Staff'n'Toller

They may have sold her on agreement... Paola, her season will last about 3 weeks, and it's actually when the blood disappears that she will be ovulating, so keep doing what you're doing for the next three weeks or so. She can be desexed in 8 weeks or so, in between her seasons. Mel.

Do you want drop during recall or drop on the move whilst in heel, same as dogdude I'm confused. Drop on the move is a sinch to teach, if that's the one you want I will type out the steps tomorrow. Mel.

Fair enough lol, after waiting for something for 6 days it has finally arrived and 6mths past it's use by date so I know what you mean. ;) You need to slip a builder or plumber 20 bucks to pick some conduit up for you when he's next in Geelong. ;) Mel.

Surely you could do a phone order to the hardware supplies or whoever stocks the stuff and pay by credit card or direct deposit and get them to send the stuff out to you??

Whilst 'canned' food means Pal or Chum to most of us when it's brought up in conversation, Hills, Royal Canin etc all make very good canned foods, much better quality than those you'd find in a supermarket. Just an expensive way to buy water - as my boss says! :p In all seriousness though, I would be feeding canned food and going with the directions of your Vet on when to introduce new foods for the time being. Particularly since the purpose of it all was to get him to eat. Mel.

It's not safe for a 9 week old puppy to be around on the floor with young toddlers. Look into a playpen for the pup so she ca have space from the kids and you'll need to provide her with enriching activities whilst she's in there too. Stuffed kongs, rawhide chews, soft raw bones etc. You can try spraying some bitter bite (can get it from the pet supplies) onto some socks to train her not to mouth socks. But in essence, she is a baby, and just like your human babies, she is exploring the world with her mouth. Have you enrolled her in puppy school yet? Having young children and dog means that the dog will need to be very well trained, and that is entirely up to you. Great dogs are made not born. Mel.

Oh how funny, I didn't even realise the dates... Good to hear she is going well. :D Mel.

If they're due out today, then you have a few days grace. With ear things- better to go to your Vet. My Stafford had an aural haematoma fixed and the nylon was so fine, it's easy to miss the ones in the ear. Mel.

My Toller does it (now 21mths) is the first of my dogs to ever do this sort of thing, for no apparent reason. Used to whine himself to sleep alot, and sometimes just whinges to himself. Not sure why, but he is just more vocal than my other guys. He also grunts when going to sleep...seems to have quite a vocal range. Mel.

Jed is correct. Advocate by bayer also has a demodex claim on it....might be worth asking your vet about that. Mel.

It's not that she's not interested, it's that she's too scared. Be careful at daycare, dogs that are forced to socialise can get worse. You need a trainer or behaviourist who knows what they're doing, you need to socialise her on her terms, you need to manage situations so that she is never scared, running away, getting rolled, being harrassed. You also need to reinforce when she is showing calming signals, or deferring signals when interacting with other dogs. You need some help, you need to do it now, you need VERY controlled situations set up with other dogs, I doubt doggy daycare can cater for that. Mel.

Maybe that mix the breeder gave just got too warm or something? I am very fussy with the raw meat I feed, also I'm sure that my pet supplies bring the meat in frozen so I don't mix it and refreeze - I feed it fresh or chuck it out. If I don't like the smell or the colour - as in wouldn't eat it myself - I throw it. I would try a different brand of puppy dry, perhaps your 'regular' vet that you will be visiting may have advance or royal canin. Some pups won't eat Hills, I know my guys won't touch advance which is quite strange, but it's just how it is. If the Vet gives you the all clear, then try offering the food 3-4 times a day for 15 mins at a time, then picking up the bowl until next time. Pups are very good at training their owners so feed at the same place, in the same bowl, then pick it up, don't make a fuss about it. I can guarantee if he is healthy, he will eat after a few repetitions of losing his food when he wants to play games about it. Also vegies are pretty boring to dogs, if anything I would try chicken necks and chicken frames raw, but I think you should start with a dry food first and get him eating to your routine. Cheers, Mel.

