koalathebear

Oh man, it is so annoying to be followed to the loo. Hoover follows and will sit and wait - staring at me intently. "Go away!" I tell him, "To find Elbie!" but he sits there very patiently. Drives me buggy Clastic: I had a new comment to make about my neighbours but I think that I will save it for the facebook page :p Nice to hear that you have grass! lilli_star: you could borrow one of your brother's work Kelpies for a trial run, right? Having two dogs is a hoot - although my family looked very unimpressed and incredulous when we told them that we were getting a second dog :D Actually, I still remember OH's reaction, kind of a: "Haha, very funny ... What?" You mean you're serious?????" dandybrush: so sorry to hear about your breeder's puppy, that is really horrific I have no fear of anyone wanting to steal our dogs - working dogs aren't high up on the list of stealable dogs around here and it's not like my two can work sheep so even a marauding Evil Farmer wouldn't want them, but baiting is definitely something that has worried me in the past because there have been some really horrific baiting incidents here in Canberra - there are some really twisted people out there. Even as a wee koala, I remember my horror at finding out that Trixie the street's local cattle dog had been poisoned - the owners were always letting her wander loose and go through people's garbage etc. I guess we're lucky because we have a LOT of dogs in this area and I mean a LOT. Our neighbours have incredibly noisy dogs that bark like mad when they leave and come home, there are other people here who let their dogs wander around off-lead in the street, there are barky dogs that react to any noise - by contrast our dogs are incredibly unobtrusive and non-pesky so I'd hope are at low risk of baiting. It truly is a sick and cruel way for people to 'solve' a problem, though aussielover: There's frequently a fairly lively debate/discussion about good/bad vets on RiotACT. Try here and here. We've always used Brudine Vet. We like them and they've always been very caring and responsive - fit our dog in immediately if there was an emergency (cut paw, possible eye infection). I don't think they'd go down well on DOL because they do recommend desexing dogs at six months and they do advocate the 12 month heartworm injection - which both of our not-dead-so-far dogs are on.

Awwww ... poor Kuma .... Why not bring him around on Sunday mornings after class? He can play with Mars, Hoover, Elbie, Ava and others ... We should do another playdate soon before it gets so cold that we look like desperate dog tragics ...

Ah ... both of our dogs get plenty of love... it's like normal love, it's multiplied not divided! It's the time stuff that is challenging but you sort that out. Some cute videos of our two: Their . See how fun it can be to train with two doggies?Here are two . They are goofy. - I laugh because sometimes Elbie has to work his way up to a proper bark and he looks and sounds so funny.We love having two dogs so much. I don't think that we could have more than two just in terms of time, car space, Our Human Time and that sort of thing, but two dogs seems to be about perfect for us.

If Elbie and Hoover are anything to go by, raz will keep following you diligently and puppy will follow you both. Elbie is definitely still much more attached to his humans than the puppy but Elbie's always been more fond of people than other dogs. I sympathise but I think you're going to have to accept that with a new puppy, the dynamic will definitely be slightly different Also, change can be for the better - you now have double the cuteness, doggy love and mischief! One thing that I find a bit bad about having Hoover is that he butts in e.g. if we are patting Elbie, he will barge in and demand pats. It's cute but OH and I have to be very disciplined and refuse to pat Hoover if we are in the midst of patting Elbie.

SammieS: Fysher is gorgeous. Congratulations on the latest member of your family. dandybrush - your new puppy is beautiful - but you know that from facebook Don't worry about the time-sharing thing - it sorts itself out. I had profound angst when Hoover first came along - wuffles and lilli-star can tell you, because I was agonising about how Elbie (who was a very spoiled Only Dog for a while) seemed quite put out. Sometimes he seemed quite submissive, at one point it looked as though Hoover was going to be the dominant one .... Then I felt bad because so much of our time was spent looking after Hoover - toileting, training, bed time etc and he was very muchh neglected. As time passed though and Hoover got 'up to speed', it has been SUCH a pleasure having two dogs. They do a lot of stuff together - play, chill-out, train, sleep ... You've seen the photos of them sharing a crate. They snuggle. It took a little time for Elbie to stop having the very offended, wounded look on his face and I'm sure he would be totally happy being an Only Dog again - but the two of them really do enjoy playing with one another. I do take the two of them out separately and I look forward to the day I can walk them together because that will save time. I know it's quite a stressful period when you bring home the second dog because the family dynamic gets totally turned over but if the dogs get along, everything sorts itself out in time and you'll be so entertained and chuffed by the funny antics the dogs get up together, their early morning greetings, their funny playbows and snuggles. Have fun!

wuffles: poor Ava. I hope she feels better soon and porks up a little... As for the obedience trialling, it wasn't something I was considering before but I just don't think Hoover's going to be agility or flyball material and he seems to enjoy obedience a lot - he's very food driven rather than prey driven ... I want to make sure he doesn't get 'neglected' in terms of entertainment ETA: On second though, after having watched a few trialling videos tonight, perhaps I'll just let him repeat the gold/trialling class at BDOC over and over again. I don't think trialling itself looks like fun - for me! ;)

Upside down Kelpie .

