. But it has only been three months, so hopfully someone else out there has had a good result over a long period of time. Nek - the table scraps that you feed... would they include a bit of left over pasta and spag bol, or do you mean the fatty bit from meat etc?

Hi all About 3 months ago I started our older dog on a semi natural diet, based on Natural Food Recipes for Healthy Dogs by Carol Boyle. It's hard to sum up the book but I guess it could be described as giving your dog all the nutrients it needs weekly (not necessarily a per-meal basis) by feeding them what you eat for dinner. I still haven't swapped Issy over to a completely natural diet, instead she still gets 2 handfuls of dry food and maybe some cottage cheese if our dinner is lacking calcium that night. She loves her day snacks of apple/peas or carrot. The only problem we have now is that the dog eats healthier than us! I've found it to be great for her coat and great for my nose . I can't wait till Kira is older and swap her over too. Has anyone else read this book, or tried the natural diet with their dogs? I'm interested in hearing other people's results.