perfect partners

+1

A 'friend of a friend' has booked an appointment with this guy to see if he can help solve some problems she is having with her dog. She found his card at the vets. I've not heard of him so wondered if anyone has had any good or bad experiences with this person.

Great explanation - makes so much sense. Thanks Cosmolo.

I don't know about the others, but Southern Cross Animal Stars run the training at WoofPurNay and they are very friendly and helpful, you can use food or toys to reward your dog, use whatever equipment suits you and your dog and it is held indoors out of the elements, although they do go outside sometimes when the weather is suitable. They offer classes from puppies up to advanced obedience and also beginner and advanced tricks.

Posted my cheque today and my sister and 3 or 4 friends are also doing so. Looking forward to it. Thanks for posting it on here Julie. see you there.......... Terrific - look forward to seeing you.

I'm sure it will be a great day. We had Vicki for a workshop at the NDTF course and really enjoyed it and learnt a lot.

Posted my cheque today and my sister and 3 or 4 friends are also doing so. Looking forward to it. Thanks for posting it on here Julie.

There were people from NSW & Victoria at the SA clinic, it was great to meet them all. Unfortunately that's not an option for me at the moment :-( Would love to hear more about it though.

I've always wanted to do one too. Why couldn't Terry come to Victoria as well?? :-(

Anyone who reserves themselves primarily training with a head collar only I personally can't take seriously as a balanced trainer. A great trainer IHMO is someone conversant with "all" training equipment from a head collar to an Ecollar and everything in between, that's who I consider are "dog trainers" in the true sense of the word, the rest only accomodate the training of dogs suitable for their tools and methodology and taking dogs unsuitable for these people's systems only results in heartache all round and wasting money on poor advice. I agree.

I did attend their free session and trained there and did the trainers course so I did see what they do! As I said, I did learn some good things there and certainly one of their pluses is that they will accept and try to help any dog. Some are successful but I also saw some people that went there for help with reactive/aggressive dogs and nothing really changed for them. As I also said, their methods suit some dogs - but there are a lot of dogs that don't do well with their methods. Yes they learn do do the basic exercises but not with any joy or willingness. I guess it just depends on the relationship you want with your dogs.

Would you say that pulling the halter up for sit, back for stand and down for drop, often quite sharply or holding it down with your foot, is not unpleasant or aversive? Instead of being guided into position to show it what you want, or lured with food initially, the dog is made uncomfortable with the halter until it finds a position that gets it out of the unpleasant situation. With the circle, it probably depends on the attitude the handler does it with. The way it is demonstrated in class and the way I saw the trainers doing it behind the scenes was often not the same! If it is not unpleasant then why do dogs learn to run off as soon as you say 'no' to avoid being circled? If you have a dog that is quite confident and compliant then these methods probably work fine, but if you have a soft, submissive dog you have to be very careful or they shut the dog down and if you have a dog that doesn't want to comply then they are definitely aversive. Not that I have a problem with the use of aversives when necessary, but only after the dog has been shown the exercise.

Tollerlover, I'm glad the Alpha methods are working for you and your dog - as I said, they work for some dogs. Being released from a position is rewarding for energetic dogs that don't enjoy staying still, but it wouldn't be much help for teaching more advanced behaviours or shaping, where you need the dog to use it's brain to work things out. I went to the free session and it all sounded good. I started when my puppy was 10 weeks old and it all seemed ok. It was only after I started the trainers course and spent 4 hours a week watching classes, time at their kennels handling dogs, lectures at the kennels and one of the trainer's houses, that I started to see 'behind the scenes'. Watching classes, I saw dogs shutting down, trying to get their halters off, and heard the way trainers talked about their dogs in a way that clearly lacked empathy. You don't see these things when you are concentrating on your own dog in a class. I also watched one trainer (who was also one of their kennel trainers), recall her dog to heel, which the dog did instantly, but because it sat a little crooked, it copped a loud 'no' and got hauled around in a circle with its front feet off the ground and dropped into position. She repeated this over and over again. I don't know how that poor dog was supposed to know what it was doing wrong. I also saw a Boxer's head held down on the ground, with the handler's foot on the lead/end of halter, for 5-10 minutes, until he finally dropped - is that 'positive'/not aversive? I wouldn't say I'm a purely positive trainer (no such thing anyway) - I use rewards to teach behaviours, but sometimes, when the dog is doing something self rewarding, it's not interested in our rewards, so an aversive is needed to stop the behaviour. Just before I quit Alpha I did 6 trick training classes with Luke Hura. No halters and we used food rewards. Luke says food is just a tool, like a leash - you use it to train and then you phase it out. (Incidentally, no-one that I know, that uses food to train, has overweight dogs!) The difference in my dog at those classes compared to Alpha classes was amazing - she was a different dog, happy, engaged, she learnt things really fast and loved it. That convinced me I had to stop going to Alpha, for her sake. Since then she has been such an easy dog to train. I did learn a few good things at Alpha, which I still use, but what I have issue with is their claim of 'one size fits all' training. This is simply not true. Dogs, like children, have different personalities and different methods are needed. Sure Alpha methods will get any dog to do the basic behaviours, but at what cost to the dog/handler relationship and the dogs mental/emotional wellbeing?

