Mrs Rusty Bucket

According to this one Page 7 and 8 - Labradors the most popular breed registered. Attack at a rate of 0.03% Labrador cross breeds (labradoodles?) attack at twice that rate. But given labradors have been attacking at the rate of nearly 20 per quarter, the annual rate has gone up by times 5 since mandatory reporting was brought in. As best I can tell. http://www.dlg.nsw.gov.au/dlg/dlghome/docu...June%202005.pdf Page 2 of this one puts Labs in the top 20 of dog attacks by breed. http://www.dlg.nsw.gov.au/dlg/dlghome/docu...-%202009-10.pdf There were 19 attacks reported involving Labradors. Labradors don't have to bite to damage people either, their wrecking ball ways damage many a person who is skittled completely by an out of control labrador.

Steve has a bag full of toys, so I think he could find one that works if you don't have any. Food worked so well with Frosty, we didn't spend a lot of time with toys. She says VERY LOUDLY there is a cat outside and I should open the door to let her go get it. I can hear Steve in my head saying "don't do it..." PS I made her sit before I opened the door. PPS Looks like no home games for the footy club on Saturday. Not making promises there, but juniors seem to play on Sundays, Seniors have late starts, and as best I can tell, Mitchell Park Lions - are the away team this weekend. There's supposed to be a function for listing what games are on what date, but I can't get it to work.

Yes, I have noticed that dogs in off lead areas that are not well fenced, are much better behaved, the owners have more control and exercise it. I think it would be ok to dedicate a fenced area to small or decrepid dogs for off lead, the bulk of an area, should not be all that well fenced. Then your effective control gets enforced, by the environment. And dogs cannot be bailed up against the fence leading to no more flight option, turning to the fight option.

SecretKei I can bring a loan chair for you, if you let me (or Ness) know when, but a folded jumper, towel or thick newspaper would do. There is a bench chair big enough for everyone, it's just bloody cold. treats - depends on your dog, but soft yummy ones would be best. And ones the dog doesn't get too often. Also bring the bestest toy, especially the tug sort. So for us, it was metwurst. I had roast chicken but we didn't need it. Fritz probably would have worked. We use bread cubed into little bits and roast beef for normal training. So these were uber treats. It helped that I'd been eating the metwurst and roast chicken and not sharing with her too. The ball on a string didn't work but Frosty decided for herself that a Kong wubba that had been retired for a long time was worth resurrecting. Everybody You won't need a chair on Saturday because we should have access to the clubrooms then. It's definitely a good idea to rock up about 9am to get "registration" stuff sorted early and set up crates and stuff, so we can get straight into the good stuff at 9:30am. Steve didn't bring any helpers today, not sure if he will have any at all. I plan to get there a bit earlier than that so we can do some laps around the footy oval and get Frosty emptied out. She saves up for the morning walks. And hopefully 8:30am will beat the Junior footy games (car park, what car park) if there are any. And I'd probably park on the East side car park on Saturday because that side is where the dog club is and the view/walk from the dog club is better for that car park. You can check it out with maps google satellite if you really want to get picky.

Frosty behaved very well and didn't try to nick off once. And came every time she was called. If only Steve had seen our effort in the tunnels run last Sunday.

Corvus Are you arguing because you can't get 100%, you shouldn't try at all? No council is going to agree with you. Most have a pretty clear definition of off lead "effective control" - dog must respond to command by voice or signal. If it doesn't, you must keep the leash on. In the situation where you say it's too late when your dogs go bouncy bouncy without your permission, you reward your dogs by allowing them to continue, instead of calling them back the minute they start their unacceptable behaviour. Apologies only have meaning if you make every effort to stop repetition of the offence. I don't think that "effective control" is "unrealistic", I think it is just largely "unenforced". Not the same thing. I think councils could more than cover the cost of rangers if they just sent them to any off lead park or even the on lead ones, and asked each owner to call their dog and put it on lead. All those who got no response from the dog, should get a fine. I'd be happy with that. My life and my dog's life would be much easier. And more dog owners would put a bit of effort into recall training instead of throwing their hands in the air and saying "it can't be done".

