PuddleDuck

7. The Scream - Many Tollers have a penetrating scream which they produce to indicate excitement and eagerness. To the uninitiated, this can sound like the dog is being fed into a wood chipper; I'm not sure what I'd do if my dog shrieked like that, I'm jumpy at the best of times The worst is when they teach your 2 year old to do it and then sit on the bed and try to outscream each other. Our toller Bear taught the girlchild that little gem yesterday :laugh: they haven't stopped and I'm a bit twitchy now! I've never had a GR so can't really compare, plus my toller is broken and doesn't seem to have the crazy 'needs to be occupied' gene, she's lazy as all hell and is happiest sleeping, preferably with the girlchild on top of her. Agree with Cali too, they aren't the happy love everyone dogs that GRs are, they are reserved when they meet strangers but I've found with bear that she only has to meet someone once and then they become 'family'. Even if she doesn't see that person often. She has no reservations about kids, however kids drop food, and bear likes food She is slow to warm to people but then climbs straight into their lap when she does :laugh:

Bear sleeps under our bed, directly under where I sleep. If I drop my hand off the bed she will demand to hold paws for as long as possible...she loves holding paws. In the morning she shifts around and pokes her tail out so the girlchild can 'find' her under the bed, much to both of their amusement. Doof sleeps in our too for a few hours then moves to the bed in the lounge room. Unless there is a storm, in which case he prefers to panic and claw at us all night

Another recommendation for an xtrail here too, they're awesome :)

Doof tends to hang beside hubby while he is doing work around home and wait for him to put whatever tool he is using down, then grab the tool and hide it and put his toy where the tool was. He waits patiently until hubby reaches for where he thought the tool was, then hubby grabs the toy and then throws it across the yard in frustration :laugh:

I don't get the spiderpig reference? I've seen the movie but how is she spiderpig? I'm missing something :laugh: Yeah it was just the upside down thing :laugh: now the bloody spiderpig song is stuck in my head :laugh:

That's so sweet! You should change her name to spiderpig though, she seems to be able to cling to the ceiling upside down like spiderpig :p :laugh:

I couldn't imagine being able to cope with eating my dog, I think I would starve....however if I went hiking and died and my dog ate me then I'd not have an issue with that at all :laugh:

Gorgeous little man!!! Congratulations!!!

I love to see this :) When I was in year 10 I did work experience at a pacing training facility. We had people who did it locally that used to train before school and I had worked with them most mornings before school, so I went to a larger training stable for work experience. About 2 days in I was told to bring in 5-6 horses, including my favourite horse there, and load them onto a truck which I did, then I asked where they were going and got told they were going to the dogger I tried to beg to buy my favourite boy but got told that's not the way things worked and he had to go to the dogger. I ended up hysterical and dad had to come get me and tell my school I wouldn't be finishing the week. I spent the rest of the week at home with my own horse, fairly inconsolable, and haven't been able to look at any pacers since without getting teary. It's good to see things are changing

Me too :) they're my 'non-guilty treat' money :laugh: If you want them for Christmas I'd do it soon cos they take 6 weeks to go onto your account

I've just moved my insurance to coles, I figure if I have to pay insurance I may as well get the flybuys points. I got 10,000 points for each car (and they price beat so it is $2 less/month) which are worth $50, and 40,000 points for the health insurance which is worth $200, plus one month free health insurance so we saved about $200 on that too. All the flybuys points are getting saved for christmas food and treats :)

I worked at a vet for 2 1/2 years that didn't tattoo, my current vet doesn't do it either

Nobody likes someone who yaps all day..

Try a dab of peanut butter on the end of a wooden spoon-hold it up until you are ready to reward then swing it down so they can have a lick while they're still walking, it works well for my dogs, though I probably look weird walking around the neighbourhood holding a gooey wooden spoon!

Wobbly I've got no idea about the training but had to pop in with one of these hope things are going ok, I've been thinking about you xx

I used to work with a vet who did the anal gland no matter why you were there. I swear he went through a box of gloves a day! It used to confuse the owners, he would go 'what are you in for? Vaccination? I'll just do his anal gland first', 'eye infection? Yes I'll need to do his anal gland', 'you just popped in to get frontline? I better do his anal glands then'....it was just odd. :laugh:

:laugh: Anything in a tube is evil to Stan. As he is very accident prone I have a variety of creams to put on, I could walk towards him with a tube of toothpaste and he's be gonski. Doof would eat the tube if I let him, he looooves the taste for some doofy reason! :laugh:

Oh doof's other spechal is he can sense out neocort cream and then spends 15 minutes licking his nose Bear is extra special, she doesn't care so much about specific foods....her superpower is an ability to sense when ANYTHING edible winds up in the girlchild's hands, as the girlchild is bear's most reliable people food dispenser.

I swear doof can hear mentos. It's amazing, you take anything else out of the cupboard and he ignores you but if it's mentos he gets super twitchy and sits there having a total meltdown (shaking, whining, pawing at you) until you put them away.

I grew up with pound mutts, my dad in particular is quite fanatical about mutts but I spent my childhood pouring over dog books and dreaming of all the breeds I would have. Then when I was 18 we had a toller in the kennel I worked at for 5 nights and I was hooked. 7 years of dreaming and we got our Kodiak bear and I'm hooked. She's perfect and such a good family dog, loves our daughter and is never far from our side. I often look at hubby and say 'promise me we'll ALWAYS have a toller....or 2 or 3'. I can't imagine a better dog for us. There are other dogs I look at and mentally add to my future dogs list but when it comes down to it I bet I will go 'no, forget it' and email bear's breeder and get more Tollers for us :laugh:

My brother ended up running an electric fence string around his kitchen bench for a while. They tried gates, putting things away, etc, but their lab is relentless! She stole an 8 kg ham that he'd spent 12 hours smoking in the BBQ, a whole roast chicken and a ton of other stuff. On my nephews birthday this year she leapt up and snagged half his cake off the plate as my SIL carried it to the table

Thanks :) Another question, do I need a referral from our current vet for any of these people or can we just go?

Thanks cavs. I'm hoping it's nothing major, the thing about my toller is that she does absolutely everything my 2 year old daughter does.....so current theory is she injured herself when she was going on the slide or the trampoline with the girlchild, or possibly jumping off the bed after story time. I can't think of anything else she could have done to cause an injury. She is very unhappy with not being allowed to do any of those activities at the moment :laugh:

Awesome, thanks guys, I'll jump on the phone this arvo My vet said it's probably a sprain but could be a stress fracture (very small). We haven't done X-rays yet, I'm leaning towards seeing the chiro first cos the vet seemed to think it was just a wait and see (locum vet, not my usual one) rather than X-ray it just yet. It's really only the first few minutes after she gets up, then she comes good again. I'm just not convinced it's improving though

Can anyone recommend a good dog chiro in Sydney? We're on the northern beaches but if we need to drive a bit to get to a good one that's fine. Bear is still having weird lameness and the vet thought it was just a sprain and put her on rimadyl but it's not improving, I'm thinking it might be worth trying a chiro Thanks :)