PuddleDuck

Ok I'm spending too much time with babies cos I saw that smile and though 'aw cute, I bet she's farting!'

I would PTS as well. Maybe get your husband to mind your baby, take him to his favourite park, feed him his favourite food and then take him to the vets. It isn't a punishment, but if you look at it from his side he is insecure and lashing out, and that can't be nice for him either. My dogs are my first babies too, but if they bit my daughter or another child they would be PTS. It's something I personally will not tolerate and I wouldn't feel comfortable rehoming in that instance. Big hugs, I feel for you

It does sound like Stella gets them far more than Bear. We usually only get them every couple of months. That must mean Stella is smarter than Bear :)

:laugh: I think that should be destined for YouTube!

She is bear's baby! They've had this weird connection since I was pregnant and now they're inseparable. It's funny when I send her breeder pics of them together she says 'I always knew that dog wanted to be a mum' Definitely poor bear though, she's walking around covered in hair clips at the moment :laugh:

In Bear's case, I don't think it could be because of anxiety, she is the most chilled couch potato in the world and only gets anxious if dinner is late or we don't go in the second our daughter (Bear's baby :laugh: ) wakes up. She has a pretty charmed life, I can't think of anything that would cause the nightmares really??

Unfortunately we have to wake her, we live in a pretty small place and if we let her go on she wakes my daughter, and if we dont wake her doof will nudge her until she wakes. We just call her softly until she wakes up or calms down but usually the slightest noise sends her off in a sook. Thankfully she doesn't get upset about going back to sleep when the sook is over. I feel better knowing she isnt the only one though I do wonder what they are dreaming about.....the only thing I can think of that would upset her that much is if we ran out of kibble :laugh: we tend to call regular dog dreams 'chasing rabbits' and when she is having a bad dream someone generally says 'uh oh, the rabbits are chasing bear'. She is the smartest dog I've ever owned, I wonder if it is related to intelligence?

Every few months bear, my toller, will have a nightmare where she is crying in her sleep and her little legs start running. When you wake her up, she is really freaked out and will come tearing over to me and huddle on my lap whimpering very loudly for about 10-15 minutes, and spends a few hours extremely sooky and upset.....Even if you give her some food which is her happy thing! She has the usual 'chasing bunnies' dreams a few times a day and wakes up with no issues, but these nightmares shake her up for a few hours at least. I've had dogs my whole life and bear is the only dog I've had that does this. Does anyone else's dogs have these type of nightmares and reactions??

Yep it is, we have playground mulch and it's not the best for long haired dogs as it gets caught up in their coat and tracked inside, before this we had a larger mulch which didn't have the same problem. It's great, we generally take some mulch out as we pick up (if its been raining we scoop out the mulch below the poo too) and if they decide to dig it takes 5 minutes with a rake to get it looking perfect. Ours is around 15-20cm deep and there is a weedmat sheet under it which stops then digging too deep. And if it gets smelly you just dig it out, put it in the green bin and bring in some more :)

Our dog yard is all mulch and it works really well, we've been here 6 years and have only had to dig it out and replace it once.

I remember when the breeders sent me photos of the pups at 4 weeks....I saw the photo of bear and had a lightning bolt 'that's my dog' moment. We went down to meet them at 6 weeks and she came straight to me and wouldn't leave me alone. Then they told me she was mine and I lost my sh*t altogether :laugh:

OMG just try and feed my puppy... Just try... I dare them...! Who would do that I've had an old lady open a pack of biscuits and try to shove one in my toddler's mouth without asking when she was having a tanty in the checkout line at target so I feel confident people will try to feed your puppy!!!

One thing he's started more of this week is randomly licking his bed. My old girl, Kerry (lab x border who lived to 20 years 11 months) did the same thing. I think he is getting a lot of anxiety from his failing vision and also gets stressed with us getting loud when we play with the toddlersaurus. I wonder if he isnt barking as a startle reaction. He's on Euk senior at the moment and the vet was very impressed with his overall condition, he has some muscle wastage but he's pretty good all up. He can't tolerate raw unfortunately. I'm just stressed by the barking really. I'm constantly aware of the neighbours, there is 15 units in our building and probably 20-30 in the one next door, and quite a few people who dislike the dogs (who we have plenty of permission for, but it's still a concern). There are a few who say they didn't realise we have dogs which I take as a backwards compliment!

Thanks westiemum, I sat down and had a look through it all last night. Doof is a kelpie x shepherd who is around 12 1/2 now. He has been barking more than usual lately and I'm not entirely sure what the cause is. Bit of background, he's always been fairly high strung and anxious. We live in a unit block and around 6 years ago caught some kids who were visiting on the 2nd floor above us sitting on the verandah and throwing rocks at him. Since then his anxiety has increased and he freaks out about things above his head. With the barking it's worse at night but I've caught him barking when I come home a few times. I took him to the vet this week and she said his arthritis is getting painful, and his eyes are getting cloudy and she agreed he might be struggling to see at night. He can still catch food or a ball though. I know having a toddler around seems to increase his worrying too (and mine lol!) I'm going to start him on petark calm and rose hip vital canine for his anxiety and arthritis. The vet did suggest anti anxiety meds but I want to try the calm first. The barking is stressing us all out because I am waiting for a letter in the mailbox from the strata about it. Unfortunately he hurt his leg last week so I can't walk him to exhaust him (and our toller is stuck at home too cos I don't want to leave him home alone at the moment!). So we are all a bit stressed at the moment and that just makes everything worse!!!

