Casima

I have been using these ones with some of my dogs and am pleased with them. http://waggle.com.au/ezydog-b2/standard-dog-floatation-vest-p85

A must have for me with a puppy is some appropriate chew toys, so when my puppy inevitebly decides to chew something I don't want chewed I can redirect to a chew toy. I usually use nylabone or hard rubber kong type things.

At first only short periods and grow it as her bladder strength and toilet training progresses, now she is 4 months I will leave her happily for a few hours since she can hold on that long, I don't know that she would last a whole work day yet, haven't tried sorry although she can hold on all night and has done since 8 weeks so maybe she would be ok. Enjoy your new pup!

I have my puppy in a pen during the day when I can't watch her, so she has more room to play and stretch out and a crate at night, adult size. She has been really good about keeping her pen clean, but if we were having toilet trouble I would leave her in a crate unless she had been outside to toilet recently.

I insured my BC Quinn when he turned 2 years old, then when it came time to renew the premium went up half as much again even tho I hadn't claimed anything, crazy expensive so I stopped it. Now I have a new puppy I have insured her and will for the first 2 years just incase she has any problems crop up while she is young. With the number of dogs I have it makes much more sense to self insure but I think I will always insure my puppies for the first 2 years since many of the bad chronic and expensive issues can become apparent in this time.

Her hearing is amazing so no way I could do it without her knowing. Plus the Cavs all need snooding and crating and in the time I do this she's yelling her head off. The only way to stop her is to spray her with the water spray but the moment I put it down shes off again. If mine bark, they don't get fed, pretty soon they learn to keep their pre dinner excitement quiet. But that would be hard with a dog who has a habit of yelling and been fed. My experience with bark collars is unless you get a really strong one, they will still bark a bit while excited, they are much better for nuisance barking than excitement barking. If it were me, I would not feed her at the same time as the others. Prepare all the meals and put the lappies meal in the fridge for later, as soon as the barking starts shut her away in another room at the other end of the house, feed your other dogs and let her back out once all the food is done. Then pick a time later when she is quiet and being good and give her food then as a surprise. After awhile you preparing food wont be so exciting anymore and the barking will hopefully stop, at that time you can give her meal at the same time as the others, but only if she is quiet, if the barking starts again shut her away and feed later on again.

Even just small outings eg drive to the local shops, stand with pup on lead near your car for 5 mins so puppy can watch the world go by and then back in the car to go home is great, especially when they are just starting out socialising. All these daily outings also give you a good oportunity to reward good behavior too, manners and calmness when out and about. Noone at Bunnings complained about the puppy in trolley and we have done that twice so far, plenty of staff saw her, many came and gave her pats. I think if you are sensible about it and your pup looks safe and happy there shouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure how I feel about puppy preschools, from a disease point of view it would depend on where it is held, how well it is cleaned and if they have had any diseases there and if the other puppies have been to high risk environments or may be carrying a disease, I think I would probably prefer to wait until 2nd Vacc. From a socialisation and training point of view having a puppy that young may not be the best depending on how much playtime they get and what the other pups are like and how big they are, if the people running it are experienced and make sure only suitable pups play together I am sure they can be great, but watch out for ones that run them all together or let full on or larger pups rough house with smaller or more timid ones. I don't take my dogs to puppy school, I am confident in my ability to train and socialise my own pups especially since I raise mine for competitive sports I prefer they mostly meet "boring" adult dogs for socialisation rather than fun pups, it is better for my needs that they are confident around other dogs but think dogs are boring rather than everyone is their best play friend.

I have a 10 week old pup at the moment and she has been going somewhere every day for socialisation, it is great to see her getting more and more confident in all these different environments. I choose where to take her carefully but it is sooo important for them to get out of the house I think it is worth the risk. Maybe check with your vets to see if they have had any parvo cases lately or if you are in a high risk area first but the 8-12 week period is really important for them to have a ton of experiences with all sorts of people, kids, old people, uniforms, umbrellas, traffic, sounds, different surfaces to walk on, indoors, outdoors etc Some examples of where my pup has been in the past 2 weeks or will go before her 2nd needle at 12 weeks. - Friends houses, especially friends with healthy dogs to meet - Cafes, on leash under the out door tables in low dog traffic areas only. - Primary school gates at home time, on leash at my feet meet lots of kids. I take treats and get the kids to all give her a lollie. - Local ferry, allows dogs - Train station at peak hour - Nursing home, my Grandpa's one allows dog visitors, the residents love it - Bunnings, take a bed, put bed and puppy in trolley and wheel her all around (keep a leash on to make sure she doesn't jump out, might be too much for some puppies because of the echo) - Walk in the bush, we have a small area of bush near the house where not many dogs are walked, great for her coordination to run around on uneven surfaces and practise our recalls. - Outings at night time, everything is different in the dark for them, good to experience it young, we take little walks around the block, see people walking, getting out of cars, putting bins out. - Christmas parties at peoples houses. - Traffic, go and sit at a busy road or intersection, especially one that gets trucks/buses. (choose a quieter intersection if puppy is worried about sounds) - Outdoor Shopping centers (if they arn't too doggy) - Underground car parks (brave puppies only) - Christmas Carols in the park No matter how careful you are there is always a small risk but I believe it so just so important to make good use of this socialisation period from 8-12 weeks that it is worth it. Just don't overwhelm the puppy, some of these places may not be suitable for a more nervy pup, I am lucky my girl has quite a solid temperament. Here is a photo of her in Bunnings yesterday :)