Thanks! Glad you like the photos. My OH took them on a Canon EOS 30D. 70-300mm lens. On the "Sports mode" setting. I was glad he was happy to come along. He was never a dog person but suddenly finds himself with two dogs, attending obedience class, doggy play dates, herding trials ... oh and he takes photos to help me make rescue dog photos. Poor him. Thanks for the info! I'm now very curious about whether it's a 'compulsory' feature to get points in the trials or whether it always just happens because the sheep are bunched up like that!

Those two videos are gorgeous. That's one of the most playful and lively sheeps I've seen - first one not the second. Second one is so placid - and that puppy is so comfy!

He can sit normally but he really does have some funny positions I don't have many 'weird positions' from Elbie. Maybe it's the Border Collie in him

Is this a frog sit? Hoover's just like that on laminate/wooden floors. He seems to be able to sit very nicely on grass and on concrete so I didn't think that there was anything to worry about health-wise... I concede that it looks very inelegant though

Max#1: Hope Max's reverse sneezing has passed. Our dogs certainly keep us on our toes constantly. That's great about flyball. Elbie gets 'tested' for agility on Wednesday - we shall see whether he makes the grade or needs to wait until the next intake. I really hope you can show us some video footage of Max at flyball soon lilli_star: Love the photos of Ruby with all of her loot. I hope all the fame, adulation and adoration hasn't gone to her head - will she still want to mingle with the GSD next door or is does she have her eye on the Best in ShowDog that she met at the local show?? Ruby isn't too thin - she looks just right. I was a wee bit unhappy with my brother today when he stood outside our house - he is allergic to dogs so since we got dogs, he can never come in our house again - and he was remarking that Elbie and Hooer were looking kind of lanky and leggy and he thought Hoover looked cuter when he was a shorter-legged, chunky monkey who looked like a tank :D aussielover: you'll have a great time with Steve, but to be honest, it doesn't sound like your problems are that severe! I do know what it's like to have niggling little Issues that you just want to resolve OH is tender-hearted and he doesn't like locking the dogs in their crates at night so when it's his turn to put the dogs to bed, he frequently doesn't zip up the crates. Funnily enough, they're very good about staying in their crates if they hear us wandering around at night - they'd bark like crazy if it was a stranger, but they seem ok with us wandering around. What's funny in the morning is that during the week, Elbie will come bounding into the room as soon as he hears our alarm. On weekends, he kind of waits until he hears us talking/laughing and then there will be a cautious nose around the doorway as if to see if it's ok to enter On Friday, I didn't realise that OH hadn't zipped him in his crate and I was in the spare room looking for clothes and turned around and saw Elbie standing in the doorway staring at me inquiringly. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with my two yet. Obedience trialling had never crossed my mind previously but Hoover seems to really enjoy his obedience lessons and he doesn't seem manically drivey so I'm going to see how things go with that - I have no idea if he'd be any good at agility. Elbie I suspect will be very good at agility once he calms down a little and doesn't get distracted by extraneous things. He's very responsive and smart. And my photo for the night - I love it when our two get into the same dog bed/crate together. It's just such a sweet thing for them to do and to me anyway, it demonstrates that they like each other Here they are in Elbie's soft crate in the kitchen on his brand new Dog Futon. The blanket is from OH tucking them in.

Glad everyone liked the photos. It was a really interesting day. Most interesting parts for me were: 1. Complete lack of treats. Dogs worked for the pleasure of herding the sheep and also for pats at the end from handler. I only ever saw a dog lose focus once and that was when his handler basically took over and shut him out of the process. The dog seemed to say "screw this", leapt out of the yard and didn't want to come back. For the rest of the dogs, they were totally attentive and torn between staring at their handler and at the sheep. 2. The distance work - I was impressed by how far away the dogs were when responding to commands. 3. Some handlers used 'right' and 'left' and some used 'come by', 'over' and other commands to get their dogs to go certain places. 4. I noticed that when the handlers said 'sit', very very rarely did the dog actually sit. Usually the dog would drop. I'm wondering if 'sit' is just a way to tell the dog to stop what it's doing and the handlers don't care if the dog sits or drops as long as it stops - but there was also the 'stop' command 5. One handler's 'speak' command seemed to be 'spooks' when he wanted the dog to bark and rush the last sheep into the pen so that he could close the gate. For the most part the dogs were not barky but did occasionally bark to get a sheep through the gate. I saw no nipping - there was one dog that got overexcited and accidentally slammed a sheep into the fence - he ended up being disqualified shortly after because he just wasn't making any progress with the sheep. 6. I wasn't sure if the sheep backing was always compulsory i.e. necessary to pass or if it's something that just happened every session. I got quite nervous for the dogs when they slipped from the sheep backs and ended up at the feet of the sheep 7. For me, the divide between dog intitiative and handler instruction wasn't entirely clear. To be honest, for the good dogs - it looks as if the dog was doing almost all of the hard work with just a little bit of guidance from the handler. For some sessions, the handlers were calling out a lot of instructions and I couldn't tell if the dog was actually 'disobeying' the instructions of 'showing initative' because it thought that it knew better. For instance, often the handler would tell the dog to sit and it would keep going. 8. Loved the Kelpies leaping over the yard fence to get in and out of the yard - so graceful and athletic. There were two sessions and we weren't entirely sure why they were different. The first was that the handler stood very far away and was not permitted to handle the dog or the sheep. In the second set of sessions, they actually walked around with the sheep, used their arms to push and shoo the sheep sometimes. 4kelpies - you're right. I heard the names Karana and Capree thrown around a lot. This dog (which performed very well) was an Eveready Kelpie.

