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Everything posted by koalathebear
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Elbie, Hoover, Dodge & Friends!
koalathebear replied to koalathebear's topic in Photos, Photos, Photos
Yes ... they grow up so fast :'( Elbie having the zoomies. -
I have to confess that Elbie does have a particularly naughty habit of concentrating on bits that I've JUST repaired. I can HEAR him ripping up the seams I've just stitched! In the early days I tried stitching neatly with correctly coloured cloth but then as I realised that Elbie as just going to be the world's largest stitch unpicker - I just went random with the thread colour and made my stitches big and sloppy amypie: the Skinneez look very practical but a little little bit scary shellsboers: Hahahahaha! I admit, we do feel a pang of sympathy for the poor stuffed animals ... they suffer so much! evolving: sometimes Elbie will be chewing away quietly and look up at us with stuffing hanging from his mouth - I'm never sure whether to find it gruesome or funny
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Our Puppy: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
koalathebear replied to koalathebear's topic in Puppy Chat
Heh, that makes sense to me - it just seemed very funny in the context of her talk because when she was saying: "Don't use a common word" I was expecting "expelliarmus" or "transubstantiationalism" or something Yes ... I shall try to wave as I go past while tearing around the grass chasing after my crazy hyperactive pup cw_ew: The names of your two babies always makes me grin. Jane Austen and Supernatural? Or are there other influences. nekhbet: Thanks for the assurances. I guess he is still a baby. He looks a lot more grown-up than when we first got him but he's only 4 months old .. He's my OH's first dog (he's a cat person) and he's technically my second dog - but my first dog was a family dog and as a kid, I have to (shamefully) confess that I didn't take much responsibility for our dog. I'm trying very hard to do the right thing this time around. That makes sense - I suppose with the kelpie/bc combo he was always going to be manic He does have the ability to be quiet and calm for long periods of time - it's just a bit disconcerting when he 'transforms' ... like the hulk! corvus: Hee hee. I wish I could meet Erik. I've heard so much about him and he sounds like SUCH a character. He could probably make Elbie behave anyway -
My goodness - Elbie's absolute favourite part of the toy is making it squeak Yesterday we bought some new balls that squeak, thinking that they would be more able to withdraw the Jaws of Elbie ... He drove me nuts for a while with the squeaking but then quickly dequeaked the first one. We gave him another - when the squeaking got out of control, we secretly swapped back the broken squeakless ball and Elbie looked very puzzled at why his new toy was suddenly so unresponsive ;)
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Are Great Danes big chewers?
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Glad everything is ok with the beautiful kuma! We just bought a toothbrush and toothpaste for Elbie yesterday. Apparently even though his adult teeth haven't come through yet, we're supposed to practise brushing his teeth so he can get used to it ... My OH was the one sticking his vanilla-toothpaste covered finger in Elbie's mouth, not me
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sandra777: OMG ... he is so cute I have no idea how you managed to set him on the ground long enough to take the photo. I would have been cuddling him and making revolting cutesy noises at him ...
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Our Puppy: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
koalathebear replied to koalathebear's topic in Puppy Chat
Hi Mrs Rusty Bucket: Thanks for such a detailed reply! My OH keeps rolling his eyes at how much time I am spending on DOL but I'm just learning so much! I wish I'd found the forum BEFORE we got our puppy Agreed ... the approach would not work with Elbie at all. When we first got him (before we started reading all the training stuff), people kept quoting Dog Whisperer at us and I think we might have tried the 'hold him till he settles' thing. From memory, he submitted and then as soon as we released him he bounced back up and went back to doing whatever he wasn't supposed to be doing The only way to extinguish Elbie's bad behaviours is to motivate him with good things - he's that kind of dog ... Fortunately while he's very food motivated, he can also be motivated by toys and praise. I find this quite fascinating. Is this the 'arousal' thing I keep reading about on other threads? To be honest, when Elbie goes into ramped up hyper mode - I really don't quite know how to handle him ... not sure if you watch "Legend of the Seeker" but he really seems to go into the "Con Dar" sometimes. We do have tug toys and he loves them but he releases them as soon as we say "let go" so it doesn't seem like it's a lack of tug play that makes him go berserker ... Thanks, we will try this. At this point, what we do is: 1. crate him 