I think I would have liked a recorder, because Steve talked so fast. I found nothing to be scared of. Steve is friendly. Frosty liked him, which is always a good indicator to me. We didn't do much practical with distractions. Then again Frosty isn't always naughty. Only sometimes. The "locals" were more distracting for me than Steve or Frosty. We did test Frosty with toy and food, and I was able to get her attention with food from Steve. Didn't try swapping it. Then again she is my dog, so if I can't distract her from him, I'd regard that as a problem. Eddie - my agility instructor said "I'm taking Frosty home", last night, and I said "off you go" and he said - "oh she's coming with me, too" and I said "is she?" and walked away, and that was it, Frosty tried to pull his arm off. I can't be sure she'd do that every time with everyone though. She has learned to sit quietly with anyone while I go inside the dog club. We've practiced that one. But she was only happy to go with Eddie as long as I went too.

I think the same thing applies to the big group thing too. Then again I could be wrong. It's in a "training agreement" but normally applies to anything where people make money out of what they know rather than a hands on tangible thing they sell. Although you're still expected not to go out and copy the thing they sell and sell it too. It's very common in the IT industry. Anyway hopefully the followup support will clear the fog for me.

It's all "secret" and not to be discussed on internet forums. Isn't that in the blurb you received? "Secret" isn't exactly the right word. "Commercial in confidence" maybe? I'm still not really sure what happened if that helps. And it wasn't exactly fun either. Like a uni lecture in a subject you desperately want to pass but don't quite understand. Frosty gets it better than me. DIMITO - dog is more intelligent than owner.

practical info for private consults. Steve parked on the West side of the club rooms. And used the veranda on the footy club & oval side, so we could see our cars from that side. You can't see that space from the car park on the East side. I didn't get a chance to eat or drink anything. I was glad I got there early enough to do a couple of laps around the footy oval and get my dog toileted and me toileted - for me, we used the disabled toilet - big enough for the dog to come too and very clean. Well now there are dog prints on the floor but clean enough. There was a lot of just sitting around for the dog, the tramp bed was helpful. Concrete is cold. A mixture of treats and toys was helpful, just to find out what she liked best. This morning - beef chips which were a tad inconvenient as training rewards, and metwurst won. They beat the ball on a rope. It will help if you have a cushion or camp chair, the chair that Steve chose was made of metal and sucked heat out. We didn't use the camp table. I didn't get much of a chance to write anything but idid use my lap as table when I needed. There was a fitness class for an hour on the dog club side. We didn't really notice. And there were several SWF being walked including two that rushed Frosty while their owner said "sorry" but clearly didn't mean it. If Frosty was dog aggressive, both those fluffies would have been dead. Frosty rolled over. Several other dogs were walked during the time we were there, but did not cause too much of a distraction. Except a boxer that Frosty thought she knew. But she stayed on her tramp and on lead. Frosty also ignored other dogs during the practical session but was pretty keen to find food scraps. A small family of "locals" wandered through with no sense of personal space. I put Frosty in a drop in case the toddler wanted a pat. Steve ignored them but also suggested I tell them to keep their distance so they don't get bitten. I said that can be bad because there is a lot of bad history with cattle dogs and "locals". Anyway the mum had a good look around the footy club rooms and then cleared off without us saying anything. I've been there several times before and that's the first time I'd seen anyone like that there.

I've got the 9am session tomorrow, if anyone wants a laugh. Then again they are supposed to be "private consults". I've made chocolate fudge slice to keep my sugar level up. And I've got chopped roast chicken for my evil hound. And I haven't had the crate set up in months, so she's not going to enjoy that. We did the mock trial at Para last Sunday, and she was on a tie out peg for the first time ever, and the first time I walked away she pulled it out the ground. Eddie put it back somewhat more securely than Nugget requires. And there was a lot of ear shredding offended? squeally barking when I was walking the course. Of course she's very happy if she gets to stay in the car. My big crate/handbag. But if it's sunny, that can be a problem. Last time, car was 35'C inside when it was 25'C outside and sunny. Although tomorrow's forecast is for possible showers and 19'C ie about the same as today. It will be an interesting session if the first thing she does when off lead is play "nyah, nyah, can't catch me". Will be interesting to see how Steve handles that. And be really annoying if she doesn't do it because then I won't learn how to deal with it. That would be just what I need, a perfectly behaved dog, with nothing to correct and nothing to learn. Sigh. Some days are better than others. At least I know the dunnies should be open or home is not too far for me.

I don't understand why they need a printed ticket but apparently they do. It would be one of the first ones you got after paying up, with a PDF attachment. My printer doesn't do colour so I hope a black and white one will keep them happy. Maybe we should all print several and bring, just in case somebody forgets theirs. (joking Steve). I got an email today with a reminder follow up list of things to do/bring.

