W Sibs

Apparently Emmaline means "work" and I have to say.. Emmy is a lot of work. Charlie means 'man' or 'warrior, army'... umm... I do tell him that he is "the man" when he does something great, and I told Mr CWEW and his brothers, that Charlie is their General and they all are his slaves..

With breeds of dogs, the boyfriend doesn't care which breed. He'll end up loving the dog anyway. He does have a say on how many we get though. If he gets to choose one he will rescue though.

we'll be there too

How good does that feel!!!!!!!!! My class had their final prac assessments the weekend before Easter. Had Easter to chiiiiiiiiiiiill and relish NO HOMEWORK!!! Now I find myself a tad lost without the pressure of it all, and have found out that even with all the extra free to air channels, tv is seriously lacking. It felt awesome!! although now, just have to wait to see if I pass!

Crazy dog person/owner Should be a qualified/certified dog trainer within a few months Whenever I have the time and space, sometimes I do rescue (mostly I just temp care) I should get my butt into gear about getting my JS ready to trial her in Obedience (since she can't do flyball or agility due to bad knees) I really can't wait till I get my hand on a flyball and agility dog though.

I love working dogs

JS do have very short attention spans! You gotta find ways to get your pup's attention.. I found that playing is the best way to bond with my JS. When we play and run around together, she focus and attention is always on me. Everything about her is always fun, exciting and everything has to be a game with her. How do you feel when you're around your pup? Happy? Frustrated? Serious? Do you baby it too much? Also it's a very good thing that he likes people. I have the opposite problem with my JS... she doesn't really like strangers, I'm always encouraging her to go say hello to people and gets pats. Come to the Spitz thread

I can't find that anywhere on backcountry.com They aren't the same as BackcountryK9.com

I think Backcountry.com still deliever to Australia. In the search box put in Ruffwear and their stuff will come up and is reasonably cheap. But to answer your question, I don't have Ruffwear Singletrack Pack so I can't help you there.

I don't have an issue with this at all. They were going to die anyway, and if those dogs can help vets became better vets then so be it. There are some dogs I've met that PTS is the best thing for them. They are sooo miserable and so far from saving, that it's cruel to keep them alive. I'm donating Charlie's body to science when he passes. Hopefully they can learn as much as they can from him so they can have a better understand of the disease, and who know? He could help future dogs/animals or even human who has the same disease as him. Logic part of me knows it a good thing but the other part (emotion part) tears up every time I think about it.

10 hours + going there and 10 hours + back for Emmy ;) For the right pup, I'll travel anywhere.

Charlie does have a rare disease (Bone Vanishing Disease or Gorham Disease)... he has no bones on his lower back and pelvis area. He goes to a specialist just for that condition but with general health (that doesn't involve his back) we go to the normal vets. I am going to email them, but I have cool down enough that it won't be a full complaint letter. Just a letter saying that I'm unhappy with the service I got from this vet. I don't mind talking about Charlie's condition and vets checking him out, but only after he go his vacs and ear checked. I understand why people will be curious and I'm happy to talk about it, but I didn't pay for a back consult.

I really love the clinic.. awesome staff and vet. Even if I move far away, I will continue going to them. Yeah, we will be sticking with the long termers. We won't be using her anymore.

Yeah, I'm going to go talk to her boss. She came across as a person who was more interested in Charlie's condition and was distracted with what I wanted her to do... even if she is new and or just graduate, that is kind of a weak excuse for her behaviour. I shouldn't be reminding her a few times for the vacs and for her to check his ears. Definitely speak to someone about your concerns, either the practice manager (if they have one) or one of the senior vets. I would even suggest that you do it before you go back for the ear check so it is organised before your recheck. For a patient I've never seen before, I generally do a general physical examination first and come back to the main problem at the end but it does sound like your initial concerns were not addressed, nor your requests in the consult. The clinic won't know that there is a problem unless their clients let them know and you have every right to discuss your concerns with them. Good point, I think I'll stop by tomorrow after work. I understand about the general physical examination and that's why I stood back to let her do her job, but when she wasn't checking anything else and only talking about his back problem... didn't once asked about his ears or how he is doing normally, I found that to be annoying.