2. let him out and then ask the visitor to ignore him for a bit. The problem with Elbie is that when people rile him up with: "Oh cute puppy!" etc it really makes him over-excited. My OH says that we can't expect everyone to listen to us and ignore him though because it's inevitable that we will meet people who greet dogs with: "Oh wooobbby woobby woobbby what a cute dog!" We are quite bemused that a tiny tiny bit of low fat cheese is such an incentive for our doggy When we led him out to the car today, he tried to bite the leash a few times but when we said: "let go" he immediately dropped the leash. The clicker is also helping to grab his attention as well. saxonpup: You may want to give us a few weeks I fully expect that you will be able to identify us in the first week as the owners running around the field yelling: "Elbie! Come back with your mat! Come back!" he is very fast so impossible to catch People warned us that the kelpie/bc combo might be mega-naughty and he really is ... he sits in his dog bed KNOWING that he's not allowed to chew the straps and so now he has two ploys: - puts his chew toy on top of the strap and chews the strap, using the chew toy to hide his misdeeds! - chews and when we look at him, he stops and looks mega-innocent. As soon as we turn away he chews again ... Then he will drop his head and pretend to be doing an obedient 'drop' but actually he is doing a very slow and subtle chew of the strap ;) -
Our Puppy: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
koalathebear replied to koalathebear's topic in Puppy Chat
I agree and I really do believe that he understands the word 'no'. As to clicker training, we were very dubious about it at first because Elbie responds very well already to "good boy" but we got our clickers today and we can already see the advantages in terms of immediacy and motivation. On the weekend, the speaker made us laugh though because her new dog is clicker trained but her first dog was trained using a bridging word. She told us: "Don't use a word that you are likely to use too often in the day," then she turned to her dog, got her to do a trick and praised the dog with a high-pitched and elated: "YES!!!" We thought that it was rather hilarious that she used 'yes' as her word ... Elbie's crate-trained but unfortunately he grew out of his travel-crate ages ago and his current wire crate is massive and would not fit in the car. We could buy a larger travel crate for him but it would not be possible to sit it flat in our car ... We made some progress today with him... clicked him out the front door and into the car and got him to sit and drop in the back seat. All without the harness at this stage though ... -
I have no idea what he is but he is so cute and cuddly-looking. What a lovable face! Also, I so wish you were nearby - we have a puppy crate that Elbie's way too big for now but would be perfect for little Marley
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I loved how exuberant the orangutan was - flipping and turning cartwheels around a very dignified and placid hound.
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Awwww ... this made me all ooey gooey http://www.wimp.com/orangutandog/ Err ... apologies if Natgeo isn't news
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Elbie, Hoover, Dodge & Friends!
koalathebear replied to koalathebear's topic in Photos, Photos, Photos
Hee! Do you have a current photo of Mindy? Next to something like a chair or something so I can get an idea as to perspective? Have you ever read a book called Bringing Up Beauty? It's a gorgeous little Canadian book about a girl looking after a guide dog puppy. Very heartwarming ... I don't think I could ever be strong enough to be a guide dog puppy raiser :'( -
We considered not giving Elbie plushies anymore since he chews them but out of all of Elbie's toys, he likes his plushies the most... Poor horse. He only lasted a month or two before losing his limbs and becoming unravelled ... Poor Badger - he's been with us as long as Elbie is and so he has been with us for several months now. Alas, he no longer has ears. He also no longer has a tail and we keep patching him up. He has had so many butt-tucks that in the end I had to use patches over his increasingly tight posterior. We can't bear to retire him, though because Elbie uses him as a pillow at night. Poor toy dog, we had to pre-emptively remove his eyes, which made us feel like psycopaths... Elbie is picking off the poor toy dog's limbs one limb at a time and you can see the stuffing protruding from the poor toy dog's mouth ... It seems like Elbie's trying to remove his smile! More surgery to come ... Poor beaver ... his facial reconstruction surgery is not going well .. The squeakers still work and Elbie seems like squeaking his toys most when I'm on the phone having a Serious Conversation * Does anyone else have any images to share of mauled toys?
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Gah. Luka is soooooooooooooooooo cute - then and now. I just want to pick him and cuddle him I fear we may have to move on from the muffin tin. Elbie is now taking Thank goodness our clickers should be arriving soon.
