LuvBella

There have been some storms up here lately, but she absolutely loves them, as soon as she hears thunder she starts jumping round, and goes to sit outside and watch the sky. None of the nights we have been out have had a storm, and there is no destructive behaviour, other than pulling the stuffing out of some of her toys, but that seems to be her fave past time. I dont think we have changed our timetablle much since we got her. we get up at 6.30, and leave for work around 7.45. We get home around 6ish and i take her for a walk down to the park for an hour. the rest of the evening is spent either playing, or lying on the couch. shes not a cuddly dog so she does her own thing most of the time. She comes to bed with us some time after 11 usually. I know thats a long time by herself, but we have done this since she was 2 months old, so its nit a new thing. Our neighbour tells us if shes not talking to them through the fence, that can see her playing inside or asleep on the couch. Even when we go out in the evening, i still take her for the walk, so its not like she is missing out on that. Could this be a phase, or do we have to try limit leaving in the evening so she doesn't get upset?

Just curious as to any ideas to help this. She has only just started doing this over the last couple of weeks. Our neighbours tell us they never hear her during the day other than when she jumps at their fence at lunch time for a pat before she goes back inside, but lately if we go out for a few hours at night, she apparently sits inside and whines for a while. She has a doggy door so she can go outside as she pleases, we leave a light in the lounge on, and the radio or TV for noise, and she has heaps of toys to keep her busy. She doesn't whine when we are leaving, it just seems to be once we have been gone for awhile. When we come home, she is usually asleep on the couch, or waiting by the door because she heard the garage door open. We are very lucky that the neighbours adore her, and aren't complaining, they just wanted to make sure she was okay. Thoughts?

We have the small pig in mud door, and found that when Bella was small, she wasn't quite strong enough to open the flap due to the tiny magnets, so we simply removed them. is there some sort of resistance like that , that might be making it harder for him/her to learn with?

Well, to be honest i think i would rather freeze them, i cant stand thinking i have made the poor things suffer from the acid burning, even though i think they are disgusting. I spose i am just lucky that we have a freezer that we keep our rats in to feed our snakes, so its not going to be a risk of cross contamination with our food. As most people wouldn't have the same luxury, would an ice cream container be better, or in a plastic bag

I take her for a walk in the morning before breakfast, not a long one as we are only just starting out on the leash, for about 15 mins at a leisurely walk,but when she realises we are on the way home,she likes to take off in a run, so she is back asleep by the time we leave for work. we get home when the sky is starting to get quite dark, so would rather not walk then. i have a play with her for about 15-20 mins befre i get dinner for her, and then she spends most of the night following us around, sleeping or playing. she takes herself off to the toilet without any prompting after dinner, after a play session, and then after she has had her nap. becuase she takes herself to the toilet, i dont know if i really want to block off the door (which i can do) as i would just be removing it everytime she tried to go out, as i would be worried she wanted to go to the toilet. around the side of our house we have a palm tree sort of thing which she loves to sit under and chew on the fronds, so i just follow and sit and watch, or if she is in the back yard, i can sit at the door and watch. she doesnt really play outside at night, its more exploring. she only plays wih her toys inside. and i dont interact with her outside after dinner other than a few pats if she comes to see me. She also takes herself to the toilet in the midde of the night, and i dont even wake up when she sneaks out of our room now. I know she would whine to be let out if she was in the crate, and needed to go toilet, but we find the current system works well, as if she wakes in the middle of the nightand is bored, she leaves our room, and goes to the lounge to have a play or chew on her toys. quite often she then falls alseep while doing this, so if i get up in the middle of the night for a drink, i can usually find her with the toy still in her mouth. But from my experience wth her going outside to toilet then, she comes back in very quickly, and doesnt even go near the garden. she stays very close to the concete by the dog door. that is where i find a new poo every mornng, anyways. For the above reasons, i think will def talk to a trainer about getting her to ignore them if she finds them, and keep up with my hunting. Thanks for everyones feedback

The problem with that is she has a dog door to use. so she can go out as she pleases. She loves going out to play, and its there during the day while we work, so i would be loathe to take it off her. I have just resigned myself to a nightly patrol for toads, and i go sit outside and watch bella if its night time and she goes out