Lovely chocolate red Kelpie Little Kelpie We saw one red and tan competing - I guess the B&Ts are far more popular The Kelpies when waiting their turn were clearly very anxious to take part

Plucky Kelpie. Oops - we lost him! Phew - found him again All the dogs were very diligent.

Because of where we were sitting, we saw a lot of Kelpie Bums ... still, it was pretty cool to see them running across the backs of sheep.

Unlike the Bredbo Sheepdog Trials, we only saw one Border Collie - who seemed to be doing pretty well. I always worry they'll be trampled by the sheep ... More Kelpie action ..

After our disappointing attempt to see Kelpies in action in Cooma (cancelled due to bad weather), we decided to head to Goulburn on Saturday 26 March for the Goulburn Show. Fortunately, we had confirmed that the trials would proceed and that there would be Kelpies. Alas, there were no puppies for me to cuddle but there were plenty of gorgeous Kelpies. Mostly black and tan though! Sheepies! This majestic fellow is Rooster. Gorgeous Kelpies in action

Easter Roo is sooooooooooooooooooooo cute. Look at that face!

In case anyone is interested, there will be yard dog trials at the Goulburn Show tomorrow. The show website is wrong when it says that the trials are on Sunday, I phoned the organisers and they've said that the trials are on Saturday and will start at around 7.30am and go through to 4pm or so. Unlike the Cooma Show Yard Dog Trials which had to be cancelled due to rain the day before the show, I've been assured that the Goulburn Yard Dog Trials should be able to proceed regardless of inclement weather. There should be lots of Kelpies there

Welcome back KA! It's good to see you again! As lilli_star mentioned - see you over on facebook!! OK, Hoover now knows how to drop dead. The doggies don't die at the same time but it's still pretty cute. Video .

We now have a double dead with our two - although they don't fall over at the same time Video is .

Poor you! Also, I am in fear of the General Forum but I have to disagree with you about Puppy Toby. He was very, VERY cute

Hi Naomi. He started at just under 11 weeks which was I first posted. At 13 weeks he was still mouthing and some people were saying seek professional help. By 14 weeks he was much better and then by 17 weeks he had stopped the attacking/mouthing completely although for a while he was still stimulated by blankets/towels and plastic bags – this is now no longer a problem. For instance, these days when we run – Elbie doesn't nip at excitedly at our heels, he runs beside us in the heel position looking up. He also no longer attacks his leash. I think if we had known what we know now, we could probably have stopped him doing it much sooner. For Elbie, he's very eager to please. Our problem was making him understand that it wasn't a game and that what he was doing was incorrect. Once he understood that, he stopped – it's just that a lot of the things that work for other people (stopping/time outs/yelping/holding snout etc) didn't work for us. I wouldn't recommend using the crate as punishment. Archie's still very young and new and you're still really trying to entrench in his mind that the crate is a good place. We never used the crates as punishment for the dogs when we first got them and they have grown to LOVE their crates and chill out in them when they're relaxing. These days if we think they're being overly boisterous we will crate them to calm them down. You might be able to do that with Archie down the track. I think time-outs in general are fine for Archie. We got Elbie at 8 weeks and he was a 'free to a good home' puppy with unknown parentage so he no one had any idea if he was going to be mouthy. Hoover on the other hand was from a WKC-registered breeder and he was already 3 months old whenwe got him so the personalities of the litter had very much emerged and the breeder was able to describe Hoover in a lot of detail to us. For instance, there were two other pups that were scrappier and always wrestling and play-fighting and Hoover would sit back and watch. I suspect Archie's personality wasn't entirely discernable when you got him because he was still so wee Try not to stress too much about it and just focus on finding the technique that lets Archie know that mouthing is not acceptable. Aussies are smart so once he understands you, he'll stop. When Elbie was mouthy, we couldn't even hold him in our laps without him attacking our sleeves and so we always had to have a toy to distract him. This has become so ingrained in him that when he gets invited into OH's lap these days, Elbie looks around for a toy to bring up there with him even though he no longer mouths

RallyVally: I wasn't quite crying over the biting but it was sooooooooooooooo frustrating. It was hilarious because when we were getting Hoover, I asked his breeder:"So is Hoover mouthy?" She sounded extremely surprised and said: "No, he doesn't like mouthing." I assumed that maybe he might become mouthy for a period but he never did ... I really, really sympathise with people with mouthy puppies because when we had Elbie, I was all: "Oh gosh you're so little and cute, I want to cuddle you but you keep attacking me!!!"