Shannon Lush - queen of clean, suggests using mint tea - the sort you get in teabags, made into tea and wiping the dog down with that. Though you could probably use fresh tea too, ie stuff a handful in a pot and pour boiling water over. It's supposed to repel fleas. Good for misting over dog bedding too. I doubt it kills fleas though. Eucalyptus oil, I have used in tiny amounts to stop the dog from sniffing/digging/counter surfing, same as vicks vapour rub. If the dog consumes a large amount eg teaspoonfull it will probably make the dog sick. Eucalyptus oil can melt and dissolve some plastics. I wouldn't apply it undiluted on my dog. Nor lavender oil. I use half a teaspoon in a litre of water with half a cup of vinegar to clean hard surfaces like the bath and toilet but not for the dog. I use johnsons & johnsons baby shampoo and conditioner on the dog. And revolution flea spot on.

Some of you need to learn more about "conditioned responses". Basically once you have that, the dog can't help itself, it's not something it thinks about "got something better to do right now", it just does it. However 100%? - what if the dog has a broken leg? or is tangled? or tied up? can't hear/see the signal because of the train or fire or thunderstorm? what if something you never thought of? The highest reward in a dog's world is something it values highly, is very pleasurable, and is hard to get. I'm highly valued and have excellent fingers, and source of all food but I'm pretty easy to get. Beef chip or (someone else's) smacko strip - hard to get, highly valued, much chewy pleasure. She works a bit harder for that than for me alone. And I know I could get better results if I was harder to get. She understands if she doesn't come, I'm going to make myself hard to find so she does come when I give the "I really mean it" recall signal. Trouble is I don't trust the reliablity of it enough to hide in a tunnel if she nicks off on an agility course. Especially when there are a squillion other dogs and people and courses there, so I took the option of herding her away from causing disruption to others and then hiding. I also don't want to be that hard to get, I like patting my dog.

No guarantee with a labradoodle that you'll get one that is good for allergies. What about a Bedlington Terrier? Although they're probably not manly enough either. Portuguese water dog? Obama has one. And try get him to this. http://dogtime.com/matchup/start you can put [email protected] if you just want your results displayed immediately and don't want their emails. It tells you why it recommends certain breeds and why it doesn't.

http://www.dlg.nsw.gov.au/dlg/dlghome/dlg_...;mi=9&ml=10 The NSW report breaks down by breed but doesn't show how many of that breed are registered. The council report breaks down by bite/area and shows total number of dogs registered in that area but has no breed break down. The 2004/5 report has bites per breed and number of that breed registered so you can see that ACD are more likely to bite than some other types of dog but the percentage for APBT is horrible - there are hardly any of them registered so the statistic isn't very reliable anyway, but then if one dog bites and hardly any are registered then the percentage of biters looks really bad. Eg if you meet 100 APBT - one of them is going to put you in hospital. But if I remember right, there are only 100 APBT registered or there abouts in NSW. Which probably means that most of the dogs are not correctly identified when the report is sent in. Page 7 and 8 are the most interesting of the 2004/5 report None of the reports show if the biting dog - is registered at all. So if you have 100 registered APBT - and none of them bite anybody but an unregistered dog misidentified as an APBT bites someone and puts them in hospital - then APBT get a bite percentage of 1 in 100 when the correct number would be zero percent. Confused yet? It would be more accurate if they showed the number of unregistered dogs in the list and put out the report in the 2004/5 format quarterly instead of the crap they do put out. You need to write to the NSW State LGA minister to make that happen. Malamutes get a 0.8 which is nearly 1.0 - ie one in 100 malamutes will (try to) bite you? But again there aren't very many of them.

Lesley Nelson has put out a DVD on how to teach "really reliable recall" 100%? probably not. I am never 100% certain of anything. Philosophically speaking, you can't be 100% certain you're sitting in front of a computer reading this or that you really have a dog at all. According to the DVD, it is possible to train a really reliable recall in an Afghan hound but it takes about a year and a half and at least three times a day practice with a really really high value treat/reward. And the less the emergency recall word is used for real not practice, the better it works. http://www.dogwise.com/ItemDetails.cfm?ID=DTB810P At the moment I've got fairly good recall with my dog. But it's a long way off really reliable. I can call her off chasing cars, joggers, bikes, small animals, fighting dogs (she's a loud spectator) - most of the time. I can call her away from small children too. I can't always get her back on lead when I want. But part of the training means you never call the dog and then put it straight on lead - especially one that really likes being off lead. So I get my dog by doing some fun obedience heel, or sit stay or by going up a set of stairs onto a balcony or narrow area. And I reward going on lead with treats and / or game of tug with the other end of the rope lead. The best recall signal I have is to call once, then run away. Which is pretty weird looking to some people.

