Purple Julie

Ah, you'll all spot Jyra an me easily now! Jyra will have a green short lead hanging from her correction chain, and her black lead will be on either her martingale collar or gentle leader.

Yes, Jyra definitely doesn't like many other BCs because of this. There was one in particular at training, which I haven't seen for a while, who always stared at Jyra the whole time, just Jyra, not the other dogs! Don't know why this dog had a thing about staring at Jyra. Jyra would often return the stare, but was able to look away also. And yes, if they got close to each other, Jyra would growl.

I was thinking of buying 5 runs for Jyra. Do you think that'd be too much?

Going back to the discussion on Nature's Gift canned food, after having Jyra on raw food for 4 or 5 months, I gave Jyra a tin of Nature's Gift to see how she would go with it, and it we could use it for the two weeks we would be away from home. Well, it came out the other end real runny, so I decided against that and travelled with raw and got a friend to buy some raw food from the butcher in the town where I was going.

I think bring your own food too. I am not so keen on BBQs, so we might just bring sandwiches or something. 3:45pm might be a bit late for lunch. I was wondering that too. I think I might get there at 1pm, unless it seems that everyone is going to go earlier than that. I'd like to get some nice pics of Jyra on the chase, so if anyone's taking pics, please take some of Jyra. I will have my digital with me also. ShepHead, your GSD has a nice dark face/mask. Here is are two pics of Jyra, so that you'll all recognise us:

If you want something bigger than chicken necks and wings, try chicken drumsticks or chicken maryland or even chicken carcasses. Or if you want to try the necks and wings, and you are a bit scared, hold onto the bone and only let the dog chew off a small bit at a time. I read all the positives and negatives of raw feeding before I started Jyra on it, and I was concerned about choking, so that's what I did at first with chicken carcasses, until I got fed up of my fingers getting in the way! Ouch! And I always insist that Jyra be fully supervised when she eats, even though she has never had any problems. ETA: I think fresh kangaroo tails would be better than dried ones.

Everyone is different and you will get all varying replies. My theory is, that we humans don't eat once a day, so why should our dogs? But then, dogs aren't humans, and in the wild, wolves probably only eat once a day if they are lucky. I feed Jyra a raw diet and she will get either one, two or three meals a day depending on the circumstances. If she is having chicken, she gets a half a whole chicken for the one meal of the day (unless it is organ meat day, then she will have a second meal (ie the organ meat) later on. If Jyra is having something else, she will be having two meals in the day. For example, lamb neck in the morning and ox cheek in the afternoon. And if it is organ meat day, she will have 3 meals in that day. Organ meat days are every 3 or 4 days. I suppose you could do the lamb neck, ox cheek and organ meat in the one meal, but I don't like to mix up different meats. I read somewhere that different meats are digested differently, so it's better to feed them at different time. Not sure if there's any scientific basis for that, but best to be safe.

I havee wondered about roadkill too. I'm not sure about rabbit, it could have some diseases or worms in it, so I'd be scared to risk it. Kangaroo, however, I wonder about. The roo shooters shoot wild kangaroo and it is sold for food, so I think roo roadkill would be okay, but then only if it were fresh and when you drive past the dead roos, you don't know how fresh they are (that sounds terrible!). So I think roo roadkill might be okay if you were there when the roo died and you know that it is fresh. But I think you might be more concerned about the damage to your car!!

I thought I'd start a fresh post for the Lure Coursing in Melbourne this Sunday. Who's going? I am definately going unless something unexpected happens! Does everyone know what we look like? Me, I'm tall with shoulder length brown hair and I will have a stunning GSD with me. Do a search on Jyra in the pictures forum and you'll find pictures of her. I might also have my Mum with me. Jyra is a bit funny with other dogs. If you are willing to see if Jyra will get along with your dog, that'd be good, but I warn you that she is sometimes aggressive to other dogs, but has never hurt one, and she gets along with some dogs. Jyra likes to dominate other dogs and would probably get along better with more submissive dogs. I'd be happy to try and see how she goes, but it's up to you if you want to risk it, I don't want to cause any psychological damage to your dog. If Jyra doesn't figure out what to do, it'd be good if she could run with another dog, but we'd have to find one that she gets along with.

As I said, I arranged for my shift that day to be covered. There are some issues at work just now, so hopefully it'll all work out and I'll still be able to go. I think that'll be Jyra! She hasn't been to lure coursing before, but when she was watching Lablover's labs doing some retrieving work, she was going off her nut!! So, yeah, she might do that, but when she gets in there, I don't know if she'll know what to do, but once she figures it out, I'm sure she'll love it.

I'm sure it's been asked before, and I know there are posts on what fruit and veggies are okay, but some of these are pages long and I don't want to go wading through pages of posts. Just looking for a quick answer. Ok, so the question is: Are acidic/citrus fruits such as kiwi fruit, mandarins/oranges, and tomatoes ok to give to your dog? Jyra generally will just get the occasional segment of a mandarin, then ends of the tomato, and the skin of the kiwi fruit, and she just loves all of these, so I am assuming that they are okay, seeing as we haven't had any adverse effects, but I was just wondering if there is anything out there to say that you shouldn't give these things to your dog? (Like how you shouldn't give them chocolate or onions)

YES! I have arranged to not work on Sunday 28th (and not get paid either ), so I can go to the Lure Coursing with Jyra! I hope it's worth it and all goes well. I am so looking forward to it.

It costs me about $10-12 a week to feed Jyra (GSD). She eats a raw meaty bones diet.

