Mrs Rusty Bucket

Maybe treats out in the park are different to treats at home? I've not met one that will take a treat from me - any treat. Even fresh roast chicken. And they can't all be unwell - I see two on a regular basis several times a week. And I see what ever Sharpei Rescue brings to various dog meet ups. Met one people person sharpei x but the x was SBT. Wiggle dog sharpei and very friendly. All the rest have been way more interested in "what's over there"...

withholding a treat is a correction. m-sass Anecdote - I saw an owner trying to catch his dog a couple of weeks ago. The dog was clearly terrified of him. I stupidly helped him catch the dog, and before I handed it over - I told him not to punish it. But he immediately shoved a choke collar over its head and yanked it around - told the dog "not to play games", and then he pushed the dog on the ground and hit it. In my best growly voice - I said "I will NEVER help you catch that dog again". And he grovelled - smiled and waved at me and left. Next time I see that dog - I will get its id info off its collar and report him for abuse. Some people should not be allowed to own dogs. But this is classic fallout. Ie the punishment is getting the opposite of what the owner intended in a way that treats never would used in the same situation. I accidentally trained my dog to go off big time at the lawnmower man. But so many (badly timed) treats were involved that she is always really pleased to see him and licks him to death if she gets close enough. I've stopped using treats and started using blocking with more success. Sigh. But at least I didn't use a technique that would likely cause her to blame the lawnmower man for her pain and lead to her attacking him. So the science - it's already been proven somewhere that reward based training is more effective, faster and lasts longer than aversive based... I think it would be straight forward to split new comers in dog clubs into two streams - old school yank and crank and new school reward based, and see which group graduates more dogs faster - with the same criteria and assessors who don't know which group is which or even that there is a split in the training techniques - though it might be obvious to them if they're doing an assessment. Another anecdote - watched a GSD club training. Watched tonnes of aversives - scoldings yanking, shaking, alpha rolls!!! being dished out, and no rewards, no pats, no praise, no fun, no treats. All the dogs looked sad. Heads were low, they were making calming signals at their owners and the instructor. The instructor stopped during class to punish his dog for failing to hold a down stay. My dog holds down stays for longer than his could, and my dog wags her tail the entire time.

Maybe these guys will loan you one of theirs http://www.uracast.com.au/default.asp?cid=1930&rid=1353&menuid=1353 The ACD with the elbow over the edge of the ute has fooled me more than once.

When I see our local wolf hound - I check for the slobber towel - if the owner hasn't got it, I keep well away. Our evening radio host - has finally had enough of people telling him, when he's lighting up, that smoking is bad for him. He's started answering as if that's the very first time he's heard it. "Oh, Really? I'm shocked! I never knew that, thank you so much for telling me"...

My dog only wants to go the usual way to the local park. But if she was a beagle, you'd never know where you'd end up. But have been some good smell to track. Maybe you want to join your local tracking club. PS my dog will track cats.

Checks are a different story. They are very hard to get right for most owners and have much more potential for physical damage. I'd choose a prong over a check 99% of the time. I agree that prong collars seem to be much more effective than slip collars and they can't choke in the same way - but they have the same problems in the hands of untrained beginners. Ie the dog gets continually punished for all behaviour and never rewarded for good behaviour. And the nature of postive punishment is - that you have to continually escalate it to keep getting a response. And then there is the fall out you get from using postive punishment (adding + an aversive). Unless the handler's timing is perfect and they remember to get good behaviour and reward that immediately after - the dog does not understand what it is being punished for or what the handler wants instead. So at dog club - there's not enough one to one supervision and encouragement for the handler to be able to get it right. And getting it wrong can have nasty consequences for dog and handler.

At my dog park - no choke collars are used as negative reinforcemnet slip collars. All the dogs pull to the limit of the lead and then some. At my dog club - there are some using them correctly but they could probably do the same exercises in a flat collar or limited slip. Ie their dog doesn't need the choke collar. But most of the beginners who are encouraged to use them - they have to fight and argue to use something else, and they're not told about what other options there are - food and play as reward are actively discouraged by many but not all of the instructors. It's horrible. So - before, after and during class - most dog owners are using the chains as choke collars. Many of the instructors are not stressing the importance of RELEASING the chain and praising the dog when it does what the owner wants. They yank the dog to heel, it pulls they repeat. There's no warning and often no release of pressure as they keep the lead and chain tight to preven the dog moving forward. Maybe if there was a licencing system where a dog owner had to demonstrate they know how to use one correctly before they could put one on the dog - and dog pulling in front of them - not correct. I wish there was some good scientific studies on dogs ending up at vets or behavourists. But I've only got anecdotes - eg friends lab with collapsed trachea from pulling on a choke chain and my own dog - avoiding walks on leads - she'd run and hide when she saw me getting the walking kit out for two whole years, including a year after I stopped using the thing.