Koalathebear What the others said. I suggest yell ouch or say "bah" in a normal voice and then turn your back on the puppy as long as it takes for him to notice. No eye contact, no talking, tuck your hands under your arms so he can't get to them. The second he stops jumping or lets go, praise. A "charged up" clicker and yummy treats or tug rope might help with this. Try to disengage puppy with a "leave it" and then push his own lip on his teeth until he lets go, and praise like you won big in lotto when he does. Try to give puppy something else to do, like sit or drop and only give attention when he's sitting nicely. I suggest teach him "leave it" and reward with a yummy treat or tug on rope game when he lets go our trouser leg. "Leave it" is very useful when he decides he wants to round up a car, or a bike or a jogger. I am wondering how he can continue to dangle off your leg when he's shut in his crate or safe zone (laundry with nothing to destroy). Put taste-yuk on the bits of you he bites. Should be able to get some really bitter stuff from equestrian supplies called "Crib stop" or similar. Vicks vapour rub might work. Large doses are bad for dog, but hint of smell should be effective without being too toxic. Chilli will only lead to a dog that likes the taste of chillis. I've got me one of those. Oops. I also use squirty bottle as a distraction. A pump up one with a long continous squirt is best. You don't need to hit the dog directly. My dog likes to chase the water, and that's a good distraction / displacement activity. I have the most grovelly non threatening dog ever and she loves playing tug. As part of playing tug we practice: "take" "hold" "pull" and "give", getting the tug back involves tickling under her chin as I say "give", and then I let her have it back "take". And if she wins the game of tug, she always brings it back for more, because tug by yourself is not as much fun as tug with a friend. There is no dominance or aggression issues. If she misses the tug and gets my hand, we "bah" and do a 3 second ignore, no eye contact, turn my back on her, no talking. And if she's good we start again. I've got my farm dog bitza doing agility now after a year of tedious obedience training, and it's so worth it. She loves jumping stuff. Work on recall with yummy treats, and leave it with yummy treats, and try clicker training. Practice a recall and a sit stay before he's allowed to eat every night. Start off with really short stay times, and recall of 1m on lead, and gradually build up, one factor at a time, ie work on distance or time but not both at once. http://www.clickandtreat.com/Clicker_Train...r_training.html http://www.k9pro.com.au/pages.php?pageid=52 Good luck. Kelpie x can be very demanding. The theme for our previous family dog was "Your wish is my command", "Your wish is my command..." "I Command you WISH me NOW"...

Meat is going to be cooked anyway. Sort of. But what I objected to was my steak and my ham and my money being handled all with the same hands and no washing between. Wasn't planning to cook the ham or the money so was a fantastic way to contaminate everything. It's better to stop the meat from getting contaminated in the first place. The other dumb trick some butchers / deli servers have is to fill a bag with chicken, carefully folding the bag inside out to pick up the chicken like we pick up dog poo and keep it off our hands, then taking bag of chicken and dumping it on the scales then returning the bag to the chicken then dumping it in the chicken or tray of whatever is nearby to pick up more chicken. And then putting it back on the scales. HELLO???? Maybe if the outside of the bag was covered in bright blue chalk they'd notice what they were doing. I've never seen the scales cleaned either.

I still think Frosty would sneak past. Even Kenz isn't mean enough to tell off super-grovel-dog.