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Our Puppy: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
koalathebear replied to koalathebear's topic in Puppy Chat
Hi jason & persephone: thanks for your comments. We've heard about/read the 'holding down dog till it calms' strategy before but it's not something that we think would work for Elbie. He can generally be reasoned with eventually - once he figures out what the good behaviour we want is, he'll generally drop the bad behaviour. So today, we can dangle the leash in front of his nose, drop it around his face and swish it on the ground and he'll ignore it. As mentioned, he no longer goes into a snarly rage and bites our jeans. I guess I'm just puzzled about why he sometimes goes into major tug mode and you can see him 'transforming' and being quite serious about hanging on. It's not something we can really get anyone to observe because we're not sure when it might be triggered - like I mentioned, before it was the jeans, recently it was his leash but for all other things he'll "let go" on request. I guess it's part of having a puppy - each time we solve each new problem a new one comes along -
At four months, Elbie's making good progress although we are still struggling in a few areas. I thought I'd do a general recap of his progress, though Updated photos of him are over here. The Good 1. Toilet-training. This is going very well. He's only had 3 accidents in the new house and these were because he still seemed to be confused about the layout and we weren't fast enough. He knows to go to the kitchen door to be let out. What I am loving is that we designated a section of the yard "Poo Corner" and Elbie is, for the most part, being very diligent about using Poo Corner. In our old place, he went wherever he felt like it and we stepped in so many stinky landmines it is not funny... Having everything restricted to Poo Corner makes clean-up a LOT easier. 2. Meals. We've successfully reduced Elbie to 2 meals a day. We put aside a section of each meal as treats during the day. This will make it easier for him when we go back to work full-time. 3. Unsupervised Yard Time. He's had a few instances of unsupervised yard time - a few hours at a time. He doesn't seem to have done any major damage. Elbie-Cam showed that he played, slept, ran around - although he visited the kitchen door quite frequently to see if we had come back. The only sign of destructive behaviour was that he murdered some straw covering on a brick wall and moved my sandals from one section of the yard to the mat at the backdoor. While Elbie-Cam showed that he was playing with my sandals while we were away, he placed them at the backdoor so neatly that my OH and I were asking one another in a baffled way: "Did you put those there???" What is good as that he shows no signs of wanting to break out of the yard. When he sees us pulling up in the driveway, he doesn't try to throw himself at/through/over the fence - he just races over to the kitchen door to wait for us to go in the house and let him in. Similarly, we have practised driving away when he can see us to see how he responds and he seems to prefer to wait and hang out in the yard for us than to go looking for us. 4. Tricks/Games. He makes ridiculously short work of the muffin tin game these days - finished in a manner of seconds! He's also learned to walk backwards, stand and stay - the latter two took a strangely long time to teach him. We still can't get him to crawl yet - he crawls hilariously under stools and our legs but we can't seem to transition the crawl to a crawl without props. We attended the first obedience class (no dogs for the first session) and despite having been sceptical of clickers, were very impressed with the clicker demonstration we saw and so will start clicker training Elbie when we get our clickers. It looks like the sort of thing he might enjoy. We kind of 'breach' the training rules of the club though because we do tell Elbie "no!" in a stern voice sometimes. I know that many people are against saying 'no' but we've found that it has stopped him chewing on electric wires and that sort of thing. He does seem to understand the word. The Bad 1. Turbo Puppy. Although Elbie has the ability to sit/lie down/sleep quietly while my OH and I are doing our thing, he does get very hyperactive when people come to visit. We've been encouraging visitors to ignore him so that he calms down. Sometimes we have to crate him while they arrive and then let him out after he settles. He gets very, very excited and happy. 2. Sooky Puppy. I am treading a fine line with allergies so my OH is much more tactile in his play with Elbie than I am, so Elbie is naturally a lot closer to him. Elbie has a bad habit of crying for a little bit when my OH leaves the room/leaves the house. He cries about me as well but definitely not as long as he cries for my OH - hopefully he'll grow out of the sookiness? The Ugly 1. Car travel. As mentioned here, we are still unable to settle Elbie for car trips. He gets very excited and leaps into the car - but once inside it, he's clawing, screaming, crying, barking and just being a complete maelstrom of madness. We've tried two harnesses and he's managed to get out of both because he's a squirmy, sleek little thing. We think that it might be related to the Leash Thing (discussed below). 2. Inexplicable Berserker Rage. A while back, I mentioned that Elbie had inexplicably started attacking our jeans and biting. It wasn't just nipping - one moment he'd be all placid and playing and then the next minute he'd have latched onto our jeans, was growling/snarling and shaking his head from side to side like a maniac. We were despairing of him ever stopping and while we felt so guilty at the time - we used the water spray on his face a couple of times and he totally stopped. He'll nip at my OH's chin now and then (maybe doesn't like his dimple?) but he no longer attacks us with his Berserker Rage. Alas, a few days ago, his leash suddenly became the subject of his bizarre Berserker Rage. Seriously, one moment he'd be sitting there looking so cute and obedient - catch one glimpse of the leash and he'd go mad. It wasn't the elated excitement of a dog wanting to go for a walk - he would snarl and grip on it and then literally snap his way up the leash to where our hands were!!! We tried distracting him but nothing worked. He has the home alone ball which he has no interest in tugging, he has tug toys and other toys and he will play with them and play tug with us but he always lets go when we say: "let go". No matter how snarly and possessive he gets about his tug toys, he always releases them - not the leash. At one point, he leapt up and snapped at the leash so sharply he got my blouse and a bit of flesh Today, weirdly enough, we managed to overcome his Berserker Rage towards his leash with one squirt of the water bottle and low fat cheese as treats ... The treats really made the difference and we've been able to slowly desensitise him him to the leash - dangling it in front of his nose and giving him a treat when he ignores it, dropping it before him and giving him a treat, putting it on and taking it off etc. We've managed to lead him to the door as well without him going Berserker on us. We are going to keep working on this and try to get him calm because once out the door he positively howls/yaps/barks/cries with excitement. We will try to use the cheese method to get him calm in the car as well. My worry is - what triggers the Berserker Rage in him and what will trigger it next????