I've been thinking about talking to the person in charge of that clinic about it when I do take Charlie back to get his ear check. Poor fella ears was clean when we took him to the vet (i cleaned his ear the night before when I saw he him shaking his head)... she should of shown more interested in his ears than his back Now I'm annoyed that I have to pay for another consult

I don't think PF was accusing you of anything. She was just suggesting that you should keep our pup on leash when kids are around that's all and showing you one way of introducing your pup to kids. Emmy isn't great with kids she doesn't know either.. she great with kids she grew up with though. I usually have her on leash when kids are around and ask the kids if I can bring Emmy over to sniff them to say hi (only if the kids are cool and didn't get excited when they saw her)

Must be one hell of a thorough heart check!

After a few reminders, she end up giving him the KC vacs and the ear was 'clean the ear for a few days and see how it goes.. if he is still itchy in 5 days bring him back. By the way, have you consider trying [a drug name i can't pronounce or spell] on him to help with his pain?' (Charlie is not in pain).

I took Charlie to get his annual KC vaccination the other day, and also, I wanted them to check his ear because he keeps shaking his head as though he has itchy ears. Charlie usually have 1 vet he sees and Charlie really likes this vet, but she is currently on leave and since it was just a simple KC vacs and ear check, i didn't mind which vet he got at the clinic. Anyway, we saw a new vet (new to the clinic too). From the get go, I knew she wasn't interested in the ear or the vacs. She must of been reading his history and got interested. I was prepared to answer a few questions about Charlie's condition but I was not prepared for her giving him a physical and asking 1001 questions about his back and his disease nor was I prepared to remind her about his KC vacs he needs and can she please check his ears. But, she was too busy squeezing his back, checking his hip etc... I first thought, it was normal procedure for a quick check up if you're going to the vet. But, I was kind of getting annoyed because we weren't in there to talk about his back, and since she didn't know what's wrong with him she was manhandling him way to much for my liking. Even his specialist doesn't manhandle him that much. And if they were doing a proper physical on him, wouldn't they need to check his heart and temp also? She didn't do that. I had to step in and called Charlie to come closer to me on the table, so she can stop handling him too much especially when he started to whinge (Charlie is usually very stoic at vets) because she was too firm on his hip area (she said that she was trying to feel his bone... I had to tell her that he didn't have bones in that area! Again!). I did give her a LOOK that said 'That's enough touching my dog'. She must of known she cross the line because she stepped back. I don't mind people asking me about the Charlie's disease and stuff but this point, it was getting annoying. If she gave him the vacs and checked his ears first, I would be all cool about it. Because the 2 things I went there for it out of the way. I get that people will be curious and have a lot of questions about it, and I usually like talking to someone new about because they might have some new to add to the condition. And, if she had ask if she can look him over and stuff, I would be cool with that too. Then she started to give me advice on how I should help his back legs, good physio he should see and how long I should exercise him for... I just put Charlie in his stroller and we walked out. We will not be seeing her again.

For me, socialisation is a life long thing, very important as a puppy but good as they get older too. I think the most easiest thing you can when you first get a pup home is to simply just sit in front of the house and watch what's going on... they are going to be living there, so they have to get use of the sound, smell, people, activities that's going around them. Another is to have a small party at home too when pup is a bit older.. so they get to meet different people and a few kids, maybe a few calm and well behaved dogs. Small play dates with other kind of dogs (who are calm and well behaved dog) is a really good thing too.

Emmy got car sickness and then it developed to anxiety towards the car. She use to drool walking towards my car.. now she just drools when we are in the car. We put her in a crate and she is ok now. There was A LOT of training for her to be ok with the car.

Thanks Am going to try a crate tomorrow - if all else - it will help with stopping me from washing blankets every day! Good luck!! Ohh.. also my advice is don't feed her anything before a car ride if she known to throw up..

I found Emmy travels well when she is a crate.. that helps her car sickness. We gave her Ginger tablets and ginger biscuit about 15 minutes before we left helped a little bit too, but eventually that stopped working too.