I have had a few arguments with butchers handling money and food with the same hands, and mixing raw chicken juice with bacon, ham or steak. I definitely switch butchers when I see that happen. I get the dog meat from our local foodland, which sells human grade meat for about half the price of safeway/woolies. I get meat for me from the butcher, though I am thinking of finding the organic meat butcher, because my current favourite has started selling "grain fed" beef which I like about as much as battery farm chicken. I can't fed my dog bones unsupervised because she insists on swallowing spikey pieces and then vomiting them in the middle of the night. BLECH. Or having trouble passing the bits the next morning. And that goes for the blessed beef marrow bones, as well as anything more delicate. When I do buy dog bones (for other dogs or if I have time to supervise the eating and remove before splinters happen) if the butcher asks - I say it's for soup or stock, cos dog bones must have GST added and the human food doesn't. My fave butcher sells dog treats like pigs ears and roo jerkey. So I think he's pretty happy to keep his customers in dog bones too. All our supermarkets sell "soup bones" too. Including chicken necks and the like. And I'm not too happy when I can't get a forequarter of lamb to roast with the lamb shank still attached. That's my favourite bit, and all the shanks get sold to restaurants today for "braised lamb shanks" which used to be something cheap and yummy for them to make a profit on, but now it's all expensive. I do like a butcher who can bring out an uncut side of lamb and listen and do exactly cut how I want. Sometimes I have to order ahead of time to get it.

I use verbal marker and clicker, for different things. For heel work and agility, especially in class, I use "good" or "good dog". For tricks like roll over and shake hands and "what you say" I used the clicker. I'm currently trying to get relaxed nail clipping and I'm using the clipper as a clicker... I'm so unco, I did start with the clicker but given the behaviour I wanted to mark was the clipper clicking near her claws, I didn't have enough hands to hold the paw and claw and work the clipper and the clicker and then get a treat. Although dog was willing to help herself to the treats. Not as helpful as she thought it was really. But we're getting there. She's almost relaxed about getting treats upside down. And much better about having the clipper on her claws. I actually managed to clip a dew claw the other day. And one of the long ones on her front paws. For some reason her back paws' claws don't get long. Just using a verbal marker for all this, wasn't getting me anywhere. Charging up the clipper seems to be a major break through.

Gawd how did I miss all this... I won't have to worry about Frosty getting any chicken if Pele is assigned guard duty. Then again, knowing Pele and Frosty, Pele would probably share. I put pine nuts and lemnos fetta cheese cubed up into my zuccini slice instead of bacon. Yummy and with a salt fix.

Try the same techniques you would if kelpie wanted to jump all over an old lady. Make sure she's had plenty of exercise - ie as close to exhausted as possible. Start with on lead contact, make the dog sit. Reward the dog for sitting nicely. Also teach the dog "leave it" for anything it must not have, including counter surfing and smaller dogs and little old ladies with fragile skin. Always give the dog something it loves like a bit of roast beef or several bits of roast beef, or a game of tug, when it leaves it. Give the kelpie lots of things to do, like fetch the ball, sit, drop, rollover etc instead of playing with the schnauzer. At some point introduce the concept of "gentle". I find my dog matches how hard I play and is extremely gentle with older dogs or puppies, and only rough with dogs who are rough with her. When I play with her, I'm always extremely gentle, because that's how I want her to play with me. If I'm rough, she's rough. Not all dogs learn this though, not sure how you teach an older one, except to give it something else to do if it gets too rough, from sit to time out. Make sure the new home has a crate or a space for time out, so they can continue the training.

http://www.k9pro.com.au/pages.php?pageid=52 Triangle of temptation - above link. I'm not sure how it would stop barking at 5am, but it does get the dog a bit more obedient generally. Well it has for mine. My dog sometimes has a barking fit in the middle of the night, and she sleeps next to me. If it's only a cat, then I ignore the barking. I try to shut her up with distraction long enough to hear if it's burglars or people she's barking at. She also barks a lot at meal times, but she doesn't get any dinner until she is quiet. Another way to shut her up, is to tell her to "speak" and reward/good dog when she barks, and repeat. She shuts up while she tries to figure out what she needs to do to get the treat, and then I teach "quiet". Ie once you have "speak on command" working, then you can get "quiet" working. But for 5am barking, I think I'd be setting alarm for 4:55am and bringing him in and putting him in a crate. If people in your household are getting up at 5am, he would be barking for attention, or to be allowed back in, more than for food. They can hear when we get up. Get Mr 5am, to shut him inside somewhere safe. Don't feed until a more reasonable time for dogs to be awake. Also - around here, the magpies start up at about 5:30am, so there may be some outside trigger apart from Mr 5am that is setting the dog off, and you need to teach him to "leave it" or "quiet" when that happens. The best way is no attention, and you can't really allow that when he's outside barking and waking the neighbourhood up. So inside with crate. A big crate, but a confined space where he can't do any damage to anything important or expensive.