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Elbie, Hoover, Dodge & Friends!
koalathebear replied to koalathebear's topic in Photos, Photos, Photos
But this is how Elbie looks most of the time - a hyperactive turbo blur -
Elbie, Hoover, Dodge & Friends!
koalathebear replied to koalathebear's topic in Photos, Photos, Photos
Elbie's ears remain in a twilight zone between up and down ... each day we wait to see what the final position is going to be He loves our new kitchen because it's so sunny so he stretches out on the door mat Elbie's "guilty" expression Elbie and his new dog tag -
Elbie, Hoover, Dodge & Friends!
koalathebear replied to koalathebear's topic in Photos, Photos, Photos
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Miscellaneous rundown + some problem areas More photos of Elbie. He's getting very big! Elbie sleeping with his tongue poking out Elbie looking deceptively angelic One day he might be too big for his dog bed but for now he fits into it. No idea why he looks sleeping with his head out of it sometimes Elbie in his harness. We haven't quite got car travel mastered yet, alas ... -
Hi there - I don't think you should worry so much and you shouldn't feel like a leper. DOL is a forum that is predominantly for discussing purebred dogs - but that doesn't mean that the members don't welcome owners of cross-bred dogs or aren't willing to share their opinions and advice with owners of mutts & mongrels. There's even a whole M&M thread ;) As to the comment above, while you never know for sure what any dog will turn out to be like, from what I can gather - responsible breeders of purebred dogs have a pretty good idea of what their dogs will look like (size/colouring blah blah) and also temperament and abilities. With cross-breeds, the result can be much more uncertain - and some would argue that the unpredictability can be part of the charm of a cross-breed/mongrel. I'm the owner of a dog that's a kelpie/border collie cross - that isn't a very uncommon mixture so most people in the know can tell me that the kelpie/bc mix results in a very high energy, intelligent dog - which has turned out to be absolutely true so far. All dogs need socialisation and training and it's even more important for the bigger dogs because when they're not cute little puppies anymore, their unmannerly conduct can be quite disagreeable and overpowering. When I was feeling a bit wounded recently, another poster named wuffles reminded me that dog owners who post on the internet on a dog forum need to develop a thick skin - and that's absolutely correct There are certainly cross-bred discussion forum out there but from someone who has scoured the net since getting a puppy, I can tell you that DOL is certainly the best place for an Australian dog owner to get information and there are many helpful people in this place. Hope you feel better soon - after all, your puppy is super-adorable and lovable. Also - I know how stressful it is to be looking after a puppy. I'm constantly worried that I'm doing the wrong thing and scarring my poor puppy's psyche forever and when I see how super behaved some other people's dogs are - I wonder if Elbie the Turbo Monster will ever be like that
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Feeling Disheartened About Puppy School Experience
koalathebear replied to Magstar's topic in Puppy Chat
I described Elbie's puppy school in another thread so sorry for the duplication Like you, I had initially thought that puppy class was for a bunch of cute puppies to play with one another. It turns out that it's a place for them to be around a bunch of other dogs and people but not necessarily have to play with them. At Elbie's puppy class, he attended with: Big Dogs - a gorgeous but grumpy bull terrier named Winston who is built like a block of wood - a huge, boisterous six month old boxer puppy named Lloyd - a HUGE rhodesian ridgeback/rottweiler cross named Geoffrey who was beautiful but also very boisterous Little Dogs - a terrified little cavalier king charles named Alfie who spent all of the playtime hiding between the legs of my OH biggrin.gif - Ruby, a schnauzer with anxiety issues and a very blingy collar Elbie was classified as one of the little dogs. I think he enjoyed puppy class a lot although he didn't really play that much with the other puppies. Generally all dogs stayed on lead at first, then the little dogs were released and they played, then they were put back on lead and the big dogs were released. Towards the end of each session, all dogs were off lead but the two vet's nurses that ran the classes would intervene and scoop up any dog