My dog ate a corn cob - she chomped it into three pieces and swallowed each bit. I didn't really know they were bad or that she would do that or that she would swallow something that was bad for her. Ie I knew about cooked chicken bones but not corn cobs. Anyway - she survived but it did look very uncomfortable coming through the other end pretty much exactly as it had gone in. But not as uncomfortable as the marrow bone splinters - I had to stop feeding raw bones too.

The racoon tuggits made it through quarantine, Frosty helped me open the box, and she loves them. The chew guard dragon with a squeaker was also a success but I wasn't game to play full on tug with it. Don't think it has tug guard. And the squeaker is still alive but I didn't leave her alone to have her wicked way with it. And I've got my very own copy of control unleashed - whoo hoo. Thinking about getting some furry wubbas...

I got my dog from AWL - as a 10 week old puppy - so any issues she has are ones I gave her - or she was born with. Gary Wilkes has some great advice on how to choose a rescue dog. http://www.clickandtreat.com/html/getdog.html I think the others are right about finding a good rescue group and getting to know each other - so they will be able to let you know when a dog that might suit you comes in. With the big shelters - it's going to be all up to you to keep up with what they have by actually showing up. Maybe people in here could post their fav reputable rescues in NSW, so you have somewhere to start. PS if you'd like another french bulldog but you want to do rescue too - maybe contact your breeder or the french bulldog club - and ask them about it.

Cattle dogs (and crosses) are very hardy. Make great guard dogs. Frosty just scolded the meter reader... Fortunately it was the one that doesn't need access to the back yard.

Spikey all sticky up hair like a dunny brush crew cut - is a sharpei thing. The rest of him - still thinking Bull Mastiff or Great Dane. See if FC can get him to say "ah" for a treat and a tongue colour check. If he shows no interest in the treat - also a common shar pei trait. I think he's way too big already to be part pug.

Obi246 I'm so glad you want to fix this. So many lab owners just give up and let their dogs be naughty - which can actually put older people in hospital when they get knocked over. So you can rate your distractions as levels - with level 1 being easy to ignore, and level 10 being really hard to ignore (or unsafe to interact with). You start with practicing your recall with no distractions, then when your dog is reliable - add some level 1 - maybe go from inside the house - to the back yard. Actually for my dog - her worst recall is in the back yard... and build up. If you're at the beach or the park and you see a level 10 or level 5 and you know you won't have recall at level 5 (or where ever you're at) catch your dog before he gets distracted and put him on lead so you keep him safe and he's not learning it's ok to ignore you and play with all the other dogs. When it's ok with you, give him permission to greet other dogs - or go off lead - only when he can hold a nice calm sit and look at you. Ie make playing with other dogs a reward from you. Permission from you and then he connects the fun of playing with other dogs with you. I tell my dog "go play". It's good to have a cue word that makes permission official. Practice rewarding him if he checks in with you. Practice calling him - when he's already coming back to you. Reward that too. And when it's ok - do this as often as possible - get him to do the nice calm sit - and let him go play again - so you reward that again with his fave thing / biggest distraction. If you have to stop him (other dog or owner is getting upset or he's getting too excited to listen), if you think there is no way he will come when you call him, don't call him, just quietly go get him, put him on lead - and reward that. Lots of praise (ideally food too). If you do call him and he ignores you - go get him quietly and put him on lead. If you want to let him go again later - make sure in the intervening time - you play lots of games, and ask him to do lots of work with you on lead - trick training and heel work are good things. Practice getting him to shake hands, do sit stays, down stays, speak - whatever you want. Don't let him keep pulling towards where he wants to be (naughty) - give him something else to do, try not to ignore him completely. If you're talking to someone - try sitting next to him and massaging ears - rather than just ignoring. It's a trap for dog owners. Labs often like fetch games too - so you might see if you can also incorporate that into your rewards - as well as or instead of food. And there are a couple of SA dog trainers that I like if you pm me I will give you their contact details. PS it's nearly break up time for our local dog clubs (most close decemember and january) but they are excellent places to practice distraction proofing in a controlled environment - ie lots of dogs on lead there for your dog to practice ignoring.