Hmmm Kitkat may be right too...you may need to teach him what's in the bowl is all he's getting. We can help you with that too if you need. Mel.

I have a 'c'mon' command which means stop sniffing and catch up, have taught it to all my dogs and it works brilliantly. Through being taught that, they also learn that they have as long as it takes me to walk past the tree/pole/fence then we keep walking. So once learned I hardly have to use the command, I often let the dogs sniff for longer, but when I start moving forward it's time to go. It's the most irritating thing to have a dog pull you over to a tree or refuse to budge from one when you want to keep walking. I certainly do use obedience throughout the walks, and vary it with them heeling sometimes, other times they are released (still on lead). I definitely do lots of recalls on off lead runs for no reason at all other than to build compliance, and teach them to keep an ear out. I also get them to do sits and drops from a distance - very handy. I use NILIF, I don't do the door thing, I do teach them the cue words on and off for the bed, and in and out for the car and the gate. NILIF means make them work for the things they see as rewarding, so getting in the car, walking out the front door, sitting in the car at the park before getting out are all life rewards. Mel.

Eagle Pack holistic fish... You can feed raw though if you can get enough of it into him to keep weight on. My dogs love the barf patties, then you can supplement with raw meaty bones, but the patties provide the veggie component. Mel.

Vet ASAP, especially if this has come up all of a sudden. Mel.

Did the breeder give you a diet sheet? If the only instructions were chicken mince then I wouldn't be contacting them for advice. You need to get the puppy onto a complete diet, as suggested Royal Canin, or Advance Puppy Rehydratable can also be soaked, Hills Puppy Small Bites would be fine. If the pup is refusing to eat that then further investigation is needed i.e. blood tests. Mel.

I imagine when he starts to lift his leg it won't be so much of a problem. Mel.

When I used to train at a private club, we experimented with our own dogs and found that separate release words didn't work, the dogs reacted to the *sound* more than the actual words, so they would release on another word anyway. So the question is: what do you do then, if one dog releases on the other's word? I don't think correcting them for releasing themselves does any good at all, nor is it fair. We tried it, you have to be extremely consistent with correcting the dog that releases themselves, and if you are doing distance work and they get up and run off, then it becomes self rewarding behaviour anyway. Consequently you need to up your correction level depending on how rewarding it was to the dog and you end up in a never ending chain....if you get what I mean. I shouldn't say it doesn't work, but it is much more difficult, and whilst it looks good to other humans, I don't think it benefits the dogs in any way. With my dogs, however, I do use their names to call them out of the car or the gate separately, obviously the sounds are different and because I use their names as my primary recall word, they all know their names very well. As shoemonster says, it's more complicated training two dogs at once, and if I'm out on walks with multiple dogs then mostly I want them all to do the same things at the same time i.e. all dogs sit whilst I re-tie my shoelace, all dogs drop before being let off the lead etc etc. So to sum it up, it looks good, but it's useless. Mel.

Be sure to get some good quality puppy dry food from your Vet. Hills, Eukanuba, Advance, Royal Canin are a few brands that make a good puppy food. Mel.

Nope, the clicker is a precurser to food, or other reward. It marks a behaviour as correct, it tells the dog they have done the right thing, and the reward is coming. If it replaced food, the dogs would get pretty good at ignoring it very quickly. Mel.

How much does he weigh? Are you keeping tabs on that regularly? Mel.

Blackdog Wear scroll down the page a bit they are under 'training collars'. Mel.

Cold rotisserie chicken Beef or lamb offcuts - cooked mild cabana Chicken or Turkey chunkers - in the pet meat section in coles or safeway I use good-o's at the moment but have just found some schmacko like products that are preservative and colour free. Mel.

Perhaps Nova (and to a certain extent Darcy) just aren't comfortable about fosters coming and going..?? As Miranda says, I know my crew are not happy at all about adult dogs coming into the yard, and I know my boss's Labs are the same, it just upsets things too much. All my dogs have very different personalities and I can't foster because I don't have the facilities to keep foster dogs separate and my dogs 'safe' (and free from extra stress). Mel.