Oh, what a shame, I am working on both Lure Coursing Sundays!! And I was so hoping to go! I might swap my shift for the second Lure Coursing date. I start work at 3.30pm on Sundays (every second Sunday), so I would have to leave at 2.30pm and if they start late, well Jyra might not get a run and it would be very stressful having to leave and get home in time for work. I am disappointed that I can't make it, but maybe I'll get to the next one in August.

I really, really, really want and hope to go!! Only thing is, I have got a new job (haven't started yet) and will be working every second Sunday afternoon/evening, so I am really hoping that it is not on the Sunday I will be working! Or hopefully I can swap the shift or something? Jyra has never done lure coursing, although I did get her to chase a plastic bag attached to a string around the back yard, and she has a really high prey drive. I'm pretty sure she will go bonkers when she sees the other dogs chasing the lure, but who knows how she'll go when she's in there by herself, whether she'll be more interested in the dogs on the other side of the fence or the lure! If she doesn't figure out what to do when she's in there with the lure, then it would be best if she could run with an experienced dog, cause she'll definately chase another dog, but we'd have to find a dog that Jyra likes and isn't aggressive to, and that could be a challenge. She is not aggressive to all dogs though.

Consider what KitKat and Little Pixie have said. Do what KitKat suggested if you like. It seems like a good idea. The other alternative is to stop feeding dry food altogether and put your dog on a natural diet or BARF diet. There is plenty of info about that here if you do a search and also elsewhere on the internet.

Some raw feeders find that if they give pureed pumpkin to their dogs, it helps with their poos when they are constipated and when they have diarhoea.

I gave Jyra chicken liver, and she wasn't too keen on it either. She likes lamb liver though, so maybe try that. Jyra also likes chicken giblets.

Interesting discussion on drive. I have some comments to make and questions to ask. Regarding the herding sheep thing. I would say that is prey drive. Jyra has high prey drive and has not been taught to herd, but one time we were at a friend's property with Jyra and her mother, Jessie. These friends own goats. Anyway, the girls were having a good time swimming when a pelican appeared, and they both had to chase it! They went out of sight and Jessie came back, but Jyra vanished! We could hear some high pitched yaps in the distance, so I went running and there was Jyra 'herding' (rather chasing probably) the goats. Now if you ask me, she was herding them quite well! She had them in two neat groups, both groups running the same direction. I suppose if Jyra wanted them in one group, then she had failed, because she had two. Anyway, I suppose Jyra's intentions were to satisfy prey drive and chase rather than herd. The amazing thing is, that even when she was in such high prey drive, she responded to my yelling at her and stopped chasing them and came to me! Now, Steve, when you're training with prey drive, do you have to have the 'prey' on a string in order to get it back off the dog when you have thrown it? Jyra has her blue, spikey, squeaky ball, and I've put a string on it and torment her with it to get her into high drive, like you said. The ball is easy to take out of Jyra's mouth because she doesn't hold onto it tightly (she doesn't like to squeak it!). So if it's on a string, a little tug and we can get it out of her mouth. If it's not on a string, we can just take it out of her mouth. But say we're using the bunny (toy!!), if I throw that for her, she'll catch it and either play chasey or bring it up to us if we don't chase, but she won't let go. If we take hold of the bunny, she will want to play tug-of-war with it. We can play tug of war with the rope toy because it's strong, but we don't with the bunny because we'll tear it to bits. To get her to let go of the bunny, I can tickle her tongue near the back of her mouth (good thing she's patient!). So, what is happening here? Is Jyra switching from prey drive to play drive and rank drive? How can you get her to return and drop the bunny? I've tried using a food reward, but that doesn't work so well, either she won't chase, because she wants the food, or she'll chase and drop the bunny halfway back to me because she wants the food. Do you think Jyra is high in all the drives? Especially food, play, prey and rank. Any idea why Jyra will not intentionally squeak her ball? She knows about squeaking it, she has seen her mother, Jessie do it. My theory is that she doesn't want to 'hurt' it as if it were a real living thing. I thought I'd add some more colour to this post and put up some pictures! For Myzska, Jyra and her old bunny. Jessie (Jyra's mum) killed this bunny in seconds and Jyra had had it for months! Jyra mid-flight in prey drive. Gosh, she looks so vicious in this picture!! Wow! That was a long post!

Hi Haven! I live near you too. Between Ringwood and Lilydale? Sounds like Mooroolbark, Croydon or Chirnside Park. Well I take Jyra to Peter Verhoef at Croydon Pet Hospital, Cnr Dorset Road/Bellara Drive, just off Maroondah Highway. I see it was also mentioned by someone else. I have found Peter to be lovely and he really seems to love Jyra too.

It's difficult to buy whole chickens with the organs inside. If anyone knows of anywhere in Melbourne that does that, I'd like to know too!! I buy whole chickens (minus organs) for my dog from at a Chinese butcher. They are called 'boiling chickens' and are only $2.20 a kilo. I don't know Sydney, but I'm sure there are some suburbs with a high Asian population where you can find some Chinese (or other Asian) butcher that may sell them. I can also buy chicken hearts, chicken giblets or chicken liver separately from that butcher.

Oh good, so I'm not the only person that sends Steve lots of emails!!

Aww, you make me feel so proud of her! Yes! Come back! I'll come to anything that I can.

Yes, I say thank you too to Steve for all his help and advice and explanations. It was very good and I learnt a lot. It was good to meet people too. Sorry about the racket Jyra made when the retrievers were retrieving!

I haven't read through all the replies, I am replying to the original post here. The obedience school that I go to won't let dogs into the advanced class if they display aggressive behaviour, and if they are in advanced and display aggression for the first time and continue with it, then they are put back into the next level down, below advanced where there is no off-lead work.