that was being too boisterous. For instance, Geoffrey had a tendency to bite down and clamp when he got excited, Winston liked humping the heads of other dogs etc. The vet's nurses would walk around with a naughty pup under an arm until they settled and then they'd be put down on the ground again. Elbie generally liked to run around and eat treats. He got chased and pinned a few times by the larger dogs and seemed a little scared - one on one Elbie was just too fast and the larger dogs couldn't catch him but when they ganged up on him, they could pin him and a few times they stepped on his head. After that, whenever they chased Elbie he did a really strange thing where he dropped to the ground and flattened himself out - almost like he was playing possum. All the owners started laughing their heads off because Elbie looked so funny. The vet's nurse said that Elbie was probably doing it because he had learned that when he went still, the other two dogs lost interest and left him alone. He just looked really pitiful when he did it, though! He's not a very aggressive dog ... at one point when he clearly was quite pissed off and started to bark back at Winston, the vet's nurse said: "Good on you Elbie - learn how to play!" Our poor puppy ... not tough enough Interestingly, he didn't seem scarred and didn't avoid the larger dogs and kept running around but he did keep that very strange response when being chased by multiple dogs. In terms of the two frightened dogs, for, the first four classes, Alfie the terrified Cav hid in the doorway or between my OH's legs. The vet's nurse said that was fine because other dogs would sniff him and now and then he'd come out for a look and a peek and scamper back. He said that it was part of the socialisation process and socialisation didn't mean that they had to play with one another - they just had to learn to be in the presence of other puppies/dogs/people. For one week, with the owner's consent they sprayed a scarf with DAP spray and put that on Ruby and the next week they tried it on Alfie. It certainly emboldened the doggies because they seemed less anxious and did come out of their shells more. What I didn't like about our puppy classes was that Elbie is still not a calm dog - he is a ball of squirming, wriggling, excitable energy and during the classroom components we found it very hard to keep him still. We got claws in the face, teeth on the chin or cheek from our flailing, excited puppy and while the bigger dogs were totally zonked after playtime - Elbie was still in turbo mode. We think that the socialisation aspect was very worthwhile, though. -
Poor Elbie had many baths before he was 12 weeks old - he had a dose of ringworm and we had to bathe him in anti-fungal shampoo once a week for a few weeks That was awkward because we had to wash him and then let him 'run' with the stuff for 10 - 15 minutes and then rinse it off. Puppy's first instinct is of course to go and roll in the grass when he's wet so after the first bath, we had to find ways to distract him for 10 minutes on the deck - running around to keep him warm etc.
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We bought a new harness for Elbie - one that loops through the seatbelt and doesn't just have a D-loop that buckles into the seatbelt buckle. It didn't go well - Elbie almost SCREAMED AND SCREAMED AND SCREAMED and then almost strangled himself and tangled all of his legs up. Finally we removed the D-loop strap and just strapped him to the seat belt through the loops on his harness. We're driving along for about 5 minutes when suddenly his head pops up between us in the front seat. Me: He's got himself out of his harness OH: Which bit Me: The whole thing - he's totally naked Somehow, Elbie had managed to slip his neck and stomach halter buckles on his harness which were snug but not tight ... In the end, I gave up and had to sit in the back to restrain him while OH drove ...
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Oh gosh he's so beautiful! And getting big! :D He must shed a lot. A woman I know with a shiba mentioned that her neighbour contacted her recently, convinced that an animal must have been killed in her yard because there was all this fur there - it turned out it was the fur from her shedding shiba inu. We'd love to meet up - Elbie has JUST finished his last set of vaccinations. He'll be starting at doggy obedience classes at BDOC at the end of the month each Sunday morning - does your doggy do obedience? :D Alternatively, where does one go for a doggy meet up? We have a decent sized yard but not as much as grass as two dogs might like, alas.