valbitz

I enrolled my Tibetan Spaniel with both organisations in 2020 before COVID hit, don't know if that is recent enough for you. Lort Smith gives you a choice of locations available. Dogs must be vaccinated yearly or 3 yearly. Obedience test is very easy, they are more interested in the dogs temperament. They test the dog first, then vet report, vacc status and if all is ok there, then the owner's references are checked, need to get a working with children card and a police check done and online training. Flu vaccination was not compulsory then but has more than likely changed. Then there is one group training class with your dog, then a buddy visit to an organisation with your dog and a mentor and about 4 to 6 weeks after that you start visiting your chosen location. Delta dogs do it the other way round where the owner needs to complete all the WWC, police check, some online training in OH&S, infection control and proof of flu vaccination. If the owner gets through all of that, they are interviewed and references checked. Next step is the vet paperwork for the dog, Delta dogs do accept titre test results. After that the dog is assessed and you are told on the day if you have passed or not. Then comes the volunteer induction training day without your dog. Then you are assigned a place to go to. We got through and were accepted for both of them but never ended up visiting any places because COVID shut everything down and visits were not allowed for over 18 months. If I want to go through the whole lot again I would probably pick Lort Smith mainly because you can choose where you go. Lort Smith don't have a cut off age for the dog, Delta dogs have a cut off at 9 years old. Lort Smith are more concerned about temperament first then obedience, Delta Dogs seem to look at obedience first then temperament. Lort Smith obedience test is very easy, Delta Dogs obedience test is longer and harder. Lort smith don't accept titre tests, Delta Dogs do. Lort Smith have a larger variety of places you can choose from. For exmple there are hospitals, nursing homes, youth residential facilities, women's mental health facilities just to name a few. Delta Dogs don't let you choose, normally you start off at a nursing home for at least 6 months then you can apply for another place if there is a vacancy and your mentor thinks you are ready. Lort Smith temp and obedience test at a facility, Delta Dogs don't let you near a facility till you and your dog have passed everything beforehand.

If you aren't too worried about cost then have a look at this one. A friend bought one for her Scottish Terrier when she had bladder cancer, her dog wasn't very keen on it but my Tibetan Spaniel loved it! https://classytails.com.au/product/pet-mobile-pet-stroller-trailer-medium/

Porche is a 14 year old Afghan looking for either a permanent home or a permanent foster home. I have met this lovely lady and she is quite sprightly for her age. If you know anyone interested they can put an application in via Pet Rescue. https://www.petrescue.com.au/listings/571485

@Scottsmum by the owner's account she was in Craven which is a 15 minute drive from Gloucester where the dogs were impounded. I have no idea how Taree comes into it. @Simply Grand fair comment. The owner hasn't posted anywhere that the council was called daily/repeatedly/continually, nope only called once. Surely any dog owner that loved their dogs would at least make another call to the council before they left the area and contact the chip registry to have one microchip flagged as missing, since the other dog wasn't in her name I assume the owner would not be able to have the second one flagged as missing. If the dogs were only held for 13 days then the council did do wrong, but considering they wouldn't or couldn't obtain the owners details holding the dogs an extra day would have made no difference in this case. As to when they arrived in Melbourne well that is up for debate. The rescue have representatives in NSW and QLD so their representatives may have had the dogs on the 26th Jan therefore technically in the hands of the rescue but not in Melbourne. I'll reserve any judgement till it goes through the court system and the press release that the council has apparently released (somewhere) and the vet report (somewhere else) are made public.

I'm not taking sides but something really doesn't add up. In all honesty if your dogs went missing - regardless of having a chip, wouldn't you at least make some effort to ring the pound at least once? By her own admission she never rang the pound, she only rang the council. The pound is on private property with a house at the back and someone lives in it, so if she rang the pound number which is easy to find then she would have known her dogs were impounded the same day they went missing.

A friend of ours bought one of these for her elderly dog when she couldn't walk the 3km distance we were doing on a daily basis. The dog in the stroller is my 4year old Tibetan Spaniel, not the elderly Scottie the stroller was purchased for.

No gold star today, Sprocket forgot all about his loose leash walking :laugh: although after about 10 minutes he was back in the rhythm. I went out for a little while when my partner got home and there was no whining from him, he just laid on the couch with Billy and looked sad. Sad is better than whining. Again he followed the shopping my partner brought in rather than noticing me when I came home. I will have to find something yummy to put in the kong for him and see how he goes with that. Today was the first day Sprocket actively came to seek out a cuddle Hopefully he will continue to relax and see that the world really isn't a bad place.

Sprocket and Billy get on very well. Billy was never into tugging but he loves playing tug with Sprocket as well as zooming around in the backyard and wrestling on the couch or dog beds. I walk them both in the morning and Billy usually goes for a walk with my partner in the afternoon unfortunately Billy has now decided if Sprocket doesn't go on a walk then neither will he. Sprocket was castrated on Monday and Billy was so happy when Sprocket got home. I'm sure he knew something was up as he just spent most of the night very close to him. I can see that when Sprocket is adopted that I'm going to have a very sad Billy.

They are called egg babies, they have squeaky egg shaped toys in the belly for them to take out. Fantastic toys My link

The video of the Tibbie doing agility is so cute :) I really don't know what breed Sprocket is, his tail isn't long enough to be a Tibbie. We have a Pap x Cavalier in the neighbourhood and he looks very much like that, but it's hard to know with crossbreeds.

I've had some wonderful suggestions in this thread, thank you all so much. Thought I would update since it's been a couple of days. Sprocket has decided that carrying on at bedtime is not worth it, we have had 2 nights without any barking or whining The only time he barked was about 6.00 yesterday morning and when I let him out he ran and pawed the back door to be let out, no toileting in the bedroom I got up early enough this morning and let him out before he barked to be let out to go outside. Mita I did leave an old worn t-shirt with him :) Sprocket has stopped pacing but when I'm in the kitchen he is always behind me. I get the feeling that it could be a habit because I actually just walked in a circle and he was behind me the whole time even though I couldn't see him. He never gets in my way while doing it. I will have to teach him not come in to the kitchen while I'm preparing food. He does still whine when I go out, continuously, till I get back home. Mita I did try the ignore strategy when I got home but Sprocket beat me to it he was more interested in the shopping bags my partner had than me coming home, he completely ignored me :laugh: So far he has learned to sit for treats, sit and wait for his food and not to eat it till I say he can and he picked up loose leash walking within half an hour, he's a very smart little dog. Billy has loved having him around and they get on fantastically, that may end up causing a whole new set of problems when Sprocket finds his forever home. A photo of Billy and Sprocket playing with soft toys

I put his anxiousness down to spending 8 days at the pound then it was another couple of hours drive to the rescue where he only stayed for a few hours before I picked him up. Totally agree that his world has been turned upside down, thank you for the music suggestion. It seems that he is now relaxing even though he still wants to keep me in sight. Not sure if it is from sheer exhaustion or if he is starting to feel a little less anxious. I feel sorry for him and am looking for a way to make the transition from pound to foster home to forever home with the least amount of stress. Have no idea if that is possible.

Looking at the photos it does seem that he has the ear tendrils (Billy does) but he doesn't, it's actually the fur on his neck behind the ears. Haven't had a chance to try the suggested downtime after our walk today, he jumped on the couch and is now resting

Thanks for the belly band suggestion, I'll give him another day and if it doesn't improve I'll go and get one