My rescue BC had a huge bladder stone removed just before I got him. We also sent the stone to the US to be tested and it was madeup of two different substances. He is now on Royal Cannin Urinary S/O which is suitable for different kinds of stones as it is low in the minerals involved in forming stones and a little higher in salt to encourage the dog to drink more to flush out the urinary tract. He also has some raw meat because he wouldn't eat the dry food on its own, plus cod liver oil, salmon oil and Deltameth tablets. He's doing really well and all his urine tests over the last 6 months have come back negative. His coat which was extremely dry and bleached is now thick and shiny. Good luck with your little dog. I hope he does ok on his new diet.

Mine too - I could use it as training treats if it wasn't so messy, and all the other fruit too. My Newf will appear in the room if I peel a banana and gets the ripe strawberries in the garden before me most times.

I went to Alpha Dog training and was doing their dog trainers course (only recognised by them), however I didn't finish it because of the effect their methods were having on my dog. You had to use a halter once they were 4 months old and were not allowed to use food or toy rewards - the only reward the dogs got was release from the exercise and praise. Works with some dogs, but mine was becoming more and more shut down and less responsive - their advice was to do more of it and get tougher with her - including keeping her outside rather than in the house - uh NO!! I also saw a lot of other unhappy shut down dogs. They had little empathy for the dogs. The guy who runs it did have a few good ideas but has a huge ego and lost credibility with me when he spent time bagging other training methods, said you can hurt a dog with a prong collar or correction chain but not with a halter, brushed off clicker training as just a gimmick, etc. Once I quit Alpha and got rid of the halter and started using food rewards my dog progressed rapidly and became an awesome and easy dog to train. One of the trainers was too hard on my sister's soft dog when teaching drop and made that exercise a problem for her. A friend of mine did some training with an Alpha trainer - puppy classes to about 12 months and had problems that were becoming serious. The trainer just blamed her for them! She is a person who puts in the time and effort and really tries to do what she's told. She's still dealing with the problems that should have been dealt with at the start but we have made huge improvements after ditching the Alpha methods. I'm surprised she said they follow Cesar's methods as a few of them went to Cesar's first seminar in Melbourne (only because they got free tickets) and seemed unimpressed. There are definitely much better trainers and training methods.

I was wondering why there seems to be an epidemic of cruciate problems in dogs - then I read this article - http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/vaccines-collagen-and-joint-disease/

Sorry to hear that. If you have to have her pts it will still cost you though.

Sounds like she is in pain, but have you tried a veterinary chiropractor? It might be fixable.

Have you talked to your vet about it? I have a rescue dog that had a huge bladder stone removed and was still dripping and my vet put him on Propalin which stopped the problem.

Have you rung the vet yet? Hope she's ok.

Sounds like a good idea. Even though speys are common, they are still a fairly major surgery.

I tried to post pics but for whatever reason it won't work. It's not oozing. Just a lump around her incision sight about the size of a ping pong ball. The actual incision looks clean and normal. I'd worry about her being lethargic, especially if that's out of character for her.

Doesn't soundnormal to me. Dogs I've had speyed, or any other surgery, have bounced back and been hard to keep quiet until they have their stitches out. I'd be taking her to the vet asap. I know emergency vets are expensive but you don't want to run the risk of something getting worse and losing her - or incurring greater expenses.

I can remember when ivermectin first came out that there were write ups in horse magazines about quite a few dogs dying from ivermectin poisoning. I can't remember the details but I think it was from licking up spilled paste used to worm horses. At first the manufacturers denied it but eventually there were enough deaths to prove it. I would never use it for my dogs and take great care when worming my horses not to let my dogs get near any of the paste. Is it really worth risking your dogs lives just to save a few dollars??