PuddleDuck

Another cat food one here - my dogs love it and its nice and small so doesn't hold them up for long My dad has a theory that they like the cat food because they see the picture of a cat on the bag and assume its cat flavoured

YAAAAYYYY great news!!!!

Its a bit harder for them to have a snow obsession in Australia - there is only one place in the whole country where you can take dogs to the snow. Ours were not impressed with the 8-10 hour car ride down to it!!!!

Our little Kodiak Bear (who goes by the names of The Bear, Tolltastic, Tolleriffic, Tolltacular and "hey you get the hell out of the kitchen") is our first Toller, she turns 2 on friday. She is a backchatter (awooooo-WOOOOOOOO!), tells you off for about 45 minutes after you get home. If she is hungry she belts her food bowl against the floor until we walk over, then backchats if we take it away from her. She talks in her sleep, if she has a bad dream (well, starts crying and shaking while she is asleep) and you wake her up she comes tearing over for a hug and then whimpers for the first 10 minutes until the bad dream is forgotten. She doesn't do that if you just wake her up normally She loves holes - she'll either make her own and stick her head down it or just stick her head down whatever hole that she sees when we are out wandering around (particularly at the snow) She loves the snow, rubs herself into it frantically. Gets offended while we are down there because she has to toilet while she is on the lead. She is mental for all sorts of food, her pupils dilate when she sees it and she starts panicking that she wont get it. If I am chewing gum she put her face up close to mine and if given the opportunity would extract it. She stacks her kongs up in the same place every day when she is done with them She loves to hold paws, just while we are sitting around. She will paw at your hand until you take her paw and then will sit beside you for hours, with her paw in your hand. When I study she has to have a chair beside mine (the bear chair) so she can help, if I dont put it there she whines until I get up and move it. She is fascinated listening to my lectures, particularly when they are about bird behaviour and there are the sounds of bird calls. Recently she noticed my chewing my fingernail when I was cramming for an exam and as soon as I put my hand down she grabbed it and started to chew my fingernails. Thankfully she got over that one. She is absolutely our baby and will spend hours just being cuddled. She falls off things with great regularity (the couch, the bed, etc) and it doesn't phase her in the slightest even though all the humans and our other dog Doofus are laughing at her. She is also very strict on people not touching her fancy pants or tail, thats personal! She is absolutely the sweetest, nicest dog and I couldn't imagine my life without her. We could never thank her breeders enough for trusting us with The Bear.

Beautiful, beautiful tribute Jed. Thank you for sharing it

Technically, most vets will tell you the following: Small breeds (up to 10 kg) become seniors at 7 Medium Breeds (10-25kg) become seniors at 7 Large breeds (25-40kg) become seniors at 6 Giant breeds (40kg +) become seniors at 5 Its not a definate line in the sand but a good guide to work off, as there are changes happening that you can just not see. My oldest dog lived to be 20 years and 11 months old, I've got no idea how, you couldn't have killed her with a steamroller. I think if I wasn't from a vet nursing background she would have gone earlier, but I kept her comfortable and happy (and getting her a younger toy-boy to strut around with helped too!!! :rolleyes: )

Good morning Jed! I hope you had a restful, healing night. What a beautiful poem. I seem to have something in my eye as well!! Not a day, nor an hour, goes by without you being in my thoughts. Much (gentle) hugs xx

Jed, it is smurftastic, smurftacular and smurferiffic to have you home again! Welcome back. I cannot imagine your pain, really I have no words. Run free little ones. In time I hope the memories of love will heal and although they will never be forgotten I hope it becomes easier to remember over time

Moselle that is one seriously cute little munchkin! I would go with Maltese x Cavalier myself - or with all the DDs around these days she might be crossed with a Cavvie X??? I have to say, she reminds me of my Toller Kodiak when she was a puppy, the markings are sort of similar as but the colour is a bit off. What do you think?

Brilliant news! So glad to hear that things are looking up for you Jed, we can't wait to have you "home" to DOL, but take all the time you need What a fantastic note to end the week on

Candle relit, just popping in for an update. Thinking of you, Jed. **leaves a selection of fat free tim tams on the table on the way out***

I couldn't agree more SecretKei - at the end of the day, if the deed is already done and they are happy and proud of their new puppy, all you can offer is education. For most of us, it seems so simple and obvious, but for the family getting their first ever puppy, its understandable how they would get it wrong with the incorrect message being reinforced by BYBs, Puppy Farmers and pet shops. In saying that I have spent 10 minutes arguing with someone that my Kelpie x GSD is a Kelpie x GSD, not a "Shelpie". No way are they going to designer dog my Doofus!!!