I took Bella to a dog park for the first time last week, and she had a ball playing with 2 little terriers of some sort that were there. one of the terriers was a sook that styaed close to his owner, and when bella played with him, she was very calm, basically mirroring his actions. However the other terrier was apparently quite a dominant dog (or so his owner told me), but at 3 years old was quite a it smaller than my 14 week old maltese X. They would take turns chasing each other and kind of mini jumping at each oher there was no growling or anything like that, other than a tiny bark everynow and again. the owner was qute happy to have a dog play with him, that wasnt intimidated by the tiny little guy. It got me thinking though, about wanting some further info about what is acceptable play, and what signs to look out for, so that i can stop any problems before they start. I would hate to go to a park and have Bella socialise with another dog, and accidentally allow some sort of taboo action, and upset another owner. thanks

Thanks so much for that post. i didnt actually know anything about them, as i am a kiwi. I will definately have a talk to a trainer about avoidance training. We have already got that sorted with snakes, as although we dont have any around our yard, we have a couple as pets, and we quite often have them out, sitting on the couch etc. Right from the start Bella hasn't showed any interest in going to see what they are. she sits at a distance, and everynow and again has a look over at them. I think she is so interested in the toads becuase it is dark when she finds them, and cant be sure what it is maybe.

Will either of those be harmful to the puppy?

We live in a semi rural area, which means we get alot of cane toads. We have got guttergaurd around the bottom off all our fencing, and go hunting for them frequently, but our puppy always seems to find the ones we have missed. I dont know whether she has licked them or not. The other night, after she had one bailed up, when i wasnt looking, i was worried she may have ingested some of the poison, so we washed her mouth thoroughly, and there was no foaming at the mouth or convulsing. But i swear it was like she was on speed or something. she went extremely hyper for about half an hour to an hour, even with us trying to calm her down, and was drinking alot of water. Her breathing was erratic, even when she was simply lying down. I know puppys "get thier zoom on" but i was so paranoid it was something more than this. i had the vets number all ready to be dialled if i saw anything else that made me worried. What symptoms other than foaming and convulsing could a puppy have after licking a canetoad? Also, does anyone have any good ideas about how to keep them out of our garden?

Okay, I guess i may have been confused about the Parvo. I know the dog had been at the vets when we moved into our new house a few months ago, and parvo was mentioned when we spoke to them about us getting a puppy, so maybe she is recovering... or maybe i just got the wrong end of the stick, and they just mentioned the parvo due to Bella not having full vaccines yet. Not too sure what else she may be chewing on during the day. I am thinking about maybe setting our video camera outside to see exectly what she gets up too while she is out there. regarding feeding, i feed her Advance rehydratable, 70gm each in morning and night (slowly increasing), with different mixtures of wet food as well. She doesn't always eat it first time, but it is always gone when we get home, and she eats most of her dinner as well, so i imagine she is eating the rest around lunch time. If i was to feed 3 times a day, i would be feeding the total amount i am now, but split into 3, isn't that right? or should she be getting 3 meals of exactly what she is already? Also, she hasn't vomitted at any point other than once on her first day at our house a month ago. if her stomach was upset, would she be vomiting?

Well, we she was being feed twice a day when we got her, and we are feeding the samefood, just increasing the amount at each meal very slowly. So, i thought i was doing the right thing.... Our neighbours dog has parvo (sp), so they didnt think it would be a good idea for them to come interact with bella, at least until she had her next vax.

Hi guys, Well I am not too worried at the moment, but thought i might ask for some other peoples thoughts. My 10 week old maltese cross has the run of the house at all times, even while we are a work, with a dog door to outside, that she loves running in and out off. Even when we are home, she loves to spend time sniffing round the garden etc,and we have been told by our neighbours, that she spends alot of the day outside running round and sleeping. They also told us they quite often see her chewing on the grass, and they weren't sure whether that was normal. Now i had noticed her doing it as well, and i'm not sure what the reason for it is. she also loves chewing on the leaves on the ground, as well as her chew toys. She gets feed at 6.30am and 6pm,and any food she hast eaten gets left in her bowl, and she enevitably comes back to it, and finishes it. i thought maybe it was because she was hungry, but she will eat most of her dinner, and then go out and chew on grass. I am not sure what long term problems it coud cause if i dont stop it. thanks for your help

Well, the suggestion of yelping when she has bitten too hard, and walking away has seemed to work already. she still tries, but not as much, and its like she has second thoughts before trying, so t is pretty much light nipping now. i can now lie on the floor wih her, without her trying to bite unless we are playing. she now also seems more cuddly but i thinks that just because she isnt attacking me. this is how i had imagined having a puppy again, so its all seemed to settle down now. We also had our first vet visit today, just as a checkup, and to get her claws cut, and she was so brave!!

I'm situated near Carindale in QLD, does anyone have any recommendations?