ozjen

Yep. Several years ago I phoned them up and arranged to go out there with a family member who was looking for a dog and was looking at a rescue. Took me to get my opinion as I was such a dog person.Well as soon as they saw we had a couple of kids with us we weren't even allowed in the gate and they denigned telling me that they had assured me on the phone they had dogs available and to come see. Funny but the voice certainly sounded like the same person. :-) Maybe they thought we were time wasters because we had kids with us, but we wanted a dog that would be good with kids so wasn't much point in not taking them. Travelled quiet a distance too, so was not impressed as I thought they were quiet rude, obnviously they made a decision on us while in the carpark. Would understand it if the kids were screaming or playing up but these were quiet, well behaved kids. Certainly one refuge that wouldn't get any $$ from me, sorry dogs.

Will definaitly have to try and get to this meet, seeing as it's Trixie's birthday, you hear me TRIXIE's BIRTHDAY!!!!! Although those with birthday's feel free to bring Birthday Cake, I'm sure you can twist my arm to help eat it.

Geez Pebbles you must be so stressed out not knowing what is going on with your little one, I hope you find out soon what the problem is and that it turns out to be something which is easily fixed. Your little dog is so lucky to have an owner who cares so much.

Years ago my Papillon boy use to go through some days where he was overly clingly, seemed depressed and moved abit hunched also seemed to have occasional incontenence, wasn't till he was about 7 that I found out he had a hole in his heart and I'm guessing that this had something to do with his previous behaviour. These days he is so much better, doesn't seem to have the bad days and for an almost 14 year old is full of beans. He was on heart medication for a short time but it was stopped as he was becoming afraid of me but I also changed his diet to RMB and gave him suplements as well and he continues to do really well on the new diet(6+ years). Vet had told me he would be on heart meds for life or he would be dead within a year, but then I had also got some wrong prognosis from other vets before too regarding his heart which was completly opposite in terms of what was going on with his heart. One said his heart ran slow, which was after I commented on how fast I thought his heart was beating, the other said the heart was beating fast, working overtime to compensate for the hole(also put him on an ECG). :rolleyes: Hope you find the answer for your little dog and can find a solution. Just a thought have you tried a Chiropractor, my Aussie girl occassionally has her back go out and suddenly doesn't want to do anything (she does Agility), a trip to the Chiro puts her right pretty quickly.

Aaah that cracked me up Funnily enough the screaming thing never put me off Tollers, just didn't feel I meet a Toller's needs! Maybe one day! ETA: Then maybe I can join all you retrieving groupies ;) Anybody here going to the trial on Sunday? VCBR are you entering any trials or leaving it for a bit? I love the Tollers too but got put off when I heard that they scream. It was bad enough I had a Shiba Inu that screamed when I tried to bath it, I was always in fear of the RSPCA knocking on my door to see why I was torturing a dog, to say nothing of what the screaming did for my own nerves. Luckily we eventually reached a compromise and I learn to break speed records at bathing her.

Well that's screwed! What if you are legitimately wanting to enter your dog, you've paid your fees, and then say your dog becomes ill or in season and you can't bring the dog anymore! You should still be allowed to go and watch your fellow competitors. Sounds like they're really making a mess of things, especially with the mail debacle Yep, and some people have their handlers arriving later that the dogs so they wouldn't have dogs in tow. B#^^!y tight bu##!rs, given that they expect you to hand around all day, you pay as much for your entry and would probabaly spend more money there anyway. If dog comes into heat or is sick, "too bad how sad" NO ENTRY!

Hoping Jenna may be on maternal duties, but not holding my breathe. If you have an extra ticket, I'd love to still be able to come one day. ;) Though it won't be the same without my "fluffybutt". ETA: If maternal duties don't happen, then she can be entered in anything that you want to run her in, I have lots of holiday time stacked up with work.

If you enteryou generally get two passes can work out cheaper ?? So I should enter a dog, then scratch them, just to get a cheaper entry ticket? That's a good way ;) If the pass system is the same as last year the passes can only be used for the day your have entered,so if you do scratch you could only attend that day irrespective And only with a dog in tow as they changed it again at the last minute making all tickets sent out useless. They are doing as many screw ups this year, many people are recieving others mail, in the lead up to the Royal, so heavens knows what the actual Royal will be like.

Hi Jed, thinking of you and sending healing thoughts. Glad to see you back with us.

Even if he is not the first pick pup, I would let hubby keep him, its so nice he wants to try and share your interest and that he has taken a special shine to one of the pups. Doing a lot of winning is not as important as you being able to share your interest with your other half and him having a special bond with this particular pup.

Happy Birthday Toby!!!

So glad to hear that Lincon is on the mend, hope you are recovering from the stress too. Certainly has me thinking that these days you can't afford to be without pet insurance, will have to find a way to afford it as a bill like that would cripple me and I would be paying of the debt long after the dog had died of old age.

Hang in there valley CBR, he'll be home before you know it and making mischief.

Wishing Valley CBR and Lincon both a peaceful night and looking forward to hearing the good news tomorrow, that he is on the mend. You'll be in my thoughts tonight.