Hi Puddleduck - thanks for popping by - yes I like the idea of a portacot and I saw some on gumtree which were very reasonably priced - and I liked the idea of the floor in them and their height would be easier on my back - but having no experience with them whatsoever, I was unsure whether the mesh would stand up to him, the floor would be stable enough and whether or not it would be big enough? He doesn't need a paddock but needs to be able to take a step or two and turn around to 'nest'... and yes the pillows is a really good idea - and I have tons of those! So do you think they would be big enough, is the floor stable enough for him to walk on without falling over and do you think the mesh would be strong enough? Thanks tons PD... as I said I know absolutely nothing about them... My toddler is 14.5kg and couldn't knock it over. I know in the US they are often used as playpens so must be able to take some shoving. The floor is usually a lightly padded mattress but if you wanted something more stable (and it's going to be a 'permanent' type setup) you could get a piece of plywood cut to fit? I'd also have one side against the wall to add stability. For a little dog it would be plenty big enough, it would probably be larger than the appropriate crate for his size. To be honest you could probably even score one off freecycle if you put out a wanted post. It's one of those things everyone buys when they decide to go away for 2 nights then never gets used again...like so much other baby crap. :laugh: I'm thinking I'll have to join this thread soon for my old boy doofus.....he seems to be showing early signs of dementia with lots of barking, not good for a big dog in a unit block!

Why not get a kids portacot (stable mesh sides) and pad the corners with pillows or have some foam cut to make it more oval shaped? My toddler can stand up and shake the sides and its very stable.

Bear was flown from albury to Sydney. She was a little scared and hubby had to pry her lil front paws from around my neck after I lifted her out of the crate!!! She had wee'd in the crate so was a bit damp, Then we got in the car and she promptly spewed all over me but was otherwise fine. I guess what I'm trying to say is, take a towel and/or a change of clothes when you go to pick your pup up!!! :laugh:

Pretty much, the wife is stressing. And the neighbours seem funny. As if they think he's going to eat a baby. But he is so friendly he'd probably lick you to death! To be quite frank, I doubt he has an ounce of dingo in him. He's not an F1 crossbred and I think I'd not be surprised to see popular breeds like ACD, Labrador and GSD in the mix. To rehome based on what he "might" be as opposed to judging him on behaviour seems pretty harsh. Tell everyone he's a Labrador cross and keep him. Where did you get him? Agree with this, as I said earlier I've met a lot of crossbreeds (mine included!!) that looks like that and are certainly no dingo crosses! However if you decide to convince your wife to keep him, try to avoid tourist areas because we often get stopped by tourists convinced doof is a dingo, no matter what I try to tell them they are certain he is a dingo. I would say there are photos of my dog with various random tourists spread all across the world!

He reminds me of my Doofus!!!! He's a Kelpie X German Shepherd. I don't have a good photo of his tail on here but it is exactly the same, with the black hairs through it. For a cross breed you do see a lot of dogs around of this "type", there are a few in my neighbourhood that make me stop and double check no-one has stolen my dog!!!!

Funny you should say that about the positive effect of dogs. When they did research on the pet therapy dogs in hospitals, there was an unexpected finding that they had a positive influence on the staff. Same about puppies being raised for service work by prisoners.... there was not only positive effects on the prisoners involved, but also on the staff. I found if anyone who was dogless was having a bad day, they'd come and ask to take doof for a walk and overall it was the happiest workplace I've ever been a part of :)

We used to bring our dogs in to our old office, I'd say the most at any time would be 10? Big mix, labs, Japanese spitz, weim, rottie, and whoever else tagged along. We had 2 designated 'dog days' a week but a few of us just brought them whenever. The difference there was that we were a dog related and passionate company and as people joined the company they were told that is what we did and if they weren't happy with it then it might not be suitable for them. So everyone was a dog lover. I personally had one dog poo under the boardroom table we were sitting at for my first interview, everyone laughed and I knew that anywhere that loved dogs that much, I would be very happy All dogs were on leads but after a while we knew who we could trust off lead. My Doof was a free ranger and greeted everyone with a tennis ball. He visited everyone throughout the day or they'd come see him. We had a dog with separation anxiety who barked and as it turns out 20 people can scream 'shut up kxxxx' in unison with no planning :laugh: you'd always have to check for dogs doing zoomies before stepping into the hall with a cuppa. Everyone had to walk and toilet their own dogs and clean up accidents. Febreeze is your friend there. Unfortunately when we moved to head office we couldn't take the dogs, because there was an already established group of employees and for various reasons (cultural, religion or just didn't like dogs) it wasn't fair to force our dog in the office rules on the greater majority so we switched to picnic days where everyone brought dogs.

Fish are friends, not food! :laugh:

Play dough! Spotting poos on poo patrol has been easier since the girlchild started playing with play dough and the dogs eat it if she drops it and I don't get there fast enough! They ate some of her crayons a while ago too, green ones. It looked like a bunch of leprechauns had been partying in our yard without a portaloo!

I use free. I used to know a guy who was a pastor and a dog breeder and he would use 'amen' as a release word :laugh:

I used to just get him really really REALLY revved up, usually on walks, and as soon as he made a squeak I would mark and reward it, then just wind him up again and reward a bigger noise, and so on. The main reason I did it is that back then I was in the SES and so would go on jobs after work and sometimes not be able to walk him until the middle of the night so I wanted him to be able to let off a big scary bark if someone tried to bother us. In hindsight I probably should've carried a whistle or something :laugh: