Mrs Rusty Bucket

@Hazywal The really reliable recall dvd is about developing a classically conditioned recall in a dog - in the same way it will salivate when it sees something tasty without thinking about salivating, a classically conditioned recall - is when the dog comes without thinking about whether it has something better to do. Leslie, of the DVD, trained Afghan hounds to come when she called. She'd been told that was impossible. My dog currently answers to "cheese" and / or the fridge door opening. Sigh.

wondering if she would eat food out of a kong... that would be hard to push the food out without eating it. putting the food in the fridge first might make it seem nicer to eat. Personally I find some food when frozen or in the fridge - reduces the intensity of the flavour or smell, which with some food - can be a good thing.

I'm guessing the criteria would be slightly different for not-conformation competition judging like agility, obedience, tracking etc. Wow - been an ANKC member for at least 8 years of the previous 10. And bred some litters. And won some championships with their own dogs. Being a ring steward or helper at shows is a good idea. Jessica M Why do you want to become a judge? what sort of judging do you want to do? are you a member of SACA? Or a breed club or kennel club? Chances are a local breed based kennel club that hosts competitions could introduce you to a local judge and then they could go through what you'd need to do and maybe even guide you a bit.

I got the really reliable recall DVD too. It helped some. Susan Garrett's recallers online course helped some more. A few things that get better recall for me... Like TSD said - after your dog has the idea of a recall, practice lots, make it fun, but only reward the good recalls. Pay attention to what the dog likes. Mine likes the hat game... so I use the hat as a bit of a signal / lure but she doesn't get the hat if she doesn't come straight back, flat out. Every now and again I get the dog version of the "finger" and "I'm busy", so I wave the hat, she comes eventually but she doesn't get the hat. I think if Ernie likes the stay then then walk away for long recall game (similar to the hat game) he might also like a "remote drop game" eg when he's headed off, ask for a drop (reward that sometimes), and then a recall ( and run away and reward with hat), pay attention to what your dog likes best. Mine prefers the release and chase as reward for a good stay over a treat - even tho she likes food a lot, she always seems disappointed it wasn't a game of chasey when she gets food for the stay. The other thing I do - and I don't know why this works on my dog - does she feel embarrassed? I don't know: Susan Garrett actually waded into a pond to get her dog out of it when he didn't have permission to be in there. So from time to time - if my dog is somewhere she's not meant to be (usually the playground, foraging), I actually run after her and catch her (the remote drop helps a lot) and put her back on lead. I don't say anything, I just go get her. Sometimes she will play "chase me" for a bit but I don't let that turn into a game. I just herd her out of the playground. Tests my fitness, I think it wouldn't matter if I did it walking. I just make it really clear - not ok to be foraging in the playground. And if I can be consistent about that, I get good results recalling her out of it. Or preventing her from going in at all (it's not fenced).

done. PS being aware of the study behind this article - coloured some of my answers https://positively.com/articles/fatal-dog-bites-share-common-factors/ Ie some of the questions seemed a bit superficial and a lot of my answers depend on the dog's living environment. So I wrote rather a lot in the boxes. BTW - a dog being given to someone whose mental illness involves abuse of animals - would not be a good thing, but otherwise, where both the dog and the human benefit - all good. Glad someone is asking questions.

One thing you might do - is go round your neighbours, with the puppy, and ask them to let you know if he's noisy or if they have any other problems with barking or fence banging etc. It's really important to let your neighbours know they can comfortably approach you about any dog related problems they might have so that you can sort them amicably. And if there's any stay at homes - they might be able to help a bit, keep an eye out to make sure nobody is hassling him. I went round with my puppy - she stayed inside when I was out, but she was still loud. My neighbours told me but they were fine with it. And she was with me at night - so no noise then (after the first night).

This is what the original breeder of these dogs thinks. He's sorry. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/nov/13/inventors-idea-regret

so far so good. seems to be healing up ok and not bothering her much.

I think she dealt with the flap bit last night, cos it was gone this morning. There's just a bit of a hole and new pad coming through now. And she's not as sensitive on it. which is good.

That thing where the BC is pointing its nose at the roof - is to see what the handler is doing. Some DWD handlers use verbals (spoken cues) as well I think. But BC are extremely good at sneaking a look at the handler, and if the routine with the music is practiced as a whole - the music will help cue as well. And you know how dogs know when dinner is, it works for knowing roughly how long they need to do something before the next thing starts (or they need to peek). I'm still wondering how I can train the high stepping... Might need a long stick for targeting or something. She already pokes me from the couch with high fives to get belly rubs.

There's that tv series - upper middle bogan... That had a greyhound in it. Very cute.

Wow.

It's a scary amazing thing - someone with dancing talent and training, who can also train a dog I'm a crappy dancer, not good at keeping time, I'm not sure doing that with a dog would make either of us look clever - tho I love training some of the tricks.

Do they do any photographer composition stuff when they're taking pix with a drone, or do they just send it up to take pix and hope some are framed around the view nicely?

