Simply Grand

Wantsapuppy, that's true, I've discovered a couple of dead ones when I've spotted Saxon rolling in something in the backyard - blergh. (those would be the ones the cat has "played with", poor mousies)

She wasn't getting near me for a kiss! I shut her outside for a while in case she threw it back up, I do not need regurgitated mouse in my house! She was fine tho. Now she won't leave Charlie (the cat) alone, she's following him around hoping he'll provide another tasty snack - insert rolly eye man. I suppose I could hire them out as a rodent catch and dispose team...

My baby girl Quinn just ate a mouse while I was holding onto her trying to get her to drop it The cat had caught and I think killed it and Quinny ran straight over and grabbed it from him. I ran over to try and get her to spit it out, tried telling her to leave it, saying swap, which works for treats, grabbing her scruff, lifting her back legs up, pulling her backwards, but the more I tried the tighter she held it, then a couple of munches and poor mousie was gone. No soft mouthed retriever here

Yep, not many people get what my Aussie pup Quinn is either. A surprising number say "oh a Coolie!". She gets husky x as well coz of her blue eye. Sometimes I worry a bit when people say oh what's she crossed with, and I say she's an Australian Shepherd, pure bred, that people will think I've made it up like people do with oodles! (ACD x GSD maybe...)

The more you read it the funnier it gets too, you can just picture the dog saying everything!

Check out this blog, it's so funny! Warning: language and sexual references Edit: I think this is a better link http://textfromdog.tumblr.com

That is super cute, bless him looking after his family when they really need him :D It's exactly what Saxon (my oldest dog, nearly 3) is like with his annoying little brother and sister dogs (Riley, now 1 and Quinn, 5 months), mostly he seems kinda annoyed by them but at any sign of trouble for either of them he's straight over to defend them.

I always have treats on me at the park, results in really quite good recall from my 3 but often also attention from other dogs. I don't feed other people's dogs, unless I occasionally ask first, then I say can Xxx have some liver/chicken/cheese/whatever. However Saxon is the biggest treat hussy ever, he sniffs them out from across the park amd does all his cute little tricks to get something from people, he has people sussed! I watch him and call out to him to leave people alone, sometimes people do ask if they can give him a treat, I say yes but tell them that seriously he will not leave you alone so you don't have to! I guess I feel like it is my responsibility to keep my dogs away from people if I don't want them eating stuff from other people. In theory no people shouldn't give food to other people's dogs because of all the reasons already posted, but in general I think they mean well and just don't know better, so if I don't want my dogs in that position then I need to keep them out of it.

ETA they are also bonded to each other and are protective of each other when out in public, if Saxon or Riley thinks the other one or Quinn (the baby who's twice the size of either of them) is in trouble with another dog they'll rush over and "try to help". It's sweet but tends to escalate things and is something to be aware of if you're out with multiple dogs together.

Everyone has made great points, and most more experienced than me, but I think the best thing I ever did was get my second dog! I personally didn't find it a whole lot more work, though I was lucky that mine got along (2nd was only a baby when he came home though, older one nearly 2). They're both small breeds too so I found getting a larger breed as the 3rd more of a challenge. However you're already equipped to deal with big dogs so you shouldn't have that learning curve (ie. Oh you can reach that, and knock that over, and pull that, and jump up there etc etc). I would probably consider how accepting Kyojin is of other dogs in general, is he cool with other dogs visiting your house, playing with his toys, eating and sleeping near him etc? I knew that Saxon was fine with all that from having friends' dog's visit so I didn't think he'd have a problem with a new puppy, which he didn't at all. As far as separate time, I do try and I give them short separate training and cuddle times at home but their main separate time is at obedience class (I take them each to a separate class). I walk them together and take them to the park together and haven't had any major dramas. Each is definitely more bonded to me than each other, but again all were baby puppies when they came home. My biggest challenges with a multi dog household are the constant cleaning up and the noise! And yes they are a bad influence on each other, but the good far outweighs the bad :)

Haha Dyz, great photos! I dont have a good enough camera to capture it but plenty of stacks on bitey face between my three. It fascinates me how what looks and sounds like total mayhem to me is actually very controlled. They never hurt each other despite the teeth flashing and body parts tangling, and on the odd occasion where there is a squeak saying someone's gone to far they instantly stop. Watching my dogs, who I know well and can read play/minor disagreement vs fighting/aggression has been invaluable for me as a fairly new dog owner in judging interactions with other dogs. Until I had more than one of my own I didn't truly understand how much noise and fuss dogs can make without having any intention of causing harm.

Oh someone just told me about Wendy the Whippet the other day. I would think her normal sized heart would struggle with twice as much muscle as she should have. Same with the joints in her legs, seeing as they're normal size. The article said she had a shorter life expectancy but it sounds like the years she has will be good ones!

I'm the only human in my household and I'm always giving my dogs the opportunity to do human things - I ask them if they'd like to mop the floors or clean the bathroom, or wash the dishes, or prepare dinner... I even offer them incentives, I tell them if they go to the shops for me to get something they can buy themselves steak for dinner. They don't seem interested in taking up the opportunities?!? (kidding obviously, but I do actually have my side of the conversations with them )

Oh art imitating life! There's a Dr Doolittle movie on channel 10 right now, Dr Doolittle's 17 year old daughter can talk to animals so thinks she doesn't need to do the years of study to become a vet as the animals can just tell her what's wrong. Her "love interest's" dog (a gorgeous Sheltie!!) got sicker and sicker over a few days, she explained her symptoms but Maya thought it was nothing serious, eventually the boyfriend takes the doggy to the vet, who quickly and easily diagnoses bortadella (??) from the symptoms, confirms and treats, full recovery. Without the treatment, doggy would have died. Maya learns the value of vets in really helping animals :) Ah life lessons from kids movies.