Might have to buy him a winter coat till the hair grows back and look at doing another activity other than showing while his hair grows back. Maybe he wants to be a tracking dog! Still plenty of time for showing once he has his coat back and it gives you plenty of time to practice with him.

He's in good hands Hannah, and will be home before you know it. He's a strong fellow and he's got a good mum that went with her gut instint to get a second opinion. Keep us posted if you get the chance, will keep checking for updates on him.

Poor Lincon, just as well you decided to go to another vet for a second opinion, hope he is okay, poor baby. Will check in to get updates. Sending you hugs CBR I know you must be feeling really stressed and worried but he's in good hands and they seem to know what they are dealing with.

Yes and there is also the aspect that if we do go overboard with the cross examination that we only encourage people to go to backyard breeders instead. I like to have a long conversation with the people about previous pets, their life etc so that rather than cross examining I get a feel for the kind of owners they may be. I would prefer to build up a working friendship with my puppy owners so having a comfortable(for all) chat is preferable to a questionaire or cross examination and they can then feel comfortable to conact me later if they have any issues or questions. What ever method is used none is foolproof, people all know what answers we want to hear. With regard to someone working fulltime I don't necessarily see that as an issue, its more about how much time they are willing to commit to the dog when they are home. Plenty of people are home all day but their dogs sit out the back by themseves for the whole day, day after day. I would want to know the arrangements they have in place for a pup though, while they are at work, in terms of feeding, accomodating, toileting ect. My own boss always laughs at me if I'm asked to work back, because he knows that my answer will always be "I will, only if I can go home first and see to my dogs". I only work part time normally and luckily home is only 10mins away so I can do it in a lunch break.

So,so jealous! I would love to go to Crufts and my sister and I are considering trying to get there some time in the next couple of years. We will have to take an empty suitcase and lots of pennies as I've heard that the dog stalls at Crufts are to die for. You will have to let us all know how it goes.

I don't think there is any blanket answer as each case has to be weighed up on the situation at the time both in regard to the animals wellbeing and the owners ability to meet the costs. I have begged and borrowed money where needed to pay vet bills and also had vets willing to wait for payment but I have also been in the situation of having to put an animal down after running out of avenues to raise cash after initial expensive treatments didn't help. At the time as a single parent with two very young children I had to consider the financial impact on then and my ability to pay people back at a time when I was already struggling. Peoples circumstances change and the level of care in terms of treatment of thier pets (when it involves large amounts of money suddenly) can be affected by this. Did I love my pets any less than the next person, no, it broke my heart but as a parent my children had to be the first priority. Now with only myself and the furkids to consider I could risk financial ruin and probabaly would down to the last dollar but hopefully I would still weigh up wether treatment was more for my benifit than the furkids and wether they would have enough quality of life afterwards. No one should be condemned for not going ahead with expensive vet treatment to keep their pet alive as everyone's circumstances are different, and change throughout the animals life, how they treat their animals on a day to day basis would be of more concern to me. The level of how much we love an animal is not measured by how much we are willing or able to pay for their medical treatment.

If you had posted this yesterday I would have asked the ladies spinning Angora fleece today if they can do dog hair Maybe contact someone like the angora society or alpaca society and see if they could suggest someone Will check with my oldest sister, she knows alot of craft people and I'm sure there will be spinners amoungst them, I seem to remember her saying something about a friend using dog hair at some stage. Don't think they will find it strange, if she doesn't know she has enough contacts that probabaly will know.

Don't loose hope furballs, my Papillon Gizmo has a hole in his heart and the vet told me that without daily medication he would be dead within a year as his heart works overtime to compensate. Well because he hated being medicated and was becoming afraid of me because of it I took him of the medication and decided I would just enjoy the time I had left with him, secure in the knowledge that at least he wouldn't be afraid to come near me. I also did some reseach and changed over to raw feeding, don't know if that helped but he has certainly been a lot heathier and is still going strong almost 6 years on. At 14 this month he has spells were he races around like a pup, stll loves to chase a ball, runs around with the big dogs at DOL meets and still bounces when excited. He no longer seems to have the bad days, but as with all old dogs he does like to sleep longer, hearing and sight is starting to go and he does have some arthritis issues that are usually kept under control(mainly from damage from a dog attack over 3 years ago).Prior to being diagnoised he had bad days, but I was getting totally different reports from different vets and it wasn't till he was going in for an operation for something else and I warned the vet that I had been told he was Bracticardic*sp*(heart runs slow) that the vet put him on an ECG machine first and the result was the opposite, that his heart actually was running extremly fast because he had a hole in it. This is when we were given the medication. I hope your dog proves the vets wrong too and leads a long and wonderful life, but if its not to be then at least you know that you gave her true quality of life as a much loved member of your family, which is so much more than many dogs out there get. We should all appriciate the time we have with loved ones both human and fur as none of us knows how long they will be in our lives.

Wow! Steve you must definaitly be doing something right there with so many very old golden oldies, gives me hope that I can have my furkids around for along time to come. :D

Beautiful!

It also adds alot of trace elements to a raw diet. ACV is always in my cupboard for my dogs and myself and my family get sick of me going on about how good it is for so many things. But it is!! Try it next time you get the sniffles, a tablesoon in a glass of water a couple of times a day and by the next day you will be fine. Have also used it on kennel cough.