I'm not brave enough to do this, will definitely get vet help for it.

small update - it's not her shoulder, it's a small tear in her footpad, so that's annoying but a relief - skipped tonight's agility training tho. I like DC's option 1 thru 7 look nice and flowing if I could get an arm change between 4 and 5 or send her out to 3 without being baby sat. I can stand half way between two parallel jumps and send her but she jumps the bit facing the inside - I haven't tried to get her to go round the back or do a threadle (2 -> 3) without being close to 3.

Depends on the PH of your soil to start with. I'm on Mitcham Clay which has a PH that turns the soil test kit purple (eg 8 or 9 bloody alkaline already) so I'm not putting lime anywhere near it. Sometimes I put ammonium sulphate in the hopes of making the dirt a bit more acid. eg a neutral pH of 7 or just under would be good. Compost can be either acid or alkaline - eg mushroom compost is often extremely alkaline but other compost can be quite acid (get the soil test kit out again - one $30 kit will many many tests).

special gifted puppies they are for doing this to themselves. At least I know it's not the shoulder again. It's quite dry, no oozing, so I'm inclined to let it be except that she keeps treading on it the wrong way and I'm pretty sure that hurts like she'd wished she hadn't done that. At the same time she's pretty good at ignoring it if there is something she wants - like access to a good smell or to yell at the school kids.

Hi All I have finally found why my evil hound has been limping on and off for the last day or so. She's digging her bed right now so it can't hurt that much and it's not bleeding, there's no scab that I can see. But she's made a bit of a slice in the back of her front left foot pad. Could have been digging and got a bit of broken glass or iron, or just jumped on something wrong. So I'm thinking take her to the vet tomorrow to get it looked at but I'm wondering if I should bind it up with something easy to unwrap and put a baby sock on it now or just leave it as is...

That's a lot of contact to tunnel - object discriminations and handler entanglement (getting to the other end of the tunnel) 8->9 and 12->13 and maybe , but not so many "round the back" of the jump. I find in competition - weavers are often where the pair dog has to come and fix the mess made by the other dog. Jump 11 then change dog to scramble 12 and come back at the dog just finishing 11 - could be interesting. Which would get to tunnel 14 first? And I'm not entirely sure if my dog would get contact on 12 if I'm trying to get around the tunnel 13. Would be interesting to try. She's buggered her shoulder again - bolting up the narrow bit between fence and garage to harass people out on the footpath (stopped at the gate). Went in fine, came out limping. Evil hound. I have to take her out into the back yard on lead now. sigh.

This is where things can get very strange. I've just found out that some rural town in QLD routinely has car boot sales of puppies. ARGH. And when people complained - they were called whingers and do gooders (like that's a bad thing). So that's something I'd see as completely unacceptable in any Australian Capital city but it's just fine for the people in charge somewhere a bit more rural. Kind of reminds me of the disaster that bit the cattle industry on the bum.

It's the "Pet industry Association of Australia" that has all cross breeders in their breeder list. And they've got a bunch of sponsors I'd consider avoiding too. While I don't mind an industry out of food and accessories and health care products, I'm much less keen on an industry based on breeding puppies. But if you want a nice list of legal puppy mills - they have it.

I guess the selectiveness of the rescues has something to do with the bad experiences they've had. Like the bizarre warnings you get with toasters (eg don't stick a knife in the toaster, don't put a cheese toasty in a toaster). I had to fill out a questionnaire at AWL but nobody came and checked the home. I didn't have any other pets or people living with me or they might have asked me to go and fetch them all (AWL and RSPCA like the whole family including the cat to meet the new family member and agree). These days I know a few people who run rescues from seeing them at events and schmoozing their dogs, and buying ice creams and etc. And I'm pretty sure they'd be happy to place a dog with me if I thought my evil hound would agree (and this would be checked too). But I think a lot of the problems described - come because the rescue org just doesn't know the adopter well enough. And yet other rescues will ship the dog interstate - so they can't do any of the checks described, well they can get someone else to do a yard check but that's about it. They really don't get to know the household and family. It's worse than dating. It's possibly more like finding a good child care place for your baby.

probably not a good idea to put the dog poo in the garden / compost when you've given the wormer the day before. Ie that will kill the worms in the garden as well as the dog gut. Same as horse poop from freshly wormed horses. Theoretically if you have a heathy parasite free dog the poop can be composted into the garden. My mum likes to do this but she doesn't have dogs at her place daily. I find it just too horrible. That bin is erm - huge?!. I've seen simpler systems. You'd probably want to layer the poop up with other stuff like dirt, grass clippings, leaves, etc same as ordinary compost. My ordinary compost is not like the commercial composters that my green waste goes to. If I put the dog poop into a compostable bag - I could put that into the commercial compost and that would be good (except worming day). But the compostable compost bags decompose in the poop bucket faster than the green bin gets emptied. And I'm not interested in double handling the poop.

Tania76 This keeshond has already found a foster and a forever home. If you're looking to foster another - you might contact keeshond breeders in your area, or find out if there is a keeshond rescue in your state or area (usually connected to the breed club). You might also consider going to petrescue.com.au and finding a rescue organisation or two in your area and fostering for one of them. Or contact the rescue you originally got your dogs from and offering to foster spitz breeds for them.