Percynality, I'm very sorry for your loss, especially when little Percy was so young. I'm just wondering if you would explain what you mean when you say you give your new dog every opportunity to be human? I'm interested to know what kind of things that involves. I'm also wondering whether you know the previous owners of your new dog, was he raised in a similar manner to how you now treat him for his first year or so?

Hahaha aussie3 I was reading your post thinking omg a rabbit and a guinea pig actually had babies?!? Seems I'm as clever as a 7 year old... OT but how cute are baby guinea pigs! I was amazed because they just looked like really tiny adult guinea pigs, they weren't sort of a different shape to adults like puppies and kittens. This thread is so funny :D

Haha, Lappie, we were assured by the market pet shop that Harry was a girl, we had no idea. She did remain Harry after becoming a mum (we found homes for the babies) but little Snuffy got neutered. Mum tells me that he was the first guinea pig the vet had desexed and that he was apparently QUITE well endowed compared to most other animals ;)

So many great names! I've been reading thinking mine all have pretty standard names then read about the dogs called Chops and realised that that's my oldest cat's name. I'm so used to it that it doesn't seem weird anymore, hehehe. She was called that coz when I first adopted her she would bite anyone that so much as walked past her. As kids we had cats with the super creative names Puss and Kitty. My guinea pig was Snuffy and my sister's was Harry. Turned out Harry was a girl, which we discovered when she got very fat then 4 new little guinea pigs arrived. We named them Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michaelangelo after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Danios I know what you're saying and I agree and have seen the same as you. Ideally all dogs would be trained by their owners from day one to be responsive and controllable with voice commands/signals. However it's a simple fact that if 1 owner has a 5 - 10kg dog and another has a 70 - 80kg dog, both on leash and both decide to bolt at a kid or a road and ignore the owners' calls, owner 1 can physically hold onto their dog and owner 2 probably can't. That was my point, not that one group or the other tends to be better trained in general.

The thing that worries me about people with large breed dogs who don't seem to respond to the owners commands is that due to the size of the dog the owner can't physically control them so if they can't verbally control them either what happens if there's a problem? I've seen it at work with a couple of the giant breed dog's that I wash, like you said atanquin the owners will "ask" the dog to do something, like "come on baby please get in the bath" etc etc, dog ignores them and does what it feels like. Sometimes they can be lured in with food, one of the dogs, no chance so he gets washed outside the trailer as that's as close as he will go. It's not a big deal for me washing them, or I suppose at home for the owners if the dog's behaviour doesn't bother them, but what if they're out somewhere and the dog decides to run off, or jump on a child, or retaliate against an annoying other dog, or chase another animal, or whatever the case may be. I just feel like if you have a dog you couldn't physically control if you had to you have an even greater responsibility to your dog and everyone else to figure out how to train it effectively (not aiming this at the woman in atanquin's class or anyone else in particular, just my general thoughts).

Elbie turning the fan on, that's awesome!! I'm pretty sure Quinn turned thed tv on by accident, as in when chewing the remote she hit the on button. She's also managed to change the channel by accident many times. She really is clever, she figures out how to get what she want very quickly. She's also bigger and stronger than my other two small breed boys so there are all sorts of new challenges :D I made a point of never lifting her over the Bunnings compost pen barriers so she wouldnt jump out, she had to sit and I moved the panel out of the way, but she promptly figured out to push at the joint between panels and push open the "gate" herself. I blocked the joint so she couldn't do that, she figured out to grip the bars in her teeth and pull the whole panel backwards to open up a gap against the doorway... the boys never did any of this, sigh! I just need to figure out how to harness her cleverness!!

Ha! wuffles, so funny that you started this thread :) I saw the title and thought oh yeah I get it! I have also considered posting the following every day for the last 3 months: "why didn't anyone warn me about Aussie puppy destructiveness?!?" (sarcasm, as wuffles you warned me and were soooo right). I don't have photos but 4 month old Miss Quinn has managed to destroy multiple vases, wall hangings, reed drawers, everything within said drawers, books, ornaments, toys, power cords, plastic bowls, doggy treats in theor packeta, papers (bills, prescriptions, receipts etc), about 80 rolls of toilet paper (seriously), several bins full of garbage, cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, my $250 sunglasses, candles... She's figured out her way through all my previous puppy barriers, stolen my car keys of a bookshelf higher than her head several times (I find them in the garden), stolen all four remotes from the living room amd spread them throughout the house, and managed to turn the tv on. So when you warned me I did believe you, but now I really get it!!!

I take mine (only one at a time) into Petbarn sometimes. They sniff a bit, especially around the treats, but haven't picked anything up. I call or pull them away from things they can reach before they can get anything in their mouths. I did end up buying a $10 bird toy the first time I took Saxon in because he peed on it I was so embarrassed, I did go straight to the counter and tell them, and voluntarily bought the toy. It ended up in the bin as it wasn't suitable for dog or cat play.

I was just thinking about why the pound isn't option 1 in my head for a found/lost dog, I think in Canberra the RSPCA is more known than the pound and we know they are closed overnight (except maybe a cage outside, but it gets cold here!!). Also we have a lost/found list on the Domestic Animal Services (pound) website so people can match up lost and found dogs by description from home, without the need for dogs to go to the pound. Good system I think, ive seen it work within hours with dogs I've found and brought home.

Do keep us updated!! Again happy to help if you have no luck with a microchip (I could even manage to arrange with my fam in Sydney to help there if need be. And no plans to kidnap the doggy ;) )