Hi Dewclaws, good on you for doing so much research into your chosen breed before bringing your new pup home. I don't know a lot about the other breeds mentioned so wont comment there, even knowledge on the different types of my own breed, Border Collies, is quite limited. There are many types of Border Collies in Australia both within the ANKC or on a working registry or unregistered working farm dogs, ANKC doesn't recognise any working registries but many overseas kennel clubs do so dual registered dogs are often imported. Just including dogs which are being bred within the ANKC for a purpose by responsible experienced breeders to improve the breed towards their particuar ideal dog are - Show lines - Obedience lines - Herding lines - Agility and other athletic performance sport lines. They are all Border Collies, with long pedigrees from the same origin, but bred with different priorities eg comming as close to the breed standard as they can for showing or high levels of trainability or herding instinct or high drives and athleticism for sports or low drives with easy temperaments for great family pets, different things are important for different purposes. The various performance lines often contain imported sheepdog lines from the UK, Europe or USA and usually don't look very similar to the show line dogs and are generally much higher drive. The Border Collie breed standard in essence describes a well put together functional and athletic dog, this quote is from the beginning of the extended breed standard "It must be remembered that before anything else the Border Collie is a sheepdog. He is renowned as the world’s greatest sheepdog and would have to be the most widely used working dog around today" the herding and performance breders may not care too much about some of the cosmetic details described in the standard, but I would say most have learnt a fair bit about structure and how it applies to their choosen field and will be aiming to produce well put together puppies which will do well and minimise the chance of injury, in the spirit of the standard if not to the exact specifications described. I for one am glad that there is so much variety within my breed and am proud of the stunning show dogs sought after world wide, the champion obedience dogs, the amazing family pets, the super talented sheepdogs, the worlds top agility and flyball breed even if I only choose to have one of those types myself. I think it is important that they remain the one breed and arn't split, the larger gene pool and the greater choice for breeders to mix in traits they may have lost from another line within the breed is good for everyone, especially the dogs. So long as breeders are selling their puppies wisely to suitable homes only there shouldn't be a problem and it isn't hard to find out what the parents are like and what the breeder breeds for when purchasing a puppy.

Thank you, lots of suggestions! Thanks!

My old boy has become quite incontinent wettinng his bed and has started attracting flies with the smell no matter how hard I try to keep him clean and dry. They are biteing his ears is there anything I can do to keep them away? I want him to be comfortable. I tried a bit of aerogard but it didn't help much. I've never had problems with flies before and don't know what to do.

If a dog of mine who is normally a decently keen eater stops eating or becomes picky it is a definate red flag for me, straight to the vet. Hope your Sheltie is easily fixed up.

I will have to agree with everyone else, I would look at your handling, video yourself at training and trials and while watching ask yourself these sorts of questions. Are you giving him his cues early enough? does he understand them well enough? have you proofed his handling cues while he is extra excited and going fast? Do you have a clear way to tell him ahead of time where you are going next so he doesn't have to be called off of anything? do you reward him at random mid sequence at training when he does respond well to his cues? are you getting in his way on front/blind crosses? Are you setting clear lines for him before he catches back up to you after sending? Have you taught him to focus on the obsticals and look where he is going instead of at the handler while doing agility? I am not a fast runner and I have a very fast BC, if you are not a fast runner with a keen dog it takes much more training than for fast handlers to be able to run these masters courses. You need to take a good honest look at your handling and make sure you have answers to the challenges judges set and that there are no inconsistancies to confuse your dog. Are you able to cue your dog to show him where to go even if you can't always get anywhere near the obsticals? It is most definately possible but does take quite a lot of training to get all your cues independant enough and the dog responding well while he is excited and going fast. You need to be able to cue things like threadles, backsides, tight turns, other end of tunnel, go straight and turn towards or away from you at a distance, plus strong cues for various obsticals to help give him clarity and confidence in where he is going. Meanwhile, jumping and nipping behaviour is certainly unacceptable, I think I would be calmly ending the run and walking back to his crate if you ever feel teeth or even if he gets too jumpy. Don't go crook at him or anything and try to stay relaxed yourself, he isn't in trouble, he just needs to learn that if he does teeth the game is over for a time, just calmly end the game and walk back to the crate, let him sit for a bit to calm down, then try again. This alone wont fix your problem, but hopefully wont inadvertantly encourage it to escalate either while you work on the handling and training bits. He is excited and frustrated at the same time, but should get better and even go away completely if you put the work in to give him more clarity with better handling and training.

Very important to me, I have Border Collies, my main sport is agility but I do some sheep work with them too and I would never buy a border that wasn't specifically bred for herding ability or breed from a dog that didn't have the instincts and physical ability to work all day on a property. I haven't personally had a problem with my dogs herding instincts working against me in agility but it can happen with the dog being overly sensitive on the handlers motion or trying to head them off. As a pet sometimes their motion sensitivity can cause unwanted behaviours but if you recognise it early and nip it in the bud it isn't too much trouble to work against.

Hi everyone, I am thinking about replacing the old carpet in my dog/computer room with something that is easier cleaned, preferably something I can wipe or mop over. It also needs to not be too slippery for the dogs. I would love to hear about what dog friendly floors you have or advice on what to avoid. I think lino is too slippery for what I want, unless there are more grippy ones availible somewhere? I saw some great big rubber chip type squares at bunnings, great for grip but not sure how good they are for cleaning? or if that rubber smell will ever go away? What other options are there? Thanks!