Does he have a multi coloured tongue? Many Sharpei and Sharpei cross have distinctive blue-black on their tongues. I've seen quite a few Mastiff cross or bull mastiff with that colouring too. And Great Danes. I'm not sure about the sharpei - the ones I see have much smaller ears, and the face wrinkles are there all the time, not just when they're trying to figure out what you're doing with the camera.

I used to do club news letters with a text editor on the apple 11e called Zardax - and then put it together with sticky tape - the special sort that doesn't show when photocopied... those were the days - when cut and paste meant exactly that. Stanley knife and glue sticks were high tech. oops - my age is showing.

You wouldn't think Frosty was a sweety if you were trying to sell me a "better" electricity plan... PS and she gives the lawnmower man a hard time too - even tho she loves him really.

Puppy must be registered with the local council, maybe start with checking on that. And it has to be microchipped - tho not if it's less than 8 weeks old. I can't find minimum age for rehoming that a breeder must follow - but if it was an ANKC breeder - there are rules. Did you mention the puppy age to the RSPCA?

I can loan Frosty also. She puts on a very scary show for the door to door sales people. And will nip people if they try to leave. Ie she will let them in - but they don't get to leave without her permission. And the louder they get the scarier she gets. And she gets on quite well with Justice and the cresteds. November APC magazine has an article on setting up home security (with web cams) www.ispyconnect.com has free software for running a web cam as a security camera. Web cams can be had for less than $30 http://www.logitech.com/en-au/webcam-communications/webcams/8113 - tho the article does mention having a stand for it is helpful, though I'm sure you could clip it to a tin can full of rice (dry weight) if you needed to. Happy to loan the magazine. I don't think they put the how to article on the website apcmag.com until the next issue comes out (december).

Hi Airedaler I do our club newsletter in publisher, and then use the pdf converter supplied by our printing shop to convert it. When I did the first one - I was doing the pages in A4 format and then "printing" them 2 to a page - which the printing shop sorted into the book format tho I don't know how. Now I use "booklet" format in Publisher - and the pages are paired and when I print to pdf - it comes out in the order you want if you're going to print 2 pages front and 2 pages back of an A4 piece of paper ie 4 booklet pages on 1 A4 and then the shop staples two in the centre and folds it. Costs $1 - $2 per booklet for 300 booklets in black and white (more for colour) and that printing shop likes to keep clubs sweet. I really ought to put an ad for them on the cover somewhere. Tho nobody has asked me to. The club newsletter has been done in MS Word but that drives me nuts as every time I try to shift something - the formatting get screwed. The copy of publisher I have - keeps hiding stuff if I don't give it a text box large enough to fit all the text. Which gets really annoying if I decide I want to change the font size... We do "large print" at the moment, because we have such a lot of old members who complain. I think the pdf converter from our printing shop is free on their website if you want to try that. http://www.abbott22.com/index.php

Erm - we had RAAF Jets flying over last week too. Maybe could have been that. They were REALLY LOUD.

The dogs howling is what happens in my neighbourhood when there are police sirens. So wondering if the police had sirens going in your area at the time (maybe ring and ask them). The noise does sound like a male human. But why they'd do that or how they got in, or how they knew what the device is or that it was recording or why they didn't take it - I don't know. It is possible for a possum to make a noise like that - but I can't imagine one coming down the chimney to talk to the dogs when they're barking like that. Any blokes got keys to your house, YG? Did you change the locks when you moved in?

I have a card to collect and sign for mine at my PO Box post office. Whoo hoo. So it's here.

Ok This thread just needs this. To clear up about what "Brace" means. No dogs joined by leads or couples or braces or martingales either.

Thanks GeorgieB I will probably do the usual at the beach on Sunday (and Saturday)... and maybe do a lot of wading too. It's going to be toasty. http://www.seabreeze.com.au/graphs/sa.asp Given what didn't really happen on Wednesday - I don't really believe the rain forecast.

You can buy traps for European wasps. My brother had a home made one made from a 2 litre soft drink bottle with a bit of sausage suspended on a string over some water with sugar in it. And a hole in it with a inwards funnel (made from the top of another soft drink bottle)... Anyway there are several huge nests near his house but not on his proprety unfortunately. I don't get as many so I just do them with flyspray. I get low, blast them and they shoot straight up and then back towards their nest. The sting is nasty - I'd be using an antihistamine. Frosty got stung on the nose twice and paw once before she worked out bees are not like blow flies.