What great news Thank you Toohey for taking the time to let us know, we understand the family's need for privacy at the moment, but just wanted to know she is moving forwards. Reading your update was a great start to a friday! Candle has been relit, thinking of you Jed

Thank you for the update. Jed, you are still in our family's thoughts, from first thing in the morning to last thing at night take all the time you need, know that we are here no matter how long it takes

Erny - if you dont mind my asking, how much did it cost you to put in the tap outside. Our hot water heater is less than a metre from our hot water heater and we were quoted $900 to put hot water down to the tap - and that is with the pipes outside the wall. We dont really use a plumber that often but seemed like a rip to me. I'm thinking I might permanently change the fitting in our bathtub, its too small for us and we dont have kids so the dogs may as well make the most of it....oh and the lizard when he feels like doing some laps

What absolutely wonderful news! Jed, we can't wait to be with you again, but take all the time you need. We are all happy to wait here in your waiting room for as long as you need

Just popped in to check on Jed's progress, thrilled to hear there is an improvement! Doofus, Kodi and I cant stay for long, but here are some brownies to share and an extra big bag of liver treats for the poochies. I hope there is enough to go around such a big crowd, I'm sure Jed can feel the love pulsing from her waiting room into her room. Jed - we miss you and will be here waiting for as long as you need us to.

As others have said, tinned food is about 80% water. So - for every $1 you spend on tinned food, you spend 80 cents on water. Better to give them water from the tap and go buy yourself a real drink I agree that its basically canine mcdonalds as well

If there is space, I'd love to join you all waiting. My education in card games is sadly lacking, anyone want to tutor me while we wait for Jed? Thinking of you Jed....

Thanks for the updates. Thinking of you Jed

Thinking of you Jed.

I wonder if there have been that many civil damages lawsuits in Australia after dog attacks??? Also - what happens to people visiting the area with dog of any of those breeds?? Are they not allowed out of the car?

Saw it and found it didn't weigh down the "cons" side of my list to heavily. Gotta say, I crack up every time my little toller-tastic Bear screams - she only does it when she wants to tell me off I get 1/2 hour of being followed round by a Toller who is fiercely woo-wooing (getting higher and higher pitched in tone) every night when I get back from work! So....aside from mucho more tollers, I'd go for; 1. Alaskan Malamute 2. GSD (Hubby said no ) 3. Bernese Mountain Dog 4. Neopolitan Mastiff 5. Newfoundland 6. Ridgie (cos I get sick of cleaning up fluffy back ends!) 7. Dingo 8. Golden Retriever for my nephew 9. Cairn Terrier (I am SO not a small dog person, but Dad got an ex show cairn a couple of years ago and Manny is the cutest, happiest damn dog in the world) 10. Oh, screw it, chuck in another couple of Tollers And of course my plan is to alway have a couple of rescues around too.

That is ridiculous. It is morally and ethically wrong! And on the flip side, surely there are HEAPS of other things that farmers could use even more than a new working dog.... why dont they do a giveaway instead where one of their staff spend a week on the winners farm, unpaid, doing whatever needs doing??? Surely a free labourer is going to help, although it might be hard to fit them in a kennel

Doofus is scared witless of storms. The irritating part is when I got him from the shelter he couldn't have cared less about them. Our old dog, Kerry, could not cope with storms at all, she lost it entirely. Over the first 6 months of having Doof she steadily taught him that storms were just the worst thing, doomsday, end of the world material. Then (little cow!) she promptly went deaf and stopped caring aged around 17. We moved out and Kez stayed with mum, happy and content through storms until she went to the bridge aged 20 yrs 11 months....Doofus is still a pain in the butt with them. If storms happen during the day while we are here we jump up and go running outside with a tennis ball which is pretty much the only thing that can get through to Doof when he's losing it. He'll happily play out there, but he is pretty stressed while he does it. We try to make it a fun thing and the toys do get through to him somehow. If its at night, he's long since learnt that if he wakes me up I'll murder him where he stands so he wakes up poor hubby instead! Unfortunately for hubby Doofs method is to get up on his back legs, lay his front legs over to the far side of hubby's back/chest and drag his nails across digging them in all the way. Hubby usually wakes up screaming, but in Doof's defense, it works!!!! Another thing that is interesting, if Doof is really panicking and we ignore him as we do if we dont go out for a distracting play, he'll get a squeaky toy and go mental on it - squeak-squeak-squeak frantically. Then, as he calms down it slows... squeak.... squeak............... squeak.................. squeak..................................... squeeeeeeeeaaaaaaakkkk until he finally calms down and falls asleep with the toy in his mouth. Its like a puppy pacifier (for a 9 year old dog!)