Simply Grand

I do love his attempts at drinking water Grumpette! Obviously everyone else is doing it wrong...

You people are killing me!! Have I not already told you that I can't wait until I'm in a position to add a Rottie to my pack and you keep showing me these amazing pics And I think a happy go lucky boy will be the best fit, is Zeph available for cloning?

They are just gorgeous Red Fox :)

I wonder which is which? :laugh: :laugh:

The thing I love most about Quinn is how she looks after others, human and dog. She's always checking me over and licking me until she's satisfied that I'm fine (even when nothing's wrong, she just likes to be sure) and if she hears any sign of conflict involving a dog she knows, especially one of my other two, at the park she'll run over and put herself in between and divert the other dog to calm things down. I love how well Saxon can read me. He picks up on things I don't even realise I do and knows what I'm going to do next. The only time it's really annoying is when I'm trying to get him into a room and shut him in there, he knows whether I'm going in with him or I'm tricking him to leave him there even if I think I'm doing exactly the same things! Riley is just "speshul", and I love how even though he's quite wary about a lot of things he trusts me completely, but the thing that always makes me laugh is how he spins and spins in circles when he's excited, I can see it build up then it's like the excitement just has to come out somehow :laugh:

Thanks Scottsmum, that was interesting :) Looove baby puppy paws, while they are still all soft and pink

http://dailyoftheday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/pAGE9Ju.jpg

Hahaha, Steph that reminds me of the Off the Leash cartoon where the big dog 'sneaks' onto the lounge chair with his owner and says "hehe, she didn't even notice" :laugh: Pebbles, Saxon, my poodle x, tends to start nudging the blankets to get underneath at around daybreak too in this winter weather :)

Hahaha, Steph that reminds me of the Off the Leash cartoon where the big dog 'sneaks' onto the lounge chair with his owner and says "hehe, she didn't even notice" :laugh: Pebbles, Saxon, my poodle x, tends to start nudging the blankets to get underneath at around daybreak too in this winter weather :)

Good news From what you said about doing LAT with her it sounds like you might be catching her a bit late, after she's already started to react. Having Erny be able to watch what both of you are doing and give you feedback should be really helpful :)

Yes I'm the same, you can come to bed when I do and settle down or you can go sleep in the lounge room. And you can stay asleep and settled until I'm ready to get up or you can go out. Because that what suits me more than anything else but they also get those consequences consistently so they can decide.

After promoting this as a story on Better Homes & Gardens tonight, they've just shown it and it went for all of 1 minute. Dr Harry says the old school line that if the dog sleeps on the bed his eyes are level with you and he thinks he's as good as you are, which is a problem with dominant dogs... Denise Austin was on and made the more valid point that she loves having her dogs on the bed but regularly has them sleep elsewhere so that they don't become dependent on being with her to settle. I'm all for having your dog sleep wherever YOU want them to, as long as they are warm and safe, but choosing to have your dog sleep on the bed isn't going to make them dominate you *eye roll*

Oh they are gorgeous!

And funnily enough that has nothing to do with what happened. Exactly. If he had belted the child, abused him yes it would be relevant, but smacking a child once or maybe a couple of times. It may well have just been a tap on the bum or hand. Stupid reporting. I don't see enough information in that article to know whether he belted him or tapped him on the bum. He said "I have smacked him when he has been naughty", that doesn't really explain anything.

My Sheltie would do exactly the same, stare at the human thinking " what the hell do you think you're doing, strange unknown creature?!?" They are a speshul breed :laugh:

:laugh: that's so funny and cute!

Sorry, but your attitude really pisses me off. No dog with aggression related issues should be in a dog park no matter what size it is and if it picks on a bigger dog then it is not unreasonable for the bigger dog to defend itself. A bigger dog should not have to stand there and just take being attacked simply because the attacking dog is smaller than it. Small dog owners need to take just as much responsibility for their dogs and their dog's behaviour as every other dog owner. My dog is fear aggressive (although doesn't bite, only puts on reactive displays). Would it be okay for me to take my dog in to a dog park, let him start a fight and then cry foul because the dog he started a fight with fought back and happened to be bigger than him? No, it wouldn't and if you were in that park you would no doubt be screaming about my vicious bull breed being in a dog park and starting fights. It's no different when it's a smaller dog and being fear aggressive is not an acceptable excuse. It is the owner's job to make sure their dog isn't put in situations where it has the opportunity to start fights and it is the owner's job to protect their dog both from hurting others or being hurt. I also take issue with your comment about the finger being bitten off and to you it looking like it was a pit bull. You made that comment with no real idea what breed the dog was and made assumptions and a statement that just perpetuates the the vicious pit bull myth that has been whipped up in to a frenzy by the media. We know you have an irrational fear of "pit bulls' but don't use your bias to further tarnish their reputation if you don't actually know what the breed of dog is that you're talking about. ETA: My dog is fear aggressive/reactive because of dogs like the one that started the fight in the dog park and yes, small aggressive dogs have contributed to his fear. Give me a break Snook. In my post I said I only saw part of the program. I did not know it happened in a dog park. The very first post says it happened in a dog park and even if it wasn't a dog park, that doesn't mean the small dog should be allowed to start fights with other dogs and any dog bigger than it be expected to just stand there and take it. Snook Nowhere have I said it is okay for a small dog to attack another dog. It is not okay for any dog to attack another dog, no matter what size. BTW I have owned large dogs and I was always very careful with them because I did not want them in trouble. I am also careful with my medium sized dogs too. I do not own a small dog and I don't particularly like them. Here's your previous quote, you can just go back through the pages of the thread to see what you've said. Yes you did say you don't particularly like small dogs, which you define in another post as under 10 kgs.

Actually SG I have trialled successfully for many years. On my bookcase I have the following books. The other end of the leash, For the love of a dog, Calming signals (Turid Rugaas), Bones would rain from the sky, Don't shoot the dog, Control unleashed, Canine body language (Brenda Aloff) and others. I also have Alexandra Horowitz's Inside of a dog on order. From memory I said I don't particularly like small dogs. I don't know how to go back and check. I like all animals. I have owned horses for many years and I have always had dogs and I am fairly confident I am much older than you are which means I have been around dogs for a long time. eta I have also got books by Gwen Bailey and Donaldson's Mine and a book by Koehler which I would not recommend to anyone. And yet you seem to have serious fears around some of them based on media reports? I'm not sure how you are assessing my age but you may well be much older than I am, but it sounds like I am more confident around dogs than you are, based on what you've posted.

Sarsaparilla, perhaps it would benefit you to stop thinking so much about the size and breed of dogs (you have said you are scared of pit bulls and don't like small dogs) and focus on the behaviour and temperament of the individual dogs you meet. Maybe you could attend an obedience club or training classes run by a good trainer and learn more about dog behaviour and body language so you are better placed to make informed judgements.

From what I saw on the news, which was only brief, the dog that bit the man's finger off was reported to be an SBT, not a pit bull (looked like a mixed breed to me), and from the footage I saw that dog looked very fearful. It's not only smaller dogs that can suffer from fear aggression. Of course it isn't ok for a dog to bite off someone's finger and there need to be appropriate consequences for that.

Unbelievable poor little dog. She is absolutely gorgeous, thank goodness she will now get to go to the kind of home she deserves.

That's so cute BCC! How lovely for Stella to have a good experience :)

Depends on the circumstances. I wouldn't have under these circumstances. But I'm considerably more dog savvy than the average person, as are many DOLers. Plenty of people have very little knowledge and interaction when it comes to dogs and assume that all dogs are happy to be patted. We've all seen or heard of people doing dumb things around dogs and obviously a police dog is capable of doing some real damage so there needs to be a way of avoiding situations like this one.

How do we know what the dog was doing? Maybe it was sniffing around trying to find a scent and the man had no idea it was in working mode.

I wonder if you have any concept of a working line of dog in full drive to carry out an order by its handler? The dog was on a long lead. That is allowed ( at this point) in terms of what the dog was doing. We do not know much more about the age of the dog, its time in the field. Might it need refining of its training? Possibily. Without having more info of all the facts, i would not offer more thoughts. Thanks I'm sure it's great comfort to the man who was bitten that the dog was in drive. And being on a long lead may be allowed but I